Mystique #1

 

Comic: Mystique #1

Where Purchased: Comic Kings in Virginia Beach, Virginia

When Purchased: October 21, 2024

When Read: October 26, 2024

Whenever I travel, I try to find a comic shop to stop in and visit.  There is a little method to my madness.  I'll search around an area with Google and Google Maps.  Take a look at the pictures that are available.  Do they have wall books?  Can I see prices?  Too many Pops?  Can I see the size of their back issue area?

We needed a stop on our way to the Outer Banks to break up the drive and stretch our legs before we found some lunch.

Well, Comic Kings had a lot going for it.  They have price tags on their wall books that you can clearly see via Google and things were reasonably priced!

So while Nan wandered a nearby Food Lion, I explored this cool store.  Back issues were reasonably priced and I filled a little gap in my Daredevil collection.  I also snagged an early Star Lord appearance in Marvel Preview.  

I also saw this issue of Mystique and grabbed it.  I am a sucker for variant covers these days.  And I do like Mystique.  So even thought this wasn't on my radar, I picked it up.

I miss the X-Men but couldn't crack the recent Krakoa era.  I have been picking up books from the new "From The Ashes" but this is the first one I've had time to read.  

I gave it a 7 out of 10 in my database.  This is a decent jumping on issue and I like the art.  Not a huge fan of using '90s creation Maverick, as I really don't know anything about him and not sure why I should care.  I'll come back for another issue, as the ending intrigued me enough to give it one more try...especially if I can find a cool variant cover.

As for the store, Comic Kings is worth a visit.  The owner was so nice and he shared that the price tags used to be hand drawn by his father until they decided to scan every number and print them out moving forward.  There is also some really cool art on the packages of bags and boards (which I am kicking myself for not getting, as they were also reasonably priced) all done by a younger, female employee who has a knowledge of older comic characters which wowed me.  Apparently, she has had some letters published in Saga giving Brian K. Vaughn the business!  I'll have to keep an eye out!

Merry Christmas 2014

I hope your day is splendid!  As I eagerly await the time we get to watch our first Doctor Who Christmas special ON Christmas Day, enjoy these Christmas themed comic book covers from my collection!

This Month In History

This has been a CRAZY week!  I had a HUGE project due for my Masters Class which required me staying at school each night this past week until 10:00.  Progress Reports went out on Friday.  Our students started our final end of the year project, which is my baby, so I had to go to each of the fifth grade classrooms to introduce it...and I still had to teach my regular classes.

That being said, I missed my May 1st comic cover post.  So, 3 days late but here are some comics I own with May cover dates.

May 1964

My oldest issue of "The Avengers".  I'm fairly certain I got it at a convention held on UVM's campus in the mid-1980s.  If memory serves, it was in the same building the majority of my classes were held when I eventually attended UVM in the early 1990s.

May 1965

My oldest X-Men comic.  This I got so very cheap when I first started buying back issues.

May 1973

This is the storyline where Doctor Doom stiffs Luke Cage out of a $200 payment, leading to Cage going on a mission of revenge to Latveria. You can read more about it here.  The payoff issue includes one of my favorite panels of all time.

"Where's my money, honey?"

And that's all I can do today...

Happy February!

I was up for about two hours this morning before I realized it was a new month!  What a nightmare January seems to have been!  It ended nicely though....despite the cancellation of recess, my teaching partner and I threw on our jackets and got our students outside for twenty minutes.  We secured a bus in the afternoon and went to the high school to see a wonderful performance of "Guys and Dolls" (co-directed by The Armchair Squid) with all of the fifth grades.  And I ended the day with Nan, our boy, and a dozen friends at an impromptu gathering at our local Buffalo Wild Wings.

So here are some of my favorite comic book covers with February dates:

February 1963

My oldest February comic.  I found this on my desk last year but with no recollection of where it came from.  I am meticulous with my records and couldn't find any invoice or any indication as to where it came from.  It should probably bug me more than it does...

February 1966

Another issue from "The Riley Collection"...I probably should read it just to find out what's the deal with Susan!

February 1978

One of the best Batman/Joker stories of all time.  The writer, Steve Englehart, once wrote that the comics from this run "define the modern Batman franchise, and from that, the modern superhero film franchise."  

February 1981

One of the last great self-contained stories in the X-Men franchise.  The entire story that will be the basis of the next X-Men film was completed in two issues.  Today it would be a twelve issue mini-series with numerous spin-offs and no lasting repercussions...

February 1983

My comic book collecting software assigns numbers to everything.  If I had been thinking long term when I started using it, this comic would be number 1.  This is the one that started it all.  Not a terribly remarkable cover but this is the one that started my obsessi....hobby!  

