The Unchosen #2
(W) David Marquez (A) Marissa Louise
From The New York Times-bestselling creator DAVID MARQUEZ (Fantastic Four: Season One), Aida’s rescuers, Brother Reilly and the Guardian Vasha, know their only refuge is the Tower, the stronghold of their secretive order. But first they must evade the UnChosen — magic-wielding warriors hellbent on seizing Aida for their own ends.
13-year-old Aida wakes in a city laid waste by a massive explosion—a scene of devastation that SHE caused. Pursued by rival forces wielding incredible powers, she must discover who truly wants to help her, who wants to control her, and the truth behind her own mysterious past.
Story: David Marquez
Art: David Marquez
Color: Marissa Louise
Letterer: DC Hopkins
Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site
The Unchosen #1 (of 4)
(W) David Marquez (A) David Marquez
In Shops: Jul 09, 2025
SRP: $3.99
MINISERIES PREMIERE 13-year-old Aida wakes in a city laid waste by a massive explosion-a scene of devastation that SHE caused. Pursued by rival forces wielding incredible powers, she must discover who truly wants to help her, who wants to control her, and the truth behind her own mysterious past. Acclaimed creator DAVID MARQUEZ (Uncanny X-Men, Miles Morales) makes his highly anticipated debut as both writer and artist on his first creator-owned series. REGISTER PITCH: A post-apocalyptic battle for survival à la The Last of Us, but following the source of destruction, not the cure.
Two and a half years of comics spanning 60 years of Star Trek history, a fair few awards, and more than a few universe detonations, and it’s all been coming to this! Star Trek: Omega is the denouement of the critically acclaimed Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant storylines, and the first glimpse at what comes after. The crews of the Theseus, Defiant, and Enterprise set to work restoring the universe to what it should be after the evil android Lore’s intervention.
Star Trek: Omega is an interesting finale, and let me make that clear it’s absolutely a finale. I haven’t followed IDW’s Star Trek comics religiously and haven’t read much of the recent “Lore War,” but I decided to check out Star Trek: Omega in hopes of seeing what happens next. And while the comic wraps things up nicely, it also does very little to clearly lay out what to expect. This isn’t the end of an event comic like we’ve grown accustomed to that acts as much as a final chapter as it does advertisement, instead it’s a rather muted send-off wrapping up what has come before.
Written by Christopher Cantwell, Collin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing, Star Trek: Omega bounces around the Star Trek universe giving major characters their moments as their current storylines wrap up. It’s packed with touching moments and some interesting present situations but it really feels like it closes a lot of chapters. For fans who have read the current run of Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant, Star Trek: Omega serves as a nice ending wrapping up those series and letting us know where the various characters stand. But, it’s for the fans. New readers won’t find much as far as what’s next in this issue. There’s some teases and hints, but that’s about it, nothing clear beyond one series (and we’ll get to that).
Still, the comic has touching moments and a lot of scenes where I want to know more. I want to see what happens next, so in that way, the comic succeeds. Where it falls short is that there’s not much highlighted to come. Star Trek: Redshirts, which is a great first issue and you can read our review, is all that’s teased. It’s an odd two page spread that doesn’t really excite and feels like it’s hiding what it’s for. Add in that Star Trek: Omega has a release date of June 18 and the final order cut-off date for Star Trek: Redshirts was June 9, and you have a teaser that falls really short of what its goal is.
The art of Star Trek: Omega is interesting with a long list of artists from the years of Star Trek comics. Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, Mike Feehan, Tess Fowler, Angel Hernandez, Liana Kangas, Megan Levens, Travis Mercer, Ramon Rosanas, Rachael Stott, Erik Tamayo, Davide Tinto, and Marcus To each take a bit of the story as it highlights each of the characters in their individual scenes. Lee Loughridge and Marissa Louise provide colors and Clayton Cowles handles the lettering. For the most part, the art doesn’t vary much from scene to scene except one, which is particularly jarring it’s so different than what has come before. But, with my knowledge of Star Trek I could tell who all of the characters that I know were and the art does a solid job of nailing down the emotional moments of the issue.
