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MARVEL COMICS
IRON MAN #1 ($4.99): Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Spencer Ackerman (Reign of Terror; DC’s Waller vs. Wildstorm) in his exciting Marvel debut and artist Julius Ohta (Hellverine, Alien). Roxxon and A.I.M. team up to take down Stark Unlimited, but they "will face an Iron Man more than willing to fight back, play dirty, and unleash every bit of his intellect to bring them down!" I hope he spanks some Stanes and Fujikawas, because I'm tired of seeing this supposed genius routinely lose his company and fortune to rival businessmen. Been there, done that. Let's see some of that supposed genius!
“Down to the armor Iron Man is wearing, Tony is in pure survival mode from jump,” Ackerman said to ComicBook.com in a recent interview. “The stakes start out very high and escalate from there. A big theme of this run is going to be scale — the pursuit of it, the maintenance of it, the cost of it. We've seen Tony cross some very serious moral lines in the past. Now we're going to scale them up.”
"Winning a Pulitzer is cool and all, but it's not writing for Marvel Comics," Ackerman said. "And to write IRON MAN is a very specific dream come true. A lot of comics' best creators have used Iron Man to tell big stories about security and freedom—with a whole lot of superhero action, of course—and I can't wait to build on their legacy."
On how his esteemed career in journalism prepared him to take on Tony Stark’s specific complexities, Ackerman added, “In my day job reporting on national security, I've covered the real-life equivalents of the Stark Expo, watched experimental weapons in action, seen their impact on human beings, and tracked the massive wealth they generate for a select few. Tony struggles with challenges – and is sure about to struggle with challenges – that I've covered for years. Only now I can write about them the way I've always wanted to: in a super hero universe!"
Is this Ackerman guy Marvel's answer to Tom King?
ALIEN: ROMULUS ANNUAL #1 ($4.99): This issue, by writer Zac Thompson (Absolute Carnage: Avengers, I Breathed a Body) and artist Daniel Picciotto (Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider, X-Force), takes place before Alien (1979), and "shines light on the tragedy that occurred on the space station 'Renaissance' before Rain, Andy and their crew" got there. Which I assume happens in Alien: Romulus, which I haven't seen yet. It's my understanding that Alien: Romulus also takes place before Alien, and may represent a soft reboot, ignoring all the events in Prometheus.
Good! I was so disappointed in Prometheus that I didn't even bother with Alien: Covenant. I was burned once before by the people running this franchise (Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection), and the Alien vs. Predator movies were supposedly terrible (the bad reviews drove me away), so they don't get the benefit of the doubt. Alien and Aliens were such beautifully simple and terrifying concepts, why would you deviate from that? And yet they do, they do. They want to explain everything, but you don't need to, IMHO. The xenomorphs exist, that's just a fact. They're lethal and unforgiving and can't be reasoned with, like a tsunami or a hurricane. But unlike a natural disaster, they're predators and actively want to kill you. You deal with it or you die, or maybe you deal with it AND you die, and the there's-no-reason-for-this is part of the terror.
"The Alien franchise is responsible for my lifelong love of body horror, so needless to say, I’m ecstatic to be contributing a small piece to the canon,” Thompson said. “Working with Fede Alvarez to craft a prequel to Alien: Romulus was a genuine dream come true and a responsibility I don’t take lightly. The result is a thrilling, terrifying story that slowly gestates into something wholly unpredictable."
"Unpredictable?" Hunh. I predict a lot of people will die horribly. Which I don't mind. But go ahead, Zac, prove me wrong!
SPIDER-BOY #12 ($4.99), by Dan Slott and Paco Medina, introduces Spider-Girl who, like Spider-Boy, has a mysterious backstory. Because of course. Also, Spider-Boy is supposedly ditching Spider-Man for a new mentor, Daredevil. We'll see how long that lasts.
Elsewhere at Marvel:
AVENGERS #19 ($3.99): Doom vs. the Avengers. I think we're going to see a lot of the good doctor before Avengers: Doomsday.
INCREDIBLE HULK #18 ($3.99): This is supposedly issue #799.
MMW MAN-THING VOL 1 HC ($75.00): Early Man-Thing was often pretty good, but his journey to an ongoing was meandering. (Which suits the character.) That's one reason these collections are useful: Being able to read the early progression of a character without dragging out four or five longboxes.
Man-Thing debuted in Savage Tales magazine #1 (1971), by Roy Thomas and Gray Morrow. I've always loved Morrow's work, and this is some of his best. Memories of Morrow's work left me with warm fuzzies for years that carried over as lesser talents worked on the series.
The second Man-Thing story was re-purposed as a two-parter in Astonishing Tales (starring Ka-Zar at the time). Those of you who weren't around in 1971 might not know why, but it's this: Savage Tales was canceled after its first issue. I managed to get a copy, but many didn't. (Small print run, maybe? Poor distribution? Both?) It became a Holy Grail for a lot of comics collectors.
It was revived two years later featuring Conan and other Robert E. Howard characters (drawn by Neal Adams, Barry Windsor-Smith, P. Craig Russell, Gil Kane, Al Williamson, and others), plus occasional "Crusader" reprints from Black Knight by Joe Maneely. Not a bad package, and I remember it fondly. (Of course, it helps that I was the target market: teenage male.) But then Marvel launched Savage Sword of Conan in August 1974, stripping Savage Tales of its headliner and most of its content with issue #5. Ka-Zar took the lead spot, followed by the likes of John Jakes and Lin Carter doing their barbarian characters. That went about as well as you'd expect, with Savage Tales canceled a second time with issue #11.
