MARCH 2025: I TAKE THINGS TOO LITERALLY

And we're back! So far, so good with this new format. And this month I even have something of interest (at least to me) to talk about!

Not too long ago on the Marvel Masterworks Message Board, in a discussion about X-Men Omnibuses, the dreaded Chuck Austen was name-dropped. I was there when Austin's run on UNCANNY X-MEN was published. I read it. I actually thought it started off okay, but it quickly went off the rails and ended as one of the most rightly reviled stretches in the title's history. However -- even when it was briefly good, it wasn't what I was expecting.

See, in advance of his run, Austen did an interview with WIZARD magazine where he said that to prepare, he had gone back and re-read the 1970s Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum issues. I'm assuming he was a kid when that material was published, because he seemed to consider it the X-Men's gold standard, even more than the subsequent Claremont/John Byrne run. So naturally when he said this, I figured, "Great! He'll probably bring back Banshee and redeem him from Joe Casey's character assassination. Maybe they'll even visit his castle! Maybe they'll fight Count Nefaria or something. I bet we'll get some good swashbuckling Nightcrawler action. Ooh, maybe he'll even bring back Eric the Red!!

None of that happened. In fact, Austen's run bore zero resemblance to the Claremont/Cockrum run I loved. Aside from Nightcrawler and Wolverine, it was a completely different cast. The stories did not in any way, shape, or form, call back to that classic run. It didn't "feel" like the run in terms of style, either.

THE "PERSONAL GOLDEN AGE"

It's weird how these things go. A month or so back, I was thinking about typing up a debriefing on this year's Comic-Con -- but as usual, while I enjoyed myself, I find that I have very little to put to screen regarding my time there. It was fine, but a lot of the experience for me is simply spending time with friends who I don't see as often as I used to. The con itself is almost secondary nowadays to the hanging around, the games, and the eating out around town.

But as I mulled over whether or not to bother with a recap essay, I mused that the first SDCC I attended was nineteen years ago, in 1999 (and if you think that means I'll find a way to commemorate twenty years of Comic-Con next summer, True Believer, you've got me figured out). I started thinking about what the convention was like back then and the sorts of panels I attended. Then, the kicker -- my iPad wallpaper as I entertained these thoughts was an Avengers image by George Pérez, and I noted the year he'd drawn it beside his signature: 1997 (that's it at right).

I thought some more. We're more than twenty years removed now from the start of the Busiek/Pérez AVENGERS run, the Busiek/Bagley THUNDERBOLTS run, Spider-Man's Clone Saga, "Onslaught", and so forth, and it's been almost twenty years since my first Comic-Con. That got me thinking about the concept of the "Personal Golden Age" of comics, which I've seen now and then on the internet: the idea that everyone has an era where comics captured their imagination more than any time before or after. For some, it was probably right when they got into comics. For others, like me, it came a bit later.

THE UNBOXING - AUGUST 2016

It's a light one this time, which is fine with me, and both of the month's two offerings come from Marvel. (And, apropos of nothing, the books' contents just miss overlapping each other, in terms of original publication dates, by about six months.)

First up is the new printing of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 3*, which, as I've noted a couple times in the past few months, when combined with volume 1*, volume 2, and HAWKEYE AND THE THUNDERBOLTS volume 1 and volume 2, completes the run of what I consider the definitive THUNDERBOLTS -- issues 1 - 50 by Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, and Mark Bagley. I seriously have no idea why the T-Bolts just received this level of fast-track love (five trades -- three reissues and two new -- released in the lightning-quick span of four months), but I'm really glad to see it happen.

And our second item is X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF GAMBIT, a nice trade collecting a chunk of issues of both X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN which were originally published between the "Onslaught" and "Operation: Zero Tolerance" events. My goal of getting all the Scott Lobdell/Fabian Nicieza X-MEN on my bookcase grows ever closer to completion, and I'm quite happy about it. This book will be slotted for an in-depth spotlight as part of my monthly X-Men collected editions review project (all of which can be found archived about halfway down this page), somewhere around December or January, so for now I've nothing more to say on the topic.

I expect another very light month next time, leading me to note that Marvel and DC seem to have scaled back publishing the sorts of classic material I'm interested in. For now I don't mind; a new baby inevitably leads to a diminished budget for these kinds of things -- but I hope this downward trend levels out at some point! Two books a month or so is just about right in my opinion, but I always feel a little bummed out those months when I only receive one or even none.

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* Note that the above links go to the original 2011 and 2012 printings of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volumes 1 and 3. Amazon doesn't seem to have the new printings on their site yet -- but in any case, the contents should be identical.

