Much like my attitude towards the weather, the solicitation outlook improved as we moved from August to September. Not to a wild degree, but there's certainly more to discuss.
What's new I might buy? DC had a bunch of new stuff, but, I mean, some of it is bringing Damian back into the fold as Robin, or a new Birds of Prey with Zealot and Harley Quinn on the roster. Yeesh. Oh, and they really are going to let Tom King write Wonder Woman. That won't be a disaster.
There is a Fire and Ice mini-series by Joanne Starer and Natacha Bustos, where the JLI duo are banished to Smallville by Superman after some mess-up and Ice takes to the small-town life better than Fire. First off, where does Superman get the authority to banish any other adult anywhere? I mean sure, Batman is always telling people to get out of "his" city, but Batman's a conceited asshole. Also, and this could be good or bad, Starer is definitely ditching the espionage agent aspect that got added to Fire post-Infinite Crisis in favor of the more publicity-oriented JLI version. I don't know if I'm down for this.
Speaking of things I'm probably not down for but caught my attention. Dynamite is, in addition to their Darkwing Duck book, doing a Negaduck book, written by Jeff Parker. All about the bad guy going on the road so the local villains stop stealing his plans. Like I said, probably not buying it, but I at least paused to read the solicit.
Marvel had a few things, the most likely of which is Si Spurrier and Lee Garbett's Uncanny Spider-Man, but there's also (in descending order of likelihood), a Werewolf by Night one-shot by Derek Landy and Fran Galan, co-starring Elsa Bloodstone, and Avengers Inc., by Al Ewing and Leonard Kirk. Not so sure about that one. I read those Ant-Man and Wasp min-series Ewing wrote recently. The former was clever, the latter was fine. Do I care enough about a detective story starring Janet van Dyne and some version of the Vision?
Outside those publishers, there's Lone by Angie Hewitt, published through Vault, about a girl who is the only one who notices things around town are disappearing. More critically, Si Spurrier and Matias Bergara are coming back with another Coda mini-series! Only five issues this time, but whatever, it's good news!
Two other things of note. A hardcover called Centralia, but Miel Vandepitte, published through Living the Line. I thought it would be about that Pennsylvania town that was abandoned decades ago because of the out of control coal fire underground (EDIT), and according to Greg Burgas' review at Atomic Junk Shop, that's at least the inspiration, but it's a more fantastic world otherwise.
The other is All Star, published through NBM. Which mostly seems to publish comics about musicians, which made me leery it's about Smashmouth, especially when the solicit firmly grounds the story in the summer of 1998. But it's about some high-school baseball phenom who makes a mistake and it's by Jesse Lonergan, who wrote and drew Hedra, so it merited a mention.
What's ending? Grit n Gears says it'll conclude with issue 6 in September, but unless it double-ships between now and then, it won't be until October.
What's left? Moon Knight is still chasing the mastermind behind these attacks on him, but Fantastic Four involves the Thing alone in a house falling towards the center of the Earth, which sounds interesting. I haven't loved North's run, but I can't fault the weird science single issue plots he's devising. Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest will be on issue 3, and Unstoppable Doom Patrol says it'll be on issue 6, but issue 4 didn't show up in June and I don't know when it will, so best not to bet on it.
As for collections or manga, volume 4 of The Boxer out of Ize Press is listed. Volume 3 comes out in July, so I'll have to get to that first, I suppose. Still trying to get a handle on that book.
So overall, best case scenario, 11 single issues, but more likely 8 or 9 (not counting late stuff finally arriving.) Not spectacular, but better than 6 books to be sure.
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