Comics Picks For 21.01.2015

Another week of a “Magic 40”, though no graphic novels.

This week’s surprise hits were Ivar, Timewalker #1 from Valiant, Mortal Kombat X #4 from DC, and Twilight Zone: Shadow And Substance #1 from Dynamite. The disappointments of the week were Spider-Woman #3 from Dynamite and Spider-Verse #2 and The Amazing Spider-Man #13 from Marvel and Vampirella: Feary Tales #4 from Dynamite. Ongoing greats were Wonder Woman ’77 #3 , The Flash: Season Zero #11 and Supergirl #38 from DC, Black Widow #14 and Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #4 from Marvel, and, Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm War #6 from Zenescope among others.

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.

Comics Picks For 14.01.2015

Another week going by without a “Magic 40”, but still managed to read a fair number, albeit absent any graphic novels.

This week’s surprise hits were Ares & Aphrodite #2 from Oni Press, Lady Killer #1 from Dark Horse, Wolverines #2 from Marvel and Lazarus #14 from Image. The disappointments of the week were Battlestar Galactica: The Death of Apollo #2 from Dynamite and Spider-Verse #2 from Marvel. Ongoing greats were Vampirella #100 from Dynamite, Grayson #6 from DC, S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 from Marvel and Hexed #6 from Boom Studios among others.

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.

Comics Picks For 07.01.2015

No “Magic 40” in the first week of the new year, but the second week definitely sees me hit that landmark number, and with graphic novels mixed in to boot!

This week’s surprise hits were Angry Birds/Transformers #2 from IDW Publishing, Ares & Aphrodite #1 from Oni Press, Operation: S.I.N. #1 and Wolverines #1 from Marvel. The disappointments of the week were Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #2 and Ant-Man #1 from Marvel and Future’s End #36 from DC. Ongoing greats like Swamp Thing #38 and Detective Comics #38 from DC, Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #3 from Marvel, and John Carter: Warlord of Mars #3 from Dynamite to name a few were just as I expected them to be: superb.

As mentioned above, the graphic novels for the week were Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1 from Zenescope. The former was a fun book where Gail Simone brought together several different female prose writers, paired them with different artists, and wrote a grand, sweeping Red Sonja story. The latter was part of the publisher’s Age of Darkness event and was more a prequel story.

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.

Fast-Shot Comics Reviews 07.01.2015

I skipped outon the previous week since there was a very small number of comics released, and I wasn’t really interested in reviewing more of them than I already did. So, welcome to the first good and proper edition of this new feature, and have a blast!

The picks for this week are: Eternal Warrior: Days of Steel #3, Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #2, Operation: SIN #1, Detective Comics #37-38, Justice League 3000 #12-13 and Vampirella #7-8.

Best of 2014: New Comics Series

Last year I did a small roundup over at The Founding Fields with fellow reviewer Bane of Kings which contained a list of the best new comics to have come out in 2013. It was a rather small list with only 10 entries each from the two of us, reflecting our reading for the year and the consequent small pool to pick from. But in 2014, I greatly expanded my weekly reading, and so for the round-up of the best new comics to have come out in 2014, whether as mini-series or ongoings, I have decided to go much bigger.

There were a ton of new comics to come out last year and many of them started off well enough but unfortunately well by wayside since subsequent issues were nowhere near as good. That however, is a call to make on any new comic and you have to have a wait-and-see attitude for the most part. For this embiggened round-up, I have some mini-series here and some ongoing titles. Some have had multiple issues come out in 2014, while some have had less than three.

Irrespective of that, these are all the most promising new series of 2014, and I think that they are all well worth the read in 2015.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

Best of 2014 Part 2b: Monthly Comics

A few days ago I did my best of 2014 list for the comics I read in the second half of 2014. And back in July of 2014, I did the first “best comics of 2014” post. The reason I mention that is because of the changes I’ve made for this list. While previously I used to do it so that I put up my top 6 comics, in July’14 I did a top 12 on account of the increased number of comics I was reading at the time. And that same holds true for this list as well since I’ve gone up on the number yet again, and this list has the top 20 and then 20 honourable mentions.

More comics, yay!

So, with the books of the second half of 2014 already having been covered, I now delve into my favourite monthly comics of the same period. The next post will be a list of the top graphic novels I read in all of 2014.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

Comics Picks For 24.12.2014

The last week of 2014 and I hit my Magic 40 number. That pleases me immensely. I was hoping I’d be able to make it to this number, and I did, especially with 2 graphic novels in the mix a well!

For this final week of 2014, the surprise hits were: Jungle Book: Fall Of The Wild #1 from Zenescope and Transformers: Drift: Empire of Stone #2 from IDW Publishing. The disappointing comics of the week were Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #7 from Marvel and Secret Origins #8 from DC. The regular greats like Aquaman, Catwoman, Sensation Comics, Secret Avengers, Godzilla: Cataclysm and others struck once again in the final tally.

The graphic novels for this week were Sunstone by Stjepan Sejic and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Volume 3 by Dan Abnett, Pop Mhan, Mark Roberts, Deron Bennett and Stjepan Sejic.

