What I’m Getting Wednesday

Another odd week as far as what is and what is not coming out. For two out of the five weeks this month Marvel has had almost no output whatsoever. I t seems they almost publish whatever they have that week, so one week can be monster week and the next an almost nothing week. I’m sure that is not what they do, but it feels that way at times. Lots of small press books are coming out this week, so that is a plus and last week had a lot of independents also.

52 Aftermath : The Four Horseman #1 (of 6) – An odd mini-series. Based on the official hype the four horsemen from 52 return and it is up to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman to take them down. I have to admit that I like how DC has made the big three into this long term Trinity type deal, so it could be good. By Keith Giffen and Pat Olliffe.
Amazons Attacks #6 (of 6) – The highly underrated mini-series comes to its conclusion. This has been an enjoyable if at times odd event in the DCU. Will Pfeifer and Pete Woods have really crafted an entertaining story centering on the Amazons.

Batman Annual #26 – Head of the Demon – An origin of Ras As Ghul is done by Peter Milligan and David and Alvaro Lopez (Catwoman) on the art. The big event in the Bat books coming up is the return of Ras and this annual looks to set the stage for why Ras is a key element in the DCU. I’m so happy that he is coming back as the whole “Death of the Madiens” mini-series when they killed the greatest bat-villain ever was ill conceived.

Action #855 – This book should just absolutely rock. Geoff Johns & Richard Donner with Eric Powell on art. A Bizzaro Superman story. I personally was never that fond of Bizzaro Superman, but Morrison and Quietly did a nice take on it and I think this group should really do justice to the concept.

Countdown #35 – Last issue was decent, some excellent reveals (Mary Marvel is apparently being affected by Eclipso) and the issue flowed a little better. Let’s hope this book starts to heat up.

Outsiders Five of A Kind – Wonder Woman / Grace – The last in this weekly series that really had no strong reason to be done other then to give some spotlight to individual members of the Outsiders. This is an Amazon Attacks tie-in and one I’m looking forward to reading. I like Grace and the writer is Marc Andreyko who writes the missing Manhunter book – which was supposed to come back!

Countdown to Adventure #1 (of 8) – Have no idea what to expect from this book. If they are planning to team-up Adam Strange, Starfire and Animal Man again they are nuts. They were thrown together for Infinite Crisis, but no reason for them to be back together. Plus a back-up series on the character Forerunner. This book is a tabula rasa.

Tangent Comics Volume 1 – Reprinting from 1997 a re-imagining of the DC heroes, using the same names to create vastly different heroes. My memory was this was enjoyable so I ordered the trade. Hope I’m right.

Teen Titans #50 – Sean McKeever is joined by other past writers to do the anniversary thing for the Titans. Looking forward to reading this series now that we have a permanent writer again. The series never quite had a solid direction, but was always a decent book. I hope now the book gets a feeling of where it wants to go.

Wonder Woman #12 – An Amazon Attacks tie-in. J. Torres has done a decent job on this book and because of delays I believe he will be doing issue #13. This book has been better, but really I’m waiting for Gail’s run to begin.

Wetworks #12 - I thought this book was getting cancelled, but it looks to still be an ongoing. J.M. DeMatteis has been doing a nice job on this book since Carey left, but I still feel like the whole set-up that Carey did is being ignored for character development. Still the official hype sounds good “The vampire known as Red comes clean to Dane about her former life as an assassin, as well as her reason for joining the Wetworks team.”

American Virgin #18 – “Around the World” part 4 of 5. This is just an excellent book following Adam’s journey in trying to find true love and maintain his virtue in a whacked out crazy world.

Avengers: The Initiative #5 – Another WW Hulk tie-in. This issue is about a Black Ops team within the Initiative. I know Marvel is outselling DC but huge margins lately and that many more fans seem to enjoy the Marvel stuff. I think the internet has more DC fans because I believe the internet appeals to a certain personality type and that type is more attracted to the DC pantheon of heroes. But still – come on this is just getting to be too much. We are on issue #5 and have just started to develop the core group we want to follow and now we have a second team of people to focus on. Plus having all 50 states with heroes is just starting to bore the heck out of me. All the crappy code names and stuff, it is like they are asking me to invest in 40 new characters in the last few months. I dropped “The Order” and “New Warriors” already and this book may have to go also.

Fantastic Four #549 – The new Frightful Five versus the Fantastic Six. Klaw popped up in the last issue and Reed and Sue are back, so the battle ensues. Still not sold on Black Panther as uber-genius guy and I have never liked Storm marrying him, but the FF has been more fun lately under Dwayne McDuffie.

