Alien forces look to clash on Earth as two cities split by wealth look to do the same.
Story: Dan Didio Art: Danilo Beyruth, Breno Tamura Colors: Alex Sinclair, Hi-Fi Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
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
(W) Jed MacKay (A) Ig Guara, Jacques Salomon, Breno Tamura, Kath Lobo (CA) Miguel Mercado In Shops: May 03, 2023 SRP: $24.99
In Ravnica, the Metal Mage reigns as a shadowy dictator, while Vraska, Ral Zarek, and Kaya are trapped and depowered. But despite Ravnica being seemingly unreachable, unlikely help may be on the way!
If Chandra, Niko, and Garruk want to succeed in freeing the former Guildmasters from Tezzeret’s sadistic prisons…they’ll have to face a challenge that no one could have predicted! And far away… another infamous Planeswalker seeks the powers of fate to make their own…
The fourth arc of Magic from writer Jed MacKay (Moon Knight), artist Ig Guara (Edge of Spider-Verse), colorist Arianna Consonni, and letterer Ed Dukeshire reaches a fever pitch as the Battle of Ravnica reaches it’s monumental conclusion!
BOOM! Studios has revealed a first look at Magic #25, the final issue from acclaimed comics writers Jed MacKay and Rich Douek, artists French Carlomagno and Roberta Ingranata, colorists Mattia Iacono and Arianna Consonni of Arancia Studio, and letterer Ed Dukeshire, about a series of mysteries plaguing fan-favorite planeswalkers all over the Multiverse, available on April 5, 2023.
In the epic conclusion to the longest continuous Magic: The Gathering comic series, Nicol Bolas, endowed with godlike powers, is ready to take back the Multiverse. At the edge of existence, our Planeswalkers are discordant, overpowered, and unprepared. Their only hope? Outnumbering the dragon… with more Planeswalkers packed onto the page than ever before! Simultaneously, the spectral voice haunting Jace is revealed, with a secret weapon that Jace must wield, if he can…
Magic#25 features main cover art by acclaimed artist Miguel Mercado, a polybagged Secret Planeswalker Variant Cover by Breno Tamura, and a variant by Junggeun Yoon.
Magic: The Gathering comes to comics courtesy of BOOM! Studios. Magic #20 wraps up the arc as the Planeswalkers attempt to free Ravnica.
Story: Jed MacKay Art: Ig Guara, Jacques Salomon, Breno Tamura Color: Arianna Consonni, Breno Tamura Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
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
Magic: The Gathering comes to comics courtesy of BOOM! Studios. Magic #19 ups the action as the battle really gets going.
Story: Jed MacKay Art: Ig Guara, Jacques Salomon, Breno Tamura Color: Arianna Consonni, Breno Tamura, Gloria Martinelli, Fernando Sifuentes Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
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
BOOM! Studios has released a look at Magic #20, the next issue from writer Jed MacKay, artists Ig Guara and Jacques Salomon, colorists Arianna Consonni of Arancia Studio and Breno Tamura, and letterer Ed Dukeshire, about bloody revenge and a desperate escape attempt, available in November 2022.
The finale of the fourth story arc of Magic reaches a fever pitch as the Battle of Ravnica rages on, not just between Niv-Mizzet and Tezzeret, but also the Planeswalkers and the Guildpact Guard! Between daring escapes, deadly ambushes, and a mad grab for godhood, it will take all of the power at the Planeswalkers’ disposal to stop the worst from happening…
Magic #20 features main cover art by acclaimed artist Miguel Mercado, a polybagged Secret Planeswalker Variant Cover by Megan Hutchison-Cates, and an Incentive Variant Cover by Junggeun Yoon.
BOOM! Studios has revealed a first look at Magic #19, the next issue from writer Jed MacKay, artists Ig Guara, Jacques Salomon, Breno Tamura, Arancia Studio’s Arianna Consonni, and letterer Ed Dukeshire, about bloody revenge and a desperate escape attempt, available on October 5, 2022.
Chandra, Garruk, and Niko have finally made it to Ravnica, but Tezzeret is more than ready for them… if they want to succeed in freeing Ral, Kaya, and Vraska from their sadistic prisons…they’ll have to face a challenge that no one could have predicted, and a final showdown with the Master of Metal himself! Magic fans won’t want to miss the beginning of this epic two-part finale, and the start of a new mystery that will put the… fate of the entire multiverse at stake!
