Walmart had the Swamp Thing 100 page giants out today when I dropped in to pick up some snacks. Still no sight of the issue #4s of Superman and Justice League of America.
The Swamp Thing giant would make a great stocking stuffer or gift because all of the stories in it are self contained. Did I mention; the whole thing has awesome art and the colors are super vibrant; even those 1970’s comics look amazing. This book had eight stories in it, all of which were new to me because I didn’t own any of the original print issues.
- Hollow by Brian Azzarello and Greg Capullo. Basicly Swamp Thing vs these little goule things out in the woods. [New]
- The Pumpkin Sinister by Dan Didio and Ian Churchill. Enchantress and Blue Devil vs. a pumpkin monster summoned via pet sacrifice. [DC Universe Infinite Halloween Special #1][2007]
- Taert Ro Kcirt by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen. A tale of drug laced candy. [DC Universe Infinite Halloween Special #1][2007]
- Strange Cargo by Steve Niles and Dean Ormston. Superman vs. Zombies. [DC Universe Infinite Halloween Special #1][2007]
- The Ballad of Jonathan Crane by Mike Way and Mateus. Sort of a retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. [DC Universe Halloween Special #1][2008]
- Night Gods by J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz. Underwater horror is always a bit extra freaky to me. [The Brave and the Bold #32][2010]
- Night of the Reaper by Denny O’Niel, Neal adams and Dick Giordano. This one’s got vintage Batman and Robin with all the trappings. Bonus points for managing to work Nazis in there. [Batman #237][1971]
- Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. The classic origin story. [House of Secrets #92][1971]
Stabbing Stardust 
I loooove that you post regularly about these! It helps keep them on my radar, as well as confirming they’re even actually out/exist!
Definitely looking forward to this one, for being Swamp Thing AND an actual one-shot.
I’m pretty sure all the stories except the last will be new for me; almost certain I’ve read the original/origin story before in some format…but it’ll likely “read” as new for me.
I wonder if this one “displaces” the #4s by a week or so?
I feel like they’ve already slipped a bit with any “schedule” there may have been, with the initial ones dropping that first weekend of July, but then I’d swear it was mid-August for the first set of #2s and then end of August for the other #2s.
Of course, having an actual firm-date “schedule” is indeed something sacrificed by these being Walmart-exclusive, rather than through a reliable comic shop.
(and on that note, as I’m totally rambling here–for the complaints of these not being available through Diamond to comic shops, I’d assume there are at least as many Walmarts as their are comic shops…and where X number of these are likely allocated to each Walmart, there’d never be any guarantee that *every single* comic shop would order even 1 copy. And as the display things for these fill up with the past issues (mainly 2s and 3s that I’ve seen, now) it’ll be interesting to see if “we” (the public, non-Walmat-vendor/DC employees) learn exactly what sort of deal’s in place to handle “returns” and such. As these would likely be NON-returnable through Diamond if they were in comic shops)
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I’d actually love to see more like this, where all the stories are stand alones. I read somewhere else that there will be a Holiday Giant out sometime around the middle of November. Also that the next ongoing Giant will be the Flash out in February, if I remember right. I’m interested to know what they will have paired with that. I’ve heard that these books are actually stocked by a third party vendor and that might have something to do with the sometime inconsistent stock schedule.
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I agree…I’d actually prefer all to be standalone. Like with the Batman one–it’d be cool to see some of the 2-3 parters from recent Rebirth stuff, or delve back to the ’90s with some of the done-in-ones. Between Batman, Nightwing, Catwoman, ROBIN, Birds of Prey, and various specials and one-shots, to say nothing of ’80s stuff…I could see them doing PLENTY that way.
Heck, one issue of the Batman could be the 3-issue “Untold Legends of the Batman” mini-series. I own that in singles, the mass market paperback, I believe it’s included in a hardcover I’m blanking on at the moment…. and I’d GLADLY buy it again in this format.
I’ll be curious about that Holiday Giant. I’ve avoided the “regular” “holiday” specials since they changed the “Infinite Christmas” title back in whatever year that was.
Flash would be very cool in this Giant format…especially if they’d go back to the Waid and Johns stuff rather than (as seems most things Flash lately) the New 52 Flash.
With all the speedsters, they could easily give us a mix of Waid’s Flash, Impulse, AND Johns Flash.
I haven’t “caught” the vendors stocking these comics, but I HAVE caught the vendors stocking Magic: The Gathering cards a couple times this past spring. Definitely not Walmart-in-general; unless a general employee is familiar with these personally, they probably don’t know anything more about them than they do whatever Magic or Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh sets are current or new products.
But yeah…I imagine the vendors have some flexibility, which would be why sometimes the issues might be available a couple days “early” OR a couple days “late,” and seem to roll out, where some Walmarts have them on Friday, others not til Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday.
I found this Monday at a Walmart I’d been at on Friday. Another Walmart that I was at both Saturday AND Sunday did not have them as of that Sunday visit. I’m in Walmart frequently anyway, though, which I’m sure is another reason I dig these…I’m not really going out of my way to find them.
Might be a different matter next year when a Meijer opens up about 5 minutes from home, but I’ll cross that bridge next year, assuming these even last. 🙂
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Yeah, they have so much material that they could reprint if only they would. I kinda hope they continue with the holiday specials. I’d actually love to see a valentine’s day one.
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