Chris Sims

Q: On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you about Matt Wagner announcing that he's going to finish Mage? — @SuperSentaiBros A: Like, 26? Maybe 27, but I don’t want to oversell things too much. But yes: The most exciting piece of news to come out of Emerald City Comic-Con this year by a long shot was Matt Wagner announcing Mage: The Hero Denied, the third and final installment of a creator-owned series that dates back to the black-and-white boom of the '80s, and stands to this day as the single greatest comic book about magic baseball bats ever printed.

Something that's been overlooked pretty often since the big Archie Reboot is that the company is still publishing stories featuring the classic, gag-centric versions of the characters. It's publishing a lot of them, actually --- every single Archie Digest features a new lead story about the gang, and in 2016, that amounted to over 300 pages of new material in that classic Archie style. Now, it's all being collected in the Archie: Best of 2016 Digest Annual, a 348-page digital collection out next week. Check out a preview.

Following up on The Mummy: Palimpsest, in which Hammer's take on the classic monster was revived by Peter Milligan and Ronilson Freire, Titan will be launching a new Captain Kronos series that will continue the adventures of the cult-favorite two-sworded vampire hunting hero, from the team of Dan Abnett and Tom Mandrake.

For fifty issues, X-O Manowar was arguably the crown jewel of the Valiant Universe. It was the longest-running title, the book that introduced concepts like the Vine and even Ninjak to the larger universe, and it set the tone of smart superheroics that has defined the line ever since its relaunch. After it ended, I think we all knew that there would absolutely be another take coming along soon, but Robert Venditti, Cary Nord, and company definitely left a hard act to follow. But when X-O Manowar returns next week, that's exactly what Matt Kindt, Tomas Giorello, and Diego Rodriguez are setting out to do with the launch of a massive epic spanning four story arcs that take Aric of Dacia out of retirement and into an alien world of war and conquest -- and you can read a preview!

I don't want to oversell it or anything, but Kim Newman's Anno Dracula novels are pretty much everything I want out of literature. They're set in a world where Dracula's victory doesn't just have the immediate effect of leading the Count to control over Britain, but leads vampirism out of the shadows and into everyday life, transforming Dracula into the driving force of the 20th century. He's rarely seen himself, but his influence is everywhere, manifesting in thrilling and compelling ways. But really, that's only half of the appeal. The novels take place in a world where Dracula isn't the only source, a literary mashup with everything from classic literature to The Rockford Files to Blacula to Jack Kirby's Fourth World. And honestly, that's what made me a little nervous about experiencing it as a comic.

Back when they first announced it, Valiant referred to Matt Kindt and Cafu's upcoming Rapture as "Lord of the Rings for the Valiant universe." It's designed as a fantasy epic sprawling across four issues, building on the mythology of the Deadside and exploring a shadowy world of demonic fantasy and a war against Heaven itself. But if we're going to be real here, I think there's a chance that it might actually end up being better than Lord of the Rings. I mean, Lord of the Rings doesn't have Ninjak jump-kicking skeletons, now does it?

Quick: What is objectively the greatest piece of instrumental music ever composed? Got it? Okay, well, if you said anything other than Yoshihiro Sakaguchi's "The Moon" from the DuckTales video game for NES, then I am sorry to inform you that you are wrong. Compared to that 96-second loop, Mozart is basically a garbage fire. And today, we have an occasion to blast that chiptune perfection in celebration: On April 8, 2017, Capcom will be releasing The Disney Afternoon collection for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam, including HD optimized versions of the 8-bit DuckTales, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin games, along with a bunch of bonus features.

With almost 300 issues in the core series, Archie's Sonic The Hedgehog stands as the longest-running uninterrupted American monthly comic book that's currently being published. In Hedging Your Bets, I attempt to get up to speed on Sonic the Hedgehog, challenging the odds to hopefully make it all the way to the finish line. This week, we launch into the second world-shattering crossover between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man, featuring a completely different Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man.

The Batman of the '80s was certainly skewing darker than the previous eras, but that was also a time where all the leftovers from the Silver Age were still more or less directing the story. That's how you get lengthy sagas like Batman having a custody battle over Jason Todd against a straight up vampire, and it's also how you get a story where the Monitor hires Calendar Man to murder Batman.

In this week's Archie #18, the rebooted Archie universe is getting a few pretty notable additions. First, Cheryl and Jason Blossom --- having already appeared in the last arc as Veronica attended a boarding school --- are making their way to Riverdale with designs on, well, pretty much destroying everything in their path, as is their wont. Second, long-time writer Mark Waid is being joined for the new arc by the new regular artist on the series, Pete Woods, who presumably does not want to destroy everything in his path. Although really, one never knows. To find out, I spoke to Waid and Woods about taking on the iconic Archie characters, the influence of Riverdale, and if --- when! --- we will finally see Jingles the Christmas Elf show up.