Comic Books and Cats

Here is everything that is included in this years box:

House of X Issue 1: Shalvey Connecting Variant

House of X Issue 2: Shalvey Connecting Variant

Marvel Legends Exclusive Purple Deadpool Figure

X-Men Patch

X-Men Cyclopes Enamel Pin

The box is X-men themed and looked really good.  The bright yellow and red colors really popped and it had a wrap around picture across the front.  (added a bonus cat in the pictures.

First up is the yearly letter which is in the X-men theme.  I don’t know why but I do like these letters and they are printed on very nice paper stock.

The comics are the first two issues of House of X.  The variants look great and I really like that they are connecting variants.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I’m disappointed in the Marvel Legends figure.  This is clearly a just a old figure they already had with a new paint job and being called an “exclusive”.  Marvel Unlimited Plus is a 30 dollar premium over the normal Marvel Unlimited subscription and while that isn’t a huge amount its enough that I expect better than this.  Right now the Deadpool figure goes for 19 to 60 on ebay (which my figure will be joining them for sale soon…).

Last is the patch and pin.  The enamel pin is similar quality to years past and while it’s not terrible it’s also only ok.  I like the Scottie Young design on it but still feel mostly meh on it.  I like the patch a lot, this is the new X-Men logo for House of X so there isn’t a lot of mech for it.  It’s a cool design and fits in to the theme well.

What else do you get in a Marvel Unlimited Plus subscription?  There are invites to members only events at SDCC, NYCC, and C2E2.  They actually seem like cool events that if you go to them you get additional free variant covers of comics and some insider information at the panel.  However, I don’t live anywhere near these events and will likely never go to them so it’s not much a benefit.  You also get 15% off digital comics from comixology / Marvel Comics Digital store.  However, Marvel has just recently announced the Marvel Comics shop is closing so this benefit is ending.  Lastly you can get 10% off all things from marvelshop.com.  I’ve never used this benefit before and forget that it is a benefit entirely, but hey, 10% isn’t much but it’s something.

Overall outside of the disappointment in the Marvel Legends figure it’s a really great box and I’m pleased with what I got in it.

This is my fifth year being a Marvel Unlimited Plus member and the theme for 2018 was Venom, based on the fact that the movie was coming out a few months after the release of the new Unlimited Plus kit.  I’ll be honest I’m not a huge Vemon fan.  When a villian becomes popular enough to become the “star” or the “anti-hero” it has rarely worked out.  They wind up just being the hero “but edgy” while not actually being edgy at all.  But that isn’t why we are here.

First off here is a run down of everything included in the kit:

Blank Panther Vol. 7 Issue 1: Marvel Unlimited Subscription Variant by Jamal Campbell

Venom Vol. 4 Issue 1: Marvel Unlimited Subscription Variant by Paul Renaud

Fantastic 4 Patch

The Thing Enamel Pin

Marvel Legends Venomized Punisher Action Figure

The box was venom themed and looked pretty good.  It had a cool venom logo in the inside and on the flap.  I added a bonus picture of Celine helping me take pictures.

  First up is the yearly letter.  It’s very much the least important item in the box but I actually do appreciate it.  Its on nice paper stock and has a vemon theme.  I hope they continue to include this in the future boxes.

  The comics are look great, the art is fantastic and event though its two different artists they have a similar theme.  I like that the art also takes up the whole front cover and has the Marvel Unlimited logo at the bottom as well.  In my case I enjoy the comics and have kept all of the ones I’ve received in these Unlimited Plus packages.  However if you are looking at upgrading to the Plus subscription to make money off the comics sadly they don’t go for much at all.  It’s been a year and a half since this box was released at the resell price for these comics is still at $5 which is the cover price for the comics.  10 dollars for the two is still something but for a variant that I’d imagine is actually kind of rare i’d have thought it would go for more

Next is the Venomized Punisher Marvel Legends figure.  Overall it’s a nice looking figure.  It doesn’t look like they just put spare parts together like they did last year for the Tony Stark figure and used a new mold.  Like I said before, I’m not a huge Venom fan so I actually winded up selling mine on ebay.  Unlike the variant comics the Marvel Legends figures still catch a decent price and this figure is still going for 60 to 100 dollars on ebay.

Next is The Thing Enamel Pin and Fantastic Four Patch.  There isn’t a whole lot to say about these.  The quality of the patch is fairly good but the quality of the pin is only ok.  I do like that they have been including the patches in with the kits but wish the pins were better quality.  It is a little odd that they went with Fantastic Four for these since the box, Marvel Legends figure, and comics were all venom themed.

What else do you get in a Marvel Unlimited Plus subscription?  There are invites to members only events at SDCC, NYCC, and C2E2.  They actually seem like cool events that if you go to them you get additional free variant covers of comics and some insider information at the panel.  However, I don’t live anywhere near these events and will likely never go to them so it’s not much a benefit.  You also get 15% off digital comics from comixology / Marvel Comics Digital store.  This isn’t a terrible benefit but I generally forget about it and don’t use it.  In order to get it you have to buy your comics through Marvels separate digital store so it’s unlikely you’ll get to stack your 15% off with other comixology deals.  If you are buying full price comics from marvel digitally this could be a good deal though.  Lastly you can get 10% off all things from marvelshop.com.  I’ve never used this benefit before and forget that it is a benefit entirely, but hey, 10% isn’t much but it’s something.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the package.  Basically it’s a 30 dollar premium to get Marvel Unlimited Plus over a yearly Marvel Unlimited subscription and I’ve still found it worth it to pay for it.  Selling the Marvel Legends figure actually brought the price of the entire subscription down quite a bit but it’s not something I factored in to my decision to continue to get a plus subscription

All-New, Possibly Different? Comic Books and Cats

Hey there True Believers,

It’s been a while.  It’s funny, in my mind I hadn’t posted in a few months and then I actually look and whoops it’s been 3 years.  A lot has changed and some hasn’t changed.  I’ll get into it more in a future post but basically I got really burned out on comics after the Secrete Wars / Convergence event back in 2015 and never really recovered from it.  I went from a…

Marvel Unlimited Plus 2017 Unboxing

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That’s right it’s Marvel Unlimited Plus time!  I started subscribing to Marvel Unlimited as a birthday gift and it just so happens that the new Unlimited Plus box comes out within days of my birthday so when I do get a the new box it really is brand spanking new.  For this unboxing I want to do two things, first I want to have a classic unboxing of this…

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #3 by Kris Anka

All-New Wolverine #21 by David Lopez

Avengers #8 by Mike Allred

Black Bolt #2 by Ryan Stegman

Captain America: Steve Rogers #18 by Paolo Rivera

Champions #9 by Helen Chen

Daredevil #21 by Humberto Ramos

Deadpool #32 by Elizabeth Torque

Doctor Strange #22 by Francisco Herrera

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #17 by David Nakayama

Hulk #7 by Rahzzah

I Am Groot #2 by Julian Totino Tedesco

Invincible Iron Man #8 by Marco Checchetto

Iron Fist #4 by Stephanie Hans

Mighty Thor #20 by Patrick Brown

Secret Warriors #3 by Javier Rodriguez

Spider-Gwen #21 by Kevin Wada

The Mighty Captain Marvel #6 by Chris Samnee

The Punisher #13 by Dave Williams

Venom #151 by Francesco Mattina

X-Men Blue #5 by Emanuela Lupacchino

X-Men Gold #5 by Anthony Piper

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As an extra bonus here are four more variant covers with Mary Jane as member of the Avengers drawn by J. Scott Campbell

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As if my weekly television didn’t consist of enough comic book properties on February 8th FX is premiering a new show called Legion which centers around David Haller, aka Legion, aka Professor Xavier’s son.  I am pretty excited, the previews so far have been pretty awesome (check out the trailer here) and I’ve always been a big fan of the X-Men.  Which brings us to the matter at hand!  Legion is…

Before we get in to the movie we have to address the elephant in the room.  There is no way to talk about this movie without first thinking about the Taylor Swift song.  I’m sure that DC Animation Studios picked the name for this movie way before Taylor Swift released 1989 but it doesn’t really matter at this point.  The name Bad Blood will forever be associated with Taylor Swift and we just…

Here is what was inside:

Judge Dredd 1 Comic Block Exclusive Variant from IDW

Scarlet Witch 1 from Marvel

Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 from DC / IDW

Comic Block Exclusive Superman / Lex Luthor Magnets

Judge Dredd I Am the Law T-Shirt

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First off let me say that this month’s Comic Block took a ridiculous amount of time to get here.  I got the “Your Order has Shipped” E-Mail on December 14rd and didn’t receive the box until January 12th.  My Comic Block was being processed by UPS for an entire month!  It’s not that I’m mad that it arrived so late in January, it’s that it told me it was coming and then nothing happened for the better part of a month.  Apparently the people of Comic Block tweeted out that the boxes were going to be late due to Christmas but still, we all knew Christmas was coming and it feels like a lack of plan on their part.

Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1

These multi-publisher crossovers seem to be what IDW does the most these days.  We’ve already seen one of these in the July Comic Block with Green Lantern / Star Trek.

I actually thought the Green Lantern / Star Trek crossover was a pretty solid book… The Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not so much.

I’ll be honest I thought this book was going to be garbage the second I saw it, but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, after all it did have James Tynion IV as the author so it couldn’t be that bad?  Well it wasn’t god awfully bad but it wasn’t good either.  It was very meh, which might be worse than it just being a fun terrible book.  The story doesn’t matter because its so forgettable that I already don’t remember what happened and I literally just finished reading it.  The art is actually pretty terrible which was a huge disappointment.

