Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Leandro Fernández
Publisher: Image

There’s a certain aesthetic that defines The Old Guard, the new Image title from superstar creators Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández. Rucka describes the book in the opening narration as “a fairy tale of blood and bullets” about a group of mostly invincible soldiers. Yet while there are some high fantasy elements that pervade this comic, the overall look and feel resembles that of a hard-edged war story.

Much like Rucka’s other works, he opens with some poetic text in which one of the main protagonists describes her longing to die. It’s similar to how he began his recent Wonder Woman run, in that he’s able to draw readers in with monologues and sharply written prose. It’s subtle enough to where it’s not too wordy, and it provides a nice introduction to this world. From there the action gets going, as the heroes go on a rescue mission in the Middle East.

This is where Fernández’s pencils and Daniela Miwa’s colors merge together so effectively. Whether the issue delivers high-octane action or quiet moments of character development, each panel is a tour de force in and of itself. It’s no doubt a dense and somewhat ambiguous read, but regardless it delivers strong storytelling on all fronts. If you’re a fan of anything either creators have done in the past, I’d highly recommend picking this one up.

Kevin Schaefer for ultimate Comics

Written by Marguerite Bennett and James Tynion IV
Art by Steve Epting
Published by DC Comics

The original Batwoman was a character brought in to date Batman for a few issues back when parents got scared that he was kind of gay. So when DC revived the concept in the 52 series a few years ago, Batwoman became one of the most prominent gay characters in comics. Kate Kane worked the grim vigilante angle like Batman, but her background was military, not detective work. This led to a series uniquely her own and a fascinating character study.

In the new DC Rebirth continuity, Batwoman is a powerful figure on the team in Detective Comics, but after the events of the recent Monster Men crossover, she’ll be taking on a heavy solo mission. This prologue one-shot gets the reader up to speed, racing through plot points like her time at West Point, her run-in with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, her socialite years, and her love story with Renee Montoya. For the density of story beats, the book never feels rushed. Each moment gets a full page or two to breathe, and the dialogue in each scene cleverly dovetails the next one.

Batwoman matters. Batwoman means something huge in a time when national politics put the health of women and of the Queer community in a vulnerable limbo. So it matters that she gets a high-profile story. It matters that she gets a dedicated one-shot prologue. And it matters that some of the industry’s best Queer writers, Marguerite Bennett and James Tynion IV, are working on this together.

Come down to Ultimate Comics and get your copy today. Enjoy the action story, but appreciate the cultural context. And bring your copy to the Love Is Love (Queer Comics) panel at NC Comicon Oak City next month! I am happy to talk more about it with you there.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Writer: Matthew Rosenberg
Artist: Ben Torres
Publisher: Marvel

Marvel’s “Running with the Devil” event kicked off last week with the excellent Bullseye #1, and continues going strong with a new series featuring Daredevil’s greatest nemesis. By the nature of his complex character and tragic backstory, Wilson Fisk, A.K.A the Kingpin, has more than enough merit to star in his own series. He’s just one of those timeless villains who can appeal to readers from multiple generations. He’s big, intimidating and yet there’s so much more to him than his title as the Kingpin of the criminal underworld. This book does a great job of showing the different layers of his character.

What makes this series so promising is that it’s told through the lens of a struggling reporter who gets a job offer from Fisk. While she is reluctant to write stories about a man with such a murderous reputation, Sarah Dewey nonetheless finds herself curious to learn more about who he is. And while Fisk claims that his crime lord days are behind him, the issue leaves readers with questions as to whether or not his turning over a new leaf narrative is true.

It’s true that this one is much more dialogue-heavy and character-driven than the Bullseye comic, but nevertheless writer Matthew Rosenberg does a great job of making it interesting and not come across as overtly dense. By playing on Sarah’s desperation and Fisk’s apparent desire to start fresh, Rosenberg creates both an engaging narrative and some crisp dialogue. Coinciding with the script, Ben Torres’ excellent pencils and Jordan Boyd’s colors give the book a great noir aesthetic. Almost all of it takes place at night, and Torres makes use of a large number of close-ups and shadowy frames to give it a Frank Miller/Klaus Janson feel. There’s also a great splash page at the end which provides a nice cliffhanger. While we’re only two issues into this event, I’m nonetheless excited to see where it’ll go from here with the Elektra solo series and the continuation of Charles Soule’s Daredevil run. If you haven’t yet checked out “Running with the Devil,” get on over and pick up this and Bullseye #1.

