This is the school year that just won’t end!  The tests seem to be multiplying like rabbits–which is our fault for putting them into envelopes and for leaving them unsupervised in the safe overnight.  That’s right: we could very well be grading our collective way into summer vacation!  How dedicated are we!

OK.  Not that dedicated.

This, however, is the definition of dedication:

• Fight Club 2 #2 (Dark Horse)
• Frankenstein Underground #4 (Dark Horse)
• Suiciders #5 (DC/Vertigo)
• Superman #41 (DC): I&N Demand Gene Luen Yang takes the reigns and offers some hope for the Superman slice of the post-Convergence DCU.  Wondering what he’ll bring to the Kryptonian born Kryptonian.  Wondering if he’ll bring the wonder back to the greatest hero of ’em all.  Morrison’s New 52 Action Comics hit some of those notes; otherwise, it’s been a rough go.  Hoping, too, that John Romita, Jr.’s re-energized after having pretty much punted his way out of his arc with Johns.

Superman #41

• The Fade Out #7 (Image)
• Invisible Republic #4 (Image): I&N Demand Truth: yes, I’ve compared IR to its contemporaries Lazarus and The Bunker; through three, however, I’m more excited about what’s going on here than I am about what’s going on in those other books.  That’s high praise considering how good Lazarus is and how good The Bunker was. The book’s flawlessly layered–reminding of the tight storytelling that initially sold me on The Bunker–and reads at a snappy pace.  I hope that holds–at least through the first arc.
  

Invisible Republic #4

• Material #2 (Image): I&N Demand Material #1 was as Kotish as Change, Zero, and The Surface.  No surprise: Kot writes with a distinctive Kotish dialect, delivering an engagingly egotistical, pseudo-intellectual poetry slam that screams southpaw politics and daddy issues.  That’s right: as long as he’s living in his own world, Kot’s a keeper.
  

Material #2

• Rasputin #6 (Image)
• Daredevil #16 (Marvel)
• Where Monsters Dwell #2 (Marvel): I&N Demand The opening salvo saw Ennis playing familiar notes to perfection in a monstrously cheeky Battlefields/War Stories clone.  I generally hate dinosaurs in my comics; and it doesn’t help that I suffered through the monstrously cheesy Jurassic World the other night.  Gonna have faith in Mr. Ennis, however; I’m gonna trust that he’s got the tyrannosaurus by the tail.
  

Where Monsters Dwell #2

• Annihilator #6 (Legendary)
• The Black Hood #5 (Archie)
• Mayday #3 (Black Mask): I&N Demand You’ll find yourself shouting mayday at your LCS if you’re too late–yet again!–to snag a copy of Mayday.  Kleio on the cross–it’s friggin’ crazy! 
  

Mayday #3

• Ninjak #4 (Valiant)

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott

Testing, proctoring, grading, cleaning: yup, it’s the end of the year–a very long year.  It’s been a long year of long lists of comics, too, which has made the work side of things a tad more tolerable.  Unfortunately, while I am diligently turning lots of pages, I’m not as diligently writing about them.  Hope to get that straightened out once the summer kicks in full force.  Until then…

• Archie vs. Predator #3 (Dark Horse)
• BPRD: Hell on Earth #132 (Dark Horse)
• Mind MGMT #34 (Dark Horse) I&N Demand  It’s about to go down!  Man, I am equal parts excited and, not surprisingly, sad.  Why–why!–can’t all good things go on forever?
  

Mind MGMT #34

• Alex + Ada #15 (Image) I&N Demand  Speaking of all good things: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn’s under-the-radar beautiful slice of humanity comes to an end here with #15.  I’m a bit nervous.  Sometimes flash-forward finales work–Weeds mostly worked, right?–and sometimes they don’t: Dawson’s Creek, anyone?  I don’t care if I sound like a Luna-tic: I have a feeling this one’s gonna work out perfectly.  I mean, after fourteen pretty perfect issues, is there any other way for this thing to end?
  

Alex + Ada #15

• Lazarus #17 (Image)
• Low #7 (Image)
• Southern Bastards #9 (Image) I&N Demand This book’s been pretty damn boss, no?  #9 kicks off a new arc and promises more of the same terrific storytelling from Aaron and Latour.
  

Southern Bastards #9

• Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #5 (Image) I&N Demand Re: #4: Oops.  So that didn’t work out the way it was planned.  Kudos, of course, to Mr. Lapham for planning it out that way.
  

Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #5

• Magneto #19 (Marvel)
• Bloodshot: Reborn #3 (Valiant)
• The Fiction #1 (BOOM!) Just I&N Curt Pires won me over with Mayday #1.  As a result, he’s an easy Must Try.  This layered trip into the realm of fiction sounds like a mash-up of Stand By Me and The Neverending Story.  Yes, please!
  

The Fiction #1

• Giant Days #4 (BOOM!) I&N Demand Fun and crazy funny!  It’s true: I’m having a stressful week.  Luckily for me, BOOM!’s got the cure: Giant Days’ intoxicating twenty-two pages are my Friday happy hour on a Wednesday afternoon.
  

Giant Days #4

• Oh, Killstrike #2 (BOOM!)
• X-O Manowar #37 (Valiant)

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott

Linda Loman’s line ” Life is a casting off” comes to mind with the death of another school year.  As my seniors take flight, I’ll be left in the nest–for another nineteen years of fated school years and of casting off–kids and tears.

Thank goodness I’ve got some comics to look forward to!

• Harrow County #2 (Dark Horse)
• Rebels #3 (Dark Horse)
• Section 8 #1 (DC): I&N Demand Ennis and McCrea having a go Hitman-style?  Hell yes!

