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...

Uncanny Avengers

I've been removed from comics now for a couple of years.  It was hard to walk away from all the great stories and characters that I had grown to love over 10+ years, but for several reasons I had to walk.  My brother got me into reading (Marvel) comics back in 1991.  He introduced me to two new comics at that time, New Warriors and the Guardians of the Galaxy.  I went on for several years reading both books until my interest eventually waned.  Even though my brother kept reading, I moved onto other things - like collecting baseball cards (apparent by my other blog - see side bar) and of course toys.

One of my first jobs was working at a local drug store.  Remember when you could walk into a drug store and buy comics of the magazine rack?  The store didn't carry a lot of comics, but we did carry the old Wizard magazine.  Any magazines that didn't sell I got to have in exchange for returning the covers of the unsold mags.  One of these Wizard magazines I kept contained a copy of Uncanny X-Men #320.  This was the first part of the Legion Quest story which would eventually lead into the whole Onslaught story with Professor X wiping Magneto's mind clean and as a result creating the epic entity known as Onslaught.  Marvel Comics would go on to end a lot of their core titles at the time including the Avengers, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and Captain America.  These characters would end up in a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards, son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm of FF fame.  I mention all of this because this one story is what brought me back into comics.

While I enjoyed reading the various X-Men related titles, I jumped on board with Captain America and the Avengers at those titles originally ended.  I enjoyed the whole Heroes Return stuff, but as I grew older and I was working on graduating college I eventually strayed again from comics.  As the 3rd volume of the Avengers was collected by Marvel and released in oversized hardcovers I started my entry back into comics for a 3rd time.  Again it took a big storyline to draw me back in - this time it being Avengers Disassembled.  This time around though I wasn't just reading a few books, I was reading just about all of the non-mutant titles Marvel released.  Over the years I have really enjoyed a lot of the summer blockbuster stories such as Secret Invasion, Civil War and Siege.  However as Siege was wrapping up and the Fear Itself story was on the horizon my family life was changing yet again.  I bought a larger house and moved to South Carolina.  I was now a daddy.  My wife quit her job to be a stay at home mom and raise my new daughter.  I was laid off.  Money was tight.  This brings me full circle to where I began this post.

I didn't completely walk away from comics this time, though I had to really scale things back.  I was reading so many Marvel books some titles had to be cut in order to get down to my now much lower comic book budget.  One of the books I had started to read was the new Guardians of the Galaxy.  I mentioned this title was one of the first books I ever read so I was intrigued about this new cast of Guardians.  I was already a minor fan of Marvel's cosmic characters (thanks in large part of the New Warriors' Nova character) and this new GotG book just took my interest in the cosmic stuff to a new level.  I loved the whole War of Kings and Realm of Kings stories.  However I wasn't able to maintain my comic budget for much longer and I decided to quit cold turkey.

As with my previous hibernation from comics my older brother continued to read.  He would be my source of updates and information about what was happening in the Marvel Universe.  When he told me about the Avengers vs. X-Men event I was so intrigued.  Part of me wanted to pick up the series, but I was already barely affording one book a month (that being the excellent Thunderbolts).  So I passed on buying the books or really seeking out what was happening.  Several months ago I was kind brought up to speed about the AvX events thanks in part to my brother and the Facebook Avengers Alliance social media game.  I was told all about the new Uncanny Avengers book that would be spinning out of the AvX events.  My brother has been using a online comic book service for awhile now and they offer all sorts of discounts, especially on new books.  I got the first issue of Uncanny Avengers for something like 99 cents.  It's been sitting in my office at work for several weeks now, but I took some time at lunch the other day and finally sat down to read the first issue.  I enjoyed it so much that I stopped by this little shop down the road from work and picked up issue 2.

If you don't follow Marvel Comics I can sum up this new Avengers book pretty easily.  After the events of AvX the mutant population is without a leader.  Scott Summers (Cyclops) killed Professor Charles Xavier in a fit of rage let's call it after being consumed by the Phoenix force.  Captain America realizes that he and his non-mutant heroes haven't done enough to protect Xavier's dream of peaceful co-exhistance between homosapien and homosuperior.  In response to this Captain America decides to build a new team consisting of both Avengers and X-Men and asks Cyclops' younger brother, Havok to lead the team.

