The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

6 May 2006

Not to get too graphic about it

I am at best maybe a semi-regular at New World Comics — by this I mean, no one looks at me funny, and I spend somewhere around $150-200 a year — and I wasn't in a particularly acquisitive mood this afternoon, what with yet another rainy Saturday on tap. But since it's Free Comic Book Day, I figured the least I could do is see what was going on.

And evidently they took it seriously. I arrived around three-ish, and there were masked characters on the curb exhorting passersby to come in; as I turned into the driveway, one of the misshapen messengers gave me what I calculated was a high 3.5.

Store traffic was about 50 percent above what I usually expect, and the clerk told me, "It was much busier earlier." Indeed, the stack of pizza boxes toward the back of the store told me that they had made a party of it.

These were the freebies on display; we won't mention the four mags I bought outright.

Well, okay, I'll mention one. Marvel's revived What If? series poses the question: "What if the Fantastic Four had been Soviet cosmonauts?" No way was I going to pass that up.

Posted at 4:55 PM to Almost Yogurt


I remember loving the "What If" series from Marvel, but for the life of me, the only one I remember is "What if Spiderman joined the Fantastic Four," or something along those lines.

I also enjoyed the Superman vs. Spiderman, Superman vs. Hulk, Thor vs. The Fantastic Four, and others like that.

Posted by: Mike Goodwin at 8:22 PM on 6 May 2006

Here's Wikipedia's list of the What If? titles, subject to the usual cautions regarding anything in Wikipedia not written by me (which is everything except for a couple of articles and a pair of external links).

Posted by: CGHill at 8:57 PM on 6 May 2006

I, too, purchased my books & picked up a freebie. My purchases included Infinite Crisis #7, Supergirl, Villians United, Ion. A few weeks ago I snagged Jonah Hex #6, probably the best single western story I have ever read (since I started reading westerns back in the early 70's)

I liked the What If books back in the day as well.

Posted by: Dwayne "the canoe guy" at 12:48 AM on 7 May 2006

What If? first hooked me into my alternate history/counterfactual kick. It's a subgenre I seek out to this day.

I always thought Marvel did it right with the alternate reality route, versus DC's outright Imaginary Stories. Not to say that alternate reality stories could be sloppy, but I recall that What If? knocked out a couple of home runs during the first series; in particular, the Dr. Strange stories I recall being very well done.

I knew it was Free Comic Book Day yesterday, but I simply didn't have any time to dip in. Just as well, as I find myself being disappointed more often than not of most current stuff.

Posted by: CT at 11:03 AM on 7 May 2006