A review copy this week had an Aug. 12 embargo, which is why this Guide is later than usual.
MARVEL COMICS
X-FACTOR #1: X-Factor is re-formed as a government-sanctioned strike force, but it also looks like the book will take some pages from X-Statix, exploring the characters as social media influencers and celebrities. The core team appears to be Angel, Frenzy, Feral, Havok and Pyro, but there are some on the covers below that I can’t identify. Polaris will guest in the second issue, but not necessarily on good terms.
The co-leaders are Angel and Havok, which doesn't fill me with confidence.
Angel has always been boring, not just because his power is to be a target, but also because his civilian life is perfect. He's physically gorgeous, he's rich, he owns entire corporations, his parents are dead and can't tell him when to go to bed, he can eat ice cream whenever he wants -- it's like a 12-year-old boy's dream of adulthood. Marvel tried to angst him up with the whole Horseman/Archangel bit, but I never really warmed to that, and I don't know if any of it stuck.
I don't know what to make of Alex Summers. I wish they'd written him as a genuine little brother with genuine little brother problems -- I am one, and there's plenty of material to be mined. But comics -- all adventure stories, really -- always focus on the first-born. (And they all have great hair.) There was an opportunity there that was squandered, and instead writers flailed around with the character, sending him to a parallel world (and bringing him back), having him fall in love with a supervillain (and fall out again), having his face destroyed (and restored), killing him off (and bringing him back), and so forth. It's clear nobody has any idea how to write him. It's an IRL "heir and a spare" situation, with nobody ever really developing the redundant Summers brother in any meaningful way. So he's never had a personality. Things happen TO him, but he remains a cipher.
I'm not that excited by Feral, Frenzy or Pyro either. They're all pretty much C-list, AFAIC.
The good news is that all of these new X-books are pushing second bananas to the foreground, and so far it's worked pretty well. This one probably will, too. And the first cover has an homage to the Uncle Sam "I Want You" posters of World War II.
The "descending on a quarter moon" image on the second cover goes way back, at least as far as the late 1800s, when photographers used a paper moon as a prop. What probably planted it permanently in the pop culture zeitgeist, though, was very likely A Trip to the Moon, the 1902 silent movie where at one point a goddess descends on a quarter moon. That's my best guess, anyway.
A Trip to the Moon, 1902.
IRON FIST 50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1: Stories about various Iron Fists, Daughters of the Dragon and Wolverine. Yes, Wolverine. Chris Claremont is writing the story, so yep, Wolverine.
I want to say the first cover is an homage. The positioning and rendering of the lead figure seem really familiar. I'd even go so far as to say the original was by Rudy Nebres. But I've searched Iron Fist, Marvel Premiere, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu and Master of Kung Fu covers, and various permutations of "Rudy Nebres" and haven't found it.
ULTRAMAN X THE AVENGERS #1 (OF 4): I can think of a couple of Legionnaires who might really enjoy this.
Elsewhere at Marvel:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #55 homages The X-Men #137.
FANTASTIC FOUR #23: Marvel has begun a run of variant covers homaging the Golden Age for its 85th anniversary. This is the first one, harkening back to Marvel Mystery Comics #8.
A second one this week is VENOM #36, homaging Marvel Comics #1.
And for some reason, VENOM #36 also homages Amazing Spider-Man #129 this week.
IMMORTAL THOR #14 homages the Saturday Night Fever movie poster.
MILES MORALES SPIDER-MAN #23: Still a vampire. That’s going to be awkward in class.
SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY OMNIBUS VOL 1 HC: Relive the adrenaline jolt you felt when you realized that Marvel had erased 21 years of Spider-Man continuity!
SPIDER-BOY #10: Guest-starring the Spider-Society (see below). It also has an homage cover to Marvel Team-Up #12.
SPIDER-SOCIETY #1 (OF 4): A whole lot of Spider-people. And Spider-creatures. And Spider-machines. Animal-Vegetable-Mineral spiders. Short, fat, juicy spiders; itsy-bitsy spiders; fuzzy-wuzzy spiders. Red spiders, yellow spiders, spiders with feathers. Spiders who do whatever a spider can.
VENOM WAR: SPIDER-MAN #1 (OF 4): Nope.
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT RED BAND #1: Whether R-rated Marvel comics are a fad/gimmick or will be successful is too soon to say. But conceptually, I approve. In the Bronze Age, Marvel tried "horror" books like Man-Thing and Werewolf by Night, but did you notice that both titular characters kept accidentally being heroes? Man-Thing would always end up burning the bad guy, despite the good guys being equally terrified. And no matter what the werewolf did, it always ended up turning out all right, with bad guys getting comeuppance and innocents escaping. They were just superheroes in monster drag.
