It's for the benefit of anyone who buys the audiobook without having previously read the novels. It will be new to them.
Spider-man books
- Thread starter garoo1980
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It's for the benefit of anyone who buys the audiobook without having previously read the novels. It will be new to them.
And as they are being reprinted, there will be people, like me, who will be coming to them fresh.
Cool, now I have another book to add to my wishlist.
And I will point out that Titan is publishing my X-MEN/AVENGERS omnibus tomorrow.
A friend messaged me the other day to ask how there could be an audiobook of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics. "How does that even work???" I was confused too, until I figured out it was the new audiobook of the old anthology from the 1990s that includes stories from Keith and Greg and PAD. Felt like a deep cut, but I see it's part of a program now. (Is the identical title a coincidence?)
Just a coincidence, I think. The Marvel "Ultimate" line didn't debut until the 2000s, a few years after that anthology came along.
Prior to that, Byron Preiss Visual Publications did a whole line of "Ultimate" anthologies. The Ultimate Frankenstein, The Ultimate Dracula, The Ultimate Werewolf, The Ultimate Dragon, etc, so it made sense for them to do "The Ultimate Spider-Man" once they acquired the Marvel license.
In short, "Ultimate" was a BPVP thing before it became a Marvel thing--or so I recall. Keith can probably speak to this as well.
As a word guy, I always tend to think that you should never call something "Ultimate" unless it's the end of the series. If there's more stuff after it, then it ain't ultimate!
(Drove me crazy about the Digimon anime. In the English dub, the "Ultimate" evolutionary level of the Digimon was their second-highest level, followed by "Mega." Which is weird, because the original Japanese version got it right, or rather, wrong in a different way -- the highest level was "Ultimate" and the one below it was "Perfect.")
(Drove me crazy about the Digimon anime. In the English dub, the "Ultimate" evolutionary level of the Digimon was their second-highest level, followed by "Mega." Which is weird, because the original Japanese version got it right, or rather, wrong in a different way -- the highest level was "Ultimate" and the one below it was "Perfect.")
Ah, interesting. I knew the anthology came first; I guess I was wondering if there was some kind of ur-Marvel reference both were going back to (like how DC's "All-Star" line recycles the name of the comic the JSA used to appear in, but is unrelated to it). I didn't know about all the other Byron Preiss "Ultimate" books.
BPVP also did an “Ultimate Super Villains” anthology that featured Venom and other Marvel Super Villains. They also did an “Ultimate X-Men”.
Is the Star Trek TNG/X-Men novel still in print?
Doubt it. But‘previously loved’ copies were reasonably priced when I got it.
And I will point out that Titan is publishing my X-MEN/AVENGERS omnibus tomorrow.
I’ve been trying to get the original trilogy for some time but second hand copies change hands for silly money.
I just checked. It's still in print, but it was reissued in April 2012 in Pocket's "Print on Demand" trade paperback format, so it's about $18 USD now for a new physical edition (and the digital editions are around that price as well). However the older mass market paperback, while there seems to be a few copies on Ebay for less than $10 USD, the majority of copies on Ebay and Amazon are above $20 USB (most are in the $50 USD range).
This has got to be one Star Trek novel that has been in print physically for the longest period of time. I'm not sure when the mass market version was discontinued, since it seems that every time that I've looked, "Planet X" has been in print. Maybe it's because of it's crossover status, since I seem to recall back when X-Men: First Class was released, someone on here had mentioned that Planet X was being redistributed to book stores back then as a promotional tie-in. With the X-Men movie franchise being out for the past 20 years, Pocket was probably keeping it in print to tie-into the movie series and even the X-Men Evolution (2000-2003) and Wolverine And The X-Men (2009-2010) TV series.
I guess you’re looking on amazon.com. Maybe you should have a look at amazon.co.uk where prices seem more reasonable.
As I recall, I did a Super-Skrull story for "Ultimate Super-Villains." Can't believe I forgot that.
I feel like S&S missed a trick by not rereleasing it with a two-Patrick Stewarts photo cover when they had the Marvel license (2004-8, though it looks like the X-Men novelization from that era was by Del Rey, so they probably didn't have the film tie-ins license).
As Greg said, Byron was using "Ultimate" as an adjective for his anthologies for long before Marvel decided to create a line with that name.
As for Planet X, S&S didn't put a new edition of it out because they would have to give money to Byron and they didn't want to do that because they were pissed at him.
God knows what the rights to that would look like now, with Disney owning Marvel and Preiss Multimedia no longer existing, and so on.....
As for Planet X, S&S didn't put a new edition of it out because they would have to give money to Byron and they didn't want to do that because they were pissed at him.
God knows what the rights to that would look like now, with Disney owning Marvel and Preiss Multimedia no longer existing, and so on.....
Wasn’t BPVP and iBooks out of business by early-2006? S&S could’ve put out a different cover in time for X3.
But did S&S have the rights to reprint an X-MEN novel by then? You have to have both licensors onboard, and licenses expire.
I seem to recall seeing that Pocket was redistributing Planet X to different bookstores around the Ottawa area back then and it was being placed with the front cover facing out. I would assume that, if S&S did not have a license for the X-Men in 2006, then they could not redistribute the book. I even recall finding it on new bookstore shelves as late as 2010/2011 around the time of XOW & XFC. Even now S&S seems to have a license to reprint it on demand (one which they’ve had since 2012).
Yes, but only because Byron was dead, and they would have had to deal with whatever company wound up with iBooks's assets. It was a quagmire they didn't want to dive into, and I don't blame them.
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