Hot Wheels: Spider-Man Maximum Venom, #2 - Jack Hammer / Venomized Iron Man

Jack Hammer / Venomized Iron Man

2020 Walmart exclusive series

Free Comic Book Day 2019

May 04, 2019 was more than a celebration of Star Wars as it was also the annual event - Free Comic Book Day. Like the past few years, I took the family up to Nikelspot Comics in Fort Mill, SC to see my local comic shop crew and to pick up some free books and hopefully some good deals as well.

There was rain in the forecast for Saturday so we hit the shop early, hoping to beat the rain and the crowds. I'm glad I did because some of the free books already seemed to be low in number. This year the shop allowed us to pick 7 titles each. I had forgot that I already had the Marvel titles on their way in my monthly DCBS order, however I'm sure I can find someone to gift the ones I picked up. I was glad to see there were books from some of the smaller publishers as I wasn't sure if those would get ordered. There were so many books for the shop owners to order and since they aren't free to the shops, I didn't exactly know what I was going to find. Thankfully I was able to walk away happy with these 7 books:

I honestly don't know much about Animosity Tales, but that's what FCBD is all about! I read the synopsis of the issue the day before the event and it sounded pretty cool so I was glad to see this book offered on Saturday.

I've been a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since the original movie, but more so the Sarah Michelle Gellar led television show. When season 7 ended on television, season 8 was turned into a Dark Horse comic. I followed it for awhile before I dropped out of buying new comics for several years as my wife and I began our family. Now that Buffy is back in the pages of a new comic, here I am being drawn back in. When it comes to Firefly, I can say I've never watched the show.

I don't know much about Lady Mechanika, but I picked up last year's FCBD book and enjoyed it so I figured why not get this year's too? Joe Benitiz art is beautiful and if I had room in the comic budget this may be a book that I'd pick up on a regular basis.

Thanks to the Key Collector comics app, I was clued into Antarctic Press' superhero title, Punchline, some months ago. The first issue shot up in price on the secondary market almost instantaneously making it hard for the average comic reader to acquire/read. This FCBD version reprints the first issue and hopefully wet's the readers appetite for more...which is coming in the version of a TPB soon.

I was a little undecided if I wanted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Spawn but you can see which direction I went. I believe this is a reprint of the very first issue. I know the title is closing in on 300 issues so this was a nice flash back. Had I been willing to look past Marvel comics when I was in high school I might have read and enjoyed Spawn, but as it is I've never read an issue. I was tempted when Angela made her way over to Marvel, but I do plan on sitting down w/ this issue soon. After all, even if I don't care for the story I can gaze at the beautiful Todd McFarlane art!

This Year of the Villain by DC Comics wasn't part of FCBD, but the fine folks at Niklespot were handing it out (to at least the adults) with their free books. I only read one DC book (Wonder Woman) so I'm not sure how much I'll get out of this, but I do appreciate the kind gesture regardless.

I'm still behind on reading my current books that I almost don't want to even crack this cover because I don't want it to spoil anything for me!

Same goes for this issue of Spider-Man. I know it's the start of a wild ride featuring Venom and Carnage and I can't wait to see what happens.

The shop also put out some new dollar (long) boxes and since it was FCBD the books were buy one get one free. I absolutely love digging through cheap boxes so while I was digging through the boxes looking for some deals, my wife took my daughters inside the store so they could get their name on the sketch list. Bernie Cooke was at the shop once again providing free head pencil sketches. Since we were pretty early both my girls were able to get on his list and have one of their favorite heroines sketched. I was a little surprised to see that they both chose a Marvel character (even though that warms my heart) since both of them really like a lot of the DC female characters thanks to Teen Titans Go! and DC Super Hero Girls. However on this day they made their daddy proud.

My youngest daughter, Winnie (7) chose Squirrel Girl. We both were surprised to see that Bernie also added her companion, Tip Toe on her shoulder!

My oldest daughter, Olivia (9) chose Spider-Gwen. Not too surprising since she takes her Marvel Rising doll of Spider-Gwen with her everywhere.

As I mentioned, I was digging through long boxes outside while the girls were shopping inside the shop and here are the books I left with:

I was surprised to see Avengers #260 in the box, but glad none the less. This book has picked up some steam with Avengers Endgame. For those of you that may not know, this issue is the first cover appearance of Nebula and contains her origin story.

I picked up the Avengers West Coast issue for the Bloodties crossover story. I had forgotten that this series ended right after this issue too, making it a little tougher to find (at least in cheap-o boxes).

After I found these 3 issues of Captain America I could've called it day and left happy. Neither book I'd say is in Near Mint condition, but they were good enough for me. #252 does show some discoloration to the white background, but then again it is from 1980 so I expect it to show some age.

