Coming This Week: Have You Come Here To Play Jesus To The Lepers In Your Head?

It looks like a really quiet week for me. The only “for sure” purchases I’ll be making are Demo #5 (DC/Vertigo) and The Killer: Modus Vivendi #2 (Archaia). Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan offer an intriguing time-travel premise for Demo, but man, I can’t believe the series is almost over! I guess it’s better to do what my grandma always suggested: don’t overstay your welcome, “leave them wanting more.” The Killer is simply one of the best comics to see print in the US in the last 5 years or so; it’s been great to revisit this complex character. My “maybe” list starts with Avengers Prime #1 (Marvel). On principle, I’m kinda’ disgusted with how Marvel continues to flood the market with Avengers properties, with Avengers Spotlight #1 (Marvel) also hitting this week, in the third week in a row to see a plethora of “new” Avengers titles. I’m sure the marketing muscle has been justified from a dollars and cents perspective with the impending movie(s), and they’ll capitalize greatly with all of the “hot” creators involved, but in terms of sheer quality and audience attention fatigue, I’m not sure it will make dollars and… sense, so to speak. However, the presence of Alan Davis is certainly going to be worth a look, if not an outright purchase. On the graphic novel front, I’ll see if Moving Pictures (Top Shelf) passes the casual flip test. It’s by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen and (paging Matt C. from Paradox Comics!) plays around with a real world idea I was reading about and discussing as a story premise a year or two ago, the Nazis pillaging the great art collections of Europe during WWII. Lastly, it’s absolutely horrible, but if you want to see one of the (probably *the*) worst mainstream superhero stories that exists in recent memory, it will cost you only $24.99 for the Justice League: Cry for Justice HC (DC). As the phrase was coined on the interwebs in its aftermath, this is "superhero tragedy porn" (that's all randomly violent money shots with no story context whatsoever) at it’s finest. It’s such a devastating train wreck that how can you not crank your neck and stare in awe as you pass by?