Random Happenstance

Ah, the quarter bins. Many times I've mentioned around here how much I love buying comics by the pound, but they are a valuable resource: for picking up books that I missed, books that were overpriced the first time around, that are a little dinged and scuffed but still worth reading. Or just to have something when the new shipment of Wednesday's books runs late! Yes, there is the ever-popular metric assload of snow out here, so Thor: Godsized, the new Doctor Sleepless, and Moon Knight will have to wait a bit.

But by no means did I come away empty-handed. While I didn't have time for a complete search (look, I never know when the urge to read Freex may finally strike me, or maybe I'll finally remember which issues of Danger Trail I still need) there was a batch of new quarterbook blogfodder. Including almost a longbox full of 90's Spider-Man books. Clone era.

To maximize my quarter-book value, or maybe my reading pain, my first selections were double-sized issues or gimmick covers, but several of those were "Part 1" of some nonsense, and several of these were--gasp! Fifty cents a piece. Look, the economy's tanking, I need gas, and frankly, most of those books aren't going anywhere right away. Let's run down the ones that made the cut.

The adjective-less Spider-Man #50. Featuring the first of Kraven the Hunter's surprisingly large brood of hunter kids, and Spider-Man referring to himself as "the spider" and trying to pretend Peter Parker is a separate person, so he doesn't have to deal with the pain of Aunt May's latest deathbed ailment. Yeah, this is the only one I've started so far, and I haven't even made it halfway through it yet. Maybe later.

Spider-Man Unlimited #2, "the awesome conclusion" to Maximum Carnage. Just like that, on the cover: "the awesome conclusion" with no exclamation points or punctuation. O-kay. Pretty sure I had this back in the 90's, since I remember playing the video game on Sega; but have only the vaguest recollection of reading it.

Amazing Spider-Man #400, "A Death in the Family..." Grey die-cut tombstone cover. Taking it out of the bag to check the cover price, I wonder if anyone's taken this poor, unloved thing out of the bag or even read it. $3.95. I'll read it later.

Spider-Man Unlimited #8, 16: the first is "Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider together in one Giant-Sized adventure!" (Threat, or menace?) (Why doesn't Spidey have bad guys named Threat, and Menace?) The second, "The Life--and Death--and Life of Doctor Octopus!" And they've got him in the green and orange jumpsuit, not his most flattering look. I don't know how long it took Marvel editorial to realize having an imperfect and psychotic clone of Peter kill Doc Ock, then replacing him with a female Dr. Octopus that was his protege-slash-girlfriend, that none of that was a good idea. Maybe this one will recap some of the good Doctor's other low points--it is an oversized issue, after all.

Web of Spider-Man Annual #10, featuring Shriek on the cover. Shriek's terrible, but they were at least trying to give Spidey a female bad guy other than...geez, I dunno, the Black Cat? Is that it? At any rate, I know I had the first issue of Web when it came out, and maybe an annual or two; but it always seemed like the weakest of the multiple Spidey books. I was a Spectacular fan, mostly, but that was back when it was Peter Parker and Peter David was writing, which in retrospect seems like a blip in the series run.

Adjective-less Spider-Man #57. Some kind of die-cut Spidey behind bars cover. Hmm, one of the first Spider-Man comics I ever read was around issue #215 or so? Frank Miller cover, Peter behind bars? It was better. I'm guessing #57 here is not as good, and probably part 1 of 90.

Probably the best pedigreed creative team of this lot: Kurt Busiek and Mark Texeira, Spider-Man: Legacy of Evil. OK, this one I know I have somewhere, but frankly it was easier just to cough up fifty cents for it. I will be doing a longer post on this one later, since I think it was set just right before Norman Osborn's return--he wasn't dead, he was just in Europe! Hanging out! For like twenty years! And I believe Phil Urich, longtime Daredevil supporting cast member, gets a biography published about Norman, or at least the Green Goblin. I was positive, until I started typing this, that Norman's life as the Goblin was public knowledge, but I'll have to check this and get back to you.

And, just so Spider-Man doesn't get all the publicity/abuse, I also stumbled upon Superman #302 (older, we'll look at it later), Superman Annual #10 (haunted by the ghosts of the Phantom Zone Criminals he killed, so this has probably been Superboy-punched out of continuity) and Superman: Save the Planet! I've seen other bloggers pull that one out to point out that in a book full of a bottle city of Kryptonians, a super-powered dog, and like eight different Toymen, it's getting harder to suspend belief that both Lois and Clark could possibly have jobs at a newspaper these days.

Anyway, there's every possibility of being severely snowed in this weekend...or tomorrow; so posts on at least some of these probably forthcoming soon! See you then. Maybe with scans...