Dark Horse Penguin Picks: November 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Resident Alien vol. 8: The Book of Life
After vol. 6 was meant to be an ending of sorts for the series, “Resident Alien” returned for another round of charmingly low-key, small-town, sci-fi stories in vol. 7. It also ended with the reveal of a major change to alien-in-hiding Harry Vanderspiegel’s status quo. I won’t spoil it here, but when you consider that vol. 7 was titled “The Book of Love” and put it together with vol. 8’s title, it won’t be too hard to figure out what it is. So while that is likely to drive the action here, we’re also told that Harry unknowingly makes his presence known to the Feds again. Which means that plot thread isn’t quite as closed as it initially seemed. Still, writer Peter Hogan and artist Steve Parkhouse have been doing right by this series for a while and I have no doubt they’ll continue to do so with storylines both new and old here.
Giant Robot Hellboy Returns #1 (of 3): I was wondering how they were going to collect the original three-issue “Giant Robot Hellboy” miniseries and now I have my answer. This volume picks up with scientists combing the ocean floor for signs of the title character, only to come across an interdimensional portal ready to let all sorts of bad things into our world. Which makes it sound like we’re getting the Mignolaverse take on “Pacific Rim.” I’ve got no problems with that since we’ve got Mike Mignola writing this and one of the all-time great “Hellboy” artists in Duncan Fegredo back illustrating this.
The Brood #1: This is another “From the World of Minor Threats” miniseries, which I can now say is a good thing based on what I’ve seen from this world so far. It’s about Napoleon Archimedes, a criminal who thought he was smart enough to have it all: Raise a family and take over the world. Unfortunately his plan to combine these two things saw him achieve neither and now that he’s facing his final days, he finds himself forced to choose a successor to his criminal empire. Which is easier said than done given how his scions feel about him these days. This comes to us from writer Heath Corson, someone who’s coming into the medium via Hollywood, having worked on multiple DC Animated projects as well as the “Animal Kingdom” TV series. If co-creators Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum trust him with this, then that’s good enough for me. Fortunately, I already know that the artist illustrating this, Ian “I.N.J.” Culbard has an established history of delivering great art on whatever project he works on.
Christmas 365 #1: A challenging year has left the Rockwell family at their wits end as they head into what is generally regarded as the most joyous of holidays. It isn’t until family patriarch Peter takes the unlikely advice from a mall Santa literally that he decides to start turning things around for them. One Christmas at a time. I’m still a little confused as to what this miniseries is going to be about – will it really involve Christmas every day – but it has an interesting creative team attached to it. While Gerard Way’s brother Mikey doesn’t sell comics for me, he’s working with Jonathan Rivera, who was responsible for co-writing the entertaining “Cave Carson” comics under Gerard’s short-lived Young Animal imprint at DC. Piotr Kowalski is illustrating this, and I’m curious to see what an artist best known for horror does with a Christmas-themed comic.
The Complete Elfquest: FutureQuest: I didn’t think there was anything left from “ElfQuest” to collect, but I guess I was wrong. This series takes place in the far future where the World of Two Moons is now known as Abode. It’s also home to just humans, who also know that Elves really existed and have wondered where these magical creatures are now. Finding out is what will drive this story, and given how long Elves can live, I’m expecting to see more than a few familiar faces in this series. Aside from Jink, who is name-checked in the solicitation. Brought to you by Wendy and Richard Pini, because who else really could?
Joy Operations vol. 2: En Voi Joy saved the world from her megalomaniacal boss in the first volume, along with another En Voi, Hampton, who is still stuck in her head. They’re going to try and make a proper re-entry into society, and Joy’s marriage, but there’s the tiny issue of everyone who blames Joy for what went down in vol. 1. That was an alright sci-fi story written by Bendis and with art from Stephen Byrne. While it’s nice to see them get a second bite at the apple here i expanding the world they’ve created, I’m not 100% confident that what we’ll be getting is going to wind up being a genuine improvement over what was delivered before. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this will be a fun style-over-substance exercise like “Murder Inc.” vol. 3 was.
Lester of the Lesser Gods HC: The story of one of Odin’s bastard sons who now wanders the wasteland after thwarting Satan’s plans for the apocalypse. It’s brought to us from co-writers Eric Powell and Lucky Yates, and artist Gideon Kendall, which is an eclectic but interesting creative team. I was all set to give this a shot… until I saw that this is being solicited as a hardcover. Which means that this collection of a three-issue-miniseries, plus a one-shot and extra materials, is going to be $5 more expensive than it should be because of prestige? Maybe I’ll get it. Probably I won’t, and just pick the individual issues up digitally through Dark Horse’s app.
Usagi Yojimbo (vol. 40): The Crow: Weird to think that as I’m writing this we’re now awaiting the arrival of two new volumes of “Usagi Yojimbo.” “Ice & Snow” is due out in a couple weeks, while this is advance-solicited for January. This volume also has the difficulty of following up on the Rabbit Ronin’s first encounter with Jei in over a decade in the previous volume. Fortunately it sounds like we’ve got a decent setup for the story here as Usagi and Yukichi rescue a merchant from some bandits, only to find out that he’s a criminal with a huge price on his head. Big enough to attract the combined attention of Gen and Stray Dog to try and claim it for themselves, and I’m sure THAT won’t lead to any further complications.