(Yes, I just snuck in another quasi-announcement.)
First of all, we should get the winner of last week’s giveaway, Jacques Tardi’s West Coast Blues out of the way. Of the forty-seven comments I got on that post, the winner (according to Random.org) is Isaac from Satisfactory Comics! For once, I’m going to leave the Agreeable Comics/Satisfactory Comics rap feud behind me and offer Isaac a healthy congratulations!
Now, for this week’s giveaway, we’ve got a doozy. Many comic readers began to wail and gnash upon hearing about Joe Quesada’s idea for Spider-Man: get rid of the marriage and return Peter Parker to the status quo that the general public understands him to have and while One More Day’s execution left an awful lot to to be desired, I’ve actually very much enjoyed the Spider-Man comics that have been written in its week: brief storylines of one to six issues (and since it’s published three-times-a-month, that’s two months at most for readers to get an entire story) with attendant b-stories and background arcs that weave in and out of the main arcs remarkably well for something that’s the product of a large writing team. There’s a few clunkers, honestly, (I wasn’t crazy about American Son for instance,) but overall, it’s been a really decent run that’s made me realize how much I like Peter Parker all over again. The problem with having a dozen recent hardcover Spider-Man collections is that I’m not very likely to re-read a dozen recent hardcover Spider-Man collections anytime soon and I need to reclaim the shelf space for my bound volumes of Rescue Rangers fan fiction. That’s why I’m giving away the twelve Premiere Hardcovers issued so far for the post-Brand New Day Spider-Man. Here’s what they look like:
Now, how do you win these books? Just leave a comment with the name of your favorite Spider-Man villain from the comics before 12:01AM EST on Saturday, January 16 2010. (I know, someone’s just itching to write in “Joe Quesada” and ha-ha, we get it, but that person will be disqualified and their entry sent into the darkest pits of internet hell. In other words, they’ll show up on Perez Hilton’s site.) As before, I’ll randomly pick a winner using the Random.org number generator again and that’s it.
Terms And Conditions
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America only. 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 yes, I know they might undo the whole Peter-and-MJ-not-being-married shebang soon.
X-Men: Messiah Complex is a highly uneven mess with four writers, a dozen artists between pencillers and inkers, and four or five issues of plot spread over thirteen different comics in four different titles (plus a special), but I found myself enjoying it anyway, mostly because it has extreme amounts of the dunderheaded sturm und drang that I like in my X-Men comics. There’s time-travel, a child with a mysterious destiny, the fate of mutantkind in peril, and Cable sporting a set of shoulderpads that make his costumes in the 90s look positively restrained. It’s not worth the $30 cover price, but Amazon’s got it for $19.79, making it a much more appealing slice of modern junk culture.
Spider-Man: A New Goblin collects five issues of what many fans consider to be “prime” Len Wein/Ross Andru material. The mystery’s about as obvious as they come and it’s positively drenched in melodrama, but it’s hard to deny the appeal if you have any fondness for the character. It’s archetypical Spider-Man, complete with Aunt May in the hospital and Mary Jane serving as a calculated combination of harridan and super-hot lust object for the fans.
