RIVETING REPOST: TALES OF ASGARD - AND YESTERYEAR...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS.  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'd 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 pub-
lished 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
drop-out on VINCE COLLETTA's fine inking, rendering the
printed pages far less detailed than their original back-up
appearances in Thor's own monthly magazine.

Art by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia

Well, the answer is obvious - none, really.  So when I spied
the coveted issue on sale on eBay recently, I must've hesitated
for all of two seconds before snapping it up it to add to my already
vast collection.  What can I say?  Only other rabid collectors will
fully 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, as well as
the AVENGERS UNITED printings (a U.K. publication),
the recent re-coloured 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 '68 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 these stories?

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

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