more comic collecting; Marvel's TARZAN

This weekend, I scoured the 50 cent bins at a local comic shop. I am now two issues away from owning a complete set of Roy Thomas's & Ernie Colon's ARAK, Son of Thunder. I don't have a lot in mint, but they are all serviceable.

I've been reading the Marvel omnibus of the 1970s run of JOHN CARTER, Warlord of Mars. At the same time that was happening, Roy Thomas was working on Marvel's TARZAN, Lord of the Jungle. There were only 29 issues and 3 annuals, and they have yet to be collected in trades or an omnibus.

I picked up Annual #2 and Annual #3 this weekend. They were enough fun that I think I might just aim to collect the Marvel TARZAN run, too. Hopefully I can find them in the cheap bins, too.

recent reads; Skaar

SKAAR, SON OF HULK
HULK: PLANET SKAAR

I got both of these in collected trade paperback, on the cheap, at sales. I'm glad I didn't spend much. I guess I'm just not the target audience for this.

I was hoping for a sword-&-planet vibe. What I got was lots of planet heaving and lava flowing. Lots of people trying to kill Skaar. Lots of resurrected characters from PLANET HULK. Some mystic "old power" of the planet. Come to think of it, wasn't the planet destroyed at the end of PLANET HULK? Well, I might be misremembering, or they retconned the planetary destruction into local destruction.

Confusing facets of various players & races. Silver Surfer shows up, then we're on Earth with the Fantastic Four, Hulk and other crossovering. Not what I was looking for.

(There is a crossover with Ka-zar and the Savage Land but I don't think I'll bother - unless maybe if I get it cheap like the others.)

Recreating my youth, one digital file at a time

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but my first superhero comic was an issue of Captain America. I remember it well because we had dropped my father off for a business trip and we bought the comic at the airport newsstand. I read it in the car on the way home - and that is how I became car-sick the first time.

I never got swept up in comics as a kid. I didn't quite get hooked, and my parents didn't exactly encourage nor discourage comics reading. I know my Dad didn't think much of comics.

Flipping through stacks at the comic shop this weekend, I came across a Spider-man (actually, a MARVEL TEAM-UP) that I also owned. So, I bought it. Then I recalled I also had an Iron Man issue. Yes, just three issues. I remember reading the Captain America over & over. I don't remember the other two as well, but they are the same year. I wonder if we had actually bought a 3-pack at the airport. Or maybe I had the Captain America and then shortly after tried a 2-pack. I don't recall.

I let them go many years ago.

Anyway, after that little memory tweak this weekend, I looked up the digital versions and lucky for me, they're all available at Comixology. I already had the Captain America, I grabbed the Marvel Team-up just because, and I added the Iron Man to my digital collection.

Looking forward to re-reading these two.

recent read; Fantastic Four: The Life Fantastic

After my local comic shop's 50%-off sale for Halloween, I resolved to slow down my print purchases for a while until I read through my ridiculous backlog of reading material.

Then the store acquired a huge collection and put up another big sale over this past weekend!

I am weak. I came away with 12 books. The prices were a steal.

After the usual horror and fantasy grabs, I made myself try some superhero titles. I don't read much Marvel, and I've been on the lookout for a Hulk storyline that interests me. Of course, that was the one thing the collection didn't have much of.

I did wind up with this one - Fantastic Four: The Life Fantastic. I am not a huge FF fan but I thought with the Hulk it might be interesting. Turns out that it contains four short stories - it's not just the Hulk story.

Also, to be different, I read it this weekend instead of putting it in the "to be read" bookcase.

I enjoyed the Hulk FF tale a lot. It helps that the writer was J. Michael Straczynski. The other stories featured other writers. The second tale was a 40th anniversary special. Not much going on but it was fun and even had 'cameos' by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. The third story features a battle of wits and wills between Reed and Doctor Doom, and I found that again, I was pleasantly surprised and I liked it. The final tale was one of time travel and causality. It took a while to get going, but once it did I thought it was well done. Bonus for a Lovecraftian moment. (literally - the word "Lovecraftian" was used!)

I don't know if I would have bought the book new but in a 3 for $10 pile, it was worth it.

Conan, the 20th Century Barbarian

$1 bin score last weekend.

Conan gets stranded in mid-1980s New York City when he misses his magical lightning bolt ride back home. He sets up shop as a petty thief around Times Square, and then builds his own criminal career with his own gang. Things are going criminally well until they rob a museum and attract the attention of Captain America. Then it is a shield vs. sword showdown!

Be sure, there are some laugh out loud moments in this one, though it is not played for laughs. I'll admit it was better than I expected. Conan stays fairly true to his Marvel comic character, though there are some misses in there.

Conan in a Scarface pimp suit?

It's in here!

John Carter omnibus glut?

I was at a local comic shop yesterday, they had a special table set out.  It was a Marvel collection they were moving along.  Trade paperbacks were 'buy 1, get 2 free.'  Nothing there jumped out at me.

But, on the second table, there were Marvel hardcover omnibuses.  These list at $100 cover price.

