Comics

I saw this reported earlier in the week, and wanted to provide some perspective and commentary on it.

Marvel Comics has announced plans to overship all of its January 2017 titles by 10% for free to retailers. This will mean for every ten copies of a January Marvel book bought by retailers, they'll receive an additional copy; and furthermore, Marvel will be rounding up the percentages, meaning if less than ten copies of a book is ordered, a free copy will still be send along with the paid titles.

That gives retailers extra copies of books to for a profit of full cover price per issue (minus the shipping charges from the distributor). So will Marvel's sales be 10% higher in Diamond Comics Distributors' sales figures for January 2017?

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Saw this story on Deadline this morning:

Rob Liefeld, whose disruptive Deadpool creation was the blockbuster movie surprise of 2016, is at the center of the first big film rights deal of 2017. Graham King and Fundamental Films have partnered to build movies from the comic book characters Liefeld created in what is known as Extreme Universe. King has partnered with Weed Road’s Akiva Goldsman, and they will produce the movies with Liefeld and Energy Entertainment’s Brooklyn Weaver. This rights deal is seven figures, I hear.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

One of my biggest gripes about DC's REBIRTH is that they gave me all this exorbitant foreplay in the one-shot, and now they're dragging out the underlying story in dribs and drabs across all their titles with sneaky little mentions. Over in TITANS this week, we get the name-drop of "Manhattan" when Omen probes Abra Kadabra's mind. But there's another reference to the whole thing this week as well, happening here in the pages of JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. SUICIDE SQUAD #2.

Batman has made the Justice League aware of the Suicide Squad's existence, and they're none too happy that the criminals they put behind bars are actually being cut loose on a regular basis to perform secret missions. At the close of the previous issue, the two teams finally entered into conflict, which plays out over the course of this second issue.

Of all the DC projects springing from the Hanna-Barbera universe, FUTURE QUEST was probably the one that excited me the most. Taking the world of Jonny Quest and finding a way to merge it with all the H-B action cartoons (and even some of the action-comedy cartoons like THE IMPOSSIBLES) seemed a daunting task, but the team somehow made it work, through the threat of a multi-dimensional planet killer called The Omnikron.

After a few issues, the series seemed to be meandering a bit, as it needed story space to bring in all these characters, including introducing the new Mightor to the universe and tying his energy club to that of Omnikron. And the artwork had become serviceable but not outstanding. In short, the series was starting to sputter toward boring.

From page one, panel one of the latest issue, that's not the case any longer.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

DC made some big announcements today regarding their Hanna Barbera line.  They are doing a series of annuals, all of which will crossover with a mainstream DC character.  And as a special bonus, each annual also includes a backup feature introducing a new character to the Hanna Barbera reboot.  The main stories and the backups all have top of the line creative teams, and from the solicits, they all seem to tie in to both DC and Hanna Barnera continuity.  

All four of these look great, but I will say the one I am most looking forward to is the Flintstones/Booster Gold.  Especially since it's got a Jetsons' backup!

ADAM STRANGE/FUTURE QUEST ANNUAL #1

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Some really pricey books coming out this week!

Archie Comics was pretty busy at the end of the week posting up four teasers for new books coming soon.  We don't get much information beyond creative teams and a teaser image, but Archie has been putting out a lot of cool books lately, so it's very likely I will end up buying most of these.

First up, we have the return of the Little Archies in March!  Baltazar and Franco actually have worked on Little Archies before in a crossover with Tiny Titans.  This is right in their wheel house and should be a lot of fun.!

Nova #1

Written by: Jeff Loveness & Ramon Perez
Art by: Ramon Perez
Colored by: Ian Herring
Lettered by: Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price:  $3.99

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Valiant send out a press release on Monday telling us "War is coming!" heralding the return of X-O MANOWAR in a new series debuting in March 2017.  They didn't tell us much else, just the very cool image above.  

Saw this on a few places the last two days, so felt it was worth reporting on.   

Marvel and Capcom characters will duke it out in a new crossover fighting game coming to consoles next year. Multiple sources tell Polygon that Marvel vs. Capcom 4 is currently in development and slated for release sometime in 2017.

Although Capcom hasn’t officially announced the game, we’ve been told the company will unveil Marvel vs. Capcom 4 this week alongside Sony’s PlayStation Experience event where the Capcom Cup 2016 Street Fighter 5 tournament will be held.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Fifth weeks are always pretty light, and I am running real late this week, so just time for a few quick comments…

Fantasy stories that find a person transported to another world have always been a staple in the industry. Whether the protagonist walks through a wardrobe or falls down a rabbit hole, falls asleep in a cave of mists (like Edgar Rice Burroughs' A PRINCESS OF MARS) or gets swallowed by a hippo at the zoo (Brandon Mull's BEYONDERS), the method is usually nothing more than a convenient story device to get Person A to Plot B for the sake of expediency so the action can begin.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

The Flintstones #5

Written by: Mark Russell
Art by: Steve Pugh
Colored by: Chris Chuckry
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe

Published by: DC
Cover Price:  $3.99

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Kind of a dull week to be honest… Quite a few books that I read, but not a lot of new books or anything real exciting going on to talk about.