Post-Valentine's day, and it feels like my pull list is my gift from each publisher for the holiday. I can't say enough how many exceptional comics are coming out just this week; it's incredible. How I am going to find the time to read all of them, now that is a different kind of miracle. Too bad my three-day weekend doesn't fall next week! I'm also happy to say there's a little more variety in my pull list each week. That isn't to say it isn't still overwhelmingly Marvel tilted, but I have 4 comic books from both indie publishers and DC, which is more representation than they've had in weeks. And speaking of Representation, it's Black History Month in February, and Vampirella writer Christopher Priest is using his comic as a platform for promoting diversity. This month, many of the Vampirella covers spotlight artists of color, presenting their variation on a dark-skinned Vampirella. It's a neat way to bring the topic up in a comic that doesn't deal too much in topics like race, and to show support for his fellow creators of color. If Vampirella isn't your thing, there's still tons of other material out this week! I'm going over 20 individual books in varying degrees of detail and enthusiasm. It's always a wild ride when you're reading comics, so Continue Reading to find something to get lost in this week! I'll shake things up this week and start with releases from DC Comics, of which there are four on my pull list.
DCeased: Unkillables #1 is the follow-up to 2019's DCeased from writer Tom Taylor. It will be going over what happens to the "survivors", aka the villains, when the heroes abandon the dying Earth with what scraps of humanity they could salvage. We had a short look at the post-outbreak lives of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, who used their green sanctuary to help save many people when the remaining heroes were evacuating. They chose to stay on Earth, with the Green, so I expect we'll see their fates in this new series, as well as the fates of many other. My most anticipated DC release comes from their minor publishing house, Black Label: Wonder Woman: Death Earth #2. The premier issue of this magazine-format series was everything I had hoped it'd be and more--a dark, gritty Wonder Woman story showing her version of a crazy post-apocalyptic sci-fi world. We've seen both Batman and Superman showcased brutally and ingeniously in Black Label books, it been long since time Diana got hers. This book is a thrill, and only enhanced by having a one-man creative team--Sci-Fi writer Daniel Warren Johnson writes and draws the series solo, which I've always believed to give a creator the ability to maintain a streamlined thought process throughout a comic. This week, Diana takes survivors of the human race to Themyscira--and it's no surprise to the reader that she will find Paradise Island to be no more. Whatever happened to the Amazons, whatever Wonder Woman finds in her home, is sure to make for a mind blowing issue. Flash Forward has been a bit of an up-and-down ride. At #6, it's the last book in the mini-series, so I should be feeling like things are coming to a close. After last month's issue, however, it only feels like I have more questions. With the tease of a "surprise ending" and a variant cover showing Wally in the Mobius Chair, which holds great multiversal power. If I was the guessing type, I'd say something along those lines goes down in the comic. I've never called myself a Flash fan, of any version of the character, so it's saying something that I even care to read this mini-series. And for the Fourth and final issue from DC on my pull list this week, we have Batman #89. With James Tynion still in his first dozen issues, I'm giving him a grace period to gain his footing. That being said, the series does feel to have taken a fall since previous writer Tom King left the book. I have concerns about certain patterns I've noticed in his past writing that is starting to show up in Batman--things I would call unprofessional if they continue (did you read last week's Batman: Alfred RIP? I was shocked at Batgirl's negative portrayal). Since there's supposedly a run-defining arc coming up in what he's calling the Joker War, I'll wait until book 100 to be sure I need to take it off my list, unless something drastic changes. Skipping on ahead to indie comics, then! I have two books from Image and two from Dynamite, so I'll start with Image. On the Stump is one I am genuinely not sure if I'll like, but the solicitation is too good to pass up. Basically, it takes place in a reality where political elections are decided in a boxing ring. That's right, the leaders of this America are chosen by brawn alone! And there's a team of FBI agents who are aspiring to take it down. What could go wrong? Undiscovered Country #4 promises to be a total trip. In the end of issue 3, we discovered the reason this America seems to incredibly different: it hasn't been 30 years in this part of the country; it's been potentially hundreds of years. Seems that there's strange timey-wimey stuff going on in this America, and certain parts of the country include time moving at different rates. After being turned on by their "guide", things aren't looking good for the team of explorers sent into America. But this is comics, and comics dealing with time-related plots at that, so literally anything can happen. Moving onto Dynamite, their brand is represented with two of heir greatest-- Red Sonja, and Vampirella. Red Sonja: Age of Chaos #2 throws the She-Devil into a world of Hell demons and other nightmarish demonic characters often seen in Vampirella books. I read the first issue just as a kick, and it was pretty fun. It's a world I'm not too familiar with, so I can't make a judgement on it yet, but like I said. I had fun. This issue will give me a better idea if I'm keeping it on my pull list or not. Vampirella #8 , aside from being a platform to celebrate creators of color, will catch us up with Vampi and her dear witch friend Benny. Their vacation in the Bahamas (?) turned all kinds of upside down, and now Benny's life may be in some real danger. Meanwhile, Vampirella herself is apparently being taken to her home planet of Drakulon, which isn't really good either. If I recall, she left Drakulon during a time where her people were starving, and many saw that as abandonment of her species. I wouldn't be too sure to expect an open armed welcome home for our girl, and something tells me someone other than her is going to have to step in to save poor Benny. Which leaves us, ladies and germs, with Marvel, to make up the remaining 12 issues. If Marvel's policy in 2020 was the "game of numbers" (the more books you put out, the more likely you're going to be to have big hits among them), it's clearly been working to their advantage. We'll start with Wolverine #1, a solo comic for the legendary character by Benjamin Percy (currently on X-Force) and the legendary Adam Kubert--who is known for his classic and character defining runs on the character. This comic will be showing Logan finding himself at a place he's never been before: happiness. Krakoa has changed the world, literally, and the effect on individual characters is going to be explored through books like this one. Wolverine is notoriously the most tortured character in Marvel comics, but right now, for the first time, everything is really good. Which, as we saw for characters like Cable and Laura Kinney in Fallen Angels recently, puts a lot of deeply scarred people on edge. More goodness in your life can easily be reduced to just more to lose, and I expect this comic to explore Logan's mentality over it. Atlantis Attacks is quickly becoming one of my favorite series'. It directly follows Greg Pak's former series with the same team, Agents of Atlas, which followed another series, New Agents of Atlas, which premiered during War of the Realms last summer. Did you follow all that? In short, this is the third mini-series Pak has written, consecutively, about the same characters, following the same plot. "But then why didn't they just keep one series across the whole thing, instead of 3 mini-series'?" Your guess is as good as mine. But in any case, they've been consistently good, and the first issue of this one was no different. This #2 I'm hoping will have the same impressive artistic portrayals of Wave and her crew as they join up with he original Agents of Atlas team in the fight with Namor. This includes Namorita, his sister. If Namor is called that because his name is Roman backwards, what the hell is a Namorita? A Roman? C'mon, Marvel. Give the girl a real name. I digress. Al Ewing's second issue of Guardians of the Galaxy comes out this week, following a refreshing first issue that I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not sure if it's the art style, coloring, or the script, but something about this series automatically had me--and I loved all those factors and more. It set the Guardians up with a brand new villain to fight: the Greek Pantheon of Gods. They've ended up more or less trapped on Olympus, the floating City of the Gods (in SPACE tho), or facing King Zeus out in open space. Things aren't looking great for the newly reassembled team. Al Ewing is currently writing another phenomenal series, The Immortal Hulk. On issue, well, somewhere past the twenties, this isn't a series you can just jump into. But if you're a Hulk and Bruce Banner fan, it's a series for you. Pak is a creative genius and I can't wait to see where he takes the Guardians with this new threat and more-or-less new lineup. I must be starting to look like a crazy Kelly Thompson fan, I realize, as I have two of her books on this list alone. It's true, I am a fan, but if you need any convincing on reading her newer series, Deadpool, let me tell you this: she's in her second year of writing Captain Marvel, and not for the first time. Carol is my favorite character; my first when it comes to heroes I fell in love with comics over. Through this, Captain Marvel isn't Thompson's best series--Deadpool is. This week's #3 promises to be a total blast once again! What room for dullness is there when you have Deadpool as King of Monsters on Staten Island, monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone watching him from the shadows, and Kraven the Hunter watching them both and drooling? It's nuts! I love it! It feels like true Deadpool again--without the influence of his Hollywood counterpart like so many recent attempts have done. Also on it's third issue this week is Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider. This, as well as Deadpool, has so far felt like the perfect combination of factors to make their respective characters shine their best. Dennis Hallum writes this series following Donny Cates' creation and epic first adventures with the character. Frank is back doing what he loves best, punishing sinners, but he's doing it as the Spirit of Vengeance, and he's doing it in SPACE. It's bonkers, I know, catch up. What looks to be extra cool about this issue is it promises "all-new" secrets to the CGR origin--that origin by Donny Cates. I'm dying of curiosity to see what "Hopeless" Hallum comes up with as new and original material for the origin of the Cosmic Ghost