So whither Man-Thing? His second story was re-worked to fit into the ongoing Ka-Zar series in Astonishing Tales #12-13. That resulted in some interesting divisions of labor. Roy Thomas and John Buscema are credited with pages #1-9 and 17-21, while Len Wein and Neal Adams are credited with pages #10-16. Oh, and John Romita is credited also; he re-worked the women in the story, presumably to put more clothes on them in this Code-approved book. The next issue, finishing up the Man-Thing story, was written entirely by Thomas, but partly drawn by Rich Buckler (pages 1-6) and John Buscema (pages #7-20). Crazy times. But great artists that I miss.
Man-Thing next appeared in Fear (sometimes Adventures into Fear on the cover), where he got an ongoing series with issue #10. The first 9 issues were reprints from Marvel's late-1950s suspense/monster books, and were worth buying all on their own, or at least I thought so at the time. And I wasn't alone -- those first 9 issues go for ridiculously high prices for reprints; I missed Fear #7 and it took me years to find a copy at a reasonable price (and probably no better than "fine"). There's an omnibus now, which is probably the cheapest way to see these reprints.
The first six issues of Fear were double-sized, and well worth the quarter. Most of the stories -- especially from late-1950s Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery -- have never been reprinted anywhere else. Fear #5 reprints stories with Franz Radzik, who starred in "Gorilla-Man" and "Return of the Gorilla-Man" in 1962 Tales to Astonish, but it's not the Gorilla-Man you know from Agents of Atlas. That Gorilla-Man, Kenneth Hale, debuted in Men's Adventures #26 (1954), and as far as I remember didn't reappear until Atlas. There was a third Gorilla-Man who also appeared in 1954 (Arthur Nagan), who was resurrected as one of the Headmen in Defenders. I wonder: Did Marvel ever address the second Gorilla-Man? I have a vague memory that they did, but it might have been a dream. Or a hoax. Or an imaginary story.
Anyway, Fear became normal-sized and cheaper with issue #7 (probably why my distributor got confused and didn't distribute it in my area). Man-Thing headlined in a 10-page story in issue #10 as the first new story in the book, and took over entirely with issue #11, running through issue #19. Gerry Conway, Howard Chaykin and Gray Morrow (yay!) did the first story, but Steve Gerber took over the words in issue #11 and became the regular writer. Rich Buckler and Jim Starlin did yeoman duty on issues #11-12, before the strip settled on its regular artist, Val Mayerik.
The mindless muck-monster finally graduated to his own eponymous title in January 1974 (Morbius, who had only just debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 in 1971, took over Fear), but that same month he guest-starred in Marvel Two-In-One #1 with The Thing. The regular creative team (Gerber/Mayerik) moved with its lead character to Man-Thing #1, but MTIO was by Gerber and Gil Kane. Both titles are included in this Masterworks, but that's where it ends. Just as the shambling son of a swamp has finally found a home!
DC COMICS
Department of Transparency Department: I discovered over the weekend that I've been puling DC Comics lists from a week too early. I'm not sure how long I've been doing that. But I've fixed it for this week and going back a couple of weeks. The upshot is that if this week's DC books look familiar, it's because I ran them a week ago under "Comics Guide for week of Oct. 16, 2024." We should be good going forward, but some of the older guides and lists will remain in error until I have a huge hunk of spare time where there isn't a more pressing need elsewhere. That is to say, they will stay wrong forever.
This week's "Absolute" and "All In" launches
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 ($4.99) is by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman. "Without the island paradise ... without the sisterhood that shaped her ... without a mission of peace ... what's left is the Absolute Amazon!" What's left? Well, for one thing, she's got a really big sword!
DETECTIVE COMICS #1090 ($4.99): New creative team Tom Taylor and Mikel Janín launch a story promising a secret from that fateful night in Crime Alley. That seems like a pretty picked-over storyline, but hey, it's comics, they'll find something new. And maybe now we'll see if Joe Chill is still a thing, or if the alley bandit will become anonymous again. (You know which way CK and I vote.)
FLASH #14 ($3.99): The West family re-unites and takes a vacation in Skartaris. As you do, when you don't care if your children get eaten by gigantic, reptilian birds with teeth the size of love seats. Also, Wally is evolving secretly into a new form. (Barry's powers, until he recently lost them, were stable for 68 years. Wally's can't stay the same from breakfast to second breakfast.) I hope he gets and keeps a new uniform this time, as he really should have his own and not a variation of Barry's. Barry's is wildly different from Jay's, and Wally's should be wildly different from both. Jay's outfit was perfect for the wartime era, but had outlived its usefulness when Barry came along 16 years later. And I loved Barry's streamlined uniform in the Silver Age -- it was perfect for the Space Age, when things were very scientifical. But that was 68 years ago. Surely Wally could adopt something that looks a little more 21st century!
Interestingly, on the "All In" variant covers that show a single character on a white background, for Flash it's Barry and for Green Lantern it's Hal Jordan. For all the talk of how popular Wally and Jon Stewart are, they have never successfully replaced their predecessors. Maybe when the last Baby Boomer dies.
GREEN ARROW #17 ($4.99): Joshua Williamson, who has been writing Arrow for a while, writes the first part, a farewell story exploring the ramifications of Ollie's actions in "Absolute Power." (Yeah, yeah, I'm over it. Heroes did weirder things in the Silver Age and got forgiven.) Then new writer Chris Condon begins the next chapter in Arrow's life in the second part, about which we're told nothing. P.S. DC says this is legacy issue #350.
