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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS. Art by WALTER SIMONSON |
Back at the end of 1983 or beginning of '84, I purchased TALES Of ASGARD Volume 2, Number 1, with its beautifully rendered WALT SIMONSON cover, and determined one day to acquire Volume 1, Number 1 of the self-same title. That issue had been published in 1968, and it's possible I had seen it in some back issue comic shop in the intervening 15 or 16 years between both volumes, but, if so, I'd never felt the need to own it at that time. Now, of course, I couldn't have the second one without also having the first.
The years came and went without me ever obtaining the aforementioned classic, but a year or so back, MARVEL published a 6-issue series of all the Tales of Asgard stories - and then released them in a hard-cover Omnibus-sized book. (It's just been released in a standard-sized softcover edition also.) I now had all the stories in their restored and re-coloured glory, not to mention a few of the original THOR comics in which some of them first appeared. What need now had I of the original 68 page 1968 comic? If it was anything like the 1983/'84 Special, the artwork suffered from line drop-out on VINCE COLLETTA's fine inking, rendering the printed pages far less detailed than their original back-up appearances in Thor's own monthly magazine.
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| Art by JACK KIRBY & FRANK GIACOIA |
Well, the answer is obvious - none, really. So when I spied the coveted issue on sale on eBay recently, I must've hesitated for all of two seconds before snapping it up it to add to my already vast collection. What can I say? Only other rabid collectors will fully understand the need to fill that missing gap in a run - even if you already have other presentations of the contents.
I now have the MASTERWORKS editions, as well as the AVENGERS UNITED printings (a U.K. publication), the recent re-coloured 6-issue series, the THOR OMNIBUS, the MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION issues, the hardback book, the 1984 Walt Simonson covered comic - and now I have the '68 Special as well. (Only 27 or 28 years after I first decided to one day make it my own.) I have every Tales of Asgard story ever printed, in either partial or complete presentations of these mini-classics. Surely now I can draw the curtains on that particular compulsion to have a complete set of these stories?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I'm finding that recently released softcover edition mighty tempting. Will someone please save me from myself?
2 comments:
yeah, the softcover's got me a-drooling somehwhat, too. . .
The hardback's even more overwhelming. If only they'd coloured up decent proofs of the origin tale from J.I.M. #83 and included the Thor versus Hercules tale (which reads like an extended T.O.A.) from the 1st Annual, it would've been perfect. 'Scuse me while I wipe my chin.
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