Coming Continuing Comics 2: a look at March 2019's most intriguing solicits

This one is a bit late, mostly because I didn't see a ton of stuff that really intrigued me in this month's catalog of stuff. But I do have the ends of two trilogies to talk about, plus another new comic that takes an existing universes in new and different directions.

Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II have finally reached the volume of their crossover events that averages their own Roman numerals. But just as the announcement came that DC animation was working with Nickelodeon to produce the first volume of their series as an animated feature, they announced this concluding chapter to a series that in no way was planned to be a trilogy. The creative team has put together two great series. With the addition of Kevin Eastman on variant covers and apparently some interiors, this one could be the best yet.

Got to love that raw Eastman art with bonus Batman! 

X-Men Grand Design: X-Tinction

I know Ed Piskor's work isn't made for everyone. But I've absolutely loved the previous four issues of this series that covered the first twenty-five or so years of X-Men continuity. He streamlined the history to make things fit together without contradicting the established history. It's been really cool and the style he developed on Hip Hop Family Tree works wonders here.

The new run takes the team through the Australian years and into the Silvestri / Lee era of grand art. I expect the X-Tinction Agenda storyline to play a large role here, but the cover below makes it look like we will see plenty from the Reavers as well. Whatever the case, I'm ready to see two more superb over-sized issues of this series!

A simple design evokes the classic cover to Uncanny X-Men 251.

Five Years

Terry Moore has written for Marvel and DC among others before, but the Strangers in Paradise creator has often been known for his more nuanced down to Earth approach to comics, both in that seminal series and his later books like Echo and Rachel Rising. Following a year's return to his original title in Strangers in Paradise XXV (for the 25th anniversary of the property), he's now doing something other publishers have been doing for years: a crossover.

The story spins right out of the previous series but Moore promises it's a jumping on point for everyone. It does star every major character he's introduced so far from all those series above and his short-lived Motor Girl as well. All have played at least brief roles in the last year's storylines, so it will be interesting to see exactly how everything comes together for this one.

The one thing I can say for certain: with Moore on art it will be gorgeous.

That wraps up this month's comic picks. What upcoming books are you most anticipating? Let me know in the comments.

 As always, all cover images are copyright their respective owners. 

Don't sleep on Newer Gods!

While this site focuses much on my own writing and other areas of interest, I have other blogs out there to focus on expanded views of things outside the purview here. One such outlet is the nearly year old blog Newer Gods, where I am doing a week by week rundown of comics featuring every appearance of the New Gods after Jack Kirby's initial run.

Now seems like the perfect time to mention it, as I just reviewed the beautifully rendered Uncanny X-Men and New Teen Titans, where the two heroes from different universes suddenly exist in the same one to conveniently team up to fight Darkseid and a reborn Dark Phoenix. Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Walter Simonson, it's just amazing to look at. The story is all kinds of crazy as well, so be sure to head over and check out both parts of this epic review.

A new update will debut on Thursday and every Thursday for the foreseeable future. (There's a lot of New Gods appearances to cover.) So strap in and be sure to follow the fun of Newer Gods.

Great Art: Boom Boom by Mike Maihack

I've been a huge fan of the work of Mike Maihack for quite some time. His prints are all over our house, including my personal favorite featuring Yukio. His work on Cleopatra in Space has brought one of the most fun series of all ages graphic novels to life and I recommend it to everyone, especially with Fallen Empires, the fifth volume, only a few days from release. Last year, he did a series of X-Men pieces and this one featuring Boom Boom in her original look is one of my favorites.

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And after you're done admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from me this week!

Great art: X-Men and Fantastic Four by Mike Mignola

I'm fairly sure this is related to the Days of Future Present stories through the Marvel Annuals in the early 90s, but I'm not sure where exactly this piece of art by Mike Mignola was ever published. But dang, it's some fine work on characters he rarely drew.

And did I mention everyone has pouches! Woo!

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And after you're done admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff from me this week!

Great art: X-Men by Tom Fowler

I opened the week with a New Years picture from 1975, so it seems apt to end the week with some great art by Tom Fowler featuring the mid-80s incarnation of the X-Men, lead by my always personal favorite, punk rock Storm.

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff on the site this week!

Best Character Ever Redux: Iceman

I started the Best Character Ever series on the reborn Super Powered Fiction just a few weeks ago with a look at Iceman, probably one of my favorite characters as a child, mostly due to his appearances as part of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I talked a lot about how I felt he was a character that could develop into a major solo star at Marvel, but the company always seemed unwilling to pull that trigger.

Then this happened.

Frankly, I find this bit a bit insulting. And not just because this conversation pretty much makes Jean Grey the worst human being on the planet for outing him like this.

I have no problem at all with Iceman being interested in other men. Over the past thirty years, it certainly has been hinted and poked at, all the way back to the Cloud storyline way back in his New Defenders days. But I do have a problem with calling him gay. While the young Bobby presented here has not had the history of his older self, he is still supposedly the exact same man. And in fifty years of comic history, Iceman is very much a character with more than a passing interest in the ladies.

Champions made him unrelentingly attracted to Darkstar, complete with thoughts of his love for her. In Defenders he was completely confused for his attraction to Cloud, a being with both a male and female form.

Iceman is very clearly a bisexual man, somewhere definitely lower on the Kinsey Scale than a 6. But sadly modern fiction, especially modern comics, suffer from a distinct lack of nuance when it comes to sexuality. Multiple heroes have been created or outed as gay, but bisexual characters are few and far between. Only Mystique and Daken have really been presented as bi in the X-books, which seems to make bisexuality and status as an antihero equal.

Though Brian Michal Bendis is on record that he does not want to commit any level of bi-erasure with this move, as presented All-New X-Men 40 is completely that. Hopefully more nuanced writers will be able to build on this scene in the future in more appropriate ways for the character's history.

In a perfect world, Marvel would use this as a way to spinoff Iceman into his own series. Let the older X-Man finally go out on his own and accept the fact that he likes men and women. Heck, you could make him even more varied in his dating patterns than Spider-Man while finally giving the world a book interested in presenting a fascinating bisexual character, something comics have failed at for years.

Right now, I will wait and see whether this will lead to a bright or dismal future for Iceman. Either way though, it is great to see his name mentioned more than it has in years.

If you are interested in the full story check out the comic from your local shop or on Comixology.

What's Up for March 15, 2015

It has been another oddball week spent trying to play catch up with way too much stuff. Reading and watching time falls by the wayside during those times, so I didn't dig too deep into the library I have beside my bed. But here is what I was working on in the time I did have!

Best Character Ever: Iceman

Art by Joe Madureira. Character owned by Marvel.

For a lot of kids the first superhero they fell in love with is Spider-Man or Superman or Batman. Maybe the Hulk. My earliest memory of superheroes probably was Richard Donner’s Superman, but he wasn’t my favorite hero from early childhood.

No, that was Iceman.