Dead of Night Featuring Werewolf by Night #1 Cover

He’s the man that brings you Cable every month in all its glory. He’s the man that was able to somehow take over for the amazing team of Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker on Immortal Iron Fist. So what does Duane Swierczynski have in store for us, his loyal fans, now? Why, Dead of Night Featuring Werewolf by Night, of course (but you already knew that, or you wouldn’t be reading this)!

Werewolf by Night tells the story of Michael Shepard, an average guy with a beautiful wife, a baby on the way, and a job that forces him to leave her every month. Only, everything isn’t quite as it seems. You see, Michael Shepard is really Jack Russell and he really goes away every month to lock himself in a cell for 2 days. Why does he do this? Because he turns into a werewolf!

After the break, I’ll give you the lowdown on this new limited series and whether you should pick it up.

(more…)

Cable #10 Cover

After two HUGE weeks in comics, this week brings a much needed break, which is great for my sanity (and my wallet). Still, though, there are a bunch of great comics that you should pick up this week at the shop.

Cable #10

This week brings the end of the “Waiting for the End of the World” arc in Cable. Duane Swierczynski has been rocking this series all along, but this arc has really upped the ante on the whole Messiah Complex thing. Will Bishop succeed in killing Cable and the baby? Probably not. But things should continue to get more interesting as we get closer and closer to the big Messiah War crossover with X-Force.

Dead of Night Featuring Werewolf By Night #1

While we are talking about Duane Swierczynski, he’s got another book coming out this week. The Dead of Night series continues from Marvel MAX imprint with the first issue of this limited series featuring Werewolf By Night. Just like the other 2 Dead of Night series, I know nothing about this character, but this series does a great job bringing these minor horror characters back into the spotlight.

Secret Invasion: War of Kings Cover

Secret Invasion: War of Kings

Coming directly out of the Inhumans Secret Invasion series and leading directly into the upcoming War of Kings cosmic event comes this one-shot. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (aka DnA) never fail to write great cosmic tales and this intro into War of Kings should be no different. Check it out!

Punisher #1

Frank Castle finally matters again in the Marvel universe. Punisher relaunches this week with an all new series by Rick Remender. Punisher is mad as hell about the events of Dark Reign and is looking to do some… well… punishing. Check out this first issue for great, bloody action as only the Punisher can bring.

No Hero #3

This week continues Warren Ellis‘ amazing new series, No Hero. We’ve covered how great this series is several times on this site, so you should know you should be buying it. Just thinking about it makes me wish I was at the comic shop right now…

That’s it for this week, ladies and gents. Don’t forget to make your weekly pilgrimage down to the LCS and happy reading!

Immortal Iron Fist #21 cover

I heard rumor about something from Duane Swierczynski in which Warren Ellis gave him an idea to write a comic about the Immortal Iron Fist in the future… in 3099 to be exact and I wasn’t sure when we devoted readers would see such a crazy issue. As luck would have it, that issue came out this month and boy was it strange.

As far as Immortal Iron Fist goes, this whole 3099 thing is way out of the ordinary. I may not know much about Duane Swierczynski but somehow, he managed to pull this issue off and work it to be extremely cool. Being based in the future always makes me skeptical for some comics, but this being so damn far in the future I really can’t argue with what occurs in this issue outside of how out-of-nowhere-awesome it is.

**some spoilers after the break**

(more…)

Dead of Night Featuring Warewolf By Night #1 Cover

My first impression when viewing the solicitations for the new year for the big 2 comic book publishers was “this is it?” Honestly, it felt a little underwhelming. Considering the fact that Marvel is coming off their big cross-over event, Secret Invasion and in the midst of a whole boat load of X-Men stuff, you’d think that more would be happening. Same for DC, where they are set to finish up their big cross-over, Final Crisis, is post-Batman R.I.P. and is also finishing up Superman’s major New Krypton story arc. But then I dug a little deeper and pulled out a whole bunch of great gems to get excited for. And I’m sure there’ll be more, as many Marvel solicitations are still classified until Secret Invasion wraps up next month. January is shaping up to be a pretty good month to be a comic book fan. And guess what, it is also my birthday month. So, faithful readers, I expect each and every one of you to go out and get me a comic book for my birthday. Seriously. Do it! But until then, read on for some previews so you can decide which one to get me…

(more…)

Cable #7 Cover

A new month and a new arc in Cable. And with a cover that jokes about having “400% more X-Men” and depicts X-Force attacking Bishop, you gotta believe this is gonna be a good one.

Last month, we were treated to King-Size Cable, which gave us a little break from the on-going Cable saga, but provided lots of very important plot points. You can read my review here. Basically, Bishop found out that Cable can only jump forward in time. We also found out that the baby is growing older, significantly older than she was in the first arc.

In the last actual issue, Cyclops brooded a lot about whether he made the right choice letting Cable take the messiah baby with him to the future. But, Cyclops has a plan, which begins to unfold in this new arc.

Review below. GO GO GO!!!

(more…)

King Size Cable Cover

Foregoing the typical monthly installment of the saga of the time-traveling Cable and his first-mutant-born-since-m-day baby, Marvel released King Size Cable, to the delight of Cable fans everywhere. Instead of the normal 24ish page story, we were treated to a 50-something page epic story starring our favorite bad/good guy, Bishop.

While not necessarily important to the main Cable storyline, King Size Cable is no less an important supplement to the main Cable monthly series. What we have here is Bishop’s side of the story, and we get a little more perspective into why he is hunting down Cable and the baby. In addition, we get an important insight into how Cable has managed to stay one step ahead of Bishop thus far. And, in probably the most interesting revelation out of this story, we find that the baby can now walk and talk. I was shocked, as in the last issue of Cable, she was still a pretty small infant. Are we progressing faster in the story now? Will we see her grow up faster and start to see her childhood and young adulthood soon? And does this mean the Cable book will be rejoining the main time-line sooner rather than later? Only time will tell.

More reviewing below the jump!

(more…)

As I previewed yesterday, Cable #6 came out today and has started a new arc. This time, it seems that the action has shifted a little away from the “Bishop V. Cable” style that was predominate in the first 5 issues of this series and has instead opted to build the story a little more by exploring other aspects of the decision to send the first mutant born since M-Day to the future with Cable to protect her. I’ll just start off by saying that I couldn’t be happy with this sudden change in story style.

As faithful Cable readers will remember, last month, Cable was able to escape from Bishop by jumping further into the future (it seems that his time-machine can only go forward, not back). So, it was a little up in the air as to what this would lead to. Would Bishop find him and continue the fight or would something completely new happen? I’ll tell you after the jump and give you my full review, with some minor, general story spoilers.

(more…)

I’ve been reading Immortal Iron Fist since the current series began and I have dug it a lot. It’s probably one of my favorite series right now (next to X-Factor and Invincible) and this week I was just blown away.

Given that Matt Fraction ended his run with issue #16–which I was dumb and somehow didn’t realize–I was a tad skeptical at how this new arc was going to take off. Lucky for me, it ended up being fucking amazing and it seriously blew my mind. From what I’ve been hearing from Comic Con in San Diego, Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker (who co-wrote the first 16 issues together) are saying their series is going to look lame compared to what is coming from Duane Swierczynski in the near future… Really with one issue in I can already see it getting amazing. (Although, I loved the tournament from Fraction and Brubakers run).

**more review and spoilers after the break**

(more…)