All the while Rogue and the Scarlet Witch are about to have it out at the foot of Xavier's tomb when they are attacked by a unknown group of individuals.  Both are taken hostage along w/ the body of Xavier.  It is revealed at the end of issue one that the culprit behind all of this is none other than the Red Skull.  His intentions are to remove the brain of Charles Xavier and meld it with his own to eradicate the mutant population.  Sounds eerily similar to Hitler and his dislike of the Jews.

The new book is written by Rick Remender with art by John Cassaday.  With only 2 issues in I'm already hooked and I feel that I'll be contacting my brother to order future issues for me.  While I'm still in the dark about a lot of things, I've kept up with enough to have a pretty good grasp on the overall story.  Marvel also has done a good job with their new Augmented Reality (AR) thing they have implemented.  Now that I have a smart phone I can scan the pages that feature the AR logo and I'm given all sorts of cool little nuggets of info.  I guess this is kind of the new footnote thing in comics.  I can't wait to see how this story continues to develop as it has really caught my attention with just two issues.  While I may not be "back into comics" per se, Marvel will be getting a few bucks from me each month assuming this title continues to captivate me and hold my attention.

The Return of Marvel Legends - Terrax Series

I blame my brother for my Marvel addiction.  It all started in the very early 90's when he got me hooked on two Marvel comics that were just starting off - Guardians of the Galaxy and more specifically the New Warriors.  Even though my interest in the comics waned over the years I always seemed to come back.  When ToyBiz first introduced the Marvel Legends brand I wasn't all that excited.  I bought the Captain America figure at the time because I was (am) a big Cap and Avengers fan.  I bought select figures over the years, but I never went crazy for Marvel toys.

A lot has changed since the introduction of Marvel Legends.  Hasbro took over manufacturing the figures and sales seemed to be good.  For whatever reason (I'm still not sure the reason behind Hasbro's change of direction) the scale was switched from the traditional 6 inch to 3 and 3/4 inch with the introduction of the Marvel Universe line of figures.  Some fans rejoiced while others spoke out in dissatisfaction.  Me?  I straddled the fence.  I like both scales, but since the MU figures cost a little less and took up less space I embraced the line early on.  However I did miss the level of detail and articulation the ML figures brought to the table.  I also missed the whole Build-A-Figure concept as the last few Hasbro BAFs were awesome (Ares, Red Hulk & Fing Fang Foom).

Hasbro has recently resurrected the Legends brand and they are back and better than ever.  The first wave of 2012 is the Terrax wave and features great character selection.  Unfortunately the price has gone up and now retail for about $15 a figure.  Ouch.  I was able to grab the entire wave early on and sell off the individual figures so it didn't hurt me in the wallet much.  Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of everything so this "review" of sorts only covers some of the figures.  By now though I'm sure you've seen all the figures online.

Steve Rogers was a must have for me.  This is the variant of the figure and I really really wanted the regular release, but all I could find at local retail was this one.  Notice his shield?  I think it's the "energy" version he carried in the Heroes Reborn series of comics.  Anyhow, the first thing that impressed me was the packaging.  Hasbro has outdone themselves here.  I love the huge Ed McGuinness art...very nice touch.  To the right of the figure you can clearly see which part of Terrax you're getting.  In this case it is the lower torso piece.  More on Terrax later.

The back of the packaging is equally impressive as the art work is much larger.  You can also see the other figures in the wave.

  

  

Steve comes packaged with 3 accessories.  Of course his shield is one and the others are a pair of silver hand guns.  His hands have been sculpted to hold the weapons.  While this makes holding the gun easier and gives a better look it leaves his hands looking odd when not equipped.  At least he can still somewhat grip his shield as he prepares to hurl it at an evil doer.  The shield has a half circle peg that allows it to be attached to his wrist.  The same peg folds in to allow the shield to fit into the small peg hole on his back.  Sculpting of the figure is really nice, but the head sculpt still seems a bit off to me.  I don't know...it's like his jaw is too squared.  Articulation is up to standards with past figures.  Ball joints galore let you pose your figure in all sorts of ways.  Sadly this is one area where I lack creativity so you'll have to excuse my boring poses!  Overall though this is a very nice figure and one that will fit into my (now) very small Marvel Legends collection.

