Marvel Previews Picks: June 2012
This will be quick because, bizarrely, there are NO trade paperbacks being offered this month that I’ve got an interest in picking up. It’s good news for my wallet at least. Of course, that’s also because I already own one of the titles being offered in hardcover: “X-Men: Schism.” So if you were waiting for this one to hit softcover before picking it up, know that it comes highly recommended from yours truly.
Spider-Men #’s 1-2: Still no indication of what this series is going to be about beyond the teaser that was released a month back. All we know beyond the title is that it’ll be written by Bendis with art from Sara Pichelli, which is good enough for me… to pick it up in softcover. Still, I have to imagine that a retailer like Brian Hibbs must be having an absolute fit in trying to figure out how much he should order. If it is the long awaited/dreaded crossover between the Ultimate/616 Marvel Universes, then it will be a very big deal. Of course, it could wind up being a huge bait-and-switch, but by not providing us any information about this series Marvel can say that they didn’t actually go back on their word. It’s things like this that make me glad I wait for the trade so that I can see how this will all shake out by the time it comes to put down my money.
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger — The Man In Black #1: I stopped buying this series after the first “Gunslinger” volume which had art by Sean Phillips. The reason I’m mentioning this one is because they’re reversing the trend of artists with increasingly lower profiles that have taken turns illustrating this series. Mind you, NONE of these artists are bad by any means, but they’ve trended towards people with dedicated niche followings than household names like Jae Lee who did most of the original run. I bring this up because after Phillips, Luke Ross, Michael Lark, and Laurence Campbell, Alex Maleev will be illustrating the fifth and final part of this series. He’s a great choice, and sales will certainly go up, but I’ve got the same issue that I had when Phillips was drawing this — these are five issues of something (maybe “Scarlet”) that he won’t be doing with Bendis. It’s an irrational thought, but this is still the first thing that comes to my head when I see something like this.
Fury MAX #3: Part of the solicitation text reads, “Witness the most brutal battle ever put on a comic book page!” Coming from Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov, that actually sounds remotely plausible. …As opposed to every other bit of hype from these solicitations.
Marvel Zomnibus HC: “Zomnibus.” Now that’s clever. This collects every story involving the “Marvel Zombies,” except for the “Marvel Zombies Destroy!” miniseries which will be in the middle of serialization when this hits the stands. So if you’re buying this with the hope of getting every “Marvel Zombies” story ever put to page, YOU’RE SCREWED!