Dark Horse Previews Picks: May 2020
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Harrow County Omnibus vol. 1
I was always curious about this series as I saw new issues and volumes offered month after month in these solicitations. While Cullen Bunn is a decent writer and Tyler Crook is a great artist, the series never quite captured enough of my attention to pick it up. That Dark Horse was selling each four-issue collection for $15 didn’t really help things either.
Now the series has arrived in omnibus format and we’re getting the first half of the series (16 issues) for $30. That’s enough to convince me to finally give this series a shot. While I like the creative team, the fact that it’s an ongoing Dark Horse title that actually ran to completion suggests that they were doing something right. As for what “Harrow County” is about, the solicitation text tells me that it involves a young woman who lives out in the monster-infested woods and finds out about her connection to said monsters. Should be interesting to see if this was worth waiting for once July rolls around.
Aliens vs. Predator: Thicker Than Blood: Predators attack a luxury spaceliner and hilarity ensues. If writer Jeremy Barlow manages to wring something out of that setup, all the better. I’m more interested in seeing what “Star Wars” artist Doug Wheatley (veteran of “The Clone Wars” and “Dark Times”) does with this setup. That said, Barlow has a more interesting project that I’ll mention in next month’s solicitations. One that continues a recent trend from the publisher too.
The Atomic Legion: Just another one of those stories where the heroes of a bygone era are rallied to save the day by a young fan. This comes to us from writer Mike Richardson and artist Bruce Zick, and while the solicitation text tags him as the critically acclaimed writer of “47 Ronin” and “Star Wars: Crimson Empire,” it leaves out his most notable achievement: Being co-founder and president of Dark Horse Comics. To his credit, Richardson doesn’t publish a lot through his company. Which is good, since most of what I’ve read from him is pretty “Meh” — save for “Cravan” with Rick Geary. This project reads like he finally got around to reading “Black Hammer” and thought, “Hey, I can do this better” and then set to work on it. He may be proved right, but it’s also a low bar that he’s trying to clear at this point.
Bankshot: This miniseries from writer Alex De Campi and artist Chriscross debuted back in 2017. It promised the story of a modern-day Robin Hood framed by one of his enemies, and a lot of stuff blowing up as he tracked the betrayer down. It also promised to be a five-issue miniseries, which is notable because I can only find evidence that only four issues were actually published. What we’re looking at here is likely the case of a miniseries that tanked so hard that Dark Horse wasn’t able to publish it’s final issue. Which is a real shame since De Campi has done a lot of stuff over the years that is quite good yet criminally underread (R.I.P. “No Mercy.” You deserved more than three volumes. It may have taken them a while to get around to it, but it looks like Dark Horse is finally going to do right by its creators. I’ll pick it up because I believe in De Campi and it’s hard not to be intrigued by how the first issue’s cover promises that, “If it can explode, it will!”
The Butcher of Paris: You’d think that wartime would be a great time to be a serial killer. What with all of the bullets flying around and leaving corpses anywhere, who’d stop to think that any of those bodies were actually the victims of murder. At least, not until a killer racked up a body count of over 200, that is. This is the story of the infamous serial murderer of the title who managed the impressive trick of being wanted by both the Allies and the Nazis during WWII. I’m not familiar with writer Stephanie Phillips or artist Dean Kotz, but the setup for this story has definitely caught my attention.
Hellsing Deluxe Edition vol. 1 HC: In case you haven’t heard, those “Berserk Deluxe Editions” have been selling REALLY well for Dark Horse. So it’s natural that they’d go back through their manga library and see what else would be a good fit for the format. Which is why we’re now getting this new edition of Kohta Hirano’s vampire action series. While I really liked the original anime series, I never got the manga because a friend of mine was buying it at the time and I just borrowed it from him. Then he got bored with it and didn’t keep up with buying new volumes as the release schedule slowed down. I’ll admit that I’m tempted to give the series another go in this new edition, especially if I can find it for a decent chunk off of it’s $50 cover price.
Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics HC: I was giving serious thought to having this as the “Above-the-Board Recommendation” for these Picks. After all, it has things like a “Criminal” story from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, a critical story beat from the “Stray Bullets” saga by David Lapham, likely the last new “Kane” story we’ll ever see from Paul Grist, and Brian Azzarello and Gabriel Ba doing a story that’s totally not about why “Batman’s” parents died. Then I went back and re-read my review of the original, smaller-trim-size graphic novel and realized that there were also a more than a few stories that apparently weren’t very good. To the point where it made me realize that while I have fond memories of some of the stories collected here, “Noir’s” batting average isn’t all that better than your average anthology.
Norse Mythology #1: With the “American Gods” adaptation wrapped up after three nine-issue volumes, Dark Horse is onto its next adaptation of a Neil Gaiman novel. P. Craig Russel is on adaptation duties again for this series that will trace the saga of the Nine Realms from its origin all the way to Ragnarok. Russell will be providing some art for the first issue as well, along with some very distinguished friends: Mike Mignola and Jerry Ordway. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first non-”Mignolaverse” work that Mignola has done in decades. So I’m a little curious as to seeing how he fares when he’s not working off of his own script or universe.