Welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what’s coming to your local comic shop this week.
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.
Fury of Firestorm #1 (DC, $3.99): Jeff Lemire and Rafael De Latorre launch a different take on the gestalt superhero Firestorm. The sleepy town of Bedford, Colorado, has been devastated by Firestorm, who has turned buildings to sand and people to glass with no warning and no apparent motive. What pushed Ronnie Raymond to this, and can anyone stop him?
ThunderCats X SilverHawks #1 (Dynamite, $5.99): Declan Shalvey kicks off an ambitious, 15-part crossover event spanning three titles over five months with this oversized 40-page opener. When Panthro stumbles onto a mysteriously deserted space station, he sets in motion a collision between two galaxies, bringing the ThunderCats face to face with the SilverHawks’ Quicksilver, Copper Kid and newest member Chromium.
Estuary: A Ghost Story #1 (Oni Press, $4.99): Writers Tim Daniel and D.B. Andry and artist Maan House open a slow-burn horror mystery on the California coast. Set in a 400-year-old Spanish mission perched above a tidal estuary, a reclusive nun guarding a centuries-old secret and a marine archaeologist hired to excavate a shipwreck quickly realizes the sins of the past are about to surge back to the surface. We’ll have an interview with D.B. Andry this week, so keep an eye out for it.
Web of Venom #1 (Marvel, $5.99): Writer Jordan Morris and artists Ramon Rosanas and Luke Ross tease a new symbiote hero sporting the classic red-and-blue Spider-Man-inspired look. It’s not Mary Jane Watson, and it’s not Eddie Parker, but it IS someone Peter Parker knows very well.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero — Sssilent Missions: Crimson Guard #1 (Image, $3.99): Gabriel Hardman follows up last week’s Baroness silent mission with a Crimson Guard story. The newest graduates of Cobra’s elite unit face their final test: protecting Cobra Commander from an all-out G.I. Joe assault, with no dialogue and no second chances.
Flash Gordon #0 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Dan Abnett and Manuel Garcia relaunch the classic pulp hero with a story that finds Flash Gordon training the next generation of space explorers — until a routine trip around Neptune’s moons turns into a deadly alien hunt.
Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1 (Ignition Press, $4.99): Writers Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell and artist Aaron Campbell introduce C. Scott Frederiksson, a novelist so blocked, so broke and so desperate for a comeback that he’s decided the most logical next step is to rob a local celebrity and write about it. The getaway crew is his old high school D&D group. The getaway car is a Geo Storm. It will either be the greatest story he’s ever told or he’ll get someone killed. Possibly both.
Pretty Hate Machine #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): God money, I’ll do anything for you … writers Ryan O’Nan and Tim Seeley and artist Paolo Armitano introduce Thomas, a grieving high school student whose father has just died under suspicious circumstances, who is now being visited by Luther, a ghoulish figure with knife hands and shark teeth who insists the death was murder and that everyone Thomas trusts is lying to him. Just tell me what you want me to do …
Neighborhood Watch #1 (BOOM! Studios, $4.99): Sarah Gailey and Haining launch a tightly wound mystery thriller built on a classic setup: a woman turns up shot in a tunnel connecting a gated community to a neighboring collective, and the representatives of both sides stumble onto the body at the exact same moment. Forced into an uneasy alliance, they’ll have to dig into the secrets both communities are hiding to find the truth.
Uncanny X-Men Annual #1 (Marvel, $4.99): Writer Gail Simone and artists Francesco Mortarino and Mikki Kendall dig into the history of Haven House, the turn-of-the-century mutant sanctuary at the center of the current Uncanny X-Men storyline, and the mysterious Regulators who once called it home. The kicker: their story has a secret connection to Wolverine’s past.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre: Romeo & Juliet & Godzilla (IDW, $7.99): Godzilla pretty much crossoes over with anything and everybody these days, so why not Shakespeare? Writers Tom Scioli and Adam Tierney and artists Sean Peacock and Tom Scioli send Godzilla crashing through Verona in the most chaotic literary mashup of the week, with feuding families, forbidden love and a city-destroying kaiju all colliding in one oversized issue. Scioli also returns to write and draw a backup story, “Robin Hood and the Monster of Nottingham,” which sounds exactly as delightful as it sounds.
