All New Marvel Collected Editions

[manymade1]

Those covers are, eh. The first issue of Waid's run would've made a much better cover for his omnibus.

[FlashingSabre]

Those covers are, eh. The first issue of Waid's run would've made a much better cover for his omnibus.

Yeah, that's one of the worst covers of the run. And it has nothing to do with the story.

[WinterSoldier76]

Spider-Man is one of the more consistently well written heroes. If you wanted to, you could read everything up until the 90's for him. I would say read everything up until the end of Michelinie's run.

I'd second the above statement. I grew up on my the early stuff, skipped the 90's almost entirely, and picked back up with JMS's run about halfway through it, and barely missed a beat. Since then I've been collecting the classic material in the best / oversized version available. I've since re-read pretty much all of ASM and it surprisingly still readable up until Roger Stern's tremendous run.

[Henrik K. Kristensen]

For SA X-Men, thr only significant, or good, parts are the Lee/Kirby issues, 1-19, and the Thomas/Adams issues, 56-66.

I agree.
The first EPIC will give you the origin/background stories and the great Sentinel "trilogy story" in issues 14-16.
The third EPIC will give you the fantastic Thomas/Adams issues.

So... will the semi-completist in my buy X-Men EPIC vol. 2 even though the quality of the stories are hit and miss and generally lower?
Probably :-)

[Captain Craig]

I'd second the above statement. I grew up on my the early stuff, skipped the 90's almost entirely, and picked back up with JMS's run about halfway through it, and barely missed a beat. Since then I've been collecting the classic material in the best / oversized version available. I've since re-read pretty much all of ASM and it surprisingly still readable up until Roger Stern's tremendous run.

Wait, what? Are you saying you don't find Stern's run good on ASM?

[Near Mint]

Wait, what? Are you saying you don't find Stern's run good on ASM?

Since it is described as tremendous, I'm reading the use of "up until Stern's tremendous run" as "up until Stern's tremendous run ends."

Could be wrong, though. Perhaps tremendous is intended to mean burdensome.

Either way, Stern's writing rocks!

[Andru]

Speaking of Stern, I am still waiting for the Avengers by Stern omnibus!

[Near Mint]

Speaking of Stern, I am still waiting for the Avengers by Stern omnibus!

Agreed, this is sorely needed and long overdue! I caved and bought the TPBs that cover everything between Trial of Yellowjacket and Heavy Metal (not inclusive of those two volumes themselves). Glad to have had this option, but OHC is much preferred.

[WinterSoldier76]

Wait, what? Are you saying you don't find Stern's run good on ASM?

Stern's run is probably my all-time favorite ASM, followed closely by Lee / Romita Sr. (ASM Omnibus Vol II).

I originally stopped reading the Spider-books around the time that McFarland took over.

[Yaggi_Rck]

Yesterday I received my copy of McFarlane's Spider-Man Omnibus and I have to say that I was disappointed with some of the reproductions in the book. Since the Omnibus line is supposed to be some of the priciest books Marvel puts out (this book being 75 USD), they should at least make sure they're making justice to the art (some of the coloring and in particular some pages seemed to be simply photocopied by an amateur). I know the argument has been done in this thread about paper and whatnot, but this time what really caught my attention was that the art itself suffered (and this in a book where most would agree the strongest selling point is the art).

[krisis]

That's sad to hear. I've seen some of those dodgy reproductions in their 90s TPBs (mostly where you can see the ink pattern sort of wavering within solid colors in the scan), but I would hope for such a notable work as McFarlane they would have restored some of it.

[legion_quest]

Yesterday I received my copy of McFarlane's Spider-Man Omnibus and I have to say that I was disappointed with some of the reproductions in the book. Since the Omnibus line is supposed to be some of the priciest books Marvel puts out (this book being 75 USD), they should at least make sure they're making justice to the art (some of the coloring and in particular some pages seemed to be simply photocopied by an amateur). I know the argument has been done in this thread about paper and whatnot, but this time what really caught my attention was that the art itself suffered (and this in a book where most would agree the strongest selling point is the art).

Agree. There are some serious fuzzy/soft issues to some pages, especially the Wolverine/Wendigo issue.

In some places, the text is really pixalated as well, not the point of it not being readable, but just to the point where it's noticeable

[Suriel]

Agree. There are some serious fuzzy/soft issues to some pages, especially the Wolverine/Wendigo issue.

In some places, the text is really pixalated as well, not the point of it not being readable, but just to the point where it's noticeable

Had that kind of bad printing in my Wolverine Aaron Omni, where you could litterally see the moiré-patterns from the scan process. That was really bad and imo a total rip off.

[Drakul]

Man that sucks. I don't care much about thin paper but poor scanning that pulls you out of the story sucks. Particularly on an Omni like this were the best part of the book.

[grahamgg]

That's sad to hear. I've seen some of those dodgy reproductions in their 90s TPBs (mostly where you can see the ink pattern sort of wavering within solid colors in the scan), but I would hope for such a notable work as McFarlane they would have restored some of it.

Krisis, You are right on those late 1990 Marvel TPBs ... a lot of them have terrible reproduction (I'm looking at you original Death of Gwen Stacy TPB). Don't ever make the mistake of picking up some of the late 90s Comicraft-era MMWs. The colors are horrid!

I've heard problems like this are primarily due to issues with the source files? I read somewhere once that the X-Men DOFP square bound edition from 1989 is actually of better quality from a text/line weight perspective than some of the more recent printings (say from the early 2000s ... I'm sure the most recent printings have been cleaned up since the MMWs have already passed that era and the MMW folks are notorious perfectionists about that kind of thing). Another example are the GI Joe Classic TPBs from IDW which get particularly fuzzy/bad in the later volumes (vol 7 onward) because they actually have to copy the comics, not the original film which has become lost over time, damaged, etc. So a lot of pages of the GI Joe books look like copies of copies, if that makes any sense.

That's a real pisser to hear on the McFarlane Omni though. My copy still hasn't shipped from TOW yet, but I'm looking forward to reading it when it comes. I haven't read those issues in years. Over on the MMW MB Jeph York from Marvel said that there were a couple of text boxes/captions which were very close to the edges of the pages and nearly cut off b/c that's the way they were printed in the original comics, and they did the best they could with it for this Omnibus. It's a shame they couldn't clean up the files any better.