I’m sorely tempted to simply remind everyone that the sixth and final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s epic arcade logic romantic/action/slice-of-life comedy Scott Pilgrim ships this week and call it a column because, despite all the work from a lot of talented folks that comes out this week, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour is primed to suck the excitement out of everything else on the shelves this week.
But let’s soldier on anyway. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour will be a $12, 250-page digest in which Scott faces off against the final end boss of his current romance. Based on the fact that O’Malley’s art work has gotten markedly better with each successive volume, this should be the best-looking one of them all.
So what else is out this week…? Let’s see here…
Amazing Spider-Man #638: Hey Spider-Fans, how have you adjusted to that whole continuity reboot thing from a few years back? Have you been able to just roll with the punch, and appreciate the stories of the new status quo, so long as you don’t focus on the teensy little itching sensation that the just-about-healed scab causes? You have? Oh. Then you might be less than excited about “One Moment In Time,” in which “One More Day” artist and co-writer Joe Quesada joins artist Paola Riveria to pick at that scab in a story named after a Whitney Houston song. I can’t quite make sense of Marvel.com’s solicitation for the issue. It refers to each chapter of “One Moment In Time” as a double-sized issue, but ends with a notation that the $4 issue contains “28 Pages of New Story,” so I guess it’s only six-pages extra, with a reprint…? Quesada’s variant cover is kind of cleverly conceived, though. You check out a preview of the book on our home page by clicking here.
Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns: Another week, another coupla $25 hard covers collecting parts of DC’s “Blackest Night” story/event. This 260-page collection is going to be pretty spotty, as it collects all of those “undead” titles form late in the crossover, in which DC brought back canceled titles for Black Lantern stories. They varied pretty wildly in quality and relevance to the main story—actually, I think only the Geoff Johns-written The Atom and Hawkman tied very closely into Blackest Night—but the concept was fun. This also includes issues of the regular Green Arrow and Adventure Comics series. The other hardcover is Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, a 175-page book that collects the three-issue Tales of the Corps series, an issue of Green Lantern and a couple of issues of Adventure Comics.
CBGB #1: Kieron Gillen, Marc Ellerby, Sam Humphries and Rob G are the first creators to contribute to Boom’s anthology miniseries set in and inspired by the legendary titular New York rock club. Just look for the cover by Jaime Hernandez. CBGB is a four-issue miniseries, and a $4 comic.
Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 23: I just read the first 22 volumes of this over the last few weeks, due to a lot of free-time on my hands and a well-stocked library, and man, was this series addictive. I can’t imagine having to wait months between each volume, which is, of course, something I now have to do since I’m all caught up. Well, if you were waiting anxiously for the next volume, your wait is now over. This is another $10, 190-page chunk of Hiromu Arakawa’s sprawling epic.
Groo: Hogs of Horder: Sergio Aragones’ dim-witted barbarian meets a force even more destructive than himself in this collection of the four-issue miniseries of the same name. Aragones is agained partnered with writer Mark Evanier, and this $18, 120-page trade paperback can be previewed here.
Romeo X Juliet Omnibus Vol. 1: Hey, I just saw a trailer for the anime based on this series a few weeks ago and thought to myself, “Hey, that looks kinda interesting; I wonder if the manga’s any good?” And lo and behold, here’s the manga being republished in a new reader-friendly $19, 370-page omnibus format! Perhaps this is a sign. Would any manga readers in the reading audience care to speak for or against Romeo X Juliet…?
Time Masters: Vanishing Point #1: And so DC joins Marvel on the dark side, and releases a 22-page comic book for $4 (Maybe! Diamond’s shipping list has it priced at $3.99, while dccomics.com says $2.99!). This is the former Booster Gold creative team of Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund, and it follows Superman, Rip Hunter and company’s search through the time stream for Bruce Wayne, as seen in the Grant Morrison-written Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. A book so clearly inessential seems an odd place to test out the $4 waters, but, on the other hand, this has a better than even chance of selling pretty well on the strength of the tie-in, so I guess we’ll see. It’s the first issue of a six-issue series.
Treasury of 20th Century Murder Vol. 3: The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans: Cartoonist Rick Geary’s latest mini-masterpiece chronicling one of the more spectacular murder cases of recent-ish history is a $16, 80-page hardcover chronicles a strange series of slayings in post-World War I New Orleans.
The Troll King: This “Swedish Invasion” offering from Top Shelf is a $15, 160-page graphic softcover graphic novel by Kolbeinn Karlsson about, um, well, trolls, dwarves, magic, carrots, mountain men and a great deal of strangeness. You can check out 12 particularly insane-looking pages here.
True Blood #1: IDW and HBO’s comic book based on the TV show based on the novels launches this week, with the shows creator Tedd Ball developing the six-issue series with David Tischman, Maria Huehner, Elisabeth Finch and Kate Barnow. That’s a lot of chefs in the kitchen—just like a TV show! David Messina handles the art, and each ish will cost you $4. Another based-on-a-supernatural-TV-show comic launches this week as well, Charmed #1. This Zenescope-published book is based on the drama about three witch sisters that ran from 1998-2006, and it’s being written by Paul Ruditis and Raven Gregory, with art by Dale Hoover.
Walking Dead #75: I would just like to take a moment to say “Holy crap, there are 75 issues of Walking Dead?!” That’s awfully impressive for a serial comic series in general, and now I find myself wondering—is Walking Dead the biggest sustained narrative about zombies of all time? This $5, 40-page issue features the lead story by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, as well as a back-up drawn by Ryan Ottley which will mark the first full-color Walking Dead story.
July 20th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Glad somebody’s mentioning Fullmetal Alchemist being released this week. It’s running near it’s end, and judging by the events leading up to them, it’s gonna be exciting. It always seems like two steps forward/one and a half steps back for the good guys.
July 20th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
I planned on buying the Time Masters mini-series, until I realized that the DC price was incorrect—and they wanted another $6 for it.
I hope someone else enjoys it, because I’ll pass on it….
January 17th, 2011 at 11:45 am
very good.