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 + Image + more)
- Diamond’s PreviewsWorld (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.
Masterpiece #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev are reuniting on this new series from Bendis’ Jinxworld imprint, which features the daughter of two famous robbers who pulled off the heist of a century before disappearing. She gets pulled into the life when their last victim comes for revenge.
DC’s ‘Twas the ‘Mite Before Christmas (DC, $9.99): This holiday-themed anthology features stories by Natalie Abrams, Michael W. Conrad, Josh Trujillo, Ethan Sacks, Zipporah Smith, Rob Levin, Sholly Fisch, Jillian Grant, Marcus Smith, Gavin Guidry, Andrew Drilon, Soo Lee, Juan Bobillo and more, featuring Bat-Mite, Batwoman, Harley Quinn, Lex Luthor and others.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch Holiday Special (Archie Comics, $3.99): Sabrina gets in on the holiday-themed anthology action this week, with stories by Kelly Thompson, Danielle Paige, Andy Fish, Veronica Fish, Veronica Johnson and more.
Spider-Gwen: Smash #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Writer Melissa Flores and artist Enid Balam send The Mary Janes, Gwen’s band, out on the road in her home dimension, Earth-65, in this new miniseries. But when a mysterious assassin targets the headliner, Gwen begins to wonder how she got this gig in the first place.
The Bloody Dozen #1 (Image, $3.99): Charles Soule and Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque are back with the second of seven interconnected miniseries in “The Shrouded College” saga that started with Soule and Will Sliney’s Hell to Pay. In this new miniseries, three down-and-out astronauts are tasked with the ultimate heist: springing a clan of deadly vampires from a space prison orbiting the Sun.
Underheist #1 (BOOM!, $4.99): Stray Bullets creators David and Maria Lapham, along with colorist Hilary Jenkins, conjure up a supernatural crime story about a gambling addiction who has “one more chance” to make things right — which of course means participating in a heist using hidden secret tunnels under New York City.
Moon Knight #30 (Marvel, $4.99): By now comic fans of a certain mileage are probably used to, and even jaded by, “death of” storylines in comics. Moon Knight is the latest character to die in the pages of a Marvel title, as Jed MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio bring the character’s current story arc to a close and prepare for a new title featuring a new Moon Knight.
Titans Beast World Tour: Gotham (DC, $5.99): DC’s Beast World crossover continues with not only a second issue this week, but also another one-shot, this one set in Gotham. Chip Zdarsky, Grace Ellis, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Sam Maggs, Kyle Starks, Miguel Mendonca, Daniel Hillyard, Ivan Shavrin, PJ Holden, Kelley Jones and more present feral stories set in DC’s most dangerous city.
Daredevil: Gang War #1 (Marvel, $4.99): If you read the opening salvo of Marvel’s Spider-Man-centric crossover series, you know that Daredevil split off from Spider-Man’s little “team” to pursue her own mission in Hell’s Kitchen. Courtesy of Erica Schultz and Sergio Davila, this miniseries picks up on that thread as the former assassin takes on the gang known as The Heat.
Beyond Real #1 (Vault Comics, $4.99): Zack Kaplan and a host of artists including Jorge Corona, Dennis Menheere, Vincenzo Riccardi, Toni Fejzula, Fabiana Mascolo and Liana Kangas present a story about simulation theory in this new Vault series. It’s about struggling artist June who, after a severe accident leaves her boyfriend in a coma and causes her to experience bizarre visual phenomena, discovers that the world she considers “reality” may be a computer simulation. The first issue was free to retailers, so your actual price might vary.
Batman: Robin Lives (DC, $4.99): This “faux-simile” edition of Batman #428, the notorious issue where Jason Todd was killed be the Joker thanks to a fan vote, contains the alternate ending where Jason Todd survives, which was created just in case fandom voted the other way. It’s by writer Jim Starlin, artist Jim Aparo, colorist Adrienne Roy, inker Mike DeCarlo and letterer John Costanza.
Speak (Square Fish, $17.99): Emily Carroll adapts Laurie Halse Anderson’s 2011 novel about a high school freshman who uses an art project to face what happened to her at an end-of-year party when an upperclassman raped her.
The Tribute (Titans Comics, $29.99): Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette, creators of Snowpiercer, present the story of a group of scientists and soldiers who journey to an alien world looking for a new energy source.