Generations: Miles Morales Spider-Man & Peter Parker Spider-Man

 

Comic: Generations: Miles Morales Spider-Man & Peter Parker Spider-Man

Where Purchased: 9 Planets Comics and Collectables in Dearborn Heights, Michigan

When Purchased: September 20, 2023

When Read: November 17, 2024

When I returned to collecting comics in 2003, Brian Michael Bendis was the hot writer.  I really enjoyed the slew of books he was writing....Alias, Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man.  Solid stories and got me into characters that I hadn't really collected before.

He moved on to MY title, The Avengers, and started spearheading all of Marvel's yearly events.

It did reach the point where I noticed that he didn't give each character their own voice.  In books with multiple characters, it often felt, to me, that you could switch around word bubbles or eliminate some characters and there would be no impact to the overall story.  I also noticed characters would have really weird parenthetical asides all the time.

So I drifted away from his work when he started a series called All-New X-Men, which had an intriguing premise but just didn't click with me.  After nearly 600 issues of Bendis-penned stories, I moved on.

This comic is part of a ten-issue anthology limited series that spun out of a Marvel event that I did not read. The overall idea of all of these Generations one-shots sees modern heroes being sent through time on a journey of self-discovery, each featuring a team-up of different incarnations of ten different superheroes.  The goal of the series was to examine who these heroes are and suggest where they might be heading in the future.

I stumbled across several issues in a dollar bin at a Books-A-Million and liked the variant covers as well as the characters involved.

From there, I picked up most of the others, with this being the last of them I wanted.  It is a fun read.  It seems like there have been some changes to Bendis's writing and the art is evocative of early Marvel.  A solid 8.

I picked this up on a 24 hour work trip to the greater Detroit area.  I flew in, arriving at 8:30 AM local time for an event that started at 5:00 PM.  Needless to say, I had some time on my hands.  I was able to visit 5 stores throughout the day and grabbed about two dozen books.

I also ended up with a hundred dollar traffic ticket....which is a story for another time.

Marvel Team-Up #13

 

Comic: Marvel Team-Up #13

Where Purchased: Most Excellent Comics & Gaming in Enfield, Connecticut

When Purchased: September 26, 2024

When Read: November 2, 2024

I've never been a huge Spider-Man fan.  Only one series ever was in my pull list and that was 2019's  Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.  And that I picked up because of the writer...which I am pretty sure I told him on social media when it was coming out and had a pleasant back and forth with him.  

Marvel Team-Up is another one of those books that I had picked up issues here or there...when a character I liked would guest star or if I needed a sympathy buy at a store I stopped in.  And then it reached the point that I had enough of them to justify adding the missing ones to my Want List in an effort to complete the series.

Which brings us to issue 13.  This was a fun little romp.  I like the way the story unfolds in that Spider-Man comes across some bad guys who exclaim "No...not him!  Not him, too!?!" when they see him.  I like that, in theory, there could've been a whole other comic running parallel to this that meets up at this point (ala Avengers Annual #14 and Fantastic Four Annual #19 in 1985) as Spider-Man finds out a few panels later that Captain America is fighting them.

I am not sure why I didn't pick this up sooner in my collecting history.  Avengers were my go to group (despite not collecting any of the solo titles) and the villain of this issue is the Grey Gargoyle who was the baddie in some of the first back issues I ever bought.

All in all, a story indicative of the time and a way to show the interconnectedness of the Marvel Universe.  I gave it a 7 out of 10 in the database.

I bought it at a cool little store in Connecticut called Most Excellent Comics & Gaming.  I first visited the store on Nan's birthday in 2019, at which time I picked up 15 gap filling comics.  I went back in November 2022 while Nan attended a photography class in Brattleboro.  I grabbed 33 gap fillers on that trip (and more at three other stores the same day!).  I am pretty sure I snagged a few action figures, too.

