The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Quick Check-In

A day taken up with hospital visits, much waiting around, and several trips. The short version is that my wife went in for surgery today, and they're keeping her at least until tomorrow. Kids were off from school (though why, with Monday being a holiday, too, I'm still not sure) so I took the day off, too -- though I still found myself swinging briefly through work no less than three times, partially as a consequence of it being on the way and so making a handy pitstop.

Realizing I hadn't put my Westfield (comics) order in for this month, I believe I squeaked it in under the wire this morning. It was due by 10am CST, and the official time on my order was 10:00:22 CST. I'll know when I see the confirmation. (Update: The processing confirmation came through just as I was finishing this post.) Having raced through it I only ended up ordering items from Marvel and DC, along with some of the magazines I get. I know I know... that saw me skipping some good material, but time was almost out.

Here's the list, all of these being items I won't see for about 2 months:
Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol. 3 (tpb) [finally getting to some issues I've been wanting to reread for almost 30 years]
Doom Patrol 1 & 2 [sure, I know Byrne'll likely mess it up - the new, young additions to the team seem to telegraph it - but I know he's a big fan of the original team, as am I.]
Flash: Blitz (tpb) [I like Geoff Johns' work in comics in general, especially over at DC, but this is one of those series I'll only collect in collected versions]
JSA 63 [Johns again. This one I look forward to each month.]
100 Bullets Vol. 7: Samurai (tpb) [Really, still, the only title Azzarello works on where, well, he works for me. Best read as complete arcs, I'm sticking with the trades.]
Astonishing X-Men 3 [Here it is, me ordering #3 without having seen #1. (I'll see that in about a week and a half, I guess.) I hope Joss Whedon appreciates this...]
Avengers 500 [B.M. Bendis on board, "Avengers Disassembled" kicks off. I'm giving this a try based largely on Bendis' talents and my being an old time Avengers fan who wants to see this series return to some greatness. This overall story arc is also why the two Captain America titles, Thor and Iron Man are all on this month's list. I'm a huge believer in a "shared universe" dynamic as being critical for Marvel, so I'm giving them this shot in the hopes that they bring me back a little something of what I really enjoyed in these comics -- well, again... thirty years ago.]
Avengers Assemble (hc) [Collecting the first year, plus an Annual, of the Busiek/Perez run in one of those too nice and reasonably priced (especially after the discount) to pass up hardcovers.]
Captain America 29
Captain America & the Falcon 5
Captain Marvel 25 [Final issue. I enjoyed the series, but I think even writer Peter David is happy to see it wrap. Marvel gave it a far longer run than the sales figures would have dictated, so there are no hard feelings on my part.]
Essential Avengers Vol. 4 (tpb) [Sure, I have all of the original issues, but these inexpensive, black and white reprints are simply too handy and fun to pass up.]
Fantastic Four 516 [I started ordering the monthly recently on some strange impulse.]
Fantastic Four Vol. 4: Hereafter (tpb)[...collecting the last of the arcs I had skipped the monthlies of.]
Iron Man 86
Thor 82
Alter Ego 38
Back Issue! 5
Comic Book Marketplace 115
Draw! 9

As noted in the notes following Avengers 500 the above order, placed in less than 5 minutes, reflects a desire to roll back the clock to when I practically lived in the Marvel universe. They'll most likely let me down, if not immediately then in the long run, but I'm hungry enough for it that I'm willing to give them a few months to prove that they've gotten some of that old time, Mighty Marvel religion.

There are a great many other series I'm interested in, even just within the Marvel & DC confines, but my shift towards waiting for collected editions has been strong over the past couple years. If it's announced as a limited series of any sort, I wait for a trade collection, willing to take the risk that it'll be collected. All Vertigo, Wildstorm, ABC comics of interest have long since gone that route for me, too. I just recently received The Filth compilation, and will probably get to read that sometime in the next week.

Before the new order form goes up I'll want to scan the other publishers' offerings for that month, so I can make notes of things I'll be wanting to swing by a local comics shop to pick up. It'll cost me a little more that way, but that's the price of waiting too long to order.

The kids and I are splitting efforts between various chores and trying to do some fun things tonight. A game is in order.