Reviews- VELVET VOL. 2: THE SECRET LIVES OF DEAD MEN and REVIVAL VOL. 5: GATHERING OF WATERS

VELVET VOL. 2: THE SECRET LIVES OF DEAD MEN (Image, First Printing, May, 2015; Softcover)

Collects Velvet #6-10 (cover dates July, 2014- April, 2015)

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Artist: Steve Epting

Colorist: Elizabeth Breitweiser

Take some Dramamine before beginning to read this book, as the numbers of twists and turns may make you ill. Velvet Templeton is or is not nuts, is or is not innocent, and is or is not close to nailing this shut, depending on which twist you're at. Beautifully written, drawn, and colored, I recommend this to everyone. Good stuff that proves that not all modern comics suck...just the vast majority of them.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.25 out of 5.

The OCD zone- Image makes nice books.

Paper stock: Beautiful thick matte coated stock.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Thick waxlike lamination.

REVIVAL VOL. 5: GATHERING OF WATERS (Image, First Printing, May, 2015; Softcover)

Collects Revival #24-29 (cover dates October, 2014- April, 2015)

Writer: Tim Seeley

Artist: Mike Norton

Colorist: Mark Englert

Talk talk talk development. Talk talk talk event. Talk talk talk about the development and then talk talk talk about the event. This “Rural Noir” usually satisfies me but this time it served to only annoy me. Modern comics rely on a “cinematic”, dialogue driven method of writing. I prefer older comics because the third party captions gave it a more literary feel. Modern comics all try to mimic modern day television or movies, which I mostly dislike. Comic books are, to me, the ultimate form of expression because they can combine the emotional weight of text with the impact of images. Leaning too far in either direction robs the medium of it's true potential. I get why modern comic books are written this way. You are dealing with people who can't look up from their phones to cross the street since attention spans are at an all time low. The worst part of all of this is that they make a lot of nothing happen over a lot of pages to pad out a trade paperback. The energy and spontaneity that I crave is absent from this title.

I've given this title two or so years of my life, and I am done. It is good but not good enough to hold my interest without any resolution. Development after development occur, and there has yet to be a definite arc resolution. Some folks may like this kind of thing but we haven't even hit a plateau yet. One of two things can happen. Either the suspense will build and the payoff will bowl you over, or the expectations for a huge payoff are going to be heaped so high that it can do nothing but disappoint. Either way, I won't be finding out.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3 out of 5.

The OCD zone- Image makes nice books.

Paper stock: Coated stock with a slight sheen.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Matte coating, very resistant to scuffing. 

Review- BATMAN: PREY

BATMAN: PREY (DC, First Printing, 2012; Softcover)

Collects Legends of the Dark Knight #11-15, 137-141 (cover dates September, 1990- May, 2001)

Writer: Doug Moench

Artists: Penciler- Paul Gulacy; Inkers- Terry Austin (#11-15) and Jimmy Palmiotti (#137-141)

I am a casual Batman fan, cherry picking random collections based on creative teams or the era of original issue publication. The team of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy was too great of a draw to resist. I normally despise ret-cons, as they usually mean one of two things: One, that the character(s) involved is/are so screwed up in their current incarnation that there is no other way to tell a cohesive story about said character(s), and/or Two, that the creative team involved is so lazy and unimaginative that there is no other way that they could tell a story using an established hero or villain. Batman seems to be the victim of endless retellings and reinterpretations of his early exploits, which serve to only further muddy the waters of continuity.

That said, these were enjoyable reads. Batman has more “dark” and “mature” themes applied to him than any other mainstream superhero, and given his origins as a derivative pulp character I can go with the Noir angle, but only to a point. Moench is a fine writer and Gulacy is a fine artist. Gulacy is paired with a pair of top notch inkers in Terry Austin and Jimmy Palmiotti. The art is easy on the eyes even if the paper in this book is shit.

The arc found in the first five issues collected in this book is a reinterpretation of Batman's first encounter with Doctor Hugo Strange which occurred in Detective Comics #36 way back in 1939 (the cover date was February, 1940, but the issue would have been on the stands in the final days of the 1930s). Since everything is better when it is made darker and grittier, Hugo Strange is made even kookier than he was in his first appearance, on down to a fetish with a manikin with a Batman costume...because, you know, story.

