Kull: The Cat and the Skull #1
Written by David Lapham
Art by Gabriel Guzman
Colors by Dan Jackson
Letters by Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
Covers by Jo Chen, Stephanie Hans
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 12, 2011
Cover Price: $3.50

I have to admit, while I love the sword and sorcery genre, I’ve never been a huge Kull fan. I’m way more of a Conan guy. I know, a lot of people argue that they’re just two versions of the same character, but after reading Kull: The Cat and the Skull #1, I find that they’re really NOT all that similar. While Conan is, after all, a barbarian, Kull is much more civilized while still being able to let his savage side emerge when necessary.

Angel & Faith Season 9 #2
Script by Christos Gage
Art by Rebekah Isaacs
Colors by Dan Jackson
Letters by Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
Cover by Steve Morris
Alternate Cover by Rebekah Isaacs, Andy Owens and Dan Jackson
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 28, 2011
Cover Price: $2.99

Vampire drug dealers? Almost, but not quite. Angel & Faith Season 9 #2 opens up to a large fight on the streets of London. Faith and the girls are fighting a horned demon and his vampire cohorts in order to stop what they think is a drug deal. Lots of deaths later we find it wasn’t drugs at all, it’s…(sorry, no spoiler here).

Thanks to Angel stepping in at the end of the fight, one of the girls lives to fight another day. Luckily only Faith knows he was there…he is still persona non grata after the whole Twilight thing (a name that brings to mind other brooding vampires and way whinier cast members). Angel is still on the quest to redeem himself after his many mistakes in the past year. Whereas Faith, for all her faults, is trying to bring some sanity to his plans. His access to the Watcher Files isn’t helping, either. It just sort of feeds the fire that is keeping him going. Against her better judgement, Faith agrees to help him.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 #1
Written by Joss Whedon
Pencils by Georges Jeanty
Inks by Dexter Vines
Colors by Michelle Madsen
Letters by Richard Starkings, Jimmy Betancourt
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 14, 2011
Cover Price: $2.99

When I was given the chance to review Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #1 a week or so ago, I was so excited. I am a huge fan of the Buffy-verse and am always excited when a new issue of this comic drops. Then I realized I needed a refresher on the last season, so the reading began… I’m happy to say that I finally finished rereading it and it helped put this first issue of Season 9 in perspective.

Immediately, the reader is thrown into the story and like many issues of the last series, this one really reads like a television program, with lots of flashbacks and memories, switching of scenes, and so on. The premise of this issue is to reunite the characters after the end of last season. Just like the show, it starts off with sort of a shaky start on what’s going on and proceeds to fill in some of the blanks, so to speak.

FVZA #1-2
Written by David Hine
Conceived by Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson
Illustrated by Roy Allen Martinez
Painted by Kinsun Loh and Jerry Cho
Lettered by Richard Starkings and ComicCrafts’ Jimmy Betancourt
Radical Publishers
Release date: December 2009

Alternate histories are always a fun concept to play with in fiction. Imagining a world where the Axis won WW2 like Philip K. Dick’s Man in a High Castle, or Allan Moore’s and Kevin O’Neill’s Victorian speculative and adventure fiction comics The League of Extraordinary Gentleman are great exercises in creative speculation.

Radical Comics, writer David Hine, and artist Roy Allen Martinez brings forward their own altered world where vampires and zombies are very real, and their presence has permanently altered the history of the human race in FVZA. The FVZA, or the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, was assembled to hunt down and destroy the infected. When a working vampire vaccine was discovered in the 1960s, President Kennedy announced that the FVZA was to be disbanded. A former scientist and operative of the FVZA has isolated and trained his granddaughter and grandson to take up the battle if the undead return. When a surviving vampire plans to overthrow the human rule and create the United Vampire States of America, the FVZA is reformed to tackle the emerging menace.