TALES OF ASGARD - AND YESTERYEAR...

Art by Walter Simonson

Back at the end of 1983
or beginning of '84, I purchased TALES OF ASGARD Volume 2, Number 1 with its beautifully rendered WALT SIMONSON cover, and determined one day to acquire Volume 1, Number 1 of the self-same title. That issue had been
published in 1968, and it's possible I had seen it in some back issue comic shop in the intervening 15 or 16 years between both volumes, but, if so, I had never felt the need to own it at that time. Now, of course, I couldn't have the second one without also having the first.

The years came and went without me ever obtaining the aforementioned classic, but a year or so back, MARVEL published a 6 issue series of all the Tales of Asgard stories - and then released them in a hard-cover Omnibus-sized book. (It's just been released in a standard-sized softcover edition also.) I now had all the stories in their restored and re-coloured glory, not to mention a few of the original THOR comics in which some of them first appeared. What need now had I of the original 68 page 1968 comic? If it was anything like the 1983/'84 special, the artwork suffered from line dropout on VINCE COLLETTA's inking, rendering the printed pages far less detailed than their original back-up appearances in Thor's own mag.



Art by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia

Well, the answer is obvious - none, really. So when I spotted the actual issue on sale on ebay recently, I must have hesitated for - what? - all of two seconds before buying it to add to my already far-too large collection. What can I say? Only other rabid collectors will understand the need to fill that missing gap in a run - even if you already have other presentations of the contents.

I now have the MASTERWORKS
editions, the AVENGERS UNITED printings (a UK publication), the recent recoloured 6 issue series, the THOR OMNIBUS, the MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION issues, the hardback book, the 1984 Walt Simonson covered comic - and now I have the 1968 Special as well. (Only 27 or 28 years after I first decided to one day make it my own.) I have every Tales of Asgard story ever printed, in either partial or complete presentations of these mini-classics. Surely now I can draw the curtains on that particular compulsion to have a complete set of those stories?

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I'm finding that recent release of the softcover edition mighty tempting. Someone save me from myself.