Heroes Aren't Hard to Find: Charlotte Mini-Con 2018 Haul (part 2)

If you stopped by the blog yesterday then you would've seen the first part of my Charlotte Mini-Con haul from this past weekend. One of the things I noticed with this show is that there were more "modern" comics in the $.50 boxes than I normally see. I assume this is because dealers over ordered on certain titles. Sucks for them, hooray for me! Because of this, I grabbed several books that I may not have messed with before.

This is the only copy of Super-Villain Team-Up that I own. It's a series that I've often thought about picking up, but rarely do I find issues in the boxes I comb through. I paid $1 for this book. Overall it's in pretty good condition for it's age.

A-Force is one of those titles that I picked up 1) because they were $.50 each and 2) because I found all but two of the issues. This is the 2nd volume of the title. It started as a Secret Wars mini-series, one that I didn't buy/read. I sat down this morning before I jumped into my work and I worked the Civil War II issues into my stack of books I'm currently reading. Yes, I'm that far behind on my reading...I'm about half way through reading CW II and most of the accompanying issues.

I'm glad I did sit down to read the pre-CW issues of A-Force as I greatly enjoyed the story and the art. I hate that I'm missing two issues, but I went ahead and read #1-7. I'm a big fan of Captain Marvel and I've enjoyed reading She-Hulk in the past. Good stuff.

I got back into the Avengers stuff last summer after finding all but one issue of the Avengers Standoff story at HeroesCon. This has led me back to reading more Avengers related titles, especially after looking over what's happening currently in the Avengers family of titles. Since I'm still behind in my reading, it was fun finding a few books I needed to fill holes. It'll make my reading that much more enjoyable once I get to these titles now that I have the majority of the issues.

I read the first volume of Uncanny Avengers for awhile and I enjoyed seeing mutant characters interact with long time Avengers. I picked up the Secret Empire crossover issues of Uncanny Avengers and shortly after I started finding back issues for cheap. I figured if I go back to at least issue #15 and fill in the holes that should make for a fun read.

I have to be honest. Secret Empire got me back into reading Captain America. I really hadn't read a Cap title since he was "killed" in the first Civil War event. When I heard what they were doing with him, I was intrigued. In a way it reminded me of what they did w/ Peter Parker and Doctor Octopus in Superior Spider-Man, a series that I LOVED. I was able to piece together all of the issues off the rack from various comic shops until I got caught up with the current issue at that time. 

Of course this means I didn't have any of Sam's Captain America title. I still don't have many, so I was glad to find these. All but the Steranko variant were found in the $.50 boxes. Flipping through a few of these issues I saw that the former New Warriors character, Rage, played a part in the story with the AmeriCops. His appearance alone made me want to read this title.

I found all but this one issue of Captain Marvel's title that crossed over w/ CW II at a comic show last fall, so the timing of finding issue 10 was pretty perfect. I've already got it qued to read as I'm getting close to finishing this event.

My brother has asked me on more than one occassion as to why I wasn't buying/reading Champions. I love Humberto Ramo's art and I'm already reading Nova and Spider-Man (Miles Morales). It makes sense that I should. I was tempted to pick up the Champions issues that crossed over w/ Avengers, but there is only so much money to go around. Having found several issues for $.50 however now has me looking to fill in the holes.

I found the first 7 issues of Contest of Champions last fall, but the last issue was nowhere to be found. I was glad to find #8...now I just gotta find where I put the other 7 so I can sit down and read them!

I can't get enough of the 80's/90's stuff from Marvel. The Siege of Darkness story I first learned about through the old Marvel Universe trading cards. I've slowly been picking up the various issues of this storyline and I just happened to find this issue of Marvel Comics Presents.

Speaking of 90's Marvel, I found the last 3 issues I lacked to complete Nightwatch's title. Very happy about these 3!

Amazing X-Men is a title I never would have thought to look for. I'm not a huge fan of the mutant titles, but I grabbed these solely because Firestar was part of the team/story. I guess you could say I have a soft spot for former New Warriors characters.

The only non-Marvel books of my haul (well technically I guess you could say these are Marvel titles) was Rune. My first exposure to Malibu Comics came with an issue of Godwheel #0 packaged inside Wizard magazine. As I learned more about the characters I became more intrigued and started to pick up select issues, mainly of UltraForce and Rune. Being a fan of Marvel's cosmic books, it was fun seeing the Infinity Stones, Adam Warlock and other Marvel characters interacting with the Ultraverse characters. It's a shame that Marvel really can't do anything with these characters these days.

