November's Looking Like a Busy Month

I had so many posts last week, I didn't get around to discussing the November solicitations. So let's do that now.

They're all terrible.

I'm kidding! Only some of them are terrible. DC, for example, has so much Year of the Villain/Dark Multiverse/Infected bullcrap. That whole "Metal" thing a couple of years ago was good as a one-off, but here we are two years later, and they're still making a big deal about the universe where the Joker is Batman, or Batman is the Joker. I don't know which it's supposed to be. To hell with it. Who cares.

Joe Quinones is back drawing Dial H with issue 9, but I'm not sure I'm coming back. Kinda feels like I was looking for an excuse to drop it. Jeff Lemire and Bill Sienkiewicz are doing a Question mini-series, The Deaths of Vic Sage. I'm normally lukewarm of Lemire, because his stories tend to dawdle along, but if it's only 4-issues, he'll have to have some sort of momentum, right?

Dark Horse's solicits say Steeple is only a 5-issue mini-series. Granted, I haven't seen issue 1 yet, so I might not even enjoy it, but that's not what I was expecting. Of course, Giant Days was originally only going to be 6 issues. Plans change.

Sera and the Royal Stars will be up to issue 5, and there wasn't any Test in the solicits. Is it on a skip month, or was it always only 5 issues? The story feels like it should be limited, but it could always run in a direction I don't expect that gives it legs. Vault also has another new title, Black Stars Above, by Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha, about a woman leaving her family of fur trappers and carrying a strange package through empty woods while being menaced by some 'cosmic horror'. Could be good.

Antarctic is publishing another issue of that Jungle Comics book, but considering how disappointed I was with the first issue, that's probably a pass. The sixth story of Infinity 8 is starting, with Franck Biancarelli as artist, and maybe, just maybe, they're going to make some headway on what the deal is with this mystery of the space mausoleum.

Vertical is releasing the fourth volume of Kino's Journey, although I still haven't gotten volume 2 yet. Doesn't help the solicits always repeat the same thing, and don't tell you anything about that volume's specific contents. Seven Seas is releasing a Dirty Pair Omnibus, which makes me feel like a bit of a chump. I think most of it is a story David Brothers talked up years ago on 4thletter, to the extent I bought it in Japanese. Even though I can't read kanji, or Japanese in general. And now here it is in English. Ah well, it was fun to see how much of the story I could follow strictly from the art.

Marvel wraps things up with a lot of 2099 stuff. Including Conan 2099. Jesus Christ. You know, if was just a self-contained mini-series thing, I might be interested. I have a bit of residual fondness for 2099. But of course they're dialing up a bunch of one-shots. They're also trying a Morbius ongoing series. Didn't they do that 4 years ago? Lemme check. My bad, it was 2013, so 6 years ago. Yeesh.

Let's see, lots of X-Men stuff. I noticed Psylocke is busy being Captain Britain in Excalibur, but she's still being Psylocke in a Fallen Angels series. But apparently Psylocke is Kwannon, the Japanese lady who originally had the body Betsy Braddock ran around in being a ninja for about 20 years our time, and Betsy is back to being an English lady who is Captain Britain. Clear as mud.

Kelly Thompson and Chris Bachalo are doing something with Deadpool. I swear, I can't tell if these things are one-shots or ongoings. They're all 5 bucks, which screams (hopefully) "oversized one-shot", but you can't rule out Marvel deciding the first issue of an ongoing needs to cost more. Because that will convince people it's special, so they'll buy it! At least, I assume that's their thought process. Anyway, if it is an ongoing, I might have to try it, since the rule of Deadpool is to alternate buying and not buying his series. Then he show up for Blogsgiving.

There's a Black Cat Annual where she's marrying Spider-Man?! Is this one of those weird match-ups against a villain, like Ms. Marvel vs. Super-Skrull. Is it Felicia against Spidey's divorce attorney? They don't have an interior artist listed yet. Garth Ennis is doing a Punisher mini-series about someone else killing a bunch of Russians. You know how Frank gets when people step on his turf. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl ends, at least this volume does. We'll wait and see if it reappears in December as Unbeatabler Squirrel Girl. Also, I think they finally canceled Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. That book's lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, that's for sure.

I should be excited about Annihilation: Scourge, but it's writer is Matthew Rosenberg, and after the trash fire that was the Multiple Man mini-series, combined with what I've seen and heard about his Uncanny X-Men run, no thanks. But this is only the opening chapter, so maybe someone who isn't terrible will write the main mini-series. Fingers crossed, right?