So I propose that these R-rated comics be true to their pre-Code horror roots, where genuinely terrible things happen. If I could read a Werewolf by Night without my former complacency, then I'd be riveted.
WOLVERINE ANNUAL #1: “Infinity Watch” Part Five.
DC COMICS
"Absolute Power" week 7:
ABSOLUTE POWER: TASK FORCE VIII #4 (OF 7): Finally, Amanda Waller does something about the Bat-family. You'd think she's have gone after them first! Anyway, in this issue Failsafe hunts Nightwing and his allies.
GREEN LANTERN #14: Last issue showed Hal Jordan escape his cell on Gamorra and discover troops unloading various technology, including what looked like a power ring. I thought this was alien tech, and that Hal had found his ring, but apparently all that materiel was technology from various super-villains (and maybe that was Sinestro's ring). Just the same, Jordan will use that tech to bring the war to Waller.
Elsewhere at DC:
ACTION COMICS #1068: This looks like it should be an homage cover, but the obvious choices weren't exact matches. I could swear I've seen this image before, with Robin in the Wonder Woman position. Anyway, I've been buying Action for the Lois Lane backup, so I'll be getting this one, too.
BATMAN AND ROBIN #12: Here's an homage to a 1970s Berni Wrightson cover. Man, I loved that cover when it first came out. This was back when covers showed something from the story inside, so a poster cover like this really stood out. Plus, you know, Wrightson! Now every cover is a poster cover, but in the Long Before Time this was a talker.
DC VS. VAMPIRES: WORLD WAR V #1 (OF 12): Damian Wayne's guerrilla vampires threaten to break the truce between Barbara Gordon, queen of the vampires, and Oliver Queen, leader of the humans. Man, when your team's only superhero is Green Arrow, you're in trouble. (And that Wonder Woman cover is terrifying.)
I would very much like an omnibus of the previous DC vs. Vampires maxiseries, please and thank you, DC.
HOUSE OF SECRETS #92 FACSIMILE EDITION: First appearance of Swamp Thing. Well, first appearance of "a" Swamp Thing. I have an original copy, and it's a short story about a prototype Swamp Thing that isn't "our" Swamp Thing at all. The character's name is close -- Alex Olsen -- but that's as close as it gets. The rest of the book is filled with other short "suspense" stories from 1971. Still, it's a historic story, with nice Berni Wrightson art.
IMAGE COMICS
FALLING IN LOVE ON PATH TO HELL #3: I've read a lot of praise for this title, and now that I've read the first three issues, I agree with it.
The premise is simple: When killers die, they wake up more or less alive on an island. It's purgatory, where they have to fight zombies of previous killers who have died (again) every night. A living killer who gets killed in this combat returns the next night with the other team (and presumably their soul moves on to perdition). The living killers are organized by one of their own, who -- as you'd expect -- is not an easy man to work for. Our story focuses on two specific killers from 1876-77, a Western gunfighter and a female samurai from the Satsuma Rebellion in Japan. Both die and end up on the island about the same time. Neither particularly likes the man in charge and are gearing up to go their own way. Yes, to justify the title, the two do admire each other's fighting skills, while not particularly liking each other; it's a slow burn to romance, and I find it utterly charming (and plausible) that the writer is stringing it out organically.
That preview below is from the first issue, but don't let that Star Wars-inspired cover fool you. It's nothing like Star Wars, with the interior art from the Denys Cowan school of scratchy, gritty rendering. I like Denys Cowan's art a lot -- I love his work on The Question and at Milestone -- but this may even be a step better.
HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY GN
Cops on the cult beat, Satanic Panic, insane killers in the shadows. Just another day at the office for Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, who almost never put a foot down wrong. I just hope Led Zeppelin doesn't file a cease and desist.
"Houses of the Unholy is something I've been describing as Satanic Panic Noir. It's somewhere in between a creepy horror story and a f*cked-up noir, and directly tied to the Satanic Panic craze of the '80s," Brubaker said. "The book really speaks to my obsessions with cult horror, and plays with the demonic tropes of classic horror from Hammer to Carpenter to Stephen King. The fear that was everywhere back then has clearly resurfaced, and that made me want to dive back into those dark waters and try to find a Brubaker-Phillips take on noir and horror at the same time."
POWER FANTASY #1: Interesting start.
The premise is that six people have been born after 1945, each with the power of the entire nuclear arsenal of the U.S. (Russia's is bigger, so maybe that would have been scarier.) There are actually lots of people born with power, who call themselves "The Atomics," or "The Nuclear Family," for what I'd guess are obvious reasons. Most have minor powers, but six of them are Godzillas. We join two of them in 1966 and get to know them -- Etienne is apparently a philosophy major who likes to discuss ethics. Valentina is an idealist. That's good, because that's why things haven't gone sideways yet (she apparently solved the Cuban Missile Crisis). Anyway, we have some conversations between two of them about what's the best way to keep the world from immolating itself. The Ethicist says that there's only two ways: Plan A, taking over the world, and Plan B, delicate balancing act. Valentina, who considers herself an angel, vetoes Plan A. This is good exposition, not ony telling us what the main characters are planning, but a lot about their personalities. And Etienne plans to reveal himself to the world.
We jump to 1999. A third superpower, named Brother Ray/Heavy, is bringing his floating city/commune over Manhattan. He says it will give Atomics in the city hope, and Etienne points out that it is an unspoken threat and demonstration of superiority to non-Atomics. Yes, Etienne is taking the Professor X position, but don't count on that -- he can "ethic" himself into any decision. We briefly meet the other three superpowers: Eliza (religious zealot), Masumi (artistic hermit) and Jacky/Magus (Illuminati kinda guy). The U.S. tries to take out Heavy. Consequences ensue.
I liked it. It's really talky, and liked to chew over various concepts a little too long, but I'm not complaining. Those concepts are pretty famliiar -- Godzilla, X-Men, Rising Stars -- but they're all mashed together and there are no direct parallels to any existing character. Plus there's a lot of alternate history that is referenced that we are not yet privy to. (Why does Etienne regret Tokyo? I guess we'll find out.)
This is also Watchmen in the sense of "what if superheroes actually existed?" But instead of one Dr. Manhattan, we have six, all in constant negotiation. If that doesn't make you nervous, I don't know what would.
SEX CRIMINALS THE COLLECTED LETTER DADDIES TP: Apparently the letters pages in Sex Criminals is felt worthy to be reprinted as a collection. "...every true story, every weird confession, every heart-wrenching tale of love, lust, loss, and longing, alongside every completely stupid sex tip Chip and Matt made up the night before the issues went to press." It might be the comic book equivalent of Penthouse Letters!
TRANSFORMERS #11
DARK HORSE
GILT FRAME #1: I didn't get too far on this one.
Mother-and-son writing team Margie and Matt Kindt write a whodunnit with an Agatha Christie-type detective team, who are aunt and nephew. It might be interesting, but it keeps digressing and by the fourth time the clock rolled back I decided it was too much. Maybe it's because Kindt is drawing the book in the "primitive" style many enjoy today (but I do not), and I can't tell who's who anyway. Or maybe because it was my birthday and I was impatient. Regardless, I gave up after "one week earlier" was followed by "years ago" was followed by "present day" was followed by "14 years ago." Is it too much to write the story in a semi-linear way so the reader doesn't have to re-write the exposition in his or her head as new information comes in? Geez, it's like being a Wolverine fan.
KILL ALL IMMORTALS #2
I enjoyed this less than I thought it would, because it's less than it seems. The premise is that Erik the Red and his four children are immortal (it has to do with Idunn). The one daughter doesn't enjoy the family business (plundering the world and killing anyone that gets in the way), and because the family wants to kill her current bf she goes to war with her brothers and father.
And what's in the first two issues? The above. Nothing surprised me in storyline or execution. The art, vaguely reminiscent of Bart Sears, isn't much to my taste. I really wanted to like this book, but so far it's just by the numbers.
MIDST #1: A lot happens in this first issue, so you have to keep turning those pages.
A bickering brother and sister crash land their airplane on an uncharted (and possibly newly born) island that eventually gets named Midst. That's because it's in the middle of an "Un" barony and "The Fold," with access to both. Evidently this world is run by warring baronies, and "un" is sometimes a synonym for "sun" (as in "unlight" and "undown") and sometimes seems to be some kind of geography. I don't have a much better grasp of The Fold, which is an area of darkness like in Shadows and Bone, which turns things that go into it into mutations, activated by any steady light (like a flashlight). The siblings meet some other castaways and they all decide to make a go of it, especially since the island seems stationary, i.e., does not rotate with the planet. (Assuming this planet rotates.) But then, suddenly, it does. Now the castaways have to deal with both "un light" and "fold dark." The siblings open the post office, Stationary Station, a pun that is now not entirely true. Also, the Fold makes the older brother float now.