Overall, Star Trek: Omega feels a bit muted in some ways. It has touching moments and really does feel like a “series finale” in many ways. It doesn’t have lots of action and excitement. It wraps up storylines and teases adventures to come. Even with some neat teases that this casual fan can appreciate, it’s one for the fans who have read the comics through the recent years. But, it falls short getting readers excited for what comes next. It almost feels like it’s teasing possibilities to see the fan reaction and then go from there. It closes one chapter but doesn’t really open the next one.
Story: Christopher Cantwell, Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing
Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, Mike Feehan, Tess Fowler, Angel Hernandez, Liana Kangas, Megan Levens, Travis Mercer, Ramon Rosanas, Rachael Stott, Erik Tamayo, Davide Tinto, and Marcus To
Color: Lee Loughridge, Marissa Louise Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read
IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle
DC Pride 2025 #1 is a little different from the previous installments of DC Pride in that it’s not a collection of short stories featuring LGBTQ+ DC Comics characters, but is a single narrative centered around a gay bar that Alan Scott frequented in the 1930s and told predominantly from the POV of a new character named Ethan, who is a trans military veteran that ends up caught up a kind of multiversal/elemental saga. I applaud the scope of this comic book, which has big jam session energy as different characters end up in different pocket realities based on wishes they made at the gay bar or graffiti they scrawled. We get Apollo and Midnighter living in 1950s domestic bliss courtesy of Sam Maggs and Derek Charm, a single, psychiatric girl boss Harley Quinn from Maya Houston, Max Sarin, and Marissa Louise ; and a gorgeous sapphic romance between Jo Mullein and Nubia from Houston, Vita Ayala, and Vincent Cecil to name a few. The reading effect is like jumping from comic to comic and look at paths not trodden with some iconic queer characters and a few new or not so iconic ones.
As Tim Sheridan, Giulio Macaione, and Emilio Pilliu Alan Scott-centric frame story shows, fighting supervillains and having superpowers is a metaphor for being queer in DC Pride 2025. It might be tempting to give up and lie low, especially with the United States’ hard turn to fascism, and homophobia and transphobia promoted by folks in power, but Alan Scott, Ethan, and their companions’ actions in the comic act as a clarion call to resistance. The stuff with the Crimson Flame and Scott having his own Red Lantern is a little Geoff Johnsian for my taste, but it’s so cool to watch Alan Scott have a Sailor Moon type transformation sequence and return into action to help save the next generation of queer heroes symbolized by Ethan. I love Macaione’s use of greens to show a possible, idyllic future for Scott and a non-Red Lantern/Russian spy Johnny Ladd, but it’s a happiness based on a lie like the other possible futures in the book.
However, DC Pride 2025 isn’t all serious action and has a lot of humor and playfulness. Jude Ellison S. Doyle and Alex Moore recontextualize Golden Age Z-list Wonder Woman villain Blue Snowman coming to terms with their gender fluidity alongside nonbinary superhero Envoy in one vignette. I love how they poke fun at the restrictions of the gender binary using the classic tropes of a superhero brawl, and how even well meaning cisgender people can be just plain annoying at times. It’s so cool seeing this kind of story and voice in a mainstream, corporate comic showing that nonbinary characters don’t just have to be righteous heroes, but can be kind of messy too. DC Pride 2025 really hits the spectrum of queer identities, including asexuality with Connor Hawke getting a short story where he resists his father’s reputation as a womanizer and just wants to live his own life. I have to give a special shout out to Philip Sevy’s art in this short sequence, which seems like it’s right out of the late 1990s period where he was member of the JLA. Both the visual and character variety of DC Pride 2025 makes it an engaging read, and the book is a testament to the active work that DC Comics has done to cultivate LGBTQ+ characters in the past decade or so. (I need a monthly Midnighter and/or Apollo book though.)