Magic #19 features main cover art by acclaimed artist Miguel Mercado, a polybagged Secret Planeswalker Variant Cover by Mel Milton, and an Incentive Variant Cover by Junggeun Yoon.
Twelve Reasons to Die acts as the source material for the 2013 concept album of the same title by Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah, and the record’s producer/composer Adrian Younge and executive producer RZA even get story and writer credits respectively on this comic, which is finally being released as a collected edition.A pre-4 Kids Walk Into A Bank/Marvel Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon handle the brunt of the scripting though. The comic is a multi-generational crime saga in the mold of such classics like The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, and Once Upon A Time in America with a horror spin. With the exception of the final one, each issue tells two parallel stories. The first is about the rise of African-American gangster Tony Starks (One of Ghostface Killah’s aliases.) from muscle for the DeLuca family to a kingpin in his own right, and it is drawn predominantly by artist Breno Tamura. Gus Storms handles the other story which features “crate digger” Michael Migdal looking for 9 rare records for Lucraze, the don of the DeLuca crime family, because he feels like they’re cursed and wants to destroy them.
The parallel structure of Twelve Reasons to Die allows Rosenberg, Kindlon, RZA, Tamura, Storm, colorist Jean-Paul Csuka, and the various guest artists to play with different genres, art styles, and palettes like Younge and Ghostface Killah play with different beats, instrumentation, samples, and deliveries on the album. Starks’ story is a crime saga while Migdal’s story is more horror, and both use elements from the blaxploitation genre. This really shows up in the artwork with Tamura’s work being looser with scratchy inks and Bronze Age era Ben-Day Dots while Storms’ art is softer and more grotesque with the mysterious “Ghostface Killer” lurking around the edges like something out of a bad dream waiting for the needle to drop and to bring vengeance.
The different guest artists, like Nate Powell, Joelle Jones, Edwin Huang, and Riley Rossmo, meld well with Storms and Tamura while bringing extra flair to key scenes like Starks torturing a racist DeLuca made man and framing him for having an affair with the boss’ wife, Logan (Who Starks is actually sleeping with.) or several night club and murder sequences. Csuka’s colors really tie everything together and control the mood of each sequence whether that’s the sleazy red and blue of the strip club where Starks gets his first assignment from the DeLuca (and later runs) to the pop art pink of a “masqua-rave” that Migdal goes to get one of the records from a DJ, who decides to play the record and gets devoured by ravers turned into insects. It’s a Kafka-esque acid trip that shows the decadence of the DeLuca “social club” (They’ve filed off the serial numbers of their criminal enterprises.), and of course, there’s a panel where Migdal vomits.
Twelve Reasons to Die doesn’t shy away from showing the racism that Tony Starks faces from his employers, the Delucas, who bar him from becoming a made man because of the color of his skin and hurl slurs and stereotypes at him throughout the entire comic. Starks gets passed over for the mob equivalent of a promotion even though he has killed, tortured, and general gone above and beyond the call of duty because of the color of his skin. Eventually, this causes him to band together with his colleagues from the Black community to take over the DeLucas’ turf and even have some DeLuca foot soldiers work for him. There’s a dark, cathartic glee to watching him topple an empire in twelve months that had been established 30+ years ago. (See the prologue featuring Mussolini, mainland Italy vs. Sicily, and double page map spreads.) Starks’ ruthlessness is magnetic, yet frightening as he goes from possibly negotiating with one of the DeLuca’s made men to pistol whipping him in an alley and then tying his neck to the back of a car and having him dragged. This comic definitely uses torture creatively a la “Method Man” from Wu-Tang Clan’s classic album, 36 Chambers.
However, Rosenberg, Kindlon, and RZA also take time to develop Tony Starks’ softer and more vulnerable side through his relationship with Logan, who he genuinely cares about and basically uses as a spy for the DeLucas (Although she betrays him because femme fatale trope.) and especially for his love of records. There’s a touching scene where Starks says that his only dream is to get his hands on the most “hype” records, and he uses his organized crime money to build a factory where he can press his own wax. This is why his demise in that same factory is so tragic, and his vengeance via the drop of a needle is so satisfying as the Ghostface Killer slays the men who betrayed him in new and fucked up ways, or just a single page beheading. (I guess that’s pretty messed up though.) The exception is the noble fencer Batiato, who gets an epic sword fight complete with Ghostface in samurai armor and some fun, blocky cartooning from Edwin Huang.
I haven’t really touched much about Migdal in this review, and initially he seems quite distant from sex, violence, and racism-tinged world of Tony Starks and the DeLucas. He’s just a guy with a sarcastic sense of humor, who you’d see digging through the crates at your local record store, probably every day. However, as he continues to be treated like shit by the aging DeLuca crime bosses and see more horrific things, Migdal seems more attuned to this grindhouse movie of a world even though he doesn’t lose his innocence making the high energy Chris Hunt-drawn finale have a tinge of sadness. He really just wants to get paid so he can buy more records.
Even though it has an entire restaurant of chefs in its proverbial kitchen, Twelve Reasons to Die is a damn good fusion of the crime and horror genre with a charismatic protagonist and a social conscience in the midst of all the schlock. However, it never gets preachy. For three decades, Ghostface Killah has been one of hip hop’s best storytellers, and his vision translates really well to the comic book page thanks to Matthew Rosenberg, Patrick Kindlon, RZA, Breno Tamura, Gus Storms, Chris Hunt, Jean-Paul Csuka, and the guest artists that are the visual equivalent of that perfect drum sound or soul sample that raises a track from skippable to total earworm. Finally, and it goes without saying, but this comic pairs really well with the 12 Reasons to Die album.
Story: Ghostface Killah, Adrian Younge, C.E. Garcia Story/Script: Matthew Rosenberg, Patrick Kindlon with RZA Art: Breno Tamura, Gus Storms, Chris Hunt Guest Art: Kyle Strahm, Joe Infurnari, Tim Seeley, Nate Powell, Tyler Crook, Toby Cypress, Joelle Jones, Edwin Huang, Russell Roehling, Ryan Kelly, Riley Rossmo Colors: Jean-Paul Csuka Letters: Jim Campbell and Nic J. Shaw Story: 8.0 Art: 8.7 Overall: 8.4 Recommendation: Buy
Black Mask Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Created by: Ghostface Killah / Executive Produced by: RZA Written by: Matthew Rosenberg & Patrick Kindlon Illustrated by: Ronald Wimberly, Breno Tamura, Gus Storms, Kyle Strahm, Joe Infurnari, Christopher Mitten, Jim Mahfood, Tim Seeley, Nate Powell, Ben Templesmith, Tyler Crook, Toby Cypress, Juan Doe, Joelle Jones, Edwin Huang, Johnnie Christmas, Russel Roehling, Ryan Kelly, Michael Walsh, Chris Hunt, Riley Rossmo, David Murdoch, Garry Brown, Johnny Ryan, Shaky Kane, Benjamin Marra, and Brian Level Colored by: Jean-Paul Csuka Lettered by: Jim Campbell, Nic J. Shaw Mature / $24.99 / 180 pages
Guns. Sex. Vinyl. Revenge. Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah and RZA teamed with then young-gun writers Matthew Rosenberg (Uncanny X-Men, 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank) & Patrick Kindlon (Survival Fetish, Nobody Is In Control) for this brutal tale of a dangerous crime lord’s rise and fall.
writer: Michael Moreci artist: Breno Tamura cover: Brent Schoonover FC | 120 pages | $19.99 | Science-Fiction | Teen+
It’s a dangerous time for the last remaining humans. Captured by the Cylons on New Caprica, the colonists live in fear of what every new day will bring. As the Cylons press their oppressive — and life-threatening agenda — the survivors grow more desperate to reclaim their freedom. But there’s hope. Out in the wilds of New Caprica, beyond the Cylon boundaries, is a band of human freedom fighters. They answer to no one. They fear no Cylons. They are Twilight Command — and they have a plan. From writer Michael Moreci (Wasted Space, Archie Meets Batman ’66) and artist Breno Tamura (Batgirl, The Birds of Prey) comes the untold tale of Twilight Command!