HARLEY QUINN #44 ($3.99): New creative team Elliott Kalan (The Flop House, Mystery Science Theater 3000) and Mindy Lee (Bounty, Harley Quinn: Everybody Hates Side Quests) launch a new storyline where Harley discovers her favorite crime-ridden neighborhood, Throatcut Hill, has been gentrified. And this will not stand!
NIGHTWING #119 ($4.99): New writer Dan Watters and new artist Dexter Soy launch a new story arc where Nightwing has to deal with a gang war filling the power vacuum from when he took down some corrupt officials. Which I guess he did before "Absolute Power."
POWER GIRL #14 ($3.99): Writer Leah Williams and Adriana Melo introduce a villain named Ejecta. I hope it's a technological reference and not a biological one.
SUPERMAN #19 ($4.99): Superman and Superwoman (Lois Lane, at least for now) battle Doomsday. Waiting in the wings is Time Trapper, and -- awp! -- it's not written by Mark Waid. (It's by new writer Joshua Williamson.) A Silver Age callback NOT written by Mark Waid? 'Tis a puzzlement.
Elsewhere at DC:
ACTION COMICS #1072 ($4.99): The secret history of Mon-El is revealed, including his connection to Xa-Du, the Phantom King. I don't know Xa-Du from Xanadu, but I've always known there's 1,000 years of Lar Gand backstory that hasn't been explored. I'm pretty sure he didn't just play Solitaire for a millennium.
BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #18 ($7.99): The backup story teams Aquaman and Ms. Martian, which is an interesting pair.
DC HORROR PRESENTS #1 (OF 4, MR, $3.99): A horror anthology written by The Boulet Brothers, David Dastmalchian and Leah Kilpatrick. Heck, I always thought Batman should be a horror book.
GREEN LANTERN DARK #1 (OF 7, $4.99) is by Tate Brombal (Something Is Killing the Children) and Werther Dell Edera (House of Slaughter). This is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where Solomon Grundy leads an army of undead monsters. The titular star has been missing for years when the story begins. I don't know if this is the actual Tangent Green Lantern, but it looks like her, and she was the only one of the Tangent characters I really found interesting (at least visually). So if the Tangent Universe has been killed off except for Green Lantern, it won't break my heart.
HAWKMAN #4 FACSIMILE EDITION ($3.99): First appearance of Zatanna.
JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER BY JAMIE DELANO OMNIBUS VOL 1 HC (MR, $150.00): Collects Hellblazer #1-22, Hellblazer Annual #1, Swamp Thing (Vol. 2) #65-77 and The Sandman #3. Foreword by Garth Ennis. I'm really tempted by this. I've read all the Hellblazer stories, but I read the early ones mostly out of order as back issues. Reading them all in a row would be a new experience. But then, I could do that online for the cost of an annual subscription, couldn't I?
IMAGE COMICS
CREEPSHOW VOL 3 #2 (MR, $3.99): Only two stories in this one, which gives them a little room to develop, which gives the reader time to actually care about all the victims. I approve.
The first story involves a Halloween sleepover whose ending is pretty easy to guess, but it's the journey, you know? It's written by Spanish filmmaker Eugenio Mira (The Birthday, Grand Piano) and illustrated in fine form by Jorge Fornés (Rorschach). The second one is about an influencer who is challenged to stay overnight in an abandoned development that's supposedly haunted (mostly because he posts that it is). I didn't see where this one was going, so credit to Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave). The art, by Stefano Raffaele (Detective Comics), is stellar.
THE FEEDING (ONE-SHOT, $4.99), by David M. Booher and Drew Zucker (Canto), falls into the category of haunted paintings, about which they pretty much made a whole TV show (Night Gallery). OK, those paintings didn't eat people, but they were haunted. And the one in Doom Patrol did ("The Painting That Ate Paris") did eat people. And the most famous haunted painting is The Portrait of Dorian Gray, still a classic. There are plenty more haunted painting stories, which I'd recall if I thought about it for a while. Anyway, here's one more.
Haunted-painting stories are usually pretty creepy, and this one certainly is. And it's not just the painting! We have childhood abuse, an unreliable narrator, no sympathetic characters and reality in flux. The painting itself, of course, eats people. Or does it? It could all be in the mind of someone who drinks too much, uses drugs and might not be all there to start with. Your call!
All in all, the story is pretty satisfying.The art, however, is angular, poorly rendered and, to my eye, downright ugly. If that doesn't matter to you, here you go.
“I’m thrilled to celebrate spooky season with The Feeding,” said Booher. “I grew up on horror stories, so it’s a treat to work with my buddy Drew Zucker to create this creepy love letter to series like Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow. Huge thanks to comics champion Chris Ryall with Syzygy Publishing and Image Comics for helping us bring this labor of love to a wide audience. Halloween is just around the corner, and readers are in for a bloody treat!"
“It’s so exciting to be revisiting horror as a genre and to be doing it with this team,” said Zucker. “We’ve spent a lot of years now honing our skills and to have the chance to tell scary stories with this group really feels like being a kid telling ghost stories around the campfire. I can’t wait for everyone to get scared with us.”
HACK/SLASH BODY BAGS #1 (OF 4, $3.99): Tim Seeley and original Hack/Slash artist Stefano Caselli team the Body Bags characters by Jason Pearson with the Hack/Slash characters. I've never read either of those properties (although I've got a bunch of Hack/Slash library editions I'll get around to someday), so I have no standing here.
