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.

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!

ODE TO AN ANIMATED SERIES

So last week after posting my little BATMAN 232/"The Demon's Quest" mash-up picture, I decided I wanted to write a bit more about BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Since my son's birth a couple months back coincided with La La Land Records' release of their BATMAN: TAS Vol. 4 soundtrack album, I found my interest in the series piqued, as is periodically the case, and as a result I spent more than a few late nights rocking the baby to sleep while streaming random episodes on my iPad. I thought it would be fun to write about them -- nothing in-depth, mind you; you can't spit on the internet without hitting a full-blown TAS retrospective series -- but at the very least, I wanted to compose one post boiling down exactly what it is I like about BATMAN, and what makes it so enduring for me personally.

I still vividly remember the very first BATMAN: TAS episode I saw. Somehow the series' premiere had slipped past my radar, so I missed the first few installments. Thus my initial exposure to BATMAN was the episode "It's Never Too Late" which, according to the internet, aired September 10th, 1992 as the seventh episode broadcast. It might be a good thing this was the first show I saw, because it immediately demonstrated to me what the animated Batman was about. This was not the Adam West version or the Hanna Barbera or Filmation iterations I had known on TV up to that point.

"It's Never Too Late" is a character study of an aging gangster at the end of his career, struggling to defend his crumbling empire from the younger competition. It tackles drug abuse -- something typically taboo in kids' animation back then except for the occasional "very special episode" -- but only in passing as part of the larger story. There are no colorful, costumed villains. The antagonist of the piece is Rupert Thorne, a character I knew at the time from a couple issues in my dog-eared GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD trade paperback, and he and his goons use conventional firearms rather than the laser blasters I'd become accustomed to in my normal weekday afternoon fare.

"It's Never Too Late" may not be the greatest of the animated Batman episodes, but it's a solid entry and holds a special place for me personally as the one that won me over that Thursday afternoon twenty-four years ago.

THE DEMON'S QUEST REVISITED

A while back I noted that I like to draw, and that lately I've been doing it on my iPad. Well, since the advent of the Apple Pencil, which my wife was kind enough to get me as an early Father's Day present back in May, I've really been having a lot of fun, and I've even been posting some stuff to DeviantArt (linked off to the left-hand side there).

But, as I also noted before, every so often I draw something that I'm really proud of and with which I'm pretty satisfied. It's rare, but it happens, and this is such an occasion -- so I figured I'd share. Ever since the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES volume 4 soundtrack came out, more or less coinciding with the birth of my son, I've been in a TAS mood and I've spent a number of late nights with the baby streaming episodes on my iPad (more on that next weekend, by the way). One of my all-time favorites is "The Demon's Quest", based upon "Daughter of the Demon" from BATMAN #232 and "The Demon Lives Again" from BATMAN 244, both by the venerable Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams team.

So for whatever reason I was wondering what the cover to BATMAN 232 would look like in the ANIMATED SERIES style. This led to a furious week or so of work last month, which resulted in the following:

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK VOL. 4

Well, it's an even-numbered year, which apparently means it's time for a new BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES soundtrack album from La La Land Records.* (Though if I had my druthers, we'd be getting one of these sets every year rather than every other!)

After 2012's volume 2 and 2014's volume 3, this past week brings us the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Original Television Soundtrack, volume 4. Like volume 2, this album had pre-release availability at Comic-Con, but as I've noted here in recent weeks, I was unable to attend this year due to the birth of my son. So I pre-ordered the album straightaway when it went up on La La Land's site Tuesday at noon, and it arrived (autographed by composers Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Carlos Rodriguez) in the mail Friday.

Naturally, given the hectic nature of my life at the moment, I haven't had time to give this set a real in-depth listen, but I have given it one cursory run-through while the baby was sleeping (I think he liked the music!) and I wanted to jump on a post while the iron was hot -- so I found a bit of time to cobble this piece together during a subsequent naptime. Speaking of which -- note also that La La Land released a 4-disc soundtrack album for JUSTICE LEAGUE this past week, and I'll try to write something about that as things settle down within the next month or two. But for now, I really couldn't wait to cover BATMAN.

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 - MARCH 2016

Three Marvels and a DC arrived this month, with one Marvel delayed until April for unknown reasons.

We'll get DC's offering out of the way first: the BATMAN: HARLEY & IVY Deluxe Edition hardcover collection, reprinting the limited series by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, as well as a number of other comic book team-ups from the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES universe starring this duo and written by Dini. I've read every iteration of THE BATMAN ADVENTURES and its specials and annuals, but somehow I never got my hands on HARLEY & IVY when it was first published. I can't express how excited I am to read what is, to me, a "lost" Dini/Timm Batman production.

