F For Fake

You don't do a favor for someone in order to receive thanks. BUT, if you are the recipient of such a favor, good etiquette would require you to tender said thanks. It's a weird scenario because if the person was legit in their motive, then a thank you would be forthcoming. But the phrasing and everything would put me ill at ease, I'd keep waiting for the other shoe to drop as I tried to figure out what the scam was exactly.

Congrats to the OP for getting a disappointing first sub, and actually deciding to learn from it rather than go on a tirade. Well done! Stick around, lots to learn here!

Sorry Piper, I haven't read either series, so I can't give a recommendation there. But, what I CAN tell folks, is that Target is running one of their Buy 2 Get 1 Free sales on Movies, Music and Books starting this Sunday 10/11 through 10/17! Now, some caveats: 1. Not all movies and books are eligible, though a lot of them are. You should see an "offer available" blurb on the item page if it is part of the sale. 2. The deals all depend on what Target has the book priced at originally. For some titles, their prices are in line with IST and Amazon, or at least within a few bucks. so B2G1 is a screaming good deal! However, on other volumes, they have them at full MSRP, so it's not any kind of bargain at all compared to what you can get it the book at other places. It truly is Your Mileage May Vary depending entirely on the individual books. That being said, it's always worth checking out. What I would do is look through their listings today and tomorrow, and if the retail price looks good to you, put it in your cart. The sale usually goes live around 3am EST Sat Night/Sun morning, so when you wake up, the sale price will likely be reflected in your cart. If not, refresh. If not then, you may have to remove and re-add the items to your cart. If it still doesn't show up as discounted, then the book must not be part of the sale. Happy hunting! I don't think there's much I'm looking for book-wise, but I'm hoping to pick up a few movies.

Like Capra said, nothing on the schedule currently, but I'm sure it'll come. There have been at least four printings of ASM 1 that I can recall, and maybe more. That book and UXM 1 are the two evergreen titles that Marvel tends to bring back every couple of years. That being said, if you find it at a decent price, I wouldn't pass it up, because who knows how long it'll be until the next printing comes. The upside is that there are a lot of copies out there due to those multiple printings, so it's usually not a crazy expensive book. Well, with Claremont and X-Men it's really a personal choice. That would be a LOGICAL choice, as most people would consider that run from GSX through Dark Phoenix Saga and then Days of Future Past to be the only really essential X-Men reads. And they're not wrong. But PERSONALLY, I started reading in the mid-80's, so my favorite runs are the Paul Smith run, then the Romita Jr stuff going into Mutant Massacre, then SIlvestri shows up for Fall of the Mutants and Inferno. Those are MY X-Men, so that's the stuff that I actually get excited about. Your mileage would vary. After that, for my personal taste, nothing really strikes a chord until you get to Age of Apocalypse. After that, Whedon's Astonishing run is fun, but I'd consider Morrison's New X-Men to be the really necessary volume. But the first two UXM Omnis would cover the stuff that most folks would consider absolutely essential, for sure.

I understand, SA books can be pretty hokey to modern readers, and to be perfectly honest, X-Men was probably the worst of the Stan and Jack books. There's a reason why it was canceled! ha I'm mostly interested in the Children of the Atom set because it is a near complete collection of every X-Men related story finally collected all in one set, starting with X-Men #1, and extending into the Claremont/Byrne run. True, all of that material has been collected in Omnibus and Masterworks form before, but this volume also contains the "lost years" volume that collects all of the appearances of the X-Men in other books between the end of the original title and the GSX relaunch. I've read complaints that there are a couple of missing books like a random issue of Marvel Team Up or whatever, but more or less this is every single X-Man appearance from the silver age and into the bronze, which is pretty neat! As for Claremont, so far there have been three volumes of Uncanny X-Men Omnibuses, and two volumes of Claremont/JimLee omnis. Most of those are currently out of print, but hold on, because UXM 2 is getting reprinted in November, 3 is coming early next year, and a new volume 4 is also coming. The two Claremont/Lee books are also due for a reprint. So definitely don't pay current market prices for any of that stuff, because it's all coming back shortly.