THE UNBOXING - JULY 2016

It's a double dose of Marvel's THUNDERBOLTS this month, with both THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC Volume 2 and HAWKEYE AND THE THUNDERBOLTS Volume 2! As I noted a few months back, once Marvel issues their rerelease of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 3 in the near future, I'll have what I consider to be the definitive THUNDERBOLTS run -- Busiek, Nicieza and Bagley through issue 50 -- collected in five nifty trades on my bookcase. I'm very happy about this development.

Another Marvel book which pleases me is INFINITY WATCH Volume 2. Thanks to this volume, the entirety of the nineties' WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH series has been reprinted, including the full run by Jim Starlin. Some may recall that I never "unboxed" Volume 1, and that's true; the reason is that all of its contents, INFINITY WATCH 1 - 22, have been reprinted over the past decade or so in the INFINITY GAUNTLET AFTERMATH, INFINITY WAR, INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH, INFINITY CRUSADE vol. 1, and INFINITY CRUSADE vol. 2 collections, while issues 23 - 25 can be found in the THOR: BLOOD AND THUNDER trade paperback. And since most all those issues are parts of large crossovers, I'm perfectly content to own them as components of those larger collections rather than on their own, keeping those books alongside this collection (containing INFINITY WATCH 26 - 42) to complete the set. (Note that the two INFINITY CRUSADE books are currently out of print and ridiculously expensive these days, but the rest are all available at reasonable prices.)

Finally, from DC, we have SUPERMAN: PANIC IN THE SKY. DC has been doing a decent job of collecting various events from the post-CRISIS, post John Byrne era in the Superman titles, and this is another in that trend. It's a story I've heard about for years (its name was used for a classic JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED episode), but I've never read it. For now it goes on the shelf with my other post-CRISIS Superman books, ready to read when the time is right.

Of course, all the above pales in comparison with the other package I received this month; a BABY BOY! (Sorry, no Amazon link for that one.) He was born just a week or so back and currently all my time and energy is devoted to him. As noted last week, I have posts scheduled to keep going up like clockwork as usual, so you shouldn't notice I'm preoccupied, but there may be delays in responding to comments as I adjust to this new addition to the family.

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.

THE UNBOXING - FEBRUARY 2016

Marvel, DC, and Dynamite all asked me to be their Valentine today, offering books in exchange for love. I'm still trying to figure out which to go with.

First is a new printing of an older collection from Marvel, THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC volume 1. As evidenced by the fact that I declared it my #5 favorite Marvel run of all time, I loved the Kurt Busiek/Mark Bagley (and later Fabian Nicieza/Mark Bagley) THUNDERBOLTS. But the first printing of this trade came out before I became a collected editions junkie, and I never picked it -- or the subsequent two -- up.

But Marvel is reissuing all three THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC books and, even though the originals aren't exactly hard to find, I've decided to go for these new editions. Volume 2 and volume 3 are available for pre-order, and HAWKEYE & THE THUNDERBOLTS volume 1 and volume 2, continuing where THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC leaves off, are in the works as well, and will bring the reprint series up through issue 50.

From DC, we have SHOWCASE PRESENTS: BATMAN volume 6, a black-and-white collection of severeal BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS issues from the early to mid-seventies. I'm not a huge fan of the ESSENTIAL/SHOWCASE format, generally preferring my comics in color, but there are a few art styles for which I believe the black-and-white newsprint format looks really nice -- and this Neal Adams/Irv Novick Batman stuff definitely applies.

Last up is RED SONJA/CONAN: BLOOD OF A GOD, Dynamite's contribution to the inter-company Hyborian Age crossover begun last year with Dark Horse's CONAN/RED SONJA. I have plans to cover both these collections, along with a couple more items, in a little Hyborian grab bag coming up this spring, so watch for that soon.

Until March, that's it for now.

MY TOP TWELVE FAVORITE MARVEL COMICS RUNS - #5 - #1

Concluding the list:

5. Thunderbolts by Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, & Mark Bagley
   (THUNDERBOLTS #1 - 50, plus assorted related issues)
   Nostalgia Rating: 5 | Story Quality: 4 | Overall: 4.5
   

   

   Art: Mark Bagley

   Reason: When this series launched, the first issue revelation secured it immediately as the book I waited most for every month. About a year later, it was supplanted by the next item on this list, but even then Kurt Busiek and subsequent writer Fabian Nicieza maintained the twists, turns and momentum that had gripped me from the outset. I capped this run at THUNDERBOLTS #50 because I believe that's the apex of the series. I like the stories for about another ten issues, but 50 is the peak. And if we were to include the final 15 issues, the "Story Quality" grade would drop a point or two, as Nicieza became hampered by the Bill Jemas/Joe Quesada mandates of minimal continuity and "writing for the trade", and the series became aimless and boring. But the first fifty or so issues of THUNDERBOLTS were some of the finest comics coming out of Marvel at the time.