All New Marvel Collected Editions

[mtop2036]

Battleworld is made up of chunks of alternative universes that are walled off from each other and the tie ins are independent stories that take place in different areas. They vary in quality and some have nothing to do with the title. Armor Wars is a universe where everyone has to wear Stark armour to survive and has nothing to do with the original story whereas Civil War is a universe where the war never ended and Tony and Steve took half the country each as the war progressed. I don't remember off the top of my head which one's were particularly good or bad but Old Man Logan has sweet Sorrentino art and the Civil War one turned out to be a pretty great story.

There were a few other's that were good but I don't know if me only remembering those three is a sign that the rest were forgettable. Renew Your Vows with Spidey was pretty cool too, actually.

Thanks. I always mean to pick up renew your vows but always forget. To bad they didnt come out in hcs or an omni with all of em. Kinda of wish they were tied into the main event more.

[mzqamarul]

The clone saga omnibus is the 90s story why is it a volume 1? As if there's more to follow? A two year run w/ a huge book & another volume? Someone explain this to me.

EDIT: actually nevermind. It would take a couple I guess

The Spider-Man Clone Saga Omnibus was printed by the European Publisher (Panini??) in Italian before IIRC.
I remember seeing a pic of it somewhere on the net but can't find one now... maybe i'm mistaken.
Can anyone confirm this and if it's a multiple volume book?

Found it:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/books/c...2-hd_100296676

It's in French and it's a vol.2

[Anjohl]

They seriously couldn't "splurge" on sewn binding for Secret Wars?

Regretting my order already.

I am glad I found this out before ordering. I will wait for the full series to hit Marvel Unlimited, and if its something I want to add to the shelf, I will wait for the inevitable omnibus.

[Drz]

Yeah Krisis, I would also be interested to hear how truly different the HC is to the original issues of 7-9.

[kodave]

I am glad I found this out before ordering. I will wait for the full series to hit Marvel Unlimited, and if its something I want to add to the shelf, I will wait for the inevitable omnibus.

What inevitable Omnibus?

House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion/Dark Reign, Siege/Heroic Age, Fear Itself/Shattered Heroes, AvX, Age of Ultron, Original Sin, AXIS... Where are the "Omnibuses" for those events? They don't exist. I think most of those got their own oversized hardcovers and some event got supplemental/companion oversized hardcovers. And an Omnibus for Hickman's Secret Wars won't exist either - at least not for a very long time, if ever.

Stuff like Acts of Vengeance, Atlantis Attacks, Infinity Gauntlet, Onslaught, the original Secret Wars, Secret Wars II, and Age of Apocalypse only got Omnibuses because they came from the time before everything got a collected edition.

The cosmic stuff is the only outlier, and even then, Marvel is just jamming together former OHCs into Omnibuses - 3 Annihilation OHCs = Annihilation Omnibus; 2 Annihilation Conquest OHCs + Nova OHC = Annihilation Conquest Omnibus; 4 GOTG HCs + Thanos Imperative OHC = GOTG Omnibus; probably War of Kings and Realm of Kings OHCs plus some other stuff = probable War of Kings Omnibus. But there's no precedent for other modern events to be treated like this outside of these "modern" Marvel cosmic books.

If you want to wait to read something digitally before you buy a physical copy - great, makes sense. Why spend money on a book you might not actually like?

But to hold out because it's glued binding - like all event OHCs are - or because, for some reason, you think there's an inevitable "Omnibus" of it coming out? That makes little sense from my perspective. It's either buy this OHC - now or later, it's your choice - or get nothing.

[Magnum Valentino]

Got my Omnis from Cheap-Comics after after a lonnnnng wait for one of the books to come back into stock. Chris sent me a copy of Epochalypse to make up for the wait. Good guy.

No idea what the book is though.

[Jaepuck]

Got my Omnis from Cheap-Comics after after a lonnnnng wait for one of the books to come back into stock. Chris sent me a copy of Epochalypse to make up for the wait. Good guy.

No idea what the book is though.

I also got my 5 Omnis from cheap-comics from the sale yesterday. The packaging was really good. But unfortunately the cover of the FF4 Byrne 2 Omnibus was severely damaged on the top right corner. I think it was damaged before shipping because the packaging and the others Omnis are in very good condition.
So I wrote him yesterday evening to send me a replacement.
I hope he will give me a reply...
It was my first order there. So if I get a good solution, I would recommend cheap-comics as a online comic shop for people living in Europe.

[Shinglepants]

And most of the secret war tie in series are stand alone right? Are their any I should pick up to read in conjunction with SW? Isnt the Thor one the police force of battleworld or something like that?

Probably the most important tie in I read was Siege. It explains one of the key events that unfolds in the main event and was a fun read too.

Thors kinda, technically ties in but just barely.

[grahamgg]

Probably would take 3 Omnis to complete. It was a 2 year run but it ran through all 5 Spidey titles (I cant even remember all the names as some titles changed. All titles were changed to Scarlet Spider at one point. Really stupid and confussing). It clocks in at over 100 issues in total. As others have said the story sucks and I've never really heard anyone say anything good about it. So it is a shocker along the line of "Atlantis Attacks" and "The Crossing" when those Omnis were released.

P.S. I'm predicting this to be the quickest omnibus to hit the bargain/blowout price ever. If it was a complete story in one contained omnibus I'd say it might sell. Hell, people will always buy Spidey just to get their own opinion. But this is an omnibus that might never see follow up volumes ever printed (As acclaimed as Ultimate Spidey was it never got past volume 1 although there was Death of Spidey). I think this will put even more people off of buying it. Why would you buy part 1 if parts 2 and 3 never come out. Just my thought.

