Above-the-Board Recommendation: Reckless vol. 1 HC “My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies,” “Bad Weekend,” and “Pulp” were just the warm-up.  With “Reckless,” Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are set to give us their first full-length original graphic novel.  It’s about Ethan Reckless, someone who’s willing to take on any job in the sun-drenched streets of […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: Legends of the DC Universe:  Doug Mahnke HC I’ve always thought of Mahnke as an underrated artist within DC.  Even though he’s done quality work on lots of titles over the years, his most high-profile work was on the latter half of Geoff Johns’ “Green Lantern” run about a decade ago.  Since then, […]

It’s another war story from Garth Ennis, and not even the last one I’ll read this year:  The deluxe edition of “Into the Blue” is currently en route to me.  That this is another war story from Ennis should also tell you what you’re in for:  A respectful tale of combat grunts trying to do […]

That this comic exists at all is surprising.  “The Mask” seemed like a concept that had run its course in the years after the 1994 Jim Carrey film brought everyone’s attention to the comics.  If you’re going to revive this property over a decade after the last comic saw print, then you’d best have a […]

According to sales numbers and demand for back issues, this could very well be The Next Big Thing in comics.  With orders rising on each issue in a way that we haven’t seen since the earlier days of “The Walking Dead,” this new series from writer James Tynion IV and artist Werther Dell’Edera has clearly […]

“The Ride” is a series of crime comics about what happens to the people who come into possession of, or cross paths with a certain 1968 Camero.  Don’t go expecting any “Christine” style shenanigans as the proceedings are played entirely straight.  However, the car itself is usually incidental to the story in question, and that’s […]

It doesn’t have a volume number attached to it, but this is essentially vol. 4 of Dan Slott’s run.  “The Ultron Agenda” also serves to bring a lot of the subplots from the past issues — the A.I. rights movement, Jocasta’s human yearnings, Aaron Stack’s machines-first feelings, Arno Stark’s treachery, Sunset Bain’s scheming — together […]

I was planning on skipping this volume because I thought it was just a tie-in to the event.  Then I noticed it was labeled “vol. 3” and actually contained a proper issue of the series.  That being said, the two-issue tie-in from writer Gail Simone and artist Paolo Villanelli is the best part of this […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: Batman:  City of Bane Complete Collection First of all, I am expecting this to be good.  Writer Tom King has been grinding Batman down for the past few volumes so that Bane’s takeover of Gotham will look convincing.  While it’s always hard to see the Dark Knight on the losing end of a […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: Crossover #1 You know the story:  Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw first hit it big at Image with “God Country” before moving onto bigger things at Marvel.  Now they’re re-teaming at Image for a series that borrows a bit from their breakout title, and then goes much bigger with it.  While the solicitation […]