Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital. It’s another packed week as summer hits its stride, with more Knight Terrors, a new Carnage title, a big TMNT/Stranger Things crossover and more.
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 + Dark Horse + more)
- Lunar Distribution (DC + more)
- Diamond’s PreviewsWorld (Image + BOOM! + 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.
World’s Finest: Teen Titans #1 (DC, $3.99): Readers of Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s World’s Finest know that the Teen Titans have played a key role in the series. Now the younger heroes who will one day become DC’s premiere superhero team will have their pasts explored in a new miniseries by Waid and artist Emanuela Lupacchino. It’ll feature not only the original five Teen Titans — Robin, Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Speedy — but also Mal Duncan and Bumblebee.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Stranger Things #1 (IDW + Dark Horse, $3.99): This new miniseries sends the kids from Stranger Things to New York, where they meet the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Writer Cameron Chittock and artist Fero Pe bring together the two properties in this four-issue miniseries.
Web of Carnage #1 (Marvel, $5.99): Ram V and Francesco Manna show us what the Carnage symbiote has been up to while Cletus Kasady is off doing what he does best. This issue will feature it (him?) fighting Spider-Man’s big bad (well, another big bad), Morlun.
Knight Terrors #1 (DC, $3.99): Following last week’s Knight Terrors: First Blood special, DC’s big summer crossover series kicks off in earnest with this four-issue miniseries that’ll run through July and August. It’s by Joshua Williamson, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Caspar Wijngaard, and this main series will focus on Batman and Deadman trying to stop new villain Insomnia while the rest of the world is trapped in their own nightmares. Speaking of which …
Various Knight Terrors tie-ins (DC, $3.99-$4.99 each): I was trying to remember the last time a DC crossover series basically replaced all their ongoing titles with two-issue miniseries. I believe it was Convergence. In any event, several nightmare-fueled stories featuring DC’s characters going up against their bad dreams launch this week, including Flash by Alek Paknadel and Daniel Bayliss; Green Lantern by Jeremy Adams, Alex Segura, Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira and Mario Fox Foccillo; Robin by Kenny Porter and Miguel Mendonça; Shazam by Mark Waid and Roger Cruz; and Zatanna by Dennis Culver and David Baldeon.
Antarctica #1 (Image/Top Cow, $3.99): Simon Birks and Willi Roberts follow a conspiracy to the bottom of the world in this new title from Top Cow. The story’s roots go back to a six-page short story in Top Cow’s Stairway Anthology, which came out in 2020, as it follows a woman whose search for her missing father takes her to an Antarctic research station.
Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel (Marvel, $4.99): G. Willow Wilson, Saladin Ahmed, Mark Waid, Humberto Ramos, Takeshi Miyazawa and more tell stories of Marvel heroes honoring the fallen Ms. Marvel, who died in a random issue of Amazing Spider-Man.
Fishflies #1 (Image, $5.99): Initially debuting as a subscriber-only digital series on Jeff Lemire’s Substack, Fishflies is a tale of small-town surrealist horror set in Ontario. Each issue is giant-sized at 56 pages each, written and drawn by Lemire, and it’ll run for six bi-monthly issues.
The Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Tyler Crook returns to the world he introduced last year in The Lonesome Hunters, as Howard and Lupe leave town to get rid of the giant sword they used to kill the Magpie Queen and end up in the middle of a battle between a small town and the magical wolf terrorizing it.
Sirens of the City #1 (BOOM!, $4.99): Joanne Starer and Khary Randolph’s Substack comic comes to print, as Runaway teen Layla struggles to survive on the mean streets of a 1980s New York City filled with magical creatures.
Moon Knight #25 (Marvel, $9.99): Jed MacKay, Alessandro Cappuccio, Alessandro Vitti and more celebrate 25 issues of Moon Knight with this extra-sized issue that sees Moon Knight confront his past with the Karnak Cowboys, a mercenary crew that included Marc Spector, Jean-Paul Duchamp, Robert Plesko and Layla El-Faouly, who makes her comic book debut.
Groo: Into the Wild #1 (Dark Horse, $4.99): Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier return for more goofy adventures starring the barbarian who loves cheese dip, Groo. This time around, animals might be harmed as Groo heads into the wild.
The Hunger and the Dusk #1 (IDW, $3.99): G. Willow Wilson teams with artist Chris Wildgoose for a new “high fantasy tour de force” that has been using the hashtag #HotOrcSummer in its marketing. The series will feature humans and orcs on a dying world who were once mortal enemies but now must team up to face an ancient race called the Vangol that threatened them both.
