Tag Archives: Marvel

Marvel Collector’s Corps: Secret Wars Unboxing

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Although this is the third Marvel Collector’s Corps box that Marvel and Funko have put out, it’s the first one that I am doing an unboxing for.  Back in July it was announced that this month’s theme was going to be Secret Wars.  I’ve been knee deep reading comics for Marvel’s Secret Wars event, so a whole box dedicated to Secret Wars is right in my wheel house.

First lets get a rundown of all the items in the box:

  • Marvel Collector’s Corps Secret Wars Pin
  • Marvel Collector’s Corps Secret Wars Patch
  • Secret Wars Funko Pop Tee
  • Exclusive Marvel Collector’s Corps Secret Wars Issue 1 Variant Cover
  • Ultimate (Miles Morales) Spider-man Exclusive Funko Pop Bobble Head
  • Lady Thor Exclusive Funko Pop Bobble Head

First there is the Collector’s Corps Pin and Patch which look like they will be coming with every shipment.

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This is only the third Collectors Corps box to be released but the first to have more than one exclusive Pop Vinyl figure.  Based on the art on the box (which was revealed ahead of time) I had guessed correctly that one of the figures would be Lady Thor and was very pleasantly surprised to find not only Lady Thor but Ultimate Spider-man too.

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I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they had altered the box to put a divider in order to prevent the figures from jostling around too much during shipping.  This is a great improvement as the box for my Ant-Man figure from July got crushed during delivery.

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Next is the T-shirt which is my favorite T-shirt to date.  It is a Funko Pop Tees brand shirt with Captain America, Thor, Ultimate Spider-man, and War Machine.  The Ant-Man shipment also had a Funko Pop Tees shirt so hopefully this is the type of shirt we will get going forward.

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Last, and certainly not least is a exclusive Secret Wars Issue 1 Variant Cover with the Pop Thor on the front.  It came in a poly bag with board so you don’t have to worry about it getting messed up during shipping.  I’m not super worried about keeping it for resale so I’ll probably take it out of the bag but haven’t done so yet.

Secret Wars 1 Collector's Corps Variant Cover

I’ve been receiving the Marvel Collector’s Corps boxes since they first started back in May just to get the Exclusive Hulkbuster Pop Figure.  I kept it through the July box to see what the Ant-Man themed box would have and was a little underwhelmed when I got it.  If this August box had been something other then Secret Wars I probably would have canceled.  However, this has been my favorite box in the series by far and has got me much more excited about the series on the whole.  On the website it says the boxes cost 25 dollars but after shipping and taxes it comes out to around 35 dollars, which is a lot.  It does help that they only come out every other month but it’s still a high price for possibly only a single exclusive Funko Pop Figure.  If every box is as good as this box I don’t see me canceling my subscription anytime soon!

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Marvel’s Hip-Hop Variant Covers Complete

Update 9/6/15 with more covers.  I now have the current slate of 41 known covers represented.

This October Marvel is releasing Hip-Hoop Variant Covers for 27 different comics.  As far as I can tell this is the complete list of covers they will be releasing.  I saw reports of there being 50 different covers but that changed to 25, and then I was able to find 31.  I’ll update this post with any additional covers if they wind up actually creating them.


Summer Pull List Cleaning

Avengers-Spiderman Cleaning

Source Hrjoe Photography

With DC launching their new DC You titles and Marvel finally announcing their plans for after Secret Wars I decided to do a little Spring Summer Cleaning of the old Pull List.  To start off, here is what my current Pull List looks like:

Physical Books

  • Wytches
  • Angela: Asgard’s Assassin
  • All-New X-Men
  • Spider-Gwen
  • Jupiter’s Circle
  • Fight Club 2 (LS)
  • Wonder Woman
  • Batman
  • Batgirl
  • Gotham Academy
  • Superman/Wonder Woman
  • Jupiter’s Legacy (LS)

Digital Books

  • Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman
  • Catwoman

*LS indicates it is a limited series and not ongoing

My ultimate goal is to bring this list down to a lean mean 10.  Fight Club 2 is a limited series but is coming out monthly so I consider it a number in my list.  Jupiter’s Legacy is so infrequent that while it is on the list I don’t really consider it a “monthly cost”.