-KEVIN SCHAEFER for Ultimate Comics

Written by Steve Orlando
Art by Ivan Reis
Published by DC Comics

One of my favorite parts of team books is that first story where everyone comes together. You get a hint at what holds everyone in the group, what kind of missions to expect, and who’s going to punch a teammate first. And lately, it seems like comics have let that stretch over a few issues, pacing it so that the last team member doesn’t sign up until the trade paperback is ready.

Steve Orlando knows how to make an emphatic point, and he gets everything he needs done in this first issue. And he has assembled a Justice League worth following.

The premise for this team is that Batman was so inspired by Killer Frost’s heroism in the Suicide Squad crossover that he decides to put together a group of people the public can relate to. “The world needs heroes they know, not gods, to inspire them – show them they can be heroes.” Which sounds good.

And yet, the picks for the team are almost all so wrong as to be silly. Two of the heroes, The Ray and The Atom, are new for this book or have one story in the Rebirth line. So the public doesn’t know them. Two of the folks, Lobo and Killer Frost, are former supervillains to carry the redemption theme, and Batman fits the Everyman goal. But Black Canary can scream out a sonic force attack, and Vixen takes on powers based on the animal kingdom.

So the point is, and I think Steve Orlando knows this, that Batman wants to make his own club, no Superman allowed. The group seems to have been assembled with an eye for representation, including an Asian character, a gay man, and a black woman. And over time, he’ll get to connect this team to the public, with dedicated missions to handle high-profile, inspiring challenges.

The book is already fun – Canary hates everybody, Lobo wants more authority, Ray and Atom are preparing to be comedy bros. Orlando’s pacing is deliberate and engaging, and Reis’s art brings a realism to the team in line with the mission statement. This could shape into one of the most memorable eras of the Justice League.

But man, does Batman not get it. And I love seeing that guy when he’s wrong.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Written by Jason Latour
Art by Chris Brunner
Colors by Rico Renzi
Published by Image Comics

Friends of Ultimate Comics Jason Latour and Rico Renzi have been working on this North Carolina crime story for ten years, and this week, it sees the light of day. It’s not for kids, but everyone else is going to love it.

The story follows a drug runner who returns to haunt a crummy Charlotte honky tonk, the tough bartender, and an Afghanistan veteran in trouble in Atlanta. Readers are going to see a lot of smoking, drinking, swearing, fighting, and even some sex. And I’m not a hundred percent convinced I know exactly what happened.

But this book isn’t about what happened, not really. I mean, a lot happens, and it’s not hard to follow. But the characters have murky backstory because we don’t need every detail to engage with their story. And leaving some of it vague lets us map the disgusting drunk obsessed with high school glory days onto the guy we know from high school. We get to map the brave bartender to our friends who marched on Raleigh last weekend. The guy in trouble? He might feel a lot like you.

And even more than what story Latour is telling, this book is original in how that’s told. Brunner’s page layouts play complicated games with timing and position, flipping camera angles and flickering lights around a 15-box grid like a master director. The twists in lettering from traditional word balloons to Saga-like freeform words disorient and pull the reader deeper into the scene. Renzi’s colors have never looked this good, even in Spider-Gwen. The reds and blues riot against one another on the page, illuminating the action but building a fierce tension that makes us as uncomfortable as any of the subject matter could. In three pages, the sun gradually sets to a menacing purple, and the book is full of subtle psychological yanks like that.

Pick up your copy of this book today, and keep it on hand to show Rico Renzi when he comes to NC Comicon Oak City in March. You’re going to love it.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Writer: John Barber
Artist: Fico Ossio
Publisher: IDW

Revolutionaries takes place in the aftermath of the IDW event crossover Revolution, which saw characters like Rom and Optimus Prime join forces. Continuing to capitalize on their partnership with Hasbro, IDW pulls out all their tools for this book to provide a massive world-building experience.