It is a watercolor shaded style which just looks cheap.

The turtles look decent but all the Batman aspects look like they were drawn by someone who is drawing Batman for the first time.

The Batmobile is probably the worst version of the Batmobile I’ve ever seen.

If you love the Turtles and Batman maybe this is for you, but for everyone else I would just pass.

Scarlet Witch 1

When I found out this book was going to be in this month’s Comic Block I was very excited.  Scarlet Witch is one of the characters I don’t know very well but would like to find some good stories to dive in to.  Unfortunately this isn’t the book for that.

The only Scarlet Witch arc I’ve read was House of M in which Scarlet witch depowered all but a couple hundred mutants simply by saying “no more mutants” and Avengers vs. X-Men when she fought Hope Summers.  I enjoyed both of those stories but neither really gave me a clear explanation of what Scarlet Witch’s powers are, other than she is extremely powerful.  So I was looking forward to this comic to hopefully bring some clarity.

Clarity I did not get.  So apparently Scarlet Witch is not a mutant but is actually a real witch and her powers are possibly spell based?  This comic centers around Scarlet Witch going to a crime scene to help the cops out with a murder that seemed to be magically motivated.  This is super weird.  It is basically like a episode of Law & Order but with a mutant, in costume, helping out.  Turns out that the murder was actually possessed by a demon and said demon had actually possessed the lead detective that was with Scarlet Witch at the crime scene.  Scarlet Witch was able to exorcise that demon and save the detective.

This comic is weird.  It’s a crime procedural, Scarlet Witch has a ghost friend that hands around her apartment, and she walks around New York in costume without anyone giving her a second look.

There was also a part where Scarlet Witch talks about the Cat Massacre of 1730 which is a part of history that I could have been perfectly fine not knowing about.

Judge Dredd 1

The shirt in this box had me pretty excited for some Judge Dredd, so much so I winded up watching the Dredd movie from 2012.  So I was very disappointed and confused when I actually did read the comic.  It wasn’t that it was particularly bad, its just that they are clearly going for a big arc here and this being the first issue we were left entirely in the dark of what was going on.

The comic begins with Dredd waking up in a field and clearly something happened and a large amount of time has passed.

Dredd picks up a couple of moppets.  They then go inside a weird building thing that looks like one of the mega cities and surprise it is a mega city!  And that’s it, we don’t get any more information or plot.

There is some weird stuff in this comic too.  There is this strange herd of animal people that spout off weird vaguely political things that get mowed down.  This might wind up being a great arc, its definitely got enough in this issue to have me intrigued.

Character Profile on The Maker

Today we are here to discuss the Maker, and no, I am not talking about Jesus. I’m talking about The Maker of Marvel Comics, the alter ego of Ultimate Reed Richards.  Let’s take a minute to appreciate that sentence. Reed Richards is Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. But this is not the normal canonical version of Reed Richards, this is the alternative Ultimate Universe version of Reed…

In addition to the three normal varieties (color, ink, pencils) one lucky buyer will truly hit the jackpot as each artist created an original 1 of 1 sketch cover which was slipped in the mix as well.  Here is J. Scott Campbell’s original sketch variant that he posted on his Facebook page.  Sadly with the number of collector’s that will buy copies of these books and never open them its likely that a few of these original sketch variants will never see the light of day.

Here’s the full list of comics and artists:

Harley’s Little Black Book 1 – J. Scott Campbell

Justice League 47 – Jim Lee

Justice League Of America 6 – Joe Madureira

The Flash 47 – Terry Dodson

Green Arrow 47 – Tim Sale

Wonder Woman 47 – Amanda Conner

Superman 47 – Lee Bermejo

Batman 47 – Alex Ross

Harley Quinn 23 – Bruce Timm

Green Lantern 47 – Darwyn Cooke

Here is the complete collection of covers including each in full colors, inks, and pencils:

Harley’s Little Black Book 1

Justice League 47

Justice League Of America 6

The Flash 47

Green Arrow 47

Wonder Woman 47

Superman 47

Batman 47

Harley Quinn 23

Green Lantern 47

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This month had a Star Wars Theme and we got two different Star Wars books.  There is again no sign of the allusive graphic novel this month, however we did get something new.  This box is the first time that the “extra” item has been a exclusive item.

We got a cool little Mjölnir keychain which was a Comic Block Exclusive.  It looks like they didn’t quite have the rights to just call it Mjölnir though because on the description card it simply says “the hammer of the gods”.