After a wild and wacky cosmic adventure set in the DC Multiverse, DC Pride 2025 wraps up with a beautiful nonfiction story from Jenny Blake and Sara Soler about Blake coming out as a transgender woman earlier this year. It has gorgeous soft lines and a refreshing color palette to go with Jenny Blake’s honest and humorous script about how old comics about Clark Kent switching genders had an influence on her own gender identity journey. I love how Soler inserts different DC characters into the panel to blur the line between fantasy and non-fiction with Blake’s most famous co-creation Black Lightning making an appearance as well as transgender superheroine Dreamer, who shares coffee with Blake. The story shows that you’re never too old to be your authentic self and hints at a longer graphic memoir, which I hope Jenny Blake gets to realize at DC or elsewhere.
DC Pride 2025 is an ambitious comic with summer crossover energy that tells an epic story with DC’s LGBTQ+ characters while still taking time to dig into their individual hopes, fears, and dreams. It’s a showcase of queer representation on the page and on the issue’s creative teams, and Blake and Sara Soler’s memoir is a beautiful coda and rallying cry to continue to be queer and fearless in an increasingly dark and hateful world.
Story: Vita Ayala, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Maya Houston
Story: Sam Maggs, Tim Sheridan, Josh Trujillo, Jenny Blake
Art: Don Aguillo, Vincent Cecil, Derek Charm, A.L. Kaplan, Giulio Macaione
Art: Emilio Pilliu, Max Sarin, Philip Sevy, Sara Soler, Alex Moore, Skyler Patridge
Colors: Eren Angiolini, Jordie Bellaire, Triona Farrell, Marissa Louise
Letters: Aditya Bidikar, Frank Cvetkovic, Lucas Gattoni, Ariana Maher, Morgan Martinez, Jodie Troutman
Story: 8.9 Art: 9.3 Overall: 9.1 Recommendation: Buy
DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle
Recognized is an anthology series celebrating LGBTQ+ heroes! This issue features Olympic runner Helen Stephens, intersectional feminist writer Audre Lorde, and legal scholar Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray with contributions from top comic creators. This issue also includes bonus content for deeper exploration of the lasting impacts of these influential figures.
Story: Robin Hoelzemann, Danielle Henderson, Mikki Kendall
Art: Sarah Myer, Robin Hoelzemann, A. D’Amico
Color: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Josh Reed
Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site
Brilliant young inventor Michael Holt’s life was destined for greatness…yet everything screeched to a halt when his wife Paula and unborn son were killed in a car accident. The Holts once shared ambitious dreams of using their technology to help others, but after the tragedy, Michael retreats from society and sells Holt Industries to mysterious and craven tech billionaire Athena Prescott. The domino effect of Michael’s actions set off an explosive chain of events that take a not-so-ordinary man from the depths of despair to the heights of heroism! Meanwhile, in the present day, Mr. Terrific continues his research into what became of Darkseid after the events of the DC All-In Special…and comes to realize that his past and the present might be inextricably linked… Mr. Terrific: Year One #1 is a retelling of the character’s past, expanding his origin and focused on the future.
I honestly don’t know much about Mr. Terrific. He has always been a character that’s been in the background of the comics I’ve read and even when he was more of the title character, it felt like it was more in a team sort of way. So, Holt’s history is rather vague for me and going into Mr. Terrific: Year One #1, I wanted to get a better sense of the character and motivations. I know of the tragedy, at least small details of it, but beyond that very little of the character.
Written by Al Letson, the debut issue answers a lot of questions and lets readers know what type of character Holt is. In the present, he’s attempting to figure out more about Darkseid’s attack on the Justice League Watchtower, a plot point that hasn’t really been dealt with a lot since. It’s the past where things get interesting.
Letson introduces a Michael Holt that’s a shut in. Brilliant, he’s still dealing with the tragedy of the loss of his loved ones, rarely going outside and instead locking himself up indoors. He’s sold his company going with the easy sale instead of the “right” sale. Now, he’s working on a new project, which seems like a fancy fitness/motivational app. There’s something kind of amazing and a hell of a statement being made in the comic taking the brilliance of Michael Holt and focusing it in on such a trivial thing. But that’s sort of the point of the debut issue.