Story-wise, this issue features Action Man, Blackrock, Mayday and Kup responding to a crisis in the country of Kalistan (which plays a big role in the G.I. Joe universe). Rom also makes an appearance here to fight the Oktober guard; and while the first act mostly consists of chaotic action, there’s a nice setup for a larger mystery at play in this series.

Crossover comics are usually hit or miss for me, but here writer John Barber handles the material well, balancing the scope of an expanding universe and multiple characters with a focused story. Likewise, Fico Ossio’s art is more than enough to grab the reader’s attention. The action sequences are particularly stylistic, with a strong sci-fi aesthetic throughout.

And while the book is more geared toward readers who are already immersed in this universe, there is a very helpful timeline at the beginning of the issue which recaps major events from the G.I. Joe/Transformers/Rom books, as well as extensive character bios in the back. Plus, the folks at Ultimate Comics are more than willing to help you find trades and single issues to help you get caught up. All in all, this one’s worth checking out.

-Kevin Schaefer for Ultimate Comics

Written by Jeremy Whitley
Art by Elsa Charretier
Published by Marvel Comics

Last week, we talked about the new Hulk book as the perfect example of how to handle the trauma of 2016, how to hurt and acknowledge that and come together. Well, as luck would have it, Marvel has given us the perfect spirit of 2017 in its first week, and that’s Nadia, the Unstoppable Wasp.

Nadia has been floating around Mark Waid’s Avengers books for a while, the secret daughter of founding Avenger Hank Pym and the wife who was kidnapped by Russians. She was raised in Black Widow’s Red Room, but where they taught the Widow ballet and murder, Nadia learned lots and lots of science. So with this first solo issue, she teams up with Mockingbird and Ms. Marvel to take down a bad guy with science.

That would be good enough, a standard superhero plot with an all-ages appeal we’d expect from the writer of Princeless. But what makes the book stand out is Whitley’s understanding of Nadia’s tone. The way she sees it, she escaped from torturous captivity, and if she spends all her time being bitter, she hasn’t really escaped. It’s not the strategy for everyone, but it’s how she’s choosing to deal. Artist Elsa Charretier shows joyful movement in every pose, with facial acting good enough for network television comedies.

So we get a new super teen with boundless charm and enthusiasm. She doesn’t get Ms. Marvel’s pop culture references, but she is excited to learn more about them. She doesn’t understand the culture of the Pakistani bakery, but she cheerfully asks questions until people can’t help but give her free pastries. She hasn’t heard of Mockingbird, but her honest wish to know more cracks the veteran hero. She hasn’t been ranked on the male-created list of Marvel’s geniuses, so she decides to find as many female geniuses as she can, without a hint of irritation.

Let’s learn from this. Let’s take this giddy refusal of bitterness and try it on for size, starting 2017 with hope and a pursuit of the best. It might not last. It might not fit you. And there are some truths we cannot ignore. But if we look at looking danger and think, “What would Nadia do?” we may get that spark we need to find solutions instead of just posting snarky memes about it.

Writer Jeremy Whitley will be at Ultimate Comics this Saturday to sign this book (or Princeless or My Little Pony or any of his other books, really). Brave the snow and come to the Durham location 10:30 to 11:30, the Cary location 12:00 to 2:00, or the Raleigh location 3:00 to 5:00!

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Writer Mariko Tamaki
Artist Nico Leon
Color Artist Matt Milla
Published by Marvel Comic

2016 was a rough year. Regardless of your politics, this was an ugly election season. Someone killed fifty people in a Florida nightclub. We’re never getting another Prince song, or a Bowie song, or a George Michael song. And now we’ve lost Leia. None of us are watching the Ball drop Saturday night without wincing a little bit at our scars.

So let’s end the year by checking in with a woman who might have had it worse than you. Jennifer Walters lost her smart Charles Soule lawyer book last year and her feisty A-Force team book earlier this year. Thanos put her in a coma, and when she woke up, her friend Hawkeye had killed her cousin, the Incredible Hulk.

This book is about how she’s choosing to start over.

She’s dropped the “She” from “She-Hulk,” taking the name back just like Thor, Hawkeye, and Captain Marvel have. She’s gone back to work in a good law firm, still handling weird cases but maybe a little less wacky than Dan Slott or Charles Soule had in mind for her. And she’s trying so hard not to get angry. That means trying to lose herself in the anonymous New York crowd. That means smiling at the kind-but-thoughtless comments from people who think they know her. That means a cheerful internal monologue… but that also means a harsh rebuttal.