Well, that wraps it up! I was surprised at just how much I found. I didn't expect to find so many books from recent years, but I'm glad I did as I have begun to expand my reading horizons a little bit more lately. Had I had more time, more money and my back and hip not been bothering me, I'm sure I could have brought more home with me. That's OK though, time for me to get back to reading and gearing up for the next local show in the spring.

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find: Charlotte Mini-Con 2018 Haul (part 1)

Last Saturday (01/28/18), I made the trip to uptown Charlotte, NC to my old college campus of CPCC at the Grady Cole Center. The best comic shop I've ever had the pleasure of shopping at, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, organizes the Charlotte Mini-Con each January along with the much larger HeroesCon during the summer. It's been awhile since I've been able to attend a comic book show, so I was glad to have made time in my schedule to attend (i.e. - my wife was gracious enough to let me attend!). 

Part of the fun of this event and others is that I get to spend some one-on-one time with my brother. Comics are something that we both enjoy so it's cool to get to share that with him. He is the one afterall that is responsible for getting me hooked on all of these colorful, costumed super heroes. While my reading and collecting comics has come and gone as I've grown up and started a family, my love for the characters has never ceased. I'm predominately a Marvel fan (again, thanks to my brother) and I enjoy most of Marvel's books from the Bronze age. 

In fact, when I go to shows and conventions I rarely look at the "wall books" and sniff out the $.50 boxes. That's were I generally plant myself, though as I'm getting older I start to feel the aches and pains in my body towards the end of the day / the next day after sitting on the floor, leaning over going through so many boxes!

On this trip to the Charlotte Mini-Con, I was able to find several tables that had great deals. I pulled out my phone and fired up the CLZ comic app and I started to dig to see what I could find. For starters I'll share the books I was able to find of one of my favorite characters, Spider-Man.

While my collection of Amazing Spider-Man is meager when compared to many other collector's, it remains one of my favorite titles to search out and try to fill in the holes. It's getting harder and harder to find AMS in cheap boxes so at some point in the near future I may have to set my sights on $1 boxes. *gasp!*

Only found one book I needed from the regular Spider-Man title, issue #51. This one has a foil cover and is a flip book. I found a small chip on the edge of the foil and almost put it back, but it was cheap, filled a hole so why not?

I remember when Web of Spider-Man #1 came out. I remember seeing it on the shelves at Heroes in Charlotte...however back then I wasn't reading comics. Of course by the time I "discovered" Spider-Man, most of his titles, including Web were already well along in their numbering. I've only recently started to buy issues of Web of Spider-Man so I was thrilled to find such a large run...especially for cheap!

At the time of this post, I'm still behind on reading my new books. I'm currently about half way through Civil War II, but before that I completed the Secret Wars mini series. While it wasn't my favorite Marvel event story, one thing that did come out of Secret Wars that I enjoyed was the Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows storyline. 

While I'm not a huge advocate of reversing the One More Day events, I did like reading a married Peter Parker. Toss in his daughter and super-powers and it makes for some fun stories, at least in my opinion. While I bought the Renew Your Vows mini-series, I didn't pick up the series when it became an ongoing series. I kinda regret that and I've been hoping to find back issues at an affordable price. While I only found the first two issues last weekend, I'm glad to have found them and I'm eagerly awaiting to read them.

One of the first Spider-Man stories I read was the now famous (or infamous?) clone story in Amazing Spider-Man. I loved every minute of it and have enjoyed the subsequent stories that took place afterwards. When the Scarlet Spider was given his own series, I wasn't currently buying new books so I've been trying to piece this series together for awhile. I don't usually see this title in $.50 or $1 boxes that often so I was more than happy to gobble up 4 issues that I didn't have, including the last issue of the series, #25.

Anything Venom always seems to be in demand. I found this one lone book of his The Hunted mini-series and according to my CLZ app, I didn't have it. Now I do.

Those are just the Spider-Man related books that I picked up. I'm still working on part 2 where I'll show off the other books that I was able to find on the cheap end. Thanks for stopping by!