Yes, that's generally true. Most collectors don't care as much about the edition as they do about the quality. For instance, some of the early first printings were done with glued bindings, but later printings were sewn, which is far better. So yes, you're absolutely right, the issue with most folks isn't the edition, it's the quality and the fact that the book is available in the first place!

Do you have a list of what you have? Some volumes only received one printing, so they're easy to tell. Others, like ASM 1 and UXM 1 have had several, so that's trickier. With ASM 1 you can tell a lot by the width of the book, as they changed paper stock between printings, but I'd have to do some research to recall which printing was which. If we can't help you (and I'm sure we'll try!) the forums at marvelmasterworks.com are one of the best resources for info on collected volumes, someone there can most likely help if we can't.

Not sure if any of you Marvel Legends folks will be interested, but on a whim I stopped by an Ollie's today, and they appear to have done their xmas toys setup for the season, including Marvel Legends. Individual figures were $9.99 (though I only saw Grey Gargoyle) and two-packs were $12.99. I only saw the Luke Cage/Claire and Thor/Sif sets, but that's not a bad price. Thought I'd mention it!

Yes, I'm looking forward to this one. I missed out on the four volume oversize hc's all those years back, was holding out hope we'd get this one day. The day is nearly here!

That's too cool. Now you can start doing readings for us! (You can just make it up as you go along, I won't know the difference.)

:he knows too much!:

Love it! I need one of these back in the collection. Back in the day it took me forever to find one, bought a used set from my local shop. This one looks very sharp!

Wow wow wow, those are beauties. Congrats!

I'd planned on picking that up, but it sold out very quickly, so now it's hard to find below MSRP. Hoping they'll release a few more soon, I haven't read this run since it was originally published.

My bank account wouldn't mind if some of them pushed right into 2021! November is going to be a big month for me, JLA by Morrison Omni, Excalibur Omni, UXM v 2 omni, Blackest Night/Brightest Day Omni, JLI v 2 omni...man, that's a packed month.

The X-Men Children of the Atom box set was an instant sellout back in the spring. Asking prices for the $500 msrp set were in the $600-$800 range. I was so bummed that I missed it. Happily, it appears to have quietly come back in stock at IST for $290. I alerted Santa, so I'm pretty sure I'll find it under the tree. If you missed it then, I wouldn't wait around for long, as no one else appears to have received new stock so far. https://www.instocktrades.com/TP/Marvel/X-MEN-CHILDREN-OF-ATOM-HC-BOX-SET-SLIPCASE/SEP190974 Otherwise, nothing new for me. According the IST's schedule, the new printing of Absolute Swamp Thing was supposed to hit today, but is nowhere to be found. Tales of Wonder and Amazon show 10/28, so I'm assuming we'll see it then, the week after vol 2 is supposed to hit,

Lately I've looked for a few books that recently "popped" that I was pretty sure were in my sale stock, only to not find them. I have to assume I sold them on the cheap a while back, because literally no one other than my wife and I have been inthe house since last March. I probably threw them in a lot deal back when I was selling locally. It happens.

This would normally be prime yard sale season around here, but pickings are slim. I can only assume it's due to covid, either quarantine or just general fear. And I get that. Thankfully most of the sales I've been to have required masks and have spread the goods out so there's room to shop around. Normally I'd go to three or four sales with "potential" (meaning the listings suggest they'll have the sort of stuff I'd like, comics, toys, etc) everyweekend, but lately I've been finding one good one every couple of weeks if lucky.

Ok, cool! So maybe they were newsstands after all? They're the only versions that had a bar code, as far as I can tell, so that may in fact be legit!

