And that’s exactly why Grimlock was not invited to guest-edit IDW’s $20, 145-page Transformers: The Best of Grimlock collection.
Well that, and the fact that he’s not real, of course.
Amazing Spider-Man #649: You know what Spider-Man comics need right now, more than anything? More goblins. So be sure to check out this issue, which introduces the new look for the Hobgoblin, who may or may not be a new person under the hood. It’s by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos and company, and will cost you $4.
Batman and Robin #17: Here’s something I’ve never been able to understand—why doesn’t dccomics.com ever update it’s preview information regarding comic books when it drastically changes? I know it’s a pain to do so, but it can’t be that hard to update that stuff, can it? Today’s example is Batman and Robin #17, which, according to one page on dccomics.com, is the debut issue of the brand-new creative team of Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason. But another part of the same site, The Source blog, has a post about how this issue is the previously announced first issue of Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel’s three-issue fill-in arc, which stalls for time while Tomasi and Gleason gear up for the start of their run. Entirely different content from entirely different people seems like the sort of thing that might merit a correction in the comics catalog portion of the site, doesn’t it? I know I’d be awfully irritated if I picked up a book expecting to see Gleason’s pencils and ended up with McDaniels’ (although, to be fair, the fill-in arc looks pretty good too). UPDATE: DC did update the information in their solicitations section sometime Tuesday, so feel free to ignore my griping above.
Batwoman #0: After a good four years of dilly-dallying—plans for an ongoing were announced shortly after Batwoman first appeared in 52, remember—DC finally pulls the trigger on the long-in-development title. The final version is being both illustrated and written by J.H. Williams III, with W. Haden Blackman co-writing and, for this $4 first issue, Amy Reeder helping out with the art. With Williams and Reeder involved, you can bet that no matter what, it’s at least going to be a gorgeous looking book.
Boy Commandos By Joe Simon and Jack Kirby: One day soon, everything Jack Kirby has ever drawn for DC will be available in one of these big, $50 collections. And you know what that means? It’s only a matter of time before DC collects Kirby’s various Super Powers comics from the ‘80s. In the meantime, here’s 260-pages of Simon and Kirby’s Nazi-fighting, international kid gang, from the pages of TEC, World’s Finest and their own Boy Commandos book.
Conan The Cimmerian #25: It’s the oversized final issue of Tim Truman and Tomas Giorello’s adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s story “Iron Shadows in The Moon,” and the final issue of this particular Conan comic (Don’t worry; the same creative team will return in a new Conan title next year). You can check out a preview here. For more of Dark Horse doing Howard, this week also sees the release of Kull: The Hate Witch #1, by David Lapham and Gabriel Guzman. Preview here.
Deadpool #29: Great job with the schedule, guys! In the Deadpool (just “Deadpool”) book, writer Daniel Way concludes a three-issue story arc involving Doctor Bong (Props to Dave Johnson for coming up with a cover that’s probably the most elegant image of the character ever put to paper). In the $4 Deadpool Pulp #3, Mike Benson, Adam Glass and Laurence Campbell continue their reimagining of the character for Marvel’s Noir/Pulp-iverse. And in Deadpool Team-Up #887 (Ha ha it’s funny because it’s confusing!) writer Rob Williams and artist Humberto Ramos pair Marvel’s most ubiquitous character up with their next most ubiquitous character, Thor.
Detective Comics #871: American Vampire writer Scott Snyder debuts as the new writer for the still-$4-for-30-pages TEC, with The Losers’ Jock illustrating the Batman feature story and Francesco Francavilla illustrating the Commissioner Gordon back-up. This book’s going to be going through a bit of a transition, as DC says goodbye to this particular format, but those are two incredible artists who are ver welcome in Gotham City, which should make these stories one to watch out for, wherever and however they ultimately get released.
Salimba: This 95-page, $10 trade collects every one of writer Steve Perry and Paul Chadwick’s comics starring a mysterious jungle girl adventurerer.
Stan Lee’s The Traveler #1: Boom releases the second of their suite of Stan Lee-created superhero comics, this one featuring a mysterious, time-traveling hero in book written by Mark Waid and drawn by Chad Hardin.
Thunderstrike #1: I thought the new Thunderstrike series was starting this week, but I guess not—
So what’s Thunder Trike, exactly?
Teleny and Camille: This 250-page, $30 hardcover from Northwest Press is cartoonist on Jon Macy’s comics adaptation of an 1893 erotic prose novel popularly attributed to Oscar Wilde and his peers. You can read the entire first 32-page chapter here.
Ultimate Spider-Man #150: Ultimate Spider-Man goes back to its old numbering for it’s one-hundred-and-fiftieth issue, so you can scratch one more thing off the list of Things Ultimate Comics Weren’t Supposed To Do that it ended up doing. This special issue is going to be $6 for over 100 pages, including a generous amount of reprint material. David La Fuente and Skottie Young provide the art, and the script is of course by Brian Michael Bendis, who also wrote the previous 149 issues.
