New Comic Wednesday - The Late Edition

April is the beginning of my business' busy season so I apologize for getting this post out so late, but I was excited to share some of this week's books...and a few stragglers.

I was pumped back in the day when the now defunct Dreamwave Productions got the rights to produce new Transformers comics. While my relationship w/ the old Marvel series was sparse, these new TF comics came at the right time. I loved the art and while the stories left a lot to be desired at times, I kept buying. Eventually when the license ended up with IDW I gave it a try...but after a year or so I just didn't care for the direction my beloved 'bots were going.

I really haven't followed anything IDW did with Transformers. The only "new" book I red was last year's Free Comic Book Day issue of Unicron...something or other...and I don't even remember what went on in that book. When I heard that the franchise was going to get a reboot I thought now may be the time to give IDW another chance. While I still haven't gotten around to reading the first issue, I picked up the 2nd issue thinking I'd enjoy it. Well I haven't read this one either...but I'll be on the road this upcoming week traveling for work and I always take a comic book board box with me full of my backlog so I will be getting caught up.

I've been giving non-Marvel titles a look here and there and The Girl in the Bay has been a fun ride. I really enjoyed the first issue and immediately couldn't wait for the 2nd issue to come out to advance the story. If you've haven't heard of the book - it's basically a murder mystery w/ a sci-fi twist. Very fun ride, highly recommended.

I loved Linda Carter as Wonder Woman when I was a little boy, but that was the extent of my "relationship" with the character. I try not to be one of those type of guys that buys a book for it's cover, but dang it if Jenny Frison didn't put out some awesome art. That alone got me hooked on the current WW title. Even those issue 66 wasn't done by Jenny, it's still a beautiful cover none the less. The story they've been telling isn't half bad either...

I recently picked up an old Crypt of Shadows book at a local show and loved it. I vaguely remember seeing this new #1 solicited in Previews, but I didn't order it. Well it was sitting on the front of the shelf as I was leaving the store the other day and caught my eye. I've already dropped this book in my box to read this week while I'm on the road...looks great based on the cover.

I don't know how I missed the 3rd issue of the current Daredevil series so I was glad there were still a few issues on the shelf.

While I really enjoyed Miles' previous series, I haven't been able to get into his current book. I've decided it'll be dropped after this current story line wraps up. Same goes for Champions. I just don't have much of a connection to the characters and from what I've read, this version of Champions may not be around much longer anyhow.

Finally after months and months of teasing, the giant War of the Realms miniseries is finally here. There were a bajillion variant covers and the shop I stopped at the other day just happened to have one of several of the different variants. I don't usually buy the same comic more than once so trying to decide which cover to buy was tough. There were a lot of great art - Oliver Coipel's Lady Sif and Ryan Otley's Spider-Man cover to mention just a few, but I ultimately decided to go with the Frank Cho variant. Simply stunning. Now I just hope this story is a good as Marvel has been hyping it to be. We'll see...

New Comic Wednesday - 11/28/18

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving last week. Because of the holiday I was able to post that week's new books, so this post will be a catch up of sorts. Before we get to last week's books, I wanted to share my haul from DCBS. As I've mentioned before, the majority of my monthly books are ordered through Discount Comic Book Service as the discounts they offer are very generous and much better than any local comic shop offers. I elect to have my books for each month shipped in one large shipment once a month to save money, that and I'm still getting caught up reading my current books. Below are the books I received in my latest DCBS order.

I've opted to buy all of the Ron Lim variant covers to Infinity Wars. I particularly love this cover w/ Thanos and Gamora.

I'm absolutely thrilled to see Humberto Ramos back on Amazing Spider-Man. He's one of my favorite artists period, but I particularly love his take on Spider-Man.

I've got to get caught up because I loved Spider-Verse and I can't wait to see how Spider-Geddon shakes out. I've been trying to stay away from any spoiler type material because I want to go into these stores "blind" as much as possible.

The Iceman issue was purchased not because of the Spidey appearance, but because of Firestar! I don't know what really became of her after Secret Empire so I'm anxious to read this issue.

I grabbed a few of the Battle Lines variants, including this issue of Weapon H featuring the Red Hulk.

New books for last Wednesday, 11/21/18:

Gobots? Yes please! I flipped through the book in the store and I love the vintage look the pages/art have. This one will be read this weekend.

I wasn't sure if I would bother with Web of Venom: Carnage Born, however I'm told that it ties in w/ Venom's title since Donny Cates is writing both. Never cared for the Carnage character...maybe Cates will change that?

Lately I've been trying to branch out from the larger publishers and check out some smaller indie titles. I started off w/ Rags from Antarctic Press (thanks to the awesome Key Collector app) and I loved it. I made sense to try another title of theirs so I grabbed Punchline #1. This one is more in the traditional superhero vein from what I know of the book. I plan to sit down this weekend and give it a read.

New comics for Wednesday, 11/28/18:

Jenny Frison is killing it with these Wonder Woman covers. They are simply gorgeous and worth the price of admission alone!

Two more installments in the Infinity Warps stories of Weapon Hex and Arach-Knight. I didn't think I'd care for the merger of these characters, but they are much cooler than I thought they'd be.

