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

KEY:

* Life after death

^ Up in the North

% Construction equipment

¢ Fright night

* ^ ¢ ALPHA FLIGHT #1

Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and Dale Eaglesham are behind this 8-issue miniseries, which I believe is the fourth attempt at giving these Canadians their own series, if you don't count Omega Flight. It sounds like a good time, anyhow.

* ¢ ANYA'S GHOST

Vera Brosgol's debut graphic novel has been rapturously received by the likes of Scott McCloud and Neil Gaiman, and they know the score. It's a thoroughly enjoyable book (about an irritable teenage girl who discovers a friendly ghost at the bottom of a well, and Brosgol is a terrific, funny, expressive cartoonist--she's contributed to a few volumes of Flight, and I particularly like the Fashion from Old People sketch blog she does with Emily Carroll.

¢ AVENGERS #14

Chris Bachalo's fill-in artwork last issue (in which the "oral history" that's been Brian Michael Bendis's backup feature in this series disappeared from the back but moved, in a different form, to the main story itself) was fantastic. He was solicited as the artist for this issue too, but it appears that John Romita, Jr. has come back to the series earlier than expected.

% CAPTAIN EASY, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE VOL. 2

The 1936-1937 Sunday installments of Roy Crane's proto-lots-of-things adventure comic strip continue. (On the Midtown Comics list, not the Diamond Comic Distributors list.)

* % FARM 54

The sister-and-brother team of (writer) Galit and (artist) Gilad Seliktar collaborate on a set of thoughtful, fragile-looking, semiautobiographical stories about Galit's youth (and military service) in Israel. That "semi-" is pretty important, although it would spoil things to reveal why. (On the Midtown list, not the Diamond list.)

¢ GREEN LANTERN MOVIE PREQUEL: ABIN SUR

One of a string of Green Lantern-related one-shots that will be appearing over the next month or so, this one gets the nod for its artist: Karl Kerschl, who is particularly adept at drawing non-human Green Lanterns. Michael Green writes.

% ¢ INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #505

The "Fear Itself" tie-in by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, the steadiest team in mainstream comics, continues. Invincible Iron Man seems to have fully made the shift to a four-dollar cover price, and sadly there was no backup story last issue...

* KIRBY GENESIS #1

Kurt Busiek, Jackson Herbert and Alex Ross's riff on some familiar Jack Kirby concepts (Silver Star, Captain Victory) and a lot of unfamiliar ones begins in earnest. Variant covers by everyone who has ever gone near an art supply store, even by accident.

^ % NORTHLANDERS #41

Oh no--Brian Wood's Viking adventure series only has ten issues left to go! Console yourself with this Marian Churchland-drawn one-off.

* ^ ¢ WOLVERINE & JUBILEE: CURSE OF THE MUTANTS

Kathryn Immonen and Phil Noto's recent miniseries was the best thing to have come out of the X-Men-and-vampires business. To justify the $20 hardcover price, this collection seems to also include at least one of Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri's early Wolverine-and-Jubilee stories.

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