Is It Just Me...

[Alan M.]

...or is this an extra-heavy month for comic books? My list for June is bursting at the seams...there's more stuff I want to get than I have space for on my budget!

Mighty Avengers and X-Factor both double-ship this month, as does Captain Britain if you count its annual... Two new Bat titles debut (Streets of Gotham and Gotham City Sirens) that I plan to check out... "Dark X-Men" kicks off at the end of this month with Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia... Captain America #600 is 67% above its normal cover price, and Detective Comics is coming back a dollar costlier than when it left...

I'm trying to figure out where my budget/list can give to admit all these extra costs and comics!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

It could be... since my cutback, I'm a little less likely to notice heavy or light weeks (although these past few months have been heavy for my new budget, with my throwing in for Spider-Man 24/7 and the prior FF 2-parter, as well as the Great Fables Crossover, which tripled my Fables budget for three months.

When does that new Detective Comics ship? It's definitely on my buy list...

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

Yeah, I've cut my superhero buys (for me) to Amazing Spider-Man and Morrison's Batman and Robin. I plan to buy and read most of the Bat-family of titles, but pass them on to our babysitter who loves the Gotham female characters. She'll also get the Kathryn Immonen Runaways issues after I've read them. But Dark Reign has led to me dropping all of the other Marvel monthly (or more frequent) titles. I switched to trades for Captain America. It leaves more money for stuff like Sherlock Holmes and last week's super-cool graphic novel, Eternal Smile.

[Alan M.]

Rob Staeger said:

When does that new Detective Comics ship? It's definitely on my buy list...

I believe it's slated for June 24...

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Awesome... it's a book I'm really looking forward too -- JH Williams and Cully Hamner? With Rucka writing? I've got high hopes...

[Alan M.]

Doc Beechler said:

But Dark Reign has led to me dropping all of the other Marvel monthly (or more frequent) titles.

I'm curious, Doc... Is that because you don't like where Dark Reign took the stories, or did you see it as a convenient "jumping off" point, or something else?

I expected Dark Reign to be a scaling back / need a breather point for me, but Marvel just kept putting out good books...

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

Not to get too political...but after the last few years, reading a story about a bunch of bad guys in charge didn't seem entertaining. :)

And, I realized, when it comes to superheroes...I'm only really still interested in what happens to Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne and their families of characters. I think the other books are still fine, I've just kinda lost interest.

That said...I am gonna peak at Hickman's FF when it comes out and I'll buy anything Kathryn Immonen writes.

[Batmatt Beyond]

My weekly average has increased from three or four titles to about 7 for the last couple of weeks. The return of the Bat-books contributes to that increase this month.

I'm still going with a number of titles limit (25) rather than a dollar amount limit. Any more than 25 and I find myself getting stressed out by the growing stack of comics.

[Rich Lane]

Also, JSA has a mini series starting this month that's concurrent with the regular book, and the story in the mini is far more in line with what the long time readers of the regular book are used to. :(

[Chris Fluit]

It's not just you. And it's not just June (July and August seem pretty packed as well).

You can add Uncanny X-Men to the list of titles that are double-shipping this month. You can add Buck Rogers to the list of interesting debuts. And Rich already mentioned the JSA mini-series.

[Alan M.]

Thirty-nine titles???
Rich Johnston, over at Bleeding Cool, said:

This Wednesday, Marvel will ship 39 serialised comic books. Twelve X-titles - Astonishing X-Men #30, Timestorm 2009/2099 X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #512, Wolverine First Class #16, Wolverine Noir #3, Wolverine Weapon X #3, X-Factor #45, X-Force #16, X-Men Forever #2, Dark Wolverine #75, Wolverine Magazine #3 and Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1. And five are Wolverine specific.

That last title adds up to five Avengers books, including Avengers/Invaders #12, Avengers: The Initiative #25, Dark Avengers #6 and New Avengers #54.

Adding to those three Dark Reign books are another nine, Dark Reign: Elektra #1, Dark Reign: Zodiac #1, Dark Reign Lethal Legion #1, Dark Reign Sinister Spider-Man #1, Dark Reign The Hood #2, Amazing Spider-Man #598, Ms. Marvel #40, Secret Warriors #5 and Thunderbolts #133, making twelve.

That's...a lot of comics...

[Rich Lane]

Wasn't over saturation one of the things that brought about the near collapse in the late 90s?

[Alan M.]

Rich Lane said:

Wasn't over saturation one of the things that brought about the near collapse in the late 90s?

Johnston actually mentions that at the end of that column, yeah.