The second arc collected here is the sequel, this time with the Scarecrow in tow. I am a sucker for the Scarecrow, as scarecrows are cool as Hell. Catwoman is also featured prominently in this arc, but the ret-con factor totally ruins this for me. Like I said before, Moench is a fine writer, but is he really so bored with these characters that all's he can do is pretend that Batman doesn't know Catwoman? We have seen so many reboots, reinterpretations and ret-cons that none of these stories mean anything now. Cue douchebag fanboy whining, where they say Who cares one whit about continuity so long as we get a good story. If that's the case then nothing shown in any story matters. Sorry kids, but continuity matters because otherwise reading any story becomes a waste of your time. It matters or it doesn't...and if it doesn't then I don't care.

I loathe how Batman's narrative is done in a semi-cursive, semi-printed fashion. It is difficult to read in the murky gray boxes, made even murkier by the shitty paper that DC passes off on people in their collected editions. This was an at times entertaining read, although the aforementioned paper and lettering issues annoyed me. DC's collected editions department remains a joke.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This being DC, there are of course omissions. They could have included the covers for the three previous trade paperback releases, but instead we get one blank page and three pages of ads for other books in the back. Marvel also advertises other books in their collections, but they do it on the inside covers of these books. DC's inside covers are blank.

Linework and Color restoration: Irrelevant, since the grade of paper used makes things a murky washed out mess of it.

Paper stock: What year is this? Why are DC fans content to accept subpar paper in their collected editions? This is some seriously crappy paper. It is worse than the paper used in the original 2001 issues and makes the computer colors look washed out and muted. This cheap paper is garbage and doesn't lower the cost of the book one bit.

DC lists their “Sustainable Forestry Initiative” in the indicia like they are environmentally responsible. Please. Your entire business model is based on killing trees. Acting like you are responsible by using the SFI logo is laughable. You sell dead trees. The blood of mother Earth is on your hands!

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Thick laminated cardstock cover. At least DC did that right. It was probably a mistake.

Review- BRENDA STARR, REPORTER: THE COLLECTED DAILIES 1940-1946

BRENDA STARR, REPORTER: THE COLLECTED DAILIES 1940-1946 (Hermes Press, 2012; Hardcover)

Collects Brenda Starr, Reporter strips from June 30, 1940- April 20, 1941; September 10, 1944- January 14, 1945; and October 22, 1945- February 24, 1946

Writer and Artist: Dale Messick

Historically significant due to the fact that it was one of the first strips written and drawn by a woman, Brenda Starr, Reporter is also a fascinating read because it is the tale of a working woman from a time when many women could not get important jobs like newspaper reporters. Messick's writing and artwork has a certain charm to it but this was not the best strip of it's day by any stretch.

The story arcs are complete but the scattershot nature of the collection made this less enjoyable to me. I cannot enjoy books that are not complete runs. Factor in that one of these arcs was re-purposed and reprinted and can be found in Brenda Starr: The Complete Pre-Code Comic Books Vol. 1 and my disappointment mounted. I have decided to abandon this line of these books. Mary Perkins has ruined me for all other good girl newspaper strips. I ended up trading this with my friend for a Phantom strips book.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This book is presented in landscape format.

Linework and Color restoration: The restoration is odd, a mix of full blown color restoration and using raw scans, benday dots and all. It appears that certain colors are recolored as solids while other things are left as is. Off register printing is corrected some of the time. It is hit or miss but is not bad. One section of the book is shot off of the original art and is presented here in black and white, and it shows beyond the shadow of a doubt to naysayers who claim that artists intended their work to look as it eventually appeared on pulp paper in four color printing presses. So much detail was lost.

Paper stock: Semi-glossy coated stock.

Binding: Smyth sewn binding, lays completely flat.

Dustjacket and Hardback cover notes: Dustjacket has a thin coating but is easily scuffed. Casewrap has the same matte look and feel and can also be easily scuffed.

Review- ALL STAR COMICS ARCHIVES VOL. 1

ALL STAR COMICS ARCHIVES VOL. 1 (DC, Second Printing, 2000; Hardcover)

Collects All Star Comics #3-6 (cover dates Winter, 1940- August/ September, 1941)

Writers: Gardner Fox with Charles Reisenstein and other, unidentified writers.

Artists: Everett E. Hibbard, Sheldon Moldoff, Bernard Baily, Creig Flessel, Howard Sherman, Ben Flinton, Martin Nodell, Howard Purcell, Hal Sharp, Cliff Young, Irwin Hasen, Stan Aschmeier, and other possibly unidentified art assistants.

The Justice Society Of America was the first superhero team in the history of comics. That alone makes this book historically significant and worth a read. In Don Thompson's Foreword he claims that this is the first time that superheroes ever met one another in comic books. This is false. Over at Timely's Marvel Mystery Comics the Human Torch met (and battled) the Sub-Mariner in #8 (cover date June, 1940, on the stands months before that). Thompson was a respected member of the original organized fandom in the early 1960s, back when comic book collecting was not considered a serious hobby and long before these characters entered mainstream and I respect him, but he is wrong. Crossovers as such existed in some of the earliest newspaper strips at the turn of the 20^th century, going as far back as The Katzenjammer Kids.

Way to go, Flash, think of ways to put honest firemen out of work.

That aside, this is a fascinating read. For starters, the characters all meet up and then go their separate ways to uncover whatever case they are working on. The kids these days call them “comic jams”, where one creator hands it off to the next. Each character's creator and primary artist handles their respective strips, and then there is a resolution at the end where they all meet up and solve the case. This formula is repeated in all four issues collected here. What makes this interesting is that instead of the anthology format used in all comics of the day you have one 58 page long story.

Comparing unions to Nazis. Sheesh.

I like how the JSA has a clubhouse where they meet. The simplicity of the times was evident throughout these comics. While the fashions and architecture of the time were contemporary to readers when these issues were originally published they only add to the escapist pleasure of the stories for me. I also enjoy the slang peppered in casual conversation. When modern writers try to write period piece comic like this they always come off as fake because they lack the reference points that the writers who were active during this era had.

Hey kids! Pop a pill and get super powers...just watch out for the crash an hour later. Coming down is a drag.

I enjoyed The Spectre, The Sandman, and the Hawkman parts of the stories the most. Flash is more enjoyable here than he was in other books that I read. 

 

There is some great talent on this book. Sheldon Moldoff's Hawkman is stunning, even if he totally swiped tons from Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon strip. Gardner Fox manages to juggle all of the balls between the various creators of each character, and for the most part it works. #7 is the weakest issue in the book.

I have several more of the books in this lane aging to perfection in my backlog with no real timetable on reading them. I guess that I'll get to them when I get to them. It's not like another year or three is going to matter with comics that already over 70 years old.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.75 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I like DC Archives. Back when SUVs were getting to be the size of tanks automakers started touting the “garageability” of Ford Explorers. Here in the Omnibus age, where books exceed 1,000 pages and have even hit the 1,500 page mark, I enjoy the “readability” of a 270-odd page book.

Linework and Color restoration: While the color palette is faithfully maintained, the linework is pretty washed out. This was remastered in 1991 using Greg Theakston's Theakstonizing method, where old comics are chemically treated and the color is removed. From there some of the lines were redrawn by hand, and it is obvious how many lines were washed out with this technique. Credit where credit is due, this was the state of the art technique of the day and Theakston was the pioneer in comic book restoration.

Scan of the original comic.

...and the version from the Archive. Notice how blotchy the linework is in places and how washed out it is in others. 

I was impressed by how close the colors were. The blends were done prior to Photoshop, so they were done by hand and therefore lack the cheesy lazy airbrush gradients found in many later DC Archives.

Think of this as a state of the art VHS remaster from 1991. Play that same VHS on a modern television and you will see graininess and the inferior techniques in comparison to what can be found in Blu-Rays. It is unfair to criticize the VHS remastering using this criteria, and it is unfair to outright condemn the work done on this book using 2015 eyes. This was a very good restoration job for it's day. It's a damn shame that DC never ever ever revisits and remasters their material. This material could look so much better. DC could use the Marvel strategy and rerelease this in an Omnibus, using the new format upgrade to defer the restoration cost. DC would simply slap the old files into a new book, like they are going to do in the forthcoming Golden Age Batman Omnibus. Sad.

Paper stock: Wonderful creamy off-white matte coated stock. Perfect.

Binding: Smyth sewn binding, lays perfectly flat.

Dustjacket and Hardback cover notes: Laminated dustjacket. Casewrap has grainy faux leather feel with foil dye stamping. 