Because it’s nice to hear that everything’s going to be okay. But it’s not. Not really. And Jenn knows that. As she explains to a client, good lawyers don’t promise to win cases. Good lawyers promise to do their best, and then they do, and maybe they win.

This book is a beautiful meditation on trauma and recovery. There’s no punching, but the internal tension keeps the reader on the edge, scanning for green. And along the way, we get a model about how to grieve our year. It might not be okay next year; it wasn’t okay this year. But we’re going to do our best, and we’re going to take care of ourselves, and we’re going to take care of each other.

Ultimate Comics has Hulk #1 with two variant covers. You’re going to love it. Come on down and send this dumpster fire of a year off in style. And let’s start over together.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Written by Joshua Williamson
Art by Jason Fabok
Published by DC Comics

The biggest event of DC Rebirth starts here! Based on the commercial success of DC’s latest movies, it’s only fitting that this one is a battle royale between the bad guys on the Suicide Squad and the Justice League we’ll all be watching next year. And Ultimate Comics has the first issue with both of the variant covers.

I like DC okay but have only casually read Suicide Squad and didn’t see the movie until last weekend. Luckily, Josh Williamson has written an amazingly accessible introduction issue, and I never felt lost. From the Suicide Squad’s side, the team of enslaved baddies goes to Badhnisia to stop a cult from detonating an earthquake bomb. The fight zings with both action and character-establishing dialogue, and Fabok’s art is a gorgeous showcase for this group that could easily skew too gritty under a lesser pencil. The Justice League gets involved when Batman clues them in that the villains they face may all have government contracts, and they need to act before the lines get too blurry. In the background, a villain who died just before the New 52 relaunch returns to recruit a team of monsters to take the fight to the Squad’s leader, Amanda Waller.

I have loved Joshua Williamson’s short-lived Marvel villain book, Illuminati, and he works his magic again here. He won’t waste time trying to redeem the bad guys or charm you into liking them. He writes clear, complicated characters, and you can take them or leave them. He puts the League up as bland but noble, a team you can feel fine rooting for but that you don’t mind rooting against. This blend of grey on beige pulled me in to the story as a whole. I’m not invested in one side, I just want to watch some more big fights before they have to team up against the secret unabashedly-evil team. And that works a little better than the latest Inhuman/X-Men fight because, hey, everyone is Team X-Men. This is a gamble that’s already paying off.

The next five weeks are going to see five more issues of this event, plus tie-ins in Suicide Squad and Justice League. Get in now at Ultimate Comics, and then hang on tight, readers!

-Matt Conner for Ultimate Comics

Written by Joe Harris
Art by Megan Hutchison
Colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Published by Image Comics\

Rock music has long carried legends around the notes, secrets uncovered by playing a record backward or putting an album in context of the Behind The Music phase. And rock of the seventies courted teen listeners by flirting with the occult in ways guaranteed to alienate parents. A year ago, I reviewed This Damned Band for Ultimate Comics, a funny take on a band in over its head by accidentally making a real deal with the devil. But this week, Image Comics finds a way to tell that story even better.

Jackie Mayer is maybe delusional or maybe psychic or maybe really good at solving puzzles. He obsessively researches unsolved mysteries in the rock world, and he has been working on the murder of a groupie in 1974, a case rife with occult symbols and a flamboyant hedonist band called Blue Rider. Forty years later, he’s on the scene to catch the first new kill and runs into Dorothy Buell, a spunky music journalist with connections to the mystery all her own.

The story bounces effectively between his modern investigation and the lurid recreations of the foul event, and both parts work. The modern story plays with the balance between inspiration and madness while the flashback is the tragic corruption of an innocent by the music her mother warned her about. The art, especially Kelly Fitzpatrick’s colors, makes the reader subtly uncomfortable, and I want to see this as an indie thriller movie.

Next week is Christmas and Hanukkah, gang, and I want all of your days to be merry and bright. But this week, maybe it’s time to get a little scum out of your system. Hop on board Rockstars, play some vinyl, but whatever you do, don’t try to go backstage.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics