John Babos
10 new books this week.
- Action Comics #988
- Batman: The Murder Machine #1
- Detective Comics #965
- Generations: Captain America #1
- Hal Jordan & The GLC #29
- JLA #15
- Marvel Legacy #1
- Suicide Squad #26
- Wonder Woman #31
- Rough Riders: Riders on the Storm #1
Phil Allen
Wow, big week for me!
- Batman/The Shadow #6 – This has been a pretty great series, and the next Shadow/Batman series from Dynamite should be good too. I’ve especially enjoyed Riley Rossmo’s art, his style is perfect for pulpy action and monsters.
- Batman Beyond #12 – Last arc was the best yet, I’m enjoying the creativity of who is and is not still around. And now that this Beyond is in Rebirth continuity, who knows who is next.
- Detective Comics #965 – Tim Drake is finally making his comeback, perfect timing given that word is out on Mr. Oz. I’ve been following James Tynion for a few years now, and I’m starting to think Detective might be his best work yet.
- The Infinite Loop:Nothing But The Truth #1 – The original series was one of my favorite indies of 2015, and I’m glad to see the original creators are behind this sequel.
- Rat Queens Orc Dave #1 – I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but something about the new series isn’t hitting me the same way as the original. It’s not bad, just different. But the Braga Special was on the best issues, so I’m still looking forward to this.
- Redneck #6 – Arc finale. Donny Cates is becoming another favorite of mine, so thank goodness Image is reprinting a lot of his older series.
- Other issues I’m looking forward to:
- Action Comics #988
- Archie #24
- Bankshot #4
- Batman: The Murder Machine #1
- Black Magick #8
- The Black Monday Murders #7
- The Flash #31
- Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps #29
- Hellblazer #14
- Justice League of America #15
- Lazarus X+66 #3
- Mother Panic #11
- Saga #47
- Southern Bastards #18
- Wonder Woman #31
James Fulton
- Generations: Spider-Man and the Captain America one – I didn’t like the Iron Man issue of Generations at all, but I figure that the Spider-Men one will at least have Miles and Peter Parker in it, which is more than can be said for the latest issue of Spider-Men II, the title that is about them. I also guess that Nick Spencer is going to be addressing the fact that Sam Wilson obviously has to give Steve Rogers back his shield before their new titles launch (or return to legacy numbering) next month. Unless that happens in Legacy…
- Marvel Legacy #1 – I have a hard time resisting things like this, yet at the same time, I know that Marvel’s latest attempt at a line-wide rebranding, while not making substantial changes to their way of editing and curating their line, is going to disappoint. I’m going to go on record as saying that I don’t like the idea of Avengers BC or whatever it’s being called, as I generally don’t like retconning earlier iterations of teams, especially if they look like the classic ideal of that team. Jason Aaron is a brilliant writer, but his Marvel stuff often feels forced. Truthfully, I’m way more excited about the new issue of his Southern Bastards coming out the same day…
- War Mother #2 – I’m so glad that Fred Van Lente has a new monthly title.
Mike Maillaro
- MARVEL LEGACY #1 – SECRET EMPIRE was far better than I was expecting it to be. Not a knock on Nick Spencer, who is one of my favorite writers, just Marvel events tend to leave me flat. It really feels like Marvel is looking to get back to their roots a bit. The idea of an early superhero team starring many of Marvel’s REAL big guns like Phoenix, Odin, Starbrand, a Wikandan Panther God, and a Sorcerer Supreme is really cool to me.
- MARVEL GENERATIONS SPIDER-MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA – Rounding out the GENERATIONS line, we get SPIDER-MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA. These books have been all over the place in terms of quality, but on a whole, I’ve really enjoyed them.
- NIGHTWING THE NEW ORDER #2 – I don’t think I’ve ever read a comic where I knew what the ending was pretty early, but still loved every minute of the ride. This is great elseworlds story about a world where Dick Grayson has eliminated all super powers…but at the end of the first issue, he finds out that his son has super powers. This was just so well written, and I am real curious where it goes from there.
- DUCKTALES #1 – IDW has done such a great job with their Disney line. Unfortunately, most of the titles have changed to quarterly, but we still get UNCLE SCROOGE and this new DUCKTALES series based on the new cartoon. Loving the relaunch, so I have to check the comic out.
- FU JITSU #1 – Writer Jai Nitz gave a real dickish interview with Bleeding Cool where he basically said this was the only pure comic written in the last few years that wasn’t a comic writer desperate to get a movie deal. Despite this, I am still a huge fan of Aftershock, and typically check out all of their books. I am not expecting all that much from this one, but I will admit that is mostly just because of the arrogant tone the writer took in that interview.
- BATMAN THE MURDER MACHINE #1 – I think this is the Cyborg version of evil Batman. I am really taking a wait and see approach on these books. I do like the concept on a whole, but in a lot of ways METAL is just falling flat on me. It feels way too much inside baseball, and so much of what should be fun (like Red Death Batman being able to soup up the Batmobile to steal the speed force) just isn’t grabbing me like I want it to.
