Buy any Marvel comic books (or related stuff) recently?

Well, while browsing through the new stuff at the comic book store this week, I stumbled upon:

True Believers: Ant-Man and the Wasp - The Birth of Giant-Man #1
With a cover-price of only $1.00, I figured "Oh, what the heck!"

Anybody else buying anything Marvel-related these days?

I've picked up a few of these True Believers reprints, since they're only 0.75 here, but I can't really justify buying Marvel titles on a regular basis with our financial situation being what it is right now; we're both DC fans, so a few DC and independent titles is our guilty pleasure. I try to keep up with Marvel related developments, I'll flick through them in the shop, but I think the last modern Marvel title I bought was the recent X-Men Gold Annual, since it featured Captain Britain.

tony ingram wrote:I've picked up a few of these True Believers reprints, since they're only 0.75 here, . . .

The other two "True Believers" issues I bought were from last year to honor Jack Kirby's 100th birthday.


Captain America #1


Ant-Man & The Wasp #1

There's currently a swathe of Wolverine related ones to tie-in with his return. A few months back, Jean Grey got the same treatment.

Wolverine tends to be overexposed, like Batman. I find that a little of him goes a long way.

Lucy McGough wrote:Wolverine tends to be overexposed, like Batman. I find that a little of him goes a long way.

He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:Wolverine tends to be overexposed, like Batman. I find that a little of him goes a long way.

He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

Well, Old Man, there have been appearances by Logan in other forms since then . . . some of those appearances taking place in the (then) "present day".

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:Wolverine tends to be overexposed, like Batman. I find that a little of him goes a long way.

He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

Well, Old Man, there have been appearances by Logan in other forms since then . . . some of those appearances taking place in the (then) "present day".

I fid it difficult to see Old Man Logan as the same character, or anything other than a pale imitation.

tony ingram wrote:I fid it difficult to see Old Man Logan as the same character, or anything other than a pale imitation.

Well, he was with one or two of those X-Men groupings, plus I don't know how much sun he normally gets . . .

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I fid it difficult to see Old Man Logan as the same character, or anything other than a pale imitation.

Well, he was with one or two of those X-Men groupings, plus I don't know how much sun he normally gets . . .

Yeah, but he's very much his own character rather than being the regular Wolvie. Just as the young X-Men who time travelled from the past are really now not the same characters as the adult versions.

tony ingram wrote:He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

What about the films?

Lucy McGough wrote:

tony ingram wrote:He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

What about the films?

They don't count. They're not in the same continuity, either. In fact, they're not even all in the same continuity as each other: mainstream comics Wolverine is on Earth-616, while Wolverine from the first few X-Men movies is on Earth-10005, but the reality where the movie Logan is set is Earth-17315.

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:

tony ingram wrote:He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

What about the films?

They don't count. They're not in the same continuity, either. In fact, they're not even all in the same continuity as each other: mainstream comics Wolverine is on Earth-616, while Wolverine from the first few X-Men movies is on Earth-10005, but the reality where the movie Logan is set is Earth-17315.

What about Earth-PEnnsylvania-6-5000?

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:

tony ingram wrote:He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

What about the films?

They don't count. They're not in the same continuity, either. In fact, they're not even all in the same continuity as each other: mainstream comics Wolverine is on Earth-616, while Wolverine from the first few X-Men movies is on Earth-10005, but the reality where the movie Logan is set is Earth-17315.

What about Earth-PEnnsylvania-6-5000?

I don't understand the reference.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:

tony ingram wrote:He's been dead since 2014, at least in the main continuity. I don't think he's really been overexposed since then...

What about the films?

They don't count. They're not in the same continuity, either. In fact, they're not even all in the same continuity as each other: mainstream comics Wolverine is on Earth-616, while Wolverine from the first few X-Men movies is on Earth-10005, but the reality where the movie Logan is set is Earth-17315.

What about Earth-PEnnsylvania-6-5000?

I don't understand the reference.

Old Glenn Miller song.
"PEnnsylvania 6-5000" was the phone number for a hotel in New York City.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_6-5000_(song))
The actual phone number would have been "736-5000", but back then they commonly used words to represent the first two digits of the phone number (based on the letters associated with each number).

Ah. Before my time, I fear. But it's nice to see a real telephone again.

tony ingram wrote:Ah. Before my time, I fear. But it's nice to see a real telephone again.

I think I actually have one stored away somewhere . . .

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Ah. Before my time, I fear. But it's nice to see a real telephone again.

I think I actually have one stored away somewhere . . .

I miss them. We still have a landline, but it has buttons, not a dial. A real phone should have a dial, I feel.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Ah. Before my time, I fear. But it's nice to see a real telephone again.

I think I actually have one stored away somewhere . . .

I miss them. We still have a landline, but it has buttons, not a dial. A real phone should have a dial, I feel.

And I've been told that these days there are two types of "landlines": the older copper wire networks and the more recent broadband and fiber optic landline connections.
Thankfully, we still have a copper wire landline, so if the power goes out, our phone still works (as long as the phone line didn't get pulled down by a tree or something).
With the broadband and fiber optic landline connections, those homes will still have a working phone line in a power outage, but only for a certain amount of time depending on the battery-backup to their system.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Ah. Before my time, I fear. But it's nice to see a real telephone again.

I think I actually have one stored away somewhere . . .

I miss them. We still have a landline, but it has buttons, not a dial. A real phone should have a dial, I feel.

And I've been told that these days there are two types of "landlines": the older copper wire networks and the more recent broadband and fiber optic landline connections.
Thankfully, we still have a copper wire landline, so if the power goes out, our phone still works (as long as the phone line didn't get pulled down by a tree or something).
With the broadband and fiber optic landline connections, those homes will still have a working phone line in a power outage, but only for a certain amount of time depending on the battery-backup to their system.

Don't think I've ever come across that. If we lose power, our phone remains fine. The advantages of an ageing infrastructure, I guess.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote: . . . Thankfully, we still have a copper wire landline, so if the power goes out, our phone still works (as long as the phone line didn't get pulled down by a tree or something).
With the broadband and fiber optic landline connections, those homes will still have a working phone line in a power outage, but only for a certain amount of time depending on the battery-backup to their system.

Don't think I've ever come across that. If we lose power, our phone remains fine. The advantages of an ageing infrastructure, I guess.

Oh, for years I've been hearing about places here in the U.S. where companies that use to have copper wire landlines have been replacing those with the broadband and fiber optic type because those are less expensive for the companies to maintain/repair. Many of our older, larger phone companies are no longer even in the business of providing/maintaining home landline service; they sold that portion off to other companies to focus on more profitable areas.
Our phone service provider had been AT&T (the old "Ma Bell" here in the U.S. back in the previous century), but it sold off the home phone service several years ago.
(If you're not familiar with how "old" AT&T was, the initials had once stood for "American Telephone and Telegraph Company".)

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote: . . . Thankfully, we still have a copper wire landline, so if the power goes out, our phone still works (as long as the phone line didn't get pulled down by a tree or something).
With the broadband and fiber optic landline connections, those homes will still have a working phone line in a power outage, but only for a certain amount of time depending on the battery-backup to their system.

Don't think I've ever come across that. If we lose power, our phone remains fine. The advantages of an ageing infrastructure, I guess.

Oh, for years I've been hearing about places here in the U.S. where companies that use to have copper wire landlines have been replacing those with the broadband and fiber optic type because those are less expensive for the companies to maintain/repair. Many of our older, larger phone companies are no longer even in the business of providing/maintaining home landline service; they sold that portion off to other companies to focus on more profitable areas.
Our phone service provider had been AT&T (the old "Ma Bell" here in the U.S. back in the previous century), but it sold off the home phone service several years ago.
(If you're not familiar with how "old" AT&T was, the initials had once stood for "American Telephone and Telegraph Company".)

The primary supplier of landlines (and now internet) in the UK is BT, formerly British Telecom, which until 1981 was a part of the General Post Office (GPO). The GPO, originally a government department, had had a monopoy on telephone communications since 1912; before that, since 1846, it had been the Electric Telegraph Company.

