Comics Picks For 12.11.2014

Getting on a roll again, this week I managed to repeat the “Magic 40” with 2 graphic novels and 38 singles, with many of the latter being absolutely new series, so that was a lot of fun for the most part.

My top picks for the surprise hits of the week would be Archer & Armstrong: One Percent #1  from Valiant Comics, Deep State #1 from Boom Studios, Django/Zorro #1 from Dynamite Entertainment and Vertigo Comics, and The Kitchen #1 from Vertigo Comics also. The most disappointing comics of this week were  Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #1 and Death of Wolverine: Logan Legacy #4 both from Marvel Comics, New 52 – Batman #36 from DC Comics and Grimm Fairy Tales: Cfinderella #1 from Zenescope Entertainment. Other than that, the regularly great titles like Hexed, Fables, New Suicide Squad, Red Sonja and Unity all proved to be immensely fun.

The graphic novels for this week were King Conan: The Hour of The Dragon by Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello and Jose Villarrubia, and Fables Volume 5 by Bill Willingham, Tony Akins, Jimmy Palmiotti, Daniel Vozzo, Todd Klein, James Jean, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Spider-Verse #1 (Comics Review)

Marvel’s Spider-Verse kicked off in full-swing last week with The Amazing Spider-Man #9 which brought Peter Parker from Earth -616 firmly into the middle of the event. Many of the most powerful of Spider-totems have already allied together against the all-consuming rampages of the Inheritors and we’ve also seen what the larger plan in effect is. This is certainly an event set to touch across all corners of the Marvel omniverse and the sheer volume of stories itself is pretty damn amazing, with Spider-totems from lots of different Earths being featured.

In this week’s Spider-Verse #1, we see some more Spider-Totems in the vein of Spider-Verse Team-Up and it is quite a fun look as well. Combining several different art styles and several different Spider-totems, this issue is mostly just an “extra”. Nothing important really happens in here unless we count this one story featuring the Master-Weaver himself, which is pretty striking in its implications. Though I must say that my favourite story is the steampunk one featuring May Reilly. Brilliant that one. With the mix of stories here, some of them work really well and some don’t and you run the gamut from serious intense stories to cartoony ones.

Comics Picks For 05.11.2014

After several weeks of trying to get back to the magical 40, I hit that number once again this week and the great thing was that this one consisted of 37 singles and 3 graphic novels, which was pretty fun in itself!

My top picks for the surprise hits of the week would be Eternal Warrior: Days of Steel #1  from Valiant Comics, John Carter: Warlord of Mars #1 from Dynamie Entertainment, both the new Death of Wolverine tie-in issues of Life After Logan and Weapon X Program from Marvel Comics, All-Star Western Volume 6 from DC Comics and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters #1 from IDW Publishing. The most disappointing comics of this week were Superman Unchained #9 from DC Comics, Jennifer Blood: Born Again #4 from Dynamite Entertainment and Grimm Fairy Tales: Cfinderella #1 from Zenescope Entertainment. Other than that, there were lots of other great titles such as the new John Carter: Warlord of Mars #1 from Dynamite, Trial of Jean-Grey from Marvel Comics, Batwoman Volume 5 from DC Comics and Vampirella #6.

The graphic novels for this week were All-New X-Men & Guardians of the Galaxy: Trial of Jean Grey by Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen and Sara Pichelli, Batwoman Volume 5 by Marc Andreyko and Jeremy Haun, and All-Star Western Volume 6 by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Staz Johnson and Darwyn Cooke.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

The Amazing Spider-Man #8-9 (Comics Review)

Dan Slott, Christos Gage and many other writers have been laying down the foundation of Marvel’s current event, Spider-Verse for the last several weeks now and it is pretty much time for readers to get the dividends on their investments. In the pages of both Edge of Spider-Verse and The Amazing Spider-Man, we’ve seen how various Spider-themed heroes have been murdered and their souls stolen by interdimensional beings and how it is going to affect the main Marvel 616 universe. In recent weeks, we also got to see brand-new superhero Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel join forces with Peter Parker as well and The Amazing Spider-Man has definitely moved into a new phase of its second existnece

In The Amazing Spider-Man #7, we saw Kamala and Peter team-up to take down a supervillain who dressed up in one of Carol Danvers’ old outfits from when she was Ms. Marvel. It was a bit of a silly story in some ways but also executed well enough that I ended up liking it. And then we got to meet Spider-UK from an alternate Earth where he was part of the Captain Britain Corps. Fun stuff. But in issues #8 and #9, we see something altogether different. Kamala and Peter’s team-up comes to a nice soft close, we see the debut of Mayday Parker, and then Dan Slott kicks off Spider-Verse in the ninth issue, out this week. As I said, the title just keeps getting better, and the art is improving along with it, which is pretty awesome

The Amazing Spider-Man #7 (Comics Review)

The last five months have seen some big changes happening to one of Marvel’s longest-running titles. Following on from the end of Dan Slott’s game-changing Superior Spider-Man, the flagship Spidey title The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched with the return of Peter Parker and we’ve seen the hero go through some major stuff of late, whether it is fighting an Elektro and Black Cat team-up or finding out that someone else got bit by the same spider as he did, and in stepped new female superhero Silk, who is a match for Peter in almost every way, and also a major problem too. It has been a fun five-and-a-half months, and things look to be getting even better with the ongoing Spider-Verse crossover.

The latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man brings in one of Marvel’s biggest successes of the year, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan, as a guest star and also deals with what has been happening in various realities around the omniverse with the villain Morlun and others killing various Spidey-heroes left and right. Both stories are great fun, as they should be since writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage have worked on them, and the Spider-Verse story in particular seems to have some interesting callbacks to more classic stories and the same vibe as well. And the artwork with Giuseppe Camuncoli is also great, just as I expected it to be.