The Wrong Thor Omnibus

I just recently found out that Marvel is going to release an Omnibus of the J Michael Straczynski/Olivier Coipel Run on Thor (from 2007/2008)

Now I understand the strategy here - Marvel has a Thor movie coming out, and JMS is a big name writer, so putting his entire run into one volume to peddle to the big chain bookstores (as well as the comic shops) makes good sense.

On paper.

On the flipside, I think that when you consider the type of people shelling out $50+ a pop for an Omnibus, it might seem like a mistep.

Here's how I see the Omnibus lines shaking out - we have two categories:

The nice bundling of a low selling, but highly praised modern Marvel series - in this category, I would put:

Brubaker's Captain America Omnibus
The Bendis Daredevil Run Omnibus
The Alias Omnibus
Brubaker's Criminal Omnibus
Fraction's Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus

In the Second Category I would put:

All of the Silver Age and Golden Age Omnibuses
The Old Story line Omnibuses (Secret Wars, Miller Daredevil, Squadron Supreme, Acts of Vengence, ect...)

Now the first group works because what you do is you capitalize on the fact that the storyline/creator has been talked about on blogs and magazines, so there is a curiousity among a larger audience to buy all of the stories in one big bundle.

The second group works for pretty much the same reason, but the stories are just older. In both cases, you are counting on people who did not pick up the comics initially, but have heard good things about the run, to be the primarily buyers.

And this is where I think the JMS Thor Omnibus fails. The sales on the comics as they originally came out were already pretty amazing. (Averaging out at about 95K if one discounts the anamolous first issue) And word of mouth on the run wasn't that great. (Thor fans said it was slow and boring) Both factors sort of undercut sales appeal of the omnibus.

You know what I think would have been a better Thor Omnibus to peddle before the movie?

How about a Jack Kirby Thor Omnibus?


Or a Walt Simonson Thor Omnibus?


Or even a John Buscema Thor Omnibus?


Now let me be clear, I'm not dissing the JMS/Coipel run on Thor. (I'll let the die hard Thor fans do that for me...) - I am just saying it might not have been the best choice for a collected edition.

Anyway, here are today's two Free Comics - another Mythological Hero - The Dell Hercules!


Hercules 01


Hercules 10

- Enjoy!