Back to the topic on hand: somehow, I find I'm being seduced into buying more Marvel stuff these days!

Since the start of December 2018, I've purchased:
* Black Widow (2019 series) #1
* Captain America (2018 series) #7
* Daredevil (2019 series) #1
* Invaders (2019 series) #1
* Marvel Comics Presents (2019 series) #1
* Winter Soldier #1

* True Believers: Marvel Knights 20th Anniversary - Black Widow by Grayson & Jones #1 ($1.00)
* True Believers: Marvel Knights 20th Anniversary - Daredevil and The Defenders #1 ($1.00)
* True Believers: Marvel Knights 20th Anniv. - Punisher by Ennis #1 ($1.00)
* True Believers: Wolverine - X-23 #1 ($1.00)  

from the back-issues bins,
* Captain America #697 (from early in 2018)
* Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo - Born Better #3 (from 2007)

in trade paperback collections,
* Bullseye: The Columbian Connection (2017)
* Captain America: Prisoner of War (issues #616-619)
* Elektra: Always Bet on Red (2017)
* Tales of Suspense: Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier (2018)

And now I'm going to give Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man a try!  

Reistance is futile!

tony ingram wrote:Reistance is futile!

Well, we'll see how long this lasts for me, especially with Marvel's habit of suddenly announcing a series was really a limited series halfway through; "stealth" cancelations; and their annoying habit of having "EVENTS!" interrupt storylines in almost all the books for a few issues.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Reistance is futile!

Well, we'll see how long this lasts for me, especially with Marvel's habit of suddenly announcing a series was really a limited series halfway through; "stealth" cancelations; and their annoying habit of having "EVENTS!" interrupt storylines in almost all the books for a few issues.

They don't really do the company-wide events that often these days, they haven't done for several years.

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Reistance is futile!

Well, we'll see how long this lasts for me, especially with Marvel's habit of suddenly announcing a series was really a limited series halfway through; "stealth" cancelations; and their annoying habit of having "EVENTS!" interrupt storylines in almost all the books for a few issues.

They don't really do the company-wide events that often these days, they haven't done for several years.

Super-Duper Hush-Hush! Secret Empire Strikes Back! wasn't all that long ago (it ended later in 2017), Secret Wars didn't end until the end of 2015/start of 2016, which was immediately followed by Son of Civil War that lasted until late 2016 (which was a little over two years ago).
So saying "several years" would be pushing it for Civil War II and Secret Empire.

MajorHoy wrote: . . . And now I'm going to give Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man a try!  

Well, I bought the tpb collection of Spencer's first five issues of Amazing Spider-Man,



and in all honesty, it felt pretty mediocre.

Is there a formula for how writers are suppose to start their first arcs for ASM these days? Quite a few of the things that happened in Spencer's first volume seem to echo things that happened in Dan Slott's "Big Time" arc from back in 2011 (though I didn't buy/read that until maybe 2015?), and the writing made so many of the characters sound like bad comics in search of punchlines. (It was the equivalent of a lackluster situation comedy that needs a prerecorded laugh-track to make people think it's really funny when it really isn't.)

Meh. Still debating about getting the "Hunted" arc that starts at the end of the month.

I guess humour is a very personal thing, it's all a matter of personal taste.

tony ingram wrote:I guess humour is a very personal thing, it's all a matter of personal taste.

It's also a problem when one character is suppose to be funny, but not EVERY character is made to be (but isn't really) funny, too.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I guess humour is a very personal thing, it's all a matter of personal taste.

It's also a problem when one character is suppose to be funny, but not EVERY character is made to be (but isn't really) funny, too.

Who decides if a character should or shouldn't be funny? Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Batman, none of these people were known for being funny before the eighties Justice League, but look how successful that was!

I've decided to go back and re-read the Spider-Verse storyline from a few years back. I already had most of it in either single issues or a tpb collection, but since I didn't have the Spider-Man 2099 issues, I recently ordered a copy of

Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 2: Spider-Verse tpb.

I got it in the mail today.

 

Oh, I remember that! I liked that series a lot!