When we moved last year I was closer and able to go again in October after giving blood nearby.  The shop had changed a bit...back issues were a little less organized and a little less robust.  I was still able find some comics I wanted.  And when I stopped in around a work trip this past September, I found this issue along with some other issues on the want list.

As of today, this was the most recent issue of the title I have purchased.  With being able to check this off my list, I am only missing issues 2, 3, and 15.  All are obnoxiously hard to find at a reasonable price right now.  But my fingers are crossed.

Marvel Two-In-One #90

 

Comic: Marvel Two-In-One #90

Where Purchased: Richie's Comic Cabana in Waterbury, Connecticut

When Purchased: May 4, 2024

When Read: October 29, 2024

For the longest time, for series like this or Marvel Team-Up, I would get the issues that either had characters I liked as guest stars or featured a creative team that I enjoyed.  And then titles like this became easy books to snag if I visited a shop that didn't have much to offer me but I wanted to buy something to support them.

Then I'd assess my collection and recognize that I was getting near a full run so the missing issues would end up on my want list so that I could complete the run.  This series is now on the "Need to Complete" list so when I found this in the wild it was an easy pick up.

This is a fairly standard, straight-forward comic from the era.  Basically, Spider-Man and the Thing team up to fight a medieval wizard that possess a Renaissance Fair magician. Written by Jan Strand who also wrote a mini-series about the Atom for DC around this time that I really liked and have been hankering to reread for a while now.

I gave it a solid 6 out of 10.

I picked it up on Free Comic Book Day this year.  One of the benefits of our move is the proximity to so many comic shops.  I'll save the big story about this year's adventure for another time.

One of our stops was at Richie's Comic Cabana.  I had ordered a few comics from Richie's via eBay the previous August.  I'll share all about that purchase sometime soon, too.

But I knew about the physical location and we made it one of our three stops.  It was delightful chaos.  So many great books and such great prices. 

And after a few other recent purchases, I am only missing issues 2, 3, 6, and 8 of this series!  Nothing too crazy so I should stumble across them any day now!

October 26, 2014: Vermont ComicCon

After an all day class yesterday, I spent the afternoon and evening visiting with The Armchair Squid and Drama Guy.  We watched next month's Mock Squid Soup movie, Space Battleship Yamoto (available for FREE on YouTube!) and had some good conversation and some good Chinese food.

Today...today was Vermont ComicCon!  The Squids and Mocks met up and had a blast.  I'm at the point in my comic book collecting where there really isn't anything on my wish list.  I occasionally hear about a run or a series I missed that might be worth picking up.  But today was about random finds, artists and costumes!

I grabbed two Batman '66 comics for Logan, four random Star Trek issues (two John Byrne photo novels and two alternate reality issues) and a Red Sonja one shot.  For a buck a piece, I couldn't say no!

I also snagged all 5 issues of the Spider-man: With Great Power... mini-series for $2.00!

I spent some time exploring the work of a whole lot of artists!  I picked up a Doctor Who print by Blair Shedd from one of his recent Doctor Who comics and a smaller print from Vermont artist Lee Wakerly of the 12th Doctor.  I plan on displaying them both in my classroom.

Blair Shedd: Approximately 11" by 7"

Mr. Shedd signing his print

Lee Wakerley: Approximately 4" by 6"

Mr. Shedd also did TWO sketches!  One for my son and one for his friend!

Nan bought a limited run print from Mr. Shedd with a Vermont theme for the house!

And then the costumes....you can see more on Nan's NEW site here!

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.

"I hate your food."

"PETER & GWEN" — A Bad Lip Reading of The Amazing Spider-Man

12-12-12

I am a geek for numbers, so today's date does intrigue me.  To "celebrate", here are 12* comics I own....that are #12 in their series!

*I know there are WAY more than 12 covers here....I started this post last weekend.  I had planned to narrow this down before publishing it and time got away from me!  As it is, I am writing this footnote a full day late!!