My Marvel comics choice of the week is “The Amazing Nightcrawler #1.” It it is the first issue out of five for this series. It is the 3rd Age of X-Man limited series to launch after The Marvelous X-Men and NextGen. I love Nightcrawler as a character so this was a must read for me. I’ve read the first issues of the other two series too, and I was surprisingly more into NextGen than The Marvelous X-Men. Remember, you don’t have to read all of the Age of X-Man series that come out because they are not dependent on each other.
My DC pick of the week is “Justice League #18.” This issue is one of the Legion of Doom issues. The Justice League series has major impact on the DC universe right now, so it’s a good series to be mindful of. I love the special Legion of Doom issues, and I really like the cover for this issue. Brainiac is featured on it. You might be familiar with him if you watched Season 1 of the SYFY series “Krypton.”
Locate your local comic store using the Comic Shop Locator.
DC Comics has announced this year’s 25 cent preview comic, “DC’s Year of the Villain.” It will be at local comic stores on May 1st. Listen below to find out more.
This week’s new Marvel issue that I am going to highlight is “Captain Marvel #2.” This series is written by Kelly Thompson, who also wrote “Mr. and Mrs. X #8” out this week. Marvel, like DC with Aquaman, has strategically launched a new ongoing comic series about Captain Marvel whose upcoming solo movie hits theaters on 3/8. This series has just started, so it’s a great time to introduce yourself with the character and her story before you go see the movie.
For the DC Comics pick of the week I went with something much darker than my Marvel pick, “The Batman Who Laughs #3.” This is the third issue of Scott Snyder’s six issue miniseries. The Batman Who Laughs is a villain who was recently introduced in Dark Nights: Metal, and this miniseries is the continuation of the character post-Metal. The blog’s first podcast will be coming up soon and will shed some light on where The Batman Who Laughs might be going next once this miniseries concludes.
Head to your local comic store this Wednesday to check out these new comics and more.
This Tuesday, February 19th, Brian Michael Bendis will be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything).
Bendis is currently writing multiple series at DC, including Action Comics and his multiple Jinxworld series. He is also curator of the recently launched Wonder Comics imprint, which has been off to a great start with Young Justice, Naomi and Wonder Twins.
If you have questions for him or want to see what others might ask of him, the AMA starts at 4 PM on the DC Comics Reddit.
Marvel has launched a new X-Men special event called Age of X-Man. Back on January 30th, the event kicked off with the one-shot issue “Age of X-Man: Alpha.” That issue’s purpose is mainly to introduce the six different limited series that make up the bulk of this event. When you read “Alpha” you can determine which stories you want to continue read, whether that’s only one or even all six of them.
The main idea for this event is if the X-Men actually achieved peace, what happens then? When you read this event, you can just read the “Alpha” issue then read whichever six issue miniseries you find interesting. Then lastly you read the final one-shot “Omega” issue. All of the miniseries don’t have to be read, although the more you read the more you’ll understand the context and characters of the event. Ultimately, all of the miniseries are their own complete stories.
The first miniseries of the event started this week with “The Marvelous X-Men #1.” The characters in this miniseries include Glob, Armor, Anole, and Rockslide. Of all the miniseries, this line is considered the *main* series within the event, so if you’re still getting your footing in this universe of characters you might just want to start with this one.
The other five following miniseries will launch once per week, starting with NextGen next Wednesday (2/13). Then The Amazing Nightcrawler, X-Tremists, Prisoner X, and Apocalypse and the X-Tracts will launch in the subsequent weeks. I’m still not sure how many I plan to read. There’s so many great comics coming out every week.
If you’re interested in following this brand new mutant event, make sure to visit your local comic store and pick up your chosen miniseries issues as they come out. The Age of X-Man event will conclude sometime in July.
This past New Comic Book Day (2/6/19) I visited my local Gallatin comic store, Heroes Wanted, and bought “Female Furies #1.” This first issue is the start of a 6-issue miniseries focused on the Female Furies, an elite fighting force of Apokolips led by Granny Goodness. These characters were created by Jack Kirby and belong to DC Comics’ Fourth World.
I decided to buy this issue this week because I absolutely loved Tom King’s Mister Miracle series that recently ended its 12 issue run. The characters, story, art, etc. of that series totally pulled me in and when I heard that there would be a Female Furies series I knew I had to at least check it out.
Going into this miniseries I really had no idea what to expect in regards to what the story or anything would be like. Having read it, I was kind of surprised at just how timely the story is. This first issue deals with Granny Goodness in the past and present trying to earn the respect of the male characters she fights alongside. It is shown in the past that Darkseid and his followers don’t respect Granny because she is a woman. She is taken advantage of and relegated to a job that she sees as below her worth.
The scenes in the present show that the toxic culture between the characters from the past has persisted and even grown worse. Granny, who is now the leader of the Furies, wants them to join Darkseid’s inner circle. The Furies are made up of female fighters Granny has trained at her Orphanage: Aurelie, Big Barda, Mad Harriet, Lashina, Stompa, and Bernadeth. In this issue the Furies are subjected to multiple forms of degrading *tests* to prove their worthiness. Of course, in the end they are rejected.