Section 8 #1

• Injection #2 (Image)
• Nameless #4 (Image)
• Saga #29 (Image)
• Starve #1 (Image): Just I&N This book was as inevitable, wasn’t it?  It’s Knife Fight–Ilan Hall’s televised foodie fight club–on steroids!  That’s right: it’s not your–or the Chairman’s–uncle’s Iron Chef.  “Allez [effing] cuisine,” indeed!  It’s a chef of a different mettle entirely.  It’s Brian Wood’s most massively anticipated new release, if only for the crazy recipe he’s cooked up with The Massive collaborator Danijel Zezelj.

Starve #1

• Silver Surfer #12 (Marvel) I&N Demand No comic has ever had as many twists and turns as the cosmically courageous Silver Surfer #11.  Truly a perfect ride from Slott and Allred.  No reason to expect anything less here.  The cover does, in fact, look half Radd.

Silver Surfer #12

• Crossed +100 #5 (Avatar)
• Death Sentence: London #1 (Titan) I&N Demand Montynero’s my hero, dammit!  The first go-round with Death Sentence made me a fan for life!  The book had that Brit bite that’s always a bloody delight.  Can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for The Smoke.

Death Sentence: London #1

• The Disciples #1 (Black Mask) I&N Demand Black Mask is making black magic, boys and girls–and it seems that everyone’s kind of figured that out.  Their books are flying off of the shelves quickly, in many cases, leaving our man Derek without–and he goes to Midtown Comics Times Square, for goodness sake!  Better grab this one if you see it: the Black Masker himself, Steve Niles, along with Christopher Mitten, deliver what’s billed as a “ghost story in space”; so, yeah: grab one for yourself and one for a friend–you know, the one who probably won’t make it out to the shop until five o’clock.  Don’t want him to be punished for his procrastination–or for his taking care of stupid responsibilities, like finishing up his work or picking up his kids.

The Disciples #1

• Hit: 1957 #3 (BOOM!)
• Rachel Rising #34 (Abstract Studio)
• We Can Never Go Home #3 (Black Mask): I&N Demand For some it’s more like We Can Never Find This Damn Book.  I understand your frustration.  OK, no I don’t.  I haven’t missed one yet.  And if you have, let me tell you: you’re really missing out if you’ve missed out.  True, true: we’re only through two, but what a two it’s been.  It’s Lucas meets Bonnie and Clyde with a side of superpowers, which makes things undeniably interesting–and which makes this book a must buy.  You should never go home from the comic shop without it.

We Can Never Go Home #3

Avery’s Pick of the Week

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #31 (IDW)

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #31

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott

I’m super-behind in my reading, super-behind in my writing, super-behind in my grading, in my daddying and hubbying–so I guess that cinches it: I’ve finally found my superhero name:

This hero ain’t frontin’–he’s completely behind!

He’s Super Behind!

• Neverboy #4 (Dark Horse)
• Millennium #5 (IDW)
• The Last Fall #4 (IDW)
• Airboy #1 (Image): Just I&N James Robinson’s been mostly unreadable ever since we named his shimmering The Shade one of our Top Books of 2012.  Sure, this has the potential of being a masturbatory mess à la Fraction’s Sex Criminals; but I’m willing to yank it from the shelf and to save it, perhaps, for some light bathroom reading.
  

Airboy #1

• The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw #6 (Image): I&N Demand I’ve been enjoying it; Derek’s been loving it–enough for Busiek’s best–yes, it’s better than the Eisner nominated Astro City–to finally crack our super-behind Top 5 Books of March.
  

The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw #6

• No Mercy #3 (Image): I&N Demand Alex De Campi and Carla Speed McNeil are showing no mercy–at all–in this beautiful bus-wreck of a book–one with serious bite, that’s for sure!  Wasn’t even on my radar when #1 dropped.  Silly me.
  

No Mercy #3

• The Wicked + The Divine #11 (Image): I&N Demand Don’t usually agree with the Eisner noms.  Definitely agree with this one, though: once a month, for 22 pages, Gillen and McKelvie are frickin’ gods.

The Wicked + The Divine #11

• Zero #17 (Image): I&N Demand Kot’s clearly putting 100% into Zero.  We’ve celebrated it as a Top Ten book the last two years–and it’s headed in the very same direction for 2015.  The last two issues have been big-time brilliant.  in them, Kot has waded into some heady territory, delivering along the way the comic book equivalent of psychedelic mushrooms.  OK, so, I’ve never taken ‘shrooms; but I’m pretty confident that burrowing into Burroughs’ brain in this vein is exactly the same experi–  What?  It’s–it’s not like that at all?  Well, even if it isn’t exactly like that, it’s got to be somewhat simil– Huh?  Not even similar?  All right.  Fine.  It’s not like taking ‘shrooms–not at all.  Still a damn fine trip.

Zero #17

• Arcadia #2 (BOOM!)
• Brides of Helheim #6 (Oni)
• Broken World #1 (BOOM!)
• The Bunker #11 (Oni)
• The Sixth Gun: Valley of Death #1 (Oni)
• War Stories #9 (Avatar): I&N Demand While Ennis’s trip to Israel tanked unexpectedly, this WWII-focused arc–with it’s spotlight shining sincerely on a group of heroic Nazis–has been filled with dread, leaving us waiting, with every page turn, for the other jackboot to drop.  Come on: who else can pull that off?
  

War Stories #9

Avery’s Picks of the Week

• My Little Pony: Friendship Forever #17 (IDW)
• Feathers #6 (BOOM!): My girl loves her Feathers!

Feathers #6

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott