Worst Collection of 2008

Doom DeLuise says: JLA: Salvation Run!

Only a great fool would think this dreadful mini-series has anything to do with the Justice League of America. There is precisely one (former) member of the JLA to appear in this thing, and that’s Martian Manhunter.

Oddly enough, his role in this explains how he appeared drugged up and ready for dead in the first issue of Final Crisis (don’t worry, kids, that’s the only bit of continuity from the past year’s worth of build-up to Final Crisis that actually tied in to the series).

No, the JLA isn’t in this book. They just have their name splashed on the cover to sell more copies, I’m guessing. Instead, we’re left with two warring factions of supervillains, led by the Joker and Lex Luthor, trying to survive on a planet infested with robot bugs and stuff.

It’s really, really quite lame. Save your twenty bucks.

Jim Doom says: Hardcovers!

I don’t buy nearly as many graphic novels and trades as I used to because of the inevitable phenomenon of releasing them in hardcover for several months to a year before releasing them as paperback, as seen in the “books without pictures” world. I understand that some people want fancy versions of their graphic novels to put on their bookshelves. I don’t think that’s in any way unreasonable. But I don’t buy collections for my bookshelf. I buy collections because I want to read comics that are now more commonly created for the collections and not for the individual issues. So I’ve already been discouraged from reading the monthly books in favor of waiting a few months for the trade; now I’m discouraged from reading the story even longer if I don’t want to spend an extra $10 for the hardcover edition. By the time the trade paperback comes out, I’ve either forgotten or stopped caring about whatever the story is.