Hidden Treasure

As I was browsing around some other comic page, I ran across this article.  I think the author makes some excellent points concerning age and condition and I completely agree that many people are just sitting on top of treasure and don't know it!

Go take a look at this! How Much Is My Comic Book Collection Worth?

Buying/Selling Comics page and Amazon/Google links added!

OK so today was more of a day for computer work rather then writing here at GoldDustBoi's House of Ideas.

First I added a few links for Amazon and Google.  I know I know "god, another site with ads now", but I promise that I will not let them dominate the site and I am hoping they help my followers (and myself).  For the Amazon ads, they should only show things relevant to the site so I am hoping to help reader find some collected edition they're looking for.  As for the Google ads, I don't have as much control over them, but I will definitely take them down if they start to affect the integrity of the site.

Also today I added a new page to the site "Buying/Selling Comics".  The purpose of this page is twofold.  First, it's a place for me to list the items I have for sell on eBay so you can see them before going to eBay itself.  Secondly, I am offering my services as a buyer to any viewers of the site.  If you are looking for issues to help complete your collection, but don't have the time, patience or knowledge to track down a good deal yourself then let me do the work for you!  There are several specialty stores in my area as well as easy access to the many stores in Manhattan, and I am a highly successful eBay buyer and seller.  I can promise to find you the best deal for the issues you are looking for, and I won't gouge you on shipping.  Let me know if I can help you find what you need to complete your collection!

Heroic Age...that was fun while it lasted...

Remember a year and a half ago when Marvel made all sorts of promises to us?  Mutant Unity? The Avengers together? A new Captain America? and last, but certainly not least, no more all encompassing crossovers?

Well here we are 13-15 months later (depending on the series) and all but one of these promises have fallen apart.  Schism is about to crack the mutant nation Utopia wide open and give us two teams of X-men, that are working more against each other with each other, according to my articles I've read.  Not to mention that it looks like their public admiration is at an end as the Sentinels are sicced on them again.  And to be honest, when I saw Captain Ameribucky get gunned down during a recent issue of Fear Itself I thought we were going to see some out there miraculous save, but according to all the Captain America #1 promos I've been seeing in the back of many June issues, this seems to not be the case.  It would appear that Bucky is truly dead, again, and Steve Rogers Super Soldiers is once again taking up the stars and stripes of Captain America.  And, then we have the crossovers...what is there to say?  After the insane deluge of comics involved with Civil War, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign, we were promised no more company wide events like them for a good while.   

Enter: the Chaos War.  Not quite as all inclusive as its predecessors, but even still it used a few key characters in the Marvel Universe and had more then one or two limited series/one-shots.  And now we have Fear Itself.  A megalomaniacal mama of a cross over that involved EVERYONE in the Marvel Universe, except the X-men, at least not yet, who have their own problems (and somehow Wolverine is involved with both), and comes complete with one-shot, limited series, and guest peppered just enough through all of them to make us HAVE to buy them all.  

It just seems like all the promises we were made about this supposed Heroic Age either didn't happen or ended so quickly that if you blinked you missed it.  We are back sliding into the same old thing that SORTA worked before rather then sticking to the new ideas and try to come up with more ways to keep things fresh.  I was really excited about all the things we were told that were happening in the Heroic Age and I was even happier that it wasn't a solid storyline that you needed to follow in every book but could just follow in your favorites as well as being a great place to pick up new on new books (I only started regularly reading the Avengers during the Heroic Age).  And while it seems like the Avengers pretty much stick with status quo after Fear Itself, everything else just feels like an old rut that Marvel's falling into.

Minimum Carnage - Carnage #5

Well I gave it all the way until the end of the series but the verdict is in: the latest exploits of Carnage and crew were underwhelming to say the least.  I was a huge fan of the Maximum Carnage crossover back in the 90's and I was thrilled to see Shriek and Doppelganger back together with Carnage for more murder and mayhem.  Unfortunately I was disappointed...

Now to be fair, my disappointment partially came from my own lack of knowledge.  Since I do not regularly read Spider-man issues, I was not up to date with my Carnage history or I would have known that Cletus Kasady had been torn in half and left for dead in space.  So I was expecting to see Carnage and Co. rampaging somewhere causing all manner of trouble or something equally devastating, but instead we mostly got Spider-man and Iron Man chasing Doppelganger around while Shriek got some psychotherapy from her new therapist.

