Flippin’ through ‘Previews’ – May 2024

Travis is in bold, I am not, and it’s time to zip through Previews #428! Let’s go!

DC:

On page 1, DC teases the big summer event with Absolute Power: Ground Zero, which really ought to have a Clint Eastwood variant cover. I mention it only because V. Ken Marion draws some of this, and I wanted to mention that Marion lives near Travis before Travis himself mentions it!!!!!

You took all my comments!

That’s why I jumped in so quickly! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!!

Actually, he apparently doesn’t live near me anymore, but he did go to the same comic shop I frequented a few years back.  He’s doing a Kickstarter project that I might link to here unless I don’t get to it.  I’m not a huge fan of the Michael Turner style, but Marion is one of the better purveyors of that style.

Oh no – what will you talk about at parties now?!?!?!? 🙂

The whole “stealing superpowers” thing is a bit wonky, although if anyone can explain it, it’s Mark Waid. What constitutes a “superpower”? Is a Green Lantern’s willpower a “superpower”? Is Batman’s sexiness? It seems like there are too many variables, but, like I said, Waid knows what he’s doing. I mean, I’m certainly not interested in an “Amanda Waller is EEEEEEEVILLLLLL!” story, but what the hell, right?

Yeah, it’s dumb sounding, but I think that Lazarus Planet stuff explained the new story of the metagene stuff, and I assume that will be the basis, as Waid wrote a lot of that too.  And with Amanda Waller, this is essentially just making her a different version of Maxwell Lord.  With both of them, it seems to me that it’s more interesting if they are morally gray and working with heroes and villains, than to have them outright evil and hunting all superpowered folks indiscriminately.  And if you read the solicit for Absolute Power: Task Force VII 3, you’d see that Alan Scott’s willpower gets absorbed, so yes, it’s a superpower.

If I were in charge, I’d have some hero come across a short, flat-chested, mousy-brown-haired woman crying and discover that it’s Power Girl. “Being buxom and blonde was MY superpower!” she wails. This may also explain why I’m not in charge.

So James Tynion IV now has THE Nice House by the SEA on page 12, which is apparently a similar story to A Nice House on the Lake but with different characters? I mean, Tynion is on a hot streak, so I guess we can trust him a little, but this sounds … a bit like milking the cow a bit too much. Still, the art promises to be spectacular!

I thought Lake ended somewhat cryptically and/or not great, so it’s not a surprise that there’s more to it, as in it was left open-ended for sequel-itis.

I don’t really want to get Joker: The World on page 14, unless some of the writers rein him in a bit, but I like the concept (writers from different countries put the Joker in their country and see what happens; this is a nominal sequel to Batman: The World, which was enjoyable), and I am kind of dying to see the Joker in Cameroon. It’s the Joker in Cameroon!!!!!¹ One story really ought to be what happens when a comic-book villain goes up against some of the actual real-life scary people in this world, who shows him what true evil is. Probably won’t come to that, though.

¹ During the World Cup in 1990, my college roommate told me he was in a bar (which he shouldn’t have been, as he was underage) when Cameroon won one of their games (presumably their shocking first victory over Argentina). A Cameroonian ran around the bar yelling “Cameroooooooonnnnnnn!!!!!!”, which is now how I always hear Cameroon in my head. As Joel Embiid is from Cameroon and he plays for the basketball team I sort-of root for, this comes up more often than you might expect.

That’s awesome!

So, as far as I can ascertain, DC released a version of “Death in the Family” by Starlin and Aparo that showed what would have happened if fans had voted for Robin to live, which was done back in 1988. Now, on page 16, we’re getting a version by J.M. DeMatties and Rick Leonardi that … is the same story, but, like, an Elseworlds? Is that it? I don’t know – the publishing decisions by DC and Marvel make my head hurt. It has a sweet Mignola variant cover, though.

They “reprinted” Batman 428, I think was the issue, but with the pages where Jason was found dead were replaced with the Aparo art of Bruce cradling the alive Jason (as they had to have both ready depending on how the vote went).  A lot of it was off panel and a few word balloon differences handled the heavy lifting.  I don’t know what story followed Death in the Family directly, but this is supposed to be the story that would have followed if Jason was to live.  I hope that made sense, I may need to edit this later when I’m less tired!  (Burgas didn’t say anything, so I guess it made enough sense!)

I was waiting until I went over this with a fine-toothed comb, sir! And … yeah, I guess that makes sense, if by “sense” you mean anything that DC and Marvel do these days, none of which makes a whole lot of sense, so … yeah.

