So the official Hulk numbering is in the 2nd picture plus this:

709-717 - Incredible Hulk (2017) 709-717
718-767 - Immortal Hulk (2018) 1-50
768-781 - Hulk (2021) 1-14
782-811 - Incredible Hulk 1-30

And I always found it odd since Hulk didn’t appear in Tales to Astonish until issue 59. As a completionist who is now down to about 40 books left, no real big keys missing so I’ll probably complete it soon, but you can see my numbering is Hulk 1-6, then TTA 59-101. Curious if there’s any other Hulk completionist out there if you went Marvel numbering or this with the Hulk TTA books only or skipped TTA altogether. Also even if you don’t have a complete run welcome to have an opinion on this if you were me what would you go for? Would you go TTA 1-58 or start at 59?

Side note Marvel kills me with not just keeping the title Incredible Hulk. I get the Tales to Astonish title, but what are we doing with Totally Awesome Hulk and Indestructible Hulk as main line titles lol.

So the official Hulk numbering is in the 2nd picture plus this:

709-717 - Incredible Hulk (2017) 709-717
718-767 - Immortal Hulk (2018) 1-50
768-781 - Hulk (2021) 1-14
782-811 - Incredible Hulk 1-30

And I always found it odd since Hulk didn’t appear in Tales to Astonish until issue 59. As a completionist who is now down to about 40 books left, no real big keys missing so I’ll probably complete it soon, but you can see my numbering is Hulk 1-6, then TTA 59-101. Curious if there’s any other Hulk completionist out there if you went Marvel numbering or this with the Hulk TTA books only or skipped TTA altogether. Also even if you don’t have a complete run welcome to have an opinion on this if you were me what would you go for? Would you go TTA 1-58 or start at 59?

Side note Marvel kills me with not just keeping the title Incredible Hulk. I get the Tales to Astonish title, but what are we doing with Totally Awesome Hulk and Indestructible Hulk as main line titles lol.

I’ve had this since it came out, picked it up in person at SDCC and had Eastman, Duncan and Waltz sign it but since I’ve had it you can kind of see in the photo the back spine looks almost indented all along the edge. But I didn’t know if that’s just how these were manufactured and it can’t press out or it can be pressed out…

Was able to pick this up for $47 brand new and it seems like a steal for what might be the best TMNT series of all time. I’ve not read Re-evolution yet, so it is for sure the read pile for tonight as this just came in the mail today

I’ve not read everything but I’ve read all the rest of IDW era, all of Mirage era, about half of Archie era and very little of Image era. But this to me is the perfect TMNT story oand I don’t know that I’ve read anything better. Is that the consensus, if not what is better? Friendly discussion welcome, this is just my opinion.

Unfortunately don’t have 5 Platinum or 5 Gold that are worth posting but maybe one day. Is your collection era focused or do you collect the full range of books like this?

Recently had to introduce Absolute Bruce to some friends in my collection - Miles Morales, Mark Grayson, Tony Chu, and Spider Gwen.

With all of the focus these days on Absolute Batman and some newer people entering the hobby there seems to be an idea floated around here that you are either a “modern” or you are a “silver age” collector and that you can’t possibly be both you need to pick a team then start attacking the other team.

First of all welcome to all of the new people in the hobby, I am thrilled you’re all here. I highly recommend just being a “comic book collector”. Collect what you love and don’t get caught up in these weird arbitrary date lines. That means you can in fact collect a first Elektra and a first Absolute Batman.

Oh and to all my Golden Age (and Platinum for that matter) friends I’d have posted 5 but you’d all have embarrassed me as my Golden Age collection is pretty thin, so I left that part out lol.

I used to have the Dark Knight Returns homage as well but I regrettably traded that one awhile ago.

Recently I posted in this sub asking about the differences in the Compendiums to the Ultimate collections and if it was worth upgrading and got some great advice and help but in the end decided I had to get them and see for myself.

For those interested in my thoughts now owning the original Mirage TPB’s from 1990 1-7, the Ultimate Collection (limited edition Slipcase pictured) 1-6, and the Compendium 1-3 I’ve rated below with a basic rating scale of 1-5

Also before we start just want to list the contents for those unaware these all try to collect the original Mirage 62 issue run and the other one off and side publications around the Turtles during this time.

