Unity #2
Written by Matt Kindt
Illustrated by Doug Braithwaite
Colored by Brian Reber
Lettered by Dave Sharpe
Covers by Doug Braithwaite, Travel Foreman, Cary Nord with Len O’Grady
Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: December 11, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

Inside the X-O armor, “Aric has single-handedly pushed the world to the brink” in Unity #2.

Aric’s invasion of Romania cannot go unanswered. He’s already destroyed a Russian carrier inside the X-O Manowar armor, and in response, the Russians are planning to send a tactical nuke in to destroy the one man army. The fallout from such an event would be cataclysmic to Romania and the world. Toyo Harada can’t let this happen. So, even though his Unity team was defeated in a matter of minutes, Harada reforms a new team that includes himself to take down Aric and avert nuclear meltdown.

Unity #1
Written by Matt Kindt
Illustrated by Doug Braithwaite
Colored by Brian Reber
Covers by Doug Braithwaite, Bryan Hitch, J.G. Jones, Travel Foreman, Paolo Rivera, Clayton Crain, Neal Adams
Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: November 13, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

The universe’s most powerful weapon must be brought down! But how can the devastating X-O Manowar be defeated? The time-displaced keeper of the X-O Manowar armor has declared Romania his kingdom, but the world isn’t going to let this invasion happen without a fight. As the Russians plan for a nuclear attack, the world’s most dangerous man, Toyo Harada puts together a ruthless team to take out the armor in Unity #1.

I am exhausted with massive crossover events in comics. Occasionally they deliver on their promises to be a game-changing event with spectacular storytelling, but most often they end up resetting the status quo of all the characters and telling a mediocre story.

Star Wars: Legacy, Book 1
Story by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema
Art by Jan Duursema, Brad Anderson, Sean Cooke, Adam Dekraker, Travel Foreman, Dan Parsons, Ronda Paterson, Colin Wilson,
Cover by Adam Hughes
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 5, 2013
Cover Price: $34.99

There are very few series within the Star Wars Expanded Universe that are universally celebrated by fans, so much so that their content would stand up on its own in film adaptations. Star Wars: Legacy is one of these. Boldly setting the storyline 125 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, the creative team of John Ostrander and Jan Duursema established a new saga in the Star Wars universe that fans have since embraced as some of the most outstanding Expanded Universe material since Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy.

Star Wars: Legacy, Book 1 collects the first three volumes of the Dark Horse series (nearly 20 issues, massing an impressive hardcover collection of 482 pages!), and is most certainly a must-read for any Star Wars fan. The series follows Cade Skywalker, descendant of Anakin and Luke, though ripped from his original destiny to become a Jedi, he finds himself torn between the light side and the dark side of the Force, unwilling to face his future, and tormented from visions of the ghost of Luke Skywalker appearing before him.

Animal Man Vol. 1: The Hunt
Paperback
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Travel Foreman, John Paul Leon, Jeff Huet
Color Art by Lovern Kindzierski
Letters by Jared K. Fletcher
DC Comics
Release Date: May 2, 2012
Cover Price: $14.99

Animal Man by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman is easily one of the best titles of the DC Relaunch. The comic does everything it should. What Lemire does in The Hunt is craft a perfect, classic, horror story. The comic starts normally enough in the vein of the radical Animal Man who fights on behalf of animal rights, but it quickly takes a dark and twisted turn that takes Buddy Baker’s life and places it on its head by involving his family closely with his power set. We are also introduced to a group of hunters that are looking for Buddy Baker, but more importantly, they’re looking for his family members.

Following the lead in Scott Snyder’s current run on Batman, DC Comics has posted a graphic containing all of the titles that will be participating in the Batman crossover event Night of the Owls.

Night of the Owls started this week with a prelude in Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows’ Nightwing #8 which kickstarted the first issue in the crossover event, Batman #8 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. The concept of the mini-event is that Gotham City has a sordid past that even Bruce Wayne was unaware of. The Court of Owls, an evil group of assassins, has been controlling the fate of Gotham the entire time. There’s much more to the story including Dick Grayson’s lineage and an all out assault against the Wayne family and other leaders of Gotham City. It’s a war of Bats vs. Owls when most of the Bat-family is called upon to participate.