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!
From Marvel, we finally complete a series whose reprints started more than a year ago with the MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS volume 4. As noted back when this set of books began, I've never read MoKF, but I'm quite familiar with its legend, to the point that I was willing to go "all-in" and pick up four hardcovers containing the full run before actually reading a single issue. However now that I have them all, this is a set of books I can't wait to crack open, hopefully at some point in the coming year.
And remember, for those who are more into paperbacks than hardcovers, MoKF is making its way to that format as well in just a few short months with the MASTER OF KUNG FU EPIC COLLECTION: WEAPON OF THE SOUL.
Lastly comes the CLASSIC X-MEN OMNIBUS. I have to admit that I don't necessarily love all Chris Claremont's backup stories from this series that reprinted the early years of the new X-Men -- I'm of the mind that Claremont's latter day ret-cons dilute the original, near-flawless work he did with Dave Cockrum and John Byrne. And, while John Bolton is a fine artist, I just don't think his style fits with the Cockrum/Byrne stuff these tales are meant to supplement. However, I know there are some gems in here and CLASSIC X-MEN is a part of X-history beloved by many folks smarter than me, so I'm pleased to own this one despite my reservations about some of it.
(Honestly, oddball that I am, I'm more excited to own this book for its reprints of the supplementary pages that were added to the reprinted stories, since -- as I understand it -- the pages added to Cockrum-illustrated issues were drawn by Cockrum himself!)
And finally -- since I touched on this idea with my Unboxing Update a couple months back, here's your Digital Unboxing for December: over Black Friday a few weeks ago, Amazon/Comixology had a massive DC sale featuring tons of collected editions for just $4.99 each. I splurged on a number of Batman books, some of which which would normally run $20 to $30 apiece, and wound up with: BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS volumes 2 and 3, TALES OF THE BATMAN: ALAN BRENNERT, TALES OF THE BATMAN: ARCHIE GOODWIN, TALES OF THE BATMAN: CARMINE INFANTINO, TALES OF THE BATMAN: DON NEWTON, TALES OF THE BATMAN: GENE COLAN, TALES OF THE BATMAN: GERRY CONWAY, TALES OF THE BATMAN: LEN WEIN, LEGENDS OF THE DARK NIGHT: ALAN DAVIS, and LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT: MARSHALL ROGERS, plus BATMAN: EGO AND OTHER TAILS by Darwyn Cooke and JLA: THE NAIL COMPLETE DELUXE EDITION.
(Yes, I've already unboxed physical editions of some of those in the past, but at five bucks a pop they were too great a deal to pass up in digital as well!)
So it's a Very Batman Christmas around here! And I wouldn't necessarily expect future digital Unboxings to look like this, by the way, except where additional big sales pop up.
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