A review:

Got mine yesterday and was a little down at first because the box was severely dented and had a tear in one corner, but happily the book inside was undamaged.  First things first, open and examine every page to check for missing / damaged pages or repeated signatures.  Even doing a quick 2 second spot check can be taxing at 1200 pages Eek.  Again, all seems well.  First printing - Willard, OH, USA Smile .  On to the main review.

Recoloring - I am not extremely familiar with these issues, so I have no nostalgic ties to the original presentation.  I love recolorings in general, as I am of the opinion that most of the original artists and colorists would have loved to have had the technology we have today to be able to use something better than just "4 color dots on newsprint".  Coloring and linework looks good to me.

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A pic representing the recoloring with the cover of 337

Not a huge fan of the missing logos.  Would have rather had the covers as printed, but it's not in any way a deal breaker for me.

Book cover- I like the outline of the hammer on the spine.  Nice little touch.

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Spine - I'm still trying to decide just how I feel about the spine and how the book feels and lays as reading.  It is sewn, but not like the other biggies, like say Spidey.  Spidey (2nd print) lays open from just about the very first page and has a nice amount of room in the gutters.  The spine kind of "cracks" in the section that you are reading and makes it very easy to hold open.  The tradeoff for me with this binding is that it feels fragile to me.  Like I am going to rip out the pages just by browsing, or the book is going to fall apart upon the first opening.  I know that's silly, but it's the feeling I get.  The Simonson Thor spine doesn't "crack" and will not lay as well.  It's not NEARLY as bad as some of the glued books like Miller Daredevil, Eternals, or FF2, but probably the tightest of all the sewn omniboo I own.  Of course the book is brand new and may loosen up with some reading, but that is my first impression.  Left pages have a bit of gutter closeness in the beginning pages and the right pages have the same in the ending pages.  Not horrible, but not ideal.  This book does, however feel very solid.  Final score on binding is a "B".  I have seen better, but I have also seen far, far worse.

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Spidey lays open at the first page

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Pics of Spidey spine "cracking" and laying fully open

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Thor spine standing firm

Paper - I am not a very technical fan, so I can't say "this is 16.4 weight semi eggshell gloss made from Canadian maple after a rainstorm", but I will say that it looks nice, but feels just a little too thin and "saturated" with the ink if that makes any sense.  If you look at the book closed from the bottom side, you can see a few end pages just starting to get a slight ripple.  The only comparison I can make is from  when I would print a lot of color onto a sheet of generic paper stock with my old inkjet printer.  It just feels like the paper is on the very edge of "not being able to handle" the printing.  Again, not horrible, just an observation.

All in all, I like it.  Not the best presentation ever from an omnibus, but far from the worst.  And 1200 pages of material with some very cool extras make this one a no-brainer for the money for me.  Anxiously awaiting my first reading.



  KNEEL BEFORE YOUR NEW SLEESTAK MASTERS.