Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.
I’ve pulled out some of the highlights 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 + graphic novels + manga)
- Lunar Distribution (DC + Scout + more)
- Diamond’s PreviewsWorld (Image + Dark Horse + many more)
- ComicList (Pretty much all of the above)
- comiXology/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.
Lazarus Planet Alpha (DC, $5.99): As seen in Batman vs. Robin #4, the Lazarus Volcano has erupted, giving DC its first crossover event of 2023. The DC Universe will be “rocked to its core” as “dangerous and transformative chemicals” are released into the atmosphere, causing some ordinary humans to develop super powers and already empowered metahumans to find their abilities have changed. It’s chaos, baby! And it’s by Mark Waid, Gene Luen Yang, Riccardo Federici, Billy Tan and more. The story will continue over the next two months in a series of one-shots.
Batman: The Adventures Continue Season 3 #1 (DC, $3.99): Alan Burnett and Paul Dini welcome artist Jordan Gibson to their comic book continuation of the Batman: The Animated Series continuity. This third volume begins with Batman having to protect the incarcerated The Muscle from the Gotham underworld, who want him and all his secrets dead.
The Avengers: War Across Time #1 (Marvel, $5.99): Former DC executive Paul Levitz makes his Marvel debut in this new miniseries with classic Excalibur artist Alan Davis, as they jump back to the early days of the Avengers to pit the team against Kang.
Black Cloak #1 (Image, $4.99): Kelly Thompson’s Substack comic comes to print courtesy of Image Comics, as she and artist Meredith McClaren create a murder mystery in a fantasy city set on the brink of war. This first issue is triple-sized.
Spawn: Unwanted Violence #1 (Image, $4.99): Todd McFarlane teams with artist Mike Del Mundo for this two-issue miniseries that features Spawn, The Freak and the search for something called “File F.”
Batman: Urban Legends #23 (DC, $7.99): DC wraps up its Batman-themed anthology with this final issue, which features stories about Nightwing, Arkham Academy and more by Jamal Campbell, Joey Esposito, Dennis Culver, Kenny Porter, Vasco Georgiev, Hayden Sherman, Simone Di Meo and more.
Nemesis Reloaded #1 (Image, $3.99): Mark Millar recruited artist Jorge Jimenez for the sequel to the 2010 miniseries Nemesis, which was published by Marvel’s Icon imprint. Remember Icon? It’s been pretty dormant since Brian Michael Bendis left Marvel for DC and Millar migrated his books to Image. But I digress! Nemesis is about a super villain, with the tagline “What of Batman was the Joker?” Fans of the original miniseries will remember Nemesis died at the end of the last miniseries, so we’ll have to see who is under the mask now.
Final Gamble #1 (Band of Bards, $4.99): This tells the story of an MMA fighter and a gambling addict who both lose a poker match and end up prisoners of The Mercury Society, a cadre of rich people who make them fight for their lives. What jumped out at me was that it’s drawn by Jorge Santiago, Jr., who you might remember from his work on Spencer & Locke, who teams with writer Robyn Singer.
Carmilla: The First Vampire (Dark Horse, $19.99): A 19th century queer feminist murder mystery sees the sunlight again in this graphic novel by Amy Chu and Soo Lee.
Dega (Oni Press, $21.99): Dan McDaid wrote, drew and lettered this new graphic novel about “a crashed ship, a lone survivor, a monstrous secret hiding in the dark under the world.”
The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz (It’s Alive/Dark Horse, $49.99): This collects the 1960s war comic by Will Franz and Sam Glanzman, which was originally published by Charlton. The comic is about an American soldier in WWII who, while being sent to a firing squad for a murder he didn’t commit, manages to escape when the jeep he’s in hits a landmine. The soldier then pretends to be a German soldier after finding a uniform. The comic came out during the Vietnam War and legend has it that the U.S. military asked Charlton to cancel it because it was reportedly responsible for creating objectors out of young American men. This is also one of the final projects of Drew Ford, who passed away last September from COVID-related pneumonia, and it not only collects the original story but also includes an ending written by Franz and drawn by war comics veteran Wayne Vansant.