Dark Horse Previews Picks: August 2018
The company may have lost the “Star Wars” and “Conan” licenses to Marvel, but they’ve been getting plenty of Disney licenses to help balance things out. Last month’s solicitations had the debut of an “Incredibles” miniseries while this month has the first issue of Frozen: Breaking Boundaries which is described as the first multi-issue comics tale for the franchise. There’s also Jasmine’s New Pet which tells the story of how the princess from “Aladdin” got her pet tiger. Things get even better later this year when Dark Horse will publish Zootopia: Friends to the Rescue, a 48-page comic spotlighting stories from the movie’s protagonists Judy and Nick’s childhood.
The existence of these comics Dark Horse does raise an interesting question as to why Disney isn’t publishing “Zootopia” comics through Marvel. Then again, it’s not like this is the first title they’ve licensed out to other publishers to make comics about. IDW has the licenses for “Big Hero 6,” “Ducktales,” “Tangled,” and all-ages “Star Wars” comics. Yen Press has also published manga based on “Big Hero 6” and will be doing so soon for “Star Wars.” It’s almost as if the company has realized that Marvel has its own dedicated comics-buying audience and is incapable of expanding beyond that to reach younger readers. Or maybe there’s lots of inter-company politics, such as the never-less-than-strained relationship between Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel President Ike Perlmutter, are what’s causing these licenses to be licensed out.
Whatever the reason is the main takeaway from this is that Dark Horse is getting a potentially very lucrative license out of it. That’s their win! Maybe it’ll also pave the way to getting other Disney licenses… especially if the Fox merger goes through and the “Aliens,” “Predator,” and “Buffy” licenses wind up in Marvel’s hands.
The Seeds #1 (of 4): What do swarming bees, rich people scrambling into rockets to escape Earth, the lawless wilds of a place called Zone-B, and cantankerous aliens who have come to collect the last dregs of humanity into a celestial embryo bank all have in common? They’ve all sprung from the fertile mind of writer Ann Nocenti into this new miniseries with art from David Aja. Tying all of these things together is Astra, a journalist who stumbles upon the story of a lifetime. The catch is that if she publishes it, she’ll destroy the last hope of humanity. That the central story of this miniseries sounds familiar shouldn’t be counted against it, since it sounds like it’ll allow the narrative to sprawl off into some weird and worthwhile directions.
Incognegro: Renaissance HC: I finally got around to picking up the reissue of the original “Incognegro” graphic novel and it was pretty great. It told a compelling murder mystery that effortlessly worked the awful racial politics of the early 20th Century into it. Not an easy read, but definitely a worthwhile one. “Incognegro” also ended in a way that didn’t lend itself to a sequel, which is one reason why “Renaissance” is a prequel set in 1920’s Harlem. Here, rookie reporter Zane Pinchback will have to go incognegro for the first time to find out who killed a black writer at an interractial party. Now, there was a time when a $20 price point for a hardcover collection of a five-issue miniseries would’ve struck me as being prohibitively expensive. Those days are long gone, so I’ll definitely be picking this up when it arrives in October.
Predator: Hunters II #1: Arriving in time for the new movie. I can’t recall what the first “Hunters” miniseries was about, though the solicitation text helpfully informs me that the title characters are a special group that have been trained to hunt the Predators. We’re also told that their first go-round with the Predators didn’t go all that well, but they’re ready to get in the hunt again. Chris Warner, veteran writer/artist/editor at Dark Horse, writes this miniseries with Agustin Padilla providing the art. While I’m not completely indifferent to the “Predator” franchise at the company, this doesn’t strike me as interesting enough to give it a look. That is, unless the new movie is good enough to get me interested in these comics again.
Terminator: Sector War #1: This new “Terminator” series would ostensibly fall into the same category as the above-mentioned “Predator” title. What this one has that the other one doesn’t is a writer who has not only done good work in just about every title I’ve read from him, but has also shown himself to be adept at working on Dark Horse’s licensed titles: Brian Wood. “Sector War” picks up on the idea that there were two Terminators sent back in time to 1984. One to kill Sarah Connor and the other to kill N.Y.P.D. officer Lucy Castro. Why her? You’ll have to read the miniseries to find out. It’s also a safe bet that the setting and time will allow for some biting social commentary from the writer, but done in a way that won’t distract from the action.