“Tim reached out a little over a year ago via our mutual friend, Cully Hamner, one of Jason’s former studio mates at Gaijin Studios, with the idea to do this crossover,” said Keven Gardner, friend and former publisher to the late Pearson. “To be honest, before talking with Tim, my initial reaction was, ‘probably not.’ This was about six months after Jason’s passing, his mom was in the middle of settling his estate — it just wasn’t something on her radar or mine. But, after I spoke with Tim it was immediately clear that he was a huge fan of Body Bags, that Jason’s work had been a strong influence on him, and that this was something he and Stefano really wanted to do. We talked about possible ideas, and I could see how this could be something special.”
Caselli added: “Jason’s Body Bags is one of the biggest reasons I’m a comic book artist today.”
"Body Bags was my favorite comic of the late '90s, and its influence on Hack/Slash is probably pretty evident (see Vlad)," said Seeley. "We're so proud to bring Jason's characters back, and re-introduce them to old and new fans."
“Stefano told me about he and Jason got to be friends and would Skype sometimes when they were both at their drawing tables, and how he wanted to help Jason’s legacy live on by doing this crossover,” said Gardner. “As Stefano talked about why he wanted to do this and his friendship with Jason, it really got to me emotionally. All the concerns I had about doing this without Jason just went away; I knew Mack and Panda were in good hands. Plus, Tim’s idea for the story was so good — it’s set over one night in Terminus, right after the initial Body Bags story from 1996, 'Father’s Day,' ends.”
HORIZON EXPERIMENT: SACRED DAMNED #1 (ONE SHOT, $3.99): I read the first one, and had mixed feelings. It was extremely well done, but the hero was a Chinese espionage agent working for the destruction of my country. Not crazy about that. This series of unconnected one-shots is supposed to feature "marginilized people" in starring roles and honestly, I have no problem with that, even though I'm an old white guy. I've certainly had my share of straight white guys in heroic roles, so I'm OK with a different take. And, while you could throw a dart in today's comic shop and hit a book starring a "marginalized" character -- they're really not all that marginalized in comics any more -- sometimes they are not only good stories, but also have the benefit of some novel perspective or an information dump about non-white or non-male or non-straight people that I didn't know. (The previous book was very informative about how Chinese espionage works.)
But I'm vamping, because I didn't have time to read this one (as much as I wanted to). I didn't get review copies until late Friday night, and I was busy over the weekend. Now it's already Monday, the books go on sale Wednesday, so this guide has to go up now for the other information to be useful.
Here's the info I was provided:
Celebrated television writer Sabir Pirzada (Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel; Lucasfilms’ Star Wars: The Bad Batch), who just released his first-ever creator-owned graphic novel Dandelion, is teaming up with Eisner Award-winning artist Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin, Universal Monsters: Frankenstein). .... It is the second comic in the The Horizon Experiment series of five one-shots, all featuring original protagonists from marginalized backgrounds set in a popular genre and inspired by pop culture icons, led by Eisner and Harvey Award-winning The Good Asian and Infidel creator Pornsak Pichetshote.
Co-edited by Pichetshote and acclaimed editor Will Dennis (Descender, Gideon Falls), The Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned introduces the world to Inayah Jibril, Professor of Ethnography and the Occult—a “Muslim John Constantine” demon-hunting female exorcist. Arriving just in time for Halloween season, the comic is a love letter to classic horror stories, from Dracula to The Exorcist, reimagining horror tropes through an Islamic lens. Like the other titles in The Horizon Experiment, this one-shot serves as the equivalent of a pilot for a creator-owned series, with the potential of continuing should there be demand for more. Along with an original cover by Walsh, the issue also features variant covers by Eisner Award-winning artist Tula Lotay, part of a connecting series across all five of the one-shots.
“I took sadistic pleasure in delving into the stuff of Muslim nightmares for The Sacred Damned. People think of Islamic culture as a monolith, but the opposite couldn’t be more true: it’s varied, rich, and rarely given the spotlight in western narratives despite representing a massive global population,” said Pirzada. “When Pornsak challenged me to take us to new places in horror where no one has ever gone before, I knew that could only be accomplished with Michael Walsh, the greatest horror artist of our generation. It was a distinct thrill to have industry titan editors Will Dennis and Pornsak Pichetshote along for the ride as we introduce the world to a bold new antihero in Inayah Jibril.”
"When the incredible Pornsak Pichetshote first approached me about contributing to The Horizon Experiment, I was immediately interested...Reading Sabir's pitch for The Sacred Damned sealed the deal. It really felt like an entirely fresh new take on a type of horror story that I love: the modern examination of classic folklore, mythology and religion through the lens of the Horror genre,” said Walsh. “When I received the script, I was thrilled—not only was this going to be a blast to draw, but there was an authenticity, economy and understanding of the medium that cemented this as something that would be really special and really terrifying. Working with this whole team, Will, Pornsak, Sabir, Toni Marie, and the excellent letterer and designer Becca Carey, has been an absolute joy and has resulted in a book that I am truly proud of."
“There's no formal way to break into comics, so many creators like Sabir get swept up into other mediums in the process of trying. But even in that intensely competitive environment, Sabir came out a star—writing for Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, as well as other cool, envious gigs. Yet he was still dying to do comics. That’s how I knew he is exactly the kind of writer that the comic industry needs,” said Pichetshote.
Continued Pichetshote: “The idea of The Sacred Damned—a horror series following a Muslim exorcist—was one of those stunningly obvious concepts you're astonished no one's ever done. Looking at exorcism stories outside of the Christian tradition blows the doors off a genre you thought you knew—which is exactly what The Horizon Experiment series is all about. Sabir wanted an artist who could really handle horror, so we swung for the fences and secured the best horror cartoonist currently working, Eisner Award-winning Michael Walsh.”
