Welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.
This week the X-Men: From the Ashes line officially kicks off, as both Marvel’s Blood Hunt event and DC’s Absolute Power event continue. Amy Chu and Soo Lee return to the world of Carmilla the First Vampire, while Papercutz shares the first of many new graphic novels they have planned from their partnership with Disney.
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.
X-Men #1 (Marvel, $5.99): The X-Men: From the Ashes initiative kicks off here with the first of many titles showing what life is like for Marvel’s merry mutants after the end of the Krakoa era. Current Avengers writer Jed MacKay and artist Ryan Stegman spearhead the reboot, which will feature Cyclops, Beast, Psylocke, Juggernaut and more operating out of a new base in Alaska.
Action Comics #1067 (DC, $4.99): Gail Simone and Eddy Barrows revisit Superman’s early years as he battles an alien threat that’s using the Earth as its arena. Then in the back-up story, Lois Lane gets the spotlight in a story by Rainbow Rowell and Cian Tormey. This is Rowell’s DC debut, and she describes it as a “newsroom” story as much as it is a love story.
Kill All Immortals #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): Famed Viking explorer Erik the Red discovered the secret of immortality and runs a banking empire in the modern world in this new series by Zack Kaplan and Fico Ossio. When Erik’s daughter decides to leave the family business, a savage conflict breaks out with the rest of her family.
Gatchaman: Galactor #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Mad Cave continues their Gatchaman line with a spinoff miniseries starring the villainous Galactor, as Steve Orlando and Kath Lobo pit their leader, Berg Katse, against a conspiracy within the organization.
Hulk: Blood Hunt #1 (Marvel, $4.99): The Hulk heads to Old Tucson in this tie-in one-shot to Marvel’s big Blood Hunt event. Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Danny Earls send the Hulk to Old Tucson — what’s waiting in Old Tucson? Probably vampires, I’d guess, given it ties into Blood Hunt, but Johnson has brought in all sorts of crazy monsters in the ongoing Incredible Hulk title, so the Hulk would be lucky if it was just a few vampires.
Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 (DC, $3.99): This biweekly companion series to DC’s big Absolute Power crossover series is actually a series of one-shots by different creative teams, with each focused on a different family of heroes. This issue is written by Leah Williams with art by Caitlin Yarsky, and introduces the Last Son, an Amazo-like android who has stolen the powers of Superman and sets its sights on the Marvel Family.
The Domain #1 (Image Comics, $3.99): Chip Zdarsky and Rachael Stott present the in-universe comic from Zdarsky’s other creator-owned title, Public Domain. While that title is about a creator and his family getting the rights back to a popular comics character he created, this spin-off miniseries details what their reboot of that series looks like.
From the DC Vault: Death in the Family: Robin Lives #1 (DC, $4.99): Writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Rick Leonardi explore an alternate reality where fans didn’t vote to have the Joker kill off Jason Todd, and instead the second Robin survived. Things don’t look so good for the Joker, though, do they?
From the World of Minor Threats: Barfly #1 (Dark Horse, $4.99): Kyle Starks and Ryan Browne enter the world of Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum and Scott Hepburn’s Minor Threats with a spinoff miniseries featuring the former minion known as Sh*teater. Yes, that’s his name, and I guess you really can’t title a comic that — thus it gets a new title, Barfly. Which is a pretty good name for a fly-themed character in itself.
Ahsoka #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Rodney Barnes, Steven Cummings and Georges Jeanty bring Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice to the printed page, as they adapt the Ahsoka Disney+ show into comics.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration (IDW, $11.99): As you can probably guess from the title, this anthology celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The 70-page special includes contributions from creators who have worked on the Turtles throughout their history, including Jim Lawson, Sophie Campbell, Freddie E. Williams II, and co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who drew the main cover.
Giant Size Silver Surfer (Marvel, $6.99): Mat Groom and Tommaso Bianchi bring together two former heralds of Galactus in this Giant Size issue, as Terrax sets a trap for the Silver Surfer.
A Last Goodbye (Band of Bards, $5.99): In this one-shot by writer Travis B. Hill and artist Ben Humeniuk, a man and his dog travel across an apocalyptic Earth to visit home one last time — only to encounter a group of mutant cannibals targeting one of the last surviving human communities.
Kid Venom #1 (Marvel, $4.99): The breakout star of Death of the Venomverse gets his own miniseries, courtesy of Taigami. Kid Venom is Kintaro, a 10th century Japanese hero who bonded with a symbiote to save his village from evil symbiotes, and Taigami actually created him for a contest Shonen Magazine and Marvel held back in 2018. And now he gets a chance to expand Kid Venom’s status quo.
The Hunger and the Dusk Book 2 #1 (IDW, $4.99): G. Willow Wilson and Chris Wildgoose’s high fantasy series returns for a second arc, as the humans and orcs continue to wage a war for survival against the ancient Vangol. If you missed the first series, you can still find it for $1.99 on Comixology.
What We Wished For (Humanoids, $22.99): Ilias Kyriazis writes and draws this graphic novel about a group of friends who make wishes to a supernatural entity — only to have those wishes come true 35 years later.
Space Mullet (Image Comics, $19.99): Daniel Warren Johnson’s long-running webcomic Space Mullet comes to print, as ex-space-marine-turned-trucker Jonah and his alien co-pilot Alphius as they “do their best (and usually fail) to do good throughout the galaxy.”
Pizza Face (Scholastic, $12.99): Rex Ogle and Dave Valeza pit a seventh grader against his greatest enemy, puberty, and its minions, acne and body odor.
Loud: Stories to Make Your Voice Heard (Dark Horse, $24.99): The Boscarato award-winning anthology arrives in the U.S., courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. The stories in it broach the topic of gender-based violence and feature the work of the Italian artist collective Moleste.
Brittle Joints (Street Noise, $20.99): Maria Sweeney writes and draws this graphic novel about her struggles with Bruck syndrome, a rare condition that gives her very brittle bones and joint abnormalities, and her attempts to obtain care in an increasingly complicated and disinterested U.S. healthcare system.
Carmilla: The Last Vampire Hunter (Dark Horse, $19.99): This is a sequel to Carmilla: The First Vampire, the graphic novel by Amy Chu and Soo Lee that Dark Horse published last year. The new OGN follows social worker-turned-vampire hunter Athena Lo to San Francisco as she investigates her family’s dark history.
The New Adventures of Encanto (Papercutz, $9.99): Amparo Ortiz and Andrea Greppi bring the Madrigal family to comics as part of a bigger publishing partnership with Disney.
Braba (Fantagraphics/MINO, $29.99): Artist Rafael Grampá and comics editor
Janaina de Luna curate this anthology of 13 stories from 16 Brazilian comic creators, capturing a diverse array of voices and styles from this thriving comics scene. Contributors include Amanda Miranda, Bruno Seelig, Diego
Sanchez, Gabriel Goes, Jefferson Costa, Jéssica Groke, Sirlene Barbosa, João
Pinheiro, Cris Eiko, Paulo Crumbim, Pedro Cobiaco, Pedro Franz, Rafael Coutinho, Shiko and Wagner Willian.