After a long week off to take care of some personal business in an alternate universe – before said universe is eaten by Galactus of 616 – I’m back to bring you my favorite things in comics this week. Let’s not dilly dally and get right into the covers!
There’s been some big news in the Star Wars Comics world as Marvel will back the helm to the stories they now own the rights to. Brian Wood’s run on this batch of Star Wars tales has been fantastic. “Star Wars” issue 14 has a terrific cover and some even better insides so pick up what is sure to be one of the last great runs of Star Wars tales under the watchful eye of Dark Horse Comics.
I love a good cover that reminds me of The Rocketeer. I also love a great World War 2 cover, so that’s why I picked the cover to “The Royals Masters of War” issue 1. I flipped through the insides of this one and there is a spectacular two page spread of bombers and dog fights that’s worth the cover price alone.
The cover to “Winter Soldier: The Bitter March” issue 1, by Andrew Robinson, is a sort-of tie in to the upcoming film “Captain America: Winter Soldier” is nicely 60’s with a great psychedelic font. I love how the title is very 60’s and comes directly out of the lamp light. I can see some homage to the Winter Soldier’s look inside the book but I don’t think it does much for the movie. I’m staying for the full mini-series though and we’ll get to see if it has any play with the movie in two short months.
I had to go to Bleeding Cool to find a decent size image of the “Memory Collector” issue 3. I saw the books cover on Comixology and new I had to include it. The reviews I read for the book say that the insides are judged nicely by the cover as they’re full of digital oils and a fully mind melting story. If you’ve read this one, let me know what you think of it in the comments. For now though, the cover by Menton3 is certainly one that needs to be mentioned.
If you haven’t read “Death Sentence” you’re missing out on a great story about people who get powers from a sexually transmitted disease that is very terminal and very incurable. “Death Sentence” is created by independent creators and the writer and cover artist Montynero fills the back pages of each issue with in depth tips and insider info on how his publishing experience went. It’s priced a little steep but well worth it to support independent creators and great story telling.
For the panels this week I picked some easy ones but didn’t include Batman. I’ve picked him a lot and this time I wasn’t really thrilled by anything that isn’t a “Spoiler”. So, let’s start things off with “Avengers” issue 26 where we get a sight glimpse into what The Avengers are doing in their off-time. Most of the answers surprised me but Thor’s did not.
I really like “Superman/Wonder Woman” and issue 5 was no exception. The art by Tony S. Daniel is superb. Every panel and ever y page was a potential pick for this week but instead of his beautiful rendition of Wonder Woman I went with this great little conversation between Batman and Superman. The characters really come off perfect here by Charles Soule. He was certainly my favorite writer from this week.
“Fatale” is soon coming to a close at issue 24 and the tension and story are just beginning their crescendo for the inevitable climax. This panel struck me because of the beauty of Brubaker’s characters given life by Sean Phillips. The foreboding nature of the lead male character’s inner dialogue and the fact that he looks like he’s literally seen a ghost all made this a perfect panel from one of the mediums perfect comics.
That’s all we have for this week. If you’re after some more great comic book covers and panels you can check out last week’s issue of “5 and 3” right here. Here’s a big THANK YOU to Androidika who picked last week’s best moments in comics for all of us to drool over. You can follow that fine bot on Twitter @MrMiah. Let him know if you’d like him to guest star again in the future. For now though, I’ll be seeing you next week and every week after that right here on Big Shiny Robot dot Com.