THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2018

I meant to have this up this past Sunday, but the Thanksgiving holiday weekend kept me busy, so here it is in an unprecedented midweek Unboxing!

Everything is digital this month, thanks to Amazon/Comixology Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. First, from DC, I grabbed BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES vol. 3, NEW TEEN TITANS vol. 9 (which picks up where the Omnibuses I reviewed a few years back ended), TALES OF THE BATMAN: GERRY CONWAY vol. 2, and WONDER WOMAN: EARTH ONE vol. 1 and vol. 2. (Yes, I've gone out of my way to note more than once how much I dislike a lot of Grant Morrison's writing. I bought these books strictly for the artwork!)

Courtesy of Dark Horse, I grabbed USAGI YOJIMBO/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION, which I somehow missed during the last Dark Horse sale, when I stocked up on Usagi books.

From Random House, of all publishers, I grabbed PELLUCIDAR: AT THE EARTH'S CORE, a comic I must assume was originally published at some point by DC, considering it's by Dennis O'Neil and Michael William Kaluta.

And from Marvel, I picked up WEREWOLF BY NIGHT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 3. (This was actually part of a Halloween sale last month, but it missed the cutoff for the October Unboxing.)

That's it for November, for Black Friday, and for Cyber Monday. Next month we'll be back to physical volumes for a couple of books to close out the year!

THE UNBOXING - AUGUST 2018

It's a throwback Unboxing this month -- nothing digital, no "Junior" edition; just two physical books from the Big Two publishers.

From DC, it's volume 3 of BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES, finishing that series and concluding DC's tie-ins with the original iteration of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. The subsequent series, BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES, adapted the retooled NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES era of the show. Hopefully DC has plans to continue this trade paperback series into that run as well. GOTHAM ADVENTURES was by far the longest running of all the tie-in series, but in total it came to about as many issues as BATMAN ADVENTURES and BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES combined.

And from Marvel, we have the X-MEN REVOLUTION BY CHRIS CLAREMONT OMNIBUS. Why did I buy this? Even I'm not entirely certain. I didn't like these issues when they first came out. By most accounts, they haven't aged well at all. They were filled with lame villains, random alterations to status quos and unnecessary costume changes for nearly every character. Perhaps tellingly, I have yet to remove the shrink wrap from the book. Usually I free an Omnibus as soon as I receive it, to peruse the pages within. But Marvel uploaded nearly every issue contained in this book to their Unlimited service practically right after it hit shelves, so if I really want to revisit the material, I can do it there.

I think I really only bought this one to maintain my nineties X-Men completist mentality -- I really do love the idea of having every X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN issue from that decade on my shelves. And while this book mostly collects material from 2000, it still "feels" like a continuation of the nineties. But at the same time, I question whether I really need this stuff. If you told me the X-Men's saga ended with Alan Davis's final issue in 1999, I'd be totally on board with that (even with my favorite X-Man, Cyclops, merged with Apocalypse).

So, yeah... while I wouldn't say I have buyer's remorse about this one, I'll admit it's a book I probably don't need and will likely only read/peruse once in my entire adult life. In fact, there's a good chance I might just sell it someday, never removed from its shrink wrap.

BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ADVENTURES

"THE FACE OF TWO WORLDS" | "THE CLOWN AND THE CLAN"
"GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE" | "TO LAUGH SO NOT TO CRY"
"THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS" | "THE TERROR OF THE KRAANG"
Written by Matthew K. Manning | Art by Jon Sommariva
Inks by Sean Parsons | Additional Inks by Serge LaPointe | Colors by Leonardo Ito
Additional Colors by Matt Herms, Jon Rauch, Zac Atkinson, and Sean Galloway
Letters by Shawn Lee | Edits by Bobby Curnow

The crossover you never imagined would exist, yet for some reason does! It's a Batman/Ninja Turtles story, but one that's set very specifically in the worlds of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and Nickelodeon's TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cartoon which ran from 2012 - 2017.

I've never watched that iteration of the Turtles; to tell the truth, I've never watched any TMNT cartoons since somewhere around year six or so of the original eighties run -- so I can't speak to the authenticity of that side of the crossover, other than to say that the Turtles are basically in-line, personality-wise, with their most common interpretations (Leonardo as the cool-headed leader, Raphael the hothead, Michelangelo the goofy jokester, and Donatello the brainiac). I can, however, note that the Batman side of the equation is a nicely faithful recreation of the heydey of THE ANIMATED SERIES. Jon Sommariva, while drawing in his own style (sort of "elastically cartoony", if that makes sense), mimics the character designs and backgrounds originally defined by Bruce Timm and his production team with terrific results. This isn't Timm's style, but it's still clearly his Batman, his Robin, his Arkham Asylum, etc.

