A YEAR OF GIVEAWAYS: Three “Classic” Marvel Collections!
45 Comments | Posted: March 29th, 2010 | Filed under: Contests
OK, we’re back on track with another giveaway, but let’s get the usual thing out of the way first and offer our congratulations to “hardtravelinghero,” who should really talk to his parents about their naming convention. They could have named him Oliver or Hal and not forced him to spend an hour arguing every time he showed his ID, and– oh, that’s a pseudonym. People still do that on the internet? Wow. I thought To Catch A Predator convinced everyone it was a bad idea.
Anyway, this week’s a three-fer to make up for last week’s lack of a giveaway. You can get your hands on two vintage reprints and a more modern collection of older stories, all from the house than Stan, Jack, and Steve built! Hercules: Prince Of Power collects the two Bob Layton miniseries; Fantastic Four Versus The X-Men does what it says on the tin with typical Claremontian dialogue covering up Jon Bogdanove’s pencils and The Dragon Seed Saga is an ambitiously named, if pretty pedestrian Iron-Man-Goes-To-Stereotypical-China story written by John Byrne with art by Paul Ryan and M.D. Bright.
How do you win these three paperbacks? Just leave a a comment with your favorite Marvel comics from the 80s or 90s that aren’t collected yet. For me, it’d be the Roger Stern/John Buscema Avengers run whose highlight was put into trade as Under Siege but the rest has been sadly left out of the reprint game (excluding the first part of the return of Jean Grey.)
Just leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, April 3, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are) will be deleted.
Terms And Conditions:?
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.
I’ll vote for…the entire Nocenti/Romita Jr. Daredevil run.
Avengers 281-285, the siege of Olympus, really deserves to be reprinted. There were a lot of great Stern-Buscema Avengers tales. The Olympus story was a great follow up to Under Siege.
I’d also like to see the Steve Englehart-Al Milgrom West Coast Avengers reprinted somewhere.
I’m not even joking when I say Rom Spaceknight.
The entire Busiek run on Iron Man, which ran parallel to his Avengers run in the late nineties. Loved it, and Sean Chen’s pencils were great as well. Underrated.
(the first 8 issues are due out in hardcover this spring, but I’m convinced it’s just a “OMG MOVIE” collection and they won’t gather up the full run.)
I’m probably the only one, But I wish they’d put out more of Spider-Man 2099.
Did they collect the Gail Simone Deadpool/Agent X stuff? Because I missed it at the time, and can’t seem to find it.
So I’ll say that.
I would have said Spider-Ham, but apparently the first trade is coming out in June, so I’m going for Damage Control.
Not taking part in the giveaway (overseas), but still:
Master of Kung Fu 100-120, for the phenomenal Gene Day.
It just gets in under the 90′s wire: Tony Harris and Dan Jolley’s Dr. Strange mini-series The Flight of Bones.
QUASAR. I am not kidding. Hell, at least if not the entire first 25 issues, then either the “Journey Into Mystery” or “Cosmos in Collision” storylines.
Yes, I am a giant dork.
Larry Hama and Ron Wagner’s NTH MAN. I’m currently re-reading the quarter-bin issues I just picked up, and it’s even better than 12 year old me thought it was. This book is surprisingly adult, funny, complex and affecting, especially when you consider that the slugline is “the ultimate ninja!”
I’d like to see some of those crossovers that took place in the annuals – Atlantis Attacks, Evolutionary War, that sort of stuff. Barring that, Micronauts would be interesting, too.
I’d like to see a big epic hardcover collection of all various failed Marvel series, one-shots or minis that never took off… but somebody clearly thought deserved to be published in the first place. Stuff like Slapstick, Power Pachyderms, Solarman, Fallen Angels, Erik Larsen’s VERY underrated Nova (which wasn’t the 80′s or 90′s but I’d allow it), the original Rocket Raccoon mini-series, Midnight Sons, Terror Inc., Speedball, that sort of thing. Individually, none of these comics would move many trade paperbacks, but together they could probably rule the niche market (I mean honestly, if Dazzler gets a giant trade…).
Two words: “ROM” and “Spaceknight.”
Also, Sleepwalker. I mean, I wouldn’t buy the trades because I have every issue, but surely someone would, right? Right? Dang.
I’d also like to see a Sleepwalker collection, and one for Crystar too.
I was going to say Marvel’s spin-off G.I. Joe series, Special Missions, but a quick Amazon check shows me that two collections are already planned for this year! So I’ll say Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema’s great run on Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man starting in ’88 that was completely overshadowed by Todd McFarlane’s star run on Amazing. Sal’s art really holds up 20 years later.
ROM.
Hum. I actually agree with a lot of previous choices, but I hate dittoing. So I’m gonna go with volume 1 of War Machine.
They got some of the classic what-ifs and some of the ok new ones, but they need to collect ALL of them.
Also these “Millenial Visions” from the 00′s (who cares) were weird as hell. I’d own a collection of ‘em.