What If …? Dark: Loki (Marvel, $4.99): Walt Simonson returns to Marvel and Asgard to write a new Thor story — or, to be precise, a new, alternate reality Loki story. “What if Loki wielded Mjolnir?” will feature art by Scott Eaton.
Savage Squad 6 #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Robert Venditti of Flash and Green Lantern fame teams with co-writer Brockton McKinney and artist Dalts Dalton for this miniseries about an “elite team of post-apocalyptic soldiers undergoing the deadliest mission of their lives.”
Rocketeer in the Den of Thieves #1 (IDW, $4.99): This new miniseries by Stephen Mooney and David Messina features the Rocketeer dealing with a broken jet pack at the same time a group of Nazis decide to kidnap his pal and the jet pack’s inventor, Peevy.
X-Men Days of Future Past: Doomsday #1 (Marvel, $4.99): This new miniseries by Marc Guggenheim and Manuel Garcia revisits the alternate future created in the pages of Uncanny X-Men #141-142, the “Days of Future Past” storyline that featured a world where mutants and superheroes were hunted by Sentinels. The miniseries will tell the story of the events leading up to the future state where mutants were kept in concentration camps and a small group of scrappy X-Men fought back — and lost.
Panya: The Mummy’s Curse #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): In this Mignolaverse title, Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten tell the story of Panya, a girl in ancient Egypt who “witnessed the fall of a dynasty and was gifted-or cursed-with visions of the beginning, the end, and the coming of the dragon.”
Con & On #1 (Ahoy, $3.99): Oh hey, I just posted an interview today with writer Paul Cornell about this new miniseries, which details the lives of several comic creators against the backdrop of a long-running comic convention. The art by Marika Cresta looks marvelous, and you can read the interview here.
Midnight Western Theatre: Witch Trial #1 (Scout Comics, $4.99): This sequel to the well-regarded Midnight Western Theatre is actually a prequel by Louis Southard and Butch Mapa tell the story of Ortensia Thomas before she became the Woman in Black.
Duck & Cover #1 (Comixology Originals, $3.99): The American Vampire creative team of Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque sinks their teeth into the 1950s Cold-War era with this new title that imagines what life might be like if a nuclear bomb hit the U.S. and only the kids who learned to “duck and cover” under their desk at school survived.
Svengoolie: Lost in Time #1 (Frank Miller Presents, $7.99): Svengoolie, the host of a late-night horror movie program in Chicago that’s now on MeTV, returns to comics in this new title from Frank Miller Presents. You might remember his last appearance in comics was alongside the Justice League over at DC, where current Frank Miller Presents publisher Dan Didio used to work. So, yeah, he’s a fan. This special features the work of Rich Koz, Jim Roche, Chris Faulkner, Jill Thompson, Art Baltazar, Franco and more.
Arca (IDW, $16.99): Van Jensen and Jesse Lonergan present a dystopian science fiction epic about a group of billionaires who flee a dying Earth — and bring along a bunch of teenagers to serve as their slaves. One teen-aged girl named Persephone discovers that their promised future of comfort is a myth, and she has to fight back.
Eight Limbs (Humanoids, $19.99): Stephanie Phillips and Giulia Lalli (along with stunning cover artist Dan Panosian) tell the story of Joanna, a retired Muay Thai champion who adopts a teenager and ends up having to fight for her. Get in the ring!
The He-Man Effect (First Second, $26.99): Brian “Box” Brown, creator of the Tetris graphic novel, tackles another subject from my childhood –the advent of how “corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures to dizzying heights.” Find out how all those He-Man, Transformers and My Little Pony cartoons warped your fragile mind.
Past Tense (Dark Horse, $19.99): Jason McNamara and Alberto Massaggia team for this new graphic novel about a company that sends cameras into the past to view history’s most depraved events, and when one worker discovers a serial killer and begins following his exploits, his present-day self takes issue with it.
Buzzing (Little Brown Ink, $12.99): In this new graphic novel by Samuel Sattin and Rye Hickman, a kid named Isaac finds relief from his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when he starts playing role-playing games with some kids at school. But when his grades slip and his mom forbids him from playing, he has to prove himself to her. Or feed her to a dragon, maybe? That might be worth a shot.
The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell (IDW, $29.99): Eddie Campbell writes, draws and stars in this meta-graphic novel where the author seeks to find his own imposter. Billed as a “spiritual sequel” to his critically acclaimed graphic novel The Fate of the Artist, this volume also includes that work in its entirety.
Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Omnibus (DC + IDW, $100): This omnibus includes all three team-ups miniseries between Batman and the Ninja Turtles, by James Tynion IV, Ryan Ferrier, Freddie E. Williams II and more. It also include behind-the-scenes artwork and a new intro by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman.