Buy These Flippin’ Comics!!! (12.18.13) – Too Much Awesome To Handle

Seven days left, ya’ll!  You feelin’ it?  Merry X-Mens is right around the corner, and the search for gifts, trimming of trees, all that goofy shit is reaching a fever pitch.  Me?  No X-Mens Spirit yet, folks, I gotta be up front.  Ol’ Hotsauce is workin’ like crazy and is bone-weary.  But I’m getting there.  It helps when I get to kick back and relax, catch up on the tv I’ve had to ignore, and dive into the ever-growing “To Read” funnybook stack.  That stack grows considerably larger this week as a truckload of my very favorite books drop.  It’s like Kris Kringle, even knowing full damned well I’ve never been on the NICE list, is still looking out for me.  Hit the jump and see what books have caught my eye and belong in stockings across the globe (note:  do not actually put a comic book into a comic book fan’s stocking – don’t fuck up the CGC value plzzzzz), and make sure to tell us what books you want wrapped, bagged, and boarded under YOUR tree.  For those of you reading that don’t celebrate X-Mens, you should be ashamed.  Very un-American of you.  Xavier died for all of our sins, and his birthday should be kept holy.

On to the books!

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Saga #17 – Image Comics

So I get an email late last night from Omega-Level Ship Captain Caff-Pow and the subject line is “SAAAAAAGA,” and the body of the email is a more eloquent expression of the subject, Caff rightfully fanboying over a couple of the greater moments in this most recent arc.  This is why I read comics, kids, and why I love doing this column.  I love talking comics, particularly the great ones, and Saga most certainly is that.  Filled with so many moments that could play as cloying or overwrought are instead done with such simple grace, and though the plot of the book large and cinematic, it is told with a smaller focus on interpersonal relationships, and family.  Bravo to writer Brian K. Vaughan for always finding the perfect artists to bring his stories to life – Fiona Staples is fast becoming one of my very favorites.  This issue’s solicit reads “Prince Robot IV gets everyone into trouble.”  Need they say more?  (HINT:  No they needn’t)

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Black Science #2 – Image Comics

I could tell from the moment Remender quoted Carl Sagan (through his main character scientist Grant McKay) that I was hooked.  And not to say that just any old quote from any old scientist/futurist/visionary/hero would get me chubbed up enough to dork-wank to the book, but the quote “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious.  If a human disagrees with you, let him live.  In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another” acts as a sort of mission statement for the main character as he is forced to help his team, and his own family, get back home.  This book is Lost in Space meets Sliders, written with the same dark-yet-hopeful tone of Remender’s Fear Agent.  This book is not to be missed.

 

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East of West #8

I think that reading through Jonathan Hickman’s work I get a better sense of what he thinks of humanity more than any other writer.  More often than not his stories are dark tales where men of great hubris wreak havoc on the world around them, and most of the rest of us are just caught in their wake.  This is certainly true of East of West, but to Biblical proportions, as not only the Horseman of the Apocalypse the main characters of the story, their agents are these Hickmanesque characters who work to help fulfill the prophecy of the End Times.  East of West is a book filled with hopelessness from all sides, but with Hickman at the helm, I’m itching to see how the story unfolds.

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The Kelly Sue Deconnick Corner!

Ghost #1 – Dark Horse Comics

Pretty Deadly #3 – Image Comics

With Captain Marvel quickly becoming one of Marvel’s premiere heroes, Pretty Deadly flying off the shelves, and resurrecting an old 90’s Dark Horse character I never expected to see again, Ms. Deconnick is having every bit the dynamite year that Fraction is.  With Ghost, KSD is teamed up with one of my FAVORITE artists in the game, Ryan Sook, so even though this normally wouldn’t be a grab for me, I’m definitely adding it to my pulls.  (Check out Ryan Sook’s Kamandi work for a sampling of the dude’s brilliance).  Pretty Deadly has been such a fantastic and grim Western through two issues, and Emma Rios is an artist I wish I’d known more about before seeing her on this book, because she’s great.  Deconnick is having a banner year, and with her teaming up with Warren Ellis next year on Avengers-type stuff, we can expect more great things.

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The Massive –Vol 2. Subcontinental

The Massive #18

I read this book in trades, so I’m not quite as caught up as perhaps some of you, but along with Lazarus by Rucka, these books present a future that could very likely BE, and that makes them not only great sci-fi thrillers, but ominous and haunting visions of an Earth and America that slipped through our fingers.  Rucka and Wood are scaring the shit out of me with these books, you guys.

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Miscellany

Some other great looking books of note drop this week including All New X-Men #20 X-23 and Cylcops make out, only fueling the OTP Cyclops/Wolverine shippers (The meanings of OTP and shipping are just about the only things that tumblr has actually taught me) Uncanny Avengers #15 Where, since no one seems to be looking, Remender is just killing huge Marvel characters f*cking wholesale, ya’ll.  (But both of these characters are in the mooovies, so don’t look for them to stay dead long) and Zero #4 – one of the best books of the year that I’ve totally failed to mention to you guys before but will be remedied soon!  Speaking of which:

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Buh-buh-buh-boooooooonus BTFC!!

Since Caff-Pow is the ultimate bro (BTW – didn’t he do a fantastic job last week, folks?  That dude has so much talent and energy, it was an honor to bring him back to BTFC hosting duties), he was more than happy to give me the opportunity to spring a couple bonus columns on your unsuspecting asses.  Starting Saturday, and for the next couple Saturdays subsequent, I’ll be talking about the BEST OF 2013, or my estimation of the “Best of” anyways.  This Saturday, in fact, will be the BEST FLIPPIN COMICS I MISSED IN 2013, all the comics that I failed to mention that are friggin excellent, and are more deserving of your attention.  And lemme tell you, there is one book on there that is so awesome that I’m ashamed to even tell you how far off my radar it was!  So, get some of your own ideas for what really tickled you pickles – or whatever you call your nether parts – this year, because I can’t (and don’t want to) do this alone!

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See you in the comments!  Thanks for reading!