McKay's Comic Haul

This first month of the new year has proven to be a busy month for me and with that comes some travel. While I've visited the McKay's store in Greensboro, NC on multiple occasions, I haven't visited their location in near by Winston-Salem, NC in years. Since then they have moved to a new, larger location and I finally worked in a visit this week.

I was immediately impressed by the sheer size of the store and all of the goodies to browse through. I stopped on my way home so I really didn't have much time to look. I was there on a mission to find and bring home a Taylor Swift CD for my 10 year old daughter. While I did succeed in finding a CD (for $2 to boot!) I did browse through a few short boxes of Marvel comics that were labeled as "new arrival". The previous day I did visit the Greensboro location and grabbed a few cheap comics so I'm tossing those into this post as well.

I'll start with this issue of Ghost Rider #80. I've been on a Ghost Rider kick of sorts lately so I've been specifically on the look out for his books. While I found several, I didn't feel like paying $1.25 an issue so I settled on this one. It's from late in this volume's run, plus it features the Valkyrie and some awesome artwork by Salvador Larroca.

I also found a few issues of the 2nd volume of the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider series. I've not read any of his series before, only familiar with the character as he was shown on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television series. It's a small run with like 6 issues so since I found half of them and they were cheap, I figured why not.

I'm not much of a speculator when it comes to comics, however my Key Collector comics app said this book may be a lead in of sorts to the big, upcoming Empyre story. $.50 plus art by Geraldo Sandoval made this an easy purchase.

I'm slowing filling some holes in a Daredevil run and I don't see the later issues in volume 1 in the cheap boxes that often. 

The Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty series may have been short lived, but I liked it. I don't see the issues that often, probably because the series didn't last long and or sell well. Both were priced decently.

Now that the Morbius movie trailer has dropped, I figured finding his stuff in cheap boxes would start to get tougher. Thankfully I've put together most of his first series, but I was lacking this issue that was part of the larger "Siege" storyline. I almost didn't buy this one because there is a small stain on the cover just below the UPC box...but it was just $.90 and an issue I've had on my want list for some time.

If it wasn't for the CLZ Comics app on my phone I could never keep track of all the different Spider-Man titles...especially from the 90's. This issue of Spectacular Spider-Man happens to be the last issue in this volume...which don't see to show up that often...at least for cheap that is!

I believe I had at least the main cover to this Marvel/Image Comics cross over back when I was in high school. I found the variant cover (the one on the right) back to back with the main cover. While I was more a fan of the Generation X team during this time, I was always intrigued by the Gen 13 team and comic. This was the perfect gateway of sorts for me to be introduced to the Image characters.

I believe I just lack one part now of the Phalanx Covenant storyline after finding this issue of X-Force. Gotta love the 90's cover gimmick with the strip of holofoil. If the cover art looks familiar, it's by Tony Daniel...the current artist on DC's Batman title.

I've never been the biggest fan of the X-Men and various mutant characters/titles, but I loved the Age of Apocalypse storyline from the mid-90's. Surprisingly my app said I didn't already own X-Men Omega. Love John Romita, Jr.'s cover art and the chrome cover still looks great to this very day.

After the big Age of Apocalypse storyline came Onslaught. I'm still piecing together issues that tie-in to the over arching story so I was glad to find this issue of Wolverine.

The Uncanny X-Men was a very pleasant find, especially for $.75. Not only does this issue feature the beautiful manga-esque pencils of Joe Madueira, but it features one of the best gatefold covers I've ever seen...check it out!

Pretty nifty, ain't it? I was/am a big fan of Joe's art from this time period. I would have bought this issue for the cover/interior even if I didn't care for the X-Men.

It's always a good day when I find more 2099 books I don't have. I'm slowing closing in on completing the Doom 2099 run. That series has been the easiest 2099 series for me to complete it seems.

Ghost Rider 2099 and Punisher 2099 books don't seem to show up as often in the $.50 boxes or even the dollar boxes, so I quickly snatched these two up. Love the foil cover on the Ghost Rider book too. I was surprised I didn't have the 1st issue.

The 2099 Unlimited books are thicker and contain multiple stories. Just about have all of these after picking up these two issues.

The last two books I have to share set me back a total of $.40. I originally started picking up some of Malibu Comic's books during their crossover with the Marvel Universe in the mid-90's with the Godwheel mini-series. I've since started working my way backwards and picking up the earlier Malibu books from the time prior to the Marvel purchase. Malibu had some interesting characters and it's pretty obvious Marvel has no intentions on doing anything with these characters. No reprints, no collections, no digital books...so why not pick them up? They are dirt cheap and it's been fun to piece together certain Malibu titles. These two books are from different periods within the company and offers up some good info...especially since I'm still learning who some of these characters are.

All in all I spent very little money and came away with more great books. Once I finish up the big organization project I'm working on with my trading card collection, I need to do the same thing with my comics. That will be a bigger task and one that is still unfortunately a little further down the road before I can tackle it.

Until next time, "make mine Marvel!"

First Comic Haul of 2019 c/o McKay's Knoxville, TN

My wife and I spent our New Year's visiting family stationed at Fort Knox in Kentucky. It was about an 8 hour trip for us so we decided to break up our trip to and from with overnight stops in Knoxville, TN. 

On the way up my wife told me there was a McKay's in Knoxville, something I had forgotten. My wife's first exposure to the massive used book/movie/music/video game chain was last summer when my family went w/ me to Greensboro, NC on a work trip. My wife was floored by the sheer volume of books and how cheap they were. She's a school teacher so she was in paradise. Both my young daughters also love to read so they too had a blast.

