Sunday, October 18, 2015

THE UNBOXING - OCTOBER 2015

It's another Marvelous month hereabouts, with two books from the House of Ideas joining my collection. Leading off is Marvel's first entry into their Epic Collection line for the Hulk, INCREDIBLE HULK EPIC COLLECTION: GHOST OF THE PAST. This book collects HULK issues 397 - 406 plus associated annuals and other materials. Not coincidentally, and in a nice touch from Marvel's collected editions folks, this book picks up exactly where the abandoned HULK VISIONARIES: PETER DAVID line left off more than four years ago.


The other item this month is the STAR WARS: THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS OMNIBUS Volume 3, which concludes Marvel's effort to reprint their original STAR WARS comic book series in a trio of big hardcovers. But besides the remaining issues of the ongoing series, mostly by Mary Jo Duffy and Cynthia Martin, the real draw for me here is additional material from Marvel U.K. and a few other sources, produced around the same time as the earlier issues of the ongoing, and written by Archie Goodwin.

Marvel really fast-tracked this STAR WARS series, releasing all three volumes in one year, just in time for the upcoming THE FORCE AWAKENS motion picture. The funny thing is, normally I'm all in favor of quick releases like this, but I think I could've easily waited longer between STAR WARS volumes because I'm reading the series one issue a week to keep up with Teebore's review series at Gentlemen of Leisure (though at the moment I'm a couple weeks behind). But I will never actually complain about a fast-track pattern, since in general it's something I'd like to see more of from Marvel.

And that covers October!

4 comments:

  1. I am somewhat interested in those Marvel omnibuses, but I am mostly a digital comics reader.
    And most of my digital comics come from Humble, Groupees and Storybundle.
    Though mostly from Humble.
    And I have a Star Wars comics bundle from Dark Horse, via Humble. ( just before they lost the license ) Including the first Marvel Comics omnibus, which includes around 27 issues.

    Considering the price tag of these Marvel hardcovers, i'm not keen to double dip.
    But it also means I only have parts of the series in each medium,
    ...botheration.

    How many issues does omnibus 1 contain anyway ?
    And in a round about way the original series is back home.

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    1. I nearly canceled my pre-orders of these books when Dark Horse held their big fire sale before the license reverted, but I'm glad I didn't. I really like them.

      For detailed information on volume one, check my review from a few months ago! It contains a ton of issues, 1 - 44!

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  2. I don't have all/many of the Peter David Hulk volumes, but I nonetheless applaud the effort to line up the first Hulk Epic with the end of that reprint series (even though, theoretically, the Epic line will cover that ground eventually). As you say, it's a nice touch, and it shows that Marvel's collection group just gets "it" in a way that DC just really doesn't (but they're getting better).

    the real draw for me here is additional material from Marvel U.K. and a few other sources, produced around the same time as the earlier issues of the ongoing, and written by Archie Goodwin.

    Ah, crap. I may have to check this out, just for those stories. Does is it seem fairly complete in terms of that material?

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    1. I don't know for sure, as I'm not positive what-all Marvel produced early in their licensee days, but knowing Marvel, I would assume this book is pretty complete. I'll have to take a look and let you know exactly how much of the early stuff is there. I know at the very least it contains a story from Marvel U.K. and a story from Marvel U.S.'s PIZZAZZ magazine?

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