Variant Covers: Giant Lizards, Vikings, and Damn Canadians.
I hope everyone is safely buckled into their seats. We are riding the Wayback Machine, as the comic book landscape is desperately trying to scramble back to the 1990’s. DC is relaunching their brand. Marvel is ending Uncanny X-Men. Greg Capullo is drawing Batman. Joey Mads is drawing Spider-Man. Everything is seemingly returning to how it once was. A nostalgic attempt to recreate the magic and sales of a time before the internet, or digital sales, or all the naughty things mucking up the landscape.
What can we do though? Nothing. We continue buying the comic books. We kvetch. We moan. But we buy. That’s where this column comes in. Variant Covers. The watering hole that we all gather around. I tell you the titles I’m sweating this week, and you share yours. Communal. A group therapy session. My arms are open, my armpits are sweaty. I will hold you.
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Northlanders #41.
Not all is glorious in the comic books landscape. Actually, not much is to me. What is especially depressing to me is the news that DC is nixing Northlanders with issue #50. While they launch a thousand new titles – fifty-two to be exact – they can’t find it in their hearts to eat the cost of Northlanders. Brian Wood and his tight tales of religion, power, and existential assertions of meaning deserve better than this. The thesis statement for this column: what can we do? Just keep buying.
They killed my Mighty Avenger. They killed my Northlander. All I can keep doing is supporting the ragtags that I fucking enjoy. I implore you to do the same. Buy this one-shot Northlander tale. It is about “Thor’s daughter”, a young orphan forced to take the reins of her father’s army. Artwork by Marian Churchland. C’mon.
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Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths #1.
If this particular installment has a theme, then the column in general rides a typical current: I suck, and I can’t read everything. One of the many titles that I haven’t caught up with, consumed, or congratulated myself on supporting is John Layman’s Chew. And yet!, and yet I have the gall to complain when a title I love gets canceled. How many titles have I not supported, that were gasping for life? How many of those titles have died? Anyways. Chew is not one of them. Regardless, I want to catch-up on it, but I haven’t as of yet.
Layman is coming out with a new title tomorrow, and it stars none other than fucking Godzilla. The pencils are courtesy of Alberto Ponticelli, and the premise is more than worth throwing down a measly $4.00. Ready? Still buckled? Behold!
Detective Makoto Sato is on an unrelenting quest to bring down the Takahashi crime syndicate. Sato’s efforts earn him a one-way trip to a tropical getaway, courtesy of the Tokyo criminal underworld. The exotic locale? MONSTER ISLAND! Alone and facing death at the hands of both gangsters and goliaths, Sato must use his wits to survive-and enlist the aid of some most unusual friends.
The Yakuza meets enormous lizards? I’m there man. There. With a grin on my face.
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Alpha Flight #1.
Greg Pak and Dale Eaglesham are coming together to tell the eight-issue mini-series tale of Canada’s superhero team. The team unto itself sells me. Writer Greg Pak’s World War Hulk was the oddball enjoyable journey I rocketed along a few years back, and Eaglesham was excellent riding with Hickman on F4. Pak’s getting a co-writer in Fred Van Lente, and while I’m not familiar with his work, I imagine he wouldn’t team-up with a lunk. Famous last words, right?
Premise: Alpha Flight, in the midst of everything going totally bananas-bonkers because of Fear Itself, is being persecuted by the citizens of the nation they’ve sworn to protect. I am…nothing selling this really well, huh? I haven’t sold something so bad since last week in the comic book store. As I was snagging Morning Glories, the comic book kid asked me what it was about. Told me he’d heard great things. I stammered, half awake. “It’s uh, like LOST meets a CW show.”
Whoops.
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Around The Horn:
Outside of watching the warped world reflecting through the lens of Geoff Johns and Kubert in Flashpoint, I’m not particularly interested in the DC universe. It’s all rotting away in a couple of months anyway. If I were to snag a comic, Batgirl #22 wouldn’t be a poor place to start. Just for Dustin Nguyen’s artwork which I very much fancy. Shame about Batgirl though. DC is going people in wheelchairs everywhere the finger, giving Barbara Gordon the ability to walk again. Remember! Sales trump diversity! But what can we do? Speaking of crossovers and events, snag Invincible Iron Man #505! Fraction and Larroca continue to deliver monthly. Even in spite of editorial mandates and tie-ins. Well done, boys.
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Sort of a drab week for me this week. What are you guys snagging? Hit me.