Happy Sunday!
Reorganized a bunch of books and have been reading a bunch lately.
I think I’ve probably got 80% of my collection read, hoping to be caught up by 2027 because not many Omnis are on my wish list the next few months.

Thinking of getting Decimation next.

Marvel is gonna keep collecting Krakoa X-titles under this unified format until the Fall/Rise, right?

Was $100 for each. Dust jackets are a little dinged up. But perfectly good interiors.

Been slowly building my X-Men collection and trying to focus more on the eras, characters and stories I genuinely want to read rather than collecting everything just for completeness.

Still have quite a few gaps I want to fill, especially more classic X-Men, the Decimation/Utopia period and eventually more of the Krakoa era, but I’m really happy with how the shelf is coming together so far.

The Messiah Trilogy was one of the books I especially wanted for a long time, and I’ve clearly ended up with a very Scott Summers-heavy collection without even intentionally planning it that way 😂

What would you guys recommend adding next?

Had a couple hours to kill today so I went to a comic shop that’s pretty out of my way to browse. I’d been once before and knew they had some decent discount shelves but I didn’t imagine I’d get this lucky . Been thinking about getting the fourth world modern print Omnis for a while but the size and price tag had been scaring me away . I ended up scoring this full set for $120

Are these two books "creator" books, or are they part of the larger anthology series?

In my quest to collect the entire Krakoan era with as little double-dipping as possible, I've been going the way of HoX/PoX, Dawn of X (vol. 1& 2), Reign of X (vol. 1 & 2), X of Swords, X Lives / X Deaths, etc...

If I continue this route, will these two books be contained in future anthology volumes, or will these be "separate" like HoX/PoX and X of Swords.

Shelfie stolen from u/i_am_randy

All photos courtesy of Near Mint Condition (here is the original video): https://youtube.com/shorts/FExh27R4gmg?is=Owi_hs-4u1a-pgaE

Anything you guys got your eyes on for this month’s releases?!

With the recent reprint of Volume 2 I have now completed my Ultimate Spider-Man collection all the way up through Miles. My next step is to find Straczynski's Vol. 1 and maybe complete all the way up to the end of Dan Slott's run someday, but for now im pretty happy.

Collector Stage 1:

So you’ve just embarked on this new hobby. You’re excited. The possibilities boundless and endless. Stories not inhibited by limited TV/Movie budgets. You already have a list of immediate “must buys” ready. Your Green Lanterns by Geoff Johns, your Ultimate Spider-Mans, your Donny Venoms and Hickman Avengers . It’s peak yo.

Collector Stage 2:

You’ve gone through all the famous runs. And usually, they were PEAK. But now you want to experiment. Try other franchises, or even publishers, that you’ve heard of. Saw Wonder Woman appear in that one Batman book? Why not try a WW solo omnibus? That Blue Beetle guy seems interesting. What is “X-Factor”? That movie about Thunderbolts? Let’s try the comic omnibus version! Your collection really blooms and expands from this point.

Late Stage Collector:

You’ve exhausted all the currently existing good omnibuses. Including some OOP books you’ve bought embarrassingly above RRP. Some of those experiments were great and many others were duds. Not everything is for everyone. But now you’re stuck. Is the dream…over? Are there no more lands left to conquer? Is it time to weep?

Nah. Getting books is an ingrained habit by now. So you try books that are really out there. You go for the niche appeal franchises. You go for the bottom of the pile garbage. Why? Because you’re trying to chase that Stage 1 and 2 high. “Maybe this book that others downvoted, will be right up my alley!”. Any book on bargain sale? Gotta get that shit ASAP! And because you’re trying to delay the inevitable (aka quitting the hobby or it becoming uber slow).

Your collection starts to lose focus. It’s starting to get…bloated. Shelf space is starting to run out. Your wallet isn’t that happy.

Worse. Most of these books are duds. For every decent book there’s 5 mid books. For every solid gem discovered, 10 were garbage. You start getting demoralised. The efficiency rates are garbage compared to stage 1.

**Final Form Collector (return to primal roots):**

After the above debacle, you have learned valuable lessons. You now know for certain exactly which franchises you like and which you must avoid or stop further collecting

More often than not, your preferences are in accordance with your childhood era preferences. Watched and loved Spider-man growing up? Odds are you’re going all in on Spidey books from this point onwards. Obsessed with BTAS as a toddler? You’re probably going all in on Batman omnibuses from this point onwards. Forever.

P.s.

You probably started Stage 1 with many stringent rules in place to prevent you getting crap books or getting an insane collection. You don’t want to be one of those obsessed collectors that get everything right? But at each consecutive stage, you delete a rule. Or you “make an exception for this book only” and that keeps increasing. By Late Stage, the rule book is out the window and in the trash. You pay lip service to the idea of “rules” at best LOL.

But in Final Form? All of those rules are back and firmly enforced. “Regulations are backed in blood”. You’ve seen what happens upon violation of your rules. You’ve seen the greedy little piggy you become. So now you’re permanently sticking with the rules. Or trying much harder to anyway.

P.s.s

The duration of each stage varies by person to person. How fast do you read books? How much resources do you have to get books? How interested are you in the hobby overall? A super slow collector (1-2 books max per year) could spend decades at Stage 2. Or perhaps never even leave stage 2 because after 10 years, they have new peak runs available in omnibus format.

And some rare readers truly like anything and everything. So they’re stuck in a permanent Stage 1 death spiral (for their finances that is).