Review- FRONTLINE COMBAT ANNUAL VOL. 1

FRONTLINE COMBAT ANNUAL VOL. 1 (Gemstone, 1996; Softcover)

Collects Frontline Combat #1-5 (cover dates July/August, 1951- March/April, 1952)

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman with Jerry DeFucio (one story)

Artists: Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Russ Heath, Wally Wood, John Severin and Bill Elder

Widely considered to be an anti-war comic, the more that I think about it the more that I believe that it is merely a super realistic war comic. I once considered it to be an anti-war comic because it depicted war in an unfavorable manner. It doesn't glamorize war or paint soldiers as heroes, it paints them as men who are there because they have to be rather than because they want to be. Remember, this was a time when it was not a volunteer army. The stories take place in various wars (i.e. the Civil War, etc.) but the outcome remains the same.

EC's war titles differ from the rest of their comics because they are hand lettered rather than lettered with the Leroy lettering system. I much prefer the Leroy system, as it has a cleaner look to it. I have found this font for Open Office and have toyed with the idea of using it as the font for this blog. What say you, gentle readers?

This being EC, the writing and artwork are all top notch. I have said it before and I will say it again (and again...and again): EC made the best comic books of all time. They were light years ahead of their time and they still blow away anything on the stands today. I have little interest in war comics but EC made even those comics entertaining. I would love to see the Pre-Trend stuff collected someday. A few things were made available in black and white in the old EC Library box sets, but they need to be released in color...and I am not talking about the shitty color found in the current EC Archives. I mean the original color palette.

I have been spacing out these EC Annuals. I still have an entire short comic box of unread ones, so there will be reviews of EC Comics for years to come.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.5 out of 5.

The OCD zone- Gemstone overprinted their single issue reprints in the '90s with an eye toward selling their own back issues. They re-purposed this overstock by trimming and gluing 5 entire issues into a cardstock cover. While this is not technically a trade paperback (it has no ISBN), it is squarebound and has the title on the spine. Close enough for Rock and Roll in my book.

Linework and Color restoration: Shot from the original artwork with a color palette authentic to the original publication. If you want to see EC Comics in full color then this is the best way to do so, as these look superior to the originals in print quality.

Paper stock: Standard pulp paper of the day. The pro is that this looks and feels like a real comic book. The con, and it is a very large one, is that this will age and yellow, just like real comic book paper. I am admittedly less and less worried about this sort of thing as time goes by, as I will likely be dead and gone before this book deteriorates too badly.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Thick cardboard with minimal coating. There are signs of wear after years but all in all very solid.

Review- QUEER VISITORS FROM THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ

QUEER VISITORS FROM THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ (Sunday Press Books, 2009; Hardcover)

Collects the Oz Sunday strips from September 4, 1904- March 12, 1905

Writers: L. Frank Baum and W.M. Denslow

Artist: W.M. Denslow

Think of it as the very first multimedia crossover. A wildly successful children's book, gearing up for it's sequel, uses the new four color sensation that shook the world...the Sunday comic section. Using the same creative team that brought you the book, you get little slices and bridge pieces of what is to come, feeding off of and into the stage productions that were also moving around the country at the time.

While I am fascinated with vintage comic strips like this, this was a tough read at times. You see, the panel layout in and of itself doesn't tell you the story, even with the line of text underneath of it. You are required to read the entire text passage on each strip page, something which I would have been very happy to do except for the fact that people in the early 1900s must have had stellar eyesight to see text this small. My eyes tested at 20/20 in December of 2014 and I still wished that I had a magnifying glass. The pages are presented in the size of their original publication, so it's not that they are shrunk down or anything.

The stories in and of themselves are fascinating snapshots of a bygone era. Baum and Denslow were co-owners of Oz, and when they had a falling out they actually had competing Oz things going on at the same time. Denslow's version of the Oz strip ran from late 1904 into 1905 and had a completely different vibe to it, being more straightforward than the early strips and reading like a more conventional strip of the day.

The artwork is beautiful and the writing is good. These strips bleed charm, even if many of the colloquialisms require some detective work. As I mentioned earlier, this was a challenging read at times due to the amount of text and how small the typeface is. I am thrilled that these strips were rescued and preserved, as they are important for lovers of comic books and lovers of The Wizard Of Oz.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.25 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This book is an absolute beast. It is presented in the original strip size, and newspapers were fricking huge back then. It is an awkward, unwieldy read. If you lay it flat it is difficult to see the top of the page. I recommend laying on your back.

Linework and Color restoration: These are high resolution scans. The yellowing has been removed and it looks as good as can be without full blown restoration. All imperfections found in the original comics (line bleed, off register printing, etc.) are found here.

