Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, CHU Nation! Hopefully the Leprechauns didn’t create too much mischief this year.

The little buggers didn’t seem to bother me too much until the kids started setting up traps. I tell them the traps just make them even more annoyed and create more havoc. However that message just seems to encourage more traps. Haven’t caught one yet….maybe this will be the year!

With that said, let’s break out the Shillelagh and knock a few FOC books around.

 

Notable Covers

 

How about we kick things off today with a little green! This JTC Negative Space variant has a lot of green! We’ll talk about Blood Hunt a little more below, as there are still a few covers to point out.

 

 

It’s been a while since we’ve seen or heard of the Batman Who Laughs. So Jim Lee is bringing him back for a cover spotlight variant here. Not bad.

 

Foiled Again

The foils are coming back! Con season must be approaching. Here area a few notables.

 

This is actually a connecting cover with future issues which will also be foils. So keep that in mind if you grab this book…you’ll probably want to grab the connections.

 

 

A free comic book day book that costs you $10? Brilliant!!! Not really. But this may slip under the radar with the $10 cover price…I can’t image if shops are already having to buy a bunch of books to hand out for free that they’ll feel like taking a risk on this book when it’s basically the came contents as the freebee, just has the foil cover. If you have to have it, maybe pre-order it from your shop to save yourself a few $.

 

 

Blood Hunt #1 again. Foil variant this time. Still not going to talk about it yet!

 

Notable Reprints & Facsimiles

Avengers Twilight #1 (3rd Printing)

Because no one is demanding it…Twilight is up for a 3rd printing. It looks to even be the same cover as issue #1. I guess there might be people that haven’t picked this book up yet…

 

Avengers Twilight #2 (3rd Printing)

And if you’re so late to the game you need to grab the third print of #1, you likely need #2 as well…so here’s a 3rd print of that book as well.

 

 

And because 3rd prints are all the rage this week, let’s throw in another one! Ultimate Spider-man #2…This one makes a little more sense because May is holding a red-suited spider-man, which she sort of hints to Peter is a better costume choice in this book.

 

 

I was surprised this book didn’t sell out immediately. I’m still seeing copies on the rack. I guess there is such a thing as too much Wolverine? This cover is from the last page in the book.

 

 

The black suit saga facsimile’s keep marching along towards issue 258 (which better have a foil!). Although not a popular cover (I don’t recall ever seeing it), I would think this book is hard to get in 9.8.

 

 

The book that started it all, now in facsimile! Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin first come together and work as a team…and the rest was Teen Titans history! Ironic how this is on FOC the week a live action Teen Titans movie was announced…

 

Potential Firsts (Maybe / Sort of?)

 

Seeing how she’s on just about every cover of this issue, it looks like Lady Bullseye is going to officially dawn the Hawkeye persona. Whether that is an official first or not, I don’t know. But the covers are pretty sweet. I’d stick with Cover A.

 

 

Next issue (Spider-Woman #7) has the “New Champion” that was featured on cover of Captain America #2. And this issue solicits that it will introduce “some new faces and with the potential to become New Champions…” So I’m thinking that New Champion character on Cap #2 will appear in this book (with maybe some others) in a last page cameo. So one to keep an eye on.

 

Star Wars Mace Windu #3 (YaYa Variant)

Anzellan Yaya Shram was introduced (one panel) in Mace Windu #2 this past week. So that book clearly qualifies what many call an “appearance in cameo” with respect to comic book firsts. So why do we care? Don’t let his cuteness and size fool you. He is a “ruthless” bounty hunter. Or at least that’s what we’re being told. Since his debut was not met with much fanfare (which is understandable given nothing of real substance was provided in issue #2) issue #3 could be a sleeper if the character is truly shown to be bad-ass.

Yaya graces this cover and, being a variant, could fly under the radar as I can’t imagine this series is heavily ordered after issue #1. So worth a long term hold, with the possibility of a short term hit. And for that reason this cover is the Dirty D Cover of the Week!

 

Indy Spotlight

 

Peter Cairn is an ex-soldier, an amputee, and a Hellspawn in a post-war future. But Peter’s not dead like Al. Peter got his Spawn powers from the nanites in his prosthetic legs-nanites that were affected when Al Simmons initiated his necroplasmic detonation in the present. Al had no clue that the effects would ripple across not just space, and but time as well.

The detonation mentioned above occurred in Spawn #301 as far as I can determine. But this character is new. So we’re looking at a new Spawn and story line. It’s not priced at the Spawn’s $3 price point, but that’s because it’s an oversized issue and still $3.99 at that. Starting with issue #2, it’ll be a $2.99 book. So maybe worth grabbing a copy. It is the spawn-i-verse, so you never know.

 

Dirty D Pick-of-the-Week

 

“Oh My God, the Blood!” – Jerry Seinfeld, “The Blood”

Ok, now we can talk about Blood Hunt.

Blood Hunt is an upcoming cross over event which will feature the rise of Vampire Nation united by a single vision for the first time in a millennia. It’s the Vampire Apocalypse and will rope in the Avengers, Blade (of course), Bloodline (naturally), Spider-Man, Hunter’s Moon, Tigra, Doctor Strange and Clea. Probably more.

So Marvel Zombies but with Vampires.

So Blood Hunt is the main limited title for this event. BUT…for those that crave lots of blood…there is a special sort-of variant with “expanded and unexpurgated” (I had to look that word up…great scrabble word) spilling of blood…basically the same story but with additional pages of explicit material which will be polybagged to protect the young and innocent. This is the Red Band Edition!

No one should be caught off guard by this…but it is priced higher and if the story is written well and the additional pages deliver, this could be a hit. It’s different, I’ll give it that. And for that reason I decry it as the Dirty D Pick-of-the-Week! But only for those mature enough an unafraid to look within!

 

Parting Thoughts

As always, keep in store date in mind if bundling books and ordering online. Marvel books in particular seem to have dates that can be several weeks farther out than DC or Indy’s. Blood Hunt is one of those this FOC.

With that it is now time to kick back with a Guinness, take in some corn beef and soda bread…maybe watch some Patty Parades on the tube. Have a great week, everyone!