December 21, 2022

Since I’m posting this on Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Also, Happy Hanukkah to those of celebrated that during this past week. And Happy Kwanzaa to those who will celebrate that next week! And Happy Holidays to everyone else!

The next issue of Hitomi dropped. The Wakanda run is great. All the X-titles have been good. T’Challa has been having a bad few years. Hopefully Clea and Stephen can figure this situation out soon! The next issue of the Avengers Assemble event dropped. The next could issues for Dark Web dropped too including Kamala’s first of two issues! I still hope for a new run for her soon and not just a miniseries this time. Fingers crossed. Catwoman got her 50th issue. And Nightwing is at #99 this week. The BvR mini-event is heating up. The next issue of the Harley animated series tie-in comic dropped. And finally, the final issue of Dark Crisis dropped with many variants.

So many covers to talk about below!

I loved this cover because it shows an Avengers-like team from the past. I assume this is the next fully new team after the 1 Million BC Avengers team. I would love to have covers from every era eventually, even if we haven’t met some of the characters yet.

Another fantastic Peach Momoko cover. Betsy looks great!

Of course I had to get another other copy of the A cover and then the only variant for this issue. I still hope that a new run will come for Ms. Marvel because of people liking the show. But we’ll see, maybe they’re waiting till after “The Marvels” movie debuts next year.

The next in the non-connecting-but-should-connect cover for Gold Goblin 2.

This great Catwoman cover is by Stjepan Šejić. I was so excited to see a new cover by him.

I thought that this issue would have a similar creative theme like the past few covers for Nightwing have had, and this is nice, but I mainly just got it so it could be part of the set. Can’t wait to get issue 100 soon!

This is the first in the next variant covers set for the DCeased title. I hadn’t even realized that this was a wraparound cover at first. I almost missed it. I’m not quite sure what this is paying homage too, I think it’s album covers. Someone let me know!

This one I got mainly because Spectre is in the background.

I really like this A cover for the next Harley animated series issue. Very well done.

These are all the variants for the final Dark Crisis issue that I got. There are many more.

This is paying homage to the Final Crisis cover art of the hardcover by J.G. Jones.

This is the glorious tribute cover for the wonderful George Pérez. I was hoping this would get a wraparound variant and it did! Though I also wanted a poster of this. Now, if I forgot that there was a poster I got already, forgive me, haha.

These are all the DC characters he created, helped create, or wrote or drew for over his life.

If you want to know who drew which character, take a look.

These are the promo images for the new era of DC (which I think starts after the Lazarus event). I’m not sure, but I saw that there are partner images to these that are the younger hero counterparts to each of these characters. But I’m not sure if they will be covers or not. So, until I know for sure, I’ll post these here and if the others pop up, I’ll make a completed collection post for all 8 covers. But Dan Mora has been doing a lot of covers recently, I’m enjoying them.

December 14, 2022

I haven’t started these yet since I just took the photos before posting these.

I’m excited for WildC.A.T.S. Batgirls has a fun arc going on. I think that Superman SOK issue is late since that Kal-El returns special dropped last time. The penultimate (I’m 95% sure it is. Some of these events have an aftermath issue, so I’m not sure. But the “last” issue of the event is in the next week’s post) Dark Crisis issue dropped. That Harley book I’ll get to when I talk about the variant below. The Planet Hulk story is interesting since it takes place a thousand years in the future. So, apparently I have been wrong and this Savage Avengers run doesn’t connect to the Avengers Assemble event more directly. I thought that they would connect, but it’s only been Avengers and Avengers Forever that have crossed over. It’s so weird that there are multiversal elements in the Savage Avengers plot and there’s even a Deathlock and mention of Avenger Prime. But I guess it won’t cross over into the event. And here is the Dark Web event truly starting beyond the first issue. I have some things to say about the covers below. It’s a bit nuts. But I’m liking the story even though I still am not sure if this is before or after the End of the Spider-verse event. Iron Man is starting a new run. And Photon is getting her first title! There seem to have been two one-shots in the late 80’s and early 90’s respectively, so this is great for Monica Rambeau’s character.

Covers below.

So, I’ve mentioned before that I thought these Dark Web A covers could connect once I got them and could see them next to one-another, but sadly, they don’t seem to. Which I think is a wasted opportunity. There are 18 issues in this event, and that could have made a nice 3×6 grid set of connecting covers in the shape of an actual web in the background with all the various cover artist’s art in the foreground. It could have looked amazing all together. It seems like a waste of a background web design in an event with web in the name. So now I will just have all these issues double-ordered. I’ll have have them all in a Dark Web set anyway. They’ll still look nice together when I have all the ones with the web background (Yes there are a couple a covers of issues in this event that don’t have the web background, which makes less sense). Oh but that’s not all. It seems that the two connecting covers here and in the next photo, are the only connecting covers in the event at all! I thought that even if they didn’t have a big collage set, that they would at least have a few connecting covers throughout the event, but nope. So I guess that means that will be the next completed set cover post I’ll make. Oh, but wait, there’s more! AMS 15 comes before Dark Web: X-Men 1. And yet, the cover for DW:XM 1 shows the first connecting image and the ASM 15 variant is the second connecting image. That just seems like a logistical error that they couldn’t catch in time. But wow, they really didn’t organize the variants for this event very well. Though I suppose that means I spend less money, so, woot! And of course all the covers look great.

