This week you can choose your own Herc, with Marvel’s Prince of Power appearing in Incredible Hercules #132 by Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and Reilly Brown and a straighter, more traditional version of the hero appearing in Radical’s Hercules: The Knives of Kush #1, by Steve Moore and Cris Bolson. The former has Herc donning Thor’s duds for the cover, and beginning an arc in which Pak and Van Lente referred to him as “Hercu-Thor” in a recent interview. The latter is the start of Radical’s second Herc miniseries, this one sending lion skin-rocking hero and his band of mercenaries to Egypt.
Adventure Comics #1: I suppose if anyone can make an ongoing Legion series work in the DCU at this point, it’s going to be Geoff Johns. This will essentially be Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes, with Francis Manapaul drawing the Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El flavor) lead feature, and Clayton Henry drawing the Legion back-up. I’m going to try it out, despite my fear of the Legion’s sprawling cast and tangled continuity. Don’t let me down, guys!
The Big Khan: I love the title of this book. It’s by writer Neil Kleid and artist Nicolas Cinquegrani and is about a prominent rabbi who admits that he’s not actually Jewish near the end of his life. It’s 180 pages for $14, and if Kleid’s previous work for publisher NBM, 2006’s Brownsville, is any indication, it should be pretty good. Chris Arrant spoke with Kleid about the book on the main site, and you can read the results here, while you can read a ten-page preview of the book here.
Blackest Night #2: More ring-based warfare from Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert in the form of an over-sized, $3.99 issue. This week also sees the launch of Blackest Night: Batman #1, in which DC’s most popular event crosses over into it’s second most-popular (this “Batman Reborn” business) in a series by Peter J. Tomasi, Adrian Saef and John Dell. Is Deadman a Black Lantern? The fact that he’s mentioned in the solicit makes me wonder, and Andy Kubert’s cover sure makes it look like it. How does a ghost become a Black Lantern? DCU theology is so confusing! Finally in Blackest Night business, Green Lantern Corps #39 features a tie-in by Tomasi, Patrick Gleason and Rebecca Buchman.
Captain America Theater of War: To Soldier On: Paul Jenkins and Fernando Blanco present an oversized, $3.99 one-shot with way too many words in the title. This one’s apparently set during Gulf War, which means it should be entirely Nazi-free. Approach with caution: Cap’s never on sure footing when he’s not fighting Nazis.
G-Man: Cape Crisis #1: Mini-Marvel maestro Chris Giarrusso launches a new five-issue miniseries featuring his original superhero creation. Preview here.
GrimJack: The Manx Cat #1: IDW begins publishing John Ostrander and Tim Truman’s latest GrimJack comic, originally serialized online. It’s $3.99 for 26-pages.
The Lava is a Floor: Wait, what? I always thought the floor was lava? Ah, that reversal is representative of the premise of writer Justin Shady and artists Jeremy R. Scott’s comic. It’s about two young monster siblings, Blarg and Clarg, pretending to be humans. Sounds and looks fun. It’s $13 for a 32-page hardcover.
Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #4: It’s Thanos the Mad Titan vs. the most adorable of Marvel’s many Avengers teams for all the marbles! And by “marbles” I mean Infinity Gems. In other all-ages action from Marvel this week, there’s Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #14, this month featuring a Hawkeye and Blonde Phantom team-up by Paul Tobin and David Baldeon, and Marvel Adventures Spider-Man Vol. 13: Animal Attack, a $9.99 digest which pits the wall-crawler against such foes as the Sinister Six and Paste Pot Pete. Wait, Paste Pot Pete’s not an animal…
Red Herring #1: The first issue of this six-part, WildStorm miniseries about a conspiracy is notable for the presence of artist Phillip Bond, of Kill Your Boyfriend and Vimanarama fame. He’s working with writer David Tischman on this project. Chris Arrant talks to Tischman about the project here.
Sandman By Joe Simon and Jack Kirby: Here’s this week’s Damn, I Wish I Had An Extra $40 book, a 304-page hardcover collecting the comics from the 1940s by the dream team that created Captain America. It’s another nice addition to the Kirby library DC’s been building up over the last few years.
Starstruck #1: Another interesting IDW release, this is a re-colored republication of the Elaine Lee/Michael Kaluta comics originally published in Heavy Metal and republished by Marvel’s Epic imprint. You may want to got check out Jog’s write-up of it in his preview of the week’s releases, as he seems pretty intimately familiar with it (Actually, you should probably read Jog’s previews every week, if you’re not already). Be warned though! Jog makes it sound so cool you may have a hard time not buying it after reading what he has to say! And note that Jog then links back to a three-part series of articles on the comic that appeared on…Newsarama! Let’s get a game of Internet traffic ping pong going…
Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1 and Ultimate Comics: Avengers #1: It looks like the Ultimate Universe survived Ultimatum after all. The re-named Ultimate Comics line launches this week, with Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis teaming up with David LaFuente for the Spidey book, and Ultimates writer Mark Millar returning to his group of characters, now accompanied by Carlos Pacheco. New titles, a new brand-name for the line, new numbering and new artists aren’t the only things new about the books—they’ve also got a new price tag of $3.99.
Vampire Dance: You guys all like vampires, right? Dark Horse is presenting an American collection of an Italian hit series by writer/artist Sergio Bleda dealing with vampires, neo-Nazis, romance and vampire power politics. Looks pretty neat. It’s 188-pages for $17, and you can see a preview here. Those aren’t the only vampires Dark Horse has for you this week, however. There’s also the second issue of Mike Mignola, Joshua Dysart, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba’s BPRD 1947 and the third issue of Dave Land and Matt and Shawn Fillbach’s Werewolves on the Moon: Versus Vampires.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
After how Mike Millar concluded his Fantastic Four run, I’m not sure that I would ever want to read his writing again…. That was one of the worst conclusions that I have seen in 40 years of reading comics (though Final Crisis remains high on that same list)….
August 12th, 2009 at 5:02 am
You know what I would buy on sight? “Blackest Night: Suicide Squad”. Someone get Ostrander on that!