Batman’s been shot! Is he gonna die? Pfft. But tell that to the rubes in this comic - they’re all mourning him as if he’s not gonna get a last minute save like he always does! Meanwhile Quar doubles down on the stupid by targeting Superman/Wonder Woman’s son, setting up the final issue’s conflict: Amazons v Kandorians.
Sarah Andersen follows up her Goodreads Choice Award-winning book Adulthood is a Myth with Big Mushy Happy Lump, which is essentially more of the same - if it ain’t broke, eh?
I’m Kevin Roberts and I have a very important question: can a bitch get a good Batman Beyond book!?
I’m about ready to give up on this character. Batman Beyond looks cool and a futuristic Batman series sounds like a roundhouse kick straight to the awesome but I haven’t read a single comic with this dude that’s halfway decent.
Ten years ago a solar flare turned the sun’s rays into instant death to humans. Now humanity surfaces at night and lives underground during the day with engineers called Icemen going out during the daylight in special suits to carry out works, etc. Suddenly a mysterious hooded man who can withstand the sunlight seems to be executing specific people by leaving them unprotected outside for the sun to melt - but why? David Baxter, an Iceman, is hired by his company’s boss – who’s on the hit list - to find out.
Hush sucks. Not even one of the greatest Batman writers ever, Paul Dini, can make him good!
Heart of Hush explores Tommy Elliot’s origins in slightly more detail than elsewhere though his motivation remains his jealousy of Bruce Wayne - live your own life, Tommy!
Susan leads a comfortable suburban life: a doctor’s wife, a mother and homemaker, her quiet existence is interrupted when she receives her ex-husband Edward’s debut manuscript for her review: a novel called Nocturnal Animals. But she and Edward divorced over twenty years ago – why would he reach out to her now? Then as Susan begins reading she notices pieces of herself in the story – a vicious, dark story of revenge, rape and murder. Is Edward exorcising demons through his art or is this a veiled threat of what he’s planning to do to her and her family…?
Here are some bigly comics releases to look forward to in 2017.
Here are my top 10 favourite comics of the year that were also published in 2016:
In the style of Marvel’s What If…? stories, the Watcher-esque cosmic being Day-Zee asks the question: what if… Esther, Daisy and Susan had never been friends?
Giant Days is one of my favourite comics so this was a must-read for me. Is the Holiday Special awesome? Buh, yuh, duh!
Grant Morrison and Dan Mora return to their Batman-esque Santa character, Klaus, for a festive one-shot in Klaus and the Witch of Winter. And who can blame them, eh? ‘tis the season (to make some cheddah)!
The Witch of Winter has swiped a pair of kids – Klaus and Lilli to the rescue!
Mary and Bryan Talbot’s third collaboration is The Red Virgin, a short comics biography of a little-known historical figure, Louise Michel, a 19th century French revolutionary. It’s always cool to see obscure but interesting and overlooked figures from the past revived for modern readers but The Red Virgin is a flawed and underwritten overview.
Oh kee-rist, get the puke bags ready - he’s not on the cover (probably a strategic choice) but this is a Mecha-Batman/Jim Gordon book. Bleurgh! Blood of Heroes is the crappiest Detective Comics volume in some time.
During the reign of Nero the Roman Empire stretched across Europe with its northernmost border in the foggy and dark island of Britannia. There the local savages have been acting up, attacking a Roman outpost with reports of demonic powers aiding them. On the advice of the mystical Vestal Virgins, Nero sends out Centurion Antonius Axia, the first detective, to investigate. But Axia is about to discover that monsters take many forms…
Apparently Carrie Fisher recently found the diaries she kept while filming the first Star Wars movie and has decided to publish them – how fortuitous given Star Wars is back!
It’s pretty thin on material for a memoir. The only really memorable piece of info is Fisher’s confirmation that she had an affair with her co-star, Harrison Ford, who was married at the time and 15 years her senior. I haven’t read any of Fisher’s previous memoirs so I can’t say whether she’s repeating herself here but I thought some of the behind-the-scenes Star Wars stuff was pretty interesting.
Deadpool v Gambit is like the comics version of what I imagine a Tyler Perry/Madea movie to be: so unfunny the word “comedy” shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of it, and punishment more than entertainment.
Legendary horror artist Richard Corben adapts a selection of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems in a pretty decent anthology, Spirits of the Dead.
