If youâre 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 youâve said goodbye to dozens of longboxes to embrace the promise of digital comics. Whichever it is, youâre still interested in the good stuff.
Welcome, then, to the Panel Discussion Dozen Quartet, where I pick out just-released or out-soon comics that I think are worth paying attention to. Ready? Then, letâs meet the sequential art thatâll be draining your wallet this week. Be sure to chime in with the books youâll be picking up or that you think everybody should be ready in the comments.
If youâre going to pay attention to any of the cash-in bastard Before Watchmen series, this is the one. It doesnât try to over-explain the 1940s characters you first met in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonsâ classic superhero deconstruction. Instead, it shows them grappling with the secrets and consequences that plague their double lives in psychologically believable fashion. Writer/artist Darwyn Cooke brings the best of his naturalistic approach to a book that exceeds expectations. And, hey, one of the variants has a lovely Steve Rude cover.
Here we get the New 52 re-interpretations of Black Lightning and Blue Devil, two b-level DC characters whoâve popped in and out of cult popularity over the years. You could say the same of writer Marc Andreyko, who turned out a nice mix of family drama and superheroics in the mid-1990s Manhunter book. Iâm interested to see if this pairing elevates the characters and the talent to new levels. And anthology books always deserve love, if only for how youâre guaranteed something new by virtue of turnover.
If youâre not sure about sticking around to see the aftermath of the Avengers vs. X-Men crossover event, the table-setting that happens in this one. This one-shot serves a preview of the characters and concepts that will be in new Young Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and FF runs.
And if you want a book that blissfully disconnected from the churn of re-shuffling Marvelâs editorial deck, then no book that the publisher is putting out is better than Hawkeye. So far, Matt Fraction and David Ajaâs run has been a string of infectious, tightly executed character studies of the Avengersâ archer. Hawkeye doesnât need to be a superhero to make these stories work but whatâs better is how just enough of his costumed life sneaks into them to make the reading even more fun.
