Remember when I said I was considering getting the Daredevil Epic Collections?
…they had a good sale, okay?
Well, unlike DC Finest (of which I want as many as is feasible), I’m setting concrete rules for Epics:
I will never pay more than cover price for an Epic Collection. Never have and never will. Not even once. Not even ¢10 more. I will simply wait until they reprint the book, even if it takes 15 years. I will not play this stupid game on eBay and I will not fall into Marvel’s bullshit.
I will only actively collect material for characters I actually like, which for Marvel narrows that down to Daredevil, Captain America, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Black Widow, Heroes for Hire, and She-Hulk.
Characters I’m middling on or like okay—Dr. Strange, Moon Knight, Namor, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther—I will only get the absolute best runs for.
Characters I do not care about—Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, the Avengers as a team—or do not like—Punisher—I will buy zero epics for. You’d think that’d go without saying but I actually do already have an Avengers epic from years ago so I need to restate this rule.
I will generally avoid buying comics published before 1985. I can only tolerate so much of the Bronze Age, and unlike DC I don’t feel the need to force myself to read older Marvel comics for context.
The only major character I want all the epics for is Daredevil, and I will only collect Daredevil in epics from 1964 until 2010 (already have the Mark Waid omnis and Soule trades). No omnis or older trades anymore.
All in for Spider-Girl. I want all of Mayday Parker in epics.
No Spider-Man until 1985. No X-Men from 1975 to 1990. I have both in other formats, I will not rebuy that material.
Associated X-Teams like Excalibur and X-Factor will exclusively be bought in epics because I already have the first volume of both. Will probably get Generation X when they reprint volume 1.
No Captain America before Mark Waid. I’m working on Gruenwald in omnibus, and don’t want to have to go back further than 1985 anyway. I’ll get Brubaker onward since my trades of those are falling apart and I’m missing stuff anyway.
From now on, I will ONLY get Fantastic Four in epics. I have the Byrne omnibuses, which I like having and enjoy, but I will get FF in thick trades going forward.
No She-Hulk before Byrne. I don’t care about Savage She-Hulk.
If I do get the Dan Ketch Ghost Rider volume (huge if), I will only get Dan’s epics and I will only get Dan in epics. He is the only Ghost Rider I know/like enough to want read more of his comics.
With New Republic volume 8, I am officially finished collecting Star Wars comics. I have the complete run from 1977 to 2014, and anything beyond that to me does not count. No more Star Wars!
I’ve been wanting to try Alien comics, but if I don’t like this volume I’m done. I’m not getting stuck in a 10 volume cycle if this is bad.
So there we go. The only one that really matters is the first one, and at $50-55 I ain’t even doing that. Deep discounts. I got the Astonishing X-Men volumes for $16 each. This is a lot better than DC where I have no rules and as a result must suffer.
…I should probably make some rules for DC…
Anyway, here’s better pics of the books for those interested!
Here it is…the last two Star Wars epics I need (aside from Legacy 2)…wow. A complete collection. Also Aliens. Neat. It’s tempting me to do a complete reread of every Star Wars comic…but that’ll have to wait a while.
So I was only able to get this volume for DD, but given this is my favorite era for ol’Hornhead I’m mostly fine with that. I have a bead on some others I’ll get very soon (hopefully), but Bendis will suffice for now. Cap I got because of the Mark Waid sale on IST, and man I’ve always wanted to read his Captain America. Good price, plus I consider 1996-2006 to be pretty much my favorite era of comics overall, so this was a must buy.
Astonishing X-Men is my favorite era of X-Men (I know, I know, but it got me as a teenager you must understand), and at $16 each? Easy. Like I said, I’m all in on Mayday, and this is what they had.
Finally, some DC Finests!
I waited to get a better deal for Batman, and was kinda iffy on Supergirl but figured at $15 it’s worth a shot. May or may not get volume 2. The Flash I’m weirdly excited about because…honestly I don’t know. I just want to read Bronze Age Flash, and this is a nice chunk of it here.
Anyway, I’ll check back in after I make all-new, all-different mistakes.
