A-Team War Stories: B.A. #1: This prequel to this summer’s A-Team movie is a solo spotlight on B.A. Baracus, featuring a script by Chuck Dixon and Erik Burnham, art by Casey Maloney and a cover by Michael Gaydos. (I would have preferred a cover by Brandon Bird, but no one asked me). It’s a $4 book.

Blackest Night #8: This is it, the grand finale of DC’s long-running event comic series thing. And, despite Tom Brevoort’s November prediction, it looks like it’s going to be wrapping up before Siege does.

Cloak and Dagger #1: This $4 one-shot by Stuart Moore and Mark Brooks follows-up on what the duo’s up to after having quit the Dark X-Men and joined the mutant populace of Utopia. Preview here.

The Creeper by Steve Ditko: This $40, 255-page hardcover collection looks similar in format to all those nice Jack Kirby-related collections DC’s been pumping out over the last few years. This one collects six issues of Beware The Creeper, and stories from World’s Finest, Showcase and a 1st Issue Special.

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Aliens: More than Human: After giving their licensed comics adaptations of the sci-fi horror film franchise a bit of a rest, Dark Horse brought the aliens from the Aliens movies back last year with this miniseries by John Arcudi, Zach Howard and Mark Irwin. Now that miniseries itself is back, in the form of a $16, 96-page trade paperback. Preview here.

Animal Crackers: A Gene Luen Yang Collection: If you’re anything like me (you poor devil), then for a split-second you thought this was a graphic novel adaptation of the early Marx Brothers play and got super-excited…only to have your hopes dashed a split-second after that, when the sub-title revealed that it’s not…and then you got super-excited again when you processed that sub-title and realized this meant more work from the author of American Born Chinese and The Eternal Smile. This is a collection of Yang’s early work, in the form of a $15, 215-page trade paperback.

Avengers: The Initiative #34: Plenty of Siege tie-ins available this week. Taking them alphabetically, there’s Christos Gage, Jorge Molina and Brian O’Dell’s story of Taskmaster versus a Captain America in Asgard, plus Dan Slott, Khoi Pham and Nestor Pereyra’s Mighty Avengers #35, Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen and company’s New Avengers #63, Kieron Gillen, Billy Tan and Kirk Jarvinen’s Thor #608 and Jeff Parker and Wellinton Alves’ Thunderbolts #142. Whew! NA is a $4 book, the rest are all $3.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #15: I hate to ever bet against Batman, especially in his own book, but his chances of winning this particular match-up don’t seem all that great.

Maybe Batman can take advantage of some sort of tortoise-and-the-hare situation?

Black Blizzard: Drawn and Quarterly continues their collection and republication of gekiga in general and the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi in particular with this $20, 155-page graphic novel-length story from the young Tatsumi (circa the late‘50s). It’s a crime story about a young piano player accused of murder and handcuffed to a career criminal.

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American Vampire #1: The presence of Stephen King is definitely the big draw of this new Vertigo series about a new species of solar-powered vampires, so big ups to Vertigo for going with a nicely designed cover by artist Rafael Albuquerque instead of slapping a gigantic “STEPHEN KING Presents: STEPHEN KING’s American Vampire by STEPHEN KING and Friends” on the front of the book. This first issue, like the next four, will be over-sized and feature two stories. King and Albuquerque are joined by writer Scott Snyder. It’s a $4 book.

Avengers: Standoff: How big a deal is Geoff Johns these days? Big enough that Marvel, the company he’s not working for and whose editors and creators are always complaining about DC’s efforts to promote Johns’ books and events, are publishing a fancy-schmancy $25 hardcover collecting a bit of his short Avengers run…with “Geoff Johns” taking up as much cover real estate as the “Avengers” logo.  Collected within the book’s pages are a whole mess of 1998 Avengers books, by Johns, Mike Grell, Dan Jurgens, Alan Davis, Gary Frank and Ivan Reis.

Batman #697: Tony Daniel reveals the true identity of Black Mask II, who appeared during Daniel’s Battle for the Cowl miniseries. I hope it’s not Jason Todd again.

Batman International: This $18, 170-page trade paperback collects a trio of stories of Batman fighting crime in foreign locales. The Jim Lee cover image comes from the cover of last May’s Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight, a Mark Waid and Diego Olmos one-shot collected within. Also included are Alan Grant and Frank Quitely’s 1998 one-shot Batman: The Scottish Connection, and Grant and artist Arthur Ransom’s two-part 1993 Legends of the Dark Knight story “Tao.” None of these stories reinvent the Bat-wheel or anything, but they’re all quite solid and feature some great artwork.

The Brave and the Bold #32: Would the JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman announcement have been more exciting if it came before his run on Brave and the Bold which, while full of interesting pairings and risky stories, has mainly proved that he doesn’t really “get” any of the DC characters he’s written there so far? This one is another interesting pairing, Aquaman and Etrigan The Demon. We’ll see how it goes. Art by Jesus Saiz, as per usual.

Bunny Drop Vol. 1: This $13, 200 page trade paperback from Yen Press tells the story of a 30-something bachelor who adopts the seemingly mute young daughter of his grandfather, sired with a much younger woman and completely unknown to the rest of the family until after the grandfather’s funeral.

Dead@17 : The Witch Queen #1: Writer/artist Josh Howard kicks off a new four-part mini, this one billed as the franchise’s “PENULTIMATE CHAPTER.” I really love Howard’s artwork, but am ridiculously far behind on this series of miniseries. Maybe I’ll finally catch-up once it’s over.

Green Arrow #31: What’s next for Green Arrow Oliver Queen after shooting Prometheus in the face with an arrow? Judging by the cover of this issue, crying in a weird church with Justice Leaguer stained-glass windows. Writer J.T. Krul and artist Diogenes Neves lead GA down his post-Cry path, which includes being chased by his fellow teammates and revealing a secret that “will change his life and the lives of the people around him forever.” Hmm…he voted for Bush in 2000? His goatee is fake? He never really liked Hal Jordan?

Green Hornet: Year One #1: Time for a spin-off already? But Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet #1 just shipped like two weeks ago, and that’s only the first part of a six-part series!

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1: Marvel continues its efforts to make both Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente’s Hercules storyline and Jeff Parker’s Agents of Atlas story hard to follow by moving them both into a brand-new title…which is simply a two-issue miniseries. Why not just have two more issues of Incredible Hercules? I don’t know; I’m not in comics publishing.  Anyway, the immortal Olympian god Hercules totally died in the last issue of Inc Herc, and the mourning starts here! Since this is Pak and Van Lente, there will hopefully be more than just crying and eulogies going on. Also, there’s an AoA back-up as well, justifying that $4 price tag.

Nation X #4: One word: Doop!

Ristorante Paradiso: This $13, 175-page manga from Natsume Ono (Not Simple) tells the tale of a mother/daughte reunion and romance in and around a little restaurant in Rome.

Siege #3: It’s the penultimate issue of the four-part miniseries which is not only the, um, “THE MARVEL BLOCKBUSTER OF THE YEAR!!” but, you know, the one which depicts “the greatest battle ever seen: SIEGE!!” Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, still doing their thing. Also in Siege-related events this week, there’s Brian Reed, Chris Samnee and company’s Siege: Embedded #3 and Bendis, Mike Deodato and company’s Dark Avengers #15.

Wonder Woman Chronicles Vol. 1: Hooray! This is the release of the week as far as I’m concerned, one of by asking after for quite a while now. Like the Superman and Batman Chronicles collection programs, this will collecting all of Wondy’s adventures in chronological order. The original William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter Wonder Woman comics remain the very best Wonder Woman comics (in my not-so-humble opinion), and while there have certainly been great Wondy comics since, none have ever been this good. It’s $18 for 190 pages and includes material from All Star Comics, Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman #1. Please consider buying a copy, to encourage more volumes. Now I can finally quit asking for Wonder Woman Chronicles trades, and focus on asking after Plastic Man Chronicles and Captain Marvel Chronicles more loudly…

Amazing Spider-Man #623: Based on the “Villain Variant” of this issue, I would have guessed that this part of “The Gauntlet” storyline was introducing a new Spider-Man villain called The Lobster…

…but apparently that’s the new Vulture…? Mark Waid and Tom Peyer write this ish, Paul Azaceta pencils it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #33: Brad Meltzer, Georges Jeanty and Andy Owens continue their “Twilight” arc of Buffy’s never-ending eighth season-as-a-monthly-comic-series, this issue “setting the stage for Twilight’s unmasking in Buffy #34!” Who is this mysterious adversary? I don’t know, but his identity is so shocking that just a glimpse of the back of his head is causing Buffy, Willow and Xander to completely freak out on the cover!