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.

Fast-Shot Comics Reviews 24.12.2014

This will be the final edition of this feature for this year, and it involves a fair bit of catching-up across several different titles. Digital comics, print comics, comics with female leads, comics with male leads, team books, solo books, everything is here, so check out the review below!

The picks for this week are: Fables: The Wolf Among Us #1-3, Grimm Fairy Tales: Robyn Hood #4-5, Grimm Fairy Tales: Jungle Book: Fall of The Wild #1, Judge Dredd: Anderson, Psi-Division #3-4 and Aquaman #35-37.

Catwoman Annual #2 (Comics Review)

Selina Kyle’s world has changed greatly of late. She has given up her identity as Catwoman and embraced that of Selina Kyle-Calabrese, the daughter of one of the most feared and respected of Gotham’s old mob bosses, Rex Calabrese, who now languishes in Blackgate Prison. And along the way, with a new creative team behind her, Selina has picked up a whole new supporting cast to help her (and fight her) transition into the world of mob politics that run rampant through Gotham, and this supporting cast will either make or break her.

Hot on the heels of a recent issue where she had to… deal with a cousin who secretly a snitch for the Gotham PD, we get Catwoman Annual #2 where we get to see the details of one of the more prominent members of Selina’s new supporting cast, Eiko Hasigawa, the daughter and potential heir of the Hasigawa family which is currently being courted by Selina as allies in her bid to secure power in Gotham for the Calabrese family. Genevieve Valentine writes a pretty thrilling issue with a woman who wants to break out of the bounds of her family and make her own life on her own terms, and the art is pretty damn spectacular all the way too.

Justice League Dark #37 (Comics Review)

The current arc of Justice League Dark has seen the team split up into different sub-teams, and each sub-team has been fighting off a different threat. Zatanna had to face reunion with her father in a rather roundabout way, while Frankenstein, Bennett, Swamp Thing and Asa have confronted a dark, future version of Felix Faust who has gone insane. Which leaves just Deadman, Black Orchid and Madame Xanadu. The previous three issues of the series have seen the team under a lot of pressure and each has done something to move past the challenge before them and set about restoring their unity.

Which is where this new issue of the title comes in, and in a big way too. First Zatanna, then the team of four, have had to face some very obvious but also subtle challenges. For Boston, Black Orchid and Xanadu however, it is pretty much subtle all the way, for they are caught in a web the likes of which they cannot begin to imagine. And at the same time, while we don’t get to see the team of four doing anything this time, we see Zee trying to find a way to bring her entire team together, and by the time the issue ends, something rather disturbing happens, leaving another big gaping mystery for the heroes.

Comics Picks For 17.12.2014

I was hoping for a second Magic 40 week in a row, but turns out that it was just wishful thinking. Still, I managed to get up to 30 comics this week, though no graphic novels sadly.

There was only one surprise hit this week, Eternal #1 from Boom Studios, as pretty much all the other comics I read this past week were ongoing series I’ve been following for a while. The disappointments of the week were Spider-Woman #2 from Marvel and Future’s End #33 from DC. And the ones that continued a great trend were the likes of Black Widow #13, Justice League #37, Catwoman #37, Supergirl #37, Wayward #5 and others.

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.

12 Days of Best Covers of 2014: Day #10

The tenth book cover I pick for the 2014 edition of “12 Days of Best Covers of…” is for Gareth Powell’s second Ack-Ack Macaque novel, Hive Monkey, which was an absolute joy to read this year. It follows on from last year’s Ack-Ack Macaque and is pretty much just as good a novel, if not better. Gareth expanded on the world he’d created for this series, and he did it magnificently, with a twist that you could never have seen coming from a mile off. That’s the fun thing about his work, his twists are always awesome.

The first of the tenth set of comic covers I pick this year is for Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #1 by Ales Kot, Marco Rudy and VC’s Clayton Cowles with the cover by Marco only. The second is for Catwoman #35 by Genevieve Valentine, Garry Brown, Lee Loughridge, Sal Cipriano and Taylor Esposito, with the cover by Jae Lee and June Chung. The third is for Predator: Fire and Stone #1 by Joshua Williamson, Christopher Mooneyham, Dan Brown and Nate Piekos of Blambot with the cover by Lucas Graciano. The first cover is for the first issue of a new Bucky Barnes series set in the aftermath of the recent Original Sin
event wherein Bucky undertook a thankless but vital task on behalf of all of humanity, inheriting one of Nick Fury’s oldest burdens. The second comic is a soft reboot on the title and follows on from events in Batman: Eternal that see Selina Kyle leave behind her life as Catwoman to become Selina Calabrese-Kyle, one of the most powerful of all the mob bosses in Gotham, and the switch has been darn amazing. The third one is yet another new comic that is a part of Dark Horse’s wider Fire and Stone event and is definitely among the best of the four new mini-series launched by the publisher.

So without further ado, hit the break to see all the covers in their full glory! The full list of all these covers is available here.