Got all that? It's a lot, and I don't understand it all. Which means I'm still on the fence on whether I like it or not. I'll give it a few more issues before I decide.
TINY TINA'S WONDERLANDS: LAND OF GIANTS #1: Ties into the video games Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and Borderlands. Not my thing, but here's a preview to see if it's yours.
IDW PUBLISHING
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: NIGHTWATCHER #1
BOOM! STUDIOS
S.I.R. #1 (OF 5): Motorcycle jousting drawn in a manga style I don't care for. S.I.R. stands for Seismic Ironclash Roulette, which is a stretch. Here's a PREVIEW.
DYNAMITE
JONNY QUEST #1: This book made me feel 12 years old again. That's a good, good thing.
It takes a whole issue for the Quest team to realize they've been catapulted into the future, something most veteran comics fans probably realized in the FCBD book back in May. (It's a legitimate lead-in, so try to pick it up if you haven't already.) That's OK; the beloved '60s Jonny Quest cartoon was never a deeply clever puzzle box. It was well-written -- the characters were very well delineated -- but the focus was on action and adventure and wish fulfillment. Which this book has in spades. Joe Casey's story is a thrilling page turner, rushing by with the speed of ... well, a really good, 22-minute cartoon.
Speaking of time travel, here's an interesting bit: Despite the time travel, it's obvious the main characters are from the '60s. To these characters, 2004 is "decades in the future." Which surprised me a little, as I expected Casey to just update the show to the present. But it felt right. No complaints from this quarter. Will they return to the '60s after this initial storyline, or is Casey intending to keep them in the present to discover how the world has changed? Unknown, but I'll be there to find out.
And the art is perfect. No, it's not a Doug Wildey pastiche, but Sebastián Piriz's work is clean and clear and Wildey-esque. IOW, a well-drawn cartoon. The faces and body language and Benton Quest tech are perfect. It felt like the original Jonny Quest.
As someone who experienced the original animated Jonny Quest at the perfect age, this gets a huge thumb's up for me. And even if that weren't the case, this is a very well-done book that is "all ages" in the best sense of the term. Highly recommended.
P.S. The YouTube imbed code isn't working on my new computer, but here's an INTERVIEW WITH JOE CASEY.
MORE COMICS
BABS #1 (OF 6): Ahoy Comics alert!
I never thought I'd see the words "Red Sonja parody by Garth Ennis," but here we are. It's not The Boys-level satire -- not yet, anyway -- but it's timely and funny. Timely in the sense that Babs and a fellow warrior (who happens to be Black and female) are accosted in a tavern by the worst of the Internet, represented by various villagers. Racist, misogynist, incel-ish -- these childish, entitled men are very familar to anyone who's spent five minutes in any "Comments" section. They even talk of the "Deep Realm" (i.e., the Deep State) which is such a nefarious, wide-ranging and completely non-existent conspiracy that it's impossible to disprove.
In case you're wondering, Ennis does address the impracticality of a chain-mail bikini on page one; it's such low-hanging fruit, and so unavoidable, that he practically had to. I mean, fans have been joking about that since the 1970s. He handled it well, and then we got the more current stuff, so all is well in the realm.
The book is drawn by Jace Burrows, and I have no complaints there. He's from a tradition I'll call the Amanda Conner school, for lack of a better term. And I like Amanda Conner's work! (She does one of the covers below.) Coincidentally, Ennis & Burrows have a graphic novel (that I haven't read) on the NYT best-sellers list currently (The Ribbon Queen).
Recommended. Absolutely. Even the Toxic Commando preview at the back had some jokes that made me laugh.
