F For Fake

Some good stuff showed up this weekend. First up, the Batman Adventures Omni. To my mind, these are some of the best Batman comics ever made, maybe my favorite Batman title of all time. They are my ideal superhero comic: self-contained stories that aren't needlessly weighed down by decades of slavish continuity, and stories that are "safe" for children but sophisticated enough to appeal to adults. Batman The Animated Series is the single best distillation of the character and his world, and the comics carry on that tradition quite nicely. Iconic character designs, the perfect melding of all of Batman's traits (the detective, the adventurer, the playboy, the supernaturalist, the superhero) in stories that manage to strike a fine balance with his personality. When is the last time you read a mainstream DC Batman comic book where Batman seemed like someone you'd actually want to hang out with? At some point the decision was made that Batman is going to be a , no matter what, and I have yet to see why that take is appealing and so enduring. This comic series has none of that, and is all the better for it. Desperately hope that they'll collect the remaining books in this line, and it seems likely. Next up, the most recent Tomb of Dracula MMW dropped last week, and was on sale at 50% off (plus repeat buyer discount), so I scooped that up, suddenly realizing I'd also never picked up the second volume! So, that was corrected, and they arrived just in time for some spooky Hallow-reading. Last is this DC's 1st Issue Special HC. I'd been interested in this one since it dropped, but it was kind of a thin volume for the price tag. IST had it on clearance for about $16, which made it more palatable.

Hey you're waiting on grades from me too, Mike! Don't leave me off the Bad Boys list! (Grades coming momentarily. Been a busy weekend, haven't been in the office since Thursday.) update: Grades submitted! Good thing it's Halloween, because my guesses were scary (bad)!

I've been away for a few days, three bullseyes, I'll take it!

No, i just went through the normal automated return process. I've had them comp me on damage items in the past, let me keep the original while they sent a replacement, but usually it was for cheaper stuff. I wouldn't expect them to do that with an $80 piece like this, so as long as they're willing to take it back and send me another one, I'm good. The new one should be here Monday, fair enough!

I'm glad it worked out for you! My return has been approved and they've already dispatched a new one, so I just need to drop this one off at the UPS store. Hopefully the next one is at least in the brown box it came in. I don't have to have it double/triple boxed, but just SOMETHING would be nice ha

Yeah, in this instance I would have expected the manufacturers packaging to be the brown shipper, which would have been fine, but in this case they would have had to have removed it from the carton, then the shipper, and then slap the labels on and sent it out. Baffling. They've already approved the return, so no big deal, hopefully the next one fares better!

yeah, I think that's the same thing! I read the first series, the Dark Knights Metal, or whatever it was called, but by the time this series came along, I'd pretty much stopped reading moderns. But this was a nice looking presentation, so for the price I figured I'd give it a shot!

My Gold Label 89 Batmobile w/ Bats arrived from Amazon yesterday. In the last few weeks I'd read many reports about people had received their Batmobiles double-boxed, and in great shape. Mine arrived with the shipping labels stuck right on the toy box, no outer box whatsoever. More than a little peeved, will be contacting them, for all the good it does.

Sale books have started arriving. I didn't know much about that Absolute Death Metal when I picked it up, but it's a really nice package. The slip has a textured feel, very neat design.

Yeah, it only came up short, what, a little over 100 sales? Seems like they could rummage around and "find" some international orders or something to push it over.

I'd tend to agree on all counts. Foom would be cool, but I can't see him possibly doing as well as some folks seem to think. Giant Man may not be a household name, but he's a great sculpt of a classic and integral character to one of the most popular teams in comics, and he still had to fight to the finish. Galactus made sense because he's such an iconic huge character, and Sentinels were the perfect example of a necessary figure which had built-in army building potential. I can't think of any other large character that would have any of those traits. And yeah, as far as vehicles, I can't think of any I'd need. Even stuff like the Blackbird, or the Quinjet, or the Fantasticar, I'd be pretty lukewarm on, and yet those are the only really obvious examples I can think of. They'd have to be enormous to scale with the figures, so I'd imagine the price would be unattractive.

Batman Adventures Omni is back in stock at IST (at the moment, at least) for those that missed it the first time. Was a pretty much instant sellout, came back in briefly. I'd imagine this is one they'll keep in print, but you never know. https://www.instocktrades.com/products/may237279/batman-adventures-omnibus-hc

Well, Haslab Giant Man funded, made it to the first incentive tier unlock, and only came up about 120 short on the second tier. That's a bummer. To be honest I probably wouldn't have often used the Skrull parts, but for the folks that wanted them, it must sting to come so close and just not quite get there. Will be curious to see what the next Haslab ML will be, as they've now tried a couple of different approaches with the most recent offerings. Engine of Vengeance didn't fund, and people complained about there being in-demand figures locked behind tiers, the price, and several other things. So with Giant Man, they went much cheaper, didn't include any extra figures, and revealed everything up front; still yet people complained, and he wasn't quite the slam dunk I expected. So I wonder what direction they'll go in next. Can't imagine the much requested Fin Fang Foom would sell much better. This is an A-lister Avenger, and looks like a beautiful figure, and he still wasn't quite as successful as hoped. Oh well, I'll be happy to have him. And boy they aren't kidding, they charged me as soon as the campaign ended! Gimme that cash, sez Hasbro! Now we wait a year or so for Big Boy to show up.

