It’s another indie bonanza again this week, so let’s spend a bit of time looking at those before the big two.
It’s looking like Boom’s run of hits is set to continue with Folklords #1 -Eisner Award-nominated writer Matt Kindt (Grass Kings, Black Badge) teams with acclaimed artist Matt Smith (Hellboy And The B.P.R.D.) challenge everything you know about the line between fantasy and reality in a new series for fans of Die, Middlewest and Fables.
Black Stars Above #1 ( Lonnie Nadler, Jenna Cha ) from Vault has a young fur trapper fleeing her overbearing family only to get lost in a dreamlike winter wilderness that harbours a cosmic threat, and has been getting a huge amount of hype on them there interwebs.
Mirka Andolfo’s Unsacred #1, somewhat unsurprisingly from Mirka Andolfo (Unnatural, DC Bombshells) brings to life a Heaven (and a Hell) filled with humour and lovable characters! Angelina, a voluptuous angel, and Damiano, a mischievous devil, are madly in love. But, while she does not intend to give in to temptation, he would very much like to… Family Tree #1 ( Jeff Lemire, Phil Hester, Ryan Cody, Eric Gapstur) tells the story of an eight-year-old girl that literally begins to transform into a tree. Her single mom, troubled brother, and possibly insane grandfather embark on a bizarre and heart-wrenching odyssey across the back roads of America in a desperate search for a way to cure her horrifying transformation before it’s too late, but this is Jeff Lemire so you know it won’t be plain sailing.
Elfquest: Stargazers #1 ( Wendy Pini, Richard Pini, Sonny Strait ) carries on the story of Skywise ina new six part mini-series, and Grendel: Devils Odyssey #1 (Matt Wagner) sees Grendel Prime searches the stars for a new home for mankind, and Matt Wagner returns to his darkest creation! As civilization comes to an end on Earth, the final Grendel Khan gives Grendel Prime a new directive: Find a perfect planet to be the new home for the human race. But will the deadly and relentless paladin ultimately save humanity… or destroy it?
If you fancy a longer read there is GLOW ( Tini Howard, Hannah Templer) volume 1, continuing the story of those Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, or there is Firefly: Sting ( Delilah S Dawson, various) which gives Browncoats a new tale about Saffron, as she tries to tempt the ladies of the ship away from Captain Reynolds to help her on a new heist.
So what do the big 2 have for us?
Wedding bells are ringing for Spidey and Felicia in Black Cat Annual #1 (Jed MacKay, Joey Vazquez, Natacha Bustos, Juan Gedeon), while things look less rosy for Psylocke, Cable and X-23 as they look for vengeance in Fallen Angels #1 (Bryan Edward Hill, Szymon Kudranski). Marvel Tales: Doctor Strange (Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Chris Claremont, Steve Ditko, Dan Adkins, Marshall Rogers) collects together three tales of the sorcerer supreme, while the living vampire thinks he may have found a cure for himself in Morbius #1 (Vita Ayala, Marcelo Ferreira). Frank Castle is surrounded by bodies but he didn’t create them, which isn’t going to end well for somebody in Punisher: Soviet (Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows).
If you are looking for a longer read this week there is Vision: Complete Collection (Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Michael Walsh), which is a superhero tale like nothing you have ever seen before, when the titular hero tries to live a normal suburban life with his family and a dog… What could possibly go wrong?
For fans of the classic tv show there is Adventures of the X-Men (Ralph Macchio, Andy Kuhn, Derec Aucoin, Yancy Labat), which has the same visual style but with all new action, and Savage Avengers (Gerry Duggan, Mike Deodato) collects together the biggest badasses in the Marvel universe, then throws Conan the Barbarian in to the mix for good measure!
For fans of space opera there is also Star Wars: Age of Resistance (Tom Taylor, G. Willow Wilson, Chris Eliopoulos, Ramon Rosanas, Elsa Charretier, More) which collects together tales of Finn, Poe, Rose Tico, Rey, Chewbacca and R2-D2! There is also Star Wars Adventures vol 7 (John Jackson Miller, John Barber, James Gilarte, Valentina Pinto, Jon Sommariva) from IDW, collecting stories for fans of all ages.
DC are releasing a new style of Lantern comic this week in the form of Far Sector (N.K. Jemisin, Jamal Campbell) #1, a new maxi-series that features a galaxy spanning sci-fi space murder mystery!
There are also longer reads in the form of the Wonder Twins vol 1 (Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne) which sees alien teenagers Zan and Jayne navigating life at high school on Earth, Justice League vol 4 (Robin Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, James Tynion IV, Francis Manapul, Javi Fernandez, Daniel Sampere, Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran, Jorge Jimenez) in which the heroes head to the sixth dimension and Flash: Year One hardcover (Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter) which takes us all the way back to the beginning of Barry Allen’s story.
It is a good week for younger DC fans, as we see both the 100 page special DC Superhero Girls Giant coming out, as well as Teen Titans Go: Weirder Things (Derek Fridolfs, Sholly Fisch, Amanda Deibert, Matthew K. Manning, J. Torres, Paul Morrisey, Heather Nuhfer, Ivan Cohen, Lea H. Seidman, Derek Fridolfs, Erich Owen, Sandy Jarrell, Agnes Garbowska, Sarah Leuver, Philip Murph) trade paperback, which you just know is going to be filled to the brim with humour.
For (much) older readers there is the next release from the new Hill House horror imprint, this week they are dropping a tale of a spooky toy house and it’s inhabitants, that want more than to just play, in The Dollhouse Family (Mike Carey, Joe Hill, Peter Gross, Vince Locke, Dan McDaid). From the same creators as last years wonderful Highest House, and featuring the continued serialisation of Joe Hoill’s Sea Dogs this should be a great read for horror fans.