CHAOTICA: SPELLBOUND #1 ONE-SHOT: Hey kids! Boobs! (Coffin Comics)
DAMAGED PEOPLE #1 (OF 5): This is described as “episode one,” so it might be like a TV anthology. (And is probably written to sell to TV.) This issue features a girl who likes scaring people, who meets a ghost girl, which develops into a “gothic romance.” Is that interesting? Well, maybe, but I'd have to see it. I like the covers. (Alien Books)
DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH #1 (OF 8): In the ‘80s cartoon, The Phantom, Mandrake and Flash Gordon fought Mongo in the far, far future year of … 2015. I was alive nine years ago, and I completely missed it! I'll go ahead and note for the record that the only previous Defenders of the Earth series was published by Marvel's short-lived kiddie line, Star Comics. This one will be, presumably, aimed toward readers who have at least gotten out of elementary school. (Mad Cave Studios)
DICK TRACY #4: New Dick Tracy alert! (Mad Cave)
DOCTOR WHO FIFTEENTH DOCTOR #2 (OF 4, Titan)
ELRIC THE NECROMANCER #2 (OF 2, Titan)
HIGH ON LIFE #3 (OF 4, Titan)
INDIGINERDS: TALES FROM MODERN INDIGENOUS LIFE GN: This is a YA book, so I don't care. I promise I would have loved all these YA books when I was in middle school. Honest, I would have! But they didn't exist when I was in middle school! Now I'm too old to care about teenagers finding their way. But Iron Circus sent me this preview, so here you go.
IT'S THE GREAT STORM: TOM THE DANCING BUG: Comic strip collectors alert! This is the collected "Tom the Dancing Bug" Volume 8, from the last year of the Trump administration and the year after. Tom Bolling is a genius, and I wish I had the whole series. Here's a nice, big PREVIEW. (Clover Press)
JERRY SIEGEL'S SYNDICATE OF CRIME VS. THE CRIME GENIE TP: Did you know Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, wrote for UK comics? You probably did. I did, too, but forgot. Here's a reminder from Rebellion / 2000AD, collecting The Spider's battle against a literal djinn. (No, not our Spider. Their Spider.)
JIMI HENDRIX: PURPLE HAZE HC (Titan) looks pretty surreal.
KARDAK THE MYSTIC ONE-SHOT
There were a lot of Mandrake knock-offs in Golden Age comics, and MLJ had this one. But Mandrake has fallen out of the pop culture zeitgeist, so a character like this now is practically new!
They did a lot in this one-shot, introducing Kardak, giving him the civilian name John Cardy, introducing his partner Lorna, following him through his journey from failing stage magician to legitimate sorcerer (and, one assumes, eventually a crime-fighter). Plus there's the twist ending. I enjoyed it, as at no point did I think "This is a Mandrake knock-off" even though it is.
The original Kardak appeared in Top-Notch Comics #1 (Dec 39) and was a mainstay through its 27 issues. Lorna was there, but so was "Balthar," a Lothar knock-off that was thankfully dropped from this revival.
LIFE IS STRANGE: FORGET ME NOT #4 (OF 4, Titan)
MIRKA ANDOLFO'S UN/SACRED VARIANT PACK VOL 1: “Angelina, a voluptuous angel, and Damiano, a mischievous devil, are madly in love. But, while she does not intend to give in to temptation, he would very much like to. ... This is the tale of their bizarre and spicy daily life!" Is this naughty? I think this might be naughty. Here's a PREVIEW. (Ablaze)
NINJAK VS. ROKU #3 (OF 4): “Road to Resurgence” alert! (Valiant)
PEEPEE POOPOO #1 (ONE-SHOT) says it's a gay take on '60s underground comix. Like there wasn't plenty at the time. And this #1 is the fourth issue, as this series is being deliberately misnumbered for laffs. Here’s a PREVIEW. (Silver Sprocket)
PINK FLOYD IN COMICS HC: It's just what it says it is. Here's a PREVIEW. (NBM)
REBEL MOON: HOUSE OF THE BLOODAXE TP: According to the Hollywood press, Zach Snyder's second round of "Rebel Moon" movies -- director's cuts that were built into the marketing plan -- did very poorly. Am I bad person for hoping this goes away, and takes its toxic fans with it?
ROBOTECH RICK HUNTER TP
SCP FOUNDATION: COMIC BOOK RELUCTANT DIMENSION HOPPER
SCP FOUNDATION: COMIC BOOK THE TRUE FAMILY
SCP FOUNDATION: COMIC EXPUNGED DATA RELEASED
I still haven’t sampled anything from the SCP Foundation universe, and at $10 a pop, like the books above, I might not ever.
WORLD OF BETTY & VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #34: Yay! A complete Dan DeCarlo story!
Replies
ULTRAMAN X THE AVENGERS #1 (OF 4): I can think of a couple of Legionnaires who might really enjoy this.
With very few exceptions, I generally don't like comics based on movies/TV, or movies/TV based on comics books, and I like such crossovers with super-heroes even less. (for example, I did not buy the recent JLA/Godzilla thing.) Having saif that, though, I did buy Marvel's five-issue 2020 The Rise of Ultraman (which was continued into another mini-series which I did not buy) and came to regret it. And what's with the current trend of using "x" instead of "vs."?
