WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Picks

Best From The Past Week: Avengers #18 – It was a really slim week for me last week and 100 Bullets: Brother Lono #3 didn’t bring the heat like I expected, so Avengers kinda backs into the award.  But….it WAS a pretty good issue.  I’ve actually gone back in the last few weeks and reread Hickman’s Avengers from the start.  Avengers is probably better now than at any time I can remember.  Kudos guys!

Most Anticipated:  I had FOUR comics on my pull list last week.  This week I have FOURTEEN.  One of these days, I’ll have to run the statistics to see the average and standard deviation on my pull list.

1. American Vampire: Anthology #1 – Since I can’t have the “real” American Vampire, I’ll settle for some of the industry’s best and brightest taking a stab at an anthology of short stories.  If you want some insight into Scott Snyder, look at the list of folks contributing to this place-filler issue: Jeff Lemire, Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon, Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, Francesco Francavilla, Declan Shalvey, Becky Cloonan…..  Wow.  That tells you that other comic pros respect the hell out of Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque’s creation and also that they’re probably pretty swell guys to boot.  If you haven’t been reading AV, this might not be a bad place to dip your toe in.

2. Lazarus #3 – Let’s see if the momentum from the first two issues continues.  Greg Rucka and Michael Lark have already created an interesting near-future world and now I’m curious to see what they do with it.  Seeing Forever’s encounter with the “lazarus” from another of the ruling families should be pretty enlightening.  This series is still young…..jump on now.

3. Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #20 – Again, the two Transformers ongoing series are probably better than almost any other Big 2 series being published right now.  They’re certainly of the same caliber as Batman, All New X-Men, Avengers, etc.  Seeing how Rodimus and his guys deal with a murderous Tyrest after all the revelations about Ultra Magnus in the last couple issues should be sweet.  I’m also eager to see how the Cyclonus/Whirl team-up turns out: Reformed Decepticon + Former Wrecker (armed with nothing but swords) versus a horde of enemies.

4. New Avengers #9 – This is a series that I haven’t been reading, but I enjoyed Infinity #1 a LOT and my reread of Avengers-proper made me think that I should also be checking out Hickman’s New Avengers.

5. The Massive #15 – After a very slow-ish start, this series is starting to build some momentum.  Brian Wood is hammering very effectively on the idea that while our actions have consequences, the world around us keeps spinning.  There’s an interesting irony where it is heavily implied the human activity was the cause of the global Crash that has wrecked modern human society, but that is placed against a backdrop where the Earth is a permanent thing that barely notices that we are here.  This month resolves the story arc of hunting a Russian submarine in a flooded Manhattan.  There’s very little not to enjoy about the visual of naval vessels steaming down Broadway.

Hugo’s Pick

Best From The Past Week: Avengers #18 – There were some good comics this week, but my interest in the cosmic side of the Marvel universe got the better of my attention as this issue of Avengers heavily featured most of the classic elements. Huge space battles drawn by Leinil Francis Yu, the Kree, Kl’rt the Super-Skrull and cosmic events made for a really satisfying issue.

Most anticipated this week:

1. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #20 – It’s always a cause for jubilation when new issue of this series come out. Always filled with great ideas and concepts, humor and so many interesting twists, it would be hard-pressed to find something with so much energy in each issues. With Alex Milne on art duty, it will look good as always, which is definitely a huge bonus when the whole package is interesting.

2.Thor: God of Thunder #12 – Bad news: Esad Ribic is done for the time being as the artist of this series. Good news: before we get Ron Garney, Nic Klein is filling in for this issue. Although this is a transitory issue from the previous arc to the next one, I am confident in the fact that Jason Aaron can deliver something good in this issue as well as Thor return to Midgard in this issue.

3. New Avengers #9 – Infinity goes along as we get more of it in the other tie-in featuring the Illuminati and Thanos. Considering the fact that this title is the better one that Hickman is currently writing at Marvel, I am eager to see just how he will handle this event in this book with Mike Deodato as his artist.

4. Journey Into Mystery #655 – Alas, we never got to know you for very long, Journey Into Mystery. What Kathryn Immonen and Valerio Schitti did for this title was provide a fun heroine, good adventures and a sensation of fun that spoke very well about the potential of comics as pure entertainment. With this being the last issue, it is with a bittersweet attitude that I am waiting for it.

5. Uncanny Avengers #11 – I rather like Rick Remender and his approach to super hero teams. However, while this title has been pretty good in a lot of areas and has shown some definitive improvement over its first arc, I feel it has not quite reached the level it has the potential to reach. I hope that the improvement shall continue as we get some more continuation of the themes he developed and more lovely art from Daniel Acuña.