The Horizon Experiment series kicks off on September 25 with The Manchurian, written by Pichetshote, illustrated by superstar artists Terry and Rachel Dodson (Adventureman, Harley Quinn), and edited by Dennis. The Horizon Experiment: The Manchurian is a scintillating thriller full of secrets and scandal, featuring a Chinese super spy inspired by James Bond. Future issues include East African werewolf horror The Horizon Experiment: Moon Dogs (by Tananarive Due and Kelsey Ramsey), “Evil Dead for blerds” horror-comedy The Horizon Experiment: Motherf#cking Monsters (by J. Holtham and Michael Lee Harris), and “reverse Indiana Jones” action-adventure The Horizon Experiment: Finders / Keepers (by Vita Ayala and Skylar Patridge). The five issues will be released on a monthly basis.
NULLHUNTER #1 (MR, $3.99)
Once again, I ran out of time. This is basically "Hercules in space," albeit with different names. I'm very likely to enjoy it, when I have time to catch up. Maybe with the second issue?
"When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Greco-Roman mythology. I'd spend hours pouring over old mythology books that I'd rented from the library while drawing my own versions of Hercules, Zeus, Poseidon, and all the larger-than-life gods and monsters. For a long time, I've wanted to take a crack at making a Hercules comic, but I could never find a unique and original way in,” writer Michael Walsh said.
Continued Walsh: “I first conceived of Nullhunter while I was working on The Silver Coin and had originally planned to draw it myself after that series had wrapped. When The Silver Coin performed exceedingly well and shifted into ongoing status, the long and arduous hunt for an artist for Nullhunter began. When I first saw Gustaffo's art I knew he'd be the perfect artist for this comic. His Peruvian Cyberpunk series is chock-filled with incredible designs, kinetic action sequences, and deft character work. All the things that I knew would make this comic book sing. I'm so excited to introduce the world to these classic stories in a whole new light."
"When Michael told me his idea about making a cyberpunk saga of Hercules in space, my brain got loaded with tons of ideas, and I couldn’t wait to start building this world,” said artist Gustaffo Vargas. “I do my best work when I’m inspired and challenged, and this is exactly what I get from Michael and the team. Nullhunter is my best work to date, and I think readers will be able to enjoy this visual feast and powerful story."
"Clay's fight with Lion of N3M-3A is an absolutely brutal clash of blood and chrome," said Walsh. "Gustaffo Vargas showcases why he's the perfect artist for this book. He draws action like no one else, and I think this snippet of what he can do should get people excited about the big things to come."
SCARY GODMOTHER COMPENDIUM TP ($39.99): I have never followed Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother, but I confess I really like this art.
“I’m so happy that Scary Godmother is back in print!" said Thompson. "I’m overwhelmed with the love it gets from fans young and old all year round, so it’s perfect that she’ll be back as a nostalgic hug for fans who grew up watching her as well as a brand new treat for new readers!”
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3 (OF 4, $4.99): Another terrific issue. You already know the plot, but it's done really well and (sometimes) from the POV of an urchin boy who has been added to the cast.
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON RETURNS HC ($24.99): I will buy this, and place it next to Universal Monsters: Dracula. Then I will get Frankenstein, above. I will have them all, and I will gloat a bit, and then I will wait for the next one.
VOICES IN MY HEAD (ONE-SHOT, $5.99): This is an anthology, with Michael Gaydos (Jessica Jones), Phil Hester (The Family Tree), Andrew Robinson (Dusty Star), Szymon Kudranski (Spawn) and Juan Doe (Dark Ark). Covers by Brian Bolland and Tim Bradstreet.
VOID RIVALS #13 ($3.99)
DARK HORSE
DRACULA VOL 1: THE IMPALER GN (OF 4, $29.99): OK, this is a lot of fun.
The first origin for Dracula I remember reading was in 1973, by Marv Wolfman and Neal Adams (Dracula Lives! #2), and Wolfman and John Buscema (Dracula Lives! #3). It had never occurred to 15-year-old me that Dracula might need an origin, Dracula having existed long before me, and vampires having been mythology long before Bram Stoker, and all of that being something of a received wisdom. The novel itself treated the titular character that way, as more or less an eternal evil that didn't explain himself (as we all know, the novel was told from the perspective of the other characters, in epistolary form). So I was delighted to get an origin of this particular vampire, and the story was pretty good, even great when Adams was on pencils. It used the historical setting for Vlad III of Wallachia, sometimes called Vlad Dracula ("Vlad, Son of the Dragon") or Vlad Tepes ("Vlad the Impaler"), with the Ottomans marching up the Balkan peninsula, beginning in the late 14th century, and attacking Transylvania ("the land beyond the trees") in the 15th.
I've read other Dracula origins since then, or seen origins in movies and TV shows, and don't remember any of them -- they weren't as memorable to me as the first, simply because they weren't the first. Sorry if that slights one of your faves.
Now two marquee names in comics are taking another swing at Dracula told from Dracula's POV ... and it's just plain terrific. Which you'd expect from Matt Wagner (Mage, Grendel) and Kelley Jones (Sandman, Deadman, Batman & Dracula: Red Rain). They were born for this, and I know already I'll remember this one. Wagner really rachets up the evil, taking it all the way to .... well, the ultimate evil in most religions. Call him Lucifer, call him Shaitan, call him Loki -- like Sauron, he has had many names. And who else would be responsible for this titanic scourge on mankind? Moreover, that's not a gimmick -- this is a good story, completely original, riveting and satisfying. And needless to say, the always eccentric Jones outdoes himself.
