12.17.14 [#PicksOfTheWeek]

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This series was on my Best of 2014 list, so I’m excited to see where Brian Wood, Greg Smallwood, and Jordie Bellaire take Moon Knight #10. There’s also Multiversity: Thunderworld #1 spinning out of the latest DC event debacle. As great as Pax Americana was, this is the one I’m really looking forward to, because it’s a property I enjoyed as a kid, here under the wild-eyed direction of The Drunk Scotsman and frequent collaborator Cameron Stewart.  The only other Marvel or DC book I’m interested in is Vertigo’s The Kitchen #2, Ollie Masters’ and Ming Doyle’s new series featuring mob wives in 1970’s Hell’s Kitchen, with covers by the inimitable Becky Cloonan. 

Image Comics has a powerful trio of books for me this week, including the speculative historical fiction of Manifest Destiny #12, another of my Best of 2014 selections. They’re also providing us with Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein’s new mysterious sci-fi book Drifter #2, and the instantly hot The Wicked + The Divine #6 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, a post-pop, quasi-religious treatment of the fickle nature of fame, also a book which was on many (not mine) Best of 2014 lists.

I haven’t been very impressed with the various new iterations of this anthology series since The Massive shorts first appeared in it, but I will be checking out Dark Horse Presents 2014 #5. This installment features a new story from Ed Brisson’s (originally self-published) great crime series Murder Book, this time with art by Declan Shalvey. It also contains an interesting take on the Norse Mythology pantheon at the hands of Joe Casey and Jim Rugg, which is certainty an atypical creative team worthy of attention.

Oni Press has The Bunker #8 by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Joe Infurnari, a series which is really starting to heat up, with elements of an impending alt future apocalypse, time travel, and sci-fi mystery. It’s very much a genre blender, unlike anything else on the market, yet it does share some tantalizing notes with Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. Oni is also offering Stumptown Volume 3 #4 from Greg Rucka and Justin Greenwood, which has been a very satisfying slow burn this time around.

In terms of collected editions, I’ll recommend Winterworld Volume 1: La Nina, collecting the first arc of Chuck Dixon and Butch Guice’s continuation of the 80’s property initially helmed by Dixon and the late Jorge Zaffino. Some people hate the superficial elevator pitch soundbytes of “it’s x meets y!” but I find them to be useful review shorthand (and an even better sales tool down at the LCS), so consider this Mad Max meets Whiteout.

I also have to mention DMZ Book Three (Deluxe Edition Hardcover), the latest oversized installment of the DC/Vertigo series by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. In development at SyFy for a TV adaptation, DMZ chronicles would-be journalist Matthew Roth stuck in war torn New York City during the Second American Civil War. Full Disclosure: I edited and hand-curated about 40 pages of bonus content, including never before seen concept art and my interviews with Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli, and Kristian Donaldson, so you should pick it up! It’s the third of five total volumes, and it contains 392 pages (issues 29-44), an introduction by Morgan Spurlock, and introduces Parco Delgado, a key figure which alters the course of the entire series.