It's the big guns this week with a new comic pull list! I'm back to old habits and am discussing 24 different comics! Seven of the are either first issues or Specials, and at least three are final issues, so it isn't as crazy as it sounds.
Many of the week's pulls are limited series' in some way, as well, making them technically temporary pulls. If you're more into knowing about publishers, nine are Marvel, three are DC, and the rest are spread across independent publishers. These 24 pulls this week are also why some of my ensuing blurbs are a little shorter than normal. Continuing in doing my representation spotlights, I picked out Bitter Root and it's creative team as the spotlight on creators of color. Non-binary artist Jen Hickman is talked about for queer representation, and Spy Island, with it's Man-Eaters team of women, for female representation in the comics industry. Continue Reading to see what kind of amazing comics are coming out this week!
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I refuse to hide in shame when I admit that three of my top-five picks this week are technically Dawn of X books. What can I say? Johnathon Hickman knows how to put together a universe.
X-Force, Marauders, and Empyre: X-Men are mt three mutant-based picks, leaving the other slots to this week's Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. It also doesn't escape me how four fifths of this list are Marvel properties, but that is also easy to explain. Marvel's theory of "the more, the merrier" that they've had in recent years has excellent payoff, as far as I can see. There's something for everyone, no doubt about that. But let's not get too caught up in which publisher may or may not be better than others. When it comes down to it, Marvel and DC are both massive conglomerates that care only about their bottom dollar and give very little effort in terms of creator benefits. Dark sides of the industry aside, this was a pretty good week for comics! I'll admit that many of the other issues faltered for me, and many felt unimportant or like filler. These five, however, were the obvious choices that stood out for me in story, art, and overall quality, Continue Reading to find out more about my top picks from the week! WARNING: SPOILERS!
Click here for the most (and final) recent update!
In my opinion, Empyre: X-Men has been far and beyond better than the main Empyre event, or any of the other tie-ins. This might be because the series is co-written by ALL of the Dawn of X writers at Marvel, who in turn were picked by Head of X Johnathon Hickman to help build his new world for the mutants. Since the series is still coming out, here are the release dates of each issue: #1 July 22nd, Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard, art by Matteo Buffagni #2 August 5th, Gerry Duggan, Ben Percy, and Leah Williams, art by Lucas Werneck #3 August 12th, Ed Brisson, Vita Ayala, and Zeb Wells, art by Andrea Broccardo #4 August 19th, Jonathan Hickman, art by Jorge Molina And just for fun, here's a breakdown for the writers on this series, and what they normally write for Dawn of X: Johnathon Hickman: X-Men, New Mutants Tini Howard: Excalibur Gerry Duggan: Cable, Marauders Benjamin Percy: Wolverine, X-Force Leah Williams: X-Factor Ed Brisson: New Mutants Vita Ayala: Marauders Zeb Wells: Hellions Continue Reading for the full reviews on each of the four parts! SPOILERS AHEAD!
It's another banger of a comics week, with books of all kinds! At Marvel, the EMPYRE event wages on, leaving both excellence and stupidity in it's wake; plus X-books, some spiders, and a few unjustly digital-first released books finally getting their print release. DC has two doomed books, Mariko Tamaki's second issue of WONDER WOMAN, and more METAL! The indie stack is fairly well represented, with a new #1, Matt Fraction and the Dodsons' ADVENTUREMAN, and more Image books from Christopher Priest!
You may note I didn't do a "pick list" for last week. Usually I try to do them on Thursday, after binging the weekly comics by that afternoon. This week, however, I went on a road-trip Thursday instead! We went to the Bay Area for toy and comic book hunting, and I am pleased to report we found some INCREDIBLE collection pieces! I'll be writing somewhat about those eventually, but for now, onto the coming week's pulls! Continue Reading to see all the comics goodies I have picked out this week!
Looking at my pull list of 17 comics this week, I have to wonder. Is this sustainable?
Ideally I'd say of course a pull list like this is manageable, but the entire world is running very different from the world we had a year ago today, so I can't make any promises. What I can say is the series' I eventually DO drop from my pull list will be because of their quality first and foremost. I have seventeen comics on my pull list this week, and another beginning of a series I'm debating picking up or not. What's great about getting a bigger pull list every week is that the variety of comics you end up reading is so much more broad and satisfying. This week I have comics of ALL KINDS on my pull list, and I'm pumped to talk about every single one of them. I'm also excited about this week's Representation Spotlights, as we have some truly wonderful examples of representation in the comics industry. I've picked out Far Sector to speak on people of color as comics creators as well as in comics themselves; Horizon Zero Dawn for it's female creative team and female-driven plot; and I'm even doing a small commentary on male bisexuality in our masculinity obsessed society, with Sex Criminals and Deadpool (hell yeah Deadpool is queer!) as comic book examples. Continue Reading to dive into the wild wild world of comics in my pull list this week!
Folks, this has week has been a bit of a bummer--even aside from things that hit the national news.
In the comics world, DC announced the cancellation of 3 formerly ongoing series': Batgirl, Batman & the Outsiders, and Justice League: Odyssey. You may note right away that none of these were included in my last pull lists, and you'd be correct. I'm about 3 issues behind on JLO, and to be honest, only recently learned author Cecil Castellucci (of one of my all-time favorite mini-series, Female Furies) was writing Batgirl. But I only just started B&tO in volume form with the hopes to catch up, and love how Brian Edward Hill used a Batman series to promote some often forgotten but ultimately very meaningful characters. While weak excuses were offered as to the cancellation reasons, I (and more than a few comics blog sites) find them all to be just that: excuses. Additionally, Marvel announced the abrupt cancellation of one of my top-5 current ongoing books, Strikeforce. I wrote just last week that Strikeforce is one of the best books at Marvel, and after reading last week's Empyre and Avengers, I can easily say it's the best team they have. The excuse offered by Marvel was basically some fudged timing, which has been worked around in the past for other books. In the light of these cancellations, I will be adding the last of these 3 series' to my pull lists, regardless if I catch up in time. They each represented a marginalized sector of the comics industry, if not multiple, and their cancellations feel like major leaps backwards in comics progression. What #ComicsPledge? Anyway, there are still comics to read, so Continue Reading to see what IS coming out this week! Back in Business! Comic Book Pulls+ SPOTLIGHTS on POC, LGBTQ+, and Women in Comics-- July 12th, 20207/12/2020
It has been a minute, hasn't it?
It feels diminutive to try and list all the goings-on of the world and my life in the past 6-months or so, so I'm not going to try and do that here. I might make a long-winded general blog post later, but don't wait for that one. World news is constantly updating, so it may be some time before I figure out how to address these situations. This is my first post since February, and I've just finished redesigning the layout of the site, as well! I'm changing up the format of my posts a little, which I hope will make sense, and also changing the format of the weekly Pull lists. I want to be sure to include and point out the weekly books of great representation. Be it the creative team or subject matter, representation of all people belongs in comics. To further drive this point, I will be including in my pull lists Spotlights on the books that have quality real-world representation in some way. On that note, this also happens to be an EXCELLENT week to start reading new comics--I've got FIVE series premiers picked out and a few more "jumping on points" for ongoing books, all of which make great starting points for new readers! Continue Reading for the down-low on some of the best comics in the biz! |
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