Rob's Picks:
Mike kept telling me about how great Vault Comics were, and I took advantage of ECCC to grab a bunch of their books, which I'm working on a post about. In the meantime I highly recommend you catch up on this one, which looks to bet Yet Another Boy Learning About a Magical Land(TM), then dumps you squarely into a different kind of story. Here we appear to be back towards the beginning of Maxwell's life, and I can't wait to see what's going to happen. The art is sharp and Vault's production values are amazing. There's still time to jump in on this one and find your new favorite fantasy book.
How the heck could I not be intrigued by this one, which promises to be a comic that enables you to be role-playing alongside the story and score yourself against Wade (though I presume he'll cheat!). I love Al Ewing, quietly one of Marvel's best writers and the premise has me sold. I always was a sucker for the idea of Choose Your Own Adventure...
A long time ago, I wrote an embarrassingly bad review of the original Street Angel. To be fair, I was still learning how to write a review. It's still up here if you want to go see it. At any rate, it's great to see the character continue to have adventures. This time around, our fabulous main character gets sent to juvenile detention, which might not be so bad, given her lack of stability. Ah, who are we kidding? Very much looking forward to the ever-changing Rugg's art choices here, his exploitation influences, and a collaboration with Maruca. I don't expect you need to read the others to read this.
Gail Simone and Walter Giovanni re-unite to tell another Sonja tale, this time with Tarzan in tow. I'm not quite sure how that's going to work, but Giovanni's art--at least last time around--was very Romita-esque and I loved it, so I can't wait for more. Gail is of course a love her or hate her creator, so your mileage may vary. I've been really impressed with her work on Sonja, especially these crossovers, so I'm all in for this one.
More Mirror Universe Madness, with the Tiptons and J.K. Woodward along for the ride. I'm in. Though I wish Woodward was doing all the art, his painted style takes time, so I get having a more traditional line artist in To, who does a great job with the likenesses and panel structure. As usual, anything goes with an alt universe story, and Trek fans know already how good IDW comics in the Trek world are. This one's no exception.
James' Picks:
East of West is one of those books that's been so good for so long that I think people sleep on it. Well, that would be a mistake. I think it's probably my favorite comic of the last 10 years, and that is saying something (considering how many great comics there have been). It's fun, complex, engaging, weird (all things you can expect from writer Jonathan Hickman), and has absolutely stunning art from Nick Dragotta and colorist Frank Martin (and they keep getting better and better).
I was sorry to see Chris Samnee leave this book, but I can't think of a much better replacement than Leonardo Romero. He did terrific work on the recent Hawkeye series, and I'm sure will do excellent work on Captain America. Romero has a terrific, classic, clean style that reminds me a little of Samnee, but also somewhere in the Doc Shaner/David Aja world, which is some amazing company to be in. This is a Captain American story set centuries in the future, and I'm excited to see where this goes. I think Waid has been a great guy to bring Cap back to his roots, and this sounds like an exciting twist.
This is it, the big new Avengers relaunch. I'm excited to see where this goes. I enjoyed Avengers: No Surrender as I thought it was a fun, old-school crossover event, and I think it left the team in an interesting place. It sounds like they're bringing the original "big three" back together, and while the move away from better representation is something that I'm not thrilled about, it has been a number of years since Steve, Tony and Thor Odinson have been together on a team, so it should be a fun reunion. And there are few writers I would trust right now more than Jason Aaron to get this book off to a great start. He's been doing incredible work on Thor for years, and if you ever read his Wolverine and the X-Men book, you know he knows how to write a fun team book.
If Rick Remender has a new #1 at Image Comics, that's something I need to check out. He's one of the most important writers of recent years, and has a remarkable track record at Image Comics (Black Science, Deadly Class, Low, Seven Minutes to Eternity). Remender is a writer who just knows how to tell an engaging story. I'm really curious to check this one out - Bengal is a fantastic artist but not exactly the sort of gritty artist with whom Remender usually works, so it should be an interesting change of pace.
Mike's Picks
Death or Glory # 1 by Rick Remender and Bengal, published by Image Comics
Rick Remender is one of the most creative writers working in the business today. Pair him with a remarkable artist like Bengal, and we have a recipe for something special. I read the advance copy of this issue, and I have to say that it’s core Remender – a mashup of genres with veiled societal commentary. For this story, Remender channels his previous works, Tokyo Ghost and Low, weaving those tropes into a tense chase narrative.
Maxwell’s Demons # 3 by Deniz Camp, Vittorio Astone, and Nathan Gooden
Deniz Camp filters big ideas through an adventure narrative that feels more like a 90s Saturday morning cartoon series than it does a comic. Camp’s narrative is brought to light by Vittorio Astone, who provides both line and color art for the series. And, to be honest, it’s the color pallet that sets this book apart. If you like big stories a la vintage Fantastic Four, I’d suggest making sure you check out Maxwell’s Demons.
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, by Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Frank Fosco, and Ken Branch, published by DC Comics
I shouldn’t let nostalgia overwhelm me, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t pick this collection because, believe it or not, Zero Hour is what turned me from a casual-yet-invested-but-inconsistent-and-confused comic book reader to a still-confused-yet-with-less-disposable-income comic collector. I was too young to understand neither Crisis nor its ripple effects, but Zero Hour (which I originally read in trade, likely my first instance of that experience as well) caught me at the right time when my early adolescent love of the summer crossover collided with my curiosity after my then proto-collector experiences with The Death and Return of Superman and Knightfall. I love this series. I always will. And I can’t wait to read it again.