This week has several prominent #1's at the same time.
DC ships us the first issue of Blackest Night: Batman, along with Blackest Night #2 and Green Lantern Corps #39. At least in a case like this they may have the excuse the the storyline forces the books to arrive together, although what order to read them in is usually confusing. In the Batman title, Deadman, has to help Dick Grayson against his newly revived and powered up parents. I originally thought that the Black Lanterns were meant to be dead superpowered folk, but apparently any deceased character is a candidate for the Black ring.
Adventure Comics gets revived as well, and features the return of Superboy and the Legion. In 2 separate stories sure, but for $4.00 this looks like a sure winner. Both stories lead off from the hugely popular Final Crisis Legion mini-series.
Also in the restart department, Marvel wiped out huge chunks of their Ultimates Universe in the recent Ultimatum storyline, and now restarts 2 of the on-going titles with the new continuity.
This seems to be a popular thing to do with alternate Earths, as DC has tried this with their Wildstorm Universe at least a couple of times now. Lets hope Marvel has better luck at it than they have.(I must have been the only person enjoying the recent Wildstorm relaunch as they announced at San Diego, it would be relaunching yet again, soon).
Most of the Avengers came through the destruction intact, so that title can move along much as it did before, and with Mark Millar back writing, you can bet it moves slowly.
Ultimate Spider-Man (and a lot of friends, judging by this cover) however, will apparently feature someone other than Peter Parker in the costume. Brian Bendis is still writing however, so most of his fans can carry right along and ignore the new numbering.
The Marvels Project is being hyped big time by Marvel, including a special 70th anniversary party to release the book on Tuesday night rather than Wednesday. There's also something like 6 alternate covers planned for it. Not being entirely sure just what it was all about, I'll only have the 2 regular covers available. From the actual text on Marvels site, it sounds kind of like the old Alex Ross book, Marvels, only it implies some kind of hidden link behind all the early superhumans. Also, it has been implied that this series may be a setup for the new Human Torch title coming soon. Brubaker and Epting are a hard combo to beat in any case.
A couple of great paperback collections arrive as well. The latest volumes of Walking Dead, Fables and Invincible, each of which regularly outsell almost anything on the shelves here.
And of course DC finally collects Hush into one volume,(aside from the ridiculouly priced Absolute edition) I could never figure out why it was 2 volumes in the first place.
