These are the times that try a fan’s soul, or at least a fan’s wallet—starting tomorrow, DC and Marvel will both have big, linewide crossover/event/unified branding storylines going simultaneously. Marvel’s Fear Itself started a few weeks ago, and now DC’s Flashpoint, a Blackest Night-like event launches with Flashpoint #1.
Geoff Johns is writing, And Kubert is drawing, and the premise is that Flash foe the Reverse-Flash has messed with the time stream enough to create a radically altered DCU. IT’s a 40-page, $4 issue.
This week also sees the release of Flash #12, the conclusion of a story arc entitled “The Road To Flashpoint,” which presumably has something to do with Flashpoint. Johns writes that as well, with Francis Manapul on art.
What else is out this week? Let’s take a look together, shall we?
Batman Incorporated #6: This is the issue with Chief Man-of-Bats riding a buffalo on the cover. If for some reason you need to know more than that, the main page has a preview.
Batman: Arkham City #1: This is the first issue of a five-issue miniseries based on the Batman videogames, meant to bridge the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and the upcoming Batman: Arkham City. Paul Dini is writing, and Carlos D’Anda is handling the art.
Deadman Vol. 1: This $20, 180-page trade collects Strange Adentures #205-213, the original Deadman comics stories from the late ‘60s. Aside form introducing the character, these issues are probably best known for Neal Adams’ art. He illustrates much of this collection, but the other creators involved are no slouches either: Arnold Drake, Carmine Infantino, George Roussos and others.
Devil’s Concubine: Writer/artist Palle Schmidt’s original graphic novel is a crime/noir sort of deal involving two hitmen in a job gone bad in Europe. It’s an $18, 100-page trade paperback, and you should be able to spot it pretty easily—just look for the Peter Snejbjerg cover.
Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt #1: The Gravity creative team of Sean McKeever and Mike Norton re-team for this six-issue miniseries, in which the original Avengers Initative graduating class, Firestar and, of course, Gravity get involved in the line-wide events of the Marvel universe.
Hellboy: Being Human: Is there an issue of a Hellboy-related comic every single week, or does it just seem like it? Here’s this week’s—Mike Mignola and Richard Corben team-up for a Hellboy and Roger team-up in this one shot.
Jew Gangster: Andy Kubert is drawing DC’s most heavily promoted comic of the week, but what’s his dad up to? Two graphic novels, this week. Jew Gangster details the story of a young Jewish man who falls in with the wrong crowd in Depression-era New York, and winds up embroiled in a mob war. And in Yossel, the comics master asks and answers the question of what might have happened if his family never emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1926. Both are $15,145-page, black-and-white trades.
Mega Man #1: The classic videogame hero returns to comics, this time in a new ongoing series from Archie Comics. If they do 1/100th of the job they did on their Sonic The Hedgehog comics with it, it should turn out pretty awesome.
Missing Linx: Dale Mettam and Courtney Huddleston have a pretty great high concept premise here: A “superhero team” consisting of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Skunk Ape and the Yeti. It’s a 70-page, $8 trade.
Moriarity #1: Daniel Corey and Anthony Diecidue launch a new ongoing series from Image Comics, in which Sherlock Holmes’ archenemy has outlived the great detective, and is no doubt going to get into some bad guy hijinx.
May 11th, 2011 at 12:46 am
The Batman, Inc. with the Chief Man-of-Bats and Raven Red cover is actually next month’s issue, issue 7, it was moved, and the solicits never changed to reflect that. DC’s Blog posted the corrected cover and a new blurb when the posted the preview pages Monday morning, it read:
“Wayne Enterprises’ latest press conference is interrupted by a strange new gang led by a villain calling himself “Emoticon-Man” – and Red Robin is appointed as the leader of the Batman Inc. stealth team (better known as The Outsiders) in the next chapter of Grant Morrison’s globe-spanning Batman epic.”
May 11th, 2011 at 9:40 am
Flash 12 was also done (mostly) by Scott Kolins. And as above fot the Batman inc.
Whats happened to the drawings dude?!
I’m surprised Chew doesn’t get a mention for the bizarre numbering!
7 issues for me this week.
May 11th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Ronnie,
Oh. It boggles my mind DC doesn’t have someone to update their solicitation info for them. I guess I’d go in and fix my post about their releases this week, but if THEY don’t care, I don’t either. (thanks for the correction though)
Ian,
Our image-uploading thingee has been busted for a few weeks now. There’s a way to upload images still, but they come out pretty wonky-looking, as you may have noticed, and I don’t want to bother with the drawings if they’re not going to be presentable anyway. Like, the drawing quality, lettering and joke-quality is already pretty, um, lo-fi, why format them poorly too? They’ll return as soon as our IT people figure out what’s what with the whatchamacallit.