I really like Amazing SPiderman 231 and 232. I was only 10 and the Cobra was such a fascinating villain. He could stick to walls and shoot that venom. I thought Ned Leeds was a goner. Then at the end where we all thought it was going to be Juggernaut from issue 230 it turned out to be Mr. Hyde. Cobra had left him in jail in the previous months’ Spectacular Spiderman 46 and he was out for revenge. Issue 232 was so awesome. Hyde destroying things to get to spidey and cobra. Spidey webbing Cobra to himself and then later to Hyde. I remember drawing blood into the issue where the Cobra removes his cuffs. I read those over and over. Was so happy when they released the Mr. Hyde heroclix. Was there ever a Cobra one?
I’d say Spectacular Spider-Ham, but it looks they’re finally getting around to that, so I’m going to go with Damage Control. Before they tried to serious-it-up in Civil War, it was a fun workplace comedy that happened to involve superpowers on a daily basis.
The first issue has one of my favorite scenes in any comic ever, when a worker finds an orb that makes him green, buff, and superpowered, and Lenny the foreman calls the office saying “I’m gonna need a tech crew down here. One of my guys just had an origin.”
Steve Ditko’s Speedball.
I don’t know if it’s part of a storyline or what, but I remember having a Spider-Man annual as a kid that showed the more human side of Sandman as he rented the loft above a dysfunctional family where the eldest son was getting into gangs and street crime. I remember being struck by how weird it was to see a villain acting so…not villainish. But then again, I was maybe six.
People already said Quasar and Atlantis Attacks, so I’ll have to go with . . .
THE COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK AT MARVEL . . .
With the Fantastic Four Roast, FH Kills the Marvel Universe, all the Petey strips, that one issue of Spectacular, all the other odds and sods that ran in various (usually Salicrup-edited) annuals, and of course, all hundred-some of the Marvel Age double-page spreads. Hopefully in a gigantic phone book format to go next to my OTHER near-complete Hembeck omnibus.
Do the Epic books count? If so, mark me down for all the SHADOWLINE series.
A lot of people have mentioned things I’d like to see collected (Rom, Crystar, Spider-Man 2099, Stern’s run on Avengers, so many others), but I noticed that nobody has mentioned Assistant Editors Month yet. I think it’d make a great Essential volume.
I would love to see the the full David Michelinie/John Romita Jr/Bob Layton run on Iron Man done.
I would really like it if Marvel could banish the dire wraiths of licensing and publish the collected Micronauts.
(Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but people have already mentioned ROM, and Bill Mantlo is just awesome.)
I wanted to pick something I don’t currently have the issues for: Conan the King. Never gonna happen.
The J. M. DeMatteis Captain America run. All of it. I particularly liked how he killed off the Red Skull (I was even young and naive enough at the time to think it’d stick).
I was going to say the Mantlo/Mignola Rocket Raccoon mini, but apparently that’s been collected in the Annihilation Classic hardcover.
So, in that case my answer will have to be ROM: Spaceknight
Call me crazy, but I’d have to say some kind of Clone Saga omnibus (or series of trades).
Or…Spider-Man 2099.
I would love to see some of Warren Ellis’ early stuff at Marvel, especially Hellstorm and Doom 2099.
Darkhawk!
Mark Gruenwald’s “Captain America No More!” story arc
Foolkiller by Steve Gerber and… others.
I second the vote for J.M. DeMatteis’ Captain America run. Not because I read it and have fond memories of it, but because I want to read it. It sounds like a blast.
and ROM.
Dakota North!
“Larry Hama and Ron Wagner’s NTH MAN. I’m currently re-reading the quarter-bin issues I just picked up, and it’s even better than 12 year old me thought it was. This book is surprisingly adult, funny, complex and affecting, especially when you consider that the slugline is “the ultimate ninja!””
Seconded! Nth Man was a very mature war comic, that also managed to be all-out insane. I remember Chris Clairmont recommending it in a talk.
It would still work as an essential collection and should have about enough issues to fill one.
Machine Man 2020 by Barry Windsor-Smith (1984-’85). Although collected in 1994 in 2 issues, the whole of 4 issues need to be collected into one paperback. I liked that Machine Man was a spin-off from 2001 and that Ditko followed after Kirby left “Machine Man” series.
Doom 2099, hands down.
John Byrne’s West Coast Avengers run
The entire William Messner-Loebs Wonder Woman run, because I read one of the two trades published in the ’90s, “The Challenge of Artemis,” and it was very, well ’90s, but also really enjoyable, having read it just over a year ago.
I was excited to find out Journey has been collected into two TPBs since I discovered the series about a year ago and want very much to read it.
Adding to the Nth Man love. That was a fun, trippy series. I’m also one of the handful of people who would love to see Major Bummer in trade. I’d also love to see Nomad collected. I had a soft spot for that series.
And if I can be really obscure, there was a fantastic Black Panther story from Marvel Comics Presents #13-37 that blew my mind as a kid and will probably never, ever be seen in trade form.
I’d like some of the mid-90′s Guardians of the Galaxy. Quest for the Shield stuff was great with the Stark. I keep finding older issues every once in a while, but if not the whole thing, some of the early stuff. That was stuff I got on newsstands at my local drugstore.