Doctor Star & the Kingdom of Lost Tomorrows: Which “Black Hammer” spin-off miniseries was this again? That’s right, it’s the one that looks to be borrowing from James Robinson’s “Starman” run to an uncomfortable degree with art from the less talented Fiumara brother. While the first two volumes of “Black Hammer” were quite good, I’m a little skeptical about this one for the aforementioned reasons. I’ll probably pick it up anyway just to see if writer Jeff Lemire has a clever plan to clear the low bar my expectations have set for this.
Sword Daughter vol. 1: She Brightly Burns HC: While I mentioned above that the march of time has allowed me to view paying $20 for a hardcover collection of five issues as an acceptable thing, I haven’t quite reached the point in paying the same amount for a four-issue collection. That’s what we have here with the first collection of Brian Wood and Mack Chater’s new viking-themed series. While seeing the writer return to “Northlanders” territory would normally be an easy sell for me, the slim page count compared to the cover price and format does leave me hesitant about picking it up. It’ll probably be good, as the idea of a viking father taking his daughter along on a quest for revenge through Europe has great potential, but I’ll probably wait for the softcover version or deluxe hardcover edition (which should collect two or more volumes) before picking it up.
Empowered & Sistah Spooky’s High School Hell: It looks like this is going to be one of those rare years where we get two volumes of “Empowered.” Which will certainly ease the pain of waiting for vol. 11 of the main series to come along and resolve the cliffhanger from vol. 10. For the uninitiated, Empowered and Sistah Spooky were bitter rivals for a good long while with a lot of that enmity coming from how the former looked a whole lot like the blonde mean girls that used to torment the latter during high school. Unfortunately said mean girls are still around and are currently planning to murder Spooky in order to claim all of her mystical power for themselves. As for Empowered, she’s going to do her best to help out her hard-won friend even if that means reliving the hell that was high school in a more literal incarnation. Creator Adam Warren writes the miniseries with Carla Speed McNeil, who knows a thing or two about putting high schoolers through the wringer after her work on “No Mercy,” providing the art.
The Complete Angel Catbird: I picked up the first volume of Margaret Atwood and Johnnie Christmas’ series about a scientist who turns himself into a cat/bird hybrid and finds himself right in the middle of a conflict between other human/animal hybrids and thought it was alright. Volumes two and three came out a while back and… well, I have yet to get around to picking them up. With this omnibus edition, it looks like I won’t have to. It’ll be cheaper just to sell the first volume and buy this edition instead.
Aliens: The Essential Comics vol. 1: Collecting the first three “Aliens” miniseries published by Dark Horse. Which means that this is basically vol. 1 of the existing “Aliens Omnibus” under a different trade dress. What I can’t tell is if this is in a larger or smaller format than the company’s omnibus editions which would be a notable distinction since it would mean that these comics were now being reprinted in their original print size. That said, there’s a reason Dark Horse has been able to reprint these particular comics multiple times over the years. The first miniseries is still one of the best “Aliens” stories even after accounting for the retconning that had to take place after “Alien 3” killed off its main characters. So this is recommended if you’re a fan of the franchise, regardless of what size it winds up coming in.
Mob Psycho 100 vol. 1: Reigen is an exorcist who has a knack for keeping prices lower than the competition. What’s his secret? Well, he’s not actually an exorcist. He just employs Shingo, a shy and awkward kid with psychic powers, to do the actual ghostbusting at far less than minimum wage. The problem is that Shingo has to keep his emotions in check or else he’ll unleash the kind of devastation that would bring on an “Akira”-level catastrophe. So Reigen has to act as a counselor to this kid he’s also exploiting. That’s the setup for what is Dark Horse’s biggest manga release of the year, coming from ONE — the co-creator of “One-Punch Man” — and on the heels of a successful anime adaptation, with a second season due later this year. If the future of manga at Dark Horse essentially comes down to publishing titles that have already had a successful anime or live-action adaptation, then publishing interesting-sounding titles like this are the way they should be going.