Welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.
This week DC goes “all in” not just with the launch of the Absolute Universe, but also with the release of several titles featuring new creative teams and stories. Returning to comics this week are Blade (fresh off his heel turn in Blood Hunt), the Toxic Avenger and the Terminator. Also, in case you forgot this was October, there’s plenty of new horror titles kicking off this week.
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.
Absolute Batman #1 (DC, $4.99): We saw the origins of the Absolute Universe in last week’s DC All In Special, and this week brings the first of the “trinity” titles from DC. Absolute Batman also marks the return of Scott Snyder to both DC and to a Batman title, even if this Batman is very different from the existing one. “Without the mansion…without the money…without the butler…what’s left is the Absolute Dark Knight!” What he does have is an art team that includes Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin, so he should absolutely look awesome.
Action Comics #1070 (DC, $4.99): Fans of Mark Waid who are already missing Absolute Power and are jonesin’ for Justice League Unlimited get a treat in this week’s Action Comics, as Waid teams with Clayton Henry for a new Superman story that involves an otherworldly horror emerging from the Phantom Zone. There’s also a Supergirl back-up story by Mariko Tamaki and Skyler Patridge.
Green Lantern Civil Corps Special #1 (DC, $5.99): DC is gearing up for something big in the Green Lantern titles, and in this special Green Lantern writer Jeremy Adams and Green Lantern War Journal writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson team up with artist Salvador Larroca for a story that focuses on John Stewart’s Dark Star Ring and the United Planets’ attempt to retrieve it.
Batman and Robin #14 (DC, $4.99): The dynamic duo get a new creative team as Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Javier Fernandez have Damian Wayne explore who he is “outside of the crusades his family has tasked him with fighting since birth.”
Blade: Red Band #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Fresh from Blood Hunt as the surprise “big bad” who was actually possessed by the “bigger bad,” Blade returns in this five-issue “red band” miniseries that comes polybagged with a content warning on it. Writer Bryan Edward Hill, who wrote the Blade comic that preceded Blood Hunt as well as the Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt miniseries that picked up on some of the threads from his Blade series, is writing, with C.F. Villa (Avengers) on art.
Toxic Avenger #1 (Ahoy Comics, $3.99): Matt Bors and Fred Harper bring the Toxic Avenger back to comics in this five-issue miniseries. Bors says the series will combine elements of the original films and the Toxic Crusaders cartoon, with this first issue showing how a train hauling chemical waste derails in Tromaville, New Jersey, and transforms bullied teenager Melvin Junko into the massive, mop-wielding hero.
Sentinels #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Lawrence Trask and a team of enhanced soldiers hunt dangerous mutants in this five-issue miniseries that ties into the X-Men: from the Ashes line. Alex Paknadel and Justin Mason present a new take on the giant robots who used to hunt the X-Men.
Murder Kingdom #1 (Mad Cave Studios, $4.99): Writer Fred Van Lente and artist Chris Panda set a madman loose inside the “Storybook Kingdom” theme park down in Florida, which may or may not appear similar to, um, another theme park with a “magical kingdom” theme. When a slasher starts killing cast members, it’s up to one fairytale princess to unmask the killer and stop them.
The Terminator #1 (Dynamite, $4.99): Declan Shalvey and Luke Sparrow team up to tell stories that spin out of the plot for the original Terminator film but take things in a new direction, with “mostly done-in-one” stories involving killer robots and time travel. The Terminator ‘bots have new targets in their sights — current resistance fighters and their ancestors, meaning no one, no place and no time is safe.
Night of the Slashers #1 (Magma Comix, $3.99): Cavan Scott and Paul Fry pay tribute to their horror movie-filled childhoods in this new miniseries, which is about a bus full of teens who end up stranded in the town of Hill Creek the one night of the year its citizens transform into bloodthirsty maniacs.
Star Wars: Ewoks #1 (Marvel, $3.99): Steve Orlando, Álvaro López and Laura Braga return to the moon of Endor for new stories starring the lovable but vicious muppets that appeared in Return of the Jedi.
Seance at the Asylum #1 (Dark Horse, $3.99): This historical horror series by Clay McLeod Chapman and Andrea Mutti is about a defrauded spiritual medium who tries to use her powers to cure an asylum full of traumatized Civil War soldiers and “women whose sanity has slipped through their fingers.” Things go south, of course.
Day of the Dead Girl #1 (Magma Comix, $3.99): Author, actress and wrestler AJ Mendez (Crazy Is My Superpower, the excellent Heels) and actress Aimee Garcia (Lucifer) tag-team on this new comic about a coroner investigating murders within a witch coven led by her brujas mother. This one features art by Belén Culebras.
Monster High Halloween Special #1 (IDW, $4.99): Keryl Brown Ahmed and Naomi Franq show us what the spooks at Monster High are getting up to this Halloween, as Headmaster Frankenstein and Draculaura decide to throw a carnival at the school.
Conquest 2099 #1 (Marvel, $4.99): The next chapter in the 2099 saga continues the story of Nova 2099 and all the other characters introduced in Annihilation 2099, as Steve Orlando, Jose Luis and Ibraim Roberson send Dracula 2099 off to conquer a new homeworld, which brings him into a collision with Nova 2099, Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Woman 2099.
Tales from the Deadside (Valiant, $5.99): AJ Ampadu teams with Jules Mamone, Andres Ponce and Sebastian Cabrol for three horror-themed stories starring Shadowman, Punk Mambo and Doctor Mirage.
Naked City (Dark Horse, $29.99): Eric Drooker’s third original graphic novel, described as a comedy,asks the question: “Is it possible for an artist to survive in the 21st Century?” As a young singer poses for a painter who has shifted from landscapes to nudes, both of them learn about the purpose of art and the meaning of success.
The Night Mother (Oni Press, $14.99): Jeremy Lambert and Alexa Sharpe present the first volume of a new dark fantasy series set in a seaside town cast into perpetual night. Local resident Madeline Tock lives in the graveyard and talks to the dead — while preparing to battle the Night Mother for the soul of her town
Asgardians: Thor (First Second, $12.99): George O’Connor, creator of the excellent Olympians series of graphic novels that told the stories of various Greek gods, turns his eye northward to focus on Asgard. This first volume starts, of course, with Thor.
Side Quest (Versify, $26.99): Samuel Sattin and Steenz team up to tell the history of role-playing games, both as a medium and from their own personal experiences.
I Can Count to Ten (Titan, $19.99): Roman Dirge returns with a “non-children’s children’s book” that’s aimed at adults and “starts as the cutest counting book in the history of education” but “soon descends spectacularly into the single goriest, bloodiest and funniest non-teaching aid EVER.”
Adrift on a Painted Sea (Avery Hill, $18.99): This graphic novel by Tim Bird, which Avery Hill crowdfunded earlier this year, is about the life of Bird’s mother, who passed away during the height of COVID. She was an amateur painter who created countless works of art — botanical art, landscapes, still lifes and painting of the sea. She never sold her paintings, but would give them away to family and friends, and hang them in her own home. Bird has brilliantly combined his own comics work with her paintings to capture her life and showcase her incredible work. Check out a preview here.