Rachel Rising #4 has Rachel finally succeed in getting some other characters to listen. The plot thickens a lot in this issue, wil the answer of who buried Rachel in the first place possibly answered but even more questionas asked...

I don't do monthly comics anymore but I'm picking up the trades as fast as I can on some comics. My most recent purchases are the Big Time and Matters of Life and Death trades for Amazing Spider-Man and the first volume of FF. Great stuff all around, love Spidey's new job and the new direction for the former Fantastic Four. Although, having come back to Spider-Man after letting it rest with the One More Day thing, I don't know much about Carlie Cooper but she seems kind of bland and they aren't giving her a ton of "screen time" to change my mind in these collections.

Also, Amazing Spider-Man #655 may be one of the best single issues of a super hero comic I have ever read and I am now in love with Marcos Martin's art.

Keep us posted! Sure, newly read can count as NEW COMICS!!! here.


Would it also be good for someone who hasn't read the series?

Meanwhile, Orchid #4 starts off not with Orchid herself but two scenes with another faction, expanding our view of the global dystopia in the series. When we get back to our heroes, the western-genre feel from issue #3 sticks around with Opal and her horse.

Well it deals with the aftermath of a previous issue but I think with just the context of the issue itself someone could figure out what had happened, so, potentially, a non-Spidey reader could avoid being lost for long. But what really makes it good is that it takes a common story in Spider-Man comics, Spidey doubts himself and his mission, and turns it on its head. The fact that Marcos Martin's art is so fantastic in it doesn't hurt at all either.

Thanks, I'll go check it out! Meanwhile, I couldn't go comics shopping last week, so I caught up this week.

Alpha Girl #1 starts a post-apocalyptic series in which all women and girls except for foster teen Judith Meyers have become speedy zombies. This issue is mostly backstory but hints pretty strongly at why Judith's immune and is pretty different from Y in other ways too...

American Vampire #23, "Death Race" #2 keeps mixing together 1950s suburban teen culture (specifically, in Glendale, California) with vampire hunting pretty well. I hope Travis sticks around for longer than this story arc, he's already got plenty of good characterization.

Rachel Rising #5 has a recap of sorts, so if you haven't read the previous issues it'll still make sense. Rachel wakes up from a 36-hour nap and telling her best friend Jet what happened, from the top - with some details she remembers and Terry Moore didn't show us the first time. Then, the action switches to Zoe and another escape...

The Sixth Gun #18, "A Town Called Penance" #1 switches back to Drake and Becky for this arc. The scenes switch from one to the other, and both get approached by potential new allies with different motives.

I just borrowed it from a friend. It's very moving (and the ads are very jolting, but I understand they keep the cover price lower). It works even without knowing what killed Marla

Meanwhile...

Hey, Berlin #18 is out! This issue moves several of the characters along in their plotlines, with big jolts for two. This stuff made sense even before I re-read Berlin #17 to jog my memory.

Northlanders #48, "The Icelandic Trilogy" #7, "War 1260" is the antepenultimate issue of the series. :/ The 3rd part of the trilogy of triple-issue arcs starts with Godar Hauksson and his son Oskar (who for some anachronistic reason is another Hauksson instead of Oskar Godarsson, I have met Icelanders my own age IRL who still don't have patrilineal surnames, but whatever) arguing over tradition. Refreshingly, the elder is not the stock-in-the-mud here. Then things escalate, we get a recap of the Althing (parliament), and you can read the rest yourself...

Thief of Thieves #1, "The Thief and His Apprentice," starts another crime series...this time about art theft instead of bloodshed. The first scene's in media res. The rest of the issue shows us how the art thief Redmond and tycoon Cecilia met, over a special car (not an art car, though) and then the state of their careers at the present...

I picked up the next trade of ASM, The Fantastic Spider-Man which seems like the antidote for the heaviness of the previous storyline, showcasing Spidey's new role with the Future Foundation (which is another fun book). I also picked up Irredeemable volume 5 and Incorruptible volume 3. I like these books but they often suffer from a feeling of generic-ness due to the way it deals with superhero comics archetypes to frame the story and give the characters a sense of history.

The one superhero book I can think of off the top of my head which doesn't do that is Ultra : Seven Days by the Luna Brothers. Everyone here who actually is is well-versed in the superhero genre, what are the other ones?

Meanwhile, Peter Panzerfaust #1, "The Great Escape" #1, remixes the Peter Pan story in 1940 Calais. This time, the other teen boys aren't pulled by Peter's music but pursued by German bombs and troops. They start following the mysterious American boy with a rifle instead of a pipe, after their orphanage is rubble and their caretakers are killed...


edit: Oh good grief, I confused the original Peter Pan story with the original Pied Piper story when I wrote the above.

American Vampire #24, "Death Race" #3, starts off with Travis continuing his soliloquy about "what that egghead on TV said the teenage brain is ill-equipped for," and that segues into his vampire-chasing very well. There's more flashing back to his past and how he got his start hunting vampires too.

No Place Like Home #1, "Home Again" #1, starts a new series loosely inspired by The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy "Dee" Hamilton's spent 5 years in Los Angeles and returned to Emeraldsville, KS in the summer of 2001 for her parents' funeral. They were killed in what the town thinks was a tornado, but one relative discgrees... There's also extra art after the last page of the story.

The Sixth Gun #19, "A Town Called Penance" #2 keeps the western action going with rival sheriffs, tainted well water, flashbacks to Drake's past, and more.

Orc Stain #7, "Through Mondo Pass," starts with a recap of the rest of the series so you can jump right in. The visuals are very detailed (and gory and goopy) and psychedelically colored. One-Eye meets bowie again, chills relatively down, and a new orc arc begins...

Xenoholics #5 brings the UFOs front and center, and an Unidentified Flying Object gets Identified. More stuff ensues, and it might or might not be the end of the series. If it is, enough gets concluded without everything being tied up neatly for me to be happy with the ending.