On page 18, DC has another Dark Knights of Steel series (I’m still waiting on a nice, 12-issue hardcover of the first one!) in which Deathstroke is … Conan? Kinda, sorta, maybe? Good for DC, jumping on that red-hot medieval/fantasy barbarian trend!!!!

No, he’s a Viking!  I think?

Well, I mean, that’s another trend that’s red-hot!!!!

Juan Ferreyra is drawing Batman and Robin #11 on page 21. I don’t know if it’s a one-off or an arc, but goddamnit, I’m going to have to buy it, aren’t I?

It’s on Dinosaur Island, hell yeah!

Nightwing #116 (page 22): BEWARE!!! Dick Grayson wears a girl’s T-shirt!!!!! Will the wokeness never end?!?!?!?

Damn, you got good eyes!

No, I was reading about it on Bleeding Cool, because it was, naturally, a controversy. So controversial!!!!

Ooh, those Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez variant covers look good on page 46.

Lots of sexy butts!

Batman: City of Madness is out in hardcover on page 48. The issues themselves cost about, what 24-25 bucks, and this is 30, so I’m tempted. I want to wait for the softcover, but I don’t trust DC to have it out in the next two years or so!!!!

Were the singles that pricey?  I want to like this but it does have the Court of Owls.

It’s one of those fancy Black Label books, which are going for 7-8 bucks a pop, I think. So if it’s $7.99 (which I think it was), the math works. And yes, the Court of Owls sucks, but it sounded like it wouldn’t be the focus, just a small part of the book. We shall see!

Birds of Prey gets a trade on page 50. Of course I’m getting this – it’s Kelly!

I don’t know if the trade of Wesley Dodds: The Sandman (page 52) is any good, but I like Robert Venditti and I like Riley Rossmo, so I might give it a look.

Rossmo is good.

The “team-up” of Batman and … Dylan Dog will never not be weird, but the trade is on page 53, and I will probably check it out!

I’m glad the Elseworlds collections are being reprinted on pages 56-57, but I hope they’ll collect some more.

Swamp Thing by Rick Veitch Book One is on page 58, and the only thing anyone wants to know is: Will DC publish issue #88, the one where Swamp Thing meets Jesus? That would come in volume 2, probably, so they can ruminate about it a while. Come on, DC, do the right thing for once!!!!

Supposedly, according to a story on Bleeding Cool, there’s an email address that you can write to DC and tell them you want to see that issue printed after all.

Also on page 58, the 20th anniversary deluxe edition of WE3 appears, and I have a copy of this deluxe edition in … some Eastern European language (my sister got it for me when she went on a trip to the Czech Republic, so it’s probably in Czech?).  I also found out something interesting about WE3 recently that I’m going to save for a column I’m working on (or next month’s Flippin’, if I don’t get it done).

Yeah, you forget that I can see backstage, where you and so many others have drafts that will never be completed, I don’t think. You’ll have to reveal this next month, you know!!!! (Also: cool and odd to own a version of this you can’t read. I mean, it’s neat, but do you ever look at it?)

Marvel:

Now that Krakoa is over, we get the new X-titles coming out.  We get X-Men, with art from Ryan Stegman doing some nice Art Adams style stuff; X-Force, trying to make Forge happen; NYX, with Ms. Marvel the mutant; and Phoenix in a series? Ongoing? (pages 2-13)

I was trying desperately to ignore all of those, and look what you made me do – pay attention to them, even for a moment. Damn you, Pelkie!!!!

Let’s hope Hickman is trying to bank some cash for creator owned stuff with this Aliens Vs. Avengers mini on page 14.

I’m not holding my breath, although it would be nice.

Damn, Wolverine 88 was the first Wolverine vs. Deadpool?  My sister was a Wolverine fan back in the day, and she has this.  Or else we have it in storage. 

She’s sitting on a gold mine. A GOLD MINE, I TELLS YA!!!!

I assume this Life of Wolverine on page 22 was a digital first thing, but Ramon F. Bachs is good (he did the art on that Lapham written depressing Detective run, didn’t he?).

Yes, he did, and it was very good.

OK, Marvel and Disney, your What If…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine on page 23 is the kind of thing I want to read.  Nice work!

On page 46, Marvel lets Kaare Andrews have a grand time with Peter Parker again in Spider-Man: Reign II. Last time, we got radioactive sperm. What madness will Andrews unleash on us this time?!?!?!?

