THE UNBOXING - SEPTEMBER 2019

We're gonna keep things short and sweet this month, with an all-Digital, all-Marvel Unboxing. I have to admit that I think I actually bought a few of these during some sale or another last month, but for the most part, these are all September purchases as part of Marvel's 80th anniversary BOGO sale at Comixology/Amazon. Thus, the latest additions to my digital lineup are:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: ASSASSIN NATION
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: GREAT POWER
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: THE GOBLIN LIVES
AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: FEAR THE REAPER
AVENGERS MASTERWORKS vol. 19
CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: THE SUPERIA STRATAGEM
FANTASTIC FOUR: HEROES REBORN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 1
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMICS MAGAZINE!
IRON MAN: HEROES REBORN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 1
LUKE CAGE, POWER MAN MASTERWORKS vol. 3
MASTER OF KUNG FU EPIC COLLECTION: FIGHT WITHOUT PITY
SAVAGE SHE-HULK MASTERWORKS vol. 2
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN MASTERWORKS vol. 2
THING: THE SERPENT CROWN AFFAIR
X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT
X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION: DISSOLUTION AND REBIRTH
X-MEN: GAMBIT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 2
X-MEN> ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH

And that's it for September, True Believers! Catch you back here next month (or not, if I don't wind up getting anything new)!

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 - MARCH 2017

Just two books this month, one from each of the "Big Two", and both are nice hardcovers.

The first, from Marvel, is the MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS volume 3, continuing the cult classic run from the seventies and eighties. I'll remind readers that volume 1 and volume 2 are both still available, but that it really seems as if this is a limited reprint deal, so once these books are gone, it's probably not likely (but don't hold me to this; I'm only try to read between the lines) that this material will ever be collected again in any format. There will be a fourth and final volume to close out the series, but as of yet it hasn't been solicited.

And from DC, it's BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS volume 1. This series, by Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo (later replaced by Alan Davis), is one I've had interest in for some time, but until now the only reprint available was a black-and-white SHOWCASE PRESENTS volume from a few years back. Now, however, it's arrived in full color and I look forward to finally reading it. Hopefully this initial volume sells well enough to warrant enough follow-ups to collect the full series (or at least the full run of issues featuring Batman as the team's mentor). At the moment there are no further installments solicited, so time will tell...!

THE UNBOXING - NOVEMBER 2016

Three books, three publishers, one titanic Unboxing.

First up, from IDW it's STREET FIGHTER X G.I. JOE, collecting the mini-series from earlier this year. I'm kind of surprised to see a STREET FIGHTER comic from a publisher other than UDON, but I guess since IDW has the G.I. JOE rights, they were able to get a limited license to publish this thing. STREET FIGHTER and JOE have, after all, been tangentially linked for decades, ever since Hasbro produced toys for the 1994 STREET FIGHTER movie by lazily repainting a bunch of their existing JOE molds into new toys that bore no resemblance to the characters they were meant to represent.

DC brings us the long-delayed SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL volume 9, at long last completing John Byrne's tenure on the character in trade paperback format. It's taken them about thirteen years to finally finish this for some reason, but at least it's done and now I can finally read the Byrne run in its entirety.

Interestingly, it looks like DC plans to plug along past Byrne's run as well, with a SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF TOMORROW Book One having popped up for pre-order on Amazon, picking up directly after Byrne's final issues with an apparent goal of filling the gap between the final MAN OF STEEL book and the DEATH OF SUPERMAN, which is already collected (and which I reviewed in Omnibus format here a few years back).

And lastly it's the SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS volume 2. I don't know why this was delayed so long -- it was supposed to release back in September -- but I've waited quite some time already to read this classic material, so a little longer makes no difference. And don't forget Volume 1 is still out there, with Volume 3 on the way next year; not to mention the DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU OMNIBUS volume 1 and Volume 2 also available for pre-order! It's more martial arts mayhem in the mighty Marvel manner than anyone should be able to handle!

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 - JUNE 2016

Crazy how things work out sometimes. Last month I received nothing in the mail, hence no Unboxing for May. But this month, it's a wealth of new trade paperbacks and one long-awaited hardcover, as well!

We'll start with DC, since I have one single item from them this month: the LEGENDS 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION. LEGENDS is a story I've wanted to read for years. My knowledge of DC history is a little spotty, but I understand this to be the very first crossover in the post-CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS DC Universe, and the story by John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne pits DC's heroes against Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips. I think this will make a nice companion to my collection of Byrne's SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL trade paperbacks.

Now it's on to Marvel. First up is the AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: UNDER SIEGE. I have an old printing of this storyline, but it only contains about half the issues presented in this volume (and it predates Marvel's standard restoration practices, so it's pretty ugly to boot). Unless I'm mistaken, thanks to this book I now own the entirety of Roger Stern's classic AVENGERS run. I look forward to reading the whole thing sometime soon.