Comics I’m Picking Up the Week of March 4, 2020

Here are the books I’m looking forward to seeing at my local comic store the week of March 4, 2020.

Strange Adventures #1

Publisher: DC
Words/Story: Tom King
Art/Colors: Evan Shaner and Mitch Gerads

“[A]n epic tale in the tradition of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and DC: The New Frontier, a story of blood, war, and love that readers will be talking about for years to come.

Adam Strange is the hero of Rann, a man famous throughout the galaxy for his bravery and honor. After leading his adopted home to victory in a great planetary war, Adam and his wife Alanna retire to Earth, where they are greeted by cheers, awards, and parades. But not all is as happy and nice as it seems, as the decisions Adam made during battles on Rann come back to haunt his family and threaten the entire DC Universe. And now a surprise DC hero will have to choose between saving Adam Strange and saving the world.”

Category: Like They Need My Help

Why I’m Excited: This might be a bit of hyperbole, but Tom King is going to write the first Great American Novel starring a superhero. He came close with The Vision (2016), which was conceived as an ongoing and felt limited by the need to remain open-ended. Mr. Miracle (2017) relied on readers’ knowledge of the New Gods backstory and their complex relationships to tell the story (which took this reader out of the story—your mileage may have varied). Heroes in Crisis would have worked much better if the who-that-done-it hadn’t been decided upon by a upper-level management.

Now King brings the trope-iest of sci-fi ideas—man can’t get a break here on Earth but somehow lives a heroic life on another planet—into the realm of Born on the 4th of July and The Things They Carried. The writer has ambitions that the form and his access to top-level artists may just let him achieve. Do you doubt he can once again write the best comics story of the year? Would you have been able to guess that a romance comic would be selling over 83,000 copies every two weeks in 2019? (Also on shelves is a reprint of a 1962 Adam Strange adventure teaming him with the Justice League. Juxtapose the two and see what far the medium has come in the last 50 years . . . and I’m not just talking about the printing technology.)

DC Comics

King of Nowhere #1

Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Words/Story: W. Maxwell Prince
Art/Colors: Tyler Jenkins

“Lovable drunken lowlife Denis awakens on the outskirts of a mysterious village called Nowhere, home to a friendly populace of deformed, mutated, just-left-of-normal citizens—and he has no memory of how he got there. But just when Denis starts to regain his memories, his past catches up to him . . . literally. What at first seems like merely a bad trip quickly heightens into a drama of mistaken identities, small-town conspiracy, and high-stakes fantasy fulfillment.”

Category: Tried and True Creators

Why I’m Excited: W. Maxwell Prince has had me in his clutches since A Week in the Library. His Ice Cream Man is also great if you ever feel yourself taking to much pleasure in the small things of just being alive. Jenkins has been working on Black Badge for the last year, and while I like the story I think the art style is a bit at odds with the type of adolescent angst meets Mission Impossible tone the book has. This seems to be better fit. The sketch line work over water colors (done by his wife) should work well for the dream like world of the Nowhere.

BOOM Studios

The Argus

Publisher: Action Lab
Words/Story: Mark Bertolini
Art/Colors: Darryl Knickrehm

“Time travel is real! Scientific prodigy Randall Patton has had a breakthrough that allows travel through the timestream, which immediately led to the creation of The Argus, the temporal law enforcement organization that polices the time/space continuum. After an accident renders one of the members of The Argus insane, he begins killing off the others —except they are all versions of Randall Patton from various points in his own life! Who can stop Randall but himself?”

Category: Support Emerging Creators

Why I’m Excited: To be honest I was wondering whether this was awaiting publication under a different name but switched when Action Lab learned that DC had decimated its in-world intelligence and military adjacent organization (see Event Leviathan) and saw an opening to capitalize on the name recognition. But the premise is intriguing nonetheless. I look forward to seeing how the artist is able to keep the balance of distinguishing between the character(s) at different ages but also keep them sufficiently recognizable as the same person. There’s a saying that “youth is wasted on the young,” but is the opposite also true?

Action Lab

Join the Future

Publisher: Aftershock
Words/Story: Zack Kaplan
Art/Colors: Piotr Kowalski

“The Future. Ultra-modern megacities reward millions of their citizens with a completely funded life, with every need met, from food to housing and healthcare, in order to compete in an economic power struggle in which population is key. But a few rural residents still cling to their independence in what last American small towns are left. When a nearby megacity pressures the people of a small town join up or else, a young teenage girl named Clem will learn how far she’ll go to defend her principles.”

Category: Support Emerging Creators

Why I’m Excited: Nothing has been a bigger rift in American life than the (psychological) space separating the town from the country. From the Revolutionary War through the Civil War to the embittered politics of the current age, one thing that has remained in tension is the question of the power distribution between urban and rural areas. So what points will the writes of this comic make? Will they side with agriculture and natural resource workers or will they side with the knowledge, manufacturing and services workers?

Aftershock

Also out this week are the #750 treatment of The Flash, making me look up a word for “fourth part of god” (trinity is to three what quaternity is to four); a new story form Mirka Andolpho that reminded me of how good Bennett and Kristantina’s Insexts was; and two nonfiction books for the budding librarian in our house, With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy and Ms. Marvel’s America No Normal, about the creators of Kamala Khan and their creation’s impact on comics.

See you at the racks!