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 + 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.
Conan the Barbarian #1 (Titan Comics, $3.99): Jim Zub, Roberto de la Torre and Jose Villarrubia helm Titan’s new Conan title, which debuts following the Free Comic Book Day issue from earlier this summer. The story finds Conan returning to his homeland for some R&R just in time for an invasion by a new threat.
The Sacrificers #1 (Image, $3.99): Rick Remender and Max Fiumara’s new ongoing series is a high-concept science fiction series set on a world where peace comes with a Hunger Games-esque price: “Tomorrow is a harmonious paradise thanks to five families who make everything perfect…for the price of one child per household. Now, as that bill comes due, a son expected to give everything for a family that never loved him and an affluent daughter determined to destroy utopia must unite to end one generation’s unnaturally protracted reign.”
Astonishing Iceman #1 (Marvel, $3.99): Iceman gets another shot at a solo series as Steve Orlando and Vincenzo Carratù pit Bobby Drake against Orchis following the events of this year’s Hellfire Gala. Which did not have a happy ending for anyone, especially Iceman, so we’ll have to see how he’s doing later this week.
X-Men #25 (Marvel, $5.99): Speaking of the Hellfire Gala, the fallout from this year’s event sends Kitty Pryde back to her ninja roots, as she joins the X-Men as Shadowkat, courtesy of Gerry Duggan and Stefano Caselli.
Sandman Universe Special: Thessaly (DC, $4.99): James Tynion IV and Maria Llovet chronicle the witch Thessaly’s attempt to infiltrate Hollywood in an attempt to solve the mystery surrounding the death of Madison Flynn.
Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer #1 (BOOM!, $4.99): This is the sequel to the Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer one-shot that came out in 2021, in which Casey Gilly and Joe Jaro introduced us to a Buffy Summers who was well out of her senior year and living out life in her more senior years. Now that weathered, veteran Buffy returns for a five-issue miniseries, as Gilly is joined by artist Oriol Roig and Buffy mentors a new slayer — Thess, the daughter of Willow and Tara.
Dark Droids #1 (Marvel, $5.99): The droids of the Star Wars universe get infected by something called the Scourge, which spreads like wildfire and turns them against their masters in zombie-like fashion in this first issue of a multi-title crossover.
Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 (Titan Comics, $3.99): Brandon Easton and Simone Ragazzoni kick off a new chapter in the life of Rick Hunter following the devastating events of the Macross saga.
Death of the Venomverse (Marvel, $4.99): Cullen Bunn, writer of everything from Agent Venom to Drax to the X-Men, returns to Marvel after a number of years for this new miniseries with artist Gerardo Sandoval. The series involves Carnage embarking on a vicious bloodbath across all of reality, and a group of Venoms from different universes uniting to stop him.
Project Riese #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Zac Thompson and Jeff McComsey tell the post-World War II tale of Sam Safdie and his ragtag group of treasure hunters searching for gold in the Owl Mountains, where the Nazis housed Project Riese.
Strange Academy: Miles Morales (Marvel, $4.99): Author Carlos Hernandez (Sal and Gabi Break the Universe) takes the kids from Strange Academy on a field trip to New York to meet Moon Knight and two Spider-Man, as the kids enter the Multiversal Math Bowl and take on a new enemy called The Equation.
Various Knight Terrors tie-ins (DC, $3.99/$4.99 each): The second and final issue of five Knight Terrors miniseries arrive this week, wrapping up the nightmares of Batman, Ravager, Poison Ivy, the Joker and Black Adam.
What If? Dark: Venom (Marvel, $4.99): Writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Jethro Morales bring together two plot points from the original Secret Wars miniseries for this one, as they show what happens when Ben Grimm returns from the Beyonder’s planet (he stayed behind to explore it) to find Spider-Man’s trapped Klyntar symbiote in the Baxter Building.
Quest #1 (Image, $3.99): Writer/artist Jonathan Luna of Alex + Ada fame teams with co-writer Crystal Wood on this new ongoing fantasy series, which puts a twist on the classic “save the princess” story. In Quest, Princess Anya must save her new husband after he’s kidnapped by three demons.
Magneto #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Magneto’s slow and complicated “face turn” back in the 1980s was one of the highlights of the X-Men titles at the time, and now J.M. DeMatteis and Todd Nauck will explore one of the key milestones in that timeline — the period when Magneto became headmaster of Professor Xavier’s school and taught the New Mutants.
Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1957 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Chris Roberson, Mike Mignola, Mike Norton and Dave Stewrat are back for another chapter of Hellboy and the BPRD’s time in 1957, as they investigate an abandoned sawmill that is rumored to be haunted.
Amazing Spider-Man Annual (Marvel, $4.99): Celeste Bronfman, Erica Schultz, David Lopez, Julian Shaw and more contribute two stories to this year’s annual — one featuring Hallow’s Eve trying to break Chasm out of jail, and one showing what the Hellfire Gala means to the Spider-World.
Soggy Landing (Oni Press, $19.99): Ian Densford, Alec McGovern and Andrew McGovern introduce the island of Soggy Landing in this graphic novel that’s filled with stoner wizard bears, magical cultists and class warfare.
Prism Stalker: The Weeping Star (Dark Horse, $24.99): Writer/artist Sloane Leong returns to the planet Eriatarka to catch up with Vep and her fellow students in this OGN follow-up to the 2018 miniseries.
Young Alfred: Pain in the Butler (DC, $12.99): Michael Northrop and Sam Lotfi dive into the early years of Alfred, Batman’s butler, as the teen-aged boy attends Gotham Servants School and runs afoul of a criminal plot.
Cartoonshow (Oni Press, $21.99): The online comic strips of animator Derek M. Ballard, who has worked on Adventure Time for Cartoon Network and on Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel, get collected by Oni Press this week.
I Never Found You (Floating World, $19.95): Emma Jon-Michael Frank writes and draws this story of a birdwatcher who discovers something “macabre and grisly” in the woods, leading to a murder mysteries and dark influences.
Marvel Comics Library: X-Men Vol. 1 (Taschen America, $200): Taschen continues their line of early Marvel reprint collections with the X-Men. Close in size to the original artworks, this XXL-sized edition features the first 21 stories from 1963-1966. It also includes a foreword by Chris Claremont, an in-depth essay by Fabian Nicieza as well as original art, photographs and memorabilia from the early years of the X-Men.