Friday, July 17, 2020

Whatcha reading? Part 3! (Plus some Thing news!)

It seems that comic shops are opening up around the country, and most publishers are returning to a near-regular shipping schedule. That means it won't be long before my "to read" pile starts to build up again, so let's have one more entry into the long-running and highly popular "Whatcha reading?" series.

It would be foolish for me to ignore the grim scenario it took for me to have time for these books in the first place, but I will say that I have enjoyed finally getting to some of these comics that have been waiting around in a box for a very long time. Here's what I've been up to while the comic industry has had a delayed output!


DC's 1980s/'90s Star Trek series were a high point for the franchise's comic adaptations, in my opinion, with long, unbroken runs for both Star Trek and The Next Generation series. The Modala Imperative is something of a crossover between the two series, with four-issue miniseries with the same subtitle for both properties. The first series is a classic Star Trek tale, and the TNG followup is fun, too, with appearances in both series from an older Spock and McCoy. I liked it!


It's been a while since I completed my '90s Marvel 2099 collection, and now I'm getting around to reading them all in order. The first crossover of the line was the "Fall of the Hammer" story, which runs through all of the titles, even the quarterly 2099 Unlimited book. It is...a bit uneven, though I suppose you could say that about the line in general. But at least Spider-Man 2099 is great!


I grabbed the Wonder Woman-focused "War of the Gods" miniseries recently, and BOY, is it dense. as the title suggests, it pits different pantheons against one another as they fight for supremacy. The problem is, I don't necessarily care that much about the various Greek and Roman gods, so this one was a bit tough to get through?


I really like Bongo Comics, though often I find that I like the idea of the books they made more than the actual execution. That hasn't stopped me from collecting a bunch of their titles, though. I'm the proud owner of full series runs of Futurama Comics, Radioactive Man and Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, all of which took me a long time to complete. Simpsons Illustrated is nothing more than a reprint series, but I started picking up issues because it reprinted both Radioactive Man and Treehouse stories in some of the issues. And now I have the compulsion to complete my run of this series. Oh, and next on my list is all of the Free Comic Book Day issues, which I already have most of.


Last up! We've got the "Panic in the Sky!" storyline that ran through four Superman titles in 1992. I started collecting comics right around Superman #75, so these issues are just a few months behind that. I'm halfway through this storyline, and as you might expect, the overall story is a bit predictable, though some of the art is really good.

Well, I guess that does it for this look back. But wait! There are some new Thing items that I want to discuss!


Mondo recently came out with some Fantastic Four enamel pins, so I (of course) grabbed the Thing pin right away. 


These are some stickers that were made. How and why were they made, and why am I using passive voice to describe their production? We may never know. Please look for these soon in your favorite spots for vandalism.


The image was originally from the cover to Not Brand Echh #13. I liked the message, and I think ol' Ben Grimm would approve.


Funko is releasing a limited Thing Pop figure next week, featuring the Marvel Zombies version of the character. This one is another 10-inch giant Pop (with the regular-sized Captain Marvel to scale), similar to the Target-exclusive figure from earlier in the year. This figure implies that the Thing maintains a human-like skeleton in his cosmic ray-mutated form, with five fingers (and, presumably toes). I've seen artists float this idea before, that the Thing's fourth and fifth digits somehow fuse together to create his classic four-finger look. It's an interesting suggestion, I guess.

This one is a Comic-Con exclusive, so I'm going to try and enlist some help in getting one. Wish me luck!

2 comments:

Larry said...

That is some grade-A excusism for the wrong number of fingers on ol' Ben.

Jeff said...

Well, you're right, of course, but giving him five finger bones seems to be done on purpose, right? I'm saying this because the figure's right hand still has the correct number of digits. It's an odd choice for a Funko Pop to get THAT specific.