Each and every week “That KO Kid” MK2Fac3 and “Your Hero” Henchman21 read a lot of comics. Seriously you guys, a lot of comics. Maybe too many comics. I mean, it is possible”¦ theoretically. They look forward to some more than others, I mean, who doesn’t? So, let’s take a look into the depths of their pull lists, grab some comics, and we’ll let YOU know what the top books to look forward to are for the week of March 7, 2012. Single issues and trades, they’re all here.

Who’s my hero? Is is Chris? Is it Superman? Is it Batman? Is it Kassius? Oh no, it’s none of these. My hero is each and every creator that puts their lives on the line each month to provide each and every one of us with an awesome story so that we can escape from our mundane/great/terrible lives to visit a world that has been created by a writer and artist with a vision and desire to tell stories. I will be eternally thankful to each and every creator whether or not I’m their biggest fan. They have my undying respect. These creators are my heroes. Well, them and people that do really important things like protect freedom and save peoples’ lives and stuff. And Chris Hero. Anyway… The GoD List!

MK2Fac3

Now there’s a lot of great comics coming out this week, so don’t get me wrong. There’s Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Action Comics, the books Henchie’s talking about, the last issue of the Huntress mini-series, Night Force as well as books like Fatale and many others. So, while I’m not talking about a lot of single issues, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have great options. I just think that you have better options with collections this week. So, considering that, let me address our list of collections that are coming out this week.

COLLECTIONS:

Womanthology: Heroic Hardcover (IDW Publishing – $50.00): If you’re a fan of any female comic book creator, you should probably pick this up because more than likely she’s a featured player in this anthology collection of stories made by an entirely female creative team. If you’re not already aware of this book, let me give you a little backstory, you see, a group of women who create comics got a bit tired of not getting a lot of work within the industry and the majority of the comic book industry is dominated by males, so instead of just repetitively submitting their work over and over again, they figured “F it, let’s do it ourselves.” And they did. They absolutely did. They created a Kickstarter campaign and became one of the most successful campaigns since the site’s inception. But anyway, it’s not just about the concept and what this book means as a commentary on society and the awesome do-it-yourself mentality. No, this book also has a lot of talented women contributing to the book. Names like Gail Simone, Ming Doyle, Brenda Kirk, Cat Staggs, Fiona Staples, Jill Thompson, Renae De Liz (the figure head of the project), Devin Grayson, Ann Nocenti, and so many others are on this book, and it’s probably worth way more than $50. But again, this is a great project and a true success story when it comes to crowd sourcing and innovation. Cheers to all involved! (Disclaimer: This may not be coming out this week in comic shops, but I prefer to be safe than completely miss it. I’ll keep you updated.)

King City TP (Image Comics – $19.99): King City is/was an absolutely amazing book. I started reading this book in its Golden Age format when Tokyopop was still going on, and while the story was great, I left issues of the series around my house as art books, because in my humble opinion, this comic featured some of the greatest comic art that I had seen in a long time. It’s bizarre and beautiful, and it’s taken far too long to get collected. So, it’s time to rejoice the appearance of King City in stores and online, because the comic is seriously amazing and you’re doing yourself a grave disservice by not picking it up. So, pick it up!

Batman: Birth of the Demon (DC Comics – $29.99): Really, truly and honestly, you need no other information to buy this book other than the fact that it’s a collection of three Batman stories featuring Ra’s Al Ghul written by Mike W. Barr and Dennis O’Neill. I don’t even know why I have to move on, but these comics were original written outside of the continuity of the man Batman universe as it depicted many different occurrences with Ra’s admiring The Bat, while at some points Batman was fighting alongside the Demon. But wait, there’s more! While that might be something that you could consider as being somewhat normal, it’s standalone nature became blatantly obvious in some aspects. For instance, in the Son of The Demon storyline, Bruce Wayne hooks up with Ra’s daughter, Talia (for those uninitiated), and gets her pregnant and they have a baby that Batman doesn’t know about. Crazy. Daisy. This gets even more complicated when Grant Morrison comes around about 20 years later, retcons it and brings it into the lexicon of The Bat when he introduces Damian Wayne, the son of Talia and Bruce Wayne. DRAMA! Anyway, plot lines and love stories aside, this is a really good collection that any Batman fan needs to have on their shelves because, if I’m not mistaken, these stories have never been collected as a whole. Also, it’s really freaking good. Buy it for yourself and then buy it for me. Oh, did I not mention that I have a birthday coming up? You’ve been warned. Grab it now at TFAW or in your local comic shop or pre-order it from Amazon (to be released 3/13/2012).

