This Week’s Ones points out great jumping-on points for new readers. This could include new story arcs, as well as actual #1 issues from whole new series. Another great week with a nice, large variety of comics to choose from. This week I picked “The Big One” based on the fact that it is still alive! Many times people thought this book was dead, yet like some beast from one of it’s very own pages, it could not be killed. Time after time they would find out it would raise from the grave again, now it is 46 years later and the legendary book is still alive.

Up this week: Eerie Comics #1, Adventure Time Marceline Scream Queens #1, Battle Beasts #1, The Crow #1, Deathstroke #11, Enormous #1, Long Ranger: Snake of Iron #1, Punk Rock Jesus #1 & Revival #1.

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*** Eerie Comics #1***

Uncle Creepy’s been having all the fun in Dark Horse’s revival of classic Warren magazines, so now it’s Cousin Eerie’s turn! The terrifying treasury of sinister sci-fi and fearsome fantasy returns with two all-new stories to thrill and chill, plus a classic reprint! First up is a dose of robotic paranoia from red-hot writer/artist David Lapham, followed by way-too-close encounters from Creepy veteran Christopher Taylor! Your trip to the comics store is about to get a lot more horrifying!

story by Daniel Laphamn & Christopher A. Taylor
art by Daniel Lapham & Rafa Garres
published by Dark Horse Comics

This is a great horror anthology series that was born in the sixties and now is being written for our time. Additionally, you get to see the difference in the tales, because we’re also getting a story from the original run! Turn off the lights and give this book a look.

 

 

 

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Adventure Time Marceline Scream Queens #1

JOIN FAN-FAVORITE CHARACTERS MARCELINE AND PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM FOR RIOT GRRL ROCK-FUELED EXCITEMENT IN THIS BRAND-NEW ADVENTURE TIME MINI-SERIES! Thanks to a newfound interest in music, Princess Bubblegum joins Marceline’s paranormal rock band for a tour across the land of Ooo! But when they’re threatened by everything from scenesters to beasts born of self-doubt, can they make it to the RADDEST GIG EVER in time?! Written and drawn by acclaimed cartoonist Meredith Gran (OCTOPUS PIE) and featuring a back-up story from Jen Wang (KOKO BE GOOD), with variant covers by rockstar lady cartoonists Chynna Clugston (BLUE MONDAY), Ming Doyle (POPGUN), and Colleen Coover (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS)! ADVENTURE TIME #1 and #2 were INSTANT SELL OUTS! DON’T MISS OUT ON THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THIS ALL-AGES PHENOMENON!

story by Meredith Gran & Jen Wang
art by Chynna Clugston & Jen Bennett
published by Boom! Studios

Noob is currently working on the Noob’s eye view of this title so check back soon. X hates this cartoon … er, uhm, doesn’t watch it, so he doesn’t have anything constructive to add here just now.

 

Battle Beasts #1

It’s just another average day for Bliss, an ignored linguist at the Department of Defense. However, when Bliss unlocks the secret translation of an ancient scroll, terror rains from the sky… in the form of the BATTLE BEASTS! Unstoppable creatures armed to the teeth, the Battle Beasts are determined to make Earth their own personal war zone. Nothing can stop their merciless carnage. Nothing except perhaps a gentle word from the one woman who can understand them-Bliss!

story by Bobby Curnow
art by Valerio Schiti
published by IDW Publishing

I know nothing about Battle Beasts. I was too old for the toys when they came out, and I kind of lump this franchise in with a lot of others that started out as toys, and then got half hour commercials disguised as TV shows, and then actually culled out a fan base. Not for me. But if you’re a fan than jump right in and good on ya!

 

The Crow #1

THE CROW is reborn-in Tokyo. Can a dark spirit fight for the light? THE CROW has always done just that-striking from the shadows, a kind of shadow himself. The spirit of the Crow is back, transfiguring Jamie Osterberg, an American studying in Tokyo and deeply in love with his Japanese girlfriend, Yumi . . . until the love of his life is stolen. The Crow must once more make the wrong thing right-but this time he might have to do it by killing his own true love.

story by John Shirley
art by Kevin Colden
published by IDW Publishing

Let’s face it. The Crow franchise will forever be cursed to be known as the movie that Bruce Lee’s son was shot to death during filming. It’s too bad. The movie itself was better than a lot of people think, and this really is a solid story. I would have no problem recommending this book.