Can't wait for Book 2, which is only in kickstarter status so fingers crossed. If it happens, it may actually get to the events of the novel. Or not! Either way, I expect more awesomeness.
“When Kelley Jones and I decided to launch the first volume of our new collaboration, DRACULA: BOOK I — THE IMPALER as a Kickstarter campaign, we always knew we also wanted to offer it via more traditional publishing channels,” said legendary GRENDEL creator Matt Wagner. “The overwhelming success of our campaign only solidified the need for that option, with both retailers and readers alike begging us for a mass-market edition in addition to the exclusive, hardcover Kickstarter versions. When it came time to partner up with an established publisher for that alternative, there really was no other choice to consider but Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse and I have enjoyed an incredible collaborative relationship for over 35 years and their reputation for quality material and their support of creators’ rights is a well-deserved hallmark in the comics industry. We’re thrilled to team up with them to bring our DRACULA epic to an even wider audience!”
“Having the good fortune of having drawn comics for Dark Horse like Aliens Hive and Zombie World as well as my own creator owned comics The Hammer and 13th Son,” said Jones, the iconic artist of BATMAN & DRACULA: RED RAIN and SANDMAN: SEASON OF MISTS. “I’ve had an even better experience buying comics from Dark Horse like Grendel and Hellboy and so many others. So I’m extremely happy that Dark Horse will publish the trade edition of DRACULA BOOK 1: THE IMPALER. It just seems right!”
“DRACULA: BOOK I — THE IMPALER achieves what seems impossible: to present the vampire in a fresh way that is at the same time deeply rooted in its true bloody origins,” said colorist José Villarrubia. “Wagner and Jones are pulling no punches here, with an unsettling story that recalls the Giallo classics of the 1960s.”
“The first graphic novel explores what led Dracula to seek out Satan’s tutelage and how he became the lord of the undead,” explains Wagner. “Kelley and I are enormous fans of Dracula and the many interpretations of his mythic story. Our version of Dracula is bloody and brooding, sexy and strange. This is very much a horror story, with deep roots in Stoker’s novel, but believe me when I tell you this isn’t yet another retelling of the novel in comics form. This is something haunting and new.”
HEADLESS HORSEMAN HALLOWEEN ANNUAL 2024 (56 pages, $7.99): This second annual Halloween anthology includes five stories, by David Dastmalchian (Count Crowley), Leah Kilpatrick, Lukas Ketner (Count Crowley), Ben Stenbeck (Koshchei in Hell), James Asmus (Survival Street), Matt Smith (Hellboy in Love) and Chris Panda (Transformers, Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe of Horrors). These are not straightforward, EC-style stories with O. Henry twist endings, like you find in Creepshow above. Instead they're ... well, they're really odd. Horror stories, to be sure, but very, very odd. That can be good or bad, depending on your mood, and your capacity for odd. I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not.
MEDUSA GN ($19.99): Tony Parker (This Damned Band, God of War Volume 2: Fallen God) writes and illustrates this OGN imagining Medusa as a hero who is hated and feared (or forgotten) for all of her heroic deeds over the centuries, as it usually involves killing a god or monster with lots of collateral damage. She's even killed Zeus, we're told, and wears Hermes' winged sandals, which probably weren't a gift. In fact, one character refers to "what remains of the Greek pantheon," and the only one we see is Persephone.
Medusa herself wears a mask modified from the shield of Perseus, so that her stone-gaze never comes into play. (Which is weird for a character named "Medusa," because that's basically all she's known for.) She's so muscular and masculine that I thought she was a he until someone referred to her as a "she."
We learn all this as Medusa discovers an ancient evil in Scotland that even the gods are afraid of, and must find a way to defeat. There's a lot of world-building here, as Medusa checks in with a bunch of deities from various pantheons (I didn't bother to google them, but I recognized a few names) so we get an idea that virtually all historical pantheons exist, but are hidden from mortal eyes. They apparently live in "Overworld," which Parker accidentally calls "Otherworld" in one dialogue balloon. Oops. Too many X-Men comics, I imagine.
That's not the only confusion, as the art — which is greatly detailed and pretty spectacular — failed on some occasions in the storytelling department. Given the sparse dialogue, I frequently had no idea what was happening. Although it always looked important! But gaining and losing the plot over and over is not the way to rivet this reader, and I was basically skimming toward the end.
One should not take my reactions entirely without salt. I am, in fact, a Boomer whose aging eyesight is not what it once was. It's possible that the flaws I describe would not exist for a pair of younger eyes.
But I have to stick with my own opininions, and in my opinion, this is a noble — and very pretty — effort to establish a larger-than-life character, and her larger-than-life world, for many adventures to come. But I think for that to happen someone needs to make more clear what's going on for readers of all ages, so all that sound and fury translates to information, and from there excitement. In short, Parker — who has some great ideas and is a terrific artist — might need an editor. We do have our uses!
SPACE USAGI: WHITE STAR RISING #1 (OF 3, $4.99): The second Space Usagi miniseries.
THE WRITER #4 ($3.99)
IDW PUBLISHING
GODZILLA: MONSTERPIECE THEATRE #1 ($6.99): No time to read this one, which inserts Godzilla into The Great Gatsby, with cartoonish art and cameos by Thomas Edison and Sherlock Holmes. The cover is an homage to Fantastic Four #1. Shrug. YMMV.