What’s that? You’re trade-waiting the series? Well then Dark Horse has some new Buffy for you this week too, in the form of the $16, 170-page Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 6: Retreat. Previews of each here and here.

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Avengers: The Initiative #33: Big week for Siege-ry at Marvel! In Christos Gage and Jorge Molina’s Initiative, half the cast joins the Dark Avengers to attack Asgard while the other half attack Camp H.A.M.M.E.R., and Marjorie Liu, Daniel Way and Guiseppe Camuncoli continue their story of Daken in Asgard in their Dark Wolverine #83. Meanwhile, Siege mastermind Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen pit the New Avengers against The Hood and his gang (What, again?!) in New Avengers #62, Kieron Gillen and Billy Tan check in with Asgard’s hometown hero in Thor #607 and, finally, Jeff Parker and Miguel Angel Sepulveda send the T-Bolts into Asgard in Thunderbolts #141.

Batman: King Tut’s Tomb: Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir provided a perfectly decent script for the three-issue Batman Confidential story arc collected within (in which a skinnier, scarier version of the live-action TV show villain makes his comics debut), but it’s Jose Luís García-López’s gorgeous pencil art, inked by the great Kevin Nowlan, that makes this a Batman story worth sitting up and paying attention to. To help fill out the 130-page, $15 trade, DC’s also including two issues of The Brave and the Bold and an issue of Batman, all featuring García-López drawing the Dark Knight in the early ‘80s.

Blackest Night #7: Oh hey, Blackest Night is just about over now, isn’t it? Seems like it’s been going on forever now, and that it was always going to be going on, but here we are at the penultimate chapter. It’s a $4 book, but should be oversized. Two other Blackest Night tie-ins hit shops this week as well. James Robinson, Eddy Barrows and Nei Ruffino finish up their three issue Blackest Night: JSA series, and J.T. Krul and Will Conrad’s Green Arrow #30 is a $4, over-sized look at what Black Lantern Green Arrow was up to between the panels in the main Blackest Night series.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam #13: You can’t tell from the cover, which is by Byron Vaughns, but this is Mike Norton’s debut issue as the new artist on the all-ages series. Norton seems to have re-calibrated his art a bit for the new book, and it looks pretty great. I’m definitely eager to see what he brings to the creative team hiccup plagued book.

Classic G.I. Joe Vol. 7: The latest of IDW’s big, fat trades repackaging Marvel’s original, Larry Hama-scripted G.I. Joe comics run is a $25, 230-page trade including #61-#70. My inner eight-year-old sincerely thanks IDW, and hopes they continue collecting these…it saves my outer thirty-three-year old a lot of time looking through back issue boxes.

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Did you hate the little cartoons I used to do to kick this column off each week? Then good news! I just lost access to the scanner I used to use to send them into the Internet, and probably won’t be able to upload any for awhile (Unless there are any millionaires in the reading audience who would like to buy me a scanner of my own). Did you like them? Oh. Well, then I guess it’s bad news.

But whether there are colored pencil drawings of dubious quality or not, it’s still the night before Wednesday, which means it’s time to take our weekly look at what’s coming out this week. Ready?

Almost Silent: This 300-page, $25 hardcover collects a quartet of one-named comics creator Jason almost silent works, including several that have been out of print for a while. You Can’t Get There from Here, Tell Me Something, Meow, Baby and The Living and the Dead are all included, and that last one’s got zombies in it…you all still like zombies, right? This should look fine sitting next to Low Moon on a bookshelf.

Dark Avengers #14: This week’s Siege tie-in, and it’s…kind of a big deal, I think? I don’t know, the solicitation sounds like free verse poetry to me: “Is this a hero reborn or a eulogy?” It also promises “the most pivotal moment” in The Sentry’s life, so that’s something. It’s by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato, and it will cost you four bones. If you’re a little behind on your Dark Avengers and need to get caught up, this week also sees the release of the second collection of the series so far, Dark Avengers Vol. 2: Molecule Man is a $20, 110-page hardcover collecting #9-#12 of the hit series.

Devil #1: Madhouse, the anime studio responsible for Trigun, Ninja Scroll and Paprika, are producing this four-issue, Western-style (i.e. not manga) comic book series. Torajiro Kishi is the writer/artist, and the premise is a new take on vampires. It should definitely be worth a look. Preview here.