 

 

Deathstroke #11

DEATHSTROKE, ZEALOT and the OMEGAS vs. LOBO! LOBO locates his cache of weaponry aboard the crashed STARPOINT cruiser and attempts to activate the ship’s WORLD BREAKER protocol!

story by Rob Liefeld
art by Rob Liefeld
published by DC Comics

If there is any book in DC that is better fodder for being given the Liefeld treatment, I don’t know about it. I’m a big Lobo fan because his whole concept is “Superman as a really pissed off biker”.

 

 

 

 

Enormous #1

In the midst of a planetary battle for food and fuel, a vast ecological cataclysm spawns THE ENORMOUS, massive beasts unlike anything ever witnessed. Humankind struggles to stave off extinction and the only law is to hunt or be hunted. It’s an epic action adventure featuring the survival of the biggest!

story by Tim Daniel
art by Tim Daniel
published by Image Comics

Fun! This is a perfect example of the kind of fun I look to read all the time. Ravaged world. Struggling Survivors. GIGANTIC monsters running around. One comic. One fun and complete story.

 

 

 

 

The Lone Ranger: Snake of Iron #1

The Ranger and Tonto are in the crossfire as a bloody Kiowa uprising draws these western legends onto the warpath. The Spirit Horse has returned to the plains and calling the tribes to battle. Is this a ghostly apparition or something else? If the Lone Ranger cannot solve the mystery then the land north of the Brazos will run red with blood!

story by Chuck Dixon
art by Esteve Polls
published by Dynamite Entertainment

Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE Westerns. Imagine today that a Police officer hears shots in a bar. He runs in and sees a man with a gun standing over the dead body of another man with a gun. The man who obviously did the killing says “He called me a liar, so we went for our irons”. The officer asks the patrons if that’s what happened, and the patrons all say “yes”. The man is free to go (or stay and drink more!) after paying the bartender for cleanup. It’s just the simplicity of that era that fascinates me. Revenge was also legal. The Lone Ranger proves the old adage that if you are going to kill a group of men, then you better make sure you kill all of them.

 

Punk Rock Jesus #1

The newest reality show hit has the unlikeliest celebrity of all in this new black and white miniseries from writer/artist Sean Murphy (JOE THE BARBARIAN, Off Road)! J2, the TV series starring a clone of Jesus Christ, causes chaos across a near-future United States in PUNK ROCK JESUS, a new miniseries written and drawn by Sean Murphy, the acclaimed illustrator of JOE THE BARBARIAN and AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. J2 causes outrage and adulation. Religious zealots either love or hate the show, angry politicians worry about its influence on the nation, and members of the scientific community fear the implications of cloning a human being at all – let alone the Son of God. And what effect will this all have on Gwen, the young woman who is selected, through an American Idol-style process, to be the mother of the new Messiah? All this leads to the hiring of Thomas McKael, the clone’s bodyguard and a former IRA operative with a turbulent past who must protect the new Messiah – a baby who captivates the world, but grows up to become an angry teenager.

story by Sean Murphy
art by Sean Murphy
published by Vertigo

It’s called PUNK ROCK JESUS! That’s all you should really have to know. PUNK – ROCK – JESUS!

 

Revival #1

For one day in rural central Wisconsin, the dead came back to life. Now it’s up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media scrutiny, religious zealots, and government quarantine that has come with them. In a town where the living have to learn to deal with those who are supposed to be dead, Officer Cypress must solve a brutal murder, and everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect. A beautiful ‘farm noir’ that puts a new twist on the zombie genre, created by NYT Bestselling author TIM SEELEY and acclaimed artist MIKE NORTON.

story by Tim Seeley
art by Mike Norton
published by Image Comics

For one day in rural central Wisconsin, the dead came back to life. Now it’s up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media scrutiny, religious zealots, and government quarantine that has come with them. In a town where the living have to learn to deal with those who are supposed to be dead, Officer Cypress must solve a brutal murder, and everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect. A beautiful ‘farm noir’ that puts a new twist on the zombie genre, created by NYT Bestselling author TIM SEELEY and acclaimed artist MIKE NORTON.
Yes. It is another zombie book. BUT it’s a great new take on the genre. On top of that, this is a great creative crew and I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly satisfied.

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