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Here is the complete run down of what came in the box:

Star Wars: Vader Down Issue 1 Comic Block Exclusive Variant

Howard the Duck Issue 1

Pacific Rim: The Drift Issue 1 Comic Block Exclusive Variant

Star Wars Issue 1 Fan Expo Variant

“Hammer of the Gods” Keychain

Batgirl T-Shirt

Weirdly they didn’t put the Star Wars comic on the insert card of things inside the box.  I actually got copy of the same Star Wars Fan Expo Variant Cover from a Nerd Block box I got several months ago.  My guess is that they still had some extra issues around from that Nerd Block and added them to this box last minute.

I am a big Batgirl fan so this shirt should be something I really like.  The new Batgirl costume and the Rosie the Riveter homage are both things I would like in theory.  However, Batgirl looks terrible.  I don’t know if I can place it, but her face just looks off.  This is a huge disappointment because I would really like this shirt but because of how messed up Barbara’s face looks I doubt I’ll be wearing it at all.

Pacific Rim: The Drift Issue 1

I really wanted to like this comic but in the end really disliked it.  I loved the 2013 film Pacific Rim so a comic that would take me back into that world actually sounded really interesting even though it was a licensed property.  There are so many aspects of the Pacific Rim world I wanted to know about and this comic managed to explore none of them.  It centered around a married pair of Jaeger pilots that are losing a battle with a Kaiju and getting exposed to radiation.  It goes back and forth between the fight they are in and flashback of with they first met.  That’s pretty much it.  The art is very stylized and looks like Adi Granov’s artwork from Iron Man: Extremis.  It doesn’t look bad but its so stylized that you can’t see any of the detail of the Kaiju or the Jaegar.  If I’m going to read a comic about giant robots fighting monsters I want to see it!  Maybe it gets better later on when the story kicks in but this first issue had me entirely uninterested.

Howard the Duck Issue 1

Please stop trying to make Howard the Duck a thing. The after credits teaser on Guardians of the Galaxy was perfect. After having a movie starring a talking Raccoon having a small little nod to Marvel’s goofier side was a great way to send off the film. Apparently what Marvel took from this is that people simply love Howard the Duck and want more of him! The fact is new audiences don’t know or care who Howard is, and older audiences who have nostalgia for Howard no longer read comics or care. There simply no audience this book is fulfilling.

Look Howard the Duck has an important history with Marvel. When the character was created in the 70’s it was subversive and edgy (I know that sounds strange but it really was) but that time has passed. Howard was always a comic aimed at older audiences so if you were a fan in the 70’s you were likely in your 20’s which would place you in your 60’s now and most likely not buying comics. If you are in your 20’s to 30’s then you didn’t grow up with Howard the Duck and your only experience is the terrible movie from the 80’s.

What about new audiences you ask? It doesn’t really matter the roots of the character if it is being written well today right? Well that would be correct, but it’s not being written well. Howard the Duck’s shtick is comedy and Marvel has solidly filled that spot with Deadpool. The comedic elements of this comic are just a shallow echo of what it would be if it were Deadpool. But even worse than that this comic just isn’t funny. There were a couple of enjoyable moments but I didn’t laugh once reading it and it felt way more like a chore to read than anything else.

Star Wars Issue 1

This is a great comic let me say that to start with. It feels fresh and gives us an original adventure with everyone’s favorite space gang. It has plenty to fill your nostalgia void along with a new adventure and story to get you excited to read more.

That said the nostalgia factor of these new Star Wars comics are going to be the death of them.  I am 100% ok with this comic being what it is.  It takes place between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi and centers around the original main gang.  Star Wars is a big world though and it would have been nice to see some of these new Marvel Star Wars comics not center specifically around the characters of the original trilogy.  Again I’m totally cool with there being this Star Wars and the Vader comic but do we really need a Chewbacca and Lando comic too?  The Force Awakens is going to introduce a slew of new characters so hopefully that will push away from the original trilogy which has been done to death.

Star Wars: Vader Down Issue 1

First and foremost I really love this variant cover.  It is the best cover I have seen of all these new Marvel Star Wars covers and something worthy of being framed.  The comic itself is the first issue of a Marvel Star Wars Crossover event called Vader Down.  Vader is investigating some intel on the location of some rebels and winds up overwhelmed surrounded by rebel forces.  While he is able to take out a few X-Wings he is overtaken by Luke and crash lands on the planet of Vrogas Vas.  Luke also manages to crash his X-Wing and the two begin searching for each other.

The overall story was good and I enjoyed the book.  The amount of issues involved in this crossover is a lot and honestly it just wasn’t great enough for me to buy in like 10 issues to find out what happens.  I might check it out in 6 months with the issues start appearing on Marvel Comics Unlimited.

The Dark Knight Returns Retrospective

Wednesday (11/25/15) the first issue of Dark Knight III: The Master Race was released in comic book stores and digitally so you’ve probably seen a flood of articles and podcasts talking about Frank Miller’s Dark Knight series.  This has left me at an impasse, on one hand The Dark Knight Returns is something that has been covered hundreds of times by others more eloquently than myself.  However,…