Dark Horse Previews Picks: January 2021
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Everything vol. 2: Black Friday
The second and concluding volume of writer Christopher Cantwell and artist I.N.J. Culbard’s series about the weirder side of consumerism. While the launch of the Everything superstore in Holland, Michigan was a rousing success by any metric, there are still a few people in town who haven’t been won over by the store’s charms. That’s because they’re the people who are either immune or have been wronged by the signals that the people (or androids, or aliens, or alien androids) have been sending out from the store. Vol. 1 was a read that channelled the good kind of different. The kind that draws you in even as you’re not entirely sure what’s going on. I’m not expecting vol. 2 to provide all the answers, even though I’m sure it’ll be as solid a read as the first one was.
Avatar: The Next Shadow #1 (of 4): This is James Cameron’s “Avatar,” not “The Last Airbender” “Avatar,” which is also published by Dark Horse. Cameron’s “Avatar” is in a weird place because while the film made billions of dollars, it doesn’t seem to have had the cultural staying power you’d expect from that kind of success. The director has been hard at work on the sequels for the last decade and the first one is supposed to be done. I hope it’ll be good because, up to this point, Cameron has shown that he knows a thing or two about how to make a good movie sequel. As for this comic, Jake Sully is doubting his place amongst the Na’vi people as tensions between their tribes start to boil over. Okay, sure. Jeremy Barlow writes and Josh Hood illustrates this miniseries.
Bill & Ted Are Doomed: “Face the Music” came and went without embarrassing everyone involved in it, and even managed to charm some of the people who braved cinemas and drive-ins to check it out. There are far worse fates to be had for a film sequel that has arrived decades after its last installment. As for this comic prequel to the film, I didn’t hear much about it after seeing it featured in these solicitations. Still, as it’s being written by Evan Dorkin, who did the previous “Bill & Ted” comics and illustrated by Roger Langridge, it can’t really be that bad. Can it?
Breaklands: The bad news: Civilization collapsed 150 years ago. The good news: Everyone now has superpowers! Well, everyone except for Kasa Fain. Which is a real problem for her when her little brother, who has potentially world-changing powers, is kidnapped by some people who want to use his abilities to further their ends. I can’t remember when this series was published, or if it was even published by Dark Horse and they’re just putting out the collected edition themselves. It comes to us from writer Justin Jordan and artist Tyasseta, and the writer’s involvement gives me the impression that the “Mad Max” meets “Akira” approximation in the solicitation text might not be too far off the mark. In terms of pure action that is. Jordan is good with that stuff, but he has yet to show he can match the emotional impact those two properties can hit you with.
Crimson Flower #1 (of 4): Nice to see Matt Kindt continue to stick with the company that gave him his first big break. This time he’s teaming up with artist Matt Lesniewski for a story about a woman who turns to Russian folk tales to cope after her family is killed in a violent home invasion. This leads her to track down the man responsible for her family’s death, only to find a government conspiracy that’s using folk tales to turn children into assassins. Uh… okay. “Ether” had a nice high-concept premise to grasp, but this looks like it requires genuine faith in the writer’s ability to deliver a good story to get excited about. It might take me a little while to work up enough to give this one a shot.
ElfQuest: Stargazer’s Hunt: “The Final Quest” wasn’t so much of an end for “ElfQuest” as a whole, as it was for it’s ostensible main character. So if creators Wendy and Richard Pini, joined by artist Sonny Strait, want to tell more stories within that world, they’ve got plenty of room in which to do so. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stargazer is their choice for this first post-”Final Quest” story as he finds himself lacking for direction in a world without his brother in all but blood. As someone who has read through a good chunk of “ElfQuest,” including “The Final Quest,” I’m invested enough in the series to check this out and see what the future has in store for Skywise. “ElfQuest” novices are, as always, recommended to check out the first “Complete Elfquest” volume and then decide if they want more of the series from there.
Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook HC: Exactly what it says on the tin: Sketches from Mignola while he was in quarantine like the rest of us were earlier this year. Given that the creator doesn’t do a whole lot of sequential art these days, this is likely the most concentrated dose of his art we’ll see for a while. It is, however, an oversized 208-page book retailing for $40. If that sounds like a good deal for you, then you’re welcome to it.
Spy Island: Writer Chelsea Cain attracted a lot of warranted and un-warranted controversy for her last two comics series, “Man-Eaters” and “Mockingbird,” respectively. “Spy Island,” however, has flown under the radar in comparison. It’s set in the region of the Bermuda Triangle where the best spies in the world keep a lookout for threats that range from temporal portals, monsters, and villains set on world domination. Nora Freud is just one such spy, and the ongoing grind of dealing with this kind of trouble has become boring for her. She’s about to call it quits when her cryptozoologist sister shows up warning of an imminent attack on the island she’s on. An attack… of mermaids! Controversial or not, this sounds appealingly nuts. I’ll give it a shot.
The Usagi Yojimbo Saga vol. 1 TP & Ltd. HC: I already own all of the volumes which make up this collection. Which includes Usagi’s encounter with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While I will never not recommend this volume to anyone looking to see why the adventures of Stan Sakai’s Rabbit Ronin are so beloved, that’s not the reason I’m bringing it up here. No, I’m bringing it up because the fact that it’s coming out through Dark Horse while IDW is the current publisher for the current run of “Usagi” comics offers just a little more proof that the split between Sakai and his former publisher wasn’t an acrimonious one.