Here’s to your same great column taste, and calories cut by at least a third!
Triple Shot With a Digital Chaser fills you up with your spinner rack comics and washes it all down with a single malt stinger of a ComiXology Submit creator-owned digital title.
Enjoy the new boss, same as the old boss.
Like Coca-Cola Classic, its the Red, White and You!
WOLVERINE #8
WRITER: Paul Cornell
ART: Alan Davis, Mark Farmer
Publication Date: August 14, 2013
Price: $3.99
Publisher: Marvel Comics
UPC: 75960607921600811
Buy it HERE
There’s only a few things that will make me throw money/debit cards/transit cards at the comic store clerk with reckless abandon, without doing ritualistic Wednesday dance of “I dunno, kinda pricey, put this back, pick this up, put it back, pick this one up”, that other customers really seem to enjoy.
One of these greenback pitching motivators is putting the Black Panther on the cover. I almost bought two of this issue because my favorite 80s X-Artist Alan Davis made the thing.
On to the story, you can start here to read this current adjective-less Wolverine title, it is a part of a 6 issue arc wherein, check this out, Wolverine has lost his healing factor! OK, OK, we know that’s part of The Wolverine plot and maybe that is a tie-in but it doesn’t matter.
Things heat up between Storm, Logan and T’Challa in Wakanda, and Maria Hill (what is she, The Watcher now? Seriously!) is keeping tabs on the master plan to cure Wolverine from the mind controlling micro-virus.
Paul Cornell, another awesome Brit is writing this series to Davis’ strengths, all the while somehow fitting in to current Marvel NOW! continuity and making this read like a Chris Claremont Excalibur title. The brilliance in this book is astounding, and even though Wolverine is a top-seller, current fans may be skipping this book.
Those fans are fools, this could be the best X-Book out there today! At least for the NES and Atari crowd!
SAGA #13
WRITER: Brian K. Vaughn
ART: Fiona Staples
Publication Date: August 14, 2013
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Image Comics
UPC: 70985301166801311
Buy it HERE
Usually when a book, or any artwork for that matter, is garnering a lot of attention the haters come out of the woodwork and say it is overrated, they don’t get it, and think people are jumping on a pseudo-intellectual bandwagon.
One thing is for sure, Saga gets this kind of negative attention.
A lot of negative attention.
From a digital distribution snafu over self-censorship being seen as a ploy to sell more books (though, that argument makes little sense because the book was pulled by the publisher from an entire digital delivery platform) to negative blogposts and message board blathering, there are many critics of the Eisner Award winning series.
This latest issue, #13 falls right after the second collected volume of the series, and as writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex-Machina) points out, many people may be getting floppy issues starting here, after getting hooked on the thing. Fiona Staples art is incredible, with fantastical creatures with human features and modern styles of dress combined with the sensibility of being raised on watching the original Star Wars trilogy.
The issue picks up with Marko and Alana, baby and Granny traveling to meet up with prescient Cyclopian author D. Oswald Heist. The Will, Lying Cat and Gwendolyn are in pursuit but stuck waiting for repairs.
I think this is a fair jumping on point, especially to those like me that are huge fans of the book. Perhaps the criticisms are coming from a pacing standpoint, who am I too say, but the slow burn of this space tale keeps me engaged. I will keep an eye on the critics, though—mostly because I have trouble finding flaws in this one.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS #1
WRITER: Phil Hester
ARTIST: Andrea DeVito
Publication Date: August 14, 2013
Price: $3.99
Publisher: IDW Publishing
UPC: 82771400488500111
Buy it HERE
Last year, we gave you our reaction to and explanation of the Silver Age action superhero team T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS while DC Comics was holding onto the rights. Nick Spencer (Secret Avengers, Morning Glories) took on two mini-series of the Agents, for a total of 16 issues.
IDW has the rights now, and Phil Hester (Invincible Universe, Godzilla) is at the helm of this United Nations super team of reluctant heroes.
Admittedly, I needed to shake the cobwebs out and deal with this being a new team, not only creatively, but as the heroes.
My NoMan and Dynamo are different here (Dynamo has the name of original creator Len Brown) and not all of the players are introduced quite yet. An impending threat is looming in the caves, so the Subterraneans cannot be far behind. In fact, the splash page shows female villain The Iron Maiden up to no good with one of the many physical manifestations of NoMan’s head in her hands.
I’m in, based on the characters and the new creative team alone, and look forward to the IDW version of Menthor—a hero that gets his or her mental power from the Menthor helmet.
Great superhero stuff here, from reluctant heroes and based on brilliant Silver Age concepts of a team no one’s ever heard of.
Take a chance on this one, even if you missed Spencer’s run on the book. Hester’s got a handle on it pretty tight so far!
SHE DIED IN TERREBONNE #1
Writer: Kevin Church
Artist: T.J. Kirsch
Price: $1.99
Imprint: Agreeable Comics
Page Count: 24 Pages
Digital Release Date: 8/7/13
Age Rating: 17+ Only
BUY IT HERE
Kevin Church has been delighting the comics world with webcomics The Rack, The Line, Fight, and The Loneliest Astronauts (with Ming Doyle) over at his Agreeable Comics site as well as Wander over at Monkeybrain.
She Died In Terrebonne #1 is an older webcomic series collected now over at ComiXology for a cop detective story paying tribute to all of its influences.
Our hero, the Japanese American detective Sam Kimimura descends on a town to keep an eye on a mysterious family’s daughter. What he finds in murder! The girl is already dead, will Sam figure out who the murderer is in this noir mystery? The 2010 strip, recollected for ComiXology is perfect for the digital format and ends on a cliffhanger.
What more can you ask for? This is more than Agreeable!
