DC Direct should really make a Ragman costume. That would be perfect to wear while lounging around the house in the winter. In the meantime, the only Ragman-related product DC has available for purchase this week is Ragman: Suit of Souls #1, a seemingly random, $4 one-shot by writer Christos N. Gage and artists Stephen Segovia.

Batman Beyond #5: Dustin Nguyen did a really nice Unknown Soldier cover for this issue, didn’t he?

What’s that you say? Hush? In Batman Beyond? No way.

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Catwoman #1: Coupled with Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Commissioner Gordon #1, that will make a grand total of six books featuring appearances by the resurrected Bruce Wayne that have been released before the conclusion of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. I wonder how many there will end up being before the sixth an final issue of the miniseries about Bruce Wayne’s return actually ships? The Catwoman book is by Derek Fridolfs and Peter Nguyen and the Commissioner Gordon one is by Adam Beechen and Szymon Kudranski.

Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus Vol. 1: This CLAMP manga about an adorable grade school girl, her pretty outfits and her cute stuffed-animal looking guardian spirit trying to recapture lost magical cards isn’t for everyone, but if this is up your alley, this looks like a pretty good format to read it in —a $20, 575-page trade paperback.

Carnage #1: Carnage is back! Surely this means something about cyclical popularity, nineties nostalgia or the state of the direct market, but I’m not sure what—probably not anything good! Zeb Wells is writing this five-issue series, Clayton Crain is drawing it, and Marvel is charging $4 for each issue. There are four different covers for this title, and Carnage himself is only on two of ‘em. Preview here.

DC Comics Presents: Batman #1: Attetntion Ed Brubaker fans! This comic contains over 80-pages worth of Brubaker’s under-appreciated run on Batman, with Scott McDaniel handling the art. That’s a pretty good comics-to-dollar value for $8.

Dragon Puncher: The latest all-ages work fromt he almost ridiculously fertile imagination of James Kochalka is a melding of photography and drawing, devoted to telling the story of a cute little kitten in a robotic battle suit, and his quest to punch a dragon. But wait, that’s not the only Kochalka-created kids comic available this week! There’ s also Johnny Boo Vol. 4: The Mean Little Boy, starring the best little ghost in the world and his pal Squiggle, one of my favorite comic characters ever, for reasons I can’t quite articulate (I think it has something to do with the simplicity of the design. And the squiggliness). Both books are $10, 40-page hardcovers, and you can check out previews of them here and here.

Henry and Glenn Forever: If you’re into comic books and have an Internet connection, chances are you’ve already heard plenty about this one. If not, it’s a romance comic starring Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins (and guest-starring Hall and Oates). It’s a $6, 64-page trade.

Hulk #26: Even though I know variants are evil things and of the devil, I must confess that I do like Salva Espin’s “Vampire Variant” variant for this issue.

Image Firsts: Mage #1: Hmm, would you consider this Matt Wagner’s signature work, or does Grendel hold that distinction in Wagner’s body of work? Well either way, Image is reprinting Mage #1 for just one single dollar, and if you’ve never read any of Wagner’s Mage, then you really shouldn’t miss this.

Justice League of America #50: The current volume of the JLA monthly reaches its fiftieth issue, a milestone marked by a $5, 56-page special issue by the regular team of James Robinson, Mark Bagley, Pow Rodrix and Rob Hunter.

Kick-Ass 2 #1: So this comes out this week.

Luthor: Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo’s 2005 Luthor: Man of Steel miniseries, plus some new story pages and backmatter, is collected as a 145-page, $20 hardcover, presumably to better sit next to the creative team’s 2008 Joker original graphic novel or perhaps to give Action Comics readers digging Paul Cornell’s current story arc another Luthor-starring something to read or perhaps simply because it was never in hardcover before. Whatever the reason, it’s in shops this week—Go Team Bald!

Marvel Her-Oes: Grace Randolph and Craig Rousseau’s miniseries about a high school version of a handful of Marvel superheroines is now a $15, 210-page trade paperback, retaining the ridiculous name of the original comic. This was on on my trade-waiting list—did anyone read it? Anyone care to recommend or warn against it?

Picture This: I suppose few folks need to know any more about this than “it’s the new Lynda Barry book,” but this gorgeous-looking $31, 175-page, eight-by-almost-eleven-inch hardcover is somewhat in the spirit of 2008’s What It Is and, according to publisher Drawn and Quarterly, wrestles with the questions “Why do we stop drawing?” and “Why do we start?” Oh, and there’s a monkey in it. You can download a preview here.

Saga of Rex: If you’ve read any of the Flight anthologies, then chances are you’re already somewhat familiar with Michel Gagne’s Rex character, the cute, plucky little fox that has gorgeously-drawn, often surprisingly dramatic adventures in a strange, silent world. This $18, 200-page trade collects the whole shebang between a single set of covers.

Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero #1: So does Stan Lee have his golden superhero-creating touch? You can find out tomorrow when Boom Studios releases its first of a suite of Lee-created super-comics. This one is written by Paul Cornell and drawn by Javier Pina, and features a wheel-chair bound college student who gets infected by an alien parasite weapon thingee and finds himself press-ganged into an intergalactic war. It’s a $4 book, and you can check out a preview here.

X-Factor #210:

So, do they make special maternity spandex superhero costumes, for pregnant mutants?

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