NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - OCTOBER 31st

Avengers cease fighting with X-Men and team up instead in A+X. A new on-going title featuring 2 short team-ups.
Its a 5 week month, so DC sends us a couple more Annuals. Action, Batgirl, Swamp Thing and Justice League Dark.
Ghosts #1 is one of those over-sized anthology books DC does a few times a year. They are always a great package for the money.
Joe Kubert Presents will feature at least 2 short stories by the man himself. The Hawkman I'm really looking forward to.
CBLDF Annual gives us a nice little package of shorts by a variety of artists. This year includes a new Walking dead piece featuring the Governor.
It's Halloween on Wednesday, so remember to grab a couple free Halloween comics on your way out.

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NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - OCTOBER 24th

We aren't quite finished with AVX just yet, we still get to see the baby versions go to battle. Lets hope this one-shot doesn't end as gruesome as the main series did.

Bravest Warriors is a spin-off of sorts from Adventure Time. Based on an on-line cartoon from the same creator, it should sell to the same fans.

The littlest Simpson gets her own special at last, as Maggie #1 arrives.
Another One-shot from DC updating classic characters gives Madame Xanadu a new look.
Wolverine goes the adult route as he starts his own MAX series. I guess now we can read him swear as he kills people.
Punisher War Zone, picks up where the regular Rucka series left off. Frank is on his own again and hunted by the Avengers. This series will most likely set up the new Thunderbolts title that groups Punisher with Deadpool, Elektra and the Red-Hulk.
Walking Dead Magazine will be full of T.V. show info and behind the scenes with the actors type stuff. At $10.00 a pop it will have to be a lot more than just clip shots of last season.

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - OCTOBER 17th

Well it's starting to feel more like winter than fall outside. Good time of year to grab some books and settle in where it's warm.

AVX Consequences#1 went quick. Remember this is a WEEKLY title and orders are already set on the following 4 issues.
Batman and Batgirl sold out quick as well. If you want to follow the rest of the Joker story make sure to let me know, Catwoman #13 says it is a prelude, but it might have little to do with the main story.

Cyberforce relaunches with the help of Kickstarter, for only 25 cents!(get 1 free with any purchase)
Marvel Now point 1 gives us preview stories for a bunch of titles and characters relaunching soon.
Walking Dead continues to fly out of the store, and #103 will move twice as fast with the extra, Li'l Rick variant cover.

Check out the front table for Walking Dead and other horror titles on special pricing for Halloween.

Jonathan Hickman says good-bye to Fantastic Four

This is it. Fantastic Four #611, the last issue of Fantastic Four written by Jonathan Hickman, hits stands this week.

I've been trying to think about what to say about this book since it was first announced back in the spring that Hickman would be leaving in October. A "top 5 favourite moments" list seemed cheap and somehow missed how deeply this book affected so many readers, including myself. So I read as many reviews as I could find, and they all seemed be saying the same thing: this book has heart. They almost unanimously conclude the emotional centre is the driving force behind the narrative.

"Hickman’s FF had more then a dead Galactus (issue #584) at its core, it has character growth.... Johnny Storm no longer is some hothead twenty-something, he’s a boy who comes to grip with immaturity through sacrifice. Reed Richards is attempting to solve the world’s problems, because he has that power, and is realizing what the difference between having knowledge and using it means."

(via Chris Hart @ What Culture)

"I think something got broken on the inside of me, since last winter’s Fantastic Four #587, but broken in that way that ultimately ends in growth rather than limitation. Broken like how Hemingway meant it when he said, “The world breaks everyone and after many are strong in the broken places”. You’ll remember this issue well, you’ve heard about it, even if you never read a page of Fantastic Four your entire life. This was the issue that Johnny Storm faced unbelievable odds, the entirety of the Annihilation Wave, while trapped in the Negative Zone.

"…Although the issue [FF#15] is titled “The One Where Power Pack Shows Up”, this issue is told from the point of view of Franklin Richards, the Mutant child of Reed Richards and Susan Storm-Richards, who is just now rediscovering his reality-warping powers. And also from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. There is a moment, about half the way through, where Franklin breaks through the Fourth Wall (well maybe not Fourth Wall, but whichever Wall separates the characters from the omniscient narrator). This moment shows a single mastery of the medium of comics. But also a mastery of the self that undoes the polluting intellectualism of Freud."

(via Shathley Q @ Pop Matters)

"What's not being talked about nearly enough is Jonathan Hickman's come down from one of the greatest runs in Marvel history. Not just talking Fantastic Four books but across the line, Hickman's time on the title(s) will be considered a new high water mark in modern superhero storytelling….

"Hickman has been winding down his books so elegantly, like a slow dance through an empty house, it's moving day and the lights are getting shut off, room by room. Hickman has been letting go of the characters that he's worked so hard on and wrapping things up."

(via Rich Johnston @ Bleeding Cool)


At risk of sounding even more hokey than these reviews, this little bit of comic book magic that Hickman and his group of artists he's worked infuse into Fantastic Four and the spinoff series, FF, doesn't happen very often, especially in mainstream books with well-known characters.

Hickman's stories are filled with hope even when things look darkest. There are tender moments between family members. Love blossoming. The cast shares pain along the way.

And we had massive, fantastical, galactic stories that included Celestials and Galactus both dead and live, the N-Zone and infinity gauntlets, the new Light Brigade and Council of Reeds, the war of four cities, interstellar battles between legendary warrior races Kree and Inhumans, and the already classic death (and rebirth) of a favourite character. A new, spinoff series even launched during his tenure.

All these ingredients remind me in so many ways of Chris Claremont's heyday on Uncanny X-Men in the 1980s (even introducing the FF title reminded me a little of New Mutants). Most importantly, Hickman like Claremont allowed the characters to change and develop under his guidance. They matured. They grew. Readers often complain there are no ramifications that come out of the big cross-over event stories. Here, Hickman delivers exactly what those critical comic fans are looking for: personal stories with life-altering moments that will stay with the characters and change them forever.

It's sad to see his time on the book come to close, but it's so much better to end on a high note. And Hickman is saying good-bye most admirably.

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY- OCTOBER 10th

NO DELAY FROM THANKSGIVING MONDAY! THE BOOKS WILL BE ON THE SHELVES AS USUAL AT 10:00 A.M. WEDNESDAY MORNING.

WOW, a big week,as the Marvel relaunches start.
Uncanny Avengers premieres with a ton of variant covers, although the main one looks fine as it is. (Check the on-line store for a limited time sale on a variants package)
AVX Consequences, will deal, I presume, with the death of Prof. X and what the destruction caused by the battle amounts to. This one will be tricky to keep up with because as a weekly series, a lot of customers are going to miss out on issue 2-3 without realizing it. GET ORDERS for this book in with your store NOW. Don't wait to see how the first issue plays out. If you want all 5 issues you have to ask for them ahead of time.

Red She-Hulk has Banners girl-friend taking over where Red-Hulk left off.
Marvel Universe VS. the Avengers is pretty self explanatory.
DC is publishing more of their on-line stuff in actual comic form. AME Comi Girls is based on the Anime style figures produced the last year or so. The first issue features Wonder Woman.
Phantom Stranger #1 and Team 7 #1 ship, not really first issues as they had a #0 issue last month.
The BIG book of the week is the Walking Dead Michonne Special. Technically just reprints of her first appearance and her origin, but seeing as how the origin story has only been available in Playboy up until now....this one will sell out quick.