the vynsane asylum

The store is open here but you need to make an appointment. I called ahead & actually got let in - I was going to let them take my card & tap the machine as long as they put the receipt in the bag. 2 copies of X-Men, New Mutants & I purchased ASM 42 just in case things get weird & we don't see any new comics for awhile.

Since there will be no new books this week, I went into my comic shop yesterday and looked thru ‘full price’ back issues.

I got
Flash 57 variant cover.
Harley Quinn 9, 18, 19. The Frank Cho covers. Cho started doing the covers with issue 8, so I’m only missing 11, 12, and 15 of his covers. Bill Sienkiewicz was doing the variants for 2 thru 7 and I still need all of those. Issue 1 had about 90 variants and I still need that issue as well. One of them was an Artgerm cover, but I don’t know if I could find that one for a decent price. I’m not that big on Harley and I’ve only been getting the book because I like Cho’s covers.

But dropping $20-25 on a few back issues at a time for the next few weeks/months instead of my customary $100 per week on new stuff is going to allow me to fill some holes in my collection. I can also stock up on boards and other supplies.

I skipped Deathstroke during my previous read because it was a couple issues shy of finishing its run. Now that it’s done, I went back and picked up where I left off.

21-29, Annual 1. Slade’s ex-wife Adeline has subcontracted with the CIA and forms a new super hero team called Defiance led by her son Joseph(aka Jericho). Jericho recruits Slade onto the team and he immediately subverts it for his own agenda. Other members are the second Wally West/Kid Flash, who got kicked out of the Titans for saving Slade’s life in an earlier issue, the second Power Girl(I have no idea who she is, but apparently she is/was a supporting character in Power Girl’s World’s Finest Nu 52 series), Rose, Slade’s daughter and finally the original Terra, who is there at Adeline’s request and has serious problems with Slade. I love that everybody on the team had their own agenda and is a sliver away from backstabbing everyone else on the team. Eventually it all falls apart and Slade gets double crossed by Adeline and Wintergreen and ends up in Arkham.
30-35. Deathstroke vs Batman. This was originally going to be its own miniseries, but they decided to fold into his main book for sales reasons and thusly it takes place earlier than the rest of the book because of when it was first solicited. The gist is a paternity test gets sent to Batman that suggests Slade is Damian’s actual father and even though Slade calls BS on it and someone is trolling Batman, Batman starts hounding Slade who then teams up with Damian to figure out the truth. I thought Slade knew Bruce was Batman, but that must’ve been the old continuity. Here he “figures out” Wayne is bankrolling Batman but doesn’t take that one step further and figure out the obvious. Which I call shenanigans on.
37-41. Arkham. Slade is getting the asylum treatment and isn’t sure what’s real and what isn’t. It turns out Hugo Strange is fucking with him and Two-Face used the opportunity to escape and go try and kill both Slade’s kids. There’s also a subplot with another inmate who is clearly a DEADPOOL ripoff(oh the meta-irony!) who thinks he’s fighting an intergalactic war using Zeta-beam technology from Rann.
42-43. Crossover with Teen Titans ends up with the new Red Arrow(the teenage daughter of the assassin Shado) killing Slade with an arrow to his bad eye.
44-50. The series wrapped up during the ‘Year of the Villain’ event where Slade’s kids try to continue his legacy and LexPrime gives Jericho new superpowers and an alternate future Slade comes and tries to take the powers. Slade returns from the dead and defeats his doppelgänger and then decides to “stay dead” and try to live a normal life. But the end of the last issue sees him get the itch and suit up and ditch his family at Thanksgiving.

I really liked this series. Chris Priest never forgets that Slade is a villain and his relationships with his children are complicated but sincere.

Next up, I dive into Hama’s GIJoe ARAH of which I’m about 30 issues behind.

My new weekly dig thru back issues on Saturdays netted me

Teen Titans 23, 24, 26, and 27. The variant covers.
And the Teen Titans/Deathstroke Special oneshot.

When I got home and was doing internet research on TT back issues, I also discovered that Teen Titans 12 is going for $75 because it’s the “First Appearance” of The Batman Who Laughs. Well, crap, there’s another hole in my collection that won’t get filled anytime soon.

