A Slow Start to the New Year

The solicitations for January aren't doing a lot for me. I mean, there was almost nothing that really caught my eye. Steeple will be wrapping up. I didn't even see Lion Forge's solicits, or any sign of Infinity 8 at all. I don't know if that has to do with the merger with Oni Press or what, but they were right in the middle of one of the stories.

Outside that, there's a new Arsenic Lullaby release, so I'll have to keep an eye out for that, and the second volume of that manga, Way of the Househusband. I read the first volume, it's actually pretty funny. There was more about his past than I expected, just in terms of suggesting he might not be free of it as much as he wants.

I think DC combined the first two issues of the Brian Azzarello-written Birds of Prey into a single graphic novel instead. Does that mean they decided to cancel the series already? There's a Wrath of the Spectre omnibus, if you feel like throwing down $125 for all the 1960s and 1970s Spectre stuff. Which includes the Aparo-drawn stuff with the strong horror comic vibe that people praise so highly. There's also a Hitman's Greatest Hits trade, consisting of his first appearance, the issue with Superman, "Thousand Bullets", and of course, "Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium". Also, the JLA: Hitman two-parter that came out years after the series ended. I think there were better choices, but maybe not if it had to be two issues.

Lots of Captain Marvel stuff getting re-released. The Jeff Smith Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil trade, and a collection of the first year of Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam series, which I think was part of the Johnny DC line for younger readers. Meanwhile, Geoff Johns and Marco Santucci have Billy fighting an army of gingerbread men, if that's your thing. I'm sure the gingerbread men eat children and joke about which body part they like to consume first. This is Geoff Johns we're talking about.

The second issue of Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage is out, and I did not notice on the first issue that these things a $7 an issue? Yikes. I hope they're a lot longer than your standard comic, or I'm going to be waiting a while to buy them.

As for Marvel, Namor has Atlants on the attack against the Agents of Atlas, but mostly the new crew, the ones I don't really care about, although Jimmy Woo and his crew are supposed to be showing up. Guardians of the Galaxy is getting restarted again, with Al Ewing as writer this time. There's some Hawkeye mini-series that started in December I either missed or chose to ignore, where Clint gets mixed up in a war between the Hood and someone dressed as Ronin. Oh wait, it's written by Matthew Rosenberg, that's probably why I ignored it. There's also a whole bunch of those "The End" one-shots. Gee, I wonder if they'll be depressing?

Deadpool's going to have Kraven hunting him down in his book. Given Wade's questionable morality, I'm not sure that qualifies as backsliding into villainy. The Black Cat's still dealing with the Thieves Guild in her book, and those two books would be the total of what I'm definitely buying from Marvel. There's an Alan Davis written mini-series that started in December called Tarot, about Diablo somehow causing another Avengers/Defenders War. But Davis isn't drawing it, so I'm not sure I care. Maybe I'll start buying Runaways. I've been thinking about it for awhile, and the picking are looking mighty slim at the moment.