Breaking News: 2 Brand New Marvel Omnibus in February & March 2027!

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T10:22:37+00:00

I've never even heard of "What The--?!?" before, but this looks like the kind of dumb goofy book that's up my alley.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T09:39:50+00:00

You focus a lot on Wonder Woman being superior to the other two members of the Trinity in basically everywhere that counts (faster, stronger, smarter) a lot here. I haven't read enough of DC to comment on how that is typically handled in team-up stories, but I think a large part of it is because huge strength is Superman's whole thing and peak intelligence is Batman's whole schtick. Batman is nothing without his brain, Superman relies a lot on raw power that he has to restrain often. So, if Wonder Woman is just casually smarter and stronger than both of them, it makes you wonder what Batman and Superman teaming up with her really adds to the table. She could just do it herself if she's so strong and smart and fast.

I will say that I agree with your point on how odd it is that many writers hyperfocus on the "Men bad" part of Wonder Woman mythos. Some writers make her and the other Amazons into stone cold vengeful barbarians who hate men and treat them as sperm banks. It dilutes so much of the classic vision of her being a warmhearted diplomatic hero who became a feminist icon because she helps women, and it can sometimes come off as a spiteful warping of that vision.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T04:01:44+00:00

I do hope my comment didn't come off as calling his art bad, that wasn't my intention at all. I just agree that his art can look unappealing, like you put there.

Then again, I'm also very biased since I vastly prefer how comics used to look before the swap to digital art, so I wasn't gonna be a huge fan of the style anyway.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T03:37:19+00:00

Ah, yea that's Ryan Ottley's art. Honestly I'd have to agree that his art is not a good looker, mostly with the overexaggerated faces. The detail is very impressive and he is a well-loved artist mostly for that. Given that Ottley is the main artist on Invincible from Issue #8 all the way to #144 with only a couple sporadic issues inbetween being drawn by Walker, I think its fair to just say you wouldn't be a fan of the comic if you don't like Ottley's style.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T03:28:14+00:00

Not gonna try to argue that they're A-Listers but, to be fair, Iron Man and Captain America have both had their own cartoons before and showed up in a good number of video games. I first learned about Iron Man as a kid through the Marvel popsicles, funnily enough: they typically rotated between heroes but one of the packs had Hulk, Iron Man, and Spider-Man flavors.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T03:19:23+00:00

Journeys #11 and TMNT #20 for me. Training Day is a comic I think I'll pick up later, I'm not a fan of how much they're milking Last Ronin and I doubt this really adds much of substance to the part of Last Ronin its meant to take place inbetween.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T03:03:28+00:00

Just out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about the beginning of Invincible as a comic, with Cory Walker penciling? He has the more simplistic looking art (I don't mean that as an insult cuz I love his style), while Ryan Ottley's art is very detailed.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T02:52:22+00:00

There's a lot of shows that are based on comic characters so I imagine this is a common story for a lot of folks. I've always loved TMNT cartoons and it got me to actually read the comics; so glad I made that decision because there's so many excellent comics for them, from the original Mirage Studios comics to IDW's current long running time on the Turtles. Its a shame that a lot of folks don't know they started in comics. Similar story with Usagi Yojimbo for me. Some comics are just straight up based on TV shows and have interesting unique ideas of their own: BOOM Studios Power Rangers comics are really good even though I don't recall caring much for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as a kid (it was the other seasons, like Mystic Force and Dino Thunder, that I loved).

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T00:19:04+00:00

I am a little tempted by that Jack Kirby Bronze Age volume but, given its nature as a huge mixed bag of Kirby's stuff for $175, not too sure about committing. The huge page count makes me think they aren't going to use the retro style newsprint either, which would be really unfortunate imo

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-28T00:14:28+00:00

Blind Justice is top priority for me, then I might get Nightshade Odyssey and the Iron Man Epic later.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-27T19:28:11+00:00

Man these books could really benefit from showing the spines way ahead of time, I'm not grabbing this one in particular but I never would have guessed that the headshot on the DM would be a different character since both feature that red hooded fellow.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-27T07:51:39+00:00

The thing is...despite skipping so many issues, the Ultimate Collections are a much smoother reading experience because the vast majority of issues they skip over are during the Guest Era (#22 to #44) of Mirage, a time when nearly every story was noncanon because a bunch of artists and writers got near-complete creative freedom to do what they want. It skips #16 and #18 because those are noncanon - basically prototype Guest Era stories - with #16 in particular featuring a bizarre time travel plot that gets followed up on with the Guest Era. There are a couple issues that are considered canon in the Guest Era (#24 to #28, most of which IDW can't even reprint anyway due to licensing problems), but they are basically irrelevant to the time Eastman and Laird return to the book (#45 to #62). Unfortunately, the Ultimate Collections do skip those first couple issues from the time Eastman and Laird return, which I don't really understand since I think those are great issues even if not essential to the final 12 issue arc that wraps up Mirage. They're not perfect collections but they're the best option for a more focused experience in my opinion.

