This epic collection (no capitalization, see what I did there) belongs to “Epic Marvel” podcaster Kurtis Findlay.
10 years ago today, the first marvel, epic collection, Iron Man, volume 10 The Enemy Within, was published. In the following weeks they do more traditional classics of the first Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man.
This very ambitious project is planned to eventually collect every Marvel superhero comic chronologically by character. They aren’t published in order, that’s why you’ll see a volume 18 come out before some of the 17 preceding it. The focus is on best and most well-known stories for right now.
They’ve even done some re-printed Dark Horse books, as Disney gets the licenses back.
The epic lines name comes from marvels epic line, they are mature readers titles in the 1980s started originally to knock off heavy metal magazine. I guess since they still owned the copyright on the logo they wanted to use it.
If I had known in 2013 how enduring the Epic Collections would be, and how expensive out of print ones could get, I would’ve bought 2 copies of each as they came out new. Then re-sold at least my duplicates to afford the next epics. That would have paid for itself within four years. Ah, well. Other people have “I should’ve invested in Bitcoin early“, I have this.
Here are some of my favorites they’ve done so far:
- Spider-Man Epic Collection 4: The Goblin
- Lives (1967-1968). the back half of the classic Romita stuff, and the first magazine style issue of Spectacular.
- Avengers West Coast Epic Collection 2: Lost In
- Space-Time (1986-1987). Pretty melodramatic but those pages that tell the same story three different timelines on the same page are still phenomenal. Some of the best comics I’ve seen.
- lack Panther Epic Collection 1: Panther’s Rage (1966-1976). That Jungle Action run is the foundation for all Black Panther solo comics in the movies going forward. It was completely overlooked for years and I’m happy and finally got reprinted, Even I had never heard of it until this Epic.
- Captain America vol 9: Dawn’s Early Light (1980- 1982). Stern n’ Byrne! Cap teams up with Batroc to fight Mr. Hyde, gets nominated for president, and the vampire story that inspired Paul Grist’s Jack Staff.
- Defenders vol. 2: Enter: The Headmen (1974-1975). Gerber’s truly weird run, and that great 2-in-1 Thing story where he recreates the universe with a harmonica solo.
- Defenders Epic Collection 8: The New defenders(1983-1985). More weirdness. That Walrus story was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read from Marvel. Plus the offbeat Nocenti Beast and Dazzler mini with that guy who says he’s Dr. Dooms son.
- Dr. Strange Epic Collection 8: Triumph and Torment. The marvel graphic novel, where the Epic gets his name is really really good. The first 13 of Strange’s 90s ongoing are… Okay.
- Fantastic Four Epic Collection 3: the coming of Galactus. (1964-1966). #48 through 51 remain mindblowing. If you’ve ever wondered how Marvel’s characters from 60 years ago were so enduring to become the powerhouse they are today, these are the stories you want to look at.
- Moon Knight Epic Collection 2: Shadows of the moon & New Mutants Epic Collection 2: The Demon Bear Saga. Has there ever been a better interior and cover artist than Bill Sienkiewicz in the early 80s? Maybe not.
- Power Man an Iron Fist Epic Collection 1: heroes for hire. Claremont & Byrne at the top of their game. Maybe a little sillier than Dark Phoenix, but great stuff and hadn’t been re-printed in a while.
- She-Hulk vol. 3: Breaking the
- Fourth Wall (1989-1990). The title says it all. This one really utilizes the medium of comics to its fullest.
- Silver Surfer vol 4: Parable (1988-1989). The eponymous Moebius mini was originally published by epic comics. These are the best in grand-scale space opera. And the the Buscema graphic novel was one I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.
- Star Wars vol. 1 (1977-1979) the original Marvel stuff, coming out concurrently with the movie. Featuring Jaxxon the rabbit! Most of the later, Star Wars Epics reprint Dark horse stuff, and they’ve done a lot more than I thought.
- Thor Epic Collection 3-4: Wrath of Odin & To wake the Mangog (1966- 1970). These are the best work Jack Kirby did for Marvel.
- Wolverine Epic Collection 1: Madripoor Nights. coming on the heels of the Claremont/Miller mini that everybody knows, these are all super noirish. He also fights Abdullah Alhazated of the Necronomicon, and one really great dark one about how Sabertooth celebrates Logan’s birthday.
- X-factor Epic Collection 7: All-New, All-Different X-Factor(1991- 1992). All Most of Peter David’s run in one paperback volume.
- X-Men Epic Collection 4: It’s Always Darkest
- Before the Dawn (1970- 1975). I guess we got a little taste of it when Perlmutter was pushing the Inumans, but it’s still just unthinkable to me that there were five years were the X-Men did not have their own comic. A lot of these aren’t my favorite, but of course it’s got Hulk #181 in there.
- X-Men Epic Collection 19: Mutant Genesis (1991). Fantastic early Jim Lee art and stories almost as good as the team in Claremont’s heyday 10 years pryor.
