Image Previews Picks: November 2021
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
What’s the Place Furthest From Here? #1
Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss broke into the industry via their smash indie hit “4 Kids Walk Into a Bank.” It was a really entertaining heist story, told from the perspective of the kids who were planning it, that was only held back by it’s too-dark final act. Still, after this comic made their name, you’d hope that the two of them would be working together again in the future. That time has finally come as “What’s the Place Furthest From Here?” again has them telling a story from the perspective of kids. Only this time the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic environment where it appears that only kids are living in the ruins. One of them believes that there must be something better for them out in the wasteland, and when she takes off to go look for it, her gang gears up to bring her back. This may sound kind of grim, but I’ve got hope that this will capture the winning sense of irreverence that powered Rosenberg and Boss’ breakout. It’s hard not to be optimistic about that when the solicitation text cites “your record collection” among the things that matter most to you.
Newburn #1: Easton Newburn is a private eye with a very specific beat. He makes his living investigating conflicts between rival crime families. His latest case is a bit different, as it sees him investigating the death of a man who was stealing from the family he belonged to. The catch is that they weren’t the ones who did the killing. This straight-faced approximation of a British crime drama comes to us from writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Jacob Phillips. After “Spider-Man: Life Story,” Zdarsky is going to have to come up with something more distinctive if he wants me to give him a second chance. As for Phillips, I’d be willing to give him a second chance after his art propped up “That Texas Blood” though I think it’s going to take something more interesting than this for me to do so.
Phenom X #1: Actor John Leguizamo co-writes this miniseries, with Aram Rapaport and Joe Miciak, about Joe Gomez, who has been imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. If you’re wondering whether or not this series will be about his legal fight to obtain his freedom or his plan to break out of jail then the answer is “None of the above.” Instead, Joe volunteers for a secret government experiment and instead of winding up dead, he winds up with shapeshifting abilities. This happens just in time for him to become embroiled in a war of superpowers that’s breaking out on the streets of New York City. Chris Batista handles the art, and while I can’t say this setup sounds like anything special, he’s done enough quality work in the past to ensure that this comic will at least look good.
Redneck #31: I was wondering what happened to this series after the quality of vols 3 & 4 had me put it on my “Best of 2020” list. The good news is that it’s finally back… for it’s final storyline! “Texas Forever” sees the Bowman clan facing off against Demus and his allies for the future of all vampires. That this is going to be a bloody, vicious showdown should be obvious. If it stays true to the spirit of previous volumes, then we can also expect to see a lot of surprising twists and some shocking deaths before the end. Best of luck to Donny Cates and Lisandro Estherren as they try to deliver on that. (Oh, and the review of vol. 5 is forthcoming!)
The Scumbag #11: So, this series is coming back for a third arc. Let’s see what Rick Remender has in store for us… An arc where a method has been found to extract the Formula Maxima from Ernie? And the process of doing so will kill him? I’d sure like to see that. Buuuuuuuut if I know anything about Remender’s comics, it’s that he loves to tease the idea of the death of his protagonist, and not actually follow through on it. Yeah, I think I should just sell my copy of vol. 1 and be done with this title before we get to this “Goldenbrowneye” arc.
Geiger 80-page Giant #1: Not a single story, but an anthology of tales about characters from the “Geiger” universe. Which really doesn’t do anything for me as I have yet to check out Geoff Johns’ and Gary Frank’s post-apocalyptic series. That’s something I’ll be doing the month this ships as Geiger vol. 1 is also in these solicitations. Still, if you have already read the series in single-issue form then you should know whether or not this will be for you. I do find it concerning that the solicitation text has this issue promising a preview of Johns and Frank’s new series “Junkyard Joe.” You’d think a second volume of “Geiger” would be on deck first, but what do I know about sustaining the momentum of what is clearly a series-of-miniseries.
Post Americana: The Bubble was the most sophisticated nuclear fallout shelter in the world, and meant to serve as the new headquarters of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government once the bombs started dropping. Unfortunately the members of the EB didn’t make it. A whole bunch of one-percenters did, however. Eighty years later, one of them has declared themselves the new President of America, and his first order of business is subjugating the wasteland. Which is something that the survivors of the fallout aren’t too keen on. The last time artist Steve Skroce dealt with future politics was in the Brian K. Vaughan-written “We Stand on Guard,” about a war between the U.S. and Canada that was more depressing than insightful. This time Skroce is writing as well as drawing and we’ll either get something similarly depressing, something actually insightful, or a rip-roaring post-apocalyptic action extravaganza as the have-nots wreak glorious bloody vengeance against the haves! No points for guessing which one of these scenarios I’d most like to read about.
Die vol. 4: Bleed: Surprised that this didn’t get the “Above-the-Board” recommendation this month? No? Because you’ve read my reviews of the previous volumes? Well, all right then. Kieron Gilen and Stephanie Hans’ series about teenagers who escaped a world inspired by fantasy role-playing-games only to return to it as adults hasn’t been a bad series. However, it hasn’t quite had the spark of manic fun and invention (and wit) that has driven Gillen’s best work. That all could change with this final volume as the cast has to reckon with the one thing that every RPG party has to face at least once in a campaign: A dungeon. I’m hoping that the crawl will lead to greatness at the end, or satisfaction at the very least.
Angelic vol. 1: Heirs and Graces: I don’t know why this is being offered again, or if it’s being reoffered as a full-size collection. What I do know is that this miniseries about a flying monkey who teams up with a small walrus in a floating pod to find out what happened to humanity was pretty great. Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard told a fascinatingly weird story that actually had some insightful things to say about the human condition. If you didn’t catch this series the first time it came around, then you owe it to yourself to give it a look now.
Deadly Class #49: Meanwhile, a more entertaining series from Remender, and artist Wes Craig, gears up for its final arc. Marcus and Saya have been through a lot together. Whether it involved sex, murding a whole bunch of people, the latter stabbing the former through the chest, these two have stuck together through thick and thin. Now it’s time to see if their honor as assassins will be the one thing that will tear them apart, because they’ve been hired to kill each other. I’d have thought that the final arc of this series would involve the two of them burning King’s Dominion to the ground. Which means that it either happened in the previous arc, or there’s some clever misdirection going on here. In either case, it sounds like things are going to get a whole lot worse for this title’s protagonists. This isn’t a problem since this is the one series I read where it gets better the worse things go for its main characters.