ISSUE:

See, I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about many single issues this week, but I didn’t say I wasn’t going to talk about any! What are you, nuts!? This week has a decent amount of intriguing number ones, but what I’m looking forward to is none other than…

Hell Yeah #1 (Image Comics – $2.99): Look, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know a whole lot about the creative team, and I’ve only heard about this comic in passing from creators and such, but it looks pretty killer. The concept of this story is that it’s the last generation of heroes, decades after the human race obtained super powers. So, basically, it’s a bunch of kids fighting and being awesome and stuff. If you have any doubts, consider this… the first issue is 32 complete pages, with no ads, for only $2.99. That sounds good enough to me, I mean, it sounds like a truly innovative book when most of the new superhero books are just over the top violence, anti-heroes and good guys gone bad, so while this comic boasts being over the top, I have a feeling it’s not going to be more fun and not very Kick-Ass or Nemesis, so that’s great news! I mean, the name of the book is Hell Yeah, and that just makes me want to party.

Henchman21

I’m a little teacup, short and stout. I’ve got a handle, but you’ll never see my spout.

ISSUES:
 
Fairest #1 (DC/Vertigo – $2.99): Oh man, am I looking forward to this series. This will be the fourth spin-off of Bill Willingham’s Fables, which tells the story of everyone’s favorite story book characters alive and well and living in New York. Fairest focuses on the ladies, and the plan is for each arc to focus on a different character with a different creative team. The first arc is by Willingham himself, with art by Phil Jimenez and covers by Adam Hughes. This six-issue story tells us what has happened to Sleeping Beauty after she was captured by orcs in Fables #107. I will always take more Fables stories from Bill Willingham, and I’m especially excited to see what Jimenez can do with these characters. Anyone familiar with his work knows that he is an amazing artist with a very detailed style. I don’t know if this is something that will appeal to readers who aren’t caught up on the main series, although my suspicion is that at least some knowledge will come in handy. I hope that this will be at least a little new reader friendly, and serve as a way for more people to get sucked into the world of Fables.
 
The Manhattan Projects #1 (Image Comics – $2.99): All you should need to know about this is that it is a new creator-owned series from writer Jonathan Hickman. Even better is that this is an ongoing series with art by Nick Pitarra, who worked with Hickman on his last series from Image, The Red Wing. This series takes place in an alternate history where the makers of the atom bomb were actually behind a whole host of other projects that may lead to the end of the world. Hickman is one of the best writers working in comics and he specializes in crazy ideas that could almost happen. Hickman is one of the best science fiction authors working today, and you owe it to yourself to be reading his work. As for Pitarra, he is an artist who you may not know yet, but whose work you will soon be paying attention to. He’s got a style that is very reminiscent of Frank Quietly or Chris Burnham. He worked well with Hickman before, and I’m sure he will be more than up for the challenge of this series. I’m sure this will be a challenging read, but it will be worth it.
 
Age of Apocalypse #1 (Marvel Comics – $2.99): This series spins out from the pages of Uncanny X-Force, and takes a look at the human heroes in a world where mutants are in charge and Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, and what he does is bad. Jean Grey and Sabertooth must team up with a group of humans called the X-Terminated, and fight to bring Wolverine’s reign to an end. It comes to us from David Lapham (Deadpool Max, Stray Bullets) and Roberto De La Torre. It’s an X-Men book, so of course I’m at least going to give this a shot, and I’m hopeful that Lapham will find an interesting take on these characters. I’m not sure if this setting can sustain a full series, as I think the whole Age of Apocalypse setting works better in smaller portions, but I’m willing to see where it goes.
 
COLLECTION:
 
The Compleat Terminal City (Dark Horse Comics – $24.99): To be honest, I was just trying to find a book to talk about this week because I wasn’t feeling excited about anything that was coming out this week. Then I read the description for The Compleat Terminal City: “Terminal City is a place where transistor-tube robots rub elbows with old-time gangsters, where bright, shiny technologies cast deep noir shadows. The city has been in decline since a group of celebrated adventurers – Kid Gloves, the boxer; Monty Vickers, the explorer; Eno Orez, the Man of 1,000 Faces, and Cosmo Quinn, the human fly – were each disgraced or disappeared into obscurity. Now a series of strange mysteries involving an un-openable briefcase, a missing link in evolution, a daring lady in red, and an obscene skywriter brings the four men together once again, some on the side of the law, some involved in shady business, with explosive results!” There is no part of that description that doesn’t make me want to pick this up. Terminal City is written by Dean Motter and features art by Michael Lark, so I’m interested to see what Lark does with this series. Like I said, I don’t know much about it, but I will be checking this one out.