February Has Its Ups and Downs

The solicitations for February were not inspiring. Nothing new from Image caught my eye, ditto for Dark Horse and IDW. No sign of the final issue of The Seeds or the third issue of Rocketeer Reborn. There is a solicit for the 4th issue of the Atomic Robo mini-series, but the first issue was supposed to come out in November and it didn't, so, believe it when we see it.

The one thing I noticed from DC was a collection of a digital Batman & Harley Quinn comic by Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett, which looks like it's set in the Batman: The Animated Series universe. At the very least, Harley's wearing her original, harlequin, costume on the cover. That's a solid creative team, might be worth a look. There's also a hardcover collection of the Grayson series, when he was running around as a superspy after his secret identity got blown during, was that Forever Evil? It was one of those DC events that seemed to go on for a billion years.

Let's see, Marvel's solicits. I made three notes, one was "Hulk by Loeb?!" Marvel isn't giving Jeph Loeb the Hulk again, this is just a collection of the stories when they did. It's also actually listed "Hulk by Loeb and McGuinness", but I don't think Ed McGuinness was the problem with the book. I didn't see an issue of Domino, but it won't have reached issue 12 by then, so the book shouldn't be canceled yet. As far as I can tell, the Age of X-Man thing is another alternate history, with a bunch of tie-in mini-series, natch. There is a Nightcrawler mini, about him being a celebrity/super-hero. So a cheerful, swashbuckling Kurt, potentially? I don't know Sean McGuire or Juan Frigeri's work well enough to judge anything based on their being writer and artist.

They're also subjecting us to a 12-issue limited series, Old Man Quill, and there isn't enough "fuck you" in the world to express my exhaustion with that nonsense. In news related to book I was considering buying last month, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man continues to sound interesting (sending Spidey to a distinctly hostile environment). Deep beneath the Earth? Outer space? Guardians of the Galaxy is concerned with finding the new Thanos. I'm unclear if that means Thanos has gone on a journey of self-discovery, or if we're getting another new Avatar of Death. Either way, boo to more stuff about Thanos.

Dynamite is doing an Army of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep crossover. Which sounds good in theory, but what I figured out is I only care about those properties when Bruce Campbell is involved, rather than comics done involving characters he played. That just doesn't work.

Boom! isn't letting me down at least. Coda's back after a month off, Giant Days is going to have Daisy take her driver's test, and hopefully I'll enjoy that Smooth Criminals book enough to still be buying it then.

Beyond that, Vertical Comics is going to release the first volume of Kino's Journey. I loved the 13-episode anime (probably in my top 5 animes), so I'm excited for that. Aftershock Comics has the first trade of a series called Fu Jitsu, about an unaging boy genius who fight a diabolical mage-scientist who is also a giant. Sounds like it's work a look.