Mirage TPBs 1990 1-7: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-29, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Micros

Ultimate Collection HC 2011 1-6: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-12, 14, 15, 17, 19-21, 48-62, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Micros, Variety of extra: Short stories, one-shots, backups

Compendiums HC 2022 1-3: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-11, 15-23, 27-29, 31-62, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Micros, Fugitoid 1, Tales of TMNT 1-7, short story The Ring

Yeah, none of them have issue 30.

Compendium HC (2022) 1-3:

Bonus Materials: 1/5, really non-existent

Build Quality: 4/5, the word compendium is often associated with much cheaper materials and softcover so this is a pleasant surprise. And I love a ribbon bound bookmark.

Price/Value: 5/5, price per issue is better than the Ultimate Collection I believe.

Content / Completeness: 5/5, it is the most complete set of stories among the 3 but even so it still skips issues and frankly all 3 options skip issues so this is a common theme but the Compendium does it the least. And the pages are slightly smaller than the Ultimate collections. There is something to be said about the flow though, in that having more issues doesn’t necessarily just mean it reads more smoothly. Part of why they omitted them from the Ultimates was publishing rights but also the fact that the guest issue era really is not part of the cannon that makes up the Eastman and Laird stories, so reading them is kind of jarring at times even if it’s more complete. But not enough to knock this down from a perfect 5/5.

Readability / Comfort: 3/5, pretty standard for a big hardcover book. It’s fine but it’s not a curl up in bed with kind of book.

Display / Shelf Aesthetics: 5/5 it’s simple but that’s all I’m looking for.

Overall: 4.5/5, really the main knock I have on it is the lack of the commentary and bonus material in the Ultimate Collections. That’s really all that keep this from a 5 for me, but it’s close.

Mirage TPB SC (1990) 1-7

Bonus Materials: 1/5, they have additional stories but not traditional bonus material really.

Build Quality: 3/5, they are trades and they’ve lasted 36 years so that’s something but comparing to the other two options it doesn’t stack up the best.

Price / Value: 4/5, Original price was $16.95 for Vol 1, and $6.95 for the smaller ones. According to the internet that’s $43.20 and $17.70 respectively adjusted for inflation. Even with inflation factored in that’s still a great value. If InStockTrades existed back then I’d have got these for ~$30 inflation adjusted dollars for vol 1 or ~$10 adjusted inflation dollars for the smaller ones let’s call it $100 all in with taxes and adjusted for inflation. If you are to evaluate on going eBay rates it’s close to a 1/5 as price gougers are killing it. But I got mine from garage sales and flea markets over the years and so for me they have not been that bad.

Content / Completeness: 4/5 really hard to evaluate since it ended half way thru the mirage run at 29, but it’s still really complete up until that point and includes issue like 8 which even the Compendiums lack, and also The River unlike the Ultimate Collections. One detail I noticed and added a photo to show - the lettering isn’t quite the same from the TPB’s to the Compendiums (or the Ultimate). You will see the formatting of certain long text blurbs broken into new lines at different points than either of the other formats. This doesn’t change the story just thought I’d point it out.

Readability / Comfort: 5/5, these ARE the cozy in bed on a rainy day with a book kind of books.

Display / Shelf Aesthetics: 1/5, not even text on the spine except for vol 1. Really tough but this score is fair.

Overall: 3/5, from a retro nostalgic vibe this is your winner and it does have a few things going for it like comfort but otherwise it’s a flawed format.

Ultimate Collections HC 2011 (1-6):

Bonus Materials: 5/5, this is the star of the show here.

Build Quality: 5/5 really top tier IDW oversized HC. I do wish it had a ribbon but I’ll live without it.

Price / Value: 2/5 I got all 6 when they came out but even that was double what I spent on these compendiums. And I’m also deducting a point since they’re not all in print and reseller prices are even crazier. Even though I didn’t buy them from a reseller that’s what it’d be if you wanted to buy now and I deducted a point from the trades based on this fact so to be fair a point has to go here too.

Content / Completeness: 3/5 May seem harsh but I want the extra issues in the compendiums and trades. Of the content it does have it lays it out beautifully and does not skimp and that’s the only reason this score isn’t lower.

Readability / Comfort: 3/5 not as thick as the compendiums but taller and wider so a bit unwieldy.

