Don’t Ask! Just Buy It! – January 11, 2012: The Revenge of Prof. Dodgson

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week.

KEY:

* The Lewis Carroll factor

^ The Bob-Kane's-ghost-collaborators factor

% The Gary-Friedrich's-credited-collaborators factor

* ^ BATMAN: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

I've been enjoying Sam Kieth's Batman projects over the past few years, and I think switching from Batman Confidential-style serials to one-off graphic novels was a good idea for them. This one's written by Bruce Jones, and involves the Mad Hatter.

^ BATWOMAN #5

The first storyline in J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman's visually lush, much-more-mystical-than-before incarnation of the Batwoman series concludes.

% JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #633

Writer Kieron Gillen continues Loki's tour through the underside (and the underworlds) of the Marvel Universe's mystical side. This time, Mitch Breitweiser draws, and Son of Satan shows up.

% NEW AVENGERS #20

I suspect Brian Michael Bendis is getting off the Avengers train at the right moment--bringing back the Dark Avengers this soon seems like backtracking rather than building on what he's already created--but the last couple of issues of this series have had some of his tightest writing in recent memory, and I'd rather see Mike Deodato drawing the Dark Avengers than anybody else.

* ROGER LANGRIDGE'S SNARKED! #4

Seriously: you like good all-ages comics, meaning not just "for kids" but "kids will enjoy several layers of the story and their parents will enjoy even more layers of it"? Then you need to be reading Langridge's take on the Lewis Carroll canon by way of E.C. Segar. This issue wraps up the first act of what I'm hoping will be a nice long adventure story.

% STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS VOL. 2

In which DC attempts to wrap up most of the uncollected superhero material Ditko drew during his various stints of working for them: three issues' worth of The Hawk and the Dove from 1968, a single issue of Man-Bat from 1975, a handful of early-'80s Legion of Super-Heroes stories, and more. Weirdly, the solicitation suggests that it only includes the first two episodes of his 12-part Starman space opera from Adventure Comics--it'd be great to see all of that in one place.