Thursday, June 14, 2012


Writer Scott Snyder dominates my comic pile this week, with not one but TWO comics that I thoroughly enjoyed. Another surprise came in the form of Arkham Unhinged #3, which has basically just been an excuse for DC to squeeze 3 more dollars out of we Bat completists up until now. Plenty of other DC's rounded out my pulls this week. Enough blathering, on to the Fresh Ink!


I haven't made much mention of it up until now, but I have just been digging the hell outta this "Court of Owls" story running through all the Bat-books. Everything that writer Scott Snyder has been doing in Batman since the launch of the New 52-niverse was building towards this issue. It's not the finale, but oh my holy damn at the twist at the end. I seriously need #11 right now. Snyder absolutely blew me away last year when he and my personal favorite artist Jock collaborated on a Detective Comics run that ended up being the best Batman comics published in years and years. If you haven't read The Black Mirror, I can't recommend picking it up enough. The Court of Owls has been just as good, and the reveal in Batman #10 left my jaw hanging open. Long-time Spawn artist Greg Capullo has been handling the art since the reboot, and I shouldn't have to tell you how amazingly pretty this comic has been. As far as I'm concerned, Snyder and Capullo are the new Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, and I wouldn't mind if they did this book forever.


Scott Snyder strikes again with a brand new American Vampire spin-off miniseries, Lord of Nightmares. I actually think this issue is better than the story that's currently going on in the main American Vampire book. Of course it's just one issue though, but it seems as if Snyder is finally going to introduce the "Big D" into the world of AV. While that may initially sound like cause for an eye roll or two, let me say that I have full confidence in Snyder and his ability to give us yet another amazing story. And if nothing else, it will at least be a million times better than Blade Trinity. Joining Scott on this one is Dustin Nguyen, who I best remember from a lengthy tenure on Streets of Gotham with writer Paul Dini. Dustin's style is an acquired taste, with a hint of Mike Mignola but not as dark and a bit more minimalistic, but I've always dug it. He appears to be changing things up a bit for Lord of Nightmares, to make it look a little more similar to the art from the American Vampire book, which I love, so I'm really impressed with the work he's done here. Looking forward to seeing where this story is going.


Brian Wood's next epic following the conclusion of his fantastic Vertigo series DMZ officially began this week courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. Technically the first chapter of The Massive began in Dark Horse Presents earlier this year, but the first official issue hit stands today. The Massive is the story of a world that's been decimated by natural disasters. A small group of activists aboard a trawler named Kapital travels the oceans in search of answers as to the whereabouts of it's sister ship the Massive, which mysteriously disappeared along with it's crew. Just from what I know of Wood's writing and what I've read of this story so far, this one is going to be more of an adventure style tale than horror, but I'm cool with that. So far the Kapital has already been attacked by Siberian pirates in this first issue, which I must admit was pretty cool even though I don't like pirates. Artist Kristian Donaldson is not a name I'm familiar with, but as with most other Dark Horse books, the focus on quality is obvious as this is a very well drawn comic. This is definitely one to keep an eye on, I think it's going to be really good. 

That's what's fresh on the racks this week. Happy reading, people.

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