Display / Shelf Aesthetics: 4/5 I’ve got the slipcase version for 1-3 so my spines all have the same text color on the font (red) and my cover art is in B&W on them unlink a lot of people so that may skew my score a bit. But then my 4-6 I was not able to go to SDCC that year and did not get the slipcase so it’s a bit of a weird look from 1-3 to 4-6 for me but I guess most people have that at some point. Even so the books themselves individually are beautiful large format books.

Overall: 4/5, it’s a great format and the highlight is the bonus material and page size. While the main knock is the lack of all the guest creator stories.

Final Decision: I’m probably going to keep them all. But if I was just buying and keeping one I’d go with the Compendiums.

It’s well known I believe DC for whatever reason has been opting to put their Cover A underneath the cardstock variants with identical barcodes. So people have and probably will continue to turn Variant Covers like my Jim Lee cover into Cover A via carefully deconstructing and removing the cardstock variant cover. I do not recommend this but I’m not going to pretend it’s not happening given that the Cover A is going for more than double the Jim Lee cover this seems like more and more will be doing this. Perhaps at some point the cardstock variants will actually become more rare because of this. But based on what GPA tracked yesterday (primarily sold on eBay) there were 35 graded CGC 9.8’s of Cover A first print sold alone yesterday off the TV series buzz. Compared to 6/24 with 6 sold, 6/23 with 0 sold and 6/22 with 4 sold topping out at $500.

Would advise caution if you’re buying raw, and make sure to inspect the staple areas as that’s where you’ll likely see possible evidence of cover removed. If anyone has any other tips to spot this would love to hear them.

Recently I discovered that the Kallax from IKEA with their magazine holders they sell very nicely fit 6 slabs per holder and they are just under the height required to fit them in. I know many of you have various boxes that you prefer but also know a lot of us have a Kallax separate from that for things like Omnis so figure I’d share. And the actual magazine holders are pretty cheap.

For me unfortunately the wife does not like the aesthetics of the boxes and prefers this sort of solution and I’ve come to like it as well.

Also note the 3 magazine holders you see facing out and then there’s one behind them going perpendicular direction so that you can actually fit 4 holders in one cubby of a Kallax for a total of 24 slabs per cubby. Unfortunately the TMNT slabs I have which are magazine size do not fit. They fit in the magazine holder, but not in the cubby as they’re too tall.

Those of you who have had the opportunity to have both the Ultimate Collection HC’s and the newer compendium HC’s of the original Mirage run which do you prefer? As far as I can tell this is the following issue list for both sets:

Compendiums:
1-7, 9-23, 27-29, 31-62, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Micro Series, Fugitoid 1, Tales of TMNT 1-7, short story The Ring

Ultimate:
1-12, 14, 15, 17, 19-21, 48-55, 56-62, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo Micro Series, various short stories.

So the only thing I’d be losing is Issue 8? But gaining quite a bit more material. I currently own the Ultimate Collections 1-6 but considering selling for these.

Who’s going to submit just for the variant?

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/15241/frank-miller-klaus-janson-dark-knight-signature/

Or everyone on the slabs in frames / wall mounts?

Pictured: Taschen Library Spider-Man, IDW Todd McFarlane Artist’s Edition Spider-Man, Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man 1 TPB (for size comparison)

I already had issues trying to shelve the Taschen and recently picked up the McFarlane Artist Edition and while it’s a wonderful book I am at a complete loss on how to store it. I use a mixture of IKEA Kallax and normal bookshelves but no way to shelve this behemoth that I can tell. Open to suggestions.

Note how massive the Taschen is compared to the MMW normal TPB, which is impressive until you open the behemoth Artist Edition. I’ve got the full run in floppies too but of all these varieties I do enjoy the Taschen the most. Probably because they do the real original look and feel with newspaper texture when it’s supposed to be and glossy texture for the covers, and include the ads, and letters.

I don’t work for any of these companies and don’t get anything for anyone buying any of them but highly recommend the Taschen libraries. Especially when they run their half off sales.

Figured some of you might not have been around to see what some of the original trades looked like. Really wish I had more volumes of this.

Back in the day they didn’t care at all what the books would look like on a shelf just no words on the spine lol. Don’t worry I have the Ultimate Collections in nice HC’s reprinted from IDW too but you can’t beat these.

Working on a complete Vol. 2 of GL, but these 80’s issues are some of my favorite from a storyline perspective.

Green Lantern complete run progress meter goes up.

193 - just my favorite cover of this era

201 - Kilowog first

181/182 - bye bye Hal, yellow John.