Marvel (Sorta) Unlimited:

Last month, around SDCC, Marvel had a sale on it's Marvel Unlimited subscription: $.99 for a month of all the digital comics you can read. For that price, I was willing to give it a shot.

And I'm pretty sure I got my ninety-nine cents worth. I read all of the 2008-2010 Abnett/Lanning Guardians of the Galaxy series; two Moon Knight series, as much of the new Thunderbolts and Uncanny Avengers as was available. Some oddballs like Deadpool Kills Deadpool or the Marvel Knights Deathlok or the Power Pack limiteds. I even read some old Spider-Man and Thor comics I hadn't seen in years.

The downsides? Well, sometimes the selection isn't as deep as you'd expect. Some books that were formerly licensed by Marvel are not available now, no matter how much you may associate them with Marvel; like Micronauts or Conan the Barbarian or ROM. Likewise, I'm not sure how much MAX stuff is available--I had looked for the recent Dominic Fortune series, and that wasn't in there. Nor did I find a lot of 80's Punisher.

The other problem may just be me, but sometimes the load would stall. Or the book wouldn't be found. More than a couple of times, a book would load, but then the word balloons wouldn't! (That is a great way to check out the art, if you like, but not a great way to read!) So sometimes I'd click a book, wait for it to open, try again, reload...I had a pretty low success rate for a while there. Oddly, Marvel offers Bonus Digital Editions with a number of their titles, but I never had that sort of load trouble with them.

Still, for the price, I quite enjoyed the trial. I definitely got my money's worth, and read a number of books I might not have otherwise had the chance to. There were some annoying bugs, but they weren't a complete dealbreaker--I just don't have the time right now to read enough books to make the regular price worthwhile. The next time Marvel offers a subscription deal with an action figure as a sweetener, it's going to be a lot more tempting.

Read more!

Resolute, FCBD, the Oldest's birthday, and anything else I think of now.

I don't think I'll switch to it, but I set up an alternate banner the other day after watching G.I. Joe: Resolute. While I didn't like it as much as some did, I thought it was pretty good. Of course, keep in mind I only occasionally watched the cartoon, and read the comic here and there until maybe #117 or so? So, I don't have the same level of attachment to the Joes that some fans might, and I'm a fan of Warren Ellis to boot. Ah, just watch the thing if you haven't already: it's free and good, what more do you want! Reasonably Intelligent Rambling has got it cued up for you right now, so check it out. (EDIT: A late addition, and slightly off topic, but I thought the strip was going to be about Resolute so I'm counting it: this week's strip from Ages 25 and Up is bloody great!)

I don't have a pile of Joe figures, though; and the DCIH pack I picked up a couple of weeks back was a bit disappointing, but five dollars for three isn't a bad deal if you can find it.

Yesterday was the Oldest's birthday, and the day before, Free Comic Book Day! As usual for the latter, the Comic Book Shop had a pretty good set-up, once again featuring the 501st Legion! Sadly, they haven't set up a similar celebration just for the Oldest, but somehow he'll survive...

Hope you got a good pile of comics yourselves!

Read more!

Defending comics, which shouldn't be harder than standing two dozen super-poseable figures but is.

Sonuva...When I started roughing this train of thought out, Walmart had the DC Superheroes Brainiac for five bucks, and I missed it. Grr. Then I thought I may have to dig some more, since I knew they had more clearance than that...and then I did find it. Not too bad, not as super-poseable some others, but pretty serviceable for an evil skullfaced robot.

This was a pre-Crisis revamp (as was Lex Luthor's green battlearmor, also in this set of figures) although I think the spaceship shaped like Brainiac's head has made more appearances than this version of Brainy. The redesign is way more toyetic than a bald green guy in short pants, but I can't help thinking it was just done to mess with Legion of Super-Heroes continuity...

But what I was really thinking of, was the comic packaged with Brainiac, which I already have. Not because I had bought it off the comic shop shelves, but because I picked up the Bizarro action figure already, and it came with that toy. For the most recent Superman DCSH, Mattel just packed in the same comics again; which meant Lex Luthor and Brainiac came with comics at best tangentially related to them.

In the same vein, the new Hasbro Marvel Legends do not include a comic, while the ToyBiz versions did. Not to bash Hasbro, but ToyBiz was all about the pack-ins: weapons, the so-called 'Doop stands,' build-a-figure pieces, small vehicles or bases, and/or trading cards were all sometimes, even often included; but always a comic. (Well, some characters got poster books, which sucked. Those were like saying 'this character has a 30+ year history, and we can't find a good single issue featuring him. Here's some covers.') Admittedly, not all of the pack-ins were winners: a lot of the 'Legendary Riders' really, really weren't.