Caught up on my GIJoe ARAH over the last couple weeks.

241-245 had a couple subplots going, one of which had SneakPeak “rekilled” and the other had Zartan and Dawn, the new Snake-Eyes(one of them) and their allies escaping Springfield and Dr Venom returning to “life” after downloading his brainwaves into Dr Mindbender’s body.
246-250 “Dawn of the Arishikage” has Dawn Moreno embracing the original Sanke-Eyes’ memories in her head and becoming a ninja. She tracks down Firefly and forgives him, then joins the military and goes thru basic with the intent of joining GIJoe when she’s done.
251-255 were a series of stand alone “Special Missions” featuring Stalker, Baroness, Duke, Destro, and Scarlett. Issue 255 was the 100th issue at IDW.
256-260. Dr Venom uploads himself into a mechanized battle robot, intent on taking over Cobra, and downloads Stormshadow’s brainwaves into a Revanche ninja droid. Eventually he’s defeated when the Joes and Cobra have to reluctantly team up to stop him.
261-265. Destro makes a move against Revanche and it backfires when he and Baroness are co-opted by the Queen. 263 was a special stand alone issue that honored all the fallen Joes over the years.
266 began a 10 part event called “Snake Hunt” where Cobra Commander thinks Sean Collins, the other new Snake-Eyes, is the original who isn’t as dead as they thought he was and wants to kidnap and brainwash him into being Cobra’s deadliest weapon. It’s only up to issue 270.

The reason where this Joe succeeds and other Joe books fail is that Hama is a legit military buff and does the research to pepper his ongoing saga with legit military operations like defending Embassies and escorting VIPs out of hazard zones or convoy ambushes in hostile countries based on actual soldiers accounts. Whereas other writers like Sitterson think GIJoe is the fucking cartoon and their books tank.

I’m still missing 4 issues from the original run; 13, 18, 24, and 154. That last one is probably never gonna happen unless I stumble across it somewhere by luck, but I might make the other three a priority and pay fair market value(they go for $10-18) for them just to have an almost complete run. I also need Special Missions 24 and 25, but those are more doable at $6 each.


Next up, since I haven’t actually started cataloging that last batch of of boxes I just finished, I’ve since purchased more books that go in those series(like a bunch of Old Man Logan issues, as an example) I’m gonna be reading random issues from a bunch of different series so I can file them.
In this downtime of not getting new books, I should’ve been making an effort to put a dent in the 10 long boxes of the newest unread stuff, but I’ve just been working too many hours the last couple months. Oh well.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll get it all read before my entry in the celebrity death pool topic. The fucking clock is ticking. On becoming a celebrity as well as getting all the comics read come to think of it.

You’re already a celebrity in my book.

Hama also famously never rereads his old stuff. Which leads to some major discrepancies... which he turns to gold when people point them out. (Looking at you, Sneak Peek.)

Here’s a smattering of random issues I read this weekend.

Uncanny Avengers 28. The Lenticular variant cover. Johnny Storm is the sole beneficiary of Reed’s estate and patents worth over $5Bil. Beast and WonderMan catch up. Wasp encourages Rogue to remain leader of the team. Dr Voodoo uses Cytorrak minions to help rebuild the Avengers Mansion and it attracts Juggernaut.

Rise of the Black Panther 5 and 6. The final two issues of the “definitive” origin of T’Challa taking on the mantle of BP. Hodgepodges the original origin together with some of the MCU stuff. Lackluster honestly.

Dr. Strange/Punisher 3. Written by John Barber. Strange and Frank team up to stop some otherworldly, demonic gangsters with the help of the Phantom Eagle’s old WWI biplane.

Gamora 2. Gamora travels to a dying planet looking for the last survivor of the aliens that wiped out her entire species.

I Am Groot 4,5. Baby Groot had a five issue mini that’s...uhhh... hmmm... weird.

Harley Quinn 2. An alien meteor crashes into a Coney Island HotDog stand and infects a bunch of people with a zombie virus that Harley has to contain. HQ is overrated.

Hulk 11. The correct one this time. The final issue of the She-Hulk series. Jennifer goes on a date that turns into a robot cyborg assassin. Lots of breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the narration balloons much like the old John Byrne 90s series. A departure from the tone of the first ten issues but still fun. Picked up with Legacy numbering the next issue as She-Hulk 162.

Infamous Iron Man 3 and 7. Bendis and Maleev’s short ongoing about Dr Doom trying to fill Stark’s shoes. This was a pretty good series and the interactions between Victor and Ben Grimm are great. Some of Bendis’s better stuff from late in his Marvel career when he was usually phoning it in.

Legion 4. David Haller enlists a psychiatrist to help him defeat some of his rogue alter egos trying to take over his personality.

Monsters Unleashed 7 and 11. Kei Kawade continues to learn what it takes to be a hero by controlling his five massive imagination monsters.

Next up, a bunch of Old Man Logan issues.

Old Man Logan by Lemire & Deodato had some pretty good moments, I think you'll like it.

In doing the big reorg I have boxes of Marvel NOW! followed by what came after Secret Wars & have drawn a hard line that I shall own no comics following the end of Secret Wars. Turns out that's hard though because there are some very nice runs that I really enjoy which bridge that gap:

Aaron's Jane Thor
Allred's Silver Surfer
Soule's Inhumans
Slott's final Spider-Man volume that I really liked the end of & REALLY like the Alex Ross covers on

So my question is this - back everything up & sell those complete runs or break my own newly established rule & keep a box of post Secret Wars books?

I’d read a bunch of OML already. These are just the recent issues I bought that full in the gaps in that run between issue 36 and the end of the series.

You should keep books that you enjoy regardless of when they came out.
That’s like saying “I will watch no movie that came out after Godfather Part II”

Secret Wars needs to be the end of the story for me or I'll want to continue to buy new books. It's all centred around that. I'm pretty sure I can keep those few runs that I like (and maybe Jessica Jones too because that was really good) without screwing it up too badly.

Back with some more random books

Old Man Logan 36-38. Some guy steals a flash drive from the Kingpin(who is now Mayor Fisk) and Logan stumbles into it and has to stop Bullseye from recovering the drive and killing a bunch of people in the process. People die anyway and the drive was worthless because it had old vacation photos on it of Wilson and Vanessa.

OML 40. Glob Herman went on a date, but it was all a trick so the Purifiers could invade the X-Mansion. Logan and a bunch of X-students stop the Purifiers.
OML 41. Kraven the Hunter contracts d-list Wolvie villains Bloodscream and Roughhouse to lure Logan out so Kraven can kidnap him and take him to the Savage Land and ‘Hunt’ him.

OML 44 and 45. Rematch with Bullseye. Logan teams up with Vendetta to find Bullseye after he kidnaps and kills d-list Daredevil villain Bullet’s kid.

OML 48. Logan heads to a secluded northern Canadian town where Maestro has set himself up as King. Logan gets his ass beat.

I am still missing OML 4-6, 11, 13-17, 19-21, and 24, but everything after that I have now.

Poison Ivy 6. Back in 2016 they announced a new Poison Ivy mini with Clay Mann doing art. I bought the first few issues, but then there were delays and Mann didn’t even do the art on the final issues, so I dropped it. Finally found the last issue. It’s been so long, I couldn’t remember the plot. But Ivy now has three “children” Hazel, Rose, and Thorn running around somewhere in the DCU.

Rocket and Groot 7. An old friend of Rocket’s dies and they go to his funeral. But he faked his death, and then spends the issue faking his death repeatedly and getting more funerals. Sorta funny.

Rocket Racoon 2. From the 2017 mini. Rocket is trapped on Earth looking for passage off planet and a bunch of redneck humans are hunting aliens for sport.


Up next, a bunch of issues from the newest Runaways ongoing. And then after that, Poe Dameron and some assorted other SW books.

Won an eBay auction earlier this week.
The 1999 Amazing Spider-Man series 9, 11, and 22-29. 10 issues for $30. I only actually needed 25 and 28,
HOWEVER, now that I have those two issues, I have an uninterrupted ASM run from 268 on.

You bastard. I need some of those in the exact same spot & that would have me complete back to 238.

Well not complete - 238 to 801 complete. I don't have the whole latest batch & it's up like issue 42 again somehow.