Catch It at the Comic Shop February 26th, 2020

Welcome to Catch it at the Comic Shop, where the Panel Patter team looks at what's coming out at your favorite store or digital device this week. Each one of us that participates picks up to five items due out this week, with a little bit about why we like them. (NOTE: We use solicitation material for this, so if we miss creators, please talk to your publisher!) Sometimes we might only have a few items to share, other weeks, keeping it to five will make for hard choices. Here's what the team wanted to highlight this week...


James' Picks:

Tomorrow #1 (of 5) by Peter Milligan, Jesus Hervas and James Devlin, published by Dark Horse/Berger Books
I've read this first issue and this feels like a classic Vertigo-style series, a number of which now have their home at Berger Books.  This is a highly engaging debut issue in the "terrible pandemic ravaging society, going to have huge repercussions" genre of story. Now, I think in the modern era, all of those stories exist in the shadow of Y: The Last Man, but I thought the first issue of Tomorrow was very strong.  There's a lot of clever ideas in the story - the deadly virus only appears to be affecting adults, not children. And it somehow seems to be able to travel through computers into the real world.  These are both interesting ideas and I'm very curious to see where they go.  Smartly, I think, the story is mostly focused on regular people coping wth the consequences. The art from Jesus Hervas (with colors by James Devlin) was very strong, I thought it worked well in the story that was being told. It was violent and shocking without bring gruesome. Anyway, I think Tomorrow is a very interesting debut, and well worth a look. 

Second Coming Vol. 1 TP by Mark Russell, Richard Pace and Leonard Kirk, published by Ahoy Comics
This is a hilarious, heartfelt story, and also a scathing satire of religion and culture. In other words, it's a story written by the fantastic Mark Russell, who writes some of the smartest comics you'll ever read. The story here involves God being very disappointed in us (and his son), and Jesus coming to Earth and hanging out with the world's greatest superhero. The art is gorgeously rendered by Richard Pace and Leonard Kirk, with Pace handling the heavenly/Biblical passages in a way that feels very "Illustrated Bible", and Kirk ably handling the superhero storytelling in a modern, more gritty style. And it's clear that Russell is coming knives out - not for Christianity, but for the hypocrites, fraudsters and tyrants that claim to be acting in God's name.  Second Coming is a must-read.

Giant-Size X-Men Jean Grey and Emma Frost, published by Marvel Comics
This comic basically sells itself. An issue of X-Men written by Jonathan Hickman (I'm sold), drawn by the spectacular Russell Dauterman (seriously, I'm sold), colored by the amazing Matt Wilson (seriously, give this to me), and with Emma Frost and Jean Grey as it's stars (OH FFS GIVE IT TO ME)?  Yeah, I've got high hopes for this one. Emma and Jean's clever, barb-filled relationship, with rivalry and mutual respect, is fertile ground for exploration. And Jonathan Hickman-written issues of the Dawn of X books have been uniformly excellent. So I'm thrilled for this one.