Here are the books I dropped:

Jupiters Circle

  • Wytches
  • Angela: Asgard’s Assassin
  • Jupiter’s Circle
  • Gotham Academy
  • Superman / Wonder Woman

These books aren’t bad but I find my self letting them stack up 3-4 months at a time with no desire to read them.  I may pick them up as a trade later but as for now they are just costing me money.  I never really enjoyed Jupiter’s Circle so it was the easiest book to drop.  Jupiter’s Legacy has come out once so far this year so I feel pretty safe keeping it on my list.  Wytches was ok but I’d rather read it collected 6 issues at a time in a trade rather than go monthly.  Angela: Asgard’s Assassin and Gotham Academy were both pretty good for the first arc but I still lost interest.  Superman / Wonder Woman has been good but it lost a lot of what I liked when they switched artists and it was no longer Tony S. Daniel.

Here are the new books I’m adding:

Physical Books

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  • Extraordinary X-Men
  • Uncanny X-Men
  • Old Man Logan

Digital Books

JLA 1 All Covers

  • Justice League: Gods and Monsters
  • Justice League of America

This will have me pulling all of the main X-Men team books with the addition of the Old Man Logan solo book.  I’ve been pulling All-New X-Men for a while now and while I’ve really enjoyed it, have missed out on crucial information by not pulling the other main X-Men Books.  So with all of the Marvel books getting rebooted to number 1 it’s a good time to get in on the ground floor of all three main X-Men books at once.

The only ongoing new DC comic book that I’ll be adding is the new Justice League of America from Bryan Hitch.  I’ve gone through the whole list of new DC books and this new JLA is really the only one that I’m interested in.  I’ll be getting Justice League: Gods and Monsters but it is a limited series and will be ending on July 18th.


Complete Women of Marvel Variant Covers

This March Marvel had a “Women of Marvel” theme of Variant Covers spot lighting lady creators.  I got the complete collection below.

  • All-New Captain America #5 By Unknown
  • All-New Hawkeye #1 By Sho Murase
  • All-New X-Men #39 By Faith Erin Hicks
  • Amazing Spider-Man #16 By Ming Doyle
  • Ant-Man #3 By Katie Cook
  • Avengers #42 By Uknown
  • Black Widow #16 By Vanesa Del Rey
  • Captain Marvel #13 By Aufa Richardson
  • Deadpool #43 By Unknown
  • Guardians Of The Galaxy #25 By Erica Henderson
  • Inhuman #13 By Jill Thompson
  • Legendary Star-Lord #10 By Sana Takeda
  • Ms. Marvel #13 By Unknown
  • New Avengers #31 By Sara Pichelli
  • Rocket Raccoon #9 By Janet Lee
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. #4 By Colleen Doran
  • Superior Iron Man #6 By Uknown
  • Thor #6 By Stephanie Hans
  • Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #3 By Gurihiru
  • Uncanny Avengers #3 By Amanda Conner
  • Uncanny X-Men #33 By Stacey Lee

 


Secret Wars Game Plan

Secret Wars

I decided to really jump right into the deep end with this summer’s Secret Wars event so it’ll mean buying a lot of comics and spending a lot of money.  I’m not planning on going overboard and buying all the tie-in issues, so far I’m looking to spend between 60 to 100 dollars total for the whole event out of pocket.  This means if the rest of the main series Secret Wars issues cost 3.99 just the main series will cost 34 dollars which leaves 26 to 66 dollars for tie-in issues which is approximately 9 to 22 issues.

Here is my plan of attack.  I’m going to start by picking up the new Secret Wars main series and read them as they come out.  That will give me the primary (convoluted as it is) story along with little glimpses of what is going on in the different Battle Worlds. So if they mention a Battle World that seems interesting I’ll pick up its tie-in issue.  But if a particular Battle Work seems lame or covers something I don’t care about, I won’t pick up their tie-in issues.

There are some tie-in issues I’ve pre-ordered because I liked their original story (House of M, Civil War, Old Man Logan, etc.) and are already on my pull list.

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I’m going to also read the original 1985 Secret Wars as homework along with Marvel’s “True Believers” first issues of tie-in books (some I have already read but it would be a good refresher) which include (which you can get on Comixology for 99 cents here):

  • Infinity Gauntlet 1
  • Marvel Zombies 1
  • X-Men Alpha 1
  • Civil War 1
  • Planet Hulk 1
  • Civil War 1
  • House of M 1
  • Wolverine 66
  • Iron Man 225
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (2011) 1
  • Age of Ultron 1

If by the end of its first issue I like the story I’ll read the rest of that story arc, and if I really like it I will possibly pick up the new Secret Wars tie-in issues.  The new Secret Wars tie-in story arcs I am on the fence for or not interested in I’ll wait 6 months and read when they come out on Marvel Digital Unlimited.