Paper stock: Thick off-white uncoated stock. Perfect.

Binding: Smyth sewn binding, lays flat. This book is a beast. You need to lay it on your bed or your kitchen table (once you place freshly laundered towels under it on the table, of course- this is the OCD zone, you know!).

Hardback cover notes: Matte casewrap, resistant to scuffing. Cloth wrap around the spine. Classy.

Review- HEROIC TALES: THE BILL EVERETT ARCHIVES VOL. 2

HEROIC TALES: THE BILL EVERETT ARCHIVES VOL. 2 (Fantagraphics, 2013; Hardcover)

Collects selections from Adventures Into Weird Worlds #4, 5, Amazing Man Comics #9-11, Amazing Mystery Funnies Vol. 2 #3-5, Cracked #3, 6, 24, Famous Stars #2, Journey Into Mystery #20, Journey Into Unknown Worlds #14, Nightmare #1, 2, 4, Personal Love #24, Psycho #3-6, Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics #6-9, Silver Streak Comics #1, 20, 21, Suspense #5, 6, Target Comics Vol. 1 #3, 4, 7-9, and War Stories Vol. 1 #1 (cover dates March, 1939- September, 1971)

Writers: Bill Everett, Allen L. Kirby, Doug Allan, Bob Davis, Ray Gill, and Gardner Fox

Artist: Bill Everett with Joe Maneely (splash page assist on Suspense #5)

Finishing up Bill Everett's Golden Age comics and going into his non-Marvel work until the time that he retired, this book is a joy to behold. Skyrocket Steele is a generic Flash Gordon ripoff, while Amazing-Man and Hydro-Man are a ton of fun. I find it interesting how these characters were split across each volume as opposed to being presented in just one book, since this is grouped by character or genre. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Can you imagine the Internet OUTRAGE if this were shown in a comic today? Those PETA losers would cry all over their soy milk. 

Everett's style is unique and completely genius, and it makes reading comics that I normally wouldn't be interested in enjoyable. I dislike Romance and Western comics but liked the ones in this book. Thankfully Marvel allowed Blake Bell to present 8 of his 1950s Atlas Horror stories, seven of which haven't been reprinted in the Marvel Masterworks line. The Scarecrow (Journey Into Unknown Worlds #14) and I Deal With Murder! (Suspense #6) are both genius, and it makes me sad that Marvel has mothballed their Atlas line of hardcovers. Who knows what other treasures await? The Skywald stories suck, but what do you expect? Skywald's output sucked! They plagiarized 1950s Horror comics for crying out loud. Even Everett's art couldn't save them.

I love Everett's lettering. 

I am glad that Blake Bell went the distance and saw this project through. Many of these comics are scarce and none of them are cheap. Top it off with the fact that the scanning process can sometimes destroy a comic and you have a sacrifice made for the good of all. Yes, some comics may have been sacrificed so that this book could be made, but not Everett's work has been scanned and digitized and will now live for eternity.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.25 out of 5.

The OCD zone- Fantagraphics always makes nice books. They never arrive on time but they never disappoint, either.

Linework and Color restoration: High resolution, digitally cleaned up raw scans. All anomalies and imperfections of the original four color printing process are present, including line bleed, off-register printing, and benday dots. I have had many discussions with folks on the Internet about it, and many of the misinformed out there believe that benday dots were some sort of artistic choice; they were not. Many artists were disappointed with how their work looked when they saw the final product but accepted it due to the limitations of the technology of the day. Benday dots and line bleed are no more artistic choices than pops and surface noise on vinyl records are. They are byproducts of the reproduction of said formats.

Paper stock: Thick uncoated stock with zero sheen.

Binding: Smyth sewn binding. The book does not lay completely flat.

Hardback cover notes: The image is printed on the casewrap, which has a dull matte finish coating which is resistant to scuffing.