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT
POWERPUFF GIRLS :HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (ONE-SHOT, $5.99)
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MORE COMICS
BABS #3 (Ahoy, OF 6, MR, $3.99): Ahoy comics alert!
BALD GN (Graphic Mundi-PSU Press, $21.95): A memoir about a girl losing her hair. Guys lose their hair all the time, but nobody writes graphic novels about us! Wahhh!
BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS #4 (OF 4, MR, $3.99)
CONAN BARBARIAN #16 (Titan, MR, $3.99): When I read "Cold Comfort," billed as "Frozen Faith, Part 1" in Conan the Barbarian #13, I thought "This is similar in theme and characters to "The Frost Giant's Daughter." I was wrong. It IS "The Frost Giant's Daughter"! Jim Zub and Doug Braithewaite -- a capital team for this title -- have taken that short story and fleshed it out. CTB #13 takes place largely before the story's events, CTB #16 takes place after, and CTB #14-15 take place during, but from the heretofore unknown perspective of the demigoddess herself.
Which puts a whole new slant on the story without changing a word. And it fleshed out Conan's attitude on religion -- again, without changing a word. That's the kind of retcon I prefer -- Alan Moore practically trademarked it -- and I recommend this four-part story wholeheartedly.
THE CURSED LIBRARY #2 (OF 3): OMEGA (Archie, $4.99): The story incorporates all the Archie Horror one-shots so far, as editions in the titular library. And when I say "story," there's an actual one that doesn't seem to have anything to do with those books. It focuses on Li'l Jinx Holliday (now Jezzebeth Morningstar, daughter of the devil) and Lucifer, with Jezzebeth's motivations and end game unclear to this reader, as they wander Hell and Jinx's memories. There's a separate plotline with Danni Malloy, once a potential love interest for Dilton, but now a female-presenting trans character and Jinx's best friend (it is not, apparently, a romantic attachment). Malloy is also in Hell, partnered with Madam Satan, currently skinless and powerless (for reasons I've forgotten), plotting against Lucifer in unspecified ways. But it's only the middle part of a three-parter, so I'm sure my answers will be coming soon.
I should note that despite the "2" on the cover, the actual first issue was The Cursed Library Alpha. Omega, despite that word usually being used for the ending of something, is the middle part. The series culminates in Cursed Library Unleashed, which I'm sure will have a "3" on the cover, confusing comics historians until the heat death of the universe.
DONALD WHO LAUGHS VS. DARK BRANDON #1 (Keenspot, $5.99): Someone didn't get the memo that Biden isn't running any more.
HUMAN FLY #1 (IPI Comics, $4.99): I thought this had already come out. It's the same real-life Human Fly as the one that starred in Marvel's title -- same costume and everything -- only now he's published in Australia.
I, DRAGON VOL 1 GN (Alien Books, OF 3, $12.99): High fantasy. I like the art. Very Heavy Metal-ish.
KILLTOPIA THE COMPLETE COLLECTION HC (Titan, MR, $29.99)
MY TIME MACHINE: A GRAPHIC NOVEL HC (Fantagraphics, $24.99): A political satire of modern events riffing off H.G. Wells' original 1895 novel.
RESURGENCE #2 (Valiant, OF 4, $4.99): I read the first issue, which was basically "this is where all these characters are currently." Except X-O, who is thought dead. He got a one-shot last week which explains why he isn't, which I haven't read yet.
SHRINK: STORY OF A FAT GIRL GN (Graphic Mundi-PSU Press, MR, $24.95): A memoir about coming to terms with your body shape. Which is cool. I'm against fat-shaming. But I'm also against normalizing morbid obesity, which cripples quality of life, limits mobility and shortens life.
TERMITE MOUND #1 (Cosmic Lion, OF 3, $5.00): Another Matt Howarth story reprinted from the '90s.
WHEETAGO WAR: ROTH VOL 1 GN (Renegade Arts, MR, $22.99): It looks like Wheetagos are basically Wendigos, but in a post-apocalyptic world where civilization has collapsed and wheetagos aren't the only thing preying on makind. Pretty scary artwork!
COMIC STRIP COLLECTORS' ALERT!
BIG BOOK OF PEANUTS: ALL DAILY STRIPS FROM THE 1990s HC (Andrews McMeel, $45.00)
FORCES OF NATURE HC (Drawn & Quarterly, MR, $24.95): Ed Steed's single-panel cartoons from The New Yorker.
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: PEARLS GETS PUT IN THE POKEY TP (Andrews McMeel, $19.99): Stephen Pastis cartoons.
MANGA
ATOM: THE BEGINNING VOL 9 (OF 14) (Titan, MR, $12.99)
DOG DAYS GN (Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95): A childless Japanese couple mourning something (solicitation doesn't say) adopt a dog, move to the country, and adopt two more. The neighbors apprently prove to be a problem. But, obviously, there are some very good boys.
III THE THREE MUSKETEERS VOL 1 (Fairsquare Comics, $14.99): This is The Three Musketeers in the style of French manga, which is called, apparentlly, "manfra."
TEAM DARKSTALKERS #1 (UDON, $4.99)
FOR KIDS
ORCHARD OF THE TAME GN (Pegamoose Press, $24.99)
WALT DISNEY’S DONALD DUCK MINI TP COLL 3-PACK (Fantagraphics, $19.99): Collects “Ghost in the Grotto,” “Sheriff of Bullet Valley” and “The Golden Helmet" TPs in a slipcase.