Something happened to the superheroes of Megalopolis and they all became homicidal maniacs. A small group of civilians managed to survive in the first book, Leaving Megalopolis, and in the sequel they’re now going back in - the nightmare begins again!
Tom Taylor does two things in this book that almost floored me out of sheer surprise: 1) he makes the Unbearable Squirrel Girl bearable and, 2) the mandatory crossover issues he had to include for Marvel’s latest event, Civil War II, not only didn’t feel intrusive but were the best part!
In 2004 Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern wasn’t selling so DC decided to get Geoff Johns to reinstate the original Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, as the main dude. Green Lantern: Rebirth is the book where it all went down - and what a sucky, overrated comic it is!
If you thought the second volume of The Beauty would follow on from the first, think again - this is an entirely new cast of characters and storyline! In Volume 2 we meet a gangster who rips off his employers and uses The Beauty to completely change his appearance to escape. We’re also introduced to a trans hitman who becomes a target for her bosses after being set up.
Adam Dearden is a burnt-out futurist (someone who thinks professionally about the future) who gets sent to a special facility in an “experimental” Oregon forest (whatever that is) to recuperate: Normal Head. And then an inmate disappears and the place intended to be devoid of any kind of intrusive tech is suddenly swarming with surveillance.
Set between (shudder) The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan Anakin Skywalker answer a distress call on a mysterious planet - and quickly become embroiled in a bitter conflict between two sides.
Joker’s Asylum is an anthology of stories about Batman’s rogues told by Joker for no reason. This second volume has stories on the Mad Hatter, Harley Quinn, the Riddler, Killer Croc and Clayface, and most of them are pretty bad!
In Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, Hellboy fought Frankenstein in 1956 Mexico - this book picks up Frankenstein’s story directly afterwards while continuing to incorrectly call him by his creator’s name! Frankie stumbles into an underground kingdom ruled by a demon-possessed sorcerer who’s enslaved innocent ghosts - Frankenstein to the rescue!
Farrah Durante is a washed-up middle-aged actor/single mom, one of many female actors who get older and find there’s no work for them. After one particularly bad day Farrah attempts suicide by walking into the Pacific - and then something else walks back out; something that wants revenge!
The husband and wife team of John Reppion and Leah Moore (Alan Moore’s daughter) collaborate with four artists to adapt four of MR James’ spooky stories into comics: Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book, Lost Hearts, The Mezzotint, and The Ash-Tree. And unfortunately it’s not very good.
Marvel superheroes dress up in 1872 cowboys and injuns cosplay - yee-haw! The corrupt Wilson Fisk rules the frontier town of Timely but a gathering of heroes, led by Sheriff Steve Rogers, are fixin’ to bring justice to the west.
In this dystopian future the sun has expanded and burned off the water from the face of the Earth… but somehow not wiped out humanity at the same time. A band of survivors sets out to cross the vast desert formerly known as the Atlantic Ocean only to encounter land pirates. Their only hope to live? Just a pilgrim.
A Russian gangster is being transported from New York to Texas because Daredevil wants him to stand trial before probably being executed by the state; Punisher wants to execute him right now in New York himself. Oh, the subtle difference between two people who’re more similar than they’d admit! And then the two slug it out.
Josie Schuller is the stereotypical 1960s housewife/mom - and a secret assassin! But when the organisation decides she’s a liability to be disposed of, Josie must use all her skills to neutralise the threat and keep her family alive.
Mock - yeah! Ing - yeah! Bird - yeah! YEAH! - yeah...
Bobbi Morse is Mockingbird, an Agent of SHIELD Barbie doll who does superhero stuff while having perfect hair. Honestly, I don’t know who this character is. I don’t read the SHIELD comic, I don’t watch the Agents of SHIELD TV show, maybe she’s in one of those, whatever. I has likes and dislikes about her character from what I’ve read in Chelsea Cain’s pretty decent comic but I would’ve liked a primer on Bobbi for readers like me who know nothing about her. There are references to her dying and coming back to life and some dude called Lance - I don’t know about any of that.
I always wondered what happened to the body parts inevitably chopped off of Deadpool - do they just die and rot while his original body regrows them or does an entire body regrow from those pieces? Well, turns out if you get enough pieces together, they congeal into a whole new Deadpool: Evil Deadpool!
Johnny Blaze prepares for the final battle against Lucifer’s two remaining avatars just as a pair of celestial angels appear with some surprising news about the Ghost Rider…
After creating a truly terrible Batman book with The Monster Men, Matt Wagner was invited back to make a sequel, The Mad Monk - because at DC you fail upwards!
