Celebrated my big 35th (!) b-day this past Sunday by seeing Spider-Man: Brand New Day with my sister and brother-in-law. Fan-freakin'-TASTIC Spidey movie. Great action and humor, plenty of nods to the comics, appropriate MCU cameos that actually contributed to the story, and it was just nice to see another grounded, street-level Spider-Man tale on the big screen after years of international and multiversal adventures. It also ended on something that made me REALLY happy, so I can't wait to see more of Spidey's journey in the MCU. Destin Daniel Cretton should definitely be brought back on board for the next one. He's a natural fit for the web head.
Anyway, aside from that, it was a pretty normal Sunday, only with more family over than usual and three different cakes. (Seriously.) Pretty mellow celebration all around this year, which is a-okay with me. I still raked in a nice selection of goodies, though, so let's officially start this year's gift rundown:
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
Mario Tennis Fever
Star Fox
Marvel Cosmic Invasion: Deluxe Edition (Switch 2)
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection (Switch)
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (4K Combo)
This year's game selection went pretty heavy on the SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Besides Yoshi's latest (gorgeous) adventure and another tennis outing for our favorite plumber, Star Fox made a grand return with a sleek, modern take on their most famous mission, Marvel's heroes headed to the outer reaches of the universe to take on Annihilus, and Geo Stelar and Omega-Xis brought all of their past battles to modern consoles for the first time. (I really need to finally buckle down and play through the Battle Network collection so I can start this one. I've heard great things about these games.) Rounding things out is Mario's newest big screen escapade, which somehow holds equal relevance to those first three games I mentioned, rather than just the one with "Mario" in the title. (Never thought I'd see the day where Fox McCloud and friggin' WART made their cinematic debut in the same film.)
Also, if you're wondering why there appear to be two copies of Mario Tennis Aces in the first photo of this post, it's because the first one that my family bought from Amazon was missing its game card, so we had to order a replacement. (Seriously, this crap happened before with my copy of Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe. Amazon, PLEASE crack down on this kinda bull. This should NOT be able to happen multiple times.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures Volume 6
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures Volume 7
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures Volume 8
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Across the Morphin Grid
Turtles of Grayskull
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Compendium Volume 2
On to my yearly TMNT comic fix, the 1987 Turtles return to take on mummies, interdimensional duplicates, spy missions, and more in three more volumes of Saturday Morning Adventures (two to go!), the brothers cross paths with the teenagers with attitude for the third time and the most powerful man in the universe for the first, and more of Archie's turtle tales are immortalized for the first time in hardcover form. (I'm really excited for Volume 3, since that finally gets into the issues that the previous trades skipped.)
As for the lone Power Rangers book amongst all the TMNT goodness, it's actually a collection of three different one-shot comics. However, I got it for one specific story: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Usagi Yojimbo, bringing together Angel Grove's finest and the rabbit ronin himself. Ryan Parrott actually wrote both this AND MMPR/TMNT III, so the two are actually in continuity with each other! Heck, the magical MacGuffin from the Usagi crossover is actually brought back toward the end of the TMNT one, meaning that you'd have to read both to fully understand everything! It's NUTS! I'm really glad that Boom found a way to collect it in a trade, despite it being a one-shot. It's also just really funny that despite this seeming like the outlier amongst all the TMNT books, it's actually still very relevant to them. Comics are fun.
Wrapping things up, my sister's family not only gifted me 20 bucks of eShop cash (which I'll be putting towards the next Cosmic Invasion DLC and adding mah boi SLASH to Splintered Fate), but also three lovely pieces of custom-made artwork. We've got a double-sided birthday greeting starring my favorite Spider-Man, Kaine Parker, courtesy of my sister; a probably cursed Bill Cipher birthday card from my nephew; and...I'm not really sure (but she's turning 4 this weekend, so she's got the spirit) from my niece. I'll need to find just the right place to keep these masterpieces.
That's my 35th Birthday in the bag! I'll be back with more fun this Fall!
