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Faces of Evil: Kobra

Written by Ivan Brandon
Penciled by Julian Lopez
Inked by Mark Farmer
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

As part of DC Comics’s "Faces of Evil" promotion—where the titles of the company have cover portraits and a special focus on the villains—a handful of one-shots also shipped, each focusing on a different villain. But out of all of the books, I have to admit that one of them really mystified me. In the case of Faces of Evil: Kobra, I found myself really wondering just what the purpose of this comic was.

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Umbrella Academy: Dallas #3

Written by Gerard Way
Art by Gabriel Bà
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

I will be the first to admit that if you’d asked me what comic would be the spiritual successor to Grant Morrison’s acclaimed Doom Patrol run, my answer probably wouldn’t have been, "A comic written by Gerard Way, who’s better known as the lead singer for My Chemical Romance." As soon as the first issue of The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite was released, though, I learned just how wrong I was. And with each new issue of the follow-up mini-series, The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, Way is proving over and over that he’s not a one-hit wonder. If anything, he just keeps getting better. Now how great is that?

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Vigilante #1-2

Written by Marv Wolfman
Penciled by Rick Leonardi
Inked by John Stanisci
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

In this current market, it can be tough to launch a new series—doubly so if the book isn’t starring a pre-existing sales success like the Punisher. So when DC Comics announced they were launching a new Vigilante series, I was actually a little surprised. While there a Vigilante title years ago, this book stars a new character with the same name. So after two issues, is there enough of a hook to bring readers into a new title?

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Dead, She Said

Written by Steve Niles
Art by Bernie Wrightson
104 pages, color
Published by IDW

Does everyone remember those old commercials for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, where two people’s personal peanut butter and chocolate collide and the end result startles them into how good the mixture is? Well, I blame those commercials for every sort of mixture of genres, tastes, or ideas. Fusion restaurants, rap/rock duets, you name it, I know the cause. I’m not saying that they’re bad, just that I know exactly where they’re coming from. And now, to add to that list, Dead, She Said‘s mixture of pulp noir and 1950s science-fiction. Two great tastes you may have never thought of mixing together.

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Mysterius the Unfathomable #1

Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Tom Fowler
32 pages, color
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

I feel a little bad for the Wildstorm imprint, these days. It seems to have majorly fallen off the radar of readers, and that means no matter how good the project is, it’s likely to be overlooked. In the case of something like Mysterius the Unfathomable, that’s a real shame. Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler’s new mini-series has such a fun start that it deserves to be seen by more than a handful of people.

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Trinity #35

Written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza
Penciled by Mark Bagley and Mike Norton
Inked by Art Thibert and Walden Wong
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

I actually feel a little bad for Trinity, DC Comics’s current year-long weekly series. When 52 started, it had come right off of Infinite Crisis and had the hook of being an epilogue (of sorts) for that series to grab readers. The follow up of Countdown ended up leading into the big Final Crisis event, even down to having a name-change halfway through to Countdown to Final Crisis. But Trinity? In many ways it’s just existing in a void, entirely on its own, and so I think it’s easy to forget. That’s a shame, too, because as the title hits the two-thirds mark, I think Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley, and the rest of the creative team are really hitting their marks.

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Oishinbo: A la Carte: Japanese Cuisine

Written by Tetsu Kariya
Art by Akira Hanasaki
272 pages, black and white
Published by Viz

I love that in Japan, it’s nothing out of the ordinary to have a comic centered around cooking. In the case of Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki’s Oishinbo, though, it’s all the more impressive when you consider that the comic has run since 1983, with over 100 collections to date in Japan. What to do to try and hook new readers who perhaps don’t have the time or attention span to plow through over 20,000 pages of manga? Enter the Oishinbo: A la Carte series, where each volume is a "best-of" compilation around a specific type of food. Now that Viz has translated the first volume, Oishinbo: A la Carte: Japanese Cuisine, I’m quite happy to say that creating that sort of collection was absolutely the way to go.

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Never As Bad As You Think

Written by Kathryn Immonen
Art by Stuart Immonen
64 pages, color
Published by Boom! Studios

By now, I think most people know how some "gimmick" comics work. The most popular/well-known is the 24-hour comic, where the creator(s) of the comic have just 24 hours to conceive of, write, draw, and letter a completed comic book. What I’m actually more intrigued with, though, is Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s tactic for creating Never As Bad As You Think. Originally serialized online, each strip was written by using a word chosen randomly by another website. Then, as soon as Kathryn Immonen wrote the script, Stuart Immonen had to start drawing that week’s creation. Not only is it an interesting challenge, but the impressive thing is that Never As Bad As You Think comes across as if it was always planned this way.

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Solanin

By Inio Asano
432 pages, black and white
Published by Viz

Sometimes, it’s just the cover image that sells you on a book. With a comic like Solanin, it’s easy to see how that would happen. With the lead character’s face staring out at the reader, band-aid under one eye, cap on head, it’s hard to not feel your heart soften a bit at even a glance. And from there, it’s not far to looking at the insides and discovering that it looks even more enchanting, with its group of recent college graduates and their interactions. But the reality is that despite all the cuteness, this is a book that’s a lot tougher than you might initially think—and it’s that toughness that makes Solanin that much more memorable.

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Punisher #1

Written by Rick Remender
Art by Jerome Opena
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics

Just how many Punisher #1s can there really be? By my count, Marvel’s latest Punisher #1 is actually the eighth. There’s the original 1985 mini-series, the original 1987 ongoing series, the 1995 "back down to just one title" ongoing series, the 1998 Marvel Knights mini-series involving angels and mystic guns, the 2000 Marvel Knights mini-series that brought him back to basics, the follow-up 2001 ongoing series, and then the 2004 ongoing series under the MAX mature readers imprint. And that’s not including, of course, all of the other titles over the years like Punisher War Journal (both of them), Punisher War Zone (both of them), Punisher 2099… you get the idea. All of this is really a long way of asking the question, can this latest Punisher #1 stand out amid an already pretty large herd?

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