Don’t worry Cap, I’m sure writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and pencil artist Scot Eaton will come up with some sort of threat to keep your fellow Avengers too busy fighting and adventuring to talk about you too much in Iron Man/Thor #1, the first part of a four-issue, $4-per-issue miniseries.

Amazing Spider-Man #647: If I’m reading the solicitation right, this is the end of ASM’s three-year, 101-issue experiment as a team-plotted, almost-weekly book. Bob Gale, Marc Guggenheim, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly, Stan Lee, Adam Archer, Max Fiumara, Karl Kesel and Marcos Martin close out the era with a $5, oversized issue.

Batman/Catwoman: Follow The Money #1: Howard Chaykin writes and draws Batman, Catwoman and The Cavalier in this 56-page, $5 one-shot.

Batman Confidential #50: Hey, Batman Confidential, the Batman monthly you were most likely to forget DC was even still publishing, has made it all the way to issue 50! For comparison’s sake, Superman Confidential lasted just 13 issues; the similar JSA: Classified lasted 39 issues, and JLA: Classified lasted 54 issues, which Batman Confidential is on its way to surpassing. This is an oversized $5 book featuring the first of a five-part story by writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Jerry Bingham.

DC Comics Presents: Chase: In 1998, writer D. Curtis Johnson and artists J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray launched a new ongoing monthly about Cameron Chase, a government agent with the Department of Extranormal Affairs, a made-up agency charged with monitoring and policing the super-people in the DCU. The publisher and creators seemed to do everything right—introducing the character in an issue of Batman, regularly featuring established guest-stars, tying in to the big crossover event of the moment (DC One Million), in addition to great writing and even better art—but it only lasted ten issues. While it shouldn’t be too hard to track down a full run in back-issue bins, DC’s new Presents line is making it easier by collecting some of it for the first time in DC Comics Presents: Chase, featuring issues in which our heroine tries to discover Batman’s secret identity and we learn of the prominent role in her life that a man dressed as a bat once played. I’m not sure why they aren’t just collecting this whole series in a pair of issues  instead of jumping around, but whatever—these are good comics, and cheap, too.  Also out this week is DC Comics Presents: The Flash/Green Lantern: Faster Friends, collecting a 1997 two-part series featuring Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Alan Scott and Jay Garrick (although I think the late Hal Jordan and Barry Allen pop up via flashback, too) by Ron Marz, Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Bart Sears, Van Semeiks, Ron Lim, Andy Smith and Tom Grinderberg. Both books are 96-pages for $8 a pop.

Classic Jurassic Park Vol. 1: Not only is IDW publishing new Jurassic Park comics, they’re also re-publishing the old stuff. This $18, 100-page collection features the original 1993, Topps-published adaptation by Walt Simonson, Gil Kane and George Perez. I believe it’s a comic adaptation of a film adaptation of a prose novel, and while that sounds a bit…murky, you can’t really go wrong with Kane and Perez drawing dinosaurs, can you? Topps published over 30 issues of Jurassic Park comics in the ‘90s, so there should be plenty of material for future volumes as well.

Fiends of the Eastern Front: Sure, it seems inevitable that the current vampire bubble is going to bust at some point, but this isn’t the story that’s going to do it, as this is a new edition of a 2000 AD story that’s been reprinted a few times already. It’s by David Bishop, Carlos Ezquerra, Gerry Finley-Day , Colin MacNeil and Dan Abnett, and about a German WWI soldier fighting alongside a…special unit of Romanian soldiers. What makes them so special? Well, they’re really good at night-fighting, seem all-but-unkillable fy conventional methods and don’t seem to eat…food. This is a $15, 95-page trade.

Kill Shakespeare Vol. 1: Trade-waiters need wait no longer for Conor McCreery, Anthony del Col and Andy Belanger’s “crossover event” featuring William Shakespeare’s greatest heroes and villains sharing narrative space. It’s a $20, 150-page trade paperback collecting the first chunk of the still ongoing series.

Ozma of Oz #1: The Eric Shanower/Skottie Young creative team tackles their third L. Frank Baum Oz book in another eight-issue, $4-per-issue series.

Strange Tales II #2: Jaime Hernandez draws Scarlet Witch, Sue Storm and The Wasp turning villainous heads at the beach on the cover of the latest issue of Marvel’s “Let’s get a bunch of talented folks who don’t normally work on Marvel comics to work on some Marvel comics!” anthology project.

Superboy #1: Essex County and Sweet Tooth cartoonist Jeff Lemire teams up with artist Pier Gallo for a new Superboy ongoing series set in Smallville, the first Superboy series since the 1994 series ended with issue #100 way back in 2002. Will it be any good? I don’t know, but Lemire at least has a pretty good track record when it comes to writing stories about young people on farms. You can see a preview here.

Taro and The Magical Pencil Vol. 1: This kids manga by Sango Morimoto about a boy with a  magic pencil who can turn into a cartoon dog and entrer the comic book world of funny animals characters he created looks pretty promising. Publisher Viz has another interesting looking kids manga out this week as well, Panda Man to the Rescue by Sho Makura, featuring a roly poly panda superhero trying to thwart thieves in New Milk City.  Both are $8, 100(-ish)-page digests.

Women of Marvel #1: Is it just me, or does dressing various Marvel heroines in burlesque outfits actually make them look a bit more fully-dressed than when they’re wearing their usual outfits?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 3:11 pm and is filed under 'Twas The Night Before Wednesday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.