Don’t Ask! Just Buy It! – Dec. 9: Superboy-Prime Gets Self-Referential, Dante Descends and Iron Man Just Kind of Lies There

Savage Critic and "Reading Comics" author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week:

KEY

* Casanova refugees

^ The evil dead

£ Brazilian artists

§ Spanish artists

ß Spanish-speaking characters

^ ADVENTURE COMICS #5

I hope some of the people who bought last month's issue on the strength of the plastic trinket that came with it actually read it -- in #4, the Superboy-Prime story that concludes this issue grabbed the metafictional insanity from the final sequence of "Legion of Three Worlds" and ran with it about as far as it can go. The sharpest mocking of fanboys comes from the people who love them most, doesn't it?

ß CITIZEN REX #6

Mario and Gilbert Hernandez's peculiar sci-fi mini concludes. Brief preview.

^ § DANTE'S INFERNO #1

This six-issue miniseries is not in fact based on the 14th-century poem by Dante Alighieri, but rather based on a forthcoming video game whose relationship to the poem is dubious (psst: going to hell to rescue the beloved's soul is actually the Orpheus plot, not the "Inferno" plot). But Diego Latorre's art looks awfully impressive, and if this doesn't turn out to be the camp classic the solicitation suggests, there are always more faithful renditions, like Gary Panter's "Jimbo's Inferno" or R. Sikoryak's "Inferno Joe."

* £ DAYTRIPPER #1

I have no idea what to expect from this new 10-issue miniseries by Brazilian brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, but they've got a hell of a track record--"Casanova," "The Umbrella Academy" and "Pixu," among others. There's a preview here, in any case.

* § INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #21

So, I'm guessing, the mysterious "S.R." storyline that follows this one is going to have to be "Stark Rebooted." In the meantime, behind the pretty new Rian Hughes trade dress, we've got this second installment of the Tony-lies-there-while-people-talk-about-him arc by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, who has to be one of the fastest artists working in superhero comics right now--I don't think he's missed an issue of this series yet, and this one is following #20 by two weeks.

£ MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #18

The second issue (ignore the number on the cover) of this cheerful, charming Avengers reboot, by Paul Tobin and Ig Guara, features Nova prominently, and also has what I'm guessing will be the goofiest cover of the week. Preview here. Also in the Tobinverse this week: "Marvel Adventures Spider-Man Vol. 14: Thwip!"--collecting the first four issues of his recent MA Spider-Man reboot, for ten bucks--and the first issue of the continuity implant "Spider-Man & the Secret Wars."