Each week, CBR has your guide to navigating Wednesday's new and recent comic releases, specials, collected editions and reissues, and we're committed to helping you choose those that are worth your hard-earned cash. It's a little slice of CBR we like to call Major Issues.

If you feel so inclined, you can buy our recommendations directly on comiXology with the links provided. We'll even supply links to the books we're not so hot on, just in case you don't want to take our word for it. Don't forget to let us know what you think of the books this week in the comments! And as always, SPOILERS AHEAD!

DCEASED: DEAD PLANET #1 (DC)

dceased-dead-planet-header

COMIXOLOGY

In just over a dozen issues, the world of DCeased has quickly evolved into one of the most exciting corners of DC's publishing line. With Tom Taylor, Trevor Hairsine, Gigi Baldassini, Stegano Guardiano, Rain Beredo and Saida Temofonte's DCeased: Dead Planet #1, the DCeased Universe enters its next major era by jumping five years into the future.

While this issue spends a fair amount of time reestablishing its world, it has plenty of action when beloved heroes start to fall as the survivors of the original DCeased return to the Anti-Life-zombie-infested Earth. There's a palpable sense of peril throughout this story, where each page turn could reveal the death of a fan-favorite character. And when those moments of carnage do appear, the gritty, visceral art perfectly captures the bloody brutality of a world where no one is safe. VERDICT: BUY

EMPYRE: FANTASTIC FOUR #0 (MARVEL)

COMIXOLOGY

In theory, Dan Slott, R.B. Silva, Sean Izaakse, Marte Gracia, Marcio Menyz and Joe Caramagna's Empyre: Fantastic Four #0 is the second half of a prelude to Marvel's looming cosmic crossover. In practice, however, it comes across more as a very good issue of Fantastic Four.

Where its companion title, Empyre: Avengers #0, established dire stakes and a looming interstellar war, this story sees the Fantastic Four have a fun, rollicking adventure in a space casino. While the comic establishes some details that will likely inform the upcoming event, this comic is more focused on telling a clever, light-hearted adventure story with sleek, vibrant art that brings a new corner of Marvel's cosmos to life. VERDICT: BUY

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X-FORCE #10 (MARVEL)

COMIXOLOGY

By design, X-Force has usually been a relatively fight-heavy comic book, and Marvel's recent X-Force series have spent a good deal of time interrogating the morality of that violence too. Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Guru-eFX, and Joe Caramagna's X-Force #9 hits both of those marks with plenty of violence and a moral reckoning as a covert X-Men team goes up against a flowery threat that a famous mutant unleashed.

Even though one of the issue's central emotional moments takes place in a well-done prose piece, the real stars of the show here are Cassara and Guru-eFX. The heroes' lengthy final battle against Terra Verde's telefloronic zombies looks absolutely jaw-dropping, with the art's hyper-detailed style bringing out the bizarre horror of an enemy that can turn mutants into botanical spores. With beautiful, haunting imagery, this comic brings more than a little horror to the X-Men's world. VERDICT: BUY

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DETECTIVE COMICS #1023 (DC)

Joker Detective Comics

COMIXOLOGY

While Batman might be DC's primary Batman title, Detective Comics shouldn't get lost in the shadow of that Bat-book. With Detective Comics #1023, Peter Tomasi, Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy, Brad Anderson and Reb Leigh deliver an emergetic prelude to the upcoming "Joker War" crossover that sees Batman take on several of his most famous villains.

Throughout the issue, Walker and Hennessy's work is uniformly excellent, and it has a fluid dynamism that makes the book's many fights seem like they're about to jump off of the page. With a script that doesn't keep Batman's feet on the ground for more than a page at a time, this comic revels in its ample action sequences. It might not be DC's main Bat-book, but Detective Comics delivers some grade-A Batman action. VERDICT: BUY

BLACK PANTHER AND THE AGENTS OF WAKANDA #8 (MARVEL)

Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda Fin Fang Foom

COMIXOLOGY

With plans for an Empyre tie-in apparently canceled, Jim Zub, Lan Medina, Craig Yeung, Marcio Menyz and Joe Sabino's Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #8 marks the apparent end of one of the most charming Marvel titles in recent memory.

Most of the issue follows the Agents of Wakanda as they deal with the continuing threat of a massive dragon attack on Avengers Mountain. While that takes place over several dynamic pages of fantastic-looking Marvel monster action, this unlikely team finds an appropriately unorthodox solution to the situation involving Fin Fang Foom. Like the series as a whole, this comic is an enthusiastic embrace of the absurd that finds a human core in the bombastic excess of the Marvel Universe. VERDICT: BUY

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