Five Comics That Will Make You Nostalgic This Week

If you’re here in the Panel Discussion programming block, you might be a lapsed comics reader, trying to find a way back to the JLA Satellite. Or you might someone killing time until you pick up your weekly Wednesday pull list. Or maybe you’ve said goodbye to dozens of longboxes to embrace the promise of digital comics. Whichever it is, you’re still interested in the good stuff.

Welcome, then, to the Panel Discussion Dozen Quintet, where I pick out just-released or out-soon comics that I think are worth paying attention to. Ready? Then, let’s meet the sequential art that’ll be draining your wallet this week. Be sure to chime in with the books you’ll be picking up or that you think everybody should be ready in the comments.

Axe Cop: President of the World #1
This comic comes from the mind of an eight-year-old named Malachai Nicolle and, in a good way, you can tell. Each page gets filled up with the kinds of crazy ideas that happen when you throw a bunch of action figures together and try to explain why what’s happening. Hilarious stuff.

Mass Effect Homeworlds #3

This issue of Dark Horse’s video game tie-in series focuses on everyone’s favorite Turian. This chapter sees Garrus on his native Palaven and also puts him on the prison planet Omega as he investigates a murder there. Hopefully, it’s not going to be a bunch of calibrations, too.

National Comics: Eternity #1

I always like Kid Eternity, the Golden Age teen hero who could call upon dead famous people to help fight evil. It was a morbid power to have, but one that makes it ripe for a modern twist. Jeff Lemire—who’s holding down some of the New 52 DC Universe’s macabre corners in books like Animal Man—should be a great fit for this re-invention of the 1940s character.

Winter Soldier #8

I love how Ed Brubaker’s espionage action series shows how paranoia can take a life of its own. Long after the Cold War’s ended, Bucky Barnes finds himself having to clean up the messes from his own brainwashed past. With two main characters who were spies for both the U.S. and U.S.S.R., the adventures here serve as nice metaphors for how unfinished business can keep on complicating life for people who want to move on.

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me
Unless something else pops up at some later date, this could very well be the last piece of Harvey Pekar’s incredible comics legacy. Focusing on the curmudgeonly writer’s relationship with the idea of a Jewish state, this graphic novel should give readers a slightly more political take on Pekar’s personality and worldview, making it more of a shame that he’s no longer with us.