Waiting for the Trade The 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time #13 – 10. written by Stan Lee, Mark Millar, Frank Miller & Larry Hama art by Jack Kirby, Adam Kubert & David Mazzuchelli collects Incredible Hulk #1, Ultimate X-men #1, Daredevil #227 & Wolverine #75   Why I Bought This: It was a $1.50 at my local comic shop and I’ve actually never read Hulk #1 before so that alone made it worth picking up. The Plot : So in 2001 Marvel ran a poll asking for the 100 greatest stories of all time and then turned that into a series of four issue trades priced at $7.50 each. This one has the first appearance of the Hulk, the first issue of Ultimate X-Men , the first chapter of the Daredevil “Born Again” story arc, and the final chapter of the X-Men’s “Fatal Attractions” crossover. (spoilers below)

Waiting for the Trade by Bill Miller   Marvel Masterworks Uncanny X-Men vol. 11 by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum with Len Wein collects Giant Size X-men #1 and X-men 94-100   Why Bought This: Surprisingly this was in the discount bin of my favorite local comic store. I’d never read these issues before despite their importance to comic book history, so when I saw this on sale I was like why not?   The Plot – Now classic X-men heroes Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler join the team as Chris Claremont begins his legendary run on the title.  

Waiting for the Trade   by Bill Miller   Marvel Adventures Avengers: Vol. 2 – Mischief. by Tom Bedard and Shannon Gallant. collects Marvel Adventures the Avengers #5-8.   Why I Bought This: This was a cheap pick-up (under $5) as part of my post- Avengers movie feeding frenzy. Specifically Juggernaut is on the cover, and I figured: even if it is a simplified story, at this price, he’s always good for a fun fight scene. The Plot: Loki discovers the existence of the Avengers and decides to test them by creating new super villains for them to face. For this universe the Avengers are Captain America , Storm, Hulk, Spider-man, Giant-Girl (Wasp, only with growth powers instead of her normal shrinking/flying/laser stings), Iron Man and Wolverine.  

Time to get in shape with the Big Bad Booty Daddy.

Waiting for the Trade By Bill Miller X-Men Visionaries: Jim Less by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Collects Uncanny X-men 248, 256-258, 268-269 and 273-277 and Classic X-men 39 Why I Bought This: So several months ago DC was hyping the hell out of the New 52 and the preview pages for Justice League by Jim Lee looked pretty damn amazing. Knowing I was going to wait for the trade on JLA meant I had six months before I could pick it up so I decided I wanted something by Jim Lee in the interim. The two most obvious choices were either X-Men or Fantastic Four Heroes Reborn, but having purchased the terrible Captain American Heroes Reborn trade in the wake of the awesomeness of last year’s movie, I decided to go with X-men. Plus the back cover did promise both a famous Cap story and a Savage Land story I had never read before as I dropped X-men in my original collecting days right around the time Jim Lee took over so most of this is actually new to me. Those preview pages mu...