Try These New Comic Books This Week

One day in the near future (read: tomorrow), our top comics expert, Evan Narcisse, will return.

For now, you’re stuck getting your new comics recommendations from me, the guy with 40GB of comics, mostly unread, on his ComiXology app on his iPad. I need to make some time to read more of what I’m buying. And yet I will buy new comics tomorrow. I can’t help myself!

Here’s what you should consider reading this week, all of which will ship to stores and be available digitally on Wednesday:

Sword of Sorcery #4 (DC) – This is a fantasy comics about a teenage girl who discovers she’s really a princess in a land of magic. She now fights to survive in a tale that’s as much about Game of Thrones-style royal rivalries as it is about bad guys being split by swords. The series is written by a former writer of the cartoon Jem and the Holograms. It’s not so much a great comic as it is different from most of the other New 52 books. So if you like DC in theory but don’t like a lot of the New 52, try an issue. Faint praise, yes, but a solid enough book that’s worth a look despite its odd pedigree.

Wonder Woman #16 (DC) – Image has Saga and Chew, Marvel has Daredevil and Hawkeye. The no-questions-need-to-be-asked gem of DC Comics since the New 52 launched is the smartly-written and even more smartly-drawn Wonder Woman. The broad strokes won’t feel new: Greek gods are at each other’s throats. The specifics, however, of a Wonder Woman who is trying to save her fellow children of Zeus, is inventive as each unlikely member of the family tree shows up. And now come Jack Kirby’s New Gods, to mix a new pantheon into this bloody, wonderful fracas. Free of the crossovers muddying much of the Batman line, this is DC’s best book. Read it.

Mars Attacks The Transformers (IDW) – Hey, I’m just letting you know this crossover exists. This follows the recent and even more ridiculous concept of Mars Attacks Popeye. I have no idea if this is any good. I just know that it exists.

Chew #31 (Image) – The second half of the series starts here, or so they say. It’s true. Writer John Layman is only going 60 issues with this comic book about an America where chicken is outlawed and where just a couple of people have the ability to learn the secrets of anyone they, uh, chew. If you’ve been reading this series, the second-half-starting thing isn’t the draw of this issue. The draw is the follow-up to the insane events of issue #30. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, go back and start with issue one.

Deadpool Killustrated #1 (Marvel) – You may have thought that Mars Attacks and Transformers were the weirdest combo in this week’s new comics. Nope. The weirdest combo is the apparent meeting of hyper-violent goofball mercenary Deadpool and the large white whale Moby-Dick.

Young Avengers #1 (Marvel) – Mr. Kieron Gillen—he of (mostly) former video game journalism greatness—and Jamie McKelvie—he of knowing how to draw really, really well—launch their new series which, the hype copy boasts, will: “reinvent the teen superhero comic for the 21st century, uniting Wiccan, Hulkling and Hawkeye with Loki, Marvel Boy and Ms. America.” Hooray!

See the rest of this week’s new releases, via Midtown Comics’ ever-helpful website.