Speed Racer: Tales from the Road — High-Speed Noon (Mad Cave, $6.99): Ariel Kras, Fred Kennedy, Anthony Cleveland and Maggie Mae Martinmaas give Snake Oiler his moment in the spotlight. Stranded in a desert kingdom ruled by a Mad Max-style warlord, Snake turns a high-noon standoff into a weaponized race to settle his grudge against Speed Racer once and for all. A Spritle and Chim-Chim backup mystery rounds out this quarterly anthology.
Acid Box (Avery Hill, $19.99): Writer Sara Kenney and artists James Devlin, Emma Vieceli, and Ria Grix deliver a time-traveling celebration of rave culture. Jade Nyo is just trying to have a good time when a trio of mysterious women hand her a broken device called the Acid Box and tell her she needs to travel back to 1994 to fix it — and avert a global disaster while she’s at it.
Black Lives Vol. 1: Great Minds of Science (Abrams, $8.99): Tonya Bolden and David Wilkerson introduce younger readers to some of history’s most significant but lesser-known Black scientists, doctors, engineers, mathematicians and biologists who overcame enormous obstacles to make lasting contributions to their fields.
Corus Wave (Avery Hill, $18.99): Karenza Sparks sends graduate student Lorelei, her roommate Eddie and their backpack-riding cat Raisin on a scavenger hunt through libraries, churches, botanical gardens and stone circles, chasing the hidden secrets of a 19th century polymath named Havius Corus.
Second Shift (Avery Hill, $18.99): Kit Anderson’s Ignatz Award-nominated graphic novel follows Birdie Doran, alone on a remote space station processing comets, who slips into virtual reality to make the isolation bearable. Then she discovers an abandoned station nearby and starts finding the things her own station has been hiding from her.
Was That Normal? (Avery Hill, $19.99): Alex Potts delivers this slice-of-life graphic novel about Philip, a man drifting through rented rooms and late-night cafés, searching for connection and finding it when he meets a local musician named Gina. nother strong entry from Avery Hill, who released several titles this week.
Astrid and the Space Cadets: Attack of the Snaliens (Dynamite Entertainment, $16.99): Alex T. Smith sends six-year-old Astrid Atomic blasting off on a mission with her Space Cadet crew, as they encounter giant snaliens while trying to help a nearby alien in distress.
Disney Greatest Comics Collection Vol. 1: Uncle Scrooge — A Little Something Special and Other Tales of Fiendish Foes (Fantagraphics, $59.99): Fantagraphics launches a new Disney anthology series with a celebration of Scrooge McDuck’s most memorable villains. Flintheart Glomgold, Magica De Spell, the Beagle Boys and John D. Rockerduck all get their due across classic stories by Carl Barks, Don Rosa and Romano Scarpa. New commentary by Disney historians Jim Fanning and David Gerstein adds context to the significance of these stories.
Atlas Creator Collection Vol. 3: Bill Everett — One Head Too Many and Other Weird Horror Stories (Fantagraphics, $75): Already a Timely/Marvel legend as the creator of the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett returned in the 1950s to become one of the Atlas era’s most ferociously inventive horror cartoonists. This mammoth first volume of his Atlas work collects pre-Code horror stories from Strange Tales, Uncanny Tales, Menace and more, including the original “Zombie!” story that would later be rebooted as Simon Garth.
Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures (Fantagraphics, $19.99): Hugo Pratt’s sailor-adventurer returns to American readers in this gorgeous collection anchored by “Fable of Venice,” a phantasmagorical mystery thriller set in 1921 that sends Corto chasing a mystical emerald through Freemasons, occultists and budding fascists in a city that blurs the line between dream and reality.
Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series (Abrams, $24.99): Jim Lee’s 1992 X-Men trading card set gets the definitive collected edition treatment, with all 105 cards reproduced front and back alongside original and digitally remastered art, character bios, stats and trivia.