Damn it @fantastic_four I'm supposed to be done with new toys! Blast you for tempting me! I couldn't resist. I'm not made of stone. The FA Storm was my single most wanted figure for so many years, I couldn't deny her now that she's here. After I read your post, I checked online, and all of my local Targets were sold out except one showed "in stock" and another shows "limited availability" which USUALLY means sold out. So, I went to the store that showed in stock, and there was nothing on the shelves. However, I'm sure they have them because at the time I was there, there were several employees pushing around carts of stock, who were restocking the shelves. I asked one if it was possible to check and see if these were in the back, but he said he couldn't. I poked around the carts they had, but didn't see anything with a matching DCPI. So, I thought I'd leave and come back later. On the way out I stopped by the "collectibles" section to see if there was anything that caught my eye. Lo and behold, they had a single Funko Pop GI Joe Beachhead Con Exclusive. I snapped that sucker up, went to the self checkout, and when I rang it up it alerted the cashier, who came over and put in a code, and then told me he couldn't sell it to me, that it wasn't available for sale until 10/10. And then he physically took it from me. SOOOO that was a big strike out all around. Undeterred, I went to the "limited availability" store just to try my luck, and found four of these on the shelves. Hallelujah! I picked up two for myself, so if anyone is in the Louisville area, they still had two on the shelves as of an hour or so ago. This was the Bashford Manor Target. If anyone is actually local (small chance but hey you never know) the Westport store shows they are "in stock", so maybe they'll restock them later in the day. I haven't bought any Legends in a long time, since I sold most of my collection off. So, I'm not sure what is hot or new or old stock these days, but I saw lots of Squirrel Girl scooter packs, a single Punisher motorcycle packs, a bunch of Mystique and Domino movie figures (I dig the cardboard boxes on these, packaging is pretty cool) and what I guess is an X-Force wave with Warpath, Sunspot, etc. I didn't buy any of that stuff, but that's what I saw. Also not buying McFarlane stuff, but today I saw the most DC stuff on the pegs that I've ever seen. Tons of Batman Who Laughs, Bat Armor, Azrael, etc, if people are looking for that kind of stuff. Happy hunting!

Big big thanks to my buddy Hector for the care package that arrived last night, packed full of awesomeness. I knew the Grendel Prime sketch was coming (and it will sit in a place of honor with my Primer 2) and he mentioned a Mr. T comic, but I'd completely forgotten about it. YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THE MAJESTY OF THIS BOOK! A tri-fold gold-stamped vinyl portolio with a gold foil Mr. T and the T-Force, signed by Mr. T! Along with a COA, a trading card, and a regular copy. This thing is insane. This is in the forever collection. This thing...I may be buried with this comic book. That's how awesome it is. Thanks again to @jsilverjanet a true mensch. (And thanks for the bonus girly books and Beto Hernandez loveliness. You know what I like!)

Hmm, now I'm tempted...

Cost would depend a lot on which titles you're wanting to collect/read. There are many out of print volumes in both the MMW and Omnibus lines that effect not only minor characters, but also the big franchises like X-Men and FF, so I'd do a cost analysis by looking at completed sales on eBay to get an idea of what it's going to cost to put a run together. I personally like the omni's because of the oversize trim, and having so many stories all in one package, but I do admit that they can be very cumbersome, especially when the page count gets up to the 1500 page mark. Masterworks are much friendlier to the hands/wrists/neck while reading, but you're giving up some of the size that OHCs and omnis provid. Marvel has recently been reprinting a lot of omni's, but there are still several volumes that are OOP, and no one knows when they'll return. But with the MMW's, print runs are low (particularly on the variants that maintain the original collection numbering, many of which are only printed in the HUNDREDS) and once those are sold out, they're sold out. Piper's recommendation of the Epics is a good one, if you're not dead set on a hardcover format. But, again, many of these titles have gone out of print as well. Basically, there's no simple way of determining which is going to be the cheaper format. It's 100% going to depend on which series you want to collect. Good luck!

Wow, that looks very cool! Man, that's a big book, better wear wrist guards while you read it!

Yeah, volume 5 has the Endless Nights and Dream Hunters graphic novels, which aren't really essential to the main story. It's not a volume I expect to revisit, but I like having it for the sake of the display. I'm looking forward to picking up Absolute Overture eventually, as I've actually never read it. I was mostly done with floppies when it came out, and I just never got around to reading it. And thanks! The AV4 is a beater but I still love it!