WORLD OF BETTY & VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #36 (Archie, $9.99): The new story, by Craig Bodlman and Bill Galvan, stars Daisy Thunder ("Days of Thunder," get it?), the "glamorous globe-hopping queen of the race car circuit."
Here's a six-page story drawn by Dan DeCarlo from Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #64 (April 1961)! Still better than 95% of today's material.
DARKSTALKERS is (or, was, I don't know whether they're still making them) a video game "fighting game" series where players could pit various monster types (vampire, werewolf, zombie, gillman, Frankewnstein, etc.) against each other. My favorite character from the series was Baby Bonnie Hood, who was a monster-hunter, basically Little Red Riding Hood with a Ferengi's greed and Frank Castle's combat skills. The point of her character was that a human driven by bloodlust and greed was as dangerous as any "monsters".
Absolute Wonder Woman looks as though she's stolen Cloud Strife's Buster Sword.
I liked Alien3 and Alien:Resurrection. They were by no means perfect, but they were interesting new directions to take the series in.
DARKSTALKERS is (or, was, I don't know whether they're still making them) a video game "fighting game" series where players could pit various monster types (vampire, werewolf, zombie, gillman, Frankewnstein, etc.) against each other. My favorite character from the series was Baby Bonnie Hood, who was a monster-hunter, basically Little Red Riding Hood with a Ferengi's greed and Frank Castle's combat skills. The point of her character was that a human driven by bloodlust and greed was as dangerous as any "monsters".
Human history makes this hard to argue with.
Absolute Wonder Woman looks as though she's stolen Cloud Strife's Buster Sword.
The first girl-with-giant-sword imagery I remember seeing was Magik's Soulsword in X-Men comics, which Wiki tells me first appeared in 1983. That might have been stolen from Final Fantasy too, or maybe both were stolen from an earlier source.
I liked Alien3 and Alien:Resurrection. They were by no means perfect, but they were interesting new directions to take the series in.
I thought they were OK when I saw them originally. Not anywhere as good as the first two, of course, and certainly not in the same genres, but OK. Like you say, interesting new directions.
Then the Aliens vs. Predators movies happened, which were so savaged by critics and viewers alike that I avoided them. Then Prometheus came along, and that's three strikes -- three times the producers of the Alien franchise have failed to follow up on the promise established by Alien and Aliens. Also, the direction taken by Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection has now been junked, so they are vestigial limbs whose interesting directions will never be followed up on. The upshot is that Prometheus so soured me that I retroactively dislike Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection more than I used to, and these faults seem more exaggerated.
Taken objectively and out of context, I would probably re-watch them with equanimity, and possible mild enjoyment. But in the context of the Alien franchise, they were just another false start that contributes to my overall feeling that these people don't know what they're doing.
I'm not trying to change your mind, Bob -- I'm just explaining mine.
Characters with weapons so large that they should be too unwieldy to use in actual combat seem to go back a way.
Sword-wieding super-heroes have always seemed problematical to me, because if the sword is used at all realistically, the wielder should be leaving a trail of corpses or at least mangled bodies behind them. Will Ultimate Absolute Wonder Woman be doing that? "Cowardly Amazon! Come back here, I'll bite your legs off!"
Oh, and the first Final Fantasy game was released in 1987, so that clears Magik.
Agreed. In the Silver AGe I grew tired quickly of sword-wielders hitting people "with the flat of my sword" somehow hard enough to knock them out, but never using their swords for what swords are made for. Why not just carry a club? (Looking at you, Dane Whitman. And Valkyrie. And ... oh, all of them.) Subconsciously younger me wrote off sword-wielders as useless in combat, as encumbered as they were by the invisible Comics Code.
To a degree I felt the same about the Human Torch. He really shouldn't be able to mix it up with ordinary crooks without maiming or killing some of them horribly. Not that this is was much of an issue in the Silver Age, since -- like the Vision in Avengers and Green Lantern in the Justice League -- the Torch in FF stories was usually defeated early in most combat situations, leaving the bulk of the fighting to The Thing. That was frustrating until I got old enough to put myself in the writer's shoes and understood that they were taking the most powerful and most versatile players off the board quickly to extend the story, or because they preferred to spotlight other characters or because they just didn't know what to do with them.
I discovered over the weekend that I've been puling DC Comics lists from a week too early.
The fact that I didn't even notice speaks to the fact of how few DC comics I buy these days.
I hope [Wally West] gets and keeps a new uniform this time...
Personally, I liked the "Flash Forward" one. It was maroon rather than red, and it evoked Barry's withiout immitating it. Also, it retained the "open-headed" mask of his Kid Flash days.
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: FRANKENSTEIN #3: I'm tradewaiting this (these).
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON RETURNS HC: Not sure I need them in HC, though.
GODZILLA: MONSTERPIECE THEATRE #1: I'll give it a flip-through.
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON RETURNS HC: Not sure I need them in HC, though.
Often, the trade paperback will be cheaper than buying the individual issues. I suspect that somw of the publishers have caught on to this and either are only offering the collection in HC or delaying the TPB.
"GODZILLA: MONSTERPIECE THEATRE #1: No time to read this one, which inserts Godzilla into The Great Gatsby, with cartoonish art and cameos by Thomas Edison and Sherlock Holmes. The cover is an homage to Fantastic Four #1. Shrug. YMMV."
"I'll give it a flip-through."
I had forgotten, when I posted that, that Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre is by Tom Scioli. I suspect you won't like it because it's very "Gatsby-centric," but I'll have more to say about it (in the "Pick of the Week" discussion) soon.
I liked it. It's like someone punched League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the face, spun it around, and then kicked it in the arse.
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