Rider. He's already proven he can do Frank on multiple levels, as the end of the first issue showed an interaction between CGR and modern day Frank Castle that pulled so hard at my heartstrings I almost forgot what book I was reading. In short, this series is fantastic and I'd recommend it to anyone of-age to read parental advisory warning comics. Two books on the lighter side of things are The Amazing Mary Jane and Ghost-Spider. Interestingly, both are Peter Parker related in some way. In Mary Jane's book, she's still working on finishing this damn Mysterio movie! With the real-life villains still angry about their on-screen portrayal, something tells me MJ is going to have to suck it up and ask her Peter for an assist. Their relationship has only been back on for so long, will this cause drama for the two on-and-off lovers? Honestly, maybe for a couple pages, and then they move on. That's my prediction. As for Miss Gwen Stacey, her book has her bouncing between Earth 65, her home, and Earth 616, the main Marvel universe, for school. She's already run into complications, like when the Jakal of Earth 616 followed her into her own dimension after discovering her, alive (unlike the version from his own world), at the college where he teaches. While he may be gone for the time being, there is still the question of the Aussie exchange student who ratted her out to him. Will she come looking for Gwen to find Jakal, or is Jakal already one step ahead again? That brings us to the Dawn of X books for the week. It's only two this time, which is low for their recent release numbers. The first is New Mutants #7, which catches us up with the space half of the New Mutants team. Last time we saw them in issue #5, Hickman wrote what is my favorite single issue of X-Men comics of all time, so I'm really looking forward to this one. Whether or not it's as good as the last segment of their story, I truly am excited to see how they get out of their situation, save the day, and get back to Earth. And will Canon-ball go with them with his new family? His wife works for the Shi'ar Empire, so she's almost certainly stuck there, but you never know. Then there's Marauders #8, which will show Emma Frost pitted against Storm. It's a battle I'd love to see play out, honestly, except there's more pressing things in mind I want them to address--aka, the potential death of Captain Kate Pryde. Is that what they're fighting about? I like to think we're in a an era where comic book women no longer just assume the worst of one another and turn against one another in selfish attempts to gain power, but what do I know? I'm just waiting to find out the fate of Captain Kate. Vane Foster: Valkyrie #8 takes up a new plot with the good Doctor Jane. It seems that now, Jane is faced with fighting All-Father and Herald of Galactus, Thor. In his own book, Thor has been imbued with the Power Cosmic by none of than Galactus, as part of a plan for Galactus to gain power and stop an oncoming evil called the Black Winter. Somehow, now Jane is involved with Thor's quest, it would seem. Unless Marvel editing is getting as bad as DC's, in which case this could be something totally different. I won't lie to you and say I have all the answers! All I know is this series has been good so far, and I expect Jason Aaron--Thor veteran--to do a fantastic job with the two of them together. The second Kelly Thompson book on my pull list this week is Captain Marvel #15--part 4 of The Last Avenger, in which Carol has been .impossibly tasked with killing her fellow Avengers within 24-hours. She's been getting away with it so far by beating her fellow Avengers--but only to a point, where she hides them and delivers to Voxx Supreme instead a cloned body. She's banking on him having no idea they're not the real deal, and that his intentions aren't going to be so nefarious that event he cloned bodies cannot keep him from succeeding. In all likelihood, there's some factor to this whole thing she hasn't been made aware of, which will come back to bite her in the ass (possibly literally). Find out his week! This is also one the last two Mark Brooks covers--he ends his phenomenal run on the series with issue #16. Last, but never least, is Chip Zdarsky's Daredevil #18. I still can't believe how good this series is. I tore through it in a day and a half a few weeks ago, catching up with 16 issues like it was sustenance. At the moment in the series, Matt Murdock is no longer Daredevil--no one is. But he's still trying to make the right choices of going out and saving people with his God-gifted powers IN fact, an incredible issue a few books ago showed Matt alone at night in his apartment, listening to crimes with his "super-hearing" and repeatedly reporting them on his phone. Having given up crime fighting himself, he couldn't just sit there and listen to terrible things happen to random people. Now, Matt is allowing himself to help once again, but under certain terms. He's trying to be a Robin Hood among masked vigilantes, and we've yet to see if his attempts will ever pay off. He and Fisk--mortal enemies-- have a common enemy at the moment, and it may cause the two of them to work together to take them down. Matt has been doing a lot of things different lately, maybe working with FIsk will be one of them, too. And that's if for my pull list! I love sharing the world of comics with people so please feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all, or want any other suggestion on getting into comics of any kind. Until then, with whatever you may feel passionately about, stay sweaty!
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