I just mentioned to Nan this morning that someday it might be fun to get a piece of original art from this issue!  While looking to see what was out there, I found this image of the original cover choice:

I remember once seeing an image of the two covers combined but I thought it was done purely as a goof...I had no idea they had messed up originally and someone blended the two covers together!

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: December

After missing the Coffeehouse for so many months in a row (mostly because I wasn't really reading anything) I feel I am back with a vengeance!

The first book I finished was Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  Our host, The Armchair Squid, has a wonderful teaching partner that I have come to consider a friend over the past year.  He gave my son a copy of the book for his birthday back in July.  My son tried but couldn't get into it right away.  I made some head way over the summer.  Once the new school year started, I was really pushed to finish it when I discovered several of my new student's were really into it.  I'm glad I went back.  I'm getting a LOT of pressure to try the sequels/continuation of the series, but I think I will wait a little bit.

The next book I finished was Heck by Zander Cannon.  It was a gift for ME from our host for my birthday back in October.  (Click HERE to discover our host's connection to the author!). I will admit I was initially skeptical about diving in.  Heck is not my "normal" sort of comic work.  I am so glad I dove in.

The book introduces us to Hector Hammerskjöld as he returns to his hometown after his father died. He bumps into an old flame at the funeral. Being "home" stirs up lots of conflicted emotions in our "hero". He inherits his father's house where he discovers a gateway to Hell in the basement!

When I was younger, I attempted to read Dante's Inferno after I was exposed to it via X-Men King Size Annual 4.  Cannon entitles a chapter where Heck visits Dante's famous city "Dis Must Be The Place." I love puns!

My teaching partner handles 85% of the ELA work load and asks our students to create book projects when they finish a book.  I did my first project this year on Heck!  I sketched one of the scenes from a slightly different angle.  The kids loved it!

My cousin recently posted a quote that I love.  ("Nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren’t enjoying but think they ought to read.” -Nancy Pearl.)  I didn't think I "ought to read" Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan but I really wanted to like it.  I like him and my mom was keen to share it with me.

Instead, it joins by Goodreads shelf of "Abandoned Books".  It just didn't click for me.  I was expecting funnier and it just didn't merit my time.  In fact, it stopped my reading resurgence cold!

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us:

1.	The Armchair Squid	2.	Scouring Monk
3.	Huntress	4.	mainewords
5.	Wishbone Soup Cures Everything	6.	What's Up, MOCK?!
7.	The Writing Sisterhood	8.	A Creative Exercise

Happy December!

I like comic books.  I've been collecting comics for over 30 years.  I have 8,781 comics in my database with about 20 more lying around waiting to be entered.  I've brought comics into every classroom I've ever had and have shared my love with my students more and more in recent years.

 I am a fanboy but have recently slipped into a "grumpy-old-man, get-off-my-lawn, back-when-I-was-a-kid" sort of phase with comics.  I liked stories, back in the day, that lasted an issue or two.  I am NOT a fan of books these days that are one long continuous soap opera with no jumping on or off point.  I dropped my last superhero book from my pull list yesterday.

Awhile back, I intended to spotlight certain comics on the first day of each month.  So, without further ado...here are a bunch of comics, in my collection, that bear December cover dates!

Cover Date 1964
My 10th oldest comic book!

Cover Date 1975
Man, does this cover make me laugh!

Cover Date 1976
I love Neal Adams' cover art...but this is one weird image!

Cover Date 1979
One of my all time favorite covers!

Cover Date 1979
You can take the Justice League out of the 70s, but...

Cover Date 1980
Totally forgot I own this until I was scrolling through for this post!

Cover Date 1980
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

There aren't many December dated comics in my collection worth spotlighting!  But scrolling through the database gave me a bucket load of ideas of issues to donate to Goodwill!!

70′s Beast Meets Wolverine On The Set Of X-Men: Days Of Future Past

via Bleeding Cool

X-Men director Bryan Singer keeps tweeting pictures from the set of X-Men: Days of Future Past .  This is the most recent...I am starting to get more excited for this movie!!

X is for X2: X-Men United

X2: X-Men United is currently # 40 on my flickchart list.

One of the best superhero films.  I loved the introduction of Nightcrawler and the look into Wolverine's origins.  Well crafted!

Even though the promise of the Dark Phoenix saga was squandered with the next movie, it was set up so nicely here.

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I am using my flickchart list and blogging about the highest ranked movie for each letter of the alphabet.  

Click HERE and become my flickchart friend!

Why not jump around the Blogging from A to Z Challenge and find some new blogs to read!

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!!