Random Thoughts

Let me start on the Spider-Man variant story. Marvel and DC usually make dealers buy 20, 40, or even 75 copies of a book to get one variant. Sometimes you can buy as many copies of an unimportant variant as you want. Now, dealers can change their orders via an FOC three weeks before they arrive. In this case, Marvel announced that any dealer that ordered more copies of Spider Man 583 than 575 could get as many copies of the Obama cover as they wanted. This slipped by most of the dealers. And who knew that Joe Quesada would be all over TV to plug it ? So I didn’t get any, but I could have sold plenty.

And next week they are printing a second printing with the same Obama variant cover except it has an orange background instead of a blue one. Don’t be fooled as some people on E-Bay who are buying the second printing thinking they are getting the original variant. The original variant is worth up to 100 dollars on E-Bay.

Now the real random thoughts (SPOILERS!!!):
 

• You’ve been warned about SPOILERS… stop now!  Okay…
• So Darkseid kills Batman in Final Crisis 6, but which Batman died in RIP? And if the continuity was screwed up by having a live Batman in the next two issues of Batman, what the heck is going on now? Even DC couldn’t straighten it out to me on our weekly call. Luthor zapping Libra was cool, but Sivana saying “and that’s the classic we haven’t heard the last of him” was priceless.  Batman and which Superman were flying around in Crisis 6 heat visioning everybody in sight? For a non-killer he seemed to kill a lot of who? Good guys or bad guys? Can’t tell. Is it the same Supes carrying Bat’s body in the end? Final Crisis 7 comes in two weeks and we are promised that Grant Morrison will clear everything up. I am holding my breath.
• In Faces of Evil - Prometheus,  it seems he goes off to a secret monastery in the Himalyas to learn all about evil. Holy Dr Doom, Batman, where have we seen that before?
• Adam, Legend of the Blue Marvel was great. What they plan on doing with a hero who has talks with the Watcher after the series is over is interesting. Calling the Watcher a white guy with attitude is classic.
• Batman Confidential is a fun way to introduce all the old villains but I am sure they are screwing with continuity? But, who cares?

1.13.09 - Tuesday Preview

Welcome to what I hope will be a series of Tuesday previews to let you know what to look forward to on comic day.

Tomorrow, Amazing Spider-Man 583 comes out with a variant cover and a five-page Obama back-up story. The variant cover is a one of fifty so, as usual, I didn’t get any. And, as usual, I have people coming out of the woodwork to buy it. Luckily Marvel is coming to my rescue by issuing a second printing variant next week and I will have plenty. Of course what this does to the resale value of the original variant is anyone’s guess.
 
X-men Manifest Destiny should be here tomorrow to make up for the screw up of last week. Those miscover books were up immediately on E-Bay, but they tell me the real book will be free to me to make up for it, but as they are not on my invoice I won’t know until they get here. Destiny?

Also appearing is Adam, Legend of the Blue Marvel 3 and the first two have been pretty good.

On the other hand, there is Death Defying Devil which is part of Project Super Powers. They could call it Hard to Read Devil because the entire series makes it difficult to follow this storyline, but we’ll give it another try.

Final Crisis 6. What can I say? When Final Bar Mitzvah comes out I will comment.

And last but not least is Mad Magazine. I know everyone thinks I am old and senile (Thanks Dennis; ED: No problem, buddy.  Hahaha.), but compared to the past Mad this is horrible and not funny. Pick up a few Mad trades if you don’t believe me.

And to cap everything off we have Obama trading cards. Now I once asked a distributor why cards don’t come out before the movie opens? It would be great to sell cards before an anticipated hit (Iron Man) or bomb (The Spirit) comes out, but I was informed that movie cards contain scenes from the movie so they don’t want to give away spoilers. But folks only buy the cards for the inserts anyway. Bikini swatches and kiss cards from Benchwarmers and costume cards and autographs from Iron Man are big hits. They say there are inserts in these cards and I am wondering what they are.

That’s all for this preview. Tune in next Tuesday for our hopefully second installment.

Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel - Quick Review and Coincidence

This past Wednesday, Marvel Comics released a book entitled “Adam: Legend of The Blue Marvel.”  It revolves around a superhero who appears in the early 1960s and is discovered to be (gasp) a black man. Gross injustice ensues.  In this humble comic store owner’s opinion, it’s a really good read.

Although I have a DC Comics rep, I don’t have a Marvel rep. If I did, I would be calling him everyday for the lottery numbers. Come on now, how much of a coincidence that Marvel publishes this book one day after America elects its first (gasp) black president? Sure, the book was thought out months ago, written whenever, the political leanings of Marvel staff are irrelevant, and certainly the editors can make a good guess, but it still is a remarkable piece of luck that the release date was November 5th.

Writing works of fiction is difficult enough without putting words and thoughts into the heads of real people. Some will debate how the “real” JFK would have acted had this situation risen up. In this first issue there are no other heroes floating around to pick up the slack for when the next large meteor threatens the earth and, therefore, asking his hero to stand down seems a bit far fetched but what the heck. It is, after all, a comic book and certainly doesn’t have to reflect reality. Still, my family motto is, “It’s better to be lucky than good” and when both hit at the same time… well, a good comic book comes out of it.