From Marvel, I've got an Avenger and two X-Men collections to look at -- first, CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE, the long-delayed fourth installment in the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale "color" series. Readers will recall that early last year I looked at the original "colors", DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, and HULK: GRAY, which were published between 2001 and 2004. Now, at last, Loeb and Sale have created the long-ago teased WHITE as a companion to those series. I intend to read this one pretty soon and post my thoughts on it to go with the previous colors in short order.

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.

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK VOL. 3

If you'll allow me to gush for a moment: There are days that I still can't believe I'm able to listen to this music. Getting a score album from BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES was a pipe dream for me when I was in my teens. By the time I turned fifteen years old, I had been watching the show regularly for about two years and, along with the engrossing visual style and dramatic scripts and voiceover performances, I had fallen in love with the program's musical score.

Shortly after my fifteenth birthday, BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM was released to theaters in the U.S., with an accompanying soundtrack album. I grabbed that soundtrack before I'd even seen the film, simply to get some of the ANIMATED SERIES-style music to listen to. At last I could hear, unencumbered by dialogue and sound effects, the great Shirley Walker's Batman theme (more befitting the character, in my opinion, than Danny Elfman's iconic contribution to the 1989 movie -- which of course also served as the main title theme for B:TAS), as well as snippets of the Joker's comically twisted music, both weaved into a wonderful full-length movie score. For fifteen years, that was the only BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES music available to me, and I played it often -- but still I wished for some scores from the actual episodes, which were nearer and dearer to me than the film.

COMING SOON - BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES SOUNDTRACK VOLUME 3

Since my review of the SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES soundtrack album is one of the most-visited posts here, I thought I should spread the word that the wonderful people at La La Land Records are releasing a third volume in their series of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES albums. They've released full details, as they usually do for these things, via the World's Finest site.

I'll be ordering this must-buy item on minute one next Tuesday, so I hope to have it my hands by Friday, as is normally the case when I order something from La La Land. Assuming that happens, I'll try to post an article about it on Sunday.

I'm excited!

More DC Animated soundtracks from La La Land Records:

• BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES volume 1
  
• BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES volume 2
  
• SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES volume 1

THE UNBOXING - AUGUST 2014

So, what do we have this month? A little of this, a little of that, it seems. Two items from Marvel, two from DC, and, in a rare occurrence, something from Dark Horse!

Age always goes before beauty, so we'll glance at the DC offerings first. We have AME-COMI GIRLS VOLUME 2: RISE OF BRAINIAC. Readers may recall that I covered the first volume of this Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray alternate universe story back in March. It was enjoyable enough that I grabbed the second volume, and I plan to get to it at some point before year's end.

Also from DC is DC COMICS PRESENTS BATMAN ADVENTURES, a small collection reprinting a sparse few issues from the nineties BATMAN ADVENTURES series, which was based upon BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. This isn't quite a trade paperback, but it's not quite a comic book, either. It's squarebound with a light cardstock cover, not unlike the comics we used to call "Prestige Editions" when I was a youngster.

THE UNBOXING - MARCH 2014

This may be my smallest box ever from Discount Comic Book Service: two books. It was supposed to be three, but the CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT volume dropped off my order to ship next month instead, due to a shortage from the supplier. I had no plans to read that book any time in the immediate future, however, so I'm fine waiting another month. Thus, without that sole Marvel offering, all I have this time are two volumes from DC -- and just as receiving only two books is a first, so is having my entire order be in the form of DC volumes.

First is BATMAN: MAD LOVE AND OTHER STORIES, a trade paperback collecting most of the Batman comics by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini set in the universe of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, along with works from some of their other BTAS collaborators. I have most all of these stories in comic book format (I read the cover off of the single issue MAD LOVE when I was a kid), but this is the first time I will have purchased them as a trade. I believe this book came out a while back in hardcover format, but I passed it up. The trade may in fact have been released previously as well, but when this edition came up for pre-order a couple months ago, I jumped on it.

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK

In the early nineties, the Warner Brothers television animation department was in the midst of what would eventually be dubbed a "second golden age" for cartoon musical scores. Programs like TINY TOON ADVENTURES, ANIMANIACS, and BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES featured original scores for each and every episode, crafted by a variety of talented composers and performed by a full (roughly 30-piece) orchestra. BATMAN was followed a few years later by SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, from the same creative and musical teams.

Helming the musical side of these DC superhero shows was the great Shirley Walker. Walker came up with the recurring themes and motifs to be used for the majority of the series' main characters and villains, and she contributed many complete scores to both shows herself, but scoring as many episodes as Bruce Timm's production team created was unfeasible for one person. So Walker also trained and supervised a group of younger composers, which eventually shrunk to her core regular group: Kristopher Carter, Harvey R. Cohen, Michael McCuistion, and Lolita Ritmanis.