Keeping with the Marvel heroes I found a stray issue of both Daredevil and Iron Man. I was particularly happy to find this issue of Iron Man because the Armor Wars II storyline is what got me reading Iron Man. That and the gorgeous John Romita Jr. art!

My CLZ Comics app told me I was looking or these two issues of Incredible Hulk. After I pulled them from the box I realized I had them on my want list because of their brief tie-in tothe Infinity Gauntlet storyline.

I'm still plugging away on completing Morbius' first run and with these three issues I'm getting ever closer to completing the series. Poor Santa.

 

I wasn't looking for this issue of Spirits of Vengeance, but how could I pass it up with a cover like this? Plus, it has Venom so it was an easy choice.

The Tomb of Dracula was another one of those older books that I didn't expect to find, but was happy to pick up. I believe this is only the 3rd issue of this title that I have in my collection.

This issue of Marvel Comics Presents was purchased not for the Wolverine story (even though I'm sure it's at least decent), but for the 4th story contained in the issue featuring a Thanos story.

Punisher filled a small hole. Not a title I actively seek out, but will pick up when I find issues that are in good shape that are also cheap.

I've mentioned before of my affection towards some of the Star Comics series so I quickly snatched up this issue of Silverhawks. 

Wonder Man was purchased solely for the continuation of the Operation: Galactic Storm story and nothing else!

Of course no dig through the dollar boxes is complete without some Spider-Man, right? Found one lone issue of Amazing the collection needed and surprisingly an issue of Spectacular I needed. This issue (98) is also the first appearance of the villian, the Spot.

 

The original clone story got me reading Spider-Man so I love all of the spin-off series such as the 2nd volume of Scarlet Spider. I wasn't reading comics when this series was new, but have actively picking up issues here and there.

The last book I found was this What If one shot that looked to be right up my ally. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to diving in.

I've had a little bit of a X-Men itch lately and have been picking up select stories from the 90's, such as the Phalanx Covenant. I picked up a few parts to this story back in March at a local show so this issue leaves me with one issue I believe.

I was surprised that I didn't have any issues of Hulk 2099 before now. I'm working on building the entire 2099 catalog before I sit down and read them all in chronological order. This issue of Ravage 2099 is the last issue and can be really hard to find at times.

 

I remember hearing something about Timestorm 2009-2099, but I've never seen these issues before nor have I read them. Since I'm working on a 2099 collection I thought I'd go ahead and grab these too.

The last item I grabbed (and more of an impulse buy) was this Toy Biz Marvel's Most Wanted Spat & Grovel. I remember this small series of figures when they were new and how sought after they were...well more so Blink than X-Man or Spat & Grovel. I grabbed this for $3 because I was curious more than anything. You can expect a full review of this toy on the blog at some point in the near future.

Overall Free Comic Book Day was a success for me and my family. My wife got some comics for her classroom (she's an elementary school teacher), my girls got their free books and a sketch and I too walked away with a nice little stack of books. Thanks again to the great staff at Nikelspot Comics for participating in the annual event. Until next year...

Charlotte Comicon Haul - 03/23/19

This past Sunday I took my oldest daughter (9) and drove up to Concord, NC for the Charlotte ComicCon spring show. I wasn't planning on taking my daughter, but due to some last minute changes off the two of us went.

I've been to this show for years and it's always a great show. It's family friendly and the variety of dealers that come are always great. The size of the dealer's room is a pretty large, with the dealers set up around the perimeter and the guests set up in a row down the middle of the room.

Usually I like to walk the room first to get a lay of the land. I'm always on the look out for the $.50 boxes for starters so I'm looking to see who has what. After I've walked the room at least once, then I'll dive into the boxes with my CLZ Comics app on my phone.

This time however we stopped at the first table w/ $.50 boxes. My daughter knelt down on the floor with me and thumb through the boxes herself. I did have to show her and remind her how to safely look through the box without bending the books, especially since not all of the cheap books were bagged and or boarded. We went through about 7 short boxes at the first dealer. I ended up finding about couple of bucks worth of books. As I was paying, the elderly lady helping run the booth handed my daughter an old Disney Scamp comic book (that was amazingly in good condition) as she noticed how well behaved and patient she was!

Eventually my daughter put the breaks on me and wanted to find something for herself. She was upset that we hadn't walked the entire room so off we went. I've had to teach her that at shows like this you can't always buy the first thing you see because you may see something else that you want more. Surprisingly she did an awesome job showing her patience as she turned down several items that interested her. Later in the day she settled on a large plush Pokemon of Vulpix, but this was the "winter" version. After that she was happy and just wanted to find something for her sister...which ended up being a Hot Topic exclusive Mary Poppins Returns POP! figure.

