Venomverse #1 - no spoilers

I recently picked up Venomverse #1 it was an add on from my recent order from Midtown Comics.  I hopefully will have a post about that experience up soon.  I opted for this  Elizabeth Torque Hulk Poison variant.  Just a cool looking cover and hey why not 25%  the cover price!

So I was looking for something quick and easy to read last night and this was on my stack of too be read comics.  Well one of the many many stacks.  The comic takes place after all the events of the Edge of Venomverse and all the other tie-ins, but the best part about the book is that you didn't need to read any of that to enjoy the book.  Which is a nice change, since I hadn't read any lead ups.  Cullen Bunn does a great job with the script. Bringing the reader up to speed and jumping right into the story. 

Honestly I finished the book, sat back, and was pretty satisfied with what I had read.  If my budget wasn't so limited I'm half tempted to chase down issues 2-5, but I'll probably just hold off and see if I can find them in the bargain bin later.

Highly recommended.

The Evolutionary War Annual Checklist Card

Cross annual events were all the rage for Marvel in the late 80's and early 90's.  I'm not sure if the Evolutionary War was the first of the big cross-overs (I'm too lazy to do the research), but it definitely was the one I remember. I know I own a fair number of these and I also know I'm missing a few, like the Amazing Spider-man which is the first appearance of Speed-Ball.  I tend to keep all the freebie giveaways that comic shops give out.  So I still have my 1988 checklist.  There is one annual missing from the checklist that I always found amusing back in 1988.  Marvel branded the Alf Annual #1 as an Evolutionary War book.  If I remember right there is a very brief interaction with the High Evolutionary to justify it.  I was digging through a binder and found this card, along with a ton of other promo cards, inserts, and sell sheets and I'll be posting them pretty regularly. 

I might have to hunt down all the annuals I'm missing and have a big old Evolutionary War binge read.  

Iron Man #6 or How my mother guilted me out of buying Iron Man #1 30+ years ago.

To be honest growing up I was a DC guy.  I loved the JLA, and all the individual heroes.  That probably had to do with really liking the Super Friends.  But the one Marvel character I always loved was Iron Man.  I was never into Spider-man and even though I got into reading Spidey, I still don't consider myself a fan (gasp).  I managed to get into X-men only because the owner of the comic shop I went too gave me some sage advise,  "Buy X-men they always go up in value."  He was right at least for the bronze and silver age stuff.  I dug Fantastic Four and the Avengers, but I was never a big collector early on.  

But this post is about the featured comic.  Iron Man #6.  She's a real looker.  That spine is almost defect free.  Sure there are few minor issues, but overall it's one of my favorite books that I own.  I can remember saving my money up.  Mostly birthday and Christmas, but I also had a newspaper route and I would pocket my lunch money.  I had been eyeing a copy of Iron Man #1 at the Comic Book Shop, which I talked about last post.  It wasn't in the best shape, but still a decent copy, but Brad had it priced around $50 bucks.  That's big money to a 12 year old in the 80's.  

Let me back up to recent times first on how I ended up not walking out of that shop with one of my holy grails.  Last April I went down to Wisconsin to visit my folks.  I still have a large pile of comics boxed up in their basement and I've been devising a plan to get them up to me in Alaska.  Anyways over a couple drinks my mother recalls when I ended up buying issue #6 here.  If I remember I paid $15 for it back in the mid-80's.  This is why you don't take your mother to the comic shop, but a rides a ride.  Anyway time warp back to 1986 or 87 and I'm ready to buy issue #1.  I've saved for this.  My mother doesn't understand why I would want to pay so much for a comic book when there are plenty of good comics in the quarter boxes and new comics only cost 75 cents.  In the end her guilt made me pull back and I still ended up walking out of the shop with a silver age Iron Man just not #1.  And she still gave me crap for spending $15 bucks on that #6.