When we pulled up to the McKay's in Knoxville all of us were floored by the size of the place. I didn't take pictures of the store as I was to eager to "dive in" to see what I could find. A fellow blogger friend of mine, A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts has visited this same location in the past and blogged about his trip and findings.

On my initial trip, the first thing I looked at were the video games, but it was so crowded on the Sunday before New Year's that I didn't get a good look at everything. I then decided to go straight to the comics located on the second floor. I initially looked through the cheap books, then made my way down to the more organized boxes. Here is a quick recap of my purchases on this first trip through. 

Since I had my daughters with me I flipped through the kids books and we found the first two issues of Marvel Comics' Barbie. Funny to see Romita's name on a cover of a Barbie comic book! She really wanted these two issues and since we were on vacation I caved and bought them for her. I do love how she keeps them in the bag and board after reading them.

I'll admit this issue of Amazing Fantasy puzzled me as to what it exactly was as I couldn't find it in my CLZ Comics app. The X-Men: Kingbreaker issue was part of the awesome Realm of Kings cosmic story Marvel did a few years back after Annihilation breathed some life in their cosmic stories. Kingbreaker was a 4 part mini-series revolving around Cyclops and Havok's brother, Vulcan. I somehow missed one of the issues so this filled a gaping hole in the collection.

The Fantastic Four were never high on my list of favorite Marvel characters, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate the first family of Marvel and their history. Finding bronze age books for a buck? Yes please! Plus John Byrne wrote and drew these two issues so that was another win in my book.

I started my 2099 collection w/ X-Men, then branched out to Spider-Man. Now I've decided to go full on board with buying the 2099 books before sitting down and reading the whole epic story. Doom's title ran close to 50 issues and some of them are getting hard to find. Glad to knock off two more from the want list.

The Captain America book on the left is from volume 3 and was the only issue I needed to complete that run. The book on the right is from the series where Bucky Barnes ultimately took the Captain America mantle after Steve's (botched) assassination.

Both this Defenders and Amazing X-Men books filled small holes in their respective titles collection.

Any day I can find issues of Amazing Spider-Man that I don't have is a good day in my book. I had both of these issues at one time, but sold them in a downsizing move. Good to have them again.

There was a time I would find issues of John Byrne's Sensation She-Hulk in the dollar bins (or less), but now they don't seem to be showing up all that often. Still have a long way to go on this run.

Another $1 bronze book and the first issue of Punisher 2099.

The last book from my first trip through was the lone DC Comics book, issue #17 of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This series looks so good and I can't wait to finish the run so I can read it from beginning to end.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, we broke up the return trip home and again stayed in Knoxville. Even though I wanted to go back a second time, I wasn't sure if I'd make it as we were all tired and ready to get home. We did however squeeze in another visit Friday morning on the way home. This time the store wasn't nearly as packed so I had more time to go through just about everything in the store.

I don't know how I missed the comic related magazine boxes before, but they were full of great stuff. I grabbed these two issues of Wizard as both had stories/interviews inside that looked interesting. I believe the issue w/ Deadpool & Sabretooth on the cover had a well written issue on Religion in Comics. Both issues will probably be passed on to my older brother once I'm done reading them.

Another Amazing Spider-Man. This one I almost purchased on my first visit so this time I decided to toss it in my basket.

Thor has been one of those characters that I've only passively read in the past. I knew they had changed up Thor and given the mantle of the character to Jane Foster, but I've never read her title. Back during Halloween some young girls were going around my neighborhood and giving out comics and I got the 2nd issue of Mighty Thor. It took awhile before I read the book, but I was intrigued enough to see where they were going with the book, especially after I heard Jane was fighting cancer. When I found a few books of her title on this 2nd trip I decided to grab them. May have to keep my eyes open for more of this title this winter at the local Heroes' Mini-Con.

Walmart stores have been selling 3 packs of DC comics for awhile now, but recently they've started carrying Marvel titles...and the issues aren't that old. I grabbed a 3 pack on a side trip to Walmart while we were gone, mainly for the Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse issue. The 2nd book in the bundle was Mighty Thor #706...how appropriate! The last book was an issue of Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider. I gifted the issue to my nephew we were visiting as I already owned it.

McKay's wasn't as busy on this visit so I was better able to look through the video games and accessories. I saw some pretty cool things in the glass cases, but didn't make my way back before getting into the checkout line. I did however find a $.95 PS3 camera. I've had an itch to play some light gun games (Time Crisis 3) so I've toyed w/ the idea of buying Sony's Move accessories. At least I'm off to a great (cheap) start. The MIB Alien Crisis game obviously goes hand in hand w/ buying the camera.

The last section I browsed was their music section. Here the prices seemed to be all over the place, much more so than w/ their books, movies and games. I was able to find a few CDs that appealed to me, but I won't be surprised if no one else reading this has ever even heard of these artists/bands!

The Bride CD was still new, shrink wrapped and only priced at $3. I loved their music when I was in high school, but never listen to any of their stuff after Nirvana effectively killed off metal. Precious Death was another band I listened to a bit in HS, but never owned an album of theirs. I believe If You Must is their sophomore release.

I grabbed the Ashley Cleveland CD for just $.59 and it's terrific. Bluesy, soulful voice. She has a pretty cool cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground". Superchick was really purchased for my wife and she likes them, but I do as well. Regeneration is full of new remixes of older songs. One of these albums may eventually show up on my music blog.

If you've never visited a McKay's store you're really missing out. I swear it's like a big indoor garage sale of media. This Knoxville store was easily double the size of the Greensboro, NC store...which still amazes me. I hate to say it, but this was probably the highlight of my whole vacation. Seeing family was cool and all, but if you've never stayed on a military base before...well...it's creepy. At least it was to me.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time...