And a lot of people didn't care for the comics. Some didn't like the selections, as it could very well seem an utterly random choice. Others didn't need reprints of books they already had, now stuffed with ads for wrestling toys and MegaMorphs. Some had an issue where the character didn't do much, or appeared in a different costume. Some were edited, removing subplots or unrelated material, others weren't. Many would have a cover, chosen as a more iconic image, attached to a different comic.

Ms. Marvel, for example, came with a Dodson cover circa House of M, but over Avengers Annual #10: excellent Michael Golden art, but Ms. Marvel only appears in costume in flashback. That was the issue where she lost her powers and memories to Rogue, remember? Not a highlight for her character. And those comics probably should have been highlights, right?

Mattel's DCSH followed ToyBiz's lead on the comics, but seems to be phasing them out already. And there's probably a million reasons not to include them: expense, licensing fees (as a branch of Marvel, I'm pretty sure ToyBiz was getting a deal on including the comics, whereas Hasbro may have to pay more), international (non-English) sales, shipping weight, cost of paper.

Then there's even some buyers and parents that prefer not to have a set backstory for a character, because that way they (or God forbid, kids) can make their own. Brainiac would probably work pretty well for that, and I remember a review for Marvel's Deadpool where the reviewer loved the figure so much, he made his own history for him, without ever reading or wanting to read a Deadpool comic. (I had thought that was from OAFE, but I don't entirely recall.) I would say he's missing out, but then again who am I to rain on his fun? I can pretty easily imagine kids having fun with Psylocke or Ms. Marvel figures and being absolutely better off not knowing some of the details of the characters' pasts. ('Now my eyes are ripped out!' 'Now I'm pregnant for no reason!')

So, with so many reasons why not to include comics, I had better come up with a damn compelling one to keep them, right? Right?...yeah, you would think.

I guess my main argument would be, and others probably smarter than I have pointed this out as well and with maybe even figures to back it up, do comics want to be the tail, or the dog? The comics industry could continue to backslide, to cannibalize its fanbase by selling only to the same readers over and over again; while making the real green on movies and toys and merchandising. Or, Marvel and DC could make at least a halfassed attempt to reach new readers by continuing to include comics with their toys. Never mind that (at least in terms of short-term profits) cultivating new and future readers isn't strictly their job. Never mind that a large portion of buyers may already have or not want the comics--and if you don't, I strongly encourage you to give them to someone who does. Give 'em for Halloween. And the expense has got to be fairly manageable as a loss leader-slash-advertising insert. It comes down to, are comics worth reading, or, are they just going to become a cheap way to pitch a prospective movie or game? As my wife called 300 once, are comics just eggs, little movies that haven't been made yet?

All right, let's look at Brainiac again. Surprisingly, I didn't see a review for him at OAFE; either for the DC Super Heroes version, or the DC Direct Crisis on Infinite Earths one. Michael Crawford had a review of the DCSH version, which includes a photo of Brainy's braincase that I could not get for the life of me. Here's a link to the DC Direct page, and their 'Robot Brainiac,' who appears to have ball-jointed hips, no hip-pods, brighter eyes, and a slightly larger skull dome, which to me looks like a robot afro. Just for good measure, here's the Wikipedia page for Brainiac, but I noticed it didn't point out the Robot redesign was from George Perez...because it's not, Ed Hannigan is credited as designer. (Perez did the Luthor armor. Duhr.)

I counted 21 joints for DCSH Brainiac: neck, 2 shoulders, 2 biceps, 2 elbows, 2 wrists, 1 chest, 1 waist, 2 hips (and the hip pods swivel out as well), 2 mid-thigh, 2 knees, 2 mid-calves, and 2 ankle. Because of the robot-ness of the design, most of the joints don't stick out the way they might on a human character. Still, in playing with him with the Oldest Son and counting the joints, Brainiac's legs got loose. Almost floppy, too many jello shots loose.

Both shoulders and the head have transparent covers over 'wires,' a nice effect even if it seems antiquated now, but it's still a better look than a robot in short pants. The tubes in his back are allegedly detachable; I don't know if I'd try it, but if they come loose during play don't panic. Aside from the comic, Brainiac does get the shaft as far as accessories: no bottle city of Kandor, no shrink ray, no model of his skullhead ship or weird little Koko monkey. Bit of a rip, that; but it is regularly $10 (in this area) against roughly $15-17 for DC Direct, and DC Direct is usually lacking in accessories as well. (DC Direct is a slightly larger scale, however.) For comparison, Toybiz Legends could be had for between $8 and $12; and so far Hasbro Legends are $10.

Anyway. Just a thought, and now that I've gotten that out of my head, now I have to try to remember or look up if Brainiac has appeared like that post-Crisis... Read more!