Comics I’m Picking Up the Week of June 26, 2019

Here are the books I’m looking forward to seeing at my local comic store the week of June 26, 2019.

The Spider-Man Annual

Publisher: Marvel Comics
Words/Story: Jason Latour, Phil Lord
Art/Colors: Jason Latour

“When Spider-Gwen’s dimension-hopping web-watch falls into the wrong hands, it’s up to everyone’s favorite wisecracking web-slinger, the wily waddler known as Spider-Ham, to save the day!”

Category: Like They Need My Help

Why I’m Excited: Into the Spider-Verse fan-favorite (at least this fan) makes a rousing return to the funny pages. Jason Latour isn’t well known for his humor books but I hope that what I’ll call the “Zdarsky Inversion” (when a writer known for mostly comedic books gets an unexpected chance to do a very dramatic story to great effect a la Invaders and surprises a lot of people with an unguessed at skill and deftness) has a reverse. Also, it’ll be hard to shake the voice of John Mulaney as I read this one. Anybody know when the audio will be released?

Marvel

At the End of Your Tether

Publisher: Lion Forge
Words/Story: Adam Smith
Art/Colors: V.V. Glass

“Nervous about having to see his ex, Ludo Carre gives her a phone call to explain he’ll be returning to the old base they grew up on. Big laughs and a familiar sort of cadence in Arlo’s voice don’t just instantly calm him down, they make him excited to see her. That excitement only hurts him more when they show up the next day and find out Arlo has been missing . . . for the last week. ”

Category: Support Emerging Creators

Why I’m Excited: It’s rare to see a book solicited without tinges of fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural tropes. As book publishers reach further afield from the capes and laser beams that comics have stereotypically been tied to, I hope there’s a market for more coming-of-age romances. Here, the mystery/thriller aspects seem to be the draw and the ’90s setting will be fun to revisit as well.

Lion Forge

Altered Carbon: Download Blues

Publisher: Dyamite Comics
Words/Story: Richard K. Morgan, Rik Hoskin
Art/Colors: Ferran Sellares

“In the distant future, the human body is a temporary and interchangeable commodity – if you can pay. For the interstellar elite, bodies are swapped out and reused without a second thought. You never grow old; you never die. However, some bodies are more temporary than others. . . .

Takeshi Kovacs was once a member of the Envoy Corps, stormtroopers for the Interstellar Earth Protectorate, ultra-lethal adepts in switching bodies across the stars. While he served, he was known by a variety of names – Mamba Lev, One Hand Rending, the Icepick–all testament to his capacity for rapid response and extreme violence in whatever flesh he wore. Now he’s out of the service and trying to live a different life. But the Protectorate hasn’t changed its spots, no matter what world Kovacs drifts to, and with that old combat rage still burning deep inside him, will he ever really be able to walk away?”

Category: Returned to a Beloved World

Why I’m Excited: Not realizing that there was a trio of novels on which it was based, I initially thought the premise for a TV show where characters could easily swap bodies was a casting director’s looming threat to keep salaries in check—an upside-down version of the Doctor Who regeneration. Turns out I was only half right. A world, where life and body have been disconnected, is bound to be suffocating with a cynicism about human nature. The TV show illustrated this with an intentionally awkward “chemistry” between the two leads (Joel Kinnaman and Martha Higareda). I’m excited to explore more of Richard K. Morgan’s world while I wait for season two of the Netflix incarnation.

Dynamite Comics

Also out this week is a Transformers/Ghostbusters mash-up from IDW and a trio of Wolverine stories by ’80s greats that is bound to be too short to give any of them enough pages to show their talent (there’s that cynicism I’m trying to keep in check).

See you at the racks!