This Wednesday is rich with comic spoils. DC Comics gives readers one last primer before the end of Tom King’s historic run as the writer of the Dark Knight’s flagship title, and Image Comics launches a new thrilling (and terrifying) science fiction series from the co-creator of Girls and The Sword.
Marvel Comics’ amazing “Dawn of X” initiative keeps getting weirder and weirder as a group of strange intruders invade the Savage Land. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Hellfire Club may have more nefarious aspirations than originally thought (big surprise, right?). And the Spirit of Vengeance gets a crazy update set 80 years in the future.
5 Batman #84
By: Tom King, Jorge Fornes, Jordie Bellaire, Clayton Cowles, and Mikel Janin
“City of Bane” Part 10 is something of a recap. In what can only be described as a kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria of horrific events played in reverse, Batman #84 feels like one big emotional primer.
Thomas Wayne cannot catch a break, no matter what reality he tries to live a life within. Writer Tom King has a very unique flow to serialized storytelling. Some issues released feel like 22 page non-sequiturs. But once you step back and see how it fits into the bigger picture, it become apparent that King along with Jorge Fornes (and a handful of other amazing artists) are crafting something truly unique.
4 20XX #1
By: Jonathan Luna and Lauren Keely
It’s a brave new world for office drone Meria. Sure her life is filled with dealing with traffic and making sure her cat has been fed in the morning, but what looms over everyone around her is terrifying. A virus has plagued Anchorage, Alaska (and presumably the rest of the world), killing the vast majority of anyone who contracts it.
However, those who survive develop telekinetic abilities along with a deep social stigma. Smart, engaging, and filled with loving homages to great works of science fiction, writer/artist Jonathan Luna and newcomer scribe Lauren Keely have built a wonderful launch pad to a wild new series.
3 Ghost Rider 2099 #1
By: Ed Brisson, Damian Couceiro, Dono Sanchez-Almara, VC’s Joe Caramagno, Valerio Giangiordano, and Frank D’Armata
Are you hankering for futuristic motorcycle gangs with members named Zero and Werewolf? Do you long for the days of William Gibson-esque cyberspace hacking sequences rendered in three dimensional speculative Internet pastiche like a mid-nineties Keanu Reeves action film? Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Terminator was imbued with the Spirit of Vengeance? Well Ghost Rider 2099 #1 has you covered… within a matter of a few pages, no less.
Writer Ed Brisson (New Mutants) and artist Damian Couceiro (X-Force) have reunited for a wild, science fiction action comic that blends the ethereal hellscape behind the character Ghost Rider and a cyberpunk, dystopian aesthetic.
2 Marauders #3
By: Gerry Duggan, Michele Bandini, Elisabetta D’Amico, Federico Blee, VC’s Cory Petit, Tom Muller, Matthew Wilson, and Russell Dauterman
During this whole “Dawn of X” initiative, there are some returning characters who are wonderful blasts from the past we are extremely excited to see again. But there are characters who have long been pushed to the far edges of comic book consciousness their return comes as something of a shock.
The recent resurrection of the villain Shinobi Shaw kind of falls into the latter in the fantastic Marauders #3. Those Shaw boys used to get up to some nasty stuff, didn’t they? Well, some things never change. Without revealing too much, the recently reestablished Hellfire Club may pose more of a problem than originally thought.
1 X-Men #3
By: Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho, Rain Beredo, VC’s Clayton Cowles, and Tom Muller
A group of armed intruders have shut down the gateway to The Savage Land, for reasons unknown. While the immediate reasoning would be to think these might be members of the same militant anti-mutant group of Reavers, the truth is far stranger.
Writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Leinil Francis Yu have given Xavier’s new utopia a whole new reason to be wary of humankind. Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Sebastian Shaw face the intruders head on (with a little help from so old friends) only to be faced with a dire ecological revelation that puts the X-Men in a precarious situation (but when are they not in precarious situations?).
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