Comics for May 7 and news

I’ve had a particularly bad allergy season this year and yesterday I came home feeling really crappy.

Iron Man: War Machine TP
Wikipedia entry on War Machine
yet another Terrence Howard interview about the Iron Man movie

Now that you’ve seen the movie, rush right out and buy the comics! But start with this one.

JLA Presents Aztek the Ultimate Man TP

N. Steven Harris draws this short-lived but well-received series collected in a trade for the first time.

Also this week:
Buffy TVS #14. Pencils by Jeanty.
DC Special: Raven #3 (of 5). Pencils by Scott.
Infinity Inc. #9
New Dynamix #3 (of 5)
The Question: Poisoned Ground TP. Art by Cowan.
Fantastic Four: The New FF TP. Written by McDuffie.
GRRM’s Wild Cards: The Hard Call #2 (of 6). Pencils by Battle.
Gold Digger #96, GD Swimsuit Special, GD Sourcebook #17, Pirates vs. Ninjas: Up the Ante TP. Story and/or art by Perry.

Also notable:
Rann/Thanagar: Holy War #1 (of 8). The sequel to Rann/Thanagar War, by Starlin & Lim.
Tor #1 (of 6). Joe Kubert. Nuff said.
Avengers/Invaders #1 (of 12). The Ross/Kreuger team behind the Earth X trilogy and Project: Superpowers brings you this new mini-series that unites the Invaders of WWII with the modern-day Avengers.
Invincible Iron Man #1. Which of the six - yes, SIX - variant covers will you get?
Secret Invasion #2 (of 8)
Amelia Rules: When The Past is a Present HC, SC. This new collection of the 4-time Eisner nominee for 2008 includes the critically acclaimed war story “The Things I Cannot Change.”

Friends and neighbors, a new standard has been set for superhero movies. Iron Man was everything a superhero movie should be and more. Everyone was on top of their game, including director Jon Favreau, who took a character looked upon by many as a tough sell to the non-comics crowd and made it the buzz movie everyone agrees on. I should also note that when I went to see it, the crowd was extremely diverse. Black, white, young old, men, women - this was a film that cut across all lines, going by what I saw of the audience, and that’s nice to see as well. By now you know to stay after the credits for the Sam Jackson scene. I’d say somewhere from a fifth to a fourth of the audience at my showing stayed, and what surprised me was that among those who cheered loudest at the mention of “the Avengers Initiative” (well, besides me) was a small group of black women in the upper deck. Go see it if you haven’t already.

Here’s a roundup of African comics and comic strips.