THE UNBOXING - APRIL 2019

What's this? The Unboxing on Friday?! It's true, and the reason why will be explained in this very space... next Friday! But for now, after skipping the past two months, The Unboxing returns at last with three offerings from Marvel, and I think the wait was worth it!

First we have two trade paperbacks, starting with CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: THE SUPERIA STRATAGEM. Over the past few years, Marvel has been steadily plugging away at completing Mark Gruenwald's ten-year run on CAPTAIN AMERICA in a number of trade paperbacks. Currently, thanks to this new volume and the previously released Epic Collections SOCIETY OF SERPENTS, JUSTICE IS SERVED, THE BLOODSTONE HUNT, and STREETS OF POISON, plus the out-of-print Epic-in-all-but-name THE CAPTAIN, we've got issues 307 - 397 collected. That's ninety-one issues plus associated annuals and such, covering nearly the first seven years of Gruenwald's run. Gruenwald's final CAP issue was 443, so we've still got quite a ways to go, but at the very least it's safe to say that the "prime" material is pretty much all available at this point. (Though I love all of it and will happily snap up the rest of the run as it's released!)

Next is X-MEN: ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH, and I cannot overstate how absolutely thrilled I am to own this book. Those who follow my X-Men Collected Editions chart know that this was the final piece needed to close the X-Men's 1990s gap. As of now, thanks to ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH, EVERY. SINGLE. ISSUE. of UNCANNY X-MEN and X-MEN from the full decade of the nineties has been collected. I seriously want to do a little jig over this. It's been my goal for about the past five years to have that entire run of issues on my bookshelf, and now I can finally say that the mission is accomplished.

(Of course this isn't to say I won't re-buy some of this material as it finds its way into better collections -- upgrading from paperbacks to hardcovers, for example -- but the point is that for now, the goal is complete.)

And speaking of rebuying, our last book is one that I couldn't resist even though I've purchased all of it in various formats over the years -- comics when I was a teen, trade paperbacks and hardcovers as an adult... but now we have it here, all collected in one comprehensive and definitive oversized hardcover, just in time for a certain major motion picture it inspired: the THANOS WARS: INFINITY ORIGIN OMNIBUS. The name is an inelegant mouthful, but the contents are what's important here. This book collects all of Jim Starlin's early Thanos material, from his first appearance in IRON MAN #55, through his war against Captain Mar-Vell and the Avengers, and up to his dealings with Adam Warlock -- plus everything in between, whether Thanos-related or not. I've probably mentioned it here before, but for the record, Starlin's cosmic stuff at 1970s Marvel is among my all-time favorite comic book runs, and it's wonderful to see it get the high-end treatment it deserves at long last.

ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #1, SUPERMAN ANNUAL #1, & ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ANNUAL #1

“SKEETER!”
Written by: John Byrne | Penciled by: Art Adams | Inked by: Dick Giordano
Lettered by: Albert de Guzman | Colored by: Petra Scotese
Edited by: Michael Carlin

The Plot: Batman arrives in the small town of Fayerville, Louisiana, following the trail of a serial killer from Gotham City. But he quickly finds himself in over his head as he realizes he’s up against a vampire. The Caped Crusader calls the Daily Planet and asks Clark Kent to summon Superman for him. Soon after, the Man of Steel arrives in Fayerville and begins investigating the vampire as well, while Batman deduces the creature’s true identity as that of an apparently teenaged girl named Skeeter. When Skeeter attacks and nearly kills Superman, Batman finishes her off with a stake through the heart.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Batman uses the codeword “Magpie”, a reference to his and Superman’s first encounter in THE MAN OF STEEL, to authenticate himself to Clark.

When he fights Skeeter, Superman realizes her powers are magical in nature and therefore she is able to harm him. (He also mentions his “electro-chemical aura” not protecting his costume when she scratches his chest, reminding readers that Byrne is still one hundred percent behind that idea.)

MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNINBUS VOLUME 1

Hardcover, 2016. Collects 1973-76's SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION #15 & 16, MASTER OF KUNG FU #17 - 37, GIANT SIZE MASTER OF KUNG FU #1 - 4, GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN #2, and material from IRON MAN ANNUAL #4.

I've never read Marvel's MASTER OF KUNG FU, but I've heard very good things about it. And it's rare, though not unheard of, that I pick up a high-end collection for a series I've never so much as touched. To the best of my recollection, the only other times I've done so were with DC's NEW TEEN TITANS OMNIBUS series and Marvel's STAR WARS: THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS OMNIBUS series. Of those, the former was critically and commercially acclaimed, while the latter -- well, it's some of the earliest Expanded Universe STAR WARS and I'd wanted to read it for years.

