THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2021

Boy, these Unboxings have become few and far between lately, huh? I haven't done one since... July?! I can't believe that's right, but apparently it is. Between last summer and now, I bought no physical books. I have picked up some digital items here and there, but they've been so few and far between that they really weren't worth posting about. And this dearth of new purchases isn't for lack of trying on my part, mind you -- but rather, as I've mentioned once or twice before, Marvel and DC just aren't putting out as much of the classic material I personally want. (Or, more accurately, they aren't filling in the gaps that remain, because they've released a ton of classic stuff and I've bought it all already!)

Nonetheless, January always brings something, so let's see what we have this time. First, from Marvel as usual, it's two hardcovers: first is the MOON KNIGHT OMNIBUS, collecting many of the original stories written by his creator, Doug Moench, and drawn by several artists, most notably Bill Sienkiewicz. This will be replacing my MOON KNIGHT Epic Collections on the bookcase.

And the second item from Marvel is the THANOS: INFINITY SAGA OMNIBUS, which collects all of Jim Starlin's latter-day stories of the Mad Titan, released as various annuals, mini-series, and graphic novels throughout the past ten years or so. Since Starlin has sworn off working for Marvel ever again, this will close the book on Thanos as far as I'm concerned, and I look forward to reading it someday.

For Christmas, my wife gave me her custumary gift of one of the newest CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY books, THE TWENTY-FOUR CARAT MOON.

And then there's digital. To close out the year, Marvel and DC both had sales, as they always do. I have a bunch of Marvel Epic Collections on my digital shopping list, but I was a little bummed that there wasn't a big five dollar a pop Epic sale like they ran last year. Instead, there was a sale on Marvel Masterworks, at only 99 cents to two dollars each -- which is great in theory, except that I already have nearly all the digital Masterworks I want, or digital Epic Collections containing the same contents. Nonetheless, I did pick up a few of the books which I simply couldn't pass up for the price: DAZZLER MASTERWORKS vol. 1, DEATHLOK MASTERWORKS vol. 1, KILLRAVEN MASTERWORKS vol. 1, and SPIDER-WOMAN MASTERWORKS vol. 1.

And in the DC sale, I grabbed a few items as well: that old standby, BATMAN: TALES OF THE DEMON (which factored heavily into my look at Batman in the Seventies a couple years ago), NEW TEEN TITANS vol. 11 (which will hopefully someday factor into a continuation of my NEW TEEN TITANS reviews from a number of years ago), SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN (which I've been eyeballing for months and seriously cannot wait to read), and WONDER WOMAN BY GEORGE PEREZ vol. 4 (which, again, may someday down the line be used to continue the WONDER WOMAN by George Perez reviews I did in 2018).

And that about covers it! I don't know when the next Unboxing will be; in fact I may change it from a monthly feature (which it clearly has not been at all recently, with only four installments in 2020) to something I do on an "as warranted" basis. But I guess we'll find out going foward. I do know that I have two Marvel Omnibuses on order, which should release in February and March, respectively (meaning they would make the Unboxings for March and April), but after that I don't think there's much on the horizon at the moment...