Buy These Flippin Comics!!! (2.5.2014) – The New Girl
You all remember your first, right? The first time the “new kid in school” walked by you, and your jaw hit the floor. How did you ever walk the earth without seeing beauty like this before? How is your town suddenly and irrevocably reduced to a sea of troglodytes and inbred circus freaks with the new kid’s mere existence? Today a comic drops in our laps that reminds me of that first time. Every once in a while a comic comes along that changes the landscape – a book that forces not just comic fans, but the general public to take notice, to turn heads like the until-now-unimaginably attractive new kid. Hit the jump and let’s discuss that head-turner – Marvel’s newest marvel, Ms. Marvel, plus a few other books that might deserve a spot on your pull list.
A full rundown of all this week’s releases can be found HERE.
Ms. Marvel #1 – Marvel Comics
(W) G. Willow Wilson (A) Adrian Alphona
Chances are, the arrival of this comic book isn’t news to you – or, at least, you didn’t hear it from me first. From TV to print to online to word of mouth, the debut of the first major female Muslim superhero book is pretty big news, and has grabbed more headlines than those of just comic journalism outlets. Like Miles Morales before her, the arrival of 16-year-old Jersey girl Kamala Khan is a watershed moment in superhero comics – a scene that is tried a true fairly resistant to change. Helmed by fantastic fantasy author G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel looks to not only tackle the uphill battle that is “successful female solo title,” but also do it with a book starring a young Pakistani-American girl. However, I think that that is JUST the recipe for success. I look forward to being immersed not only in the typical teen-superhero book, but also what it’s like to live as a Muslim in America. I think Marvel has given it’s fanbase a unique opportunity to broaden their horizons, and I applaud the recent editorial mindset that challenges it’s audience to accept the new societal norms. Along with Wilson on the creative side is one of my favorite artists, Adrian Alphona, whose work on Runaways was perfect for a teen book. For costume and character design alone Alphona is the perfect artist to bring us this new character and her supporting cast.
Do yourself a favor, hell, do all of superhero comics a favor, if you enjoy superheroes, give Ms. Marvel a shot. It may not sound like your cup of tea, but it’s the kind of comic that leads to more and better comics. And since when is more of a good thing a bad thing?
Punisher #1 – Nathan Edmondson/Mitch Gerads
Black Widow #3 – Nathan Edmondson/Phil Noto
Did you know that as of 2011, the Punisher, in comics, is responsible for the death of 48,502 people? (SOURCE: Awesome infographic book “Super Graphic” by Tim Leong) This is roughly 8 thou more than were K.I.A. in the entire Vietnam war!! So why hasn’t anyone put this obvious psychopath down? Surely even Captain American would have snapped his neck and sent Frank Castle to the long goodnight by now, right? We all have our limits. Anywho, mass murderer Punisher gets a new book and a new locale this week, relocating to the city of angels and assuredly wreaking more havoc than is truly necessary.
Wolvie, Logan, Weapon X – dude’s healing factor is gone. Don’t ask me how, I mostly just look at the solicits and do guesswork people. I don’t read every book. This book deals with that very problem, as Sabretooth is gunning for Hugh Jackman and Jackman is ill-prepared to do battle if he can’t heal. So apparently he buys a gun off of Frank Castle. Again, I don’t know for sure, I’m just looking at the cover. Sue me.
Black Widow #3 is already out – my retailer buddy says this is a Marvel ploy to ensure that retailers don’t cancel preorders, thus ensuring that the numbers look high for the early issues. I don’t care. It pisses me off. End of story. Phil Noto’s art is pretty tho!
INDIE CORNER!
Ant Colony HC – Michael Deforge
Drawn & Quarterly
One of my New Year’s Resolutions, aside from eating less gummy worms – seriously, I think my insides are shot because of those delicious bastards – was to hep you cats on some of the better titles coming out from the true “indie” labels (not you Image, Dark Horse, and Oni). This week sees the much-anticipated release of Michael Deforge’s Ant Colony, and it is not to be missed. Deforge has a very idiosyncratic style that, even from his early days, announced that he was going to make waves in the comic industry. He has a brilliant use of color and spacing, a bizarre and sometimes jarring character design. Ant Colony is about, you guessed it, a colony of ants, but it works on scales both macro and micro as a tale of society, life during wartime and picking up the pieces after mass destruction, but also in true indie fashion, is a tale of loneliness and isolation (even in, of all places a colony of ants). The metaphor works brilliantly, and the imagery throughout will have you coming back to the book to simply marvel at its strange beauty. If the name sounds familiar, Deforge has done work for the big two, most notably on the fantastic Strange Tales series from Marvel a couple years back.
Mark my words, Ant Colony will be a book talked about for quite some time in the future – a fascinating journey brought to us by one of the truly unique and inspiring new faces of cartooning. You’d be silly to pas this book up.
Miscellany:
Infinity HC: $75 bucks for the Infinity HC?!?!?! That’s 6 issues of the Infinity series, 6 issues of New Avengers, 12 issues of Avengers, and the two back up stories from Infinity, starring the Silver Surfer. You simply cannot beat that value.
Trillium #6: Winding down to the end of the series, and the pace is turned up a notch in the time-hopping tale from Jeff Lemire.
Loki: Agent of Asgard #1: Marvel’s not even hiding it anymore that Loki is basically Tom Hiddleston-Loki, which is ok by me. I really enjoy that some of these more iconic performances of Marvel characters have leaked into the comics.
Locke & Key Vol. 6: Alpha & Omega: The end of a truly fantastic fantasy-horror series. Can’t wait to read more from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Lazarus #6: There is something truly unsettling about a 9 yr. old girl who could kill you with a sword. I mean skillfully kill you with a sword, not just, like drop a sword on your head while you weren’t paying attention. Any 9 year old could do THAT.
New Avengers #14: More details on the origin of the Black Swan. Hickman is masterful at parsing out his story and not dropping every detail about every plot point out in the first arc. I’m particularly excited to see what he has in store for this new Marvel villain. Is she even a villain? Hmmmmm….
That’s gonna do it for me this week, folks! Put your pull lists in the comments below and we can compare/contrast, but I BETTER see that new Ms. Marvel book or you are DEAD TO ME. I keed, I keed!!
But seriously, do it or I’ll key your car.
Hotsauce out!