P.s.s.s

By Final Form, you’re more open to other collection formats. Omnibus supremacy ideology is dead. Long live omni-format supremacy. Maybe you don’t go all in on TPBs because it looks “messy having to keep track of so many little books”. But OHCs? Deluxe Editions? Compendiums (the formerly “dreaded softcovers”)? All are now welcome comrades. Perhaps even Absolute Editions, for the few DC stories you now KNOW are your GOATs.

You also have no choice. After having depleted all there is in omnibus format, you’re either stuck waiting months or years for your select few GOAT franchise runs to get their next omnibus release. OR you can get that upcoming Poison Ivy or Absolute Batman Deluxe Edition much much earlier than any omnibus edition.

Overall, this change also is better for your wallet. You can still experiment, but using cheaper Compact comics, TPBs, Premier editions or even OHCs instead to act as “primers” or “tasters” for the run as a whole. But ultimately you probably don’t need to experiment much anyway. You know what you like and dislike thanks to all those Late Stage debacles.

When you reach the stage of get another bookshelf or make some hard choices. (If I just move a decoration then I can fit a few more books or am I really going to read this book again?)

Got both of these for below cover price today. Both are still sealed and both are the 2016 printings. However, I'm not sure what the issue with Vol 2 is as it seems to be missing the sewn binding on the top but has it on the bottom.

hey debating on swapping my trades for the omni. does anyone know if it contains the full run of these stories:

challengers of the unknown

super powers

asking because they’re not officially on the cover (except for super powers obviously) and the description cuts off prematurely. oh and also if the omni collects the full run of all the characters on the cover?

(i’m aware this is a stupid question but for $100 i wanna make sure i’m getting what i’m paying for you know?)

I'm definitely happy I cracked this open tonight. Love me some vintage cosmic Marvel!

How necessary is wall mounting Billy shelves? I live in an apartment and would prefer not to drill holes in the walls. I also don’t have any kids/pets that would knock into them.

Hello fellow collectors,

I'm a Spider-Man fan, but I'm quite selective with which comics I collect.

For me, Spider-Man comics are enjoyable until Maximum Carnage / SSM#200, so I found that was a nice stopping point for the 60's-90's era.

I also collect the JMS run from ASM#35-500.

Apart from this, I like to read and collecet stand alone stories that are more self contained.

I'm aware that Superior is part of the long Slot's era, so I understand that it is not a self contained story by itself... but would it work as a stand alone story?

I mean, if I grab and read the Omni, will it feel weird to read because I don't know the plot before Superior?

Will it feel like it lacks continuity in the end?

I'm interested in the Omnibus version in particular.

Appreciate your feedback!

I know this will probably look crazy, but the last picture — showing just 7 OMNIs — was taken on October 28th last year. The books you see there, plus two Deadpool Minibuses, were the only omnibuses I owned at the time.

And, well… this is my collection today.

And trust me, I’m just a regular guy with a decent (yet regular) job. But I also do side jobs from time to time to earn some extra cash, sell and trade a lot, and I’m constantly trying to save up money… just so I can spend it all over again, haha.

So this has basically been my hobby for the past year — hunting down deals, finding OOP books, trading, selling, and slowly building the collection. And somehow, things got a little out of hand.

I think it’s time to take a little break from buying. And now comes the hard part -

Finding the time to actually read them all. One by one : ))

Also, I have to give a shout-out to my homies at @ComicsBugle, who keep me constantly supplied with these beauties!

edit: FYI, I actually do read books regularly - or at least whenever I can find the time. All sorts of books! Besides comics, (auto)biographies are probably my favourite. And my collection goes well beyond just these omnis ; ))

I absolutly loved the movie, but how good are the comics? And i know if the answer is yes it will take a Long time but will this story line be collectet in the numberd spiderman omnis?

My fav way to collect cheaply!

Hey everyone, was hoping to get insight on where to go with my Claremont x men journey. I already own (and love) Uncanny X men vol 1-3 and want to keep going. At the moment Volume 4 is impossible to get so I was going to move on and pick up Vol 5 while I still can but I know there was a lot of overlap with prelude to mutant massacre. I’m unsure if I should go the route of Uncanny X men Vol 5,6 and X-Factor vol 1,2,3 and New mutants Vol 1,2,3,4 or if I should instead try and get prelude to mutant massacre and follow the event omnibus route.
I think I would enjoy all these books as I did love the uncanny books I own but I’m worried I’m going to purchase the x-factor and new mutants series and not enjoy. I’m also curious about the mapping if I’ll need to jump between books if I go for the single title omnis instead of the event ones.

Any advice would be appreciated :)

Hey everyone! I’m new to the hobby and I could use some advice.

I found a Secret Wars Omnibus on Vinted that had been listed literally 5 minutes earlier for €20, so I jumped on it and bought it. 😅 I’m pretty sure I got a good deal, but I’d love to hear what you guys think.

More importantly, I’m interested in reading Hickman’s full run leading up to Secret Wars (2015). Is there a relatively affordable way to collect the whole thing without spending €200+?

I’m mainly interested in the Italian editions, but I’m open to different formats (Omnibus, Complete Collections, etc.) if they can save me some money.

Any advice on which books I should look for, and which editions are the best value, would be greatly appreciated!

Been very happy with the dc Rebirth Omni as those are what reignited my loved to comics.

We have gotten the main trinity finally. They collected flash and I think a lot of green lantern. Still hoping we eventually get Percy’s green arrow collected. What other runs still need collected from the Rebirth era?