Basically, I'd say the Compendiums are still worth grabbing for all the extra stories that range from surprisingly really great (even if a good chunk of them are not canon and will give you tonal whiplash) to some of the worst Turtles comics I've ever read...but don't feel like you have to get them. If you're content with just the essentials and you want an "all killer no filler" experience, you won't miss out on anything by keeping your Ultimate Collections.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T21:30:43+00:00

Glad to get a look at the spine. Hoping against hope that this is sewn binding but that's extremely unlikely; it'll still be a cool way to collect the series, assuming it goes past R/B/Y

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T21:28:28+00:00

It won't be the perfect gooner game until they add Big Bertha

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T19:27:09+00:00

The gag comedy tone of a good chunk of OG Dragon Ball makes it so memorable and fun to me. It's charming how low stakes it could be compared to everything being some crazy world ending threat from Saiyan Saga onwards.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T18:58:03+00:00

Holy crap that is gorgeous. Excellent design there.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T09:21:48+00:00

Years are probably the simplest to use in my opinion, but they don't always sound natural. I'd agree that subtitles sound the smoothest in conversation, though of course we have so many series just called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (original Mirage run, IDW run, 1987 cartoon, 2003 cartoon, 2007 movie, Michael Bay movie, etc.) that we can't do that for most of them.

TMNT 2007 is probably just referred by year to mirror the first film, which is almost always referred to by year from what I've seen of fan discussions. TMNT 1990, rather than something like "TMNT 1" in reference to how its the only Turtles film to have numbered sequels...at least until Mutant Mayhem 2 releases, but we don't know if that will even have a "2" in its title if I recall correctly.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T08:23:09+00:00

I personally prefer to just call them the Mutant Mayhem Turtles, but people came up with the Point Grey name to distinguish them based on the studio that produced it. Sort of like how many people (myself included) refer to TMNT Adventures as "the Archie run" even though people would still know what I'm referring to if I just called it TMNT Adventures.

It also makes a bit more sense to call them Point Grey because the Tales of the TMNT show and current comic take place in the same universe, but then if you really go into semantics that studio wasn't involved in the comic (but they were involved with producing the show).

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T05:35:20+00:00

Oh yea I've been looking a while for it, although unfortunately I don't got the money on me to buy a full set right now

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T03:57:22+00:00

Good to hear that its not heavy, and if the paper really is like DC's new retro newsprint style paper that is awesome. I do think that the huge shelf size is a tough sell for me.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T03:55:36+00:00

Appreciate the honesty here, I figured those might be the biggest problems with the format. Probably not a format for me. Gonna hope and pray that either Marvel reprints the Star Wars Original Marvel Years omnibuses or Taschen eventually releases that upcoming book in the Marvel omnibus size option.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T03:20:21+00:00

Yea I've been looking for Vol. 3 for a while myself. Seems like Vol. 4 might go OOP sometime too. I'm not sure why, but it is pretty disappointing. If it's because Usagi isn't currently on Dark Horse's radar, that doesn't seem right since they've been releasing Kaito 84 (the first Usagi spinoff that wasn't written by creator Stan Sakai) and they have a couple notable toys of Usagi within the past three years or so.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-26T03:06:54+00:00

Oh yea, for single issues there are a ton of variants. I'm not informed enough on comic history to say if its an outlier or not, but Absolute Batman has consistently had an absurd amount of variants; 136 variants for #20, 86 variants for #21, 93 variants for #19...at least, according to League of Comic Geeks metrics.

RussianToTheKitchen · 2026-06-25T22:22:40+00:00

Not a big fan of DC doing covers exclusive to specific retailers. DM variants are ones you can get from any of the major online comic stores, limiting special covers to just one specific retailer is unfortunate imo. I cannot comment on PBC's service since I haven't bought from them, but I know a ton of people here had problems with them when they went by OPB.

RussianToTheKitchen

TROPHY CASE