Review- THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN BY DAVID MICHELINIE & TODD McFARLANE OMNIBUS

I owned a T-shirt with this artwork in 1988 or 1989. Back then wearing a t-shirt with a comic book character made you a nerd, and I was viciously taunted for wearing it to school. I only wore it to school once.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN BY DAVID MICHELINIE & TODD McFARLANE OMNIBUS (Marvel, 2011; Hardcover)

Collects Amazing Spider-Man #296-329 and stories from The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10 and What The? #3 (cover dates January, 1988- February, 1990)

Writers: David Michelinie and Glenn Herdling (Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10)

Artists: Todd McFarlane; Additional artists: Pencilers- Alex Saviuk (#296, 297), Erik Larsen (#324, 327, 329), and Colleen Duran (#326) and various additional Inkers

I was there. I bought all but one or two of the later issues in this book day of release from a comics specialty shop (Direct Market retailer for you kids out there), from when #296 hit the stands in September of 1987 to when I ditched the title around November of 1989, probably with issue 328. Cover dates were knocked down from five months ahead to two during this time with Early and Late month cover dates following the bi-weekly publication schedule during the summer; if you purchase these from a newsstand, #296 would have been out in October of 1987. I had two paper routes and new comics came out on Thursday night. Journey with me into this bizarre world of the past...a world where computers were for nerds, telephones were connected to wires in your house, the future was bright, and nuclear war seemed imminent.

Spider-Man was and remains my all-time favorite superhero. He was poor, and so was I. He had bad luck, which was the story of my life. He always had a hard time with the ladies, just like me...except that he had recently married Mary Jane Watson and we were dealing with a recently domesticated Spider-Man. Oh. All of a sudden Spider-Man wasn't very relatable to 14 year old me. Enter Todd McFarlane. His artwork was a breath of fresh air. No one had ever seen anything quite like it, and all of a sudden everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

McFarlane was the first artist to draw the webs that way, and everyone since has drawn them that way. His style is cartoony and I dislike the way that he draws faces, but at the time I really dug his stuff. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the end for me. He helped usher in a new breed of artist, the “Image” guys. Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld...these were the guys who got me to quit comics. Much like you had a Nirvana and a Soundgarden and a million weaker bands, McFarlane paved the way for style over substance and became the symbol of everything wrong with comics, nearly destroying the entire industry in the 1990s.

Don't think that I didn't enjoy rereading these comics. Quite the opposite. David Michelinie is a solid writer who knew how to build on plotlines without being long-winded. He knew the beauty of the set-up while taking care of the business at hand. He would lay down the foundation of the next storyline in the middle of the current one without missing a beat. I especially enjoyed #311 (Mysterio), #312 (Green Goblin vs. the Hobgoblin), and #313 (the Lizard).

While I enjoyed Venom's first appearance (#299-300), his return (#316-317) left me cold at the time and soured me on the character. I was out of comics altogether when he rose to fame a few years later. I enjoyed those issues as an adult, however.

Comics became progressively darker in the aftermath of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. I disliked it at the time, and I honestly still do. The tone is fine for those titles, but I despised the impact that they had on every title under the sun. Even my light-hearted Spider-Man became darker as this run wore on. That, combined with endless crossovers (such as Acts Of Vengeance, the final issues that I bought before quitting comics) and lackluster artwork drove me away from comics. Music, cars, and girls seemed way more interesting to my then-now-16 year old self. I would be in my 30s before I returned to this hobby, but that is a story for another time...

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The 1989 Batman movie captured the hearts and minds of the world.

The OCD zone- How much do I hate my money? Let us count the ways. I bought the original issues when they were released, only to dump them along with my most of my collection in 1995 when my Mom died and I needed money fast, receiving pennies on the dollar for them from comic dealers. I wish that there was an eBay back then. Then when I returned to the hobby in the Aughts I bought all three Spider-Man Visionaries: Todd McFarlane trades, only to discover that those skipped #324 because Erik Larsen did the artwork, and right in the middle of an arc no less. That led me to the out of print but relatively inexpensive Spider-Man: The Assassin Nation Plot trade. Some of these issues have been collected in various other books (Spider-Man: The Birth Of Venom (which I dumped for this book), Acts Of Vengeance Omnibus, Spider-Man: The Cosmic Adventures (which I dumped for the AoV Omni), and in the as-yet-unread Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Vol. 20: Cosmic Adventures.

Linework and Color restoration: These issues have been reprinted multiple times, so the film has been handled quite a bit. A few issues look downright beat. The colors are mostly faithful to the original publications but there are a few liberties taken. Needless to say, I will rebuy this material when the Marvel Masterworks get here.

Paper stock: Beautiful thick coated stock with a slight sheen. I loved the paper that Marvel used in their Omniboo during this era.

Binding: Smyth sewn binding, double fan adhesive bound, which allows this massive 800+ page book to lay completely flat from the first page to the last.

Dustjacket and Hardback cover notes: Thick lamination on the dustjacket, faux leather grain casewrap with dye foil stamping.