Ultimate Invasion and the deflation of the bang for buck

The number of monthly comics I order at my local comic store is incredibly anemic at the moment - the most regular thing I get is Back Issue Magazine (which somehow sometimes comes out three times a month, and then I won't see one for ages).

I want to try new things, and I always like to read one new monthly superhero comic, but I don't have anything like that at the moment. Just a few short limited series, destined to end in the near future.

So even though I'm one of those pricks who has more fun picking holes in Jonathan Hickman comics than they do actually reading them, I'll follow Bryan Hitch almost anywhere (his fights are always brilliantly clumsy, but Venom was a step too far), and have weird nostalgia for the Ultimate era, and then I saw #1 of Ultimate Invasion at the local store and thought I'd have a look and it cost more than $20 and fuuuuck that.

Comics have always been more expensive in this part of the world, and I have a clear memory of raging at a letter in X-Men which was complaining about the new 75 cent cost, when I was paying $3 for the same thing in local money. Exchange rates and sheer distance means every comic was precious.

So the fact that they are usually about three times cover price makes you more discerning, and when something comes out that is properly expensive, it has to be worth it.

But I can't justify paying more than $20 for 1/6 of a story, no matter how much I love it when Hitch has characters fucking lay into each other. The whole thing will cost north of $100 by the time it's done, or I could just wait six months and get it from the library for free. The maths just don't add up for a quick fix.

The slow evaporation of my pull list has certainly been accelerated by the fact that most regular comics are more than $10, and very rarely provide $5 of thrills. Even my beloved 2000ad sailed over that ten dollar mark a year or so ago, although it's not like I'm going to give that up now. Squaxx Dek Thargo for life. 

Hell, even Back Issue is a $30 magazine now, and I don't know if I need to be spending that much to read about the adventures of frickin' Ka-Zar. I'll keep getting it because I want to support my local store in some way, and there's fuck all bang for my buck in the regular series.

I know the issue of the price of these things is an extreme case when you're living on the edge of the world, but I've slowly grown accustomed to paying so much more than my American cousins. It's just that there are limits, and more than $20 for one issue is right over the fuckin' edge.