This week's Post-Crisis Previews sees Ryan trying out some commenting alongside my own for the books we'll be picking up this week. Technically, I'm the one on sidekick duty as I'm only picking up a whopping two books - Green Lantern and Wednesday Comics - which makes this an all DC week for me. Ryan, on the other hand, has a lot more on his plate in addition to those two books, but only chose to spotlight a handful of them for his first time on previews duty. Hit the jump to find out what we're getting, what we thought and feel free to let us know what you're getting or what you think we should be picking up in the comments.
ELEPHANTMEN WAR TOYS: YVETTE #1Written by Richard Starkings
Art by Moritat
“NIGHTINGALE”
A special one-shot featuring Yvette from the critically acclaimed WAR TOYS miniseries.
Ryan: This is the least helpful solicitation of all time. Then again, considering this issue returns to one of the most compelling characters from the absolute best miniseries of 2008 - Elephantmen: War Toys, which spun out of the best ongoing series that you probably aren’t reading - you don’t need to hype it. You see Elephantmen and you automatically know that this is going to be fantastic.
GREEN LANTERN #43Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy
The official prologue to BLACKEST NIGHT starts here as the first Black Lantern is born! Black Hand has been an enemy of Hal Jordan since Hal's early days as a Green Lantern. But even Black Hand is unaware of the true power he holds that will connect him to the Blackest Night! Discover this villain's connection to death and the Black Lantern Corps!
Ryan: The promise of the first Black Lantern, the return of Black Hand, and the debut of new penciler Doug Mahnke make this issue my most-anticipated book this week. This will be our first glimpse at whether or not Blackest Night will live up to the tremendous hype surrounding it.
Kirk: Agreeing with Ryan here. Looking forward to all the Blackest Night related goodness. While I would have preferred to see Tomasi and Mahnke collaborate again, I'm definitely not going to complain about him taking over art chorse on Green Lantern. One of my favourite artists. Can't wait to see what he does with the book. My only hope for this issue is that the "first" Black Lantern isn't just Black Hand or a random Black Lantern, like Kal-L or Martian Manhunter, that was already revealed.
RED ROBIN #2Written by Christopher Yost
Art by Ramon Bachs and Art Thibert
Red Robin continues scouring the world, searching for clues to Bruce Wayne's final fate in this new series from writer Chris Yost (New X-Men, X-Force) and artist Ramon Bachs (Civil War: Front Line)! But now he's been targeted by the League of Assassins. What does Ra's al Ghul want with Red Robin? Why are members of the League of Assassins being targeted for death? And what happened to the life Red Robin left behind? Spoiler guest-stars as "Batman Reborn" continues here in "The Grail" part 2 of 4.
Ryan: I feel like Spoiler is getting the raw end of the deal in this solicit. You’d think that being the ex-love of the titular character and coming back from the dead would earn her more than an afterthought here. DC’s Hype Machine may not care for Spoiler, but I do. I care and I can’t wait to see what she brings to this issue (as long as it has something to do with burning questions of life and death or assassins).
WAR OF KINGS: WARRIORS #1Written by Christos Gage
Art by Mahumud Asrar & Carlos Magno
A WAR OF KINGS TIE IN! What shocking event sent Gladiator on his path to becoming the leader of the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard? Christos Gage (AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE) and Mahmud Asrar (NOVA ANNUAL #1) reveal a life-changing moment in the early days of this infamous X-foe! Plus: What is Blastaar’s grand plan, and how far will he go to succeed? Christos and Carlos Magno show you why you will bow to the living bomb blast! Yes, it’s two stories in one issue that spotlights key players in the War of Kings!
Ryan: Gladiator and Blastaar aren’t exactly the most interesting players in the War of Kings event and I know better than to believe any solicit that promises a “life changing” event, but I’d be willing to pay $3.99 to have this stellar creative team (Christos Gage with Mahmud Asrar and Carlos Magno) write a comic about the two brushing their teeth.
Kirk: I believe these were just Marvel DCU online exclusives that are being reprinted. While I'm typically pro anything War of Kings related these days, I'm probably going to pass on this tie-in. Will take a look at it on the shelf if there's copies, but not on my pull list going in.
WEDNESDAY COMICS #1 (OF 12)Various Writers and artists
In July, DC Comics gives a fresh twist to a grand comics tradition with WEDNESDAY COMICS, a new, weekly 12-issue series by some of the greatest names in comics today!
WEDNESDAY COMICS is unique in modern comics history: Reinventing the classic weekly newspaper comics section, it is a 16-page weekly that unfolds to a sprawling 28" x 20" tabloid-sized reading experience bursting with mind-blowing color, action and excitement, with each feature on its own 14" x 20" page.
Ryan: Even if the cumbersome format and high price point make me uneasy about DC’s newest weekly experiment, the ridiculous amount of talent involved makes this issue a can’t miss in my opinion.
Kirk: I'll be grabbing the first "issue" (is it even an issue or do I call it a "copy" like a newspaper?), but even with the all star creative teams attached, I'm agreeing with our readers sentiments from earlier in the day when I asked them - the $3.99 price point for a weekly newspaper is a tough pill to swallow for so many, well, let's call them unique, characters being featured.
For instance, I'm usually sold on anything with Neil Gaiman's name on it, but a Metamorpho story is going to take a miracle worker to make me interested. Similarly, I have no vested interest in a Kamandi or Sgt Rock story, among others, even with the talent attached.
I'm also a little leary of the eventual trade, which will probably feature oversized pages and high quality paper, unlike the newsprint being used for these basically throw away copies. Will have to see how it goes with the first issue/copy.
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7 comments:
kirk, i understand why you may not like certain characters such as Metamorpho, but perhaps their interest in them will change your mind.
I respect Mark Chiarello for pushing the series for the artistic merit instead of appeal like his Solo and Batman: Black and White projects
DC's summer gets better and better. GL and (The first issue)Wednesday comics in the same week
Gage's material pleases me most of the time so War of Kings: Warriors is high on my buy list this week.
Other than that i'm chasing down Dark X-Men: The Beginning, Skrull Kill Krew and most importantly of all, Uncanny X-Men: First Class.
The latter being important because it's written by the editor of the UK collector's edition thingy Essential X-Men
Wow, what a weak week for Marvel after last week's monster sized one. It's almost nonsensical, they should have divided that up some more.
Wait, that was the week before that one. Woops.
Gladiator's story in Warriors is his origin, so if you're a Gladiator fan you'll probably want to at least read it. The Blastaar story they haven't finished putting online yet (I believe the second part goes up tomorrow), but I wasn't terribly impressed by the first part. It was a very chest-thumping barbarian kind of story which isn't my thing. I don't think it's an accident that Gladiator's and Crystal's stories are being put in different issues, because I quite enjoyed both.
Gaiman did a one shot issue in Sandman about a Metamorpho female.
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