Out Of The Basement Podcast

Well, sometimes real life gets in the way of blogging. Hence, a two-days late edition of This Week in Marvel Unlimiited!

I’ve been fairly upfront in this blog that I find the back issue library adds the most interesting thing about Marvel Unlimited every week. I have to say though, I don’t think I’ve ever been through a three week stretch like this one.

This week, the back issue adds are mostly just six issues (#7-#12) of X-Men Adventures, a mid-Nineties adaptation of the X-Men animated series. Marvel is very fond of adapting their animated shows into comic-book format; they do it with most of their animated properties. Now, if you enjoy those stories, this is a very good thing, as it completes the run. If you’re me, however, it just adds up to a massive shrug.

On the Marvel.com website, they’re also listing Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15, from 1981. I don’t have my tablet available right now, but I could’a sworn that on the tablet, there was just the X-Men Adventures issues. Anyways, this is an early Spider-Man/Punisher tale, written by Dennis O’Neil and penciled by the legendary Frank Miller. Well worth a read, imho.

On the “new” side of things we have 24 issues from the week of April 24, 2019. (My birthday! Woo! 🙂 ) We have three separate Star Wars titles (if you like Star Wars comics, MU is definitely the service for you; there are tons of stuff dating back to the original Marvel 70s comics.) Marvel Rising #2 joins this week (remember what I just said about Marvel loving to adapt their animated properties? Here’s a modern example.) Two other adaptations are worth noting: Wolverine: The Long Night Adaptation #4 ( adapting the scripted podcast from Marvel & Stitcher) and a prequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home.

We have three War of the Realms crossovers (Avengers, Uncanny X-Men & Venom) plus a single Age of X-Man one. The Avengers one is interesting; Agent Phil Coulson plays a major role… but he’s definitely not the Phil Coulson we all know from the MCU and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The rest of it is a the usual grab-bag. Everything from a new issue of Moon-Girl & Devil Dinosaur to Mark Waid’s Doctor Strange. (I’m a big fan of Waid’s work generally; I look forward to reading this eventually.)

That’s it for this week. See everyone back here next Monday (I promise I’ll have the next one out on time. 🙂 )

Welcome back to another installment of This Week in Marvel Unlimited. I’d hoped to get this out earlier, but as it’s not quite time for people to wake up on Tuesday morning I’m gonna say it’s still Monday night and go from there. 😀

With Mondays come more new comics on the Marvel Unlimited service! On the “new” side of things, coming at us straight from the week of April 17, 2019, we have the usual mix of crossovers and unrelated titles. War of the Realms is still happening, with issue #2 of the main limited series and another three crossover titles (including, oddly enough, the Punisher in his own War of the Realms one-shot.) On the X-Men side Age of X-Man continues on… along with Uncanny X-Men, which shows what’s happening with those mutants that got left behind from the crossover. Keeping with the X-Men side of things we also have the oddity of Rob Liefeld’s return to Marvel, Major X #2.

There’s a couple of comics from April I’d like to discuss for a few minutes. Chip Zdarsky’s Spider-Man: Life Story hit #2. The conceit behind this LS is interesting: Have Spider-Man start his career in the sixties (matching when his first comics came out) and then age him in real-time after that, with each issue covering a new decade. Issue #2 covers the 70s. I’m looking forward to reading this eventually; Zdarsky is a talented writer and a Canadian to boot.

Another limited series that stands out is Meet the Skrulls; issue #3 joins Marvel Unlimited this week. Meet the Skrulls is an interesting beast: if you’re familiar with the hit cable tv show “The Americans”, you have the general idea for this book. Just substitute Skrulls for Russians and throw in a lot of MU flavour. I haven’t heard a lot of buzz on this one, but the concept interests me.

The final one is actually a new reprint of an old comic: Amazing Spider-Man Facsimile Edition #252. Marvel has had a good amount of success tapping the nostalgia market with these facsimile editions. The concept is simple: reproduce a significant issue of a comic-book exactly as it was first published, advertisements and all. This one is the first appearance of Spider-Man’s black costume, which would lead to the most significant Spider-villain/anti-hero of the past thirty years: Venom.

On to the back catalog! The issues added to Marvel Unlimited from the back catalogue always interest me. Sometimes, the selection follows a theme. I’ve seen a week where they added a whole bunch of different Chris Claremont titles, for example. Or all the issues will fill in the holes of a particular title, like last week’s Mutant X run.

Other times, it’s a complete hodgepodge. That’s this week. If there’s a theme here, I can’t find it. We have a two-issue Dave Cockrum Starjammers LS from 1990. Claremont & Byrne’s Phoenix: The Untold Story from 1983. (That one’s moving onto the read list for sure.) An oddity called Blackwulf (#1) from Glenn Herdling (who?) and Angel Medina. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning doing a Century one-shot (Century being a cast member from the short-lived Force Works series. Force Works was an Avengers offshoot.) Two issues of Bizarre Adventures from the early 80s. A Marvel Handbook style one-shot for Planet Hulk called the Gladiator Guidebook. A similar title for House of M. And on, and on…

There’s not a lot in there that I want to read. One of the Bizarre Adventures issues (#27) is a Claremont/Cockrum X-Men story, so there’s that. I definitely want to read the Claremont/Byrne Phoenix one-shot. I own the Cockburn Starjammers LS, but I haven’t read it in twenty years or so, so I might give it a re-read. The rest? Probably not.

What I like, though, is that the oddball nature of most of these books shows Marvel’s commitment to digitizing its catalogue. Gives me hope that more of the comics I really want will be put on the service eventually. (There’s a lot of Alpha Flight that’s not there yet, for example.)

Hit the comments and let me know what you think! If you’re on Marvel Unlimited, is there anything this week you really want to read? If you’re not with MU (yet), is there anything that makes you think you’d give it a try? Am I being way too long winded? Let me know!

See you here next week!