Picks, Pans and Scans from This Week’s New Releases

Every week we’ll be scanning through the new releases for the good, the bad & the fugly in hopes of highlighting potential new pulls (or put-backs) for when you hit your local comic store. As you may guess from the categories, these are strictly mock “awards” not to be taken seriously; it’s just a fun format to compare and contrast. Click thumbnails for full-page scans.

Most Gratuitous T&A Spread Shot

Winner: Detective Comics #823 (DC) – When Paul Dini mentioned in Wizard’s Morrison/Dini interview that writing Detective provided an opportunity to tell stories he couldn’t tell on Batman Adventures, did anyone suspect he meant Evil Dead-like tree rapes?* I sure didn’t. (Art by Joe Benitez)

Runner-Up: Gen-13: Who They Are and How They Came To Be TPB – Granted, Fairchild’s clothes-shredding transformation is more gratuitous than the attack on Poison Ivy but this stuff is from 10 years ago, and somehow, I think we expect more from a Batman book than Gen-13. *And yes, I know Ivy wasn’t actually raped by a tree, but still…

Best Book with a Brother on the Cover

Winner: Sidekick #3 (Image/Desperado) – Paul Jenkins’ irreverent look at superhero society continues its wild ride, thanks in no small part to artist Chris Moreno’s hilarious renderings — just check the cover and preview scans for proof. Sincere thanks to Desperado for bringing the funny.

Runner-Up: Emissary #4 (Image) – Exploring the simple but powerful scenario of what could happen if a savior-like figure came to Earth looking like a black man, Emissary delivers food for thought. Props to creator/co-plotter Jim Valentino, writer Christopher E. Long and artist Juan Ferraya — keep up the great work, guys.

Best Book with an Asian Hero (Not Counting Ninja Babes)

Winner: Agents of Atlas #2 (Marvel) – Featuring the irrepressible, mysteriously rejuvenated Jimmy Woo. Not to mention Head Wakandan in Charge Derek Khanata, Gorilla Man, Dum Dum Dugan and lots of S.H.I.E.L.D. intrigue (entirely free of any House of M or Civil War continuity) and a whole lot more. All in all, a very cool, fun book which has lived up its nice advance press. Great work from both writer Jeff Parker and artist Leonard Kirk.

Runners-Up: All-New Atom #3, Rush City #2 (DC) – Not to be outdone, DC gives us two new Asian heroes in their own books. I didn’t realize the all-new Atom was Asian until I was flipping through #2 and noticed he had spikey hair and used chopsticks; granted I didn’t really read #1, otherwise I could have picked up on the fact that his name is Choi. So far he seems to be your typical teenage hero, but being Asian he has that science nerd thing going on of course. (Also like Peter Parker, he’s attracted the attention of a cute redhead). Rush City meanwhile has been dismissed as a glorified Pontiac car ad by some, but it’s actually a decent read courtesy of veteran Chuck Dixon. The main character, Rush, is a good guy in all senses, and is interesting in that he’s a meta-human without really knowing it. This issue he goes up against Black Canary and lives to tell about it.

Best Book with a Talking Monkey

Winner: Agents of Atlas #2 (Marvel) – again. See preceding praise. Or the following preview scans…

Runners-Up: Furious Fist Of the Drunken Monkey: Origin Of Species #1 (Silent Devil), Outsiders #40 (DC) – Chip likes blondes while Mallah prefers disembodied intelligences…

Coolest Spirit of Vengeance

TIE: Cross Bronx #1 (Image), Lone Ranger #1 (Dynamite). – When you’ve got the unmistakable Michael Avon Oeming illustrating a graphic murder mystery, you’re setting yourself up for inevitable comparisons to Powers, but Oeming & Ivan Brandon establish an edge all their own here. Cross Bronx is an intriguing collaboration by two cool creators.

Although I wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of another licensed property from Dynamite, Lone Ranger’s creative team won delivered surprising depth and character development shown in their first issue. I particularly liked how scenes were given room to breathe with manga-like silent passages of time; seems a little John Cassaday art-direction goes a long way.

Runner-Up: Jonah Hex #11 (DC). Wherein our badass bounty hunter crosses paths with the mysterious El Diablo.

Best Book Where Dudes Die With Bugs Coming Out of Their Mouth

Winner: Exterminators #9 (DC/Vertigo) – People die in pretty much every issue of Exterminators with roaches exiting their mouths, but like we said, these “awards” are just our little way of highlighting certain books — and this book, along with American Virgin, is one of our favorite new titles from Vertigo.

Runner-Up: Bad Moon Rising #1 (Avatar) – Dude. This book totally has somebody dying with bugs coming out of his mouth and gratuitous nudity on the same page. And like 7 rockin’ variant covers! (There might even have a spirit of vengeance, but I’d have to stick around for the second issue to confirm that, so we’ll never know for sure. Now if only it had a talking monkey…)

Trade of the Week

Winner: Surrogates (Top Shelf) – From our original review: “The Surrogates #1 is a thoroughly impressive foray into the mainstream for Top Shelf, an engaging exercise both in idea-driven science fiction and confident storytelling.” If you missed it the first time around, now’s your chance. And even for those who did get the singles, Top Shelf has put together a very nice collected edition with extras including never-before-seen sketches and artwork, plus commentary from the creative team.

That’s all for this week. See you next Wednesday!

Last week we didn’t do any awards, but we did have Panel of the Week — right here if you missed it:

From Cobb #3, by IDW. Written by Beau Smith, Art by Eduardo Barreto.