The Longbox Short-List - Week of March 29, 2017

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 03/28/2017 - 07:58

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

ADAM STRANGE/FUTURE QUEST, BOOSTER GOLD/FLINTSTONES, GREEN LANTERN/SPACE GHOST, SUICIDE SQUAD/BANANA SPLITS – Some really cool Hanna-Barbera/DC crossovers coming out this week. Books like FUTURE QUEST and FLINTSTONES have been incredible, so I will definitely be a customer for all of these. I actually love fifth week events like this!

JUGHEAD THE HUNGER #1 - Archie’s horror line has been a lot of fun. It’s a very different take on these characters, but still manages to maintain the heart and spirit of Archie. This issue isn’t set in the AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE world, but instead a solo story about a horror version of Jughead’s love of eating.

X-MEN PRIME #1 – I’ve been an X-Men fan for around 30 years now. They have been pretty rough to read for the last several years. Marvel seems to be promising a fresh start for the X-Men line. I am hoping that Marvel doesn’t disappoint me again. Just feels like too many failed opportunities in the last few year.

AVENGERS #5.1 – I have said this before, but Waid is a much better fit on this book that he is the main AVENGERS book. His Kang story has just been boring. But this flashback story to the early days of the second Avengers team has been great. I suspect they are going to try and shoehorn Avenger X into modern continuity like they have done with Clash over in Spider-Man, but I have actually liked what they have done with Clash, so that might not be all that bad an idea.

WWE WRESTLEMANIA 2017 SPECIAL – $8 cover price is a tough sell for me. But, Boom has managed to find a real unique way of doing WWE comics, expanding on the storylines we see on WWE TV. I do think the big issue here is that it feels a bit dated at times as they are doing storylines for months ago. But, it still is very well done and features writing by one of my favorite writers, Dennis Hopeless (SPIDER-WOMAN #17 and ALL-NEW X-MEN #19 also comes out this week).

TITANS ANNUAL #1 – It’s still not 100% clear how the sidekicks fit in the New 52 universe. We’ve only been getting a little teases here and there. This Annual features many of the Titans characters teaming up with their mentors. I am real curious how this plays out, especially with characters we really haven’t seen together like Wonder Girl/Wonder Woman and Aqualad/Aquaman.

SABAN’S POWER RANGERS GRAPHIC NOVEL – From what I know, this Graphic Novel is set after the new POWER RANGERS movie. Again, Boom has been killing it with the POWER RANGERS franchise, so I have to check this one out. My son is a huge fan of pretty much all incarnations of POWER RANGERS, though he doesn’t have a lot of interest in this movie, so I doubt I will see it in theaters. But still pretty curious about this new version.