DC Universe Origins: Hey remember those neat little two-page origin stories that appeared in the back of 52 and Countdown? Well DC’s gathered them all up into a single $15, 145-page trade paperback. Mark Waid, Scott Beatty and Len Wein wrote ‘em, and they were drawn by a who’s who roster of artists, many of them perfectly suited to the subject. There should be about 50 characters covered, everyone from Animal Man to Zatanna, according to the solicitation.

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As many of you are no doubt already aware, vengeful snow gods focused their wrath on Diamond HQ this week, temporarily destroying them and making their webiste un-look-at-able. This coincided with the time I normally put this column together, so there’s an even higher likelihood than normal that mistakes have been made. Also, no cartoon this week as, um, my colored pencils were buried in an avalanche, maybe…?

Anyway, here are some of the books coming out this week–provided your local comic shop hasn’t been buried under one million feet of snow…

The Anchor Vol. 1: I’ve really enjoyed the first few single issues of Phil Hester and Brian Churilla’s lighthearted series about a mysterious monster-fighter who exists simultaneously on the earthly and infernal planes, and, if you haven’t sampled the series yet, this $10, 110-page trade paperback is a pretty perfect way to do so. If you’re already on board, the fifth, $4 issue of the series is also due in shops this week. So let’s see, $10 plus $4 equals…lemme get a piece of paper for this…$14! Just $14 and you’re all caught up!

Batman and Robin #8: It’s part two of Cameron Stewart’s (way too) brief run on Grant Morrison’s Batman title, in which we find out what happens after Batman Dick Grayson (“DickBats”) lets the corpse of Batman Bruce Wayne (“OB”) marinate in a Lazarus Pit. What’s weird about this storyline is the fact that there seems to be at least two sets of Batman’s remains, as Black Hand has been lugging Batman’s skull around throughout Blackest Night. If this story is set before Blackest Night, it’s possible that Dick re-buries Batman’s body in the unmarked grave that Black Hand dug it out of, which sort of spoils the resurrection aspect of this story, and then Black Hand also brings OB back to life temporarily. If it’s set after Blackest Night, then that means DickBats recovered Batman’s body and skull at the end of Blackest Night, put it in a vault, then decided to take it out of the vault and try to bring it back to life, after Black Hand temporarily restored OB to life. Either way, it seems a little silly that Batman has been brought back to life so often in so short a span of time. But who cares?! Cameron Stewart drawing DickBats, Batwoman and Knight and Squire fighting undead Batman! It looks like this.

The Brave and the Bold: Milestone: If last week’s Milestone Forever whet your appetite for more appearances by the Milestone characters, this collection of three issues of DC’s team-up title—featuring Black Lightning and Static, Blue Beetle and Hardware and The Spectre and Xombi—may be of interest. The $18, 160-page trade paperback is filled out by three issues of the Milestone characters’ original series.

The Choker #1: Artist Ben Templesmith and writer Ben McCool do noir. It’s a $4 comic, and you can see a ton of stuff about it here.

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Actually, the lamp that Radical Publishing’s Aladdin doesn’t have a singing, dancing, Robin Williams-sounding-like blue genie in it. Instead, it’s got a kinda scary-looking red djinn, which goes the entire first issue of Radical’s Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost without impersonating Ed Sullivan or Joan Rivers even once. The story is somewhat parallel to the more-familiar Disney version, given that they’re both built on the same skeleton of a story, but Radical’s is obviously a bit more serious and grim, replacing funny animals with cool-looking monsters.

Ian Edington writes, Patrick Reilly draws (with Stjepan Sejic joining him next issue), and it’s $5 for 64 musical number-free pages. What else is due out this week, and will any of those books have musical numbers in them? Join me after the jump for the answer to the first question…as to the second, I won’t know until I read the rest of ‘em, but I’m guessing none of ‘em do.

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Afrodisiac: I could have sworn this had already came out, but there it is on the Diamond shipping list for this week’s releases. Well, this is Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s gorgeous original graphic novel (of sorts) dedicated to the title character, a sort of What If…Luke Cage Were a Pimp with Pheromone Super-Powers? story told in a variety of styles. Guest-starring Dracula, Hercules, Death and Richard Nixon. It’s $16 for a 96-page hardcover. Even if you don’t buy it, make sure you at least pick it up and flip through it this week, as it is one beautiful book—wonderfully designed and full of eye-candy artwork. You can see a preview here.

Amazing Spider-Man #619: I hereby move that Marvel re-title this comic book The Amazing Marcos Martin (Featuring Spider-Man). This is part two of Martin and writer Dan Slott’s Mysterio story.

Avengers: The Initiative #32: Marvel’s “superhero army” the Initiative find themselves fighting alongside the Dark Avengers against the forces of Asgard, and the solicitation makes it sound like some of the cast won’t survive. Given the minor Marvels and new characters that have always made up the team, that sounds likely and, in fact, that’s always been one of the more exciting aspects of the title—the characters always seemed more highly mutable (and expendable!) than those in most other Marvel books. Christos Gage writes and Mahmud Asrar draws. The other Siege books of the week are New Avengers #61, a $4 installment of Siege mastermind Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen’s ongoing, and Siege: Storming Asgard—Heroes and Villains, a $4 book that sounds like something between a book of profiles on the major players and some behind-the-scenes material.

Batman and Robin #7: Grant Morrison is joined by another new artistic collaborator as a third story arc begins—his Seaguy and Manhattan Guardian collaborator Cameron Stewart. (Hooray!) This arc is entitled “Blackest Knight” and will guest-star The Knight, The Squire and Batwoman.

Batman: Under The Cowl: This $18, 145-page trade paperback collects stories Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Chuck Dixon, Bill Willingham, Doug Moench, Andy Kubert, Mike McKone, Graham Nolan, Tom Fowler, Mike Gustovich and others. The theme is apparently Batman comics in which people-other-than-Bruce Wayne are in the Bat-costume, including Jean-Paul Valley, Dick Grayson, Damian al Ghul, Tim Drake and Terry McGinnis. Most of these stories have been collected elsewhere, and are chapters in bigger, longer narratives rather than standalone stories, but it’s not a bad sampler of various Batman creative teams over the course of the last two decades.

Captain America: Reborn #6: Weeks after other books spoiled the (admittedly, foregone conclusion of an) ending, the story of the original Cap’s rebirth sees completion. It’s by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch, and will run you $4.

Green Lantern #50: This looks like a fairly big week for DC’s Blackest Night event. The book the event spun out of hits a big anniversary number, and writer Geoff Johns (who wrote the last 49) and current art team Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy celebrate with an over-sized, $3.99 issue. Johns also pens this week’s back-from-the-dead issue of Atom and Hawkman, featuring art by Ryan Sook and co-stars who are now on two different Lantern Corps. And, finally, James Robinson and Eddy Barrows continue their three-part story of what the JSA has been up to during all this in Blackest Night: JSA#2.

Justice League: Cry For Justice #6: James Robinson and Mauro Cascioli’s hilariously behind schedule miniseries staggers one more ponderous step towards its seventh and final issue. How comically behind schedule is Cry? Well, it’s set before Blackest Night, which is five-sevenths over, and the last three issues of JLoA have been set after the events of Cry‘s last chapter. (By the way, does that mean JLoA #41, which also ships this week and features the debut of the new line-up, will be the first DC book set after Blackest Night wraps up…?) Both JLoA and Cry are $4, although Cry‘s page count will, if the past five issues or any indication, include pages of prose back-matter to reach the 40-page page count indicated on dccomics.com

Kick Ass #8: It still boggles my mind that they managed to make a whole movie in the time it took Mark Millar and the usually speedy John Romita Jr. to produce eight issues of a comic book.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and The Avengers: While technically accurate, the title is perhaps a bit misleading. This $10, 95-page digest collects four issues of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes, only one of which features a Spider-Man team-up (With Tigra and She-Hulk, versus The Leader). Other heroes appearing include The Hulk, Hawkeye, Spider-Woman, Giant Girl, The Beast and The Blond Phantom. All four stories are written by Paul Tobin, and the art comes courtesy David Baldeon, Marcelo Dichiara, Denis Medri and Amilcar Pinna.

Robocop #1: Robocop is back again…again! This time Dynamite Entertainment is publishing the adventures of the half man, half mahine, all cop hero, and they’ve got Rob Williams writing and Fabiano Neves drawing.

Sword #21: Hey, I thought Marvel just canceled this…?

Teen Titans #79: Oh hey, remember how DC was integrating the Milestone Universe into the DC Universe? Whatever happened with that? Well, in this issue Static and his Titans teammates return to Dakota with him, in a story by the title’s apparently occasional “regular” writer Felicia D. Henderson and the art team of Joe Bennett and Jack Jadson. It’s a $4 book, but comes with the usual Ravager back-up.