The story finds dimensional portals popping up in both Gotham City and the Turtles' New York, allowing several of Batman's villains to escape Arkham Asylum to Turtle-Earth. Batman, Robin, and Batgirl pursue and team up with the Turtles, and while some villains -- such as Clayface and Poison Ivy -- prove relatively easy to dispatch, others -- like the Joker and the Scarecrow -- pose more of a challenge.

SPRINGTIME GRAB BAG

It's that time of year again, where I look at a few random items from the "to read" pile in what has become known (at least to me) as the Springtime Grab Bag!

All of the upcoming reviews will be digital books purchased in various Comixology sales. First, we'll look a couple pulp-influenced offerings from Dark Horse: THE BLACK BEETLE IN: KARA BOCEK by Francisco Francavilla, and CONAN AND THE JEWELS OF GWAHLUR by P. Craig Russell.

After that, we'll jump over to Image for a mini-series I've wanted to check out for quite some time, but just never got around to, MADAME MIRAGE by Paul Dini and Kenneth Rocafort. And then we'll wrap things up with a visit to IDW for a look at their BATMAN/TMNT ADVENTURES mini-series, a crossover between the definitive animated incarnation of Batman and one of the many animated incarnations of the Turtles.

With the Black Beetle, Conan, and Batman and the Turtles, I have some idea of what to expect, but I really don't know what Madame Mirage has to offer, so this should be an interesting few weeks. I hope you'll stick around to see how it all unfolds!

THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2018

As promised (and previewed) late last year, The Unboxing has been revamped a bit for 2018. It'll mostly be the same -- coverage of items I pre-ordered months earlier as they're released -- but with the added bonus of digital purchases as well as items which were acquired through means other than pre-order.

So let's start 2018 with a couple of Christmas gifts! From my dear wife and published by Fantagraphics as part of their Complete Carl Barks Disney Library, we have DONALD DUCK: THE SECRET OF HONDORICA and UNCLE SCROOGE: THE LOST CROWN OF GENGHIS KHAN. Fantagraphics began publishing the Barks library back in 2011 at a pace of two books per year, with the intention of reprinting every Duck story Barks produced across his two-plus decades writing and drawing Disney comics. There are seventeen volumes out now (out of a projected thirty or so), covering what is widely considered Barks' best period -- the late 1940s through the late 1950s. As a child, I read many of these stories via the Gladstone Comics reprints of the eighties, and I love the idea that I'll eventually have all of them on the bookcase. My intention is to start reading them to my son as bedtime stories in another year or two.

From my dad, I received two collections of 1960s-vintage James Bond newspaper strips from Titan Books: SPECTRE: THE CLASSIC COMIC STRIP COLLECTION and OCTOPUSSY: THE CLASSIC COMIC STRIP COLLECTION. These are companion volumes to the previously released DR. NO: THE CLASSIC COMIC STRIP COLLECTION and GOLDFINGER: THE CLASSIC COMIC STRIP COLLECTION, and between the four books, newspaper adaptations of every one of Ian Fleming's original Bond novels are collected. (And if you think this might be a clue as to an upcoming newspaper strip review project, you could be on to something!)

In the digital realm, I took advantage of some Comixology/Amazon year-end sales to grab a handful of titles at bargain prices, including: THE BLACK BEETLE IN: KARA BÖCEK from Dark Horse, Walter Simonson's classic creator-owned STAR SLAMMERS from IDW, X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION: MUTANT GENESIS and John Byrne's X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS vol. 1 and vol. 2 from Marvel, and BATMAN: YEAR ONE and BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES vol. 2 from DC.

Thus ends the Christmas haul. Next month is back to a slower pace with, I think, one or possibly two books, so check it out around a month from now!

THE UNBOXING - DECEMBER 2017

What's this? After a four-month dry spell, a new Unboxing at last?! Believe it, True-- uh... Believers. Due to back orders and other issues out of my control, three Omnibuses and a trade paperback arrived this month, two books apiece from each of the Big Two. A couple of these actually should've shown up last month, but what're you gonna do?

DC comes at us first with the BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES volume 2 trade paperback, continuing their reprints of the classic BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES tie-in comics. One more book should wrap up this series, and then hopefully DC will continue full steam ahead into BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES, which was far and away the longest-running of all three ADVENTURES series.

Next up is the JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL OMNIBUS volume 1. I've read precious little of the famous Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire JLI, but it's a run I've known of peripherally since -- well, I guess since it was being published. I know I owned at least one issue, and I distinctly recall flipping through some issue or another featuring G'nort and Manga Khan at the local Safeway when I was a kid. At the time, nothing I saw of the series impressed me, but I suspect I'll find it more appealing as an adult. At least, I hope I will!

THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2017

The first Unboxing of the year is a quiet affair -- which is how I like it after the spend-a-thon of the holiday season -- featuring two trades, one from Marvel and one from DC.

First up, from the Distinguished Competition, we have BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES volume 1, collecting the first ten issues of the eponymous series, which replaced BATMAN ADVENTURES as DC's animated Batman tie-in at the point when BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES was retitled to THE ADVENTURES OF BATMAN AND ROBIN. Make sense? B&RA ran for twenty-five issues plus a couple annuals, one-shots, etc., so it seems likely this will wind up as a three-book series, though no further installments have been solicited yet.

And from Marvel we've got THE INCREDIBLE HULK EPIC COLLECTION: FUTURE IMPERFECT, collecting another chunk of Peter David's long run on the Green Goliath, including the popular "Future Imperfect" mini-series he did with George Pérez. I must commend Marvel on releasing these Hulk Epics in chronological order, rather than jumping around the series as they do with their other Epic lines. FUTURE IMPERFECT picks up exactly where the prior Hulk Epic, GHOST OF THE PAST, left off a year-and-a-half ago -- and some may recall that volume picked up exactly where the defunct HULK VISIONARIES: PETER DAVID line ended. Meaning, for those keeping track, if you count the out-of-print VISIONARIES trades, we have nearly a hundred consecutive issues of David's HULK collected (#331 - 419). David was on HULK through issue 467, so there's still a good chunk of issues to go, but it's nice to see more of the run behind than ahead.

Next month should look much like this one, with only a couple trades and maybe one more item, so we'll continue to ease into the new year come February!

THE UNBOXING - APRIL 2016

Four trade paperbacks this month, though one was delayed from March, as noted last time. From Marvel, we have a pair of Epic Collections: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: RETURN OF THE SINISTER SIX and IRON MAN: DUEL OF IRON. The former fits snugly between the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: COSMIC ADVENTURES and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: ROUND ROBIN books (I'm really happy with the amount of love David Michelinie's long Spider-run is receiving, as it's the Spider-Man I grew up with), while the latter follows directly from the very first Epic Collection, 2013's IRON MAN: THE ENEMY WITHIN (and for the record, it will only take one more IRON MAN Epic to bridge the gap between this volume and the previously released STARK WARS).

DC brings BATMAN ADVENTURES volume 4, closing out the original 36-issue run based on BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Hopefully these four books have sold well enough to warrant a couple follow-ups for the 25-issue BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES and perhaps even the subsequent 60-issue BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES -- though as of now I don't believe there's any word on whether that might happen.

And lastly, from IDW, it's the latest installment in the DANGER GIRL saga, DANGER GIRL: RENEGADE. I looked at every DG series to date a couple summers ago, and I plan to follow up with this volume in the near future.

THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2015

It's a big, big November here, with some books from Marvel, a couple from DC, and one from Dark Horse, as well.

First up, Marvel provides the AVENGERS BY KURT BUSIEK & GEORGE PÉREZ OMNIBUS volume 2, closing out not just the 34-issue Busiek/Pérez run in Omnibus format, but the full 56-issue Busiek run. I reviewed Volume 1 some months back, and I'll try to get something up for this volume in the near future as well.

On the trade paperback front, Marvel brings the INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH and MOON KNIGHT EPIC COLLECTION: SHADOWS OF THE MOON.

The main appeal of AFTERMATH for me is the inclusion of WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH issues 11 - 17. This means that between the INFINITY GAUNTLET AFTERMATH, INFINITY WAR, INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH, INFINITY CRUSADE volume 1, INFINITY CRUSADE volume 2, and THOR: BLOOD AND THUNDER collections, INFINITY WATCH issues 1 - 25 are all collected in trade paperback format. Only six more issues are needed to round out Jim Starlin's run on the title.

THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2014

Delayed slightly but worth the wait, it's time for November's "Unboxing"!

First up this month, from DC, is BATMAN ADVENTURES, volume 1. I had originally passed on this book because I thought it was a reissue of a trade I already owned from the nineties, containing the first five issues of the series, but then later I learned it actually contains twice that number, BATMAN ADVENTURES #1 - 10.

I've made no secret of my love of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and I think I've noted before that BATMAN ADVENTURES, which told original stories based on B:TAS, was pretty much the only ongoing DC series I read regularly growing up. I hope DC commits itself to collecting all of BATMAN ADVENTURES in trade, and moreso, I hope they will follow it up with THE BATMAN AND ROBIN ADVENTURES and BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES, the subsequent series which followed. At the very least, BATMAN ADVENTURES volume 2 has already been solicited, so that's a step in the right direction.