Welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what’s coming to your local comic shop this week. It’s a week with two big endings and several beginnings.
I’ve pulled out some of the 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 + Mad Cave + 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 check with your retailer to see what’s arriving at their shop this week.
DC K.O. #5 (DC, $5.99): And it all comes down to this … writer Scott Snyder and artist Javier Fernandez wrap up their wild tournament series with a finale that promises cosmic stakes and a champion crowned. DC isn’t revealing much about the ending, with good reason, but I am excited to see where we end up. Also, I included two variant covers for it above, both of which weren’t released when the issue was announced — one featuring the “winner” of the tournament matched up against Darkseid (so spoilers if you haven’t read DC K.O. #4) and the second featuring a DC X AEW match-up between Darkseid and another master “Omega.” Both are by Dan Mora.
Avengers #36 (Marvel, $4.99): Not to repeat myself, but to repeat myself … it all comes down to this. Writer Jed MacKay teams with artist Farid Karami to bring his three-year run on Avengers to a close in this giant finale, and if the rest of MacKay’s tenure is any indication, he’s not going out quietly. Marvel promises all the dark mysteries, epic quests and cosmic battles will come to a conclusion that “will redefine the Avengers’ future.”
Narco #1 (Image, $3.99): Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard, creators of the Image series Plastic and Vinyl, are back with a new series that introduced Marcus Westphal, a man with a rare form of narcolepsy that knocks him out whenever he gets too excited. That’s a significant problem when he witnesses the murder of the girl next door and becomes the prime suspect. Now he has to leave his apartment for the first time and track down a killer, despite a condition that could put him to sleep at any moment.
Nectar #1 (Vault, $3.99): Author Jeremy Robinson teams with artists Annapaola Martello and Francesco Francini on this series about blood-drinking butterflies attacking a quiet island village off Salem, spreading the Dancing Plague and general madness. I love the concept!
“When my wife, Hilaree, and I started spitballing story concepts, all I knew was that I wanted to create a new Victorian monster to rival Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and werewolves,” said Robinson. “Our twisted imaginations went to work and just minutes later we had blood-sucking butterflies and the dancing plague wrapped together, along with the title: Nectar. I loved the idea so much, I started writing the script the next day.”
Poison Ivy #42 (DC, $3.99): That’s Mayor Poison Ivy to you. Writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Marcio Takara kick off a storyline where Pamela Isley becomes the mayor of Gotham City. What does Ivy’s vision for Gotham look like? The solicit promises things are going to get “pretty bloody.” So, yeah …
Moonstar #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Dani Moonstar has been a New Mutant, a Valkyrie and an X-Avenger, but now for the first time, she’s the star of her own solo miniseries. Writer Ashley Allen and artist Edoardo Audino send Mirage — Is she still called that? Or is “Moonstar” her codename now? — on the hunt for an ancient soul-sucking weapon and the deadly wielder who’s set it loose.
Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man #1 (Dark Horse, $4.99): Writer/artist Ben Stenbeck makes his debut in the horror-fantasy universe he co-created with Hellboy’s Mike Mignola, with Dave Stewart on colors. The setup sounds creepy, as a traveler shelters from a storm in a witch’s house and gets treated to the tale of the Skinless Man, a merciless figure hunting for new skin at any cost.
Disney Villains: Gaston #1 (Dynamic Forces, $4.99): An all-star team of Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente (who worked together on those awesome Hulk books back in the day) and artist Milena Ciccarello give the most gloriously self-assured villain in the Disney canon his own series. I hear no one hits like Gaston, or spits like Gaston … and apparently no one Gaston gets arrested as well as Gaston, who gets picked up for trespassing on the king’s hunting grounds. He’s offered his freedom in exchange for taking on a mission so dangerous that only someone with absolutely no self-doubt would agree to it.
Star Wars: Shadow of Maul #1 (Marvel, $4.99): In this prequel series to the upcoming Darth Maul series on Disney+, Benjamin Percy and Madibek Musabekov send the former Sith apprenteice to a neon-lit, lawless planet called Janix for a pulpy crime story. Captain Brander Lawson and his droid partner Two Boots are trying to keep the peace in a place that has none, all while the shadow of Maul looms closer.
Cult of the Lamb: Last Sacrament Special #1 (Oni Press, $7.99): The hit video game returns to comics in a new story by Alex Paknadel and Troy Little, who did the original Cult of the Lamb miniseries for Oni. In this one, the cult is shattered, the faith is shaken and Lamb must face down the remaining threats of the Old Faith while The One Who Waits prepares their return.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (IDW, $4.99): Writer Iasmin Omar Ata and artist Ryan Jampole send Sonic and crew racing across dimensions thanks to the eccentric Dodon Pa’s travel rings, until a glitch splits Tails and Tangle off into an unknown world.
X-Men Annual #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Writer/artist Ryan Stegman brings along Steve Skroce and Sanford Greene for a story about a mutant villain called the Creationist who weaponizes imagination itself. It’s a wild, meta premise that plays perfectly to the artistic firepower assembled here, and it features three of my favorite X-Men.
Batman #7 (DC, $4.99): Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez kick off their second arc of Batman with the return of the Joker, and apparently he’s not quite the same as we’ve seen him before. It’ll include a foldout that takes you inside the Clown Prince of Crime’s mind, which should be interesting.
Exploit #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Former comic book journalists-turned-comic book writers Laura Hudson and Tim Leong team with artist Emiliana Pinna to tell the story of a 30-something journalism intern who uncovers a damning secret about a tech billionaire, publishes it and then watches everything explode.
Iceman: Omega #1 (Marvel, $6.99): Artist Luciano Vecchio shows his writer chops as he goes fully solo for this oversized print collection of the Infinity Comic series featuring everyone’s favorite frosty mutant.
Marvel Team-Up #14 Facsimile Edition (Image/Marvel, $3.99): The first meeting of Invincible and Spider-Man by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker gets a facsimile reprint as a part of Invincible Month. It’s actually a big week for reprints, with both DC and Marvel going all in on Ultimate Universe and Absolute Universe reprintings, but I don’t think any of them have as many variant covers at the caliber that this one does.
Lionharts (Abrams, $17.99): Writer/artist Mike Lawrence, creator of Star Scouts, launches a D&D-inspired middle-grade graphic novel about two brothers whose legendary adventuring family hides a secret that could bring the whole legacy crashing down.
Kanga-U: Lost in a Labyrinth (DC, $12.99): Sholly Fisch and Yancey Labat, the creators of the previous Kanga-U books, hop back to Themyscira with the next generation of young kangas. Best friends Jumpa, Big Red, Goldie, Rooth and Skippa stumble upon an ancient, overgrown doorway, and when Skippa disappears inside, the others must follow into a twisting Greek maze filled with surprises, danger and secrets. And probably a minotaur, if the stories are to be trusted.
Cave Grave: Wild West Tales (Oni Press, $29.99): Writer/artist Shawn Kuruneru creates two hard-boiled Western stories that come in one handsome hardcover. “Cave Grave” follows three thieves who pull off a heist and discover they’ve stolen far more than they intended, while “Poor Moon” tracks a purposeless cowboy who takes up bounty hunting and finds his life turned inside out.
My Gun Is the Jury and Other Stories (Fantagraphics, $39.99): The work of cartoonists Jack Davis and Wallace Wood for Mad‘s sister publication Panic is collected in this hardcover volume. This collection gathers their movie parodies and comedy volleys, with scripts by Al Feldstein and Jack Mendelsohn, plus a never-before-reprinted Harvey Kurtzman–written Wood story that vanished for more than 70 years.
Mom’s Cancer Anniversary Edition (Abrams, $21.99): Writer/artist Brian Fies created this landmark graphic memoir in real time, posting pages as a webcomic while his mother was undergoing treatment for lung cancer, and that raw, in-the-moment quality is what makes it so impactful. Funny, heartbreaking and unflinching, it was the first webcomics to win an Eisner Award in the Digital Comics category. This addition includes 22 additional comic pages in addition to essays by Fies, his editor and MK Czerwiec, co-founder of graphicmedicine.org.