I wondered why they were reprinting the original series last month.  How did I not grasp that a sequel was the reason?

I love when they reprint the Free Comic Book Day titles and sell them, like Marvel Zero on page 68.  At least this one will come out a couple months later, not like the Transformers one that’s coming out this week right after FCBD.

They did the same thing with the DC thing, and I watched as my retailer told a customer that the thing he was buying was free, and my store had copies a few feet away from this dude, and he still paid for it. My mind might have melted at that moment, I can tell you that.

Why is Evan Dorkin’s Fight Man being reprinted in the Deadpool Epic Collection: Johnny Handsome (volume 5) on page 117?  What is the connection?!

I don’t know. Maybe they can’t figure out a place to put it, so they figured, what the hell?

Boom! Studios:

As you might recall, I dig a good anthology, so Hello Darkness on page 54 might be something keen. Lots of good talent, so that’s always a bonus.

I was struck by the fact that both covers of the catalog this month were for horror anthologies, with the “new EC” book from Oni (Epitaphs from the Abyss, which is a crap title) also having some good talent.

That … is not a good title.

I always like the set-ups of some stories, like The Graveyard Club on page 58. It’s a town that’s “surrounded by cemeteries.” Who thought that was a good idea? Why so many cemeteries? Why “surround” the town – why not just put them on one side of the town? I don’t know if I’ll get this in trade, but these are burning questions that need answers!

Maybe the different graveyard keepers couldn’t work together and each one took up their plots of land at different corners of the town?  Maybe it’s because it’s spoooooooky!

On the one hand, Matt Kindt and Ron Garney doing a series should be interesting. On the other hand, Brzrkr is such a blatant attempt by Keanu Reeves to write a screenplay that it makes my teeth hurt, and I didn’t hear a ton of great things about it. However, a nice 12-issue collection for 50 bucks (page 66) is not bad, and who doesn’t love Keanu? Commies, that’s who.

I think Keanu is legit a comics fan, though, at least somewhat.  But yes, he is a really cool dude, at least from our outsider perspective of his life.  And I liked Ron Garney back in the ’90s on Morbius and other stuff he did.

As much as I dig Cursed Pirate Girl, the new book on page 79 fills me with a bit of rage, because I thought it was new, but it’s a collection of two older works. Oh well. I probably own those, but I’ll have to take a look. Maybe I don’t, and now I can! This is a very weird, incredibly detailed work of art that is extremely hard to read. But definitely worth it!

I saw that, saw that it was mostly (solely?) reprinted stuff, and knew you would be both pleased and angered at it!  What I have read of this is very weird and very good.

Dynamite:

Kelly Thompson is writing The Powerpuff Girls on page 101. This greatly tests my desire to buy everything Kelly writes. It’s not that I don’t think Kelly won’t do a good job, it’s just that I don’t trust Dynamite anymore. Hmmm …

What have they done to test your trust?

So many things! I know they’ve always been heavy into the licensed titles, but the drift to completely doing Vampirella/Red Sonja stuff sucks. Mix it up a bit! I also don’t love that their art has, it seems, gotten worse over the years. It’s not that they get bad artists, but it seems like those artists don’t put a lot of effort into Dynamite books. Or they get bad artists. I don’t know, they were never my favorite publisher, but they seemed like a better one than they are now, and I don’t entirely trust their products anymore.

Titan:

Over on page 140 is Phoo Action: Deluxe Edition, which appears to be a project Jamie Hewlett did in between Tank Girl and Gorillaz (if I remember correctly as to when Gorillaz came out).  This looks fun, and it’s got a prose story illustrated by Philip Bond, who’s a good artist and good guy.  Supposedly Hewlett is very very rich from Gorillaz.  Like, close to billionaire-ish, if Rich at Bleeding Cool is to be believed (insert “you believe Rich?” comment here).  Or else I’m reading too much into it.

I mean, if it’s true, good for him!

Image:

Of course, there’s a new Witchblade (page 163). I like Marguerite Bennett, but, yeah, no thank you.

It’s a bold new era … of rebooting the original series.  BTW, where’s Christina Z, dammit?

On page 164, we find Free Agents, about aliens stranded on Earth. On the pro side: Kurt Busiek is the co-writer. On the con side: Fabian Nicieza is the other co-writer. I honestly don’t know what to do!!!!

Yeah, that’s a puzzler, since I have read things like X-Force, and found that the suck did not end just because Liefeld left, if you get me.  However, we should mention the art is by Stephen Mooney, who is very good.

