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You are here: Home / Columns / Monday Morning Comic Rack: AvX Gives Event Trade Collections a Makeover

Monday Morning Comic Rack: AvX Gives Event Trade Collections a Makeover

May 13, 2013 by Dave Leave a Comment

You probably know the feeling.

You’re trying to get into a major Marvel event after the fact. The hype around Avengers Vs. X-Men has come and gone, and now you’re left with a 12 issue event that alludes to countless tie-ins. Couldn’t Marvel just sell a stinking book that included all of the tie-ins at once?

It would seem our longstanding trade collection nightmare has passed.

Presumably this was announced some time ago, but I stumbled across this gem on Amazon yesterday: The Avengers vs. X-Men Companion Reader.

The hardcover trade is available for pre-order on Amazon right now, with a scheduled release date of May 21, 2013. It includes all of the following tie-ins and crossovers: Avengers Academy 29-33; Secret Avengers 26-28; Avengers 25-30; New Avengers 24-30; X-Men Legacy 266-270; Wolverine & The X-Men 9-16, 18; AVX: Consequences 1-5; Uncanny X-Men 11-20, A-Babies VS. X-Babies 1.

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Finally.

The whole reading order challenge surrounding Marvel comics (or at least major Marvel events) could easily be mitigated with trades exactly like this one.

The vast glut of tie-in trades and crossover issues makes event reading an exercise in organizational management. For example, with Secret Invasion, I count 28 separate trade collections you could purchase in an effort to get the full scope of the Skrull attack.

Naturally this can lead to a lot of debate, questioning which narrative arcs are truly worth it, and how many trades you can actually afford to add to your collection.

A companion reader along the lines of this AvX book immediately eradicates these concerns. Every tie-in issue is included, and you can enjoy the Avengers vs. X-Men experience the way it was originally intended.

We’ve seen variations on event-based omnibus collections before, but this might be the best example I’ve seen in the modern Marvel era. There’s a  really great Avengers Disassembled collection that includes the entire run of Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, but that offers a pretty focused scope, and each series is separate from the others rather than interwoven to reflect event continuity.

Events like Dark Reign have had their own semi-companions, but the “Accept Change” trade is really more of a prequel to the event.

My favorite example of a Marvel trade collection that puts reading chronology first? The Age of Apocalypse trade collections.  These books do a fantastic job of interweaving disparate series titles in an order that maintains the closest possible semblance of a shared universe. With so many different writers and creators weaving stories, comics may never tell a truly cohesive whole, but that’s always the promise.

It’s nice to see a trade collection that finally delivers on this perceived promise for the fans.

 

 

Filed Under: Columns Tagged With: Avengers VS X-Men

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About Dave

Dave is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Comic Book Herald, and also the Boss of assigning himself fancy titles. He's a long-time comic book fan, and can be seen most evenings in Batman pajama pants. Contact Dave @comicbookherald on Twitter or via email at dave@comicbookherald.com.

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