Now that the kiddo was happy I could return to my $.50 boxes...which I found plenty. I didn't even get to all of the various dealers that had cheap boxes before it was time to go. Did I mention my daughter was my vocal conscience about how much money I had to spend?! I had a blast that day. It was fun spending time with my daughter and the show was great as usual.

Enough small talk, let's get to some of the stack of books I brought home with me!

This is a (mostly) toy blog so here are a few books based on 80's toy properties. I now have issues 1-3 of Air Raiders, only two more to go. I often wonder why this appeared as Marvel title and not a Star Comics title since that's where other toy properties like Inhumanoids and Thundercats were.

I had forgotten DC had a series based on the C.O.P.S. cartoon/toy line. I wish I had found more, but I was happy with this one.

I've been picking up books of different storylines, such as Siege of Darkness. My list is getting smaller and smaller as the books I needed are getting tougher to find. This issue of Darkhold was a pleasant surprise.

I'm not the biggest Doctor Strange fan, although I do like the direction of his current title. I knew this issue was later in the original run of his series, but that is all I knew. I thought it looked cool so it was one of those "hey, it's just $.50" type of purchases. Now I'm on the look out for a few more issues to finish out the series.

This issue of Crypt of Shadows is from 1974 and isn't in the best condition, but again it was $.50 and looked interesting. I love horror stuff so this purchase was just for kicks.

Last summer I was able to pick up several great issues of Gen 13 from early in the run. I didn't have issue 7 so this was an easy purchase. Flipping through the issue last night I'm starting to wonder if Jim Lee's art style has changed a bit. I don't really follow him anymore since I'm more of a Marvel fan, but I do appreciate his style none the less.

Long before my older brother got me into comics, he was reading most of the mutant titles. I've heard great things about some of their bigger stories, like Inferno, but have never read them myself. When I started seeing several of these issues in the $.50 boxes I decided to see how many I could find. I added them to my want list in the CLZ Comics app and kept looking. I'm really looking forward to sitting down and reading some of these older stories for the first time.

I worked in a drug store during my high school years so I was able to basically get any magazine I wanted for free...including Wizard! The only cavaet was I had to rip off the cover to return to the magazine vendor. I really didn't care as I got to keep the magazine and anything included in the polybag...like this issue of Uncanny X-Men. This was the issue that kicked up my reading of X-Men, the first issue of the Legion Quest story that would eventually lead into the Age of Apocalypse.

I loved that story as well as the follow up storyline with Onslaught. I've toyed with the idea of picking up these books (again) for awhile...well as you can see I'm on my way of reclaiming some of those great memories. I really loved the art and the stories from this era of the X-Men.

John Romita, Jr. has a very distinct art style and while he isn't my favorite artist, I did love his run on Iron Man. I felt his style was well matched with Tony Stark and his various suits of armor. Plus the Armor Wars II storyline is great. I don't often find issues form this story so I was more than happy to grab these.

Another goal of mine is to complete all of Marvel's 2099 series' and while I only pictured Ravage 2099, I was also able to find several issues of Doom 2009, Ghost Rider 2099 and Punisher 2099. Several of these Ravage 2099 issues are at the tail end of his run which have proven hard to find in the past.

Back in January I picked up a few books from Marvel's New Universe imprint, including Star Brand and an associated one shot called The Pitt. My brother told me about a four issue mini series called The War that also fit in and he found three of the four books for me. These were square bound books and while I don't know much about them, they do look interesting.

Let me start off by saying I'm NOT a Rob Liefeld fan. Actually I can't stand his art...but I kinda like most of the books that Awesome released. I don't often see these books in any boxes period so I was surprised to see several, especially this "comicon edition" and the gold foil version of the 1st issue.

Not shown, but I also found two issues of the follow up mini series that featured Ed McGuiness' talent.

The last book featured is one that I still can't believe I found in a discount box, especially a $.50 box! This issue of The Incredible Hulk features the first appearance of Devil Hulk. It is rumored that this character will re-appear in the pages of Immortal Hulk, the current Hulk book. I only knew about this book thanks to the awesome Key Collector Comics app and Comic Tom from Instagram. I don't usually buy books because they are "hot" or whatever, but I couldn't pass this one up. Sometimes it pays to be cheap!

I didn't bother to show everything I purchased, but I thought these were some of the more interesting books. So, how do you think I did overall? Every book purchased was $.50...that I feel good about. The last dealer we hit up also gave my daughter a comic, but they let her pick any $1 book she wanted. She grabbed an issue of Spider-Girl (the old M2 title from Marvel) to go along with two other books I let her buy. I may have indirectly started her own comics collection after this ComicCon trip!