How I was surprised when I made a great discovery in my local newsagent. I knew, thanks to no knew books for
about three weeks, that I would have the hard task of picking just two out of the ten new Bongo comics that had arrived. When
I got to the store, they had the new Futurama (#18), a new Best of the Simpsons, Best of Bart Simpson, the new Bart Simpson
comic, the Collector's Edition Krusty, Bartman, and Itchy & Scratchy comics, the special reprint of the first Simpsons/Futurama
crossover, and a reprint of an old Treehouse of Horror issue. Seeing as I loved "The Time Bender Trilogy" from Futurama Comics,
I picked up issue #18 to see if the second part of it was any good. I put it back on the rack and went to have a look at the
other new books. I picked up the last copy of the new Bartman reprint, and behind it I saw one, just one, issue of Futurama
Comics #1. At first I thought I was dreaming. So...I already had #1 but this had the rare yellow cover that was only available
to people at a US Comic Convention! I picked it up and had a look at it. It was a Collector's Edition of both Futurama Comics
#1 and #2 in the same magazine. It was in a small "digest size" and has a thick cardboard type cover, like what the trade
paperbacks have. The biggest fact that I was taken by surprise was because this book was completely unnanounced. I bought
it along with Futurama #18, and went home to study it some more.
Apart from the cover, nothing in the issue is real new. I read the whole book, especially the part with issue #2 because
I didn't already have that issue. The only other difference I found in the book was that in Matt Groening's greeting on the
inside cover they changed it from saying "Welcome to Futurama Comics #1" to this:
The whole issue is very well done, and it is printed superbly. The only real complaint I have about it is that they included
the page from issue #1 that has the Futurama websites. Just months ago I tried these links and only about three of them actually
still work.
The first story, "Monkey Sea, Monkey Doom!" is the best, because while I looked forward to the issue #2 story "...But
Deliver Us To Evil", I was actually hugely let down by the low quality of the script and art. Because CGEF didn't list
the short story in #2 I was surprised once again when I turned the page and viewed a Simpsons Comics two-page spread. That
was another great bonus! I though this issue seemed sort of like a trade paperback, because while the front cover (and
back) was from Futurama Comics #1, it still had a page in the middle of the issue which had the cover of #2 before "...But
Deliver Us To Evil!". I was very happy that they included the picture of the crew on jet packs as the back cover.
Needless to say, I am happy about the purchase and I'm looking forward to getting the next issue, especially #4, the
Zapp Brannigan/Leela story.