How I spent my new comic book-less Christmas vacation

So it would appear that the world is still spinning and time is marching forward after being forced to go without an official Comic Book Wednesday this week. Yeah, we had Blackest Night #6, but when was the last time you left the comic book store with only one book? That's not a comic book day, that's a comic book minute.

Hopefully you had a store as cool as Back To The Past in Redford, Michigan to help ease your pain like I had. These guys took it upon themselves to make it worthwhile to stop in and pick up your one measly book. They had grab bags packaged of 15 random comic books for ten bucks each, and randomly mixed into those were 20 silver and bronze age books, the grandaddy of which was a copy of Giant Size X-Men #1.

Seeing as how I'm used to spending about $30 a week, I bought my copy of Blackest Night as well as two grab bags. At the very least, some more random comic books would be good for the blog, and who doesn't need a copy of the holy grail of X-books?

So did I win it?

No, but I did manage to get lucky and got something pretty cool.

The Invincible Iron Man #1

You can tell by the scan that it's not a Near Mint copy by any means, and I think calling it Very Good is even a stretch. I've never really collected Iron Man as a solo-character before, but I'll take a key book from one of the founding Avengers any day of the week. In fact, I actually think I'm ready to start liking Iron Man again. Civil War is far enough back in the rear-view mirror that I don't have to choke down any bile just mentioning it. Hopefully, Siege will put things right, but if I get burned again with my beloved Avengers...

So on to the task at hand today, which is to pick the first random book to review of 2010! Since I just so happen to have a stack of thirty brand new random comic books right here, we'll break format just slightly to pick a book from my two grab bags. Take it away Randomizer...

...and that book is Joker: Last Laugh #2 from December 2001, published by DC Comics!

I like to think I have a pretty good passing knowledge of what happens in the DCU, but I have no idea what this mini-series is all about. It's got a trade dress reminiscent of the Tangent line of books, but it wasn't a part of those. I then thought for a second that it was part of Emperor Joker, but that was earlier than this was.

I checked my database, and I actually have the first issue of this six-issue series. It obviously didn't leave much of an impression on me if I didn't pick up any subsequent issues. The random gods were also kind to me, and gave me the next issue in line so I wouldn't have any additional holes in my collection.

It's written by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty, so it should at least be competent enough. The big draw, however, is that it is pencilled by Marcos Martin! His work on Doctor Strange: The Oath was absolutely fantastic, and definitely put this guy on my radar of creators to watch out for. Who knew that he had been drawing books pretty regularly since 2003?

I'm looking forward to seeing how his earlier work stacks up to his recent stuff, so check back in a day or two for the review.