Ultimate Comics Enemy #1: Apparently not content with writing one line-wide crossover event for Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis is also scrpting an Ultimate Comics event story, the universe’s first since it was relaunched post Ultimatum as “Ultimate Comics.” The solicitation is basically meaningless gibberish, so no guess as to what it’s about, beyond there being some kind of, you know, enemy involved. It’s going to be drawn by Rafa Sandoval, feature a cover by Ed McGuinness and carry the Ultimate Comics pricetag of $4.

Remember back when it seemed like Stan Lee was the only person “presenting” comics stories? This week’s New Comic Day releases features all sorts of people “presenting” comics. Bluewater Production, the publisher most famous for celebrity bio comics, will have William Shatner Presents Tek War #5, Vincent Price Presents #14 and Roger Corman Presents Black Scorpion #2 on shelves this week.

What are some of the other publishers presenting for your possible consumption? Let’s take a look, after the jump.

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Well it looks like the Predators from Predator and the Aliens from Alien are at it again. This week Dark Horse launches a new six-issue miniseries about the two warring races, the Tom and Jerry of sci-fi horror franchises. It’s entitled Aliens Vs. Predator: Three World War, it’s written by Randy Stradley, it’s drawn by Rick Leonardi and Mark Pennington and it’s preview-able here.

I assume they’ll be settling their differences in the usual ways: Stabbing, biting, shooting and acid saliva dripping upon, although I hold out hope that one day Dark Horse will publish a series where Aliens and Predator compete in a planet vs. planet version of the Olympic games. Which is why I drew the Alien bobsled team above. Their aerodynamic heads make it one of their race’s better winter sports, I bet.

Speaking of things that go downhill, join me after the jump for a look at what else is due in comic shops this week.

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Aw Jimmy Woo (Oh, that guy on the far left is supposed to be Jimmy Woo, by the way), why do you have to spoil Ken “Gorilla Man” Hale’s fun? If Marvel Boy doesn’t mind having a miniseries with the word “Uranus” in the title, why not let him? Anyway, it looks like everyone finally agreed to Marvel Boy: The Uranian as the title of Grayson’s miniseries, even though it is far less hilarious than anything that sounds like “your anus.” It’s written by Agents of Atlas mastermind Jeff Parker, penciled by Felix Ruiz and weighs in at 48-pages for to justify it’s $3.99 price tag. Some of those pages will be reprints of classic, 1950s stories featuring the character, drawn by Bill Everett and Russ Heath! I think that officially makes this the biggest, most exciting Marvel Comics release of the week, right? What could possibly be bigger or more exiciting?

Let’s see if Marvel (or anyone else) can top Heath and Everett-drawn Marvel Boy stories, after the jump.

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This promises to be my most thorough rundown of what new books will be shipping this Wednesday ever, as I think I’ll be able to cover every single new release, on account of there being next to no new books at all.

As you’ve probably heard a long time ago, Diamond’s taking this week off for the holidays, so the only new books will be a couple of books that actually shipped to shops last week, but were embargoed until their street date of tomorrow, December 29.

For those of us addicted to new comic books each Wednesday, that’s kind of a bummer, but, on the bright side, it does offer a chance to spend your weekly comics allowance (and/or and Christmas money you may have gotten) on older books and graphic novels you’ve been meaning to check out when you have some extra cash to spare. I’m sure your local comics shop staffs will be even happier than usual to see you patronizing them this week.

Anyway, let’s take a quick look at the week in new comics…

Blackest Night #6: So here’s the official solicitation from dccomics.com in full: “The secrets of Nekron are revealed as darkness consumes the DC Universe. Everything else: TOP SECRET.” So, not a lot to go on, really. It’s still by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert and, when we last left our beleaguered DC superheroes, they were facing Nekron, his army of undead superheroes, the zombies of everyone who died in Coast City and the surprisingly be-Black Lantern-ed heroes who died by came back to life in the past (Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow I, etc). This is #6 of #8, too, so things really oughta be heating up about now. It’s $4 for about 30 pages.

Fall of the Hulks Alpha #1: Normally I wouldn’t even bother mentioning a new printing of a book simply because  it has a variant cover, but hey, there’s not a whole heck of a lot out this week, so what the hell. Marvel has another version of the kick-off of their Hulks event by Jeff Parker and Paul Pelletier, featuring a new nap-time cover by Ed McGuinness:

Aw, look at all those jade giants and crimsons colossi…they’re just plum tuckered out after all that smashing!

