Don’t Ask! Just Buy It! – Mar. 3: Girl Comics Debuts, Spider-Man Studies Objectivism and (the Other) Nemesis Gets a Mini

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

KEY

% Creative team consists largely or entirely of dudes and is therefore nonthreatening
^ The many joys of "off-model" artwork
¢ Just think: you could've read a series with the same title in 1951
† Protagonist spends lots of time in caves

% ¢ † DETECTIVE COMICS #862

Greg Rucka and Jock's Batman/Batwoman three-parter continues; I didn't catch on when I first read the first installment that the Batman scenes are actually flashbacks, set some years ago.

^ ¢ GIRL COMICS #1

The lineup for the first issue of Marvel's entirely-made-by-women anthology title has changed a little since it was solicited, but any comic involving work by Lucy Knisley, Devin Grayson, Colleen Coover and Trina Robbins is probably going to be a very good time. Preview.

% † INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #24

Dr. Strange finishes ratcheting Tony Stark into position for "Siege." Preview. Also out this week: a $40 hardcover, "Invincible Iron Man Vol. 1," collecting #1-19, as well as, I believe, the freebie Marvel's Greatest Comics edition of #1 if you're hesitant to take the plunge.

% NEMESIS: THE IMPOSTERS #1

This is ostensibly Ivan Brandon and Cliff Richards' follow-up to their peculiar "Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape" miniseries (which was basically The Prisoner by way of Kirby's "OMAC"), but I still think it's kind of hilarious that it's beating Marvel's "Nemesis" series to market by two weeks.

% ^ ¢ STRANGE TALES

A hardcover collection of Marvel's recent anthology of art-comics types taking on their characters, mostly goofily--it was a very mixed bag, but had its moments for sure. This edition also includes Peter Bagge's "The Megalomaniacal Spider-Man," a very funny 2002 one-shot in which Peter Parker gets heavily into Ayn Rand, as well as Michael Kupperman's ridiculous Marvex story from the "All Select Comics" special of a few months back. Plus: a by Chip Kidd.

% † UNDERGROUND #5

The conclusion of the spelunking thriller by Jeff Parker & Steve Lieber. There's a five-page preview up.