Welcome back, friends! As we move further and further into the summer, don’t forget that the best new action you’ll find every week isn’t necessarily at the local cineplexes on the big screen. Lots of amazing comic publishers, writers, and artists are out there banging out new stories with both familiar and unknown characters for your visual enjoyment. Every week I’ll be writing a “Quick Hit” review piece to give some brief highlights to a handful of great comic books that have come out in the last week or two, so you can swing by your local shop and snag an issue or two while they are still hot on the shelf. I’ll also be writing “Comic Cluster” reviews, which will be focused on 3-6 consecutive issues of one specific title, so that you can get a more in-depth feel for an over-arching storyline, art, etc., to see if you’d like to commit to a specific series for a longer haul. For today, however, here are your Quick Hits!
Mae #1
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: May 18, 2016
Physical Cover Price: $3.99
Digital Price: $3.99
Quick Hit: Artist-turned-writer-and-also-artist Gene Ha has been in the industry for a while and has cut his teeth on many Marvel and DC projects; now, he has turned his focus to creator-owned projects, and his own ‘Mae’ series is a phenomenal work. With a story focused around small-town teenager Mae, her life is thrown into slow-brewing chaos when her runaway sister Abbie comes home and reveals where she’s been for the last seven years: fighting for justice in a parallel dimension thanks to an otherworldly portal she found all those years ago. The series’ first issue strikes a great blend of sci-fi whimsy and real-world practicality, and Ha’s visuals are strikingly different than the “norm” of the genre today. This may be one of the best books that you’re not yet reading.
4001 AD: XO Manowar #1
Publisher: Valiant
Release Date: May 11, 2016
Physical Cover Price: $3.99
Digital Price: $3.99
Quick Hit: The Valiant Universe has been turned upside-down and sent into the far future in the company’s summer crossover event! The “4001 AD” event brings together many of the company’s titles, including XO Manowar, Rai, Shadowman, Bloodshot, and more. The series actually starts only 100 years in the future, with events that set in motion what readers will see in 4001: an artificial intelligence that governs Japan becomes self-aware and elects to defend the country to the point that it launches the island nation into space. After a coordinated response by the countries of the world – as chronicled here in the XO Manowar title, with 8 super-powers creating large, robotic versions of the Manowar armor in an attempt to disable and re-ground Japan – the series shoots forward to 4001 to see the repercussions of the events on the future world. This is shaping up to be an intriguingly expansive event, one that I’m looking forward to following – and you should too!
Judge Dredd #5
Publisher: IDW
Release Date: May 18, 2016
Physical Cover Price: $3.99
Digital Price: $3.99
Quick Hit: It’s no secret I love a good vigilante comic book – Judge Dredd and The Punisher have long been two of my favorite characters. Dredd and his parent publisher, UK-based 2000AD, have been telling tales of the futuristic judge/jury/executioner for a long time now, and IDW has licensed the character from time to time to tell even more stories, directly to the American market. This current ongoing series has been nothing short of spectacular so far, telling one of the wackiest tales in recent Dredd memory: Dredd awakens with his memory wiped and discovers that Mega-City One has somehow been transported back into the Stone Age! The massive city initially appears to be deserted, save for Dredd himself, but over the course of the last few issues, we readers have started to learn some of the truths behind the event – some truths, but not all has been revealed, as this is a series that has definitely kept its readers on their toes so far.
Tank Girl: Two Girls, One Tank #1
Publisher: Titan
Release Date: May 18, 2016
Physical Cover Price: $3.99
Digital Price: $3.99
Quick Hit: Tank Girl is just one of those delightfully quirky books that, even though it seemingly has a one-trick pony of a story, somehow successfully reinvents itself time and time again. “Two Girls, One Tank” starts off a new adventure, one that sees Tank Girl lose her tank after a few of her “associates” misplace it in the Australian Outback. The tank ends up in an art gallery as an acquired piece (after, according to the seller, a “dumbass kangaroo” lost it in a game of cards), and it begins to hold an odd sway over Magnolia Jones, the owner of the gallery. She begins to become obsessed with it, and then she fully falls under its spell: she shaves her head and heads out into the wilderness in the tank! So now we’ve got two Tank Girls, one tank that they both want… and a whole lot of trouble brewin’.
Micronauts #2
Publisher: IDW
Release Date: May 18, 2016
Physical Cover Price: $3.99
Digital Price: $3.99
Quick Hit: The Micronauts have been on the pop-culture radar more and more in recent months, what with news of an impending feature film coming our way soon-ish and all. Now, the HASBRO toy line that enjoyed comic-book success at Marvel during the 1980s has found a new home at IDW. The first issue of this series came out of the gate firing hot, throwing readers right back into a familiar-yet-different Micronaut universe. It’s great to see these characters back on comic pages again, and with an updated vibe – however, for those readers who may not be familiar with the Marvel book of 30-odd years ago, this story may take a bit of time to get used to.
Tony Schaab made the mistake of watching “Judge Dredd” right before going to volunteer at his local animal shelter, so naturally he spent his entire shift yelling “I am the PAW!” at all the little puppies and kitties. A lover of most things sci-fi and horror, Tony is an author by day and a DJ by night. Come hang out with Tony on Facebook and Twitter to hear him spew semi-funny nonsense and get your opportunity to finally put him in his place.