Grades in, such as they are.

I had the EXACT same grades except I went 2.0 on the Horrific. I don't feel too bad about this round, honestly.

Yes, precisely so. I'd been SO excited about Countdown and Final Crisis, as I'd enjoyed that entire run of Identity to Infinite to 52 SO much, but it was a complete letdown. I still like Final Crisis in an of itself, but Countdown was pretty dire.

I loved 52, one of my favorite things DC published. Terrific creative talent, with Johns, Morrison, Rucka and Waid sharing writing duties, and Giffen being the glue that held it all together. It helped that it featured some of my all-time faves (Booster, The Question, Ralph) but I really admired how it seemed to cover so many spots in the DCU, every little disparate corner, and somehow kept it a cohesive story. I was hooked as it was being published, and have reread the omnibus a couple of times. Great book. That really was a time when editorial had DC humming right along. Top flight creative talent doing interesting things that really seemed to hang together. Identity Crisis into Infinite Crisis Prelude minis into Infinite Crisis into 52 and One Year Later. It was an exciting time to be a DC fan.

This is true, but most of the time, with my trouble buyers, the first sign that there may be trouble is that they have no feedback, or very low feedback, or it was a recently registered account. This last guy had a decent feedback of over 1000, 100% rating. So it surprised me, because usually if I'm stiffed, it's from a newbie or from what I assume is a shill account.

I mostly stick with X-Men related characters when it comes to Marvel Legends, but lately I've been getting into Avengers. Finding all of those 60th anniversary sets for half off was a spark, and then Amazon had decent deals on these for Prime Days, so I picked them up. I can't believe I've lived long enough to see a West Coast Avengers box set released. What odd/great times we live in, as toy fans! Keeping these boxed at the moment as I wait for a few more members of the roster to show up, then the great unboxing will begin.

Grades in!

Anytime! I try to remember to pop over here and share anything that's worth sharing. It's been a while since they added many new titles to the deep discount, so hopefully this signals that more are on the way!

IST has been quietly putting some stuff on sale at 60% off. I picked these up: Defenders omni Vol 2 - I'm glad I held off on this one, I've had it on my wishlist for a while, but $40 was the incentive to grab it now! https://www.instocktrades.com/products/dec220918/defenders-omnibus-hc-vol-02-milgrom-cvr https://www.instocktrades.com/products/dec220919/defenders-omnibus-hc-vol-02-kane-dm-var Absolute Dark Knights Death Metal for $40 https://www.instocktrades.com/products/nov227135/absolute-dark-nights-death-metal-hc X-Men Avengers Onslaught Omni $50 https://www.instocktrades.com/products/jun210825/x-men-avengers-onslaught-omnibus-hc-new-ptg Absolute Three Jokers just came out, but is already at 60%/$40 https://www.instocktrades.com/products/oct227167/absolute-batman-three-jokers-hc-(mr) Happy hunting! This time of year they tend to start clearancing stuff out, I guess in preparation for holidays, so it's worth it to me to check the site every day, search "HC", and then sort the results by discount. The best deals pop up that way.

Keith Giffen, has been one of my creative heroes since I was a kid. His fingerprints are all over so many great books and characters, from the 70's to current day, but I was an 80's kid, so it will always be Legion (particularly 5YL) and JLI at the top of the list for me, though I also have great love for Ambush Bug, The Heckler. Dr. Fate, and so many others. He was on my bucket list of creators to meet, and finally, about four or five years ago, he came to a local show. Got to meet him and chat and he couldn't have been nicer and more genuine. Bought a print, got some sigs, and walked away feeling great about it. He returned the next year, and this time Spencer was also there, so I was able to pick up a couple of pieces of art. There's this Steppenwolf piece that is marked "trading card", though to me it looks like the artwork to the Super Powers figure, and I've not seen it repeated anywhere else. And on the other end of the spectrum, this terrific Trencher splash. I think I paid like $125 and $150 each, to me still the bargains of my life. I already treasured them, but now they seem even more precious, and also bittersweet. I'm glad that it seems like Keith is finally getting his roses in recent years. You have a new generation of artists like Michel Fiffe who are vocal about their Giffen appreciation, and it's about time. Well overdue, actually. RIP to one of the best to ever do it. (Forgive the cruddy pics)

Another deadbeat/ghost. It really is epidemic these days. No pay, no communication, and it's odd because they have decent feedback as well. robpow_2950

Deadbeats/ghosts are epidemic. First, this winner sent a cancelation request within minutes of auction end saying "found a better price". jaxfl46 And this is a zero feedback winner who didn't pay: teodo_79