Origins of Siege #1: Well, you can’t beat the price! Marvel.com doesn’t have a lot of details on this free giveaway book, but who’s going to complain? It’s free. As the title suggests, this is a promotional book hyping up their next big—and presumably final for a while liine-wide crossover series, including a new Loki story and origins of the major players in the series.

And that’s about it in terms of new or new-ish material, although you may want to check out the website for Indy Comic Book Week and see what your local shop may have ordered from those offerings, intended to take advantage of Diamond’s week off to get new books into the hands of readers jonesing for their weekly fix.

I suppose there isn’t much chance that that’s what Fall of the Hulks: Gamma #1 will be about, huh? The various Hulks all raking leaves, going for hay rides, hanging out at the high school football games and getting ready for the big dance? No, I think it’s probably simply the next part of the prelude to the next Hulk event, by regular Hulk writer Jeph Loeb and artist John Romita Jr. It’s $4, probably over-sized and, based on the cover, oughta feature just about every character in the Marvel Universe that you can loosely fit under the umbrella term of “Hulk.”

What else will be in shops on this, the last real New Comic Book Day of 2009? Let’s take a look, after the jump.

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Yes Flint Marko, the latest chapter of Amazing Spider-Man mega-arc “The Gauntlet” focuses on you, and Fred Van Lente and Javier Pulido are doing the creative honors. Maybe a Dream of The Endless wig, black cloak and raven aren’t quite the right look for you, but I think it’s high time you changed shirts, and thought about a less Osborn-y hair cut.

But enough about your sartorial choices…let’s see what the rest of this week’s new releases look like, after the jump.

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No, really. There is actually a one-shot coming out this week entitled Wolverine: Under the Boardwalk. It’s by Stuart Moore and Tomm Coker, and it’s about the same exact thing every Wolverine comic is about. Personally, I won’t be satisfied until they name one of these random Wolverine one-shots Wolverine: Slush Pile.

More comics set for release this week, most of which have less-goofy titles, after the jump.

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It may be the night before Wednesday, but this week Tuesday night might as well be Monday night, seeing as how tomorrow isn’t New Comic Book Day after all. I hate when that happens…makes me wish I knew a time-traveling superhero who could take me back in time to vent my frustrations on the original cause of the new comic shipping delay.

Of course, if I could time-travel, I guess I could just skip ahead to Thursday and read my new comics…

Anyway, join me after the jump for a look at some of the books coming out this week…on Thursday, not Wednesday. (Assuming you live in the U.S. If not, I have no idea what’s going on where you are).

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Not only is tonight the night before Wednesday, it’s also the night before the night before Thanksgiving. Here in America, that’s a very special holiday, on which we commemorate one of the founding myths of our society. Each fourth Thursday of November we remember that terrible first year of Solomon Kane’s in the New World, during which the vengeful, bad-ass puritan was unable to make his crops grow, no matter how many times he stabbed them, shot them and called them sinners.

When the harvesting season had almost passed, it was beginning to look like Kane might starve to death, but thankfully Turok, Son of Stone arrived with enough pterodactyl meat to save Kane. Ever since, we’ve gathered together with our loved ones to eat the closet thing to pterodactyl meat we can find.

What comics can we look forward to re-reading in the corner at our family gatherings instead of making small talk with our extended families this Thanksgiving? Let’s take a look at some of them, after the jump!

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I haven’t read Superman/Batman in a while, but then, they haven’t eschewed the World’s Finest team and instead used Bizarro and Man-Bat instead yet. They’ll give it a try in tomorrow’s Superman/Batman #66, in which the two characters will contend with Black Lantern Solomon Grundy. It’s going to be written and drawn by Scott Kolins, who recently completed a little-read Solomon Grundy miniseries. I hope it’s good. What else is there to hope for this week? Let’s find out below, after the jump!

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Cyborg’s name never strikes me as all that boring and prosaic until I hear it next to the name of another cyborg comic character, like Deathlok, who has one of the most metal names in the Marvel character catalog. Deathlok returns this week in Deathlok #1, the first part of a new, seven-issue Max series written by Charlie Huston and penciled by Lan Medina. Cyborg, on the other hand, seems to have the week off, which is probably for the best–he won’t be getting shown up by Marvel’s more bad-ass cyborg.

Who else will be waiting to see you at the comics shop tomorrow? Join me after the jump to find out!

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