Layman is writing Spawn Kills Every Spawn (page 164), which I’m not really interested in, but you know Layman will make it fun!

It does sound cool to me, and Layman is a good writer of fun stuff!

Robbie Morrison and Charlie Adlard have Heretic on page 166, an original graphic novel about a 16th-century detective that feels like it ought to be from 2000AD, so I’m a bit puzzled as to why Image has it. I don’t really care – it sounds awesome – but I am puzzled!

It sounds right up your alley.  

I don’t know about yet another zombie book, but on page 190 from Ablaze, we have Almost Dead 7, but the zombie’s head covers the A in Dead, so it looks like Almost Dad.  Hee hee!

You are not wrong. That’s very weird – usually with this stuff, you can see a tiny bit of the letter, but man, that “e” is completely obscured!

On page 196, Massive Publishing has the trade of Sean Gordon Murphy’s Zorro: Man of the Dead, and I hope it actually comes out, because the art on this series has been stunning and I’ve been looking forward to the collection!

They got enough money on Kickstarter, they damn well better get the collection out!

Dark Horse has the latest Matt Kindt thing on page 222, a detective story called Gilt Frame. I am a big fan of Kindt, of course, and I’m even a bigger fan of his mystery stuff, so I’m looking forward to this.

Also from Dark Horse, James Robinson has a new book, Patra (page 225), about a girl who wakes up with no memory, and all she knows is that a big honkin’ knife and creepy mask appear whenever she’s in trouble. Also, a slasher roams the village! Robinson is, of course, a terrific writer, and Scott Kolins is a good artist, so this should be keen.

Also from Dark Horse, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev have Masterpiece (page 228), about a teen genius who finds out she’s the only child of the two greatest criminal masterminds on Earth. Well, that can’t be good. Bendis has been sneaking around a lot doing these weirdo books, and I am here for it!

It’s amazing how big his profile was in the ’00s, and how much harder it is to find his stuff now!

I imagine he made enough money from television stuff, so he can fool around doing weird crap. I got the second volume of Phenomena not too long ago, and several people at the store commented that they had no idea Bendis was doing books like that.

Also from DH is Holler by Jeremy Massie (page 228), which was being published by Drew Ford and It’s Alive, fully collected here.  I’m so glad some of what Drew was working on is getting published, but there were still a number of projects that I don’t know what happened with them.

I’m somewhat interested in what Jason Aaron will do with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on page 231, but I was intrigued by the 40th Anniversary cover variant by Talbot, thinking it might be Bryan, and thinking of how weird that might be.  But it’s a Cris Talbot, I guess.

So … Jason Aaron is writing a Scrooge McDuck book AND a TMNT book? Has the world taken crazy pills?

Valiant is now Alien Books, solely so they can publish non-Valiant stuff, I guess, as on page 248 they have I, Dragon, Juan Giménez’s last work. I dig Giménez, so I might have to check this out.

I had the impression that Alien bought out Valiant, or something.  I thought Alien had done some stuff then suddenly they had the Valiant books.  I could be wrong!

Whatever. They’re the same. They’re … synonymous.

So Addiction Comics on page 238 has The Addiction, which sounds like a goofy ’70s comic, where a doctor who helped addicts recover gets shot up with chemicals by the mob and now she can drug people with her touch.  It’s cocreated by David Quinn of Faust, so it might be wacky fun!

Yeah, I saw that, and that it’s drawn by Claudia Balboni, who’s pretty good. It just seemed too … silly, I guess, to mention.

I think the less said about Tinkle Comics (pages 253-256), the better.

It’s a shame the name is so silly sounding, because the comics are cool at least from an outsider’s perspective like mine (they’re comics from India telling stories from that culture).

The comics do look perfectly fine, so there’s that.

AWA has Red Light on page 273, which is about an AI sex worker who rebels against her programming. All I care about is: will there be boobies?!?!?!?

I haven’t read enough AWA to tell if they will feature boobies or if they will be “tastefully” covered.

On page 278 Black Mask has How to Steal An Election (before someone else does), about a former cam girl who ran in the Presidential primary, and who is now convinced by an old frenemy to run a third party campaign that ends up sticking it to the man.  Of course the covers have tasteful bra shots!  I had seen this on Kickstarter but I think I missed it, but it sounds fun.

Tasteful bra shots are the best bra shots!

