The Longbox Short-List - Week of September 27, 2017

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 09/26/2017 - 08:00

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

MARVEL LEGACY #1 - SECRET EMPIRE was far better than I was expecting it to be. Not a knock on Nick Spencer, who is one of my favorite writers, just Marvel events tend to leave me flat. It really feels like Marvel is looking to get back to their roots a bit. The idea of an early superhero team starring many of Marvel's REAL big guns like Phoenix, Odin, Starbrand, a Wikandan Panther God, and a Sorcerer Supreme is really cool to me.

MARVEL GENERATIONS SPIDER-MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA - Rounding out the GENERATIONS line, we get SPIDER-MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA. These books have been all over the place in terms of quality, but on a whole, I've really enjoyed them.

NIGHTWING THE NEW ORDER #2 - I don't think I've ever read a comic where I knew what the ending was pretty early, but still loved every minute of the ride. This is great elseworlds story about a world where Dick Grayson has eliminated all super powers...but at the end of the first issue, he finds out that his son has super powers. This was just so well written, and I am real curious where it goes from there.

DUCKTALES #1 - IDW has done such a great job with their Disney line. Unfortunately, most of the titles have changed to quarterly, but we still get UNCLE SCROOGE and this new DUCKTALES series based on the new cartoon. Loving the relaunch, so I have to check the comic out.

FU JITSU #1 - Writer Jai Nitz gave a real dickish interview with Bleeding Cool where he basically said this was the only pure comic written in the last few years that wasn't a comic writer desperate to get a movie deal. Despite this, I am still a huge fan of Aftershock, and typically check out all of their books. I am not expecting all that much from this one, but I will admit that is mostly just because of the arrogant tone the writer took in that interview.

BATMAN THE MURDER MACHINE #1 - I think this is the Cyborg version of evil Batman. I am really taking a wait and see approach on these books. I do like the concept on a whole, but in a lot of ways METAL is just falling flat on me. It feels way too much inside baseball, and so much of what should be fun (like Red Death Batman being able to soup up the Batmobile to steal the speed force) just isn't grabbing me like I want it to.

FAITH AND THE FUTURE FORCE #3 - After the two major failures in the first two issue, this time Faith has recruited a massive team of all of Valiant's heroes to try and save the day. This has just been a real fun series. One of my favorite books from all of comics, not just Valiant.