Welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.
The stars move back into alignment this week as DC returns to Wednesdays for single-issue new releases, after shifting to Tuesday releases at the beginning of the pandemic. This brings them back in sync with the rest of the industry, making things easier and less confusing for fans and retailers. Trades and graphic novels will continue to be released on Tuesdays, to keep them in line with bookstore schedules (and is fairly common practice for some other publishers as well). And the timing is perfect, since this week brings both the first issue of Absolute Power, their big summer crossover, and Batman #150.
(Update for Tuesday: if you buy your comics digitally, they are available on Amazon today.)
This week also brings Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #0, which was only announced last week in a surprise that spun out of Blood Hunt #4. Hopefully your retailer had a chance to order it, so you might want to ask about it if you don’t see it on shelves.
I’ve pulled out some of the other highlights for this week below, but for the complete list of everything you might find at your local comic shop and on digital this week, you’ll want to check out one or more of the following:
- Penguin Random House (Marvel + IDW + Dark Horse + more)
- Lunar Distribution (DC + Image + more)
- Diamond’s PreviewsWorld (BOOM! + Dynamite + more)
- ComicList (Pretty much all of the above)
- Amazon/Kindle new releases (digital comics)
As a reminder, things can change and what you find on the above lists may differ from what’s actually arriving in your local shop. So always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.
Absolute Power #1 (DC, $4.99): Mark Waid and Dan Mora helm DC’s big summer crossover series, which will pit Amanda Waller and her forces against DC’s heroes in an attempt to stop them permanently by depowering them. But something every comic fan knows — and certainly Waid knows — is that super powers aren’t the only thing that defines a hero. The crossover has been building up for several months now, in the pages of the Superman titles, in Suicide Squad: Dream Team and, oh yeah, in a certain ongoing title …
Batman #150 (DC, $5.99): Chip Zdarsky continues his Batman run a story that ties into Absolute Power, as well as one about a two-bit crook who discovers Batman’s secret identity. Zdarsky is joined by series regulars Jorge Jimenez and Mike Hawthorne, as well as guest artist Denys Cowan for this milestone issue.
Spider-Man: Reign 2 #1 (Marvel, $4.99): It’s been almost two decades since Kaare Andrews’ Spider-Man: Reign imagined an authoritarian future New York where an elderly Peter Parker put his mask back on to stand up to an evil mayor and his jackboot police force. Andrews returns to that world with this new miniseries, which will introduce a new Black Cat and show us what became of Miles Morales.
Free Agents #1 (Image, $3.99): Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza co-write this new miniseries featuring artwork by Stephen Mooney, which is about a team of superheroes who retired, started building new lives … and end up getting pulled back into “the life.”
Cheetara #1 (Dynamite, $4.99): Dynamite is following up the big launch of their ThunderCats series with this solo series focused on the heroine Cheetara that’s written and drawn by Soo Lee, and will reveal more about her life before the ThunderCats fled their homeworld.
Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #0 (Marvel, $4.99): Moon Knight returns in a new series that spins out of last week’s Blood Hunt #4, as Jed MacKay, Alessandro Cappucio, Rachelle Rosenberg and Devmalya Pramanik bring him back to life just in time to help out against “Blade” and his vampires. This issue serves a prelude to the first issue, which arrives in October.
Soul Taker #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Co-writers Tom Sniegoski and Jeannine Acheson and artist Valeria Burzo team up for this new title about “the sweet little old lady living next door to your mother” who is actually a centuries-old creature that sucks the life out of humanity.
Star Wars: Inquisitors #1 (Marvel, $5.99): Rodney Barnes and Ramon Rosanas turn to the Dark Side this summer, as Vader’s special forces hunt Tensu Run, a Jedi who survived the purge caused by Order 66 and seeks to rebuild the Jedi Order in that harrowing time between Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope.
Grendel Devil’s Crucible: Defiance #1 (Dark Horse, $4.99): Matt Wagner returns to his signature creation with this new series that follows Devil’s Odyssey, the miniseries that advanced the futuristic Grendel: Devil Quest story for the first time since the mid-1990s. In it, Grendel Prime returns to Earth, only to find the inhabitants have turned hostile.
All The Things We Didn’t Do Last Night (Image, $3.99): This one-shot collects Maria Llovet’s three-part story from the Image 30th Anniversary Anthology into one volume. It’s about a hitman and a thief who don’t know each other’s occupations when they have a “meet cute” and decide to go on a date. Then their professional lives cross over …
Wolverine: Deep Cut #1 (Marvel, $3.99): Chris Claremont and Edgar Salazar revisit the X-Men’s time in the Australian Outback in this retro miniseries. If you were reading Uncanny X-Men back then, you might remember that Wolverine wasn’t around when the Reavers showed up to attack the X-Men, sending the team into the Siege Perilous. This new miniseries will detail the secret mission Wolverine was on before everything went to hell for the X-Men.
Cyberpunk 2077: Kickdown #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Tomasz Marchewka and Jake Elphick return to the video game world of Cyberpunk 2077 in this new miniseries about the daughter of a carjacker who races to fix her past.
Werewolf by Night: Blood Hunt #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Jason Loo and Adam Gorham show us what Jake Gomez, the new Werewolf by Night, is getting up to during the events of Blood Hunt. Loo describes it as a “teen-horror Grindhouse feature,” and it sets the stage for the Red Band Werewolf by Night series that’ll arrive later this year.
X-Men Blood Hunt: Psylocke #1 (Marvel, $3.99): This is one of four one-shots featuring Marvel’s mutants, as we get a look at what they’re getting up to not only post-Krakoa, but also during the worldwide blackout/vampire apocalypse event known as Blood Hunt. This one features Kwannon and her boyfriend John Greycrow as they face off with vampires and a new villain in Japan, as told by Steve Foxe and Lynne Yoshii.
Batman and Robin and Howard: Summer Breakdown #1 (DC, $4.99): Jeffrey Brown’s delightful 2021 graphic novel Batman and Robin and Howard gets a sequel miniseries. It features more adventures starring Damian Wayne, his middle-school rival-turned-friend Howard and a dad joke-spouting Batman.
Annihilation 2099 #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Writer Steve Orlando has been expanding the scope of the 2099 universe over the past few years, introducing new characters and new takes on the alternate Marvel universe. This summer that scope expands to the stars, as the cyberpunk line goes cosmic and introduces 2099 takes on Starlord, Red Hulk, Silver Surfer and in this issue, drawn by Ibraim Roberson, Nova.
Public Domain #6 (Image, $3.99): Chip Zdarsky returns to the creator-owned series he writes and draws for his Substack subscribers, which is about a comic creator and his family who regain the rights to his most famous creation. In this new arc, Dallas Comics is up and running, and Syd Dallas attempts to create a Domain comic for a new generation.
Life of Wolverine #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Marvel collects Jim Zub and Ramón F. Bachs’ Life of Wolverine Infinity Comic in print, which was originally released around the same time as the X Lives of Wolverine storyline. It attempted to tell Wolverine’s life story in chronological order, a daunting task for any creator, and comes just a few weeks before Wolverine returns to the big screen.
DC Compact Comics (DC, $9.99): DC’s new line of 5.5″ x 8.5″ graphic novels adds two more recent classics — Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman and NK Jemisin and Jamal Campbell’s Far Sector, which introduced us to Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein. Both editions collect all 12 issues of each award-winning series.