Letson has a big point being made in the first issue. Holt is at the point in his life where his brilliance is being wasted. Instead of big picture problems, he’s making a fancy Peloton. He’s not a hero yet, he’s a tech bro that is focused on mundane small picture commercialism when they can be tackling major problems impacting the world. There’s a lot of growth from that we will hopefully see. Letson starts the comic with what Michael Holt becomes and takes us back to where he started.
The art by Valentine De Landro and Edwin Galmon is solid. Galmon handles the opening present sequence while De Landro’s art takes us to the past. Marissa Louise joins De Landro on color by Lucas Gattoni handles the lettering. Everything looks solid with an interesting style difference between the two time periods. Compared to the present’s style, the past feels like a gritty 70s movie in some ways, almost like we’re watching an old movie on VHS tape compared to the modern times’ 4K high def experience. It’s kind of cool like that really giving the two stories a distinctive feel. The modern times is a typical superhero experience while the past is more heist/crime.
Mr. Terrific: Year One #1 is a solid start to the series. For those that are fans of Mr. Terrific, it expands on his origin and for those that are new, it’s easy to dive in. The team has delivered some depth to the character with a good focus on Holt’s emotional state and where he’s at in his life. This isn’t the story of a hero learning the ropes, this is a broken man learning to climb out of depression and becoming a hero.
Story: Al Letson Art: Valentine De Landro, Edwin Galmon
Color: Marissa Louise, Edwin Galmon Letterer: Lucas Gattoni
Purchase: 8.5 Art: 8.5 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy
DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle
Recognized is an anthology series celebrating LGBTQ+ heroes! This issue features Olympic runner Helen Stephens, intersectional feminist writer Audre Lorde, and legal scholar Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray with contributions from top comic creators. This issue also includes bonus content for deeper exploration of the lasting impacts of these influential figures.
Story: Robin Hoelzemann, Danielle Henderson, Mikki Kendall
Art: Sarah Myer, Robin Hoelzemann, A. D’Amico
Color: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Josh Reed
Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
BOOM! Studios has revealed a spooky first look at Hello Darkness #6, the horrifying continuation to the new ongoing anthology series featuring what BOOM! Studios is known for–the best in modern Horror, Fantasy, and Mystery, not to mention the darkest stories yet from a murderer’s row of world class creators! Everything from primal fears to modern political horrors will be explored, in the classic style of Creepy and Eerie and the contemporary chills of Black Mirror.
Ho-Ho-Horror for the holidays! Better hope your candles and bulbs all hold to keep the darkness at bay… because you won’t like what goes bump in the cold winter’s night!
In this holiday season issue “The War” continues with part six of Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan’s nuclear winter saga; a stomach-churning twist on the Tió de Nadal tradition in “The Christmas Log” by writer Steve Orlando, artist Adam Gorham, colorist Francesco Segala, and letterer Lucas Gattoni; take a trip “Into the Mines” by writer Justina Ireland, artist Valentine De Landro, colorist Marissa Louise, and letterer Taylor Esposito; and keep an ear out for “Aisling, Drowned” by Sas Milledge. Plus, horrible holiday fun in “I Can’t Take You Anywhere” by Robert Hack.
Hello Darkness #6 features a main cover by Paolo Rivera, and variant covers by Jenny Frison, Björn Barends, and a special Christmas variant by artist Mr. Oz. It’s out in shops on December 25, 2024.
Register! by Andrew Aydin and Valentine De Landro is a captivating journey through American constitutional amendments, focusing on the 26th and 15th. It blends history with contemporary narratives, offering an inspiring read for all ages.
Story: Andrew Aydin
Art: Valentine De Landro
Color: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Clayton Cowles, Josh Reed
Research by: Joshua Rogin, Andrew Aydin
Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site