I'm still trying to play catch up w/ Daredevil so I have a few issues to find before I can sit down and find out how this title is "ending". I really enjoyed Uncanny X-Men #1 two weeks ago and I'm eagerly looking forward to reading last week and this week's new issues. As you can see, I have a lot that will be added to the backlog stack of books. Hopefully I can have a productive weekend and put a dent in the books that need to be read. Later!

New Comic Wednesday - 11/14/18

The last few weeks at the local comic shop have been rather light for me (i.e. non-existent) since the bulk of my books are coming from Discount Comic Book Service in a monthly shipment. However this week a few books that weren't originally on my radar were released.

I understand that some may not understand how a book like Uncanny X-Men #1 wasn't on my radar. I haven't really picked up a mutant book (minus Domino) in quite sometime, but I've been reading up on the story in this issue and I decided to go ahead and grab the first issue. My LCS, Nikelspot Comics doesn't usually mark up variants and they had a good many of the non J. Scott Campbell covers to choose from so I went w/ this Skottie Young variant. 

Buying a title from a series that I don't normally read does have it's advantages as I was able to sit down this afternoon and read the book...even though I'm still woefully behind with most of my current books. While I may not understand all of the back stories going on, I really enjoyed the stories despite some of the negative reviews I've already read online. It's going to be a weekly title for the first 10 issues, similar to the Avengers No Surrender story...but that just means I at least have one new reason to look forward to Wednesdays for the next 9 weeks!

Speaking of J. Scott Campbell and variants, there was one left of Venom #8. I don't normally pick up variants to issues I've already bought, but I caved with this 90's esque throwback cover.

Originally I didn't buy any of the Infinity Warp issues so it made sense to add this one to the stack. Mister Invisible and Hot Rocks? Green Widow? Moon Squirrel and Tippysaur? Marvel already warped other Marvel heroes so why not a few more?

I picked up several issues of Daredevil back during Marvel's Legacy period and while I missed a few new issues here and there, this one came up on the Key Comics app as the first appearance of a new villain. Plus I absolutely love Phil Noto's art so this was an easy pick up on a relatively light week.

I'm still in the midst of reading the Witching Hour story that ran through Wonder Woman's book so I may be taking a gamble continuing to pick up her book. I really wanted the Jenny Frison variant, but the regular Terry Dodson cover was all that was left to choose from.

Now that things seem to be slowing down a little both at work and around the house, I'm going to try to dig into my backlog of new books and see if I can't make a dent between now and the end of the year. Lots of great books that I've been waiting to get to...wish me luck!

New Comic Wednesday - 10/10/18

Well alright, so my attempt at a weekly comic post lasted all of two weeks before I missed a few weeks. Life happens is all I can say..however if you look at the calendar then you'll see its Wednesday and that means new comics!

Since the majority of my new books come in one shipment each month from DCBS, I've decided to just show the books that were picked up locally. This means that there are some weeks where I don't pick up anything, however this was not one of those weeks. Thanks to the good people at Borderlands Comics in Greenville, SC I have a few new books to share.

We'll start off the with the $1.00 books - True Believers. I love that Marvel has been pumping out these cheap reprints of key stories for several reasons. 1) It's a great way for people to enjoy the stories without damaging the original copy a collector may own and 2) it's also a great way to get these stories into the hands of readers...period.

A lot of people may know that Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man's original girl friend died at the hands of the Green Goblin, but how many have read the issue? Better yet, what if Gwen had been saved? Originally told in What If? #24, this is one I wasn't going to pass up.

Never been a huge fan of Dr. Doom, but he is a very intriguing character and I loved reading him in the Secret Wars story from a few years ago. This is a reprint of What If? #22 and one that I haven't read before. Hoping it's good.

Can't turn down new Spider-Man releases! Picked up What If? Punisher #1B where basically it tells the story of Peter Parker becoming the Punisher. I really wanted the main cover, but all that was left was the action figure variant. Cool story, read it this afternoon in my hotel room.

I've been waiting for the epic Spider-Geddon story and even though I'm not current on my Spider books, now that this story is upon us it's helping me push through my backlog of books so I can jump in. I wasn't surprised that Marvel has a slew of variant covers for issue #1 and I honestly can't remember what cover I ordered from DCBS, but there was only two left of the Spider-Punk variant so I jumped on it.

Now these books may surprise people who really know me and what I like in comics. I'm a Marvel guy through and through. I have ventured out and bought a few non-Marvel books in the past, but traditionally 99% of what I read is Marvel. These two books may be the first DC books I've bought off the shelf since Gail Simone and Ed Benes were on DC's Birds of Prey. Yeah, that was a long time ago!

I can't really say why I decided to grab these. Perhaps knowing it's just a 5 issue story line and it's almost Halloween? Or maybe DC's "gimmick" foil covers this week drew me in? The cover to Wonder Woman #56 is quite beautiful, especially in person. I am looking forward to grabbing the next 3 parts and then sitting down to read through the entire Witching Hour story in one sitting.

That's it for now. I've got a lot on my plate in terms of photos to edit for toy reviews and for new content for the Transformers Bio Card Database...plus lots of comics to get caught up on. Now if only I could find a way to stop time so I could get caught up!