Catch It at the Comic Shop February 12th, 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...

Mike's Pick:

 The Terrifics 25 by Gene Luen Yang, Dan Mora, and Ivan Plascencia, published by DC comics
This is Dan Mora’s first interior work for DC, having provided some fantastic covers for The Terrifics, as well as other DC and Marvel books. His interior work has been fantastic but limited. Mora has paired with Grant Morrison for the superb Klaus series and also illustrated Go Go Power Rangers. His art is a bright, clean lined silver age revival style reminiscent of Samnee, Shaner, and Gleason. His tone is perfect for The Terrifics, and I’m stoked to see what he provides in this issue. Mora will be a star artist in this industry before long. The Terrifics, if you don’t know, has quietly become one of DC’s best books under Yang. Free of the somewhat contrived Metal connection, Yang has been able to realize Lemire’s original vision of the book, and has created a DC adventure title that equally plays with and pays homage to the Fantastic Four, while still excelling in its own right. This is a choose your own adventure book. Nostalgia abounds! I can’t think of a better book to experiment with this concept. It’s indicative of Yang’s approach to the series as a whole. He’s having fun writing it, and it shows.

James' Picks:

Batman Pennyworth R.I.P by James Tynion IV, Peter J. Tomasi, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira and more, published by DC Comics
So, both of my picks this week are DC anthology one-shot books. But that's what has me interested this week.  In this book, various creators explore the fallout of the death of Alfred in the pages of Batman. Now that Bane and the other villains are no longer in control of Gotham, presumably this issue gives the characters a chance to breathe and reflect on what happened (i.e., the death of Alfred). Now obviously this being comics, we can assume that Alfred probably won't be dead forever, they'll figure something out. That being said, I'm sure it will be a strong issue with various tributes to a great character, that highlight what a central figure he is to Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Superman Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Jody Houser, Greg Rucka, Kevin Maguire, Steve Lieber, Mike Perkins, Bryan Hitch and more, published by DC Comics
As you may have heard, Superman publicly outed himself to the world as being Clark Kent. This is bound to have lots of ramifications, and I like the idea of an entire issue just devoted to seeing the reactions of various people who know Clark or Superman. I'm all in favor of this story development - I think secret identities are a concept that becomes less and less sensible as time goes by, so I'm happy to see them drop that idea with Superman.  This issue has a killer list of creators involved, so I'm enthusiastic it should be a fun read.