Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations February

pg 63: Brightest Day #0: Probably the biggest news story of the month is this puppy. I don’t know what it will be about, but it is clearly a direct follow-up to Blackest Night, and that should make it a top seller.

pg 69: Batman: Arkham Asylum - Madness: This popped up out of nowhere, but I think the potential of a Sam Keith Arkham story is great. Unfortunately (especially for a barely advertised project) the solicitation copy gives little to no information about the story itself.

pg 70-71: Doc Savage #1 and The Spirit #1: The First Wave expands with two new ongoing series focused on its pulp heroes. Savage gets Paul Malmont, writer of The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, a novel that turns pulp writers in to pulp heroes, with art by Howard Porter. Porter’s style seems tailor-made for Doc. Plus the $4 backup is assuaged by Avenger back-ups by Hard Case Crime author Jason Starr & Simon Dark’s Scott Hampton. At the same time, DC steals Richard Starkings’s favorite creators with Ladronn on covers and Moritat on interiors of a new Spirit book. And the editors wisely picked Xenozoic Tales writer Mark Schultz to bring the story. Each issue will steal a page from old Batman issues with an additional 8 page black and white backup. It should be interesting to see who DC finds to fill those slots past this month’s Denny O’Neil and Bill Sienkiewicz story. I am truly excited for these two, more so than even the FIrst Wave limited itself.

pg 99: DV8: Gods & Monsters #1: I won’t lie; I was an unrepentant fanboy of Warren Ellis’s DV8. The series fell apart after he left, but now the great Brian Wood (of Demo fame) brings the characters back in a new eight issue series. This has the potential of being a really solid new superhero book from Wildstorm, something the company has missed for months (outside Astro City of course).

pg. 139: Turf #1: I know next to nothing about British television host Jonathan Ross, but I can say his weird-crime period piece looks amazing. Tommy Lee Edwards is a hell of an artist and he is in perfect form with this release. I hope it proves to be as big a seller as it well should be.

pg. 148: Haunt #7: This issue finally resolves the sometimes hinky art provided by Ryan Ottley over Greg Capullo’s layouts. How do they manage it? They make Greg Capullo the new artist. Now I’m sure much of his superstar status has faded since the days he worked on Spawn, but I have been a fan of Capullo since Quasar. (Yeah, I am that old.) This should just take Haunt another step forward on its road to greatness.

pg. 170: Magdalena #1: Ron Marz has carved out quite the little universe for himself at Top Cow. His Witchblade and Angelus are good, solid stories and now he is continuing that tradition with Magdalena. I am a huge fan of the character, but sadly will probably be skipping this one despite all its pluses. Why? The $3.99 price tag.

Marvel pg. 13: You want to know the best way to get people to buy your one-shots? Solicit them without any information about their actual titles or creative teams. But hey, since they all say Siege, I’m sure they will still sell well.

Marvel pg. 15: Black Widow #1: It took a movie appearance in the upcoming Iron Man 2, but Black Widow finally has her own series! While i am not the biggest fan of artist Daniel Acuna, but writer Marjorie Liu is definitely one of the best new writers Marvel has. Plus, unlike so many other Marvel titles, for $4 the reader at least gets 40 pages of content.

Marvel pg. 37: Savage Axe of Ares: I was a big fan of Marvel’s magazines and I am happy to see they are continuing their black & white follow-ups to those mags this month. Ares seems to be a good fit for this kind of book. We will see what kind of stories we get from the writing team of the three stories in this one.

pg 218: Cold Space #1: Samuel L. Jackson in outer space. I’m not quite sure what to make of it, although the preview art makes it look like Mace Windu in Mass Effect. Again, the $4 price tag probably means I won’t be ordering this one myself.

pg 236: Green Hornet Year One: Matt Wagner on Green Hornet. Nuff said.

pg. 351: Mr. Potato Head: Kiss Collector Set: WTF? No seriously, I know Kiss loves merchandising, but is there actually any call whatsoever for Potato KISS? I find this rather disturbing.

pg. 279: Bayonetta Play Arts: Bayonetta Action Figure: Have you ever wanted to own the craziest costumed video game character in 9 1/4" plastic form? Well, now you can, thanks to this $40 import figure!

That wraps up another set of highlights! Be sure to add to your pull lists accordingly, folks!