But fine, they wait until more then halfway through to bring in Kasady (or half of him at least), so I was really counting on this final issue to bring in some major Carnage-style catastrophe and property damage, and instead they stick him inside some weird Mecha-Human-Carnage suit to stomp through town like a transformer and they graft some creepy ass extra arm onto Shriek and call that a storyline??  Where was the random killing for fun?  Where was the disturbing family dynamic that the group used to have?  During Maximum Carnage, when Carnage and his "family" last got together, even in the midst of all the killing they had a twisted sense of family togetherness, with all their father/mother/son nonsense.  This time it was more like Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers brought their dog out.  I just feel like they waited all this time to bring Carnage and Shriek back together and then really cheaped out on the reunion.

The one shining moment in this disappointing final issue was the birth of a symbiote with tons of potential in my opinion.  When Shriek's doctor, Tanis Nieves, willing accepting the symbiote to form the new being, Scorn.  I know we've seen all kinds of symbiotes in the past but this time is different.  This time someone took on the symbiotic bond, not for evil or destructive reasons, but to help people and fight evil.  I think that, if we see more of Scorn, this will be a defining part of her personality and a key difference between her and other symbiotes like Venom or Carnage.

Last and certainly least, Iron Man was a complete waste of ink in this series.  I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this because it really was pointless.  He served no point to the story and didn't bring anything to the table that another smart hero with access to energy weapons could have brought.  

Overall, a pretty disappointing series.  Maybe I was expecting too much from the Carnage/Shriek reunion but I simply feel like this could have been done so much better.  I am still gonna check out Carnage U.S.A. because I really do love Carnage and I would read a Carnage series before a Spider-man series, but I am going to go in this time with much lower expectations.

What to Expect From X-men: ReGenesis

In the fallout from Schism, we will be getting not one but two new books following the newly split team.  Here is a preview of what we can expect from the two new books this Fall.  Courtesy of Marvel.com

X-men: ReGenesis

Which Side Are You On?

With Schism looming closer and closer, all X-fans have one question in mind...Which Side Are You On?  Are you Team Cyclops or Team Wolverine?

Are you Team Cyclops or Team Wolverine?
	Team Cyclops
	Team Wolverine
pollcode.com free polls

Some Hints From the Writers of Annihilators: Earthfall

So I'm really excited about all this cosmic stuff finally coming back home where a lot of it started (See House of M, Son of M, Silent War, Deadly Genesis and War/Realm of Kings).  I was looking around online and found a few insights from the writers, courtesy of Jim Beard from Marvel.com.

Annihilators: Earth

Marvel Comics to be Released on 6/22/11

Here's the solicited list of Marvel Comics being released on Wednesday courtesy of Marvel.com.  I'm probably going to only be listing the Marvel releases since that's all I buy but if there happens to be stuff from other companies (most likely Dark Horse since DC is basically a latrine that they flush every few years and start over so I don't bother).

Comics On-Sale:
BLACK PANTHER: THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR #520
CAPTAIN AMERICA #619
CAPTAIN AMERICA #619 I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA VARIANT
CARNAGE #5
DEADPOOL #39
DEADPOOL #39 I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA VARIANT
DISNEY*PIXAR PRESENTS: CARS 2 #1
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LAST STAND #1
FEAR ITSELF #2 2ND PRINTING VARIANT (FI)
INCREDIBLE HULKS #631
IRON MAN 2.0 #6 (FI)
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #622 2ND PRINTING VARIANT (FI)
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #623 2ND PRINTING VARIANT (FI)
MARVEL ZOMBIES CHRISTMAS CAROL #2
MOON KNIGHT #1 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
MYSTERY MEN #2
NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT #11
NEW MUTANTS #26
SECRET AVENGERS #14 (FI)
SECRET AVENGERS #14 I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA VARIANT (FI)
SIGIL #4
SILVER SURFER #5
SPIDER-MAN #15
THE MIGHTY THOR #1 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
THE MIGHTY THOR #3
THE MIGHTY THOR #3 I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA VARIANT
THUNDERBOLTS #159 (FI)
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS VS. NEW ULTIMATES #5
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS VS. NEW ULTIMATES #5 CHO VARIANT
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #160
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #160 BLANK COVER VARIANT
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #160 KALUTA VARIANT
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #160 QUESADA SKETCH VARIANT
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #160 QUESADA VARIANT
VENOM #1 3RD PRINTING VARIANT
WOLVERINE #11
X-MEN LEGACY #25

(FI) = Fear Itself tie-in

Happy Father's Day to All Our Fathers!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY

Just a few honorable mentions: