In his "Deus ex Comica" series of essays, Adam Besenyodi is taking a look at the impact of comic book pop culture on a personal level, from the Marvel titles' influence on his mid-'80s preteen and early teen years to the friendships formed around the books and characters, to what it's like rediscovering that world as an adult.

    Part and parcel of my ignorance around the world of comics for a good 20 years was trade paperbacks.  Even when my friend Ivan gave me a copy of The Ultimates to borrow a few years ago, I didn't quite grasp what it was I was reading because I wasn't aware of the original comics before seeing it.  I believed it was what I had always thought of as a "graphic novel" -- my definition being a comic that existed only in that book form.  It wasn't until he loaned me a copy of The Dark Phoenix Saga that I really made the connection that these were collections of monthly comic books bound for resale, and then the genius of it all hit me.

    Back in the day, Ideals Publishing produced four character-specific Secret Story books.  To my eye, these books are a sort of an early hybrid between a trade paperback and DK Publishing's Ultimate Guides.  I had three of them: The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and The Fantastic Four.  All of which is kind of odd, I guess, because I was never a huge fan of those titles.  They all had very Stan Lee-inspired subtitles, often with a penchant for hyphens, like "The Secret Story of Marvel's Gamma-Powered Goliath", "The Secret Story of Marvel's Star-Spangled Super Hero", and "The Secret Story of Marvel's Cosmic Quartet".

    The other predecessor to the modern trade I had was the Marvel Illustrated Book digest-sized collections.  I had the comic book adaptations of Blade Runner and Conan the Barbarian in this format (the only way a 10 year-old was going to "see" an R-rated movie growing up in my parents' house), along with an Avengers one focusing on "The Origin of the Vision", a Fantastic Four "Featuring the Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer", and a Daredevil collection.  Collecting two or three comics in each book, these little black and white jobbers were great at the time, and I remember Mark and me both enjoying them as kids.  But what today's trade paperback collections have over those old ones is the ability -- if collected thoughtfully -- to convey a complete story arc or a particular creator's oeuvre, often reasonably priced, under one cover.

    I go back and forth on buying collections of comics from the Original Collection.  There is part of me that thinks it might be foolish to fork over twenty-some bucks for a trade of ten comics I already own in their original format, like G.I. Joe or Alpha Flight -- two titles that I absolutely loved as a kid, collecting both from their inception: G.I. Joe for four and a half years, Alpha Flight for two.  But I find rereading the glossy pages of the trades (and today's comics for that matter) more inviting than those old original comics on pulpy, newsprint-like paper.  While I haven't yet been able to justify buying a trade paperback collecting a title I'm currently reading, I can somehow justify the purchase of these Original Collection books.

    Although the economics behind Marvel's Essential line makes sense to me from both the publisher's and the consumer's perspectives (cheaply reproduce batches of original titles in black-and-white, providing fans a low-cost way to catch up on or revisit decades old issues), I prefer my trades -- and my comics, for that matter -- in color.  The only Essential trade paperback title I have purchased is the edition that pulls together under one cover the 15-issue Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe from 1983 that I collected and loved as a kid.  I wanted this specific version of the Handbook because it represents the Marvel Universe as I knew it.  When I'm playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance or reading a current monthly title, it's sometimes fun to refer back to a hero or villain in the Handbook and see how the character has changed since I had last known him or her.  But when I think too hard on the fact that these often period-specific costumes are rendered with just an outline, I feel a bit like I got gypped out of the full-color glory that they deserve.

    Shorter full-color trades collecting older miniseries like Bill Mantlo's Vision and the Scarlet Witch or Mark Gruenwald's Hawkeye are great to have around to fill in the blanks of missed issues.  Sure, you could probably pick up the complete series for around the same price as (and sometimes even cheaper than) a trade paperback, but they make revisiting the storylines just that much more accessible.  No need to go digging through long boxes to find bagged and boarded decades-old issues to reread.

     In some cases it actually makes those old issues more affordable.  The end of Frank Miller's Daredevil run was where I came on board so I only have a smattering of his work, but the Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller volumes make it so easy for me to catch up on what was happening before I started reading the title and better frame the story and character contexts for a relatively cheap price.  And, at my friend David's prompting, I am able to re-examine Walter Simonson's influence on Thor from back in the day with fresh eyes.

    The other place where trades make perfect sense is with continually delayed titles like Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.  His inconsistency in getting issues on the shelves has been maddening, and the gaps are amnesia-inducing.  I had picked up the first 18 issues collected in three volumes of trades to get up to speed, and snagged the monthlies moving forward, but it's frustrating to keep the storyline top-of-mind when it's only coming out every few months.  This is one title that I wish I had held off purchasing on a monthly (at least in theory) basis and just waited for volume four of the trade to wrap things up.  And while it's not that big of a deal to go back through three trades, or to pull out a number of comics to reread, the sporadic nature of the appearance of this last arc's issues has left me indifferent, with very little invested in the storyline and very little motivation to return to this.

    What brought me back into the fold of current Marvel continuity were trades of Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Civil War and its related tie-ins.  And while I am excited to be experiencing my first big Marvel crossover event in "real time" since the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars and Secret Wars II back in 1984 and '85, I'm also daunted by the idea of all these sundry titles being pulled in under the Secret Invasion banner.  The critical thinking part of me that is a thoughtful consumer knows this is a bad idea to try and collect all of these disparate titles, and I should just wait for them to be pulled together into a trade.  Especially with a storyline so interwoven among various titles.  With a trade collection, I can be sure to find all the issues I need without wandering into titles I wouldn't normally venture.  But, this may be the one place where I "double-dip".  Although I am following Secret Invasion month-to-month, I'm pretty confident I will pick up the trade paperback when it's released, because I have a feeling I'm going to be rereading this event over and over like I have the other event trades I own.

    Sure, crossover events and miniseries are comprehensive -- they have to be by their very nature, but what trade paperbacks do such a great job of illustrating is just how holistic and sophisticated story arcs are today.  This can be seen in any of the New Avengers trades by Brian Michael Bendis (which were also plagued by release delays during their original printings), or trades like Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's The Immortal Iron Fist, Volume 1, which collects "The Last Iron Fist Story" arc.

    While my six year-old son does buy some Marvel Adventures monthly titles every now and again, the digest collections are really his best option.  I got him the Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius - Lab Brat collection for Christmas, and we have spent many an evening reading to each other and laughing along together with this at bedtime.  The second book, Collected Chaos, found its way into his hands via his Easter basket, along with the Transformers Animated, Volume 1 trade.  And any time we are at a bookstore or if he accompanies me to the comic book shops, he always goes right to the Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures trade paperbacks to read while I'm browsing.  The same holds true for trips to the library.  He is constantly checking out trade paperbacks of Scooby-Doo and the like right alongside his books about dinosaurs and sea creatures.  As a young reader, he devours all of these, and if that's the least of what trade paperbacks can offer, then I couldn't be happier.

Miss an installment of "Deus Ex Comica?" Here you go:

Part 1: Gateway Drugs

Part 2: Judging a Book by its Cover

Part 3: Ignoring Personal History

Part 4: "Sweet Christmas!"

Adam Besenyodi loves to talk pop culture. He is a former editor and staff writer for PopMatters, a participant in the Pop Conference and a freelance writer. Check out his blog, Random Thoughts Escaping.

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