Panelology - Marvel & DC August 2009 Solicitation Picks

by Brandon

Now that Marvel & DC have released their solicitations for August 2009, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at books coming down the pike that are of interest to collectors. August looks to be a pretty decent month for collectors new and old. Both Marvel and DC have some neat looking books for old and new fans alike just begging to be pre-ordered. I know I'm going to have to make a lot of room for some new titles. Jenn won't be happy, but my inner-fanboy will just love it!


The House of Ideas has a few books that I'll be adding to my order this month. Here's a look at my picks.

- Dominic Fortune # 1 (of 4): It's always good to see Howard Chaykin writing and drawing a book, but its extra nice to see him return to a character that he created. In the various incarnations that have cropped up of this archetypal character from Chaykin's creative stables, Dominic Fortune was one of my favorites. He's been little used, but this looks to be one of those great returns we fans don't get to see very often. This title should be full of violence, zippy dialogue, loose women, and excellent art.

- Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1 and Avengers #1: Oh boy. I haven't made it a secret that I have been displeased with the direction of the Ultimate Universe lately. The bloated and unnecessary Ultimatum freak show has been ridiculously stupid. It's redemption time for this line. Starting with new first issues, Avengers and Spiderman look to be good starting places for those people who left the Ultimate Universe before Jeph Loeb's involvement was just a dusty twinkle in Joe Quesada's bad eye. Perhaps with the always entertaining Millar on board, Avengers will pick up with where his Ultimates 2 title left off. Otherwise, this lines probably in deep shit. Check this out, if only for the train wreck.

- The Marvels Project #1 (of 8): Ed Brubabker? Check. Steve Epting? Check. Worth $3.99 an issue? Not so sure. But, I might be willing to give it a shot. With the aforementioned creative team from Captain America on board, this will probably be entertaining at the very least. With Marvel celebrating "their" 70th anniversary, this title promises to be the centerpiece to their celebrations. Whatever. The big question for Marvel is will anyone care about a miniseries dealing with the Golden Age version of Marvel's oldest heroes. This has the potential to be a bust or a boon. I'm hoping for the latter, especially if I'm going to shell out $3.99 an issue!

- Captain America: The Death of Captain America Omnibus HC: Sweet Jesus! On the one hand, the $75 price tag gives me pause, but getting issues 25-42 of Brubaker and Epting's Captain America saga in hardcover is very tempting. I haven't bought any of Marvel's omnibus editions, but they look sweet and many people have had nothing but great things to say about these volumes.

- Marvel Bromance TPB: Huh? When I first saw this solicitation, I must admit that I almost just skipped reading it. But my curiosity got the better of me and I read it. I hate the term "bromance" but it is oddly appropriate for some comic books match-ups. It is with a little bit of shame that I must admit that this sounds kind of cool. As hokey as they may be, some buddy comics are just fun to read. Marvel selected a wide variety of characters here to spotlight, which is excellent because I don't think having Wolverine or Spider-Man pop up in your book constitutes the "bromance" label. Male bonding is cool and this should be a fun title to read.


I'm not much of a DC Comics kind of guy, but a couple of things in their August previews looked interesting.

- Red Circle Comics: The Shield, The Web, Inferno, and The Hamngman # 1's: J. Michael Straczynski takes a stab at bringing the Archie heroes into the DCU. I honestly think this is what JMS does best. I just wish he would go back to finishing The Twelve. Regardless, these books should at least be interesting for old and new readers. Plus, these specials are backed by some killer artists including Bill Sienkiewicz, Greg Scott, Roger Robinson, Hilary Barta, Scott McDaniel, and Andy Owens. Fitting these four issues into your order might taking a little more tightening of the belt, but I think they could be definitely worth it.

- Doom Patrol #1: Finally! It seems like DC has been talking about this reboot for months now, so I was happy to see it finally solicited. Kieth Giffen seems like a perfect fit for this book. To sweeten the pot, and to soften the blow of the $3.99 admission price, there is a Metal Men co-feature co-written by Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis with art from Kevin Maguire! That's right, this is the celebrated team that brought us the original JLI title in the late 1980s. I hope Giffen's back to the basics approach works out better for him that it did for John Byrne. I love all the various incarnations of this team and I am highly anticipating the release of this title.

- Peter & Max: A Fables Novel: This is another book that seems to have been discussed for a while now by the folks over at Vertigo. If you aren't reading Fables, you truly are missing out on one of the best titles to ever be published. This prose novel from Bill Willingham will be supported by ink drawings from Fables artist Steve Leialoha. Vertigo always does a good job with these special hardcovers and I don't think this one will disappoint any regular Fables fans. Sounds really good to me!



That's it for me this week! You can of course check out the Previews website from Diamond Distributors if you want to browse more solicitations and news.

Next week, I'll be back to talk about how my comic book life is changing now that the big wedding date is coming up faster than a speeding bullet. What am I doing to myself?
Read more!

Waited for the trade: Silver Surfer Requiem

Mr`Orange

Comic books aren’t just about super heroes, there is a lot out there that transcends this genre, and some books published by the big two might contain super heroes, but are so far from the norm. These books are often so detached from the usual super hero beat’em up that the often fall under the radar of most comic book buyers. great books such as these really deserve wider recognition and thankfully in this case I’m not fighting against the flow as Silver Surfer: Requiem by J Michael Straczynski and Esad Ribic has already garnered a lot of critical praise and commercial success.

This book shows the depth of material available, even from a publisher like Marvel Comics that is so often seen just as purveyor of mindless, or even intelligent, super heroics. They sell the big guns, the high octane crash bang comics, good guys against the bad, even their imprints, though not traditional super hero books, are still based on the concept of the good guy versus the bad guy.

But this book is a departure from all of that; this is a personal book, an introspective of an alien, of an outsider that could so easily be one of us. A man who thought he would live forever has just found out that he is about to die, that his time has finally come to an end. He reacts just as we might. Though he is a man covered in silver, a man who can fly through the cold of space and do battle with beings with power beyond our comprehension, he is still a man.

The art of the book captures the mood of the story very well. At time it is immense, the sense of grandeur really comes through each page. The immensity of space, the power of the Surfer and the fragility of life, Ribic has captured the smaller moments with the same majesty and magic as he has the larger, and this is where the book really comes into its own, where it sets itself apart from the rest.

The combination of JMS’s writing and Ribic’s art bring to life the emotions felt by the people that the Silver Surfer interacts with, and each person has their own unique voice, unique view of life and each is impacted differently. JMS really is a brilliant character writer, he is able to tell this vast tale through so many small moments. Each moment slowly unfolds to show the bigger picture and though, at times, the message wasn’t subtle, the book didn’t bludgeon you with rhetoric and clichés. There was a poetry to the words written by Straczynski, a magic to the art by Ribic that did justice to the underlying tale being told.

We should take each day as it comes, we as a race need to look over the minor differences between us, we live an amazing life in an amazing world and we need to count ourselves lucky. When we know that the end is near, we all rush to do the things that we have always wanted, that we have been too scared to do or too stupid not to do. We don’t realise how much of our lives we have wasted until it is too late,
Read more!