My Free Comic Book Day Finds

For me, Free Comic Book Day isn't so much about getting a new free comic as it is an excuse to go to my local comic shop and feel good about it. None of the publisher's free offerings this year really struck my interests so it wasn't too much of a priority to get to the shop early before the limited editions were gone. Besides free comics, today typically also gives some great comics at a reduced price and so that was what I focused on today.

First up we have Batman #452 which is a Riddler tale from "early" August 1990. I picked this one because of the great pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola cover.

Batman #452 

Next we have a Captain America annual from 1983. Although it looks like Captain America is stuck in the Cosmic Cube he spends most of the issue try to get his hands on it. We are reminded of the extensive history of the Cube from being made by the Skrulls to Red Skull and Doctor Doom trying to get their hands on it. The Cosmic Cube plays a huge role in the current Marvel movies where it is called The Tesseract

Captain America Annual #7

In Marvel's ambitious 14-year plan of movies I hope someday we get to Dr. Stephen Strange and maybe a Defenders movie if the Hulk gets bored with his Avengers duties. Plus, I hope that there is a Luke Cage movie squeezed in there somewhere.

Defenders Annual #1

I also picked up an issue of Marvel Age which was basically like Marvel Wikipedia before the internet. It had a bunch of great Marvel encyclopedia information and in this issue it has a great page showing Thor drawn by many different artists.


You really can't have too many issues of Man of Steel #19 which has the fight between Doomsday and Superman that leads to his death in Superman #75.

Superman The Man of Steel #19

My next two comics both feature Venom on the cover. On the left we have a great Sam Keith Venom cover and on the right is the cover of Amazing Spider-man #654 with Flash Thompson in the Venom suit. 


The last comic I found was truly a treasure. It was a reprint of an essay written by Watchmen creator Alan Moore in the 80's on how to write for comics...it's basically Stephen King On Writing for comics. 


Comments

AdamE said…
I never went to a comic store that had stuff that good on free day. Every one I ever went to just had new age anime garbage.
Matt Flaten said…
The only "free" one was the first Batman. All the rest I paid actual money for.
Fuji said…
One of these days I'll actually venture out to one of my local comic shops on Free Comic Book Day. My students told me the shops they went to were packed, which I guess is a good sign for comic book shops.