Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Do you realize how difficult it is to get New Mutants Classic volume 1?

That's right.  One of Marvel's best releases in the past few years has been their full-color New Mutants Classic reprint series.  I rank it up there with their Tomb of Dracula color reprints.  New Mutants Classic 1 features the debut of a cast of winning characters (many of whom still figure majorly in Marvel's X-narrative), some of Chris Claremont's finest writing, gorgeous Bob McLeod art and some solid work by Sal Buscema.  It starts with the entirety of Marvel Graphic Novel #4, then segues into the first issues of the New Mutants monthly in which Dani Moonstar quickly assumes the lead role with her rebellious attitude and melodramatic mental issues.  It also has a funky and clunky cross-over with Team America, based on a toy line by Ideal, in which Dani turns into Dark Rider.  This leads to the team tangling with Hydra and Dani being forced to wear a green backless catsuit.  Well, you really have to read it to believe it.

Anyway, the series itself marches on (volume seven, featuring issues #48-54 and Annual #3, came out in May 2012 and you can find #55-61 in X-Men: Fall of the Mutants volume 1, just released in February 2013), but it seems the first book is now either out of print or still in print in incredibly small runs, leading to scarcity.  Which is crazy.  For a book this good, Marvel needs to be banging the drum and distributing it free to schools.  It should be found in motel rooms across the United States along with Gideons Bibles and local phonebooks.  But they don't listen to me.  Whoever "they" are.  

Instead, you have to source it yourself from secondhand sellers and well-stocked comic book shops.  For now, you can find reasonably-priced used copies at Amazon.com or unreasonably-priced new copies (one seller has theirs priced at $900!).  Don't expect this to last.  

Because I'm a billionaire genius inventor/consulting detective, I could easily afford to pay vighBooks $84.20 for a pristine copy shipped here to my vast estate and land holdings in rural Japan.  It arrived yesterday so well-packed it took my robot staff hours to open the various envelopes.

So if you're a fan of Dani, Sam Guthrie, Xi'an Coy Manh and the rest, you really need to snap up a copy of this book so you can complete your collection before they completely vanish into the hands of wealthy and mysterious individuals such as myself.  You other option is to buy individual issues on Comixology.

This I have also done.

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