What I’m Getting Wednesday July 28

I have hit a sort of blah period again with comics. I know that between all that I read and all that I write about comics that burnout can occur on occasion, but lately the cape stuff has lost favor in my eyes. I have cancelled New Avengers and Power Girl from last week and I’m very iffy on Legion Of Super Heroes. This week offers some hope.

Thundra King of the Congo Archives – This is from Dark Horse and contains a complete issue drawn by Frank Frazetta, which is the reason I’m getting this book. I read where the late Frank Frazetta had one of his paintings sell for $1.5 million. Thankfully this archive retails at only $50.

Archie Pureheart the Powerful Trade Volume 1 is out from IDW. This short lived time when the Archie characters were running around as super heroes some of the time was amusing if memory serves. Plus it was only $20 and nostalgia catches up to me sometimes.

Life with Archie The Married Life #1 is out from Archies comics. I blame Matthew as I read the trade that covered the two possible futures with Archie being married to Veronica or Betty based on Matthew’s review of the books. Now I’m curious to see how things progress. Two Archie products in one week is some sort of record for me.

Two BOOM books are on my list. I have been sucked into 28 Days Later #13 and 7 Psychopaths #3 (of 3). Both books feed into my need to read more than super heroes, but I have to enjoy the concept, writing and art also and both books hit the mark.

American Vampire #5 hits the stands. I can’t wait to see how King wraps up the origin of Skinner and I’m anxious to see what happens to Pearl, who has become a favorite fictional character of mine already. This would make a great TV series.

Madame Xanadu #25 hits the stands and has been heavily reported that it is being cancelled. This is a sad state of affairs, but at least Amy Reeder is still doing work for DC. This arc has different artist for each issue so I’m missing Amy’s work, but it is still an excellent book. I hope it gets some sort of hard cover down the road as I think this book has potential outside the direct market.

Thor The Mighty Avenger #2 is out. The first issue was a great re-imagining of the Thor character and I’m looking forward to this series a lot. It has a wonderful quality of being an easy read, but actually containing more then what it appears on the surface.

It is a really bright day this week from DC with Flash #4, Green Lantern #56, Green Lantern Corps #50, Green Arrow #2, Justice League Generation Lost #6 and Justice League of America #47 all under the Brightest Day Banner. Flash, Green Lantern and GL Corps are all solid books and no thoughts of dropping them exist. JL Generation Lost is probably safe but I’m still not 100% sold on that series. GA and JLA are on my radar to be dropped. JLA has been a disaster for a long time and GA still has a chance, but the first issue was uneven at best.

Dark Horse in addition to the Archives has Fear Agent #28, Abe Sapien Abyssal Plain #2 (of 2) and Buzzard #2 (of 3). All of a sudden Dark Horse in back on my radar with the Gold Key launches now being mixed in and the last arc of Fear Agent finally coming out.

Marvel has become a smaller and smaller part of my list and only has two other titles that I’m getting this week with PunisherMax #9 and Secret Avengers #3. Punishermax is a book I’m wavering on, but I have hope that Aaron can keep it entertaining. I think the book suffers from comparison to Garth Ennis’ great run.

Outside the regular DCU we have Northlanders #30 and First Wave #3 (of 6) in addition to the other books mentioned. Rags Morales is doing an amazing art job on First Wave and the series itself is excellent if suffering from a slow publishing schedule. Northlanders is frankly just a great series and every issue is at the very least a good one.

The rest of the list is Action Comics #891, Authority the Lost Year #11 (of 12), Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne #4 (of 6), Detective Comics #867, Gotham City Sirens #14 and Wonder Woman #601. Of those books Action Comics is already a favorite as Paul Cornell is making a series about Lex Luthor an interesting one. Wonder Woman will be an early read for me as I’m anxious to see how the new direction goes. Sirens is on my “will I drop it radar” as the book has no real direction.

Looks like it has the potential to be a good week, but only reading the books will let us know.