5 Must Read New Comic Series for the Summer of 2012
The Summertime is finally upon us and while many of us will be vacationing others might find themselves with plenty of time on their hands. Sure you can go to your LCS and pick up the latest copy of any of DC’s on going New 52 or Marvel’s Avengers vs X-Men mega event but why not jump into something new and fresh? We understand that some of you have be hard at work all year round possibly in school with little or no time to catch up on your favorite series and lets be frank…to catch up on years worth of back story can be a bit intimdating so why not dive into something recent, new, and fresh! We here at 16BitMonster will gladly love to help any of you lost in the sea of all the recent new series released lately. Below is what we think are among the 5 best new series to jump right into for the summer.
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5. Godzilla | IDW Comics
As I flipped throw IDW’s relaunched Godzilla series I couldn’t help but feel like I was reading something similiar to the movie Cloverfield with a touch of what will eventually turn into the Expandables vs Godzilla. Here’s why. Godzilla suddenly appears out of no where in the city and begins to hammer downed near by sky scrappers as he reeks havoc on the city. Boxer, who resembles Jason Statham down to the T is apparently a man with a talent…. a very special talent at that. Nial Nissem from Taken anyone? Boxer, has vowed to bring the fight to Godzilla in a major way after something happens towards the end of the issue. Boxer in the final scenes of issue one is calling in some back and what I can only assume will be one hell of a slobber knocker in issue 2 with Boxer and his crew of Ex Special Forces buddies vs Godzilla. Simon Gane’s art is completely awesome and was the original reason why I was drawn to the book. Duane Swierczynski did one hell of a job piecing together this action packed issue and is the perfect man to pen Boxer the “Ex Special Forces for hire” guy. Duane seems to have a thing for portraying these kinds of men because he is also the man tasked with writing one of the books from our 4th choice as a must read or reads for the summer.
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4. Anything Valiant Comics | Valiant Comics
Back in the early to mid nineties who would have ever guessed Valiant comics would explode on the scene as quickly and as powerfully as they did rising to what some considered to be just a big as Marvel and DC at the time. Turok, Solar the Man of Atom, Jae, along with many other titles were some of their top hits to just quickly refresh your memory. With so many “original” characters to their disposal Valiant took their time with their come back to the comic book scene slowly and methodically handpicking their first wave of characters to a rebuilt from the ground up Valiant universe. X-O Manowar kicked things off with a great retake of X-O’s origin and now we get Harbringer which is a character that has amazing powers and the series has amazing potential to become what could be their most solid book all around but that’s not all….Next up with have Bloodshot which is being written by Duane Swiercynski. Duane will definitely do Bloodshot justice since his specialty is one man killing machine characters. Finally, Valiant will hit us with Archer & Armstrong towards the end of the summer which was another one of their top selling titles back in the early nineties. If you want to just judge Valiant based on what they are currently releasing then its pretty tough to ignore the fact that they are definitely back and will make some major noise into the new year. If you’re looking for a few new series’s to jump into then anything Valiant at the moment will do you just right.
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3. Brian K. Vaughan’s “SAGA” | Image Comics
Image as a whole has been really turning it up as of late and 90% of the new series’s they put out are very good. Thief of Thieves, Fatale, America’s Got Powers, Secret, Danger Club, Dancers, Mind Gap I mean I can just go on and on with all the solid material they have been releasing lately but by far not only the most hyped but well written series is Saga. I for one have never read any of Brian K. Vaughan’s work (I know. Shoot me now) but with all they hype that was behind the incoming Saga series I figured it must have been at the minimum decent. I was wrong. It was AWESOME with the caps on. Who else could make Fairies, people with TV’s for a head, elf’s look alike, Star Wars, work as well as it does in Sage? no one. You might get a chuckle out of the weird sex scene between two people with TV’s for a head or you might burst out laughing when you finally realize that on the very cover she is breast feeding the baby (above) but the real magic here is the writing. Brian K. Vaughan not only has an amazing imagination but he is truely one of the best writers in the industry. Saga number one is on its fifth Printing and thats saying something. Oh and don’t even get me started on Fiona Staples beautiful art work.
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2. Before Watchmen | DC Comics
The entire Before Watchmen run is getting alot of good and bad heat at the moment. The good heat is because this is Watchmen….how could you not want some new material from this comic book gem? Well, apperently there are some hardcore fans / writers / industry people that think other wise. Some really are wishing DC death for pulling this move. Watchman is among one of the most highly praised series every written and with DC deciding to add to the history and cash in on the Watchmen mania has alot of people going bonkers. Non-the less I am excited to see what DC is planning to do and with 7 new series dropping with one issue releasing every week for 35 weeks meaning you will have plenty of new material to read all summer long and into the end of the year. When DC announced its plans to launch some Watchmen prequals they knew they had to bring their “A” game to the table and they have attached some of the best writer’s and artist in the industry to the project.
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1. Batman Incorporated | DC Comics
Here’s my two cents on Grant Morrison. I completely hate his current run on Action Comics. It just feels so dull to me…..for him to be one of the best story tellers in the industry and to have such a dry run on Action Comics blows my mind but boy did he redeem himself with the new Batman Incorporated! I did not read his previous mega run on the series and from what I gather at the moment you don’t have to read it to get into the new relaunched Batman Inc (at the moment that is) though I do plan to pick them up now after reading this one. Things in the new series explode like a bomb as the action is in full swing from the very beginning. Sure we can just go off of the action which alone was awesome, or the great dialogue between Bruce and Damian, heck even Chris Burnham’s art is very gritty and a perfect fit for the new series. All three alone are well worth the price tag but what really got me hooked was the final panels of the issue which really made me say “Holy shit!…Did that just happen?!”. Morrison means business with the relaunched series and I am game. Batman is more of Morrison’s thing and if this is an indication of whats to come then next to Scott Snyder’s current main series Batman run this is the other must read Batman series. If you’re just looking for one title to read all summer then this one’s it and our top pick to kick off your summer.
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