I got excited seeing Desperado Publishing with a couple of books on page 300, but I think it’s just Diamond trying to clear out the warehouse …

Do you think they want Jason Momoa to play the Devil in The Big Burn from DSTLRY on page 306-311 (6 pages about one comic ffs)?

Oh, shit, I didn’t see that. Yeah, that’s definitely their plan!

I’m not sure if I’m going to get Kommix on page 332 from Fantagraphics, despite the fact that it’s by Charles Burns. It’s a collection of fake comic covers, but it sounds like that’s all it is. Now, I have no problem with Burns creating a bunch of fake comic covers, but … I mean, I like a story as much as the next guy, and just looking at slightly askew covers that might evoke the 1950s but have weird things on the edges doesn’t seem like my cup of tea. But it might be yours!

I don’t like Burns THAT much, so I doubt I’m going for this, but I should read Black Hole again sometime.

Hey, on the next page, they finished up Joe Matt’s last work and Peepshow 15 is solicited.  I’ll probably get this!

Graphitti Designs has a big art book of Brian Bolland’s stuff, mainly Killing Joke and other stuff on page 346.  I love his short story from the original Batman Black and White, and that’s here.  It says it also includes Tank Girl covers, and did DC ever publish Tank Girl?  I guess it doesn’t all have to be DC stuff, but the implication is that it is all DC.  I also can’t believe it, but he works all digital now, apparently (according to Walt Simonson a few years ago at a con).  

I mean, yeah, I would love this, but $225? No thank you!

I dig Ilias Kyriazis’s art, and now he’s also writing What We Wished For on page 350 from Humanoids, and I’m intrigued. It’s about kids who miss a chance at getting one wish granted by a genie but get a second chance 35 years later … and presumably, things don’t go well. We shall see!

Dang, that looks really good too!

I already got one weird comic about a seminal surrealist female artist, so why not another, as on page 357 we find Betrayal of the Mind, a comic about Unica Zürn, who created surrealist art to cope with her schizophrenia. Sounds groovy!

Mad Cave has a new Flash Gordon series on page 372, but I’m MUCH more interested in the collection on page 374, which reprints the 1930s Sunday strips from the beginning. Two hundred pages of Alex Raymond art? Yeah, I’m all for that!

I’m curious about the source of the strips — are they shooting from original art or stats or from old newspapers (or worse yet, microfilm!)?  Fun fact, the collection done by Nostalgia Press in, I think, the ’70s, was worked on in part by art spiegelman!

Is that Jerry Seinfeld as Albert Einstein in a book from NBM on page 394?  “What’s the deal with relativity?  Light’s got somewhere to go, but it’s going to go the same speed everywhere to get there!”

I dig Matt Lesniewski, so I was looking forward to the collection of Faceless and the Family, which is on page 407 from Oni, but … it’s a 30-dollar hardcover, and I don’t know about that. Should I take the chance that a softcover is coming down the line? This does look very keen!

He had crowdfunded this on Zoop a while back, and it did look nicely weird, but that does seem a bit spendy.  But I don’t know if a SC is guaranteed either!

If I become independently wealthy, one thing I would do is get the cool books that PS Artbooks puts out on a regular basis, like on pages 413-415.  They’ve got a collection of Johnny Dynamite, which I thought Max Allan Collins had the rights to, and Plastic Man, and the original Daredevil, and Nightmare magazine … day-um!

I don’t know who owns the rights – I thought Collins did, too – but I already own the Johnny Dynamite stuff, as I wrote about here, when IDW did a collection. It’s pretty keen.

T Pub‘s books take FOREVER to come out, but they always have very interesting things on offer, and Amputation Capital on page 427 sounds like another one. It’s about a world in which people sell body parts, and it focuses on three different characters in this world. Sounds nice and creepy!

I believe I got the digital version (heh heh, bit of a pun) on Kickstarter, but I’ve yet to read it of course.  I swear they were going to change their company name a while ago, according to a newsletter they emailed.  

Tripwire has Face to Face: Creative Portraits on page 432, and if you’ve ever wanted to stare at dreamy Beardy McGrumpypants, this book is for you!

I do not want to do that, thank you very much.

There’s TwoMorrows’ 30th Anniversary special with Jack Kirby Collector 91 on the same page.  They do great stuff!

All righty-o, that’s that for Previews. Thanks for checking in with us again! We are committed to getting this up in a timely manner, but Previews came out a week later than I thought it would this month, so it took a bit longer to get this posted. We still hope it’s useful!