Marvel NOW TPB's. Fantastic 4 & Gambit.

These are the first trades I've picked up since Marvel's NOW relaunched. The only change in design is a new logo on the spine. Well, the exact same logo but smaller. Because clearly making your books stand out on the shelf isn't important to Marvel anymore.

Compared to DC, Marvel have been really consistent with their spine logos for well over a decade now have had the same standard logo, varying in colours. This makes for one really neat bookshelf. Not only will these new trades look stupid next to my existing comics. It's going to take a couple of years to build up a block big enough so that they look good enough on their own.

New design on the right compared to previous.

That's my only complaint though. I'm impressed that Marvel have had the sense to compile Fantastic Four and FF together, with volume 1 Containing issues 1-3 of both titles. This seriously increases my chances of picking up volume 2. The inside covers feature a handy, chronological reading order of Hickman's run on the F4 in trades.

As for bonus features. Included in the back pages are variant covers, concept art, character designs and a guide to where Marvel's AR app can be used throughout the trade to access extra content. 6 issues for £11.99
                                         

Variant covers In bonus material.

I only picked up Gambit because I enjoyed #1 on the Marvel free digital giveaway so much. So they've already turned that into one sale from me. Fair play. The trade design is identical to that of F4. Collecting orders for X-men and Schism on the inside covers and no bonus features but very reasonably priced at £13.99 for 7 issues

Marvel AR app guide

The Search For Ant Man pt 2.

The Search For Ant-Man #2

Top 5 Reason Why Its hard to collect Ant Man books.

1. there are very few actual Ant Man comics

 2 there are so many different avengers books its hard to know where to start

3 there are 3 (very) different Ant Men all with unique stories and backgrounds 

4 he changes identities more than the lib dems change sides! And finally 

5 he jumps in and out of the avengers all the time and skirts round to almost every book imaginable. 

So discovering where to find this elusive character was tricky in and of itself and actually getting hold of the books has been hard as hell for the the most part. So I'm going to create a list of every single appearance of each Ant Man as I collect it and update it as we go along, at this point im happy to get them all so i can read them so im happy buying them in trades or in singles but the end goal is every appearance in singles (as well as at least one of every ant man & wasp action figure).

Each week on the blog I will either detail something new I've picked up or highlight something in my Ant Man collection.

This week I managed to pick up Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes #6 which has one of my all time favourite covers featuring the Yellowjacket and Wasp wedding it looks amazing and I'm actually tempted to get this one framed as its a beautiful copy, near mint. I picked this one up from EBay for £3 delivered, which is a bargain for me as I would have happily paid double for this particular issue! 

That's it for this week tune in again next week as the Search For Ant Man continues!

The Search for Ant Man

So as its the first post in this ongoing series of weekly(ish) editorials I feel I should explain my love for the Pym aka Ant Man (1) aka Giant Man aka Goliath aka Yellowjacket aka Wasp (2).

The Beginning

I personally have only been reading comics for a comparatively short period of time (2 years give or take) I don't really count my comic reading prior to this point (largely consisting of reading comics written by Claudio Sanchez of Coheed & Cambria) as I wouldn't have said back then that I was into comics.

The first Marvel comic I read was Captain America: Man Out Of Time TPB and I loved it. I remember picking it up from HMV in East Kilbride before the movie came out in 2011 and thinking this looks really cool! I bought it read it a few times and didn't think much more about it for months. During those months I started re-watching (and watching some for the first time) every Marvel movie I could find and then when I'd seen all of those moved on to the TV shows (largely old Spider-Man & Iron Man cartoons) though I wanted something a bit more in depth than those were offering at the time. So I decided to pick up a Deadpool TPB as after seeing him in Hulk VS Wolverine, and Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I was hooked on this crazy character.

I loved this book even more than the Cap book I read so at this point I decided I wanted to read more comic books. I tentatively made my first steps and picked up a few different TPBs to see what I liked and what I didn't. Now at this point you may well ask "what about your local comic shop" well mine isn't very local being as how the closest one is part of a chain and nestled sweetly in the bosom of a massive shopping mall coupled with the fact that its a half hour drive away (plus 20 mins finding a space and another 10 walking to the shop) its decidedly unlocal to me, so in deciding what I should collect (yes I decided I would collect immediately, I'm impulsive like that) I had a look around online and asked a few friends I knew were into comics vast varying opinions came flooding my way and I was unsure of what to pick up at first but several people recommended Civil War as a good starting point being that it was a major crossover and had most of the big players featured in it as well as being a fantastic story in and of itself.

And it's here that I first encountered Doctor Henry 'Hank' Pym, the scientist whom I had never heard of before which surprised me being as how I'd seen both the Iron man and both the Fantastic Four movies and he was not mentioned and yet here he was best of friends with Iron Man and Mr Fantastic and interacting with all these characters I knew from cartoons and action figures, so knowing nothing about him I had a little look into his backstory online to see what he was all about and something about him just sang to me the way his character has developed and changed over the years from his beginnings as a genius scientist, to becoming Ant-Man and helping to found The Avengers alongside his partner (and future Wife) Janet Van Dyne (AKA The Wasp), to having a nervous breakdown and attacking The Avengers, becoming Yellowjacket and marrying Jan and the infamous moment where he hit her (which was actually misdrawn as the writer never intended for this to happen, though they stuck it out and made it an integral part of his development) and to his eventual bounce back to become one of the leaders of the Avengers (see Mighty Avengers) and head up the Initiative and Avengers Academy to train the next generation of super heroes. And top all that off with an Ant Man movie on the way in 2015 the character can certainly be considered to be one of the big players in the Marvel universe. His fall and redemption as well as his relationship with Janet resonated very strongly with me and I could relate to a lot of what was going on with him (not the hitting part I must add!). I think being a grown up when I started reading comics had a lot to do with my liking for him, he was a more adult and relatable character to me than Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America etc. A real hero dealing with real issues (in some cases real psychological issues) and I immediately wanted to find out more.

I went on to pick up some Avengers trades and some of the other crossover events to find more of the character but I soon discovered that this was to be no easy task.......as you will find out next week on.....

The Search For Ant Man #2

Recommended starting point(s) in the comics.

Main Universe – Ant Man: Season One
Ultimate Universe – The Ultimates Vol.1

Andy. @damien14273