Relive the adrenaline jolt you felt when you realized that Marvel had erased 21 years of Spider-Man continuity!
I felt something, but I don't think it was a jolt of adrenaline.
Whether R-rated Marvel comics are a fad/gimmick or will be successful is too soon to say.
I haven't heard of this trend, but wasn't that the thouight behind Marvel's "MAX" imprint (and, to a lesser extent, "Marvel Knights")?
I could swear I've seen this image before, with Robin in the Wonder Woman position.
Not an exact match, either, but could you be thinking of snow skiing?
...or surfing?
JIMI HENDRIX: PURPLE HAZE HC (Titan) looks pretty surreal.
This book had previously been solicited to ship some weeks ago. I pre-ordered it when I thought it was going to be a more-or-less straight bio (despite my moratorium on bio-comics). Then I found out it was going to be some kind of sci-fi/fantasy, but Jimi Hendrix and Tom Mandrake? I'm still in. (Expand the wraparound cover image to read the premise.)
With very few exceptions, I generally don't like comics based on movies/TV, or movies/TV based on comics books, and I like such crossovers with super-heroes even less. (for example, I did not buy the recent JLA/Godzilla thing.)
I did. It was mildly entertaining. It wasn't set on Earth-Prime or whatever it's called now, so major characters could, and did, die.
And what's with the current trend of using "x" instead of "vs."?
The "x" isn't a substitute for "vs." Technically, Godzilla x Kong translates to Godzilla times Kong, as in the mathematical symbol. Which is meaningless, so I just translate the "x" to "and" and have never looked back.
I felt something, but I don't think it was a jolt of adrenaline.
I thought "violent nausea" might be off-putting.
I haven't heard of this trend, but wasn't that the thought behind Marvel's "MAX" imprint (and, to a lesser extent, "Marvel Knights")?
I think it began with "Blood Hunt," where the Red Band variant would have an EC Comics homage cover, and the interior would have extra and/or replaced pages and panels that were more gory than the baseline issue. For example, in Blood Hunt #1, the baseline issue showed Doctor Strange being stabbed by a sword from behind, whereas the Red Band issue showed Blade literally tearing Strange in half. Three upcoming titles will be Red Band with no other variants: Werewolf by Night, Wolverine: Revenge and Blade.
MAX was supposed to be adult, was it not? Rated M for Mature Readers? I guess you could say that with Red Band, but it seems to emphasize gore more than what I would call a mature read. And I had no idea what Knights was until you explained it to me. (Farming out titles to a non-Marvel studio, that studio being Event Comics, operated by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti.) I don't know whether Knights was expressly Mature-readers or not.
Not an exact match, either, but could you be thinking of snow skiing?
I went through all the World's Finest and Comic Cavalcade covers, without finding what I was remembering. I also Googled snow ski and water ski covers. Maybe I imagined it.
Technically, Godzilla x Kong translates to Godzilla times Kong, as in the mathematical symbol. Which is meaningless...
Ah. Like Alien³ (which is technically "Alien Cubed").
I haven't heard of this trend, but wasn't that the thought behind Marvel's "MAX" imprint (and, to a lesser extent, "Marvel Knights")?
I think it began with "Blood Hunt," where the Red Band variant would have an EC Comics homage cover, and the interior would have extra and/or replaced pages and panels that were more gory than the baseline issue.
I saw it (or noticed it) for the first time today. I would have liked to compare the variant pages side-by-side, but Werewolf by Night Red Band shipped inside a sealed plastic bag.
JONNY QUEST #1: This book made me feel 12 years old again. That's a good, good thing.
It takes a whole issue for the Quest team to realize they've been catapulted into the future...
Speaking of time travel, here's an interesting bit: Despite the time travel, it's obvious the main characters are from the '60s. To these characters, 2004 is "decades in the future." Which surprised me a little, as I expected Casey to just update the show to the present.
Two corrections here...
First, Dr. Quest realizes they've been cataputled to the future on page five, Jonny on page seven.
Second, this issue does take place in the present, 2024. It is revealed that Benton Quest died in 2004, but "future Jonny" appears to be about 70 years old, and if he was 11 in 1964...
I do agree, however, that this book made me feel 12 years old again.
BABS #1 (OF 6): To those of you who are not Cap and did not read his his comments about this issue above, it would behoove you to scroll back up and do so now.