October 2009 Solicitations

Kill the headlights and put it in neutral, it’s time for October Solicits:

From Marvel:

• Kabuki: The Alchemy: David Mack is still doing these? Huh. $24.99
• Hardcover ’80s nostalgia: X-Men: Asgardian Wars, collecting the X-Men / New Mutants crossover from around Uncanny X-Men #200, and Thing: Project Pegasus, which you can get in Essential Marvel Two-in-One, v. 2-3. These feel a little overpriced, but a) so does everything Marvel puts out, and b) I already have all this material. Both are good, although I’m shocked Project Pegasus is getting a hardcover — it’s not quite that good. $34.99 for Asgardian Wars, $24.99 for Project Pegasus
• Runaways: Rock Zombies: Find out the mystery of shock jock Val Rhymin. I can hardly wait. Side note: would it kill Marvel to put volume numbers on these things so I don’t have to remember the names to figure out if I already have the material in another format? I mean, they release old books in new formats every month, for God’s sake. $14.99
• Of all the Marvel titles for the month, X-Men Forever, v. 1 interests me the most. Nostalgia! Wallowing in past / alternate continuity! Oh, sweet Claremont, how I’ve missed you! $16.99
• The Essential for the month is Essential Ghost Rider, v. 3. The page count seems a little long for the number of issues included, but I’m too lazy to actually do a standard page count. At the old price, I would have been all over this; at $19.99, eh, I can be patient.

From DC:

• Batman: Battle for the Cowl Companion: All the uninteresting parts of Battle for the Cowl, which is a feat, since the entire story was itself uninteresting. $14.99
• DC Classics Library: Shazam! Monster Society of Evil: I’m not one for DC’s Comics Classics Library — the stories generally don’t interest me — but this one does. The story is legendary, but I don’t know if it’s ever been released in a collected form. Captain Marvel, back when he was really popular, fights a Golden Age fight (with all the logic and restraint that entails) to get to his ultimate enemy: a two-inch talking worm. That’s the Golden Age, baby! $39.99
• The Flash vs. the Rogues: Does DC do many of these pick-and-choose, best-of collections? I always thought that was more of Marvel’s game. If you want a look at the Flash’s Rogues, this one has nine Rogues stories for a reasonable price. Of course, DC is all about the reasonable price these days. For the same money, you can get four issues of Runaways in this month’s Rock Zombies. $14.99
• Shade the Changing Man: Chris Bachalo and Peter Milligan’s surreal Vertigo series is back: Shade the Changing Man, v. 1: The American Scream is being reissued, and a new volume, Shade The Changing Man, v. 2: Edge of Vision, will be released the same month. I’ve never been interested, but there was a time, on Usenet, when people wouldn’t stop talking about it. It definitely goes into Milligan’s “weird” work and Bachalo’s “readable” work. $17.99 for American Scream, $19.99 for Edge of Vision
• The Winter Men: I’ve heard nothing about it and know no reason to be interested, but something about post-Cold War Soviet superheroes catches my attention. I don’t know why. $19.99
• The Showcase for the month is Superman Team-Ups, v. 1. Pass. $17.99

Oh, Dark Horse:

• Dark Horse continues to ride the Robert E. Howard / Marvel money train with The Chronicles of Kull, v. 1: A King Comes Riding and Other Stories and The Chronicles of Solomon Kane. $18.95 each
• You can’t keep a good idea down until all the life has been flogged out of it: The Escapist started as an idea in Michael Chabon’s 2000 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The Escapist got his own series in 2004’s Michael Chabon Presents The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. (Or maybe that was the Michael Chabon comic; I forget.) The Escapists is a reprint of the Brian K. Vaughan’s 2006 series, which is more of a continuation of the comics-industry parts of Kavalier and Clay. I have no idea if it’s any good, but it’s pedigree is interesting. $14.95
• Grendel: Behold the Devil: You know if you want this hardcover or not: Matt Wagner writes and draws this one, which from what I gather, has been fairly rare in the last decade or so. If you don’t know how Behold the Devil is different from other Grendel stories, the solicit says it follows Hunter Rose through a “lost period early in his criminal career.” That should be distinctive. If that’s not enough for you, “includes additional pages previously only seen on MySpace!” $19.95

Image!:

• Liberty Meadows Sunday Strips, v. 2: I somehow missed v. 1. Hmm. Well, I love Cho’s art, and I think Liberty Meadows was a fun, if often juvenile, strip. (Joke-a-day strips do hide some of his failures as a plotter.) $29.99
• Not a collection, but #3 of Chris Giarrusso’s G-Man will be out in October.
• Also not a collection: Cowboy Ninja Viking #1.
• Question: Which is more gloriously, stupidly high concept: Cowboy Ninja Viking or Batman and Superman vs. Werewolves and Vampires? Show your work.