FOC is the last chance to put in your orders with your comic shops and likely get at a discount for pre-ordering.
Sorry for getting this out late but I was on vacation all last week and just got home a few hours ago.
I’m gonna start off with a little spoiler alert. There’s a new character (full page and named) in this weeks Darth Vader #6, Assassin of the Sith. Make sure you grab your copy before they start drying up. We’ve released the photo in the forums in our Lounge category for those who gained trust over time. So if you’re not a part of our forums, go on and sign up, spend some time on there daily, gain trust, then you’ll see where we release some spoilers and spec stuff early prior to releasing here on the main site.
Captain Marvel has had some decent spec books out of this current volume. Seems it’s keeping up with the trend as Captain Marvel #23 is seeing some buzz from speculators.
Captain Marvel #23 (Regular Cover)
Captain Marvel #23 (Dauterman Variant)
While pre-ordering Captain Marvel #23, go ahead and add Captain Marvel #24 to that pre-order list as well.
Next up is Thor #9 with a new story arc, that is revisiting some stuff way back from 1962. Expect some retcon love from Donny Cates and Nic Klein so this could get interesting after the 2 issue filler story and now we get back into some serious story lines for Thor leading up to the King in Black stuff.
Thor #9 (Hildebrandt Variant)
Thor #9 (Frison Valkyrie Phoenix Variant)
Thor #9 (Veregge Thor Variant)
Thor #9 (Larroca Fortnite Variant)
Dynamic Forces – Thor #9 Cates Sgn
Might as well go ahead and pre-order Thor #10 as well. Claims it’s Donny’s darkest story yet might make things interesting and you never know what comes out of Cates stories, new characters or old characters revisited to make relevant again.
If the new Scorpion is here to stay after Virus transformed, then Venom #28 2nd Printing might be a decent book to grab. I wouldn’t go heavy though.
Miles Morales #20 has a pretty cool looking variant that’s made the list solely on that alone.
This new IDW book sounds like a fun read, particularly if you’re a parent.
Scarenthood #1 is a book about dealing with the children, their hectic schedules and inbetween, hunting ghosts. If written well, could be a great read which I’m hoping for. Sounds like a great streaming show as well.
Cates is coming out with a new Image title Crossover that seems to be getting some rave reviews. Of course Image is going big on this title, giving it a 1:100 ratio variant which might be hard to find as I know some bigger shops will go heavy on this one but a lot of smaller ones might not go as big, not for the indie stuff.
Here’s all the currently available books with ratios available at TFAW for pre-order:
Crossover #1 (Cover A – Shaw & Stewart)
Crossover #1 (Cover B – Stegman & Cunniffe)
Crossover #1 (Cover C – Shaw)
Crossover #1 (Cover D Blank)
Crossover #1 (50 Copy Variant)
Crossover #1 (100 Copy Variant) only $79.99 after discount, which isn’t bad. I’m sure a lot of shops are gonna price this one over $100 price point.
The new BOOM! studios book Origins #1 sounds like the perfect mix of sci-fi future dystopia where machines/AI rule and the man who created them is brought back to life to take them down. If done well, could be an entertaining read.
The DC FOC pick goes to Batman #102, where we get the first full appearance of Ghost-Maker, the Daredevil of the DC Universe apparently.
He’s on both A and B covers, so probably not a bad idea to grab one of each. I’m up in the air about going heavy on this one. I think since Tynion tweeted what seemed like ages ago, retailers are gonna go heavy on this one so it’s gonna be easy to obtain more than likely. Any spec and heat will come later, if the character remains popular and sticks around now or in the future.
His name alone doesn’t give me that vibe he’s gonna survive with his own series though. Just sounds a little goofy. Probably gonna be that great support character for quite sometime in the Batman Universe for now..
Batman #102 (Cover A – Jorge Jimenez)
Batman #102 (Cover B – Francesco Mattina Card Stock Variant)
Long time reader, I always check you out when I spot you in my inbox, decided to sign up for forum, as I hadn’t known about it, looks awesome, but after creating account, went to log in, and it said account hadn’t been approved yet, is this normal? Thanks and keep up the good work!
Yeah, we have it set up to moderate signups as we had a wave of bots and spammers attempt to signup.
Email me your login name or email and I can check the account status, resend activation email, etc.
They got me set up, and I’ve already scored a book or two I wouldn’t have regularly, my WordPress site is more oriented towards indie press releases, and I will soon begin blogging the process of taking an idea from conception to finished product, doing some interviews and what not, do you mind if I add a link to you guys, as I find your blog truly informative especially when I’m swamped and I see your name pop up, I always know it’s worth the read! I didn’t want to without permission from you all!
You can link, don’t think we’ll turn down referrals to the site whatsoever.. 🙂
Good deal!
I approved it a little while ago. You should be able to jump in on the forums.
Good looking out! Expect me as a regular! Respect!
Awesome.
As an FYI, variants for Crossover go all the way to 1 in 200. I doubt many shops will go that heavy. But Cates wrote a very impassioned letter about the book to retailers (a profession he knows well since he used to be one). Honestly. I am ordering 100 extra copies just because of how nice the letter was. There are creators who don’t care about the direct market and those who do. Cates is easy to support.
I’ve read the first issue. It was not at all what I expected, and I am more than intrigued. Will any of the ratio variants do anything? Probably not. When you offer 1 in 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, and 200, a retailer could price every ratio variant at half ratio, throw away all the regular copies, and still be ahead of the game. I’m not saying that’s what we personally play to do. But that’s how the math works. At 600 copies, half-ratio on incentives is $1800, and the 713 copies (600 plus 113 incentives) is just $1284 plus freight. I don’t expect the incentive variants to hold anywhere near full ratio (withe the possible exception of the 1 in 200). The math just isn’t there.
I was going to get a 1:50 then they offered it as a Virgin for $14 as a store variant so cancelled that.
You should buy them all.. you with your secret crush on Cates. 😛
Thanks for the update, I totally mind blanked forgetting there was the 1:200 as well for Crossover.
I know there are a lot of Cates haters out there still but you gotta give the guy some credit, he’s trying to make comics fun again with his stories for sure. He was a comic book fan who worked at a retailer store who turned into a writer for the biggest comic book publisher out there.. doesn’t get any better than that to be honest for any comic book nerd.