- FAITH AND THE FUTURE FORCE #3 – After the two major failures in the first two issue, this time Faith has recruited a massive team of all of Valiant’s heroes to try and save the day. This has just been a real fun series. One of my favorite books from all of comics, not just Valiant.
- Normals #5
- Rough Riders Riders On The Storm #6
- Archie #24
- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #19
- WWE #9
- Action Comics #988
- Batgirl #15
- Batman Beyond #12
- Detective Comics #965
- Flash #31
- Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #29
- Justice League Of America #15
- Justice League Power Rangers #6 (Of 6)
- Kamandi Challenge #9 (Of 12)
- Suicide Squad #26
- Wonder Woman #31
- First Strike #4
- G.I. JOE A Real American Hero #244
- Micronauts First Strike #1
- Revolutionaries #8
- Rom #13
- Rom Vs Transformers Shining Armor #3 (Of 5)
- Black Magick #8
- Saga #47
- Spawn #278
- Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider #8
- Cable #5
- Infamous Iron Man #12
- Mighty Captain Marvel #9
- Mighty Thor #23
- Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur #23
- Nick Fury #6
- Punisher #16
- Star Wars Jedi Of The Republic Mace Windu #2 (Of 5)
- Venomverse #4 (Of 5)
- X-Men Blue #12
- War Mother #2
- X-O Manowar #7
Matt Graham
I’m going to have to make some cuts this week and I think the double shipped Generations books and Marvel Legacy will be it. These are 5-7 books in Canadian cash, and $20 is usually half my budget. My gut says Marvel Legacy will be a skippable one-off for me, where my main interest is in X-Men, Daredevil, and Hulk and few to none of the Avengers and other Marvel Heroes. I don’t mind buying issue to issue to support books I enjoy and not have to trade wait, but if past one-shots are any indication, I don’t see Legacy being as enthralling and rereadable as X-Men Alpha/Omega and the Onslaught bookends. Actually, I only read the Onslaught bookends and my normal X-Men books as a kid and got by just fine on that story.
I was going to be in Generations for the long haul, but we’ve passed the characters I care about and I get the idea of it by now. I was intrigued by the idea of Wolverine meeting Laura in her new Wolverine mantle and Thor meeting the young Odinson, but many of the other Generations titles lacked…a reason to even happen.
This still leaves me with a pricy week:
- Fu Jitsu #1 – I haven’t read the interview Mike speaks of, but I’m curious to read the book based on that tagline. Unlike Mike’s take, I don’t find it that arrogant and find myself nodding my head along with the creator. Let’s see if he can back it up.
- MMPR #19 – One of the better superhero books on shelves right now. I get my JLA and Avengers fix of off this, which is tightly plotted with interesting character arcs, action, and issue to issue value.
- Bombshells United #2 – Following this one for Marguerite Bennett’s script and Marguerite Sauvage’s art.
- Mother Panic #11 – I’ve tapered off of Young Animal and only stick with Panic and Shade the Changing Girl. The other books are good, but tradewait good, not subscription good.
- Red Sonja #9 – Red Sonja evades the feds while hunting a gang. Amy Chu’s mix of action and levity keeps Red Sonja rolling in her modern day adventure. Carlos Gomez has proven issue adter issue that he was the perfect artist to bring medieval fantasy and our modern world to life, with excellent storytelling, framing, characterizations and panoramas. I know Red Sonja is the default swords and sorcery bikini babe, but Dynamite has found talent for each volume that routinely elevates this book to comic artistry on every level. Chu and Gomez are setting a high bar for entertainment for anyone that comes next.
- Cable #5 – I may skip this one, as while it wraps James Robinson’s 5 issue Cable stint, #150 sets off with a new team (in the book and behind the book) and mission statement. Even if this is a prologue, I feel a bit let down here.
- Deadpool Kills #5 – Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe delivers what it says on the cover, with great art.
- Spider-Gwen #24 – The end of the Predators storyline (with Gwen versus Lizards, Wolverine, and Matt Murdock) means that Gwenom is one issue closer. Yesss.
- Venomverse #4 – Like Deadpool, a fun distraction with instant satisfaction. In a way the story may be moving too fast, and the Poisons don’t have the same weight behind them as Morlun, but I’ve always loved What If…? and Elseworlds books and this is giving me that in spades.
- X-Men Blue #12 – X-Men Blue still feels very editorial to me and not up to Bunn’s standard in prior X-Men books, but even if it felt rushed, a Goblin Queen story with evil alternate-dimension Hex-Men is the classic dumb X-Men drama that wins me over.
- War Mother #2 – I’m sad that a year after the one shot we’re only getting a mini and not an ongoing series, but this is one of the more interesting sci-fi post-humanity comics out there if you like your sci-fi full of jargon and guns. I like how Van Lente updated some terms to accommodate present day culture and how it reflects us to the future.