Overall, I’m really impressed with the direction and message this series has started with. It is progressive and bold. It doesn’t beat around the bush, and it does a great job representing different forms of discrimination women face today, in comics and the real world. Beyond the social implications, there is also great art and action depicted in this issue. The ending is really going to complicate things for two members of the Furies. I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to get into specific spoilers here since you need to go out and get it for yourself at your local comic store. Issue #2 will be out on March 6th.
Another Wednesday means another New Comic Book Day. Looking at the releases, this is a fantastic week for new comics. Even aside from superhero comics, there’s mega popular releases like “The Walking Dead #188” by Image Comics. I’m here to highlight the superhero titles, so let’s dig into it.
Starting off with a new Marvel release this week, there are some great new X-Men related issues. I’ve been reading the X-23 series which follows Laura Kinney (X-23) and her little sister/clone Gabby (Honey Badger). This was the first X-Men related series I started reading, and I got into it because it had just started its run so I didn’t have a lot to catch up on at the time. There’s not really an overload of characters or events going on in this series so it’s pretty new reader friendly. “X-23 #9” is out this week and a new issue comes out every month. By the way, if you’ve seen the movie “Logan” (2017), Logan’s clone/daughter in that is a version of this character, X-23/Laura Kinney.
As for a new DC releases this week, I’d like to highlight “Young Justice #2.” This series was the first new series under the Wonder Comics imprint for DC. It’s curated by Brian Michael Bendis and is kinda teen/young adult focused, but honestly anyone of any age would enjoy these. Young Justice had its series launch last month and the next Wonder Comics imprint series, Naomi launched last week. I would recommend checking out both of these series as they both just started, and I personally enjoyed both of them. The art has stood out the most to me so far since it’s still very early on in their runs and the story hasn’t really had much time to develop in either series yet. As for the Wonder Comics imprint, there are two more announced series set to launch coming up, Wonder Twins next Wednesday and Dial H For Hero on March 27th (“Detective Comics #1000” day!).
These are just a couple of the great new issues out this week. Make sure to visit your local comic shop to pick up these or other new releases.
In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, the most recent DC Comics movie to hit the silver screen was “Aquaman,” which swam into theaters stateside back on December 21st (my 20th birthday!). That film has gone on to become the highest globally grossing DC movie EVER released, surpassing 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Now that the movie is a huge success, Warner Bros. are very excited to push forward with a sequel. In the meantime, you might want to consider familiarizing yourself more with the characters and world they exist in. A great opportunity for you to get your foot in the door starts with “Aquaman #43.”
You may wonder why I’m singling out this issue instead of say “Aquaman #1.” First of all, to start back at issue #1 would be a huge commitment. Second of all, you don’t need to start back at #1 because issue #43 is a reset for this ongoing Aquaman series. The creative team has switched over, so you can start from this issue without necessarily having read the previous issues. This new run has Kelly Sue DeConnick writing and Robson Rocha illustrating.
I would recommend heading to your local comic shop to pick up “Aquaman #43” if it’s in stock. You can also request they order it if it isn’t. Issue #43 just came out back on December 19, 2018 so it was strategically placed near the release of the movie for anyone looking to find more Aquaman content. “Aquaman #44” also just became available back on January 23rd, so you can check that out next, and the next issue in this run to release will be out in local comic stores on February 20th (this series releases monthly).
If you aren’t aware, every Wednesday is New Comic Book Day (NCBD), when each publisher (DC, Marvel, etc.) releases new comics. You can find these new releases at your local comic shop.
For DC this week I would highlight new issues such as “Action Comics #1007,” a Superman focused comic. Brian Michael Bendis (creator of Jessica Jones and Miles Morales) has started writing this series since he came over from Marvel to DC last year. I would also suggest “Heroes In Crisis #5” which is written by Tom King. Obviously you should try to read the first 4 issues first. You can order them digitally through Comixology if you have to. Tom King has been on a roll with writing the main Batman series, Mister Miracle, and now Heroes In Crisis.
If you want to check out something new by Marvel this week I would suggest “X-Force #2.” It’s only the second issue in this new series, so there isn’t much to catch up on yet. X-Force is post-Extermination (2018) miniseries and follows the original X-Force team of Domino, Cannonball, Shatterstar, Boom Boom, and Warpath.
These are just three of the new comics available this week. If you want to see the full lineup of new issues this week there are links to the DC and Marvel websites in the blogroll. To find the nearest comic shop you can use the Comic Shop Locator, also linked in the blogroll.
This blog exists because I’m taking a Digital Media class, but it’s gonna be fun because it’s about comics!
Whether it’s Marvel or DC, superhero movies are cultural phenomena. Lots of people love these characters and stories which is especially evident with the massive box office totals they accumulate. In fact, half of 2018’s top 10 grossing movies domestically were comic book adaptations. Leading all 2018 releases was Marvel’s “Black Panther” with a tremendous $700 million domestic!
My hope with this blog is to help people that watch these movies, or the many TV show adaptations, to get back to basics and discover the source of it all, the comics. It might seem daunting for those who have no experience with reading or buying, but it’s worth it to learn. Local comic shops are the best way to immerse yourself, and that’s the particular path I will be focusing on here.
Buy Comics Locally 