Simon is a bookseller whose family-owned bookshop is going under. But that’s only the beginning of his troubles as he witnesses a woman kill herself which awakens painful childhood memories of a school-friend who also met a tragic end. I know, cheerful lil comic, eh?
Old Man Logan continues to be haunted by his demons in Bordertown. Believing his dystopian future might still happen, he heads to a small gravel quarry mining town in the Great White North to protect his future wife, Maureen, who’s presently a kid. But long-time enemies like Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers are surprised to discover Logan is seemingly back from the dead and set out to settle some old scores…
Man, you set off just a few nukes in a battle with the Hulk over the American heartland and people start calling you irresponsible and crazy! That’s what happened to Deadpool as he’s carted off across the pond to a British nuthouse. Why? His shrink’s in love with him. Hmm, maybe she should be one of the inmates!
A weird question gets stuck in our young protagonist’s head: how did the Ottoman Empire collect taxes? This must be set in pre-Google times because he goes to a library to find the answer! But this is no ordinary library and the boy’s surreal odyssey is about to begin…
Flash Thompson is Venom, a character with two titles for some reason: Space Knight and Agent of the Cosmos! Here’s a third one: Weak Solo Character!
1953 is an anthology of Hellboy stories set in the UK and America when he was just starting out with the BPRD and, snakes alive, are they a boring and uninspired bunch!
Brian Azzarello and Juan Doe’s American Monster reads like odds and sods Azzarello had knocking around his notebooks that he just slapped together into a barely coherent script!
FUCKING HORRIBLE. That’s the only way to describe Tiffany McDaniel’s The Summer That Melted Everything!
“In God We Trust” is printed on US banknotes – yeah, the god of money, Mammon! The filthy lucre is America’s true religion and its high priests preside on Wall Street. Assigned to investigate the horrific ritual murder of a banker, Noo Yawk Detective (and secret voodoo practitioner) Theo Dumas uncovers the hidden world of finance where human sacrifice, pagan practices and occult magic covertly keep the markets going and the top banks wealthy!
On the morning of January 15th, 1947 in Los Angeles, a woman and her daughter walking past a vacant lot saw what looked to be a discarded mannequin but were actually the remains of 22 year old Elizabeth Short. She had been mutilated; her body cut in half and cleaned, before being dumped in the lot. Because of her striking appearance, the murder victim would become known as the Black Dahlia, one of LA’s most famous and unsolved killings - this is her story.
Set during Grant Morrison’s Batman run right after The Return of Bruce Wayne, Bruce is back but doesn’t want to reveal himself right away because DC wanted to make some more cash on a useless tie-in - I mean, “for artistic reasons relevant to the character at this time”!
Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Professor X, Mister Fantastic, Namor the Sub-Mariner and Iron Man are the Illuminati, a secret group that shapes the superhero world, in theory for the better, behind the scenes. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions…
Johnny Blaze the Ghost Rider escaped Hell but unintentionally brought Lucifer back to Earth with him who then splintered into multiple avatars - Ghost Rider has to hunt down and defeat each of Lucifer’s avatars to send him back to Hell! But how did Johnny end up in Hell to begin with? Find out here! Also, Ghost Rider goes to Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, to fight Jack O’Lantern (another biker dude but with a flaming pumpkinhead)!
Shapeshifting aliens called Skrulls have replaced key figures on Earth, including some Marvel superheroes – who can you trust? Welcome to Secret Invasion aka Duuuuuuuuuuuh: The Comic!
It’s a Marvel event written by Brian Bendis so I wasn’t expecting it to be good – and I was right, it wasn’t! But ‘tis turkey season so why not scoff down a turkey like Secret Invasion?
Man gets stabby-stabbied 12 times on a train - Belgian dick Hercule Poirot tells us thickos whodunit!
Murder on the Orient Express is one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels though I wouldn’t say it’s among her best. The premise is enticing: a luxury European sleeper train stranded in the middle of the night, a locked room murder mystery, and the killer among the remaining passengers. Also as background to the killing, Christie took inspiration from the scandalous real-life Lindbergh baby kidnapping/murder that shocked the world in the early 1930s.
Jason Aaron and RM Guera get Biblical with The Goddamned, their latest collaboration that puts the Thump in Bible-thumper!
1600 years after Eden…