This new Iron Man run has a nice set of connecting covers coming starting with this one. We’ll have a bunch of covers with Tony’s hall of armor on display. I might event find a good multi-comic display frame and display these an action figure or art in the future. I’m not sure yet. Though finding good frames for that purpose has been tough.

I really love this cover. I think this is my favorite of the bunch. The colors and the details are just brilliant.

Now this, and the A cover, are interesting (I totally forgot about this). This is a little celebration of some of the popular variant covers from the past years depicting Harley. Some of the covers inside I have, most of the others I’ve seen before and I couple others I hadn’t seen. It’s a nice little compendium. Normally I’ve seen variants collected in a particular artist’s portfolio collection book, so this was a surprise. And then another surprise since I forgot about it.

December 2022 Late Issues 2

Late variants and normal issues. The first two are from November and the others are from December 7th. Talking about the variants below.

So, Marvel have been starting these Demonized variants that are themed for the Dark Web event. I’ve seen some and liked them but didn’t love them enough to get them or they were exclusives or incentive covers. This one was the first that I saw that wowed me.

Of course, here’s another fun Momoko cover.

I actually hadn’t planned on getting this one but I ended up liking it. I think I have another Miles graffiti cover somewhere, and I’ve seen others over the past few years, but hadn’t gotten them.

This is certainly my favorite cover of this bunch. This is technically more of a movie poster cover than those Star Wars ones that I posted the completed variant set for in the post before the Avatar 2 post. Mainly because this one has the creative team on the bottom in that font that is used in movie posters for the cast and creatives involved in the movie. I had thought I would display those SW covers together but I may use them and this to start a movie poster themed variant cover part of my collection.

Avatar (2): The Way of Water (2022)

December 16, 2022

So, I went with a friend to the Air & Space Museum in Chantilly Virginia. I hadn’t been there in over a decade, and I’d never seen a movie there. It was an interesting experience as my friend will attest, haha. There were some technical difficulties that were eventually fixed. And we watched the first little chunk of it not in 3D because of that. But it was great the rest of the time. though our seats were, uh, a smidge close to the rather massive screen, so, there’s that. But even so, it was still enjoyable. But I certainly want to see it again with a proper view.

I can’t believe it’s been so long since the first Avatar movie. This was the second of 5 parts. If this does well, James Cameron will go through with the other movies. I, for one, hope that they get made because I missed Pandora and the Na’vi culture.

It starts with a little catch up of what’s happened since the last movie and then dives (pun not intended but welcomed) straight into things. It is a 3 hour movie, but honestly it didn’t feel like it. Even with the couple interruptions. Perhaps since it’s been so long since we’ve been in this world that I just enjoyed sitting in it all. But also I think the story was well-paced. Maybe a couple droplets of slow scenes, but the beauty of the visuals really made me not care about the length of the movie.

There are a few plots to follow and I enjoyed them all. I felt for the characters and the situations they were put through, both good and bad. The kids pull on the heart-strings, as do the animals.

The acting was, of course, fantastic. It was nice to see most of the cast return, you know, other than the various deaths in the first movie. But everyone just slipped back into their roles. I do regret not rewatching the first one again before watching this but I just forgot to.

And of course, the visuals. The 3D aspect certainly enhanced the viewing. They already looked amazing, but man, I had forgotten how great 3D can be when done in a movie that warrants it. I would definitely suggest seeing it in 3D. The colors and VFX just pop and look so real. The creature designs for this movie were brilliant as before. So many animals I would love to interact with. And since this movie was water-based, there were just so very many animals to see and with the visuals of underwater views, it just all flowed into one another to make visual glory.

The main plot was a bit straightforward, but every moment of it was deserved I think. I loved meeting the new characters and the adventures that were had. This movie could certainly be watched on its own and stand alone nicely. But, since it is just part of a larger story, there are threads that will be explored in the next movies. And I am certainly hoping to be able to see what comes of them.

There are some times during this all where you just get caught up in everything going on and you can’t help but feel for characters and there were a couple moments where I teared up. The scenes were brilliantly acted.

I really enjoyed this movie, and I really hope that it’ll do well enough that the other sequels will be made. Though I suppose Avatar 3 was filmed at the same time as this one (in 2017) so it’s probably almost done. And apparently a lot of Avatar 4 has been filmed already. So, we’ll see.

Mid-credit scenes: No

End-credit scenes: No

But, the way it ends, you will want the next movie asap.

December 7, 2022

Monkey Prince sure is getting around. A new arc starts in Poison Ivy. The next one-shot of Dark Crisis is here. The next issue for Quick Stops dropped. MTG’s next issue arrived. So excited for GARGOYLES!!! This is the last issue of Damage Control. I do wonder if the Punisher and Daredevil comic will crossover because it seems like they are essentially doing that in the Daredevil issues but not the Punisher issues. This is also the last issue of The Variants. I think this arc of Captain Marvel is ending with this issue. I’m very excited about X-Men Red’s story currently. And I know that the Immortal X-Men story will be leading to Sinister’s plans crashing into his own event next month. Steve has to deal with Bucky’s choice. This Thanos story is exciting because I didn’t know it would be a two-title crossover with the Thor comics, but it says at the end that this story will continue in the next Thor issue. We’ve been waiting on this plot-line for a while now. Here is Moon Girl’s next run starting. And also Miles’ next run. Hidden Empire is continuing, although, I’m still unsure about if the reading order includes the other Star Wars titles or just the HE title, so I’m delaying my reading of this event till I’ve caught up on a couple volumes of the other titles I generally get as tpb’s. The next issues of the End of the Spider-verse, the Secret Invasion miniseries event and the Avengers Assemble event all dropped. And the Dark Web event has started.

Covers to follow.

The A cover of this issue had so many characters I love on it that I had to get another copy of it. Plus the colors look great. And of course I had to get this variant with all those huge villains on the right.

Both top and bottom halves of this cover are great. Now, I may be totally wrong in this, but starting here, most of the issues of this event have that web background. I know that they don’t all connect since all 3 issues of each little limited series sized title has the same web background. But, I’m unsure if the backgrounds connect into 3 webs of characters. I’ve ordered two of each for almost this whole event, so, we’ll see? Hopefully I’m correct!

For the Avengers Assemble event they have connecting covers based in a particular decade. It does confuse me because the Avengers Assemble issue 1 itself didn’t have a connecting variant but this Avengers issue (which is issue 2 of the event) does start out with a connecting cover. I guess I’ll have to wait until next time to see if that connecting cover connects to this one. It’s just a weird choice to have every other issue in this event connect but not the first.

Miles having a connecting cover set for his new run is cool. Though I do feel like I should stop connecting Spider-verse themed cover sets after this since I feel like there are new ones very frequently. But we’ll see!

Two obviously gorgeous Peach Momoko covers.

And here are these two MAGNIFICENT David Nakayama covers. Ivy and Spawn (It’s Spawn’s 30th anniversary this year so almost every major publisher’s comics have been having Spawn on some of their comic’s variants over the past few months) look great here. And when David posted the art for Gargoyles and the upcoming Darkwing Duck comics, and that he was the main cover artist, I was blown away! I mean look at this!! Also, I did try to get some more variants for this issue because so many of them were amazing, but of course, most were exclusives.

I mean, LOOK AT THAT!!!

November 30, 2022

Posting this late and haven’t started on reading this pile yet. I will today.

I’m very excited for Nahiri’s comic! I know a bit about her history and her relation to Sorin and Ugin. I had forgotten that Dark Horse was taking over The High Republic Adventures title, so when I saw the comic pop up when I set my list to include Dark Horse comics for a different comic I was getting, I was like oh yeah! Vader will meet the Techno Union leader again. Interested in seeing what happens with Clea and Stephen. This Planet Hulk stand-alone story is intriguing being set 1000 years in the future. Finally the Avengers Assemble event is beginning! We got Wildstorm’s 30th Anniversary special. And of course the next DC Holiday issue. And then there are the annuals for Detective Comics, Batgirls, Nightwing. Nubia got a special for the anniversary of her creation. Blue Beetle has a miniseries.Coming from that one-shot a couple weeks ago we have the JSA getting a new run. And of course, the return of Kal-El special! Though its very poorly timed since the end of this special leads into JL 75 from a few months ago, DC either timed out the Dark Crisis too early or these other titles that happened before JL 75 had delays.

Covers to follow.

I totally forgot that this was a wraparound cover, so I have another added to my list. I would like this as a poster too.

This month has Marvel doing a bunch of homage covers to classic covers. This is based on Avengers #4 from the 1963 run (I think. if not someone let me know which cover it’s based on!).

Another David Nakayama cover, love that yellow theme.

I just loved this the moment I saw it. The colors and shapes are all fantastic!

This is the A cover for Vader 29 by Razzah. I was very happy to see this artist become the A cover artist for a bit since I really like their covers and a lot of the time they are tough to get. The other cover is of course, the last of the Revelations themed covers by Taurin Clarke. This means that I should have a complete set post for those covers after the post for this past week.

Completed Variant Sets 2 – December 1, 2022

Just one set for this post. Been waiting for this set to be complete for a while. Yes the covers don’t exactly line up, I don’t really understand how printing messes that up with it was all created from one image by one artist, but eh, you get the gist. This is a Jim Lee styled design by Dan Mora for the DCeased: War of the Undead Gods arc of the DCeased series. It’s paying homage to Chris Claremont’s X-Men #1 from October 1, 1991. Specifically, Jim Lee’s variant cover E, the triple gatefold cover showing the full art.

I did buy a copy of it a few years ago, though I can’t find the photo now, if I do find it or if I take a new one of that comic unfolded, I’ll upload it here.