The best way to go about reading these back issues is through Marvel Digital Unlimited, its 60 dollars a year or 10 dollars a month and has most back issues up until about 6 months ago.  Marvel Digital Unlimited is like Netflix in that its an all you can read streaming service.  There are apps for Android and iOS for the service and these apps are really the way this service is meant to be used.  Marvel Digital Unlimited has a large back catalog so it includes the complete event and tie in’s for almost every Battle World in the new Secret Wars so you aren’t breaking the bank to buy them all.

I’m also going to attempt to read some of the recent Robert Hickman issues of Avengers that he’s been doing for the last 3 years that lead up to Secret Wars.  All of these Avengers issues I’ll be reading on Marvel Digital Unlimited and so there will be a 6 month gap which I’ll just read them as they come out on MDU (Marvel Digital Unlimited).

We’ll see how this goes.  I’ll post again at the release of issue 4 of Secret Wars which will be the halfway point and see if my plan worked and how I feel about the event in general.


Complete Gwen Stacy June Marvel Variants

It’s no secret that I have been a fan of Spider-Gwen going all they way back to the release of Edge of Spider-verse 2.  Well I am not alone.  The people have gotten a taste of Spider-Gwen and the people have spoken, more Gwen!  So in celebration of everyone’s favorite webslinger Marvel is release 20 Gwen-spired variant covers across all it’s lines in the month of June.  Here is the complete list of comics followed by their covers:

  • 1602 Witch Hunter Angela #1 by John Tyler Christopher
  • Armor Wars #1 by David Lafuente
  • Black Widow #19 by Dan Hipp
  • Captain America & The Mighty Avengers #9 by Jake Wyatt
  • Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars #2 by Chris Bachalo
  • Future Imperfect #1 by Nick Bradshaw
  • Groot #1 by Giuseppe Camuncoli
  • Guardians of Knowhere #1 by Rob Guillory
  • Howard The Duck #4 by Jason Latour
  • Inhumans: Attilan Rising #2 by James Stokoe
  • Magneto #19 by Declan Shalvey
  • Old Man Logan #3 by Chris Samnee
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. #7 by Robbi Rodriguez
  • Secret Wars #3 by Nick Bradshaw
  • Secret Wars #4 by Chris Samnee
  • Secret Wars 2099 #2 by Jason Latour
  • Squadron Sinister #1 by Greg Smallwood
  • Thors #1 by Kris Anka
  • Ultimate End #2 by Chip Zdarsky
  • X-Men ’92 #1 by Ryan Stegman

Mystery Comic 2: Fantastic Four 383

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This week’s comic is a classic example of the early 90’s. There is a ton of shit going on and every one is saying out thinking out loud everything that is happening around them. So this comic starts off with a sub note that Reed Richards is dead. Now in the comic world a death is held with a grain of salt. Jean Grey has been known to die at least 20 different times, so we won’t take his death too seriously. Even this comic doesn’t seem to bother with taking his death seriously, this is the first page.

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“The apparent death of their leader, Reed Richards”. I mean come on at least pretend to commit to this!

Any ways this is my first Fantastic Four comic that I have ever read. I am some what familiar with the characters in that I have watched both of the shitty movies they released in the 2000’s. I don’t know why the thing is wearing a helmet the entire time though and I can’t explain Sue Storms weird boob window in her costume.

Boob Window Crop - Skitch

“The apparent death of their leader, Reed Richards”. I mean come on at least pretend to commit to this!

Any ways this is my first Fantastic Four comic that I have ever read. I am some what familiar with the characters in that I have watched both of the shitty movies they released in the 2000’s. I don’t know why the thing is wearing a helmet the entire time though and I can’t explain Sue Storms weird boob window in her costume.

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At first I was going to let this slide, since I don’t know what is going on and what the Skrull are and what they have done. But then I thought about it and this guy’s name is Devastator and he flies around in the Death Cruiser, not exactly a name you use if your mission is peace. He says in another panel that his “scared duty is to eliminate any life form capable of waging war”. Wait what? CAPABLE of waging war? So basically any civilization capable of hurting one another. Any ways this side story goes on the entire comic. This all occurs on the same planet that the Fantastic Four are on so you are probably assuming that they will get involved in this in some way but they don’t. This story ends with Paibok, who is the king of the skrulls beating out Devastator and saving the planet (yay!). While this sounds well and good who really gives a shit, this has nothing to do with the Fantastic Four who are spending the entire book trying to leave the planet.

