The Longbox Short-List - Week of March 7, 2018

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 03/06/2018 - 08:31

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

GIDEON FALLS #1 - I will admit, I don’t know much about this book beyond it’s by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino. I loved their work on OLD MAN LOGAN, so I am picking up this one pretty much without knowing anything else about it...actually there is a lot of that going on this week….

OBLIVION SONG #1 - Just a few weeks ago, Robert Kirkman wrapped up INVINCIBLE, and OBLIVION SONG is his newest title from Image, so I immediately added it to my pull list. The solicit for this one told us “A decade ago, 300,000 citizens of Philadelphia were suddenly lost in Oblivion. The government made every attempt to recover them, but after many years, they gave up. Nathan Cole...won't. He makes daily trips, risking his life to try and rescue those still living in the apocalyptic hellscape of Oblivion. But maybe...Nathan is looking for something else? Why can't he resist the siren call of the Oblivion Song?” Hmm….300K missing Philadelphians...you know what I call that? A good start!!

X-MEN RED #2 - I loved the first issue of X-MEN RED. The setup of trying to build a truly progressive superhero team, and then watching it all get torn to shreds was just an inspired piece of comic writing. I have been reading X-Men books pretty much as long as I’ve been reading comics, and right now I am enjoying these books more than I have in a long time. X-MEN RED is a great addition to the line.

INFINITY COUNTDOWN #1 - While this is a huge shift away from the INFINITY GAUNTLET stories I loved back in the day, I do think Marvel has managed to put a real fresh spin on the Infinity stones coming out of SECRET WARS “new Marvel universe.” If nothing else, we are getting a story that manages to tap into several different unexpected characters. I was a bit skeptical about another INFINITY event, but so far, I am really enjoying this one.

BATMAN #42 - Last issue, we saw Poison Ivy kick things up to a whole new level with her basically taking over the world. It was kind of cool to see Poison Ivy really taking things to the extreme, though I will admit I kind of like Ivy more when she’s more of an anti-hero than outright villain. But it’s still nice to see one of Batman’s villains actually be in a position to be taken more seriously.