 

I don't much about Hope Summers as I haven't kept up with anything X-Men in quite sometime.  My older brother tried to fill me in, but I got lost with all the time travel stories so I'll just marvel at the beauty of the art.

The figure really is good figure, but the legs suffer from the way it was posed inside the packaging.  I had a hard time getting the legs in a position where she would support her own weight and stand up without assistance.  She comes with one accessory - a really large gun.  You can probably see that it too was slightly bent in the packaging.  Easy enough fix though with some warm water.  Hope's head sculpt looks beautiful and the removable scarf  is equally impressive.  The green paint has a nice metallic touch which looks great on this figure.  She comes packaged with Terrax's head and giant axe.

  

Like with Steve Rogers I could only find the blue stealth armor variant of Iron Man.  This is Iron Man's Extremis armor.  I won't even begin to try and describe what Extremis is...just read the comics or the Wikipedia page.

The sculpt is nicely done and I wish I had been able to find the traditional red and yellow version as I probably would've kept it.  Both versions of Iron Man come packaged with Terrax's right leg.

  

Klaw is probably the peg warmer in the first wave.  My guess is that a lot of toy collectors may not be that familiar w/ the character so he's the last to be purchase.  I think he was also packaged 2 or 3 per case.

I remember Klaw from the Armor Wars II storyline in the original Iron Man comic.  I always thought he was a pretty cool character and I never understood why he seemed so under used in the Marvel universe.  This is another great sculpt, specifically the head.  I can see how this figure may not be as "sexy" as some of the others, but it's still a great figure.  Klaw comes packaged with Terrax's left leg.

Constrictor was the other figure in this wave that I couldn't wait to get my hands on.  I love the way the character was written during the Siege storyline.  I like the Marvel Universe version of this figure, but some characters just turn out better in the larger 6 inch format.  

Great sculpt, great paint and great articulation.  The coils on his wrist gauntlets are a soft plastic, but allow for some great poses.  There isn't a wire inside the coils which would've been a really nice touch as it would allow for even better poses.  I think I have to give a nod to him as the best figure in the wave...sorry Rogers.  Constrictor comes packaged with Terrax's upper body.

Ghost Rider was the only figure that I never saw at retail...until wave 2 was released.  That said I never bought the guy.  I just opted to buy the BAF parts online.

I never read any of the Ghost Rider comics.  I always thought the character was cool, but I just never got into any of his titles.  The only time I remember reading him in any Marvel stories was way back in the Fantastic Four #347, #348 & #349.  This is great looking figure and comes with a orange flame variant.  Comes packaged with both of Terrax's arms.

Thor is the 7th and final figure in the first wave.  I haven't bought this figure, but I really really want him.  I love his design and there is just something inherently cool about the larger sculpted figures.

Thor doesn't come packaged with a part for Terrax.  His only accessory is his mighty hammer, Mjolnir.  From what I know this is the same figure that was released last year as a SDCC exclusive.  I'm sure this figure will find a way into my collection at some point.

Put all the parts together and you have the very first Build-A-Figure of 2012!  My appreciation of Marvel's cosmic characters as grown immensely since I read the Annihilation story.  However I first learned of Terrax in the pages of Thor #411 & #412 when the New Warriors were first introduced.  I'm still holding out hope that Hasbro will make Marvel Legends of the original New Warriors.  So far only one have been done (Nova) so for now I'll have to pit Nova all alone against Terrax.

Once assembled the weapon packaged with Hope is pretty big and impressive.  It isn't quite as tall as Terrax himself, but large none the less.

Like with a lot of the head sculpts Terrax sports a fantastic looking mug. I love the disgruntled look and the veins in his forehead are a very nice touch.

The size of the BAFs seems to be decreasing, but that doesn't take away from how great Terrax is.  This is easily one of my favorite Marvel Legends hands down.  I hope that more of the cosmic characters get the new ML treatment in the near future.  I know a lot of people have commented of how hard the first wave has been to find at local retail.  Wave 2 just started to show up right after I completed this wave so if you are late to the party good luck finding the characters you want.  No matter who you choose Hasbro has done a great job bringing Marvel Legends back to life.