This month two books from Marvel find their way to my hands. First up is the
MOON KNIGHT EPIC COLLECTION: BAD MOON RISING. I'm a big fan of Moon Knight. I was aware of the character peripherally for years, but first gave him a try with the 1999 limited series, "High Strangeness". I loved it and quickly went on a quest for all the Moon Knight back issue appearances I could track down. This Epic Collection contains the character's earliest appearances by his creator Doug Moench, along with Bill Sienkiewicz handling most of the artwork. These are some of the best Moon Knight stories ever published and I'm happy to own them.
We also have
X-MEN: THE ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX, collecting a trio of limited series from the nineties. I avoided the original ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX when it was released, Gene Ha's artwork being a huge turn-off for me at the time. So I look forward to finally reading exactly what happened to Scott Summers and Jean Grey on their honeymoon, after reading
about it for so many years.
What's the third mini in the Cyclops & Phoenix book (I ask via comment instead of just looking it up myself)? The first one, the second one with Victorian Era Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister, and ...?
ReplyDeleteAren't those Epic collections great? I'm really impressed with what Marvel's doing with them, and hope they stick with 'em moving forward (as they've said they would).
Strangely, the book does not contain THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX. Instead it has the original AoC&P mini, plus the ASKANI'SON mini and something called X-MEN: PHOENIX. There's also a one-shot in there called BOOKS OF ASKANI. It's the complete Askani'son experience between two covers!
DeleteI'm guessing we may at some point see a FURTHER ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX trade collecting that series and maybe some ancillary Mr. Sinister and/or Apocalypse material from the era, or something like that. Perhaps the RISE OF APOCALYPSE series, for example.
I love Epic Collections. They're basically color Essentials, which is awesome. I haven't got all of them by any means, but I have two Iron Man volumes, two Caps, one Thor, one Avengers, one Spider-Man, and now Moon Knight -- which I never saw coming when they started the line.
Huh, I can't recall what that Phoenix LS is even about. The Askani'son mini makes sense, as it's pretty much a direct sequel to the Cyclops & Phoenix story.
Delete(Fun fact, in my early internet AOL days, my original online handle was Askani90210, cuz I wanted to use an obscure bit of X-Men lore and loved Cable's complicated backstory, yet someone else had the same thought so I had to toss 90210 on the end. Everyone thought I was a version of "Ask Annie" for some reason).
The Moon Knight Epic collection is actually what sold me on the line - I figured if they were willing to go to a character like Moon Knight (no disrespect intended) before Wolverine, Hulk or the X-Men, than they must be serious about this being their new long term reprint plan, and I felt comfortable diving in at that point.
And, perhaps ironically, suddenly this month Marvel has no Epic Collections in their solicitations. I'm sure the line is doing well though, as there have been other Epics seen as ghost listings on Amazon -- it just looks like Marvel is skipping releasing any for a month after putting out one per since the line started.
DeleteThat AOL story is great, by the way. We may have perused the same boards way back when.
Didn't the Lee/Ditko Spidey volume come out this month (the one with like the first 19 or so issue of ASM)? Or was that just from a delayed earlier release?
DeleteSorry, yes -- you're right; that did come out this month. I meant that the solicits they just released today, which are for January 2015, don't have an Epic volume among them.
DeleteAh, gotcha. Yeah, boo on that! Boo, I say!
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