Marvel Masterworks Volume #82 – Captain Marvel – Volume 2 – The second Captain Marvel Masterworks containing Captain Marvel #10-21. This is really not material 100% worthy of hard cover treatment, but once Gil Kane comes on the book and they add the Rick Jones and Captain Marvel doing their own Shazam thing, the book got better. Hell I have not read the last collection of Captain Marvel material.

WW Hulk X-Men #3 (of 3)- The only book Christos Gage has done that was a total waste of paper so far. I was going to skip this tie-in and should have, but for three issues; I’ll follow it till the end.

Brit #1 – The Robert Kirkman creation back with a different writer giving him new adventures. I never followed the original appearances of this character, but thought I should check out this re-launch to give it a try. The old war horse being pulled out of retirement theme has been done to death, but if told well it can be a good story.

Mice Templar #1 – Because you can never have too many talking animal books on the market place. The official hype “For the young mouse Karic, the Mice Templar are merely an exciting legend. They were real, though, and a vicious civil war left them scattered and all mouse culture in the grip of brutal rat masters. When Karic’s family is enslaved, he realizes their only hope of freedom lies in his paws…if he can only find the courage and strength to become one of the legendary Templar himself.” Story by Bryan Glass and Michael Avon Oeming and art by Michael Avon Oeming. Between this and Mouse Guard who knew mice led such complex lives with so much history.

Conan #43 – Continuing the excellent “Rouges in the House” adaptation. This book has been on a really good roll lately and I’m looking forward to another good issue by Tim Truman and Cary Nord.

Fallen Angel #19 – Continuing the Shi and Fallen Angel team-up. These last few issues have really put this book back up on my list. The biting sarcasm is in top form as Angel tries to resolve problems. I’m unfamiliar with Shi, but would now actually be interested in getting a trade of her story.

Hellboy Darkness Calls #5 (of 6) – I have finally gotten back into the whole Hellboy story and it really is an enjoyable ride. Hellboy is caught up in so many things that are all beyond his control to a large degree but he continues to fight back and learn what it is all about. His “what the f**k” attitude is evident in just the artwork and adds to the sardonic humor.

Fall of Cthulhu #5 - I just read #3 and had read #4 awhile ago, due to a book being missed by my store, but this is a good series to date and I’m glad the series is not just a mini-series. I’m assuming it will be a series of horror stories revolving around Lovecraft themes.

30 Days of Night Eben and Stella #4 (of ?) – I forget if this is just a four part mini-series or a longer one, still this has been a good addition to the 30 Days franchise. Check out the movie trailer http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/30daysofnight/ this looks to be a really cool movie.

Enigma Cipher #2 – I believe this is a 2 part prestige format size mini-series. The last issue was a long time back, but it was so good I remember what was happening. A group of students had helped to decipher an old Enigma code message. Everyone but one female student has been killed and she is on the run with help from a FBI guy or something. She has no idea what it is that they found, but now needs to solve the mystery and stay alive. Looking forward to this book.

Local #10 (of 12) – This book has really slowed up at the end, but that’s okay as it is the type of book you want to see finished by the creators who started it. Brian Woods (writer) said that the book was taken over by Megan and it has become her story. We only have 3 more issue left and I really feel for Megan as she is very lost and desperately seems to be trying to find her way in an uncaring world. Here is hoping for a happy ending with issue #12.

Hunters Moon #3 (of 5) – This has been a good story. A divorced man is spending time with his son taking him hunting when his son is kidnapped. Add into the mix that it appears that he is being set-up to look like he may have murdered his son and the fact that he can’t trust the people investigating the crime and you have a good story of one man fighting back against the bad guys and the purported good guys.

Bonds #1 (of 3) – I’m not familiar with Durwin Talon but he was the artist on Batman: Officer Down, so I have seen his work and just don’t remember it. He is the writer/artist of this book and the premise was the selling point for me “Faith Warner is an up and coming cellist leading a seemingly perfect life until the night she loses her father to an assassin’s bullet. So when Faith discovers she has the opportunity to use long dormant magical abilities to exact her revenge, she takes it. Her path of retribution is a bloody one. To become an instrument of vengeance, she must sever the bonds of her happiness… and sacrifice her future.”

Wasteland #11 – A good post apocalypse story. This is a really good book but I do believe that starting from the beginning is important to the story. So go buy the first trade and then pick up back issue to join in the fun.

So quite a market share split this week with DC and Independents each at 43% (12 titles) and Marvel at 14% with only 4 titles. I always have some books that I’m really looking forward to and some books that are on the edge of being canned and some that are blank slates that I have almost no expectations on. This week encompasses all of those features. As a bonus Batman/Lobo #1 was shorted at the store I buy from and should be in this week.