Dark Horse Previews Picks: July 2013

The big news from Dark Horse out of Wondercon a couple weeks ago was that they have an interesting new “Star Wars” project coming out later this year.  Titled, “The Star Wars” it’s an adaptation of one of George Lucas’ earliest drafts of the original script for his immortal space opera.  To give you an indication of how different this early version was, it still  had Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, but there’s no father/son dynamic here.  Both are older characters, Generals in the war.  You’ve also got Annakin Starkiller, a final attack on a fortress, and wookies in spaceships.  It’ll be written by J.W. Rinzler, author of the excellent “The Making of The Empire Strikes Back” with art by Mike Mayhew.  Having Mayhew do the interiors is quite a coup as the man has produced some striking covers over the years, with his sequential work almost matching that caliber (at least in the “Avengers Annual” he did a few years back with Bendis).  Of course, delivering that quality of art makes me worry for the schedule of the planned eight-issue series, set to start later this year, but I’m certainly intrigued by this nonetheless.

B.P.R.D.:  1948: These “flashback” volumes of the series have always been less interesting than the proper ones deepening the ongoing story of the organization in the present day.  Not even the presence of Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon on art duties for “1947” could make me wish that we hadn’t gotten a new volume along those lines back then.  However, this will be the first one co-written with regular series co-writer John Arcudi and I’m hoping that his presence will bring some spark to this entry.  It does feature “atomic-bred monsters in the Utah desert” so that’s promising.

The Best of Milligan and McCarthy: While I’ve talked about how writer Peter Milligan has been a real hit-or-miss writer over the years, one school of thinking holds that his collaborations with Brendan McCarthy have been the most striking and successful for both parties.  That idea is borne out here as their most noteworthy collaborations are collected here, some of them for the first time.  I like Milligan well enough, but I’m honestly not all that familiar with McCarthy’s work.  Some would also say that’s a crime in itself, so come September I’ll be rectifying that by picking this up.

Blade of the Immortal vol. 27:  Mist on the Spider’s Web: A new volume of this series is ALWAYS noteworthy around here.  It’s solicitation here is notable for two things:  that this is the first time they’ve acknowledged the series will be wrapping up, and the volume will be arriving six months after the last one.  I don’t know the exact ratio for how the Dark Horse release lines up with the Japanese editions, but vol. 30 was the last one in Japan.  So if this release schedule holds then we’ll be reading the final volume in the first quarter of 2015.  And you thought “Avengers 2” or “Star Wars:  Episode VII” were going to be the biggest events of that year…

Blood Blockade Battlefront vol. 4: I… honestly didn’t think that we’d see this volume.  This series hasn’t been tearing up the sales charts like Yasuhiro Nightow’s previous title, “Trigun,” did so I thought that given the company’s tendency to stop publishing titles in a “base three” system (see “Satsuma Gishiden,” “Translucent,” “Ghost Talker’s Daydream,” and “Reiko The Zombie Shop,” which each had three, three, six and six volumes released before they were placed on “hiatus”) meant that the third volume would be the last one we saw over here.  I’m glad to see that it isn’t.  This is where I’d talk about angsting over whether or not it makes it past volume six, but given that they’re only up to volume five in Japan and the title’s irregular serialization, we’ve got some time before that happens.

In the meantime, I’ll start angsting about whether or not we’ll see vol. 3 of “Drifters” (recently released in Japan) over here anytime soon.

Catalyst Comix #1 (of 9): Back in the 90’s Dark Horse put out a mini-superhero universe called “Comics Greatest World” that gave us the likes of Ghost, X and, uh… Barb Wire.  Though the former two have since been revived, there’s not a lot of love or nostalgia for any of the other characters from the failed imprint.  Enter Joe Casey.  Best known around here for his re-imagining of Jim Lee’s “Wildcats” into a corporate superhero thriller, the man has always had an inclination to be “different for different’s sake” when it comes to his comics.  That has sometimes resulted in titles that are more interesting than they are entertaining; though, when he’s starting with detritus such as “Comics Greatest World” I can’t see how that would be a liability here.

Neon Genesis Evangelion:  The Shinji Ikari Detective Diary vol. 1: Now you all know that I love Carl Horn’s work as a manga localizer, but even that love has its limits.  Case in point.  It’s another alternative universe “Evangelion” series trading on Japan’s love of mysteries as one Shinji Ikari winds up working at a detective agency run by Kaji Ryoji with Kaworu Nagisa as his assistant.  I wouldn’t think that this could be as bad as “Campus Apocalypse,” but I’m not in any hurry to find out.  If I want to be entertained by alternate universe “Evangelion” stories I can just go re-read the existing volumes of “The Shinji Ikari Raising Project” or the “Evangelion Comic Tribute.”

Sin Titulo HC: I’m not familiar with the webcomic this collects, but it’s written and illustrated by frequent Grant Morrison collaborator Cameron Stewart.  Given the quality of his work in the past, I’m certain that this will be a visual treat.  Even if he’s unproven as a writer, I’m inclined to put down some money to find out if he has the chops.

Smoke/Ashes (Paperback and Limited HC: I picked up “Smoke” at Comic-Con last year, having heard good things about this dystopian tale of a near-future England.  Those good things turned out to be true.  However, the Kickstarter-funded sequel to it nearly fell apart after writer Alex De Campi had a falling out with artist James Hodgkins (a.k.a. Jimmy Broxton) over his interpretation of her script, I believe.  Fortunately, the project managed to come together after De Campi enlisted the assistance of “Smoke” artist Igor Kordey, Collen Doran, Carla Speed McNeil, Bill Sienkiewicz, Richard Pace and Dan McDaid in order to finish it.  Both volumes are now being reissued in a two-in-one edition, which I will have no problem picking up even though it means re-buying something I already own.

Star Wars vol. 1:  In the Shadow of Yavin: Brian Wood’s series gets its first collection.  The buzz is that the title is as good as its sales have been explosive.  Will I be more entertained by this than his creator-owned title “The Massive?”  By all rights I shouldn’t be, but keep watching this space to find out.  Also this month…

Star Wars:  Dark Times vol. 6:  Fire Carrier: This picks up from the second volume as the focus goes back to the other Jedi on the run in this series, K’Kruhk.  Still on the run with a group of padawans, he’s forced to land on an Imperial-run planet and things quickly go from bad to worse after that.  It sounds fine, but the problem is that I’ve always thought the focus of this series was on Dass Jennir’s struggle to survive, and how a Jedi with a mediocre connection to the force like him could wind up being a great hero in these times.  I hope that if the series comes back for a seventh volume that we’ll get back to his story (and to the great Doug Wheatley on art).