Now, now ... it wasn't all THAT bad. Sure some parts of the Clone Saga stank, but it started great! All those months build up across the various Spideys of a mysterious stranger travelling the country randomly calling MJ & Aunt May, showing up (shadowed) at Midtown High, etc. Then the whole is he/isn't he the clone, the Jackal's & Gwen Stacy clone both return, plus the Lost Years mini were all good, good stuff. And Amazing Spidey #400 is still considered one of the great Spidey anniversary issues of all time (too bad Aunt May's death didn't stick...).

It was only when Marvel revealed Pete as the clone that folks got pissy. Things kind of went off the rails after that point. Sales of Spidey books were steadily increasing in an era where sales across the board elsewhere were falling off a cliff. So marketing got involved and forced the creators to stretch out story line originally only intended to be a six month arc, into a massive sprawling, 2 year mess. Even now though I have a soft spot in my memory for this era. I have the Epic Collection TPs already but will gladly upgrade when/if this is released!

Marvel has seemed to revisit their ideology regarding multiple volume omnibuses. We've gotten both of Busiek's Avengers in short order, and Master of Kung Fu was announced as having all 4 volumes planned. I can't imagine Master of Kung Fu selling well, at least more so than a Spider-Man book (even the Clone Saga).

Hopefully they'll go the Busiek Avengers or MOKF route with the possible Spidey Clone Saga Omni and release all volumes in a short period of time (1-1.5 years).

I'm on the fence with MOKF. I've never read any of that series but have read all the praises over the years. This is the definition of a niche title release and you can bet with the issues surrounding the rights, that it will never go back to print. Heck, this is the first time in 40 years it's ever been reprinted anywhere. So from a "buy it on release week for half off to see if I like it, and even if I don't, I can resell it for more than I paid on down the line due to it's niche content and low print run" I'll probably give it a shot.

I'm wondering if Marvel will take advantage while they have the rights back temporarily to release other books (complete collections, MMWs, etc) starring MOKF in them like Marvel Team Up or Giant Size Spidey issues. Basically all the collections where MOKF would show up and Marvel had to skip those issues in previous collections. It would make sense but we have no idea what the licensing rights terms are.

And most of the secret war tie in series are stand alone right? Are their any I should pick up to read in conjunction with SW? Isnt the Thor one the police force of battleworld or something like that?

Yes.

[Taral-DLOS]

This whole thing with Secret Wars is kind of irritating. Because what I'm reading is "Those people who paid $3.99 each for two issues? Well, it was better as one issue, so we're going to give the collection buyers something better."

I would've been willing to spend a bit more for a proper climax issue that was bigger than normal. But instead I was charged normal full price for two issues that they themselves claim were mediocre.

Quick idea: for anyone who can prove they bought issues 7 and 8 of Secret Wars, they should give a free download of a digitized "Actual Secret Wars #7".

[grahamgg]

A brief but interesting interview with Brevoort and Hickman with a non-comics blog. I did not realize how radical the restructuring of the material from Secret Wars #7-8 was for the hardcover. This is a rare modern instance where it sounds like there will never be a faithful collected reproduction of a major Marvel comic as it was released. That's not a bad thing, since Hickman basically returned the #7-8 split back to his original scripted version, but it still fascinates me.

I'm sitting down to read my copy right now!

I guess this is the fallacy of "writing for the trade". What was intended as one giant story was truncated and abridged so that it could be released serially each month. I'm interested to read the HC straight thru to see how it changed from being released as single issues as well. What's particularly interesting in that article is that Hickman changed the story back to how "it was in his head" and it now only has 7 chapters, despite originally being released across 9 single issues!

[Peter Parker]

I thought the best series to come out of SW was the Ennis "Where Monsters Dwell", but it has absolutely noting at all to do with Secret Wars except for the masthead. It could have been an independent miniseries. Agreed that of all the tie-ins Seige was the most directly related to the main book.

I harbor the theory that the only reason there was a split in books 7&8 was to keep up some semblance of a regular publishing schedule instead of slipping to bi-monthly.

[mtop2036]

I guess this is the fallacy of "writing for the trade". What was intended as one giant story was truncated and abridged so that it could be released serially each month. I'm interested to read the HC straight thru to see how it changed from being released as single issues as well. What's particularly interesting in that article is that Hickman changed the story back to how "it was in his head" and it now only has 7 chapters, despite originally being released across 9 single issues!

Now i'm confused. So is the OHC 9 issues or 7? The solicitation says 9.

[mike1981]

Now i'm confused. So is the OHC 9 issues or 7? The solicitation says 9.

His post clearly says it was 9 issues, and has now been spread across 7 chapters in the collected edition...

[Captain Craig]

I'm fully down for a 3 volume Clone Saga Omni.
As noted by another it's got some flawed arcs in there, mainly in the second half, after Peter is revealed as the Clone, but does wrap somewhat nicely. I hate they killed Ben only to later find out the Scarlet Spider moniker and character were so loved they've tried to replicate that since killing Ben. Kaine's solo title worked for 3yrs, so there's that but us Clone Saga fans want/demand the real Ben Reilly be Scarlet Spider.
Let's also not forget that Marvel had a change at the top during this, the EIC position was handed over IIRC so some upper level decisioning stretched out the CS longer than originally intended.

I see the Clone Saga as something overly hated by some, disliked on rumored principal by those who've never read it and it's now some legendary event that "no one likes" and is "all bad". It's not. No more so than a $300m grossing Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is somehow "universally panned and hated". It's not, neither is Clone Saga.