The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: September 2014: Marvel Comics Collected Editions

I have been collecting comic books for a very long time.  When I first started, comics struggled for legitimacy in terms of mainstream acceptance.  They were still considered for children.

The term "graphic novel" was held for longer length, special format stories.  Collections of individual stories bound together were trade paperbacks.  It is still the term I use today.

I was alerted to the existence of these trades at WalMart via a story on the comic gossip site "Bleeding Cool".

WalMart is starting to stock a variety of Marvel trades at $5.00 each.  Each book also has a code for a free digital download (a realm I have yet to investigate.)

Here is a picture of the books at my WalMart that I posted on the Bleeding Cool site:

It is an impressive display.  I picked up the Spider-Man, Avengers and Guardians.  I had read the issues in the Cap collection and looking it over didn't think my son would enjoy it as much as the others.  Both my son and I devoured the other collections.

I give high marks to the Spider-Man and Avengers collections.  The Guardians was a bit more of a mish-mash, suffering from changing art styles, Brian Michael Bendis' habit of having each character sound exactly the same, and  having just seen the INCREDIBLE movie for a second time...

these stories were pale in comparison.

Our favorite was the Spider-Man collection.  He is a character I have never collected or read regularly.  The story line, regarding a new Hobgoblin, was intriguing enough that we are on the lookout for the next wave of these books.

The Avengers presented a nice time travel mystery that we want to see finished, too.

All in all, if you have a mild interest in comic books or these characters (who more and more read like their big screen counterparts), five bucks and a WalMart...you're in for a good time.