They were also 'buy 1, get 2 free.'

My jaw hit the floor when I saw they had a stack of John Carter Warlord of Mars on the table.  They had multiple copies, at least eight, I think.  The omnibus contains all 28 issues and 3 annuals, in color, hardcover, of the Marvel mid-1970s series.  (It was not the DarkHorse b&w reprint)

The temptation was palpable.  But, I didn't see 2 other omnibuses that held my interest.  I suppose I should have negotiated a different deal.  But, $100 is too much right now when it is the holiday season and I'm trying to cool off my credit cards.

I walked away.  It wasn't easy.

Last night, I checked eBay I was surprised how many are listed. On top of that most of them have a different (alternate?) cover, new, factory sealed, for around $30 including shipping! Some are even "Buy it Now," if you don't want to deal with auctions.

I ordered one last night.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=John+Carter+Marvel+omnibus&_nkwusc=John+Carter+Marvel+Omnibus&_rdc=1

So, if you don't already have this and want a copy, now might be your time to hunt around.  Not sure why so many have popped up suddenly.

I have been trying to google up the image of the book I saw yesterday.  I haven't found it.  The cover was this comic image (I think, I could already have blurred the details);

So, I'm not sure which is the 'alternate' and which is the standard.  It doesn't matter really, s'all good.

It's going to be Santa's present to me to keep the kids guessing ;)

Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore

Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore
Marvel animated movie, direct to disc release

This is not at all what I was expecting.  I guess I should have read a little more about it before I made the impulse buy when I saw the disc at the store.  I knew we were in for something different when I popped the disc in...and the default language was Japanese with English subtitling.

This movie spun out from the Japanese anime series of Iron Man.  There is some anime I enjoy a lot, but much of it doesn't appeal to me.  I did watch the initial anime episode of Iron Man (on G4, I think) and it entirely failed to capture my attention.

The movie starts out promising enough with a lot of aerial goodness as Iron Man and War Machine zip through canyons racing each other.  The initial attack of the Technovore is creepy and disturbing, and though it does devolve into bigger and bigger explosions, the artwork of the devastation and blazing fires is impressive.

But soon, the tropes kick in and the plot holes loom large.  The action just stops for still pauses and brooding, both among the villain and the good guys.  When the action picks up, it is in the form of S.H.I.E.L.D. running Iron Man to ground with orders to use lethal force because they want to protect Iron Man as the only witness to the initial attack.  Yeah, it makes that much sense.  (Maybe they had bad translators.  When I initially switched the language to English with English subtitles [before I turned off the subtitles] they were not equivalent.)

I didn't like the Technovore, at all.  He is a petulant boy with biotech armor whose sister/girlfriend (they never said) reads him Nietzsche while he stares at himself in a pool in a sterile white room.

Compare that with the bug-like version of the Technovore I was first exposed to via The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (which, btw, is a very enjoyable series.)

I prefer the big techno-bug, myself.

Besides dead air brooding moments and still frames, another anime aspect I can do without is the fuzzy/cloudy lens.  I prefer sharp animation, and if muted, okay, but you don't need to further obscure the visuals and make me wonder if I need to clean my glasses again.

Another annoyance, outside of the movie itself, is the disc.  We were forced to sit through all the previews - bailing to the menu was not an option.  I hate it when discs do that.  It makes the likelihood of me putting it in the machine and watching it again even less.

So, if you like the tropes of anime and enjoy Marvel heroes, you might like this one.  If you're looking for a straight-ahead style of animated action, you're not going to find it here.

Weekend Scores at the Comic Shops

Last month, a local comic store (a mini-chain with three locations) had a sale at their warehouse, and I made quite the splash, picking up a pile of Dynamite's Savage Tales and some trade paperbacks.

This weekend, a different local comic shop had a sale on collected trade hardcovers and paperbacks.   The 'buy 1, get 2 free' sale was limited to a recently acquired collection only.  However, it was a large collection.  Mostly Marvel books, which I wasn't really looking for.  But I did end up with Skaar, Son of Hulk, and Hulk: Planet Skaar.  I am hoping for some flavor of sword-&-planet with those two.

Confession; the third book I acquired was Spider-Man/Red Sonja.  A silly team-up, to be sure.  But, I had my youngest toddler in tow.  I needed to flip through and make quick grabs.

Quiet October

Well, it's been a quiet month on my blog, anyway.  Lots of busy stuff at home and work.  Nothing I really felt like blogging about.

One thing I came across yesterday was a free teaser comic for Avenging Spider-man, which despite its name, is more about Spider-man team-ups than Spider-man p.o.v. Avengers stories.  That could be interesting.  Sounds a little like a Spider-man version of Batman: the Brave & the Bold. (serious take, though, not like the humorous t.v. show.)

I haven't really bought much Marvel, been hanging tight with DC.  But, as a kid I always liked Spider-man.  This title is supposed to focus more on the hero than the alter-ego stories of Peter Parker.

I might give it a try, it starts its run in November.