The Longbox Short-List - Week of January 10, 2018

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 08:20

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running 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

AVENGERS #675 - Marvel has combined all their AVENGERS books into one weekly event called NO SURRENDER. This is apart from their other weekly event running right now, PHOENIX RESURRECTION (issue 3 comes out this week). It is nice that these books are self-contained at least, not requiring the reader to buy a ton of pointless crossovers, but I still think they should have probably finished PHOENIX RESURRECTION before starting NO SURRENDER. Personally, I wasn't really enjoying Mark Waid's AVENGERS, so lumping in Walker's OCCUPY AVENGERS and Ewing's USAVENGERS, two really good books, seems like a bad choice to me.

WITCHBLADE #2 - I actually didn't realize this series was a complete reboot of WITCHBLADE. I had never read any WITCHBLADE before, but I did enjoy the first issue of the new series. Real curious where this series is heading. I have also heard Image may also be rebooting DARKNESS, another series I was always curious about but never got a chance to check out.

DEADMAN #3 - To be honest, I couldn't tell you anything about what happened in the first two issues. Love the art, but Neal Adams' writing have become dense and impenetrable in recent years. I don't mind complicated comics, but if you are looking for depth, you are better out checking MISTER MIRACLE #6.

NINJAK VS THE VALIANT UNIVERSE #1 - This is a tie-in to the online TV series NINJAK VS THE VALIANT UNIVERSE. As far as I know, they still haven't given a release date for the webseries, so I guess this comic will have to tide us over. The show itself seems to be really well cast. That said, I think maybe they should have delayed the comic until the webseries was up because otherwise, this could create some confusion for the readers.

GWENPOOL THE UNBELIEVABLE #24 - I am so bummed out that this series is ending with the next issue. They did kind of hint that way in the last few issues, but it was still a surprise to be to hear that it was actually ending. GWENPOOL was a terrific surprise in the last year or so. One of the best comics on the market, and I hope that people check out the trades so this book can come back down the road.

OLD MAN HAWKEYE #1 - As much as I like OLD MAN LOGAN, I can't imagine there was a lot of people demanding this 12-issue miniseries. Marvel just cancelled their current HAWKEYE series, so this seems like a unusual choice. OLD MAN LOGAN #33 also comes out this week.

SUICIDE SQUAD #33 - I really enjoyed seeing the history of TASK FORCE X in the last arc of SUICIDE SQUAD. SUICIDE SQUAD has been one of my favorite books throughout all of New 52 and Rebirth, but it just seems to slip along quietly without getting too much attention. It's not DC's flashiest book, but one of my favorites.