My Essential Essentials

I think I may be in the minority, but I love Marvel's Essential series of trades. I don't know what it is about 500+ of stories at a bargain price that makes me wanting more. And I especially don't miss the color. In fact, I think many of the comics look damn good in just black and white.

In any case, I like 'em but sadly too many of them are unappealing to me. Pretty much anything by Stan Lee is unreadable (sorry, Stan, you're a great creator but those old issues were baaaad), who the hell is Killraven and I don't think I'll ever want to read 500 pages of Ant-Man. There are the few that I love, but they just leave me wanting more of the stuff I'm actually interested in. Here's my Essentials wishlist.

Secret Wars: You can go two ways with this. There can be a single volume version with both Secret Wars and Secret Wars II along with some essential tie-ins, or it could be a two-volume set, one for the original and one for the sequel and each with plenty of tie-ins. I think it this would be a cool Essential mostly because I'd like to see the series feature important and classic storylines, not just reprint old stuff in order.

Uncanny X-Men, vol 2343: All I'm saying is don't stop with the Essential X-Men, Marvel. Best trade series ever.

She-Hulk, vol 2: Okay, I'm not 100% sure I would buy this one, as the idea of a colorless She-Hulk kinda turns me off. I haven't picked up the first volume for this very reason. But, I think it would be neat to see more classic Shulkie. Maybe have some old team-up or guest appearances, or maybe just skip right to the graphic novels and Bryne's Sensational series.

Man-Thing, vol 2: I may be hesitant on She-Hulk, but I definitely demand more Man-Thing. Seriously.

Punisher, vol 2: The first Essential Punisher is a bit of a disappointment, only showcasing his guest appearances and the first miniseries. I say we need a volume starting with #1 of his first ongoing. Punisher in black and white. Without Spider-Man. That would fucking rock.

New Mutants: This would be so awesome. Teenage stars + unusual powers + Bill Fucking Sienkiewicz in stark black and what = HAWT!

Daredevil, vol 8: Approximately when the Frank Miller stuff gets printed. Nuff said.

Classic X-Men, vol 3: Really, the old X-Men books hold very little appeal for me since they really were quite terrible. However, right before the book became nothing but reprints until the All-New All-Different relaunch, Neal Adams had a short stint as artist. And it looked awesome. Marvel needs to make one more Essentials in this series in order to reprint the Adams stuff. There aren't enough issues of X-Men left to fill a Essentials, but I'm sure there is plenty of Marvel Team-Ups and such to fill the space.

And about those Showcase things DC has: they're cool in the same way that Marvel Essentials are cool, but they've have a terrible time picking stuff to release. And there is the fact that before the seventies, everything DC did was goofy as hell and would just bug me to no end. But here's the one thing I would love for them to do:

Showcase Presents: Post Crisis Batman: Start with the reintroduction of Jason Todd and go from there. I would buy those by the truckload.