MASTER OF KUNG FU definitely falls into the "critically acclaimed" category. In certain scholarly comic book circles, it's ranked up there with the best of Marvel's late seventies/early eighties output; regarded at least as highly as the Claremont/Byrne X-MEN, Miller DAREDEVIL, and Simonson THOR. Still, given my lack of familiarity with the material, I probably would've waited for the inevitable Epic Collection trade paperbacks instead, except -- according to collection editor Cory Sedlmeier, these books are "...a special opportunity you don't want to miss out on." Working on the well-known knowledge that Marvel lost the rights to Fu Manchu, a prominent character in the series, decades back, and using that info to read between the lines, one might infer that perhaps Marvel has acquired a limited one-time reprint license, and after these Omnibus volumes are published, they may go out of print forever.

So, working from that assumption and trusting the numerous voices which have declared this one of the greatest Marvel runs of all time, I've bought volume 1 sight unseen and pre-ordered volume 2 as well, with full intentions to go for volume 3 too, when it's solicited.

THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2015

It's a big, big November here, with some books from Marvel, a couple from DC, and one from Dark Horse, as well.

First up, Marvel provides the AVENGERS BY KURT BUSIEK & GEORGE PÉREZ OMNIBUS volume 2, closing out not just the 34-issue Busiek/Pérez run in Omnibus format, but the full 56-issue Busiek run. I reviewed Volume 1 some months back, and I'll try to get something up for this volume in the near future as well.

On the trade paperback front, Marvel brings the INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH and MOON KNIGHT EPIC COLLECTION: SHADOWS OF THE MOON.

The main appeal of AFTERMATH for me is the inclusion of WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH issues 11 - 17. This means that between the INFINITY GAUNTLET AFTERMATH, INFINITY WAR, INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH, INFINITY CRUSADE volume 1, INFINITY CRUSADE volume 2, and THOR: BLOOD AND THUNDER collections, INFINITY WATCH issues 1 - 25 are all collected in trade paperback format. Only six more issues are needed to round out Jim Starlin's run on the title.

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS

When I was a youngster, I enjoyed the occasional Marvel comic, mostly Spider-Man stuff. But it was a very casual relationship up until around age 13 or so. I became a regular reader of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN with issue 360, cover dated March of 1992. Only a few months later, I was reintroduced to the larger Marvel Universe when a school friend showed me his copy of THE INFINITY WAR #1, a series somewhat along the lines of SECRET WARS, which I had loved as a child due to the epic scope and the sheer number of superheroes involved. So basically, you could say that I owe my decades of Marvel fandom to Jim Starlin's "Infinity" franchise. I'm sure I would've branched out beyond Spider-Man on my own; I was already familiar with the other Marvel characters -- but INFINITY WAR jump-started that transition.

This book isn't about the THE INFINITY WAR, however -- this Omnibus collects the previous, first series in Starlin's "Infinity" series -- hence, THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS. And while I view WAR as a superior installment, both nostalgically and storywise, THE INFINTY GAUNTLET is nothing to sneeze at -- nor is this book which collects the full epic.

THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2014

Time for a new feature. The second week of every month, I receive a box of pre-ordered trades and/or hardcovers from my preferred online retailer, Discount Comic Book Service. I've decided, for no particularly good reason, that the first free Sunday following the arrival of said box (meaning a Sunday when I don't have another post already scheduled), I will post the contents here. It'll give an idea of what collections you might expect to see covered at some point in the future.

This month, my goodies include:

• DEADPOOL BY JOE KELLY OMNIBUS
  
• DEADPOOL CLASSIC, vol. 7 (the first part of Gail Simone's run)
  
• THANOS: INFINITY ABYSS
  
• TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE, vol. 3

Of the above, I expect REGENERATION ONE is the book I'll get to first for coverage here. But I'm waiting until volume 4 comes out as well, then I'll cover both together, as I did a few months back with volumes 1 and 2.

The Deadpool books are items I want to get to one day, but for the foreseeable future, they're just shelf-candy/skimming material. I have very good memories of reading Kelly's DEADPOOL when I was in college, and the Simone run, with spectacular art and color from UDON Studios, was a whole lot of fun. But I won't get to that book until volume 8 is released to complete Simone's time on the series.

And INFINITY ABYSS is Jim Starlin's last really good work at Marvel, so I expect I'll cover it here eventually as well, but not until after I've gotten to Starlin's CAPTAIN MARVEL, WARLOCK, SILVER SURFER, INFINITY GAUNTLET, INFINITY CRUSADE, and INFINITY WAR. So don't hold your breath for it.

Final note: There are plenty of books on my bookcase already that I haven't gotten to, so even though I'll be posting everything new here going forward, there will still certainly be some surprises coming up. Plus there will be certain things I'll pick up elsewhere, from Amazon, etc., which will not make "The Unboxing". Unless it's something I'm really excited about, then perhaps I'll do a supplemental post.