It’s the 4th of July and we’re celebrating here at GPHQ but we still have a day packed with news! We’re kicking it off with some stories you might have missed in our morning roundup. Happy 4th!
Rolling Stone – The Secret Life of Steve Ditko: Spider-Man Co-Creator’s Family Opens Up – A great read.
Reviews
Comicbook – Absolute Power #1
Comicbook – Free Agents #1
Comicbook – Grendel: Devil’s Crucible Defiance #1
Comicbook – Spider-Man: Reign 2 #1
Wednesdays are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in
Each week our contributors choose what they can’t wait to read this week or just sounds interesting. In other words, this is what we’re looking forward to and think you should be taking a look at!
Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this week.
Absolute Power #1 (DC Comics) – The summer event officially kicks off as Amanda Waller goes all out against the world’s superheroes turning public opinion against them and sending her force to retrieve them.
Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry (Dark Horse) – Learn some comic history! We’re excited to dive in and discover something we didn’t know.
Conan the Barbarian #12 (Titan Comics) – The series has been fantastic sword and sorcery with lots of adventure and some fantastic art. It’s been a great blend of old and new.
Free Agents #1 (Image Comics) – The team of Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Triona Farrell, and Stephen Mooney is enough to get us interested in this new series about survivors of a intergalactic war who are stranded on Earth and trying to live better lives.
Scarlett #2 (Skybound) – The first issue was a solid launch of the series which has Scarlett infiltrating Clan Arashikage find her friend Jinx.
Space Ghost #3 (Dynamite Entertainment) – The series has been a great mix of nostalgia while carving its own path. The series has done an amazing job of building off of what has come before delivering lots of action, some heart, and a dose of classic Space Ghost.
ThunderCats: Cheetara #1 (Dynamite Entertainment) – Cheetara gets the first spotlight of the newly launched series!
unOrdinary Vol. 2 (Harper Alley) – The first volume caught us surprise about a school where a seemingly normal kid unrolls but everyone has powers and abilities. This is a world where superheroes are a foreign concept and power is used for one’s gain.
Free Agents #1
(W) Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza (A) Triona Farrell (A/CA) Stephen Mooney
In Shops: Jul 03, 2024
SRP: $3.99
Series Premiere. Giant-Size! Bargain Price! An all-new ongoing series! Kurt Busiek (Astro City), Fabian Nicieza (Deadpool), and Stephen Mooney (Half Past Danger) introduce a team of young veterans, survivors of a massive intergalactic war. Salvo. Pike. Katari. Shakti. Ridge. Maraud. Chalice. They’ve fought every day of their existence and won a terrible victory. Now they’re stranded on Earth, free agents for the first time. But when relics from their long war appear, threatening their chance at better lives, their greatest battle begins. They’ve fought for a million planets. Can they fight to save their own souls?
Kurt Busiek, the bestselling writer of Avengers, Superman, Thunderbolts, Iron Man, JLA, and more, is returning to Image in a big way in 2022, with new entries in fan-favorite series, including Astro City, Arrowsmith and others, plus new creations and more, as he brings his creator-owned work to Image Comics as his primary publisher.
First up, Busiek and superstar artist Carlos Pacheco bring fans the much-anticipated return of Arrowsmith in Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines. This six issue miniseries launches from Image Comics in January 2022—followed in February by an oversized, fully re-mastered hardcover collected edition of the original series.
In March, Arrowsmith will be joined by the return of Astro City, Busiek’s collaboration with Brent Anderson, Alex Ross, and Alex Sinclair, first with an Astro City one-shot special introducing new characters and setting the stage for upcoming dangers for the city and the world, plus new collected editions that will make the entire Astro City backlist available again.
Longtime fans will also be treated to a new urban-fantasy graphic novel, The Gods on Sunday Morning, from the whole Astro City team, after which they begin a new ongoing run on the acclaimed series.
Also in the works is Free Agents, a new series launch from Busiek with co-writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Stephen Mooney and the return of Autumnlands from Busiek with Benjamin Dewey and Jordie Bellaire, all planned for late 2022.
In addition to all the exciting new content from the mind of Busiek, there will also be re-releases of his popular backlist gems like Shockrockets and Superstar: As Seen on TV, both with Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, and Jeromy Cox, and The Wizard’s Tale with David Wenzel.
In the upcoming Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines, it’s World War I—but a war of wizards and dragons as much as bullets and barbed wire. Young airman Fletcher Arrowsmith plunges back into the heat of war—and finds himself behind enemy lines, facing a threat that could doom the Allied Powers. Old friends and new favorites will appear, and the world of Arrowsmith will be deepened, as previously-secret history and machinations are revealed.
For the re-mastered hardcover, Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms ,readers are introduced to young Fletcher Arrowsmith who learns the true cost of war in an alternate history where dragons and magic spells are as much a part of World War I as bullets and barbed wire. This edition, deluxe-sized and in hardcover for the first time, will present the art as Pacheco originally intended, and will feature ancillary material about the creation and history of Arrowsmith.
Arrowsmith: Behind Enemy Lines #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, January 19:
Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms (Diamond Code: NOV210098, ISBN: 978-1-5343-2206-6) will be available on Wednesday, February 23 and in bookstores on Tuesday, March 1. It can be pre-ordered at your local comic book shop or independent bookstore or via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Indigo.
