Don’t Ask! Just Buy It! – February 23, 2011: End of Four, Multiple Sevens, All of Zero
Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week.
KEY:
* Gloves
^ Moustaches
% Eyebrows
¢ Oaths
% ¢ ACTION COMICS #898
Paul Cornell and Pete Woods' Lex Luthor serial continues to slither toward its climax; this time, he meets up with Green Lantern's completist-collector stand-in Larfleeze.
% ALL-STAR SUPERMAN DVD
The movie, adapted by screenwriter Dwayne McDuffie (and a bunch of Korean animators) from the Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely miniseries. Apparently, there's a ton of bonus Morrison interview content on the Blu-Ray version.
* AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #655
Perhaps it actually is weekly now! The remarkable Marcos Martin draws, Dan Slott writes. Also this week: Paul Tobin and Matteo Lolli's Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #11, which has the Lizard in it.
* ^ % AVENGERS #10
Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr.'s Infinity Gauntlet serial continues. This time, we don't get an installment of Bendis's "oral history" of the Avengers, but we do get a reprint of the entire first issue of the new Heroes for Hire series, a.k.a. the Chew/Walking Dead gambit. That's a decent trade-off.
^ DETECTIVE COMICS #874
Write Scott Snyder's plan for parallel-tracks Batman and Commissioner Gordon serials seems to have been thrown off by the DC Micro-Implosion, so this is a Commissioner Gordon issue. That means it's drawn by Francesco Francavilla, which is good news.
* ^ % ¢ FANTASTIC FOUR #588
The last issue of Fantastic Four! EVAR! There will never, ever be another Fantastic Four comic book, not if we live to be a zillion! Line up now to say farewell to the series that ushered in the Marvel Age of Misleading Hype, effendi! Jonathan Hickman writes, Nick Dragotta draws.
* ^ INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #501
Now that we've seen what the future holds for Tony Stark and his offspring (and also seen that Tony Stark's night of passion with Pepper Potts--which might have led to that offspring--has been lost to him in the superhero equivalent of an alcoholic blackout), on we go to the next storyline of Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca's terrific and very consistent run.
¢ LENNY ZERO AND THE PERPS OF MEGA-CITY ONE
I know nada about this volume of Simon & Schuster's 2000 A.D./Judge Dredd Megazine reprints, except that a) from its title, it's clearly set in Judge Dredd continuity, and b) some of it is by the Losers team of writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock. (Other parts are drawn by Steve Dillon.)
^ ¢ LITTLE LULU GIANT SIZE VOL. 3
Another brick-sized anthology of John Stanley's Little Lulu stories. If you told me five years ago that by 2011 there'd be a much greater chance of seeing a John Stanley book than an Alan Moore book in any given week, I'd have looked at you funny.
¢ MORNING GLORIES #7
The first six issues of Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma's "Lost"-ish serial about a boarding school where the students have good reason to be afraid of the teachers were collected last week; now we get to read on.
* % SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY BOOK 2
$40 gets you the hardcover version of the second half of writer Grant Morrison and various artists' modular epic, my favorite superhero comic of the past decade. If I recall correctly, this volume would include the Doug Mahnke-drawn Frankenstein, Yanick Paquette's Bulleteer, Ryan Sook's fourth-wall-breaking Zatanna, a couple of issues of the Fourth-World-breaking Mister Miracle, and finally Seven Soldiers #1, a tour de force for artist J.H. Williams III. Relatedly, also out this week: Showcase Presents: Justice League of America Vol. 5, reprinting #84-106 in black and white. The relevant issues are #100-102, by Len Wein and Dick Dillin: an early-'70s teamup of the JLA, the JSA and the '40s-era incarnation of the Seven Soldiers of Victory that provides some of the background for Morrison's story. Meanwhile, the eight-dollar one-shot DC Comics Presents: Batman - Conspiracy reprints Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #86-88 and Detective #821--all of them also drawn by J.H. Williams III. I believe it was originally placed on the schedule to coincide with the Williams-drawn Batwoman #1. Whoops. Well, I guess it'll hold us over until April.