So I guess the main story is that of the Fantastic Four trying to escape imprisonment. It’s not really clear why they are imprison but for whatever reason it seems that it occurred around the same time Reed Richards “apparent” death. So it’s the Thing, Sue Storm, and The Human Torch along with female Skrull who probably fucked the Torch (I’m not making that up they infer that they boned). So that’s straightforward enough right? Wrong. The skrull woman is also preggers and apparently skrulls are only able to have a baby with the assistance of some device. So after they break out of prison they have to break into a hospital to get said device.

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So after helping the skrull woman get the birthing device they grab a space ship and GTFO. That’s pretty much the end of the Fantastic Four side of the story. I did very much enjoy the hilarious references to pop culture that the Thing makes. I made up a montage of them.

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That brings us to the last part of our story which is probably the strangest. Which is the fight between Franklin Richards and Huntra. They don’t tell you who either of them are or where/when any of this is taking place. So checking on comicvine Franklin is Richard and Sue Storm’s child and is a omega level mutant. I think it’s still taking place in the future since he appears to be grown and the Fantastic Four don’t seem to be that old, I have no idea though, this is just a guess. Any ways they are fighting off and on throughout the entire book for no explained reason. It ends with a cliffhanger that apparently Franklin Richards has to kill his own mother for some unexplained reason.

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And that’s pretty much the comic!

There was one strange thing I noticed in the letters section in the back and that is that on the letters they had the full address of every one who sent in a letter. Which is a pretty terrible decision on Marvel’s part seeing as they are pretty much all from kids.

And to end our report we have my favorite ads from the 90’s which include LCD video games, Huffy bike, and some Sega video games.

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Spider-Gwen

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The first issue of Spider-Gwen finally came out as part of its own new on going series this past Wednesday.  Now you might remember Spider-Gwen from her first appearance in Edge of Spider-verse 2.

Let’s back it up a little further.  Over the last couple of months there has been a spider-line wide crossover event at Marvel called Spider-verse.  The core series of Spider-verse takes place in Amazing Spider-man Issues 9-15, however it spans across every spider-man related book that is out right now in Marvel (Superior Spider-Man, Spider-man 2099, Scarlet Spiders, Spider-verse Team Up, Spider-woman, Spider-verse, Edge of Spider-verse).  I think

I’ll write a separate blog post just about the Spider-verse but the long and short of it is the Inheritors are killing Spider-men across every parallel universe and in order to stop them a team of Spider-men from across the multiverse team up.  So because this event involves many different versions of Spider-man Marvel released a five part series to re-introduce and in some cases introduce for the first time, some different versions of Spider-man.

Issue 2 of the Spider-verse introduced the world to Spider-Gwen.  It’s been the break out issue of the series.  As of right now it is entering it’s fifth print run and on Ebay 1st print run issues of Edge of Spider-verse 2 are going for as much as $150.  So it was no surprise that Marvel decided to spin out a on going series based on Spider-Gwen.  The series is written by Jason Latour with art by Robbi Rodriguez, who were the team that wrote and drew the Edge of Spider-verse issue 2.  So before we talk about Spider-Gwen let’s catch up, and they even provide us with a foundation of her on the first page of Edge of Spider-verse 2.

Edge of Spider-verse Previously On

So in this universe our Spider-gwen is thought to be responsible for the death of Peter Parker.  She is actually thought of as a villain, all though she is actively helping people out.  Because of this Kingpin sent out a goon to help recruit Gwen to join his forces.  A fight ensued and Gwen was forced to reveal her Identity to her dad.

The Mary Janes

Not only does this world’s Gwen have spider powers but she is also in a rock band “The Mary Janes” which has a hit single “Face it Tiger”, which is the most adorable thing ever.  The first issue of Spider-Gwen picks up right where Edge of Spider-verse 2 left off.  Gwen is trying to prove to her New York that she is a hero not a villain while trying to balance life as a teenager.  The art is fantastic and makes a lot of use of the secondary color pallet.  The sound description words have a cool stylization and make the pages really pop.  We get a lot of interesting stories threads in this issue, we get the one going struggle with Gwen and her dad, the infighting between Gwen and the band, a new threat of the Vulture, and ongoing thread of the King Pin.  The first issue was really fantastic and keeps the spirit of what they started in Edge of Spider-verse 2 and the lightness and fun that makes Spider-man such an enjoyable character.  Spider-Gwen is on my pull list and I can’t wait to get the next issue.  If you would like to buy a copy go to your local comic book shop (soon it’ll sell out) or pick it up here at Comixology.

As a little added bonus I tracked down all the variant covers I could find.  I’m still finding variant issues as there were a lot of retailer specific ones out there I didn’t know about.  I’ll update this as I find them.