Hey, Carol and John’s Shoppers! Raf here delivering some of the new releases we have in store this week. We’ve got a lot to cover, including some new number #1s, a few shop favorites finally available in trade, and a raffle opportunity for the rest of the week. Let’s go!

DC Comics

Mark Waid returns to DC Comics this week with the launch of Batman Superman World’s Finest! Set in the not-too-distant past, Metropolis is attacked by Poison Ivy bringing the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder, Robin, into the City of Tomorrow. There, they will cross paths with Superman and the villain Metallo, and from then on, all hell breaks loose. Supes gets injected with a dangerous mix of red Kryptonite and causes a number of different reactions inside of the Man of Steel. Batman’s the only one who can save him, but he’ll also enlist the help of the Doom Patrol to bring Clark back from the brink of destruction. This was a fun first issue and has been the most exciting the Batman-Superman team-up books have been in quite some time. We’ve got lots of great variants for this book too this week, including a Jerry Seinfeld cover? You’ll have to see it to believe it.

This past week, we’ve had a lot of readers coming into the shop looking for Frank Miller’s Batman Year One since the new movie came out. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from that book, and if you haven’t read it, you certainly should, but there’s a new Batman origin story ongoing right now that readers should not miss out on either. Chip Zdarsky’s Batman The Knight is a different kind of origin story, not focused on Bruce coming back to the city and taking up the cape and cowl, but about his time away from Gotham learning how to become the Bat. I’m not going to lie, after the first issue, I wasn’t entirely sold on why we needed this book, but issue #2 was fantastic and hooked me in for the rest of this 10-issue miniseries. Issue #3 is brand-new this week and sees young Bruce training with a French cat burglar, but also being caught in a dangerous triangle between Detective Henri Ducard and a serial killer on the loose known as the Foundling. Zdarksy has been knocking it out of the park on almost every book he’s writing, and this series is no different. Batman The Knight is a cool, new Batman miniseries that stands out from all the others that DC has been putting out recently.

DC’s horror imprint has been gaining a lot of traction with some great new titles, and one of their biggest titles, Soul Plumber, wraps up this week with issue #6. A little fewer straight thrills and scares, and with a lot more humor, Soul Plumber really took off when it first came out because of the talent behind the book, the guys behind The Last Podcast On The Left. We didn’t realize just how many fans there were of this podcast, so we were caught off guard with just how popular this series would become. The final issue is this week, and I’ll be excited to finally check out the book when the trade collection comes out hopefully later this summer.

Marvel Comics

“THE BLOODCURDLING CARNAGE SERIES YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! RAM V has carved a perfect home for himself in the symbiote corner of the Marvel U, and in this all-new ongoing series starring Venom’s most notorious offspring, that corner is about to get a little bit bigger… and bloodier! After the revelations of CARNAGE FOREVER, and in a year that’s set to be a celebration of all things CARNAGE, this is one symbiote story you cannot afford to miss!” Let there be Carnage.

Small Press

This week’s new Image #1 is a real treat for fans of the dark and twisted variety. Slumber #1 is a great first issue from some newer names in comics, including rising star and artist Vanessa Cardinali, that reads like the pilot to your new favorite TV show. “Stetson is a nightmare hunter. A dream detective. She runs a shoddy back-alley business where she helps clients sleep at night by entering their dreams and killing their nightmares. But Stetson’s past comes back to haunt her when she tracks down a literal living nightmare – a serial killer that murders people in their sleep.” This may have been my most pleasant surprise this week, I just jumped in seeing it was a new #1 and I really enjoyed it.

FINALLY! Rick Remender’s A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance, a unanimous staff favorite, is collected in trade paperback this week. This first volume of this crime noir story was at the top of our reading stacks every week a new issue came out, and there were plenty of jaw-dropping moments from the first arc, and this is the perfect time to catch up if you aren’t already on top of it. I don’t think there’s been an Image crime book this good since Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Kill Or Be Killed series, and for only $9.99, you definitely should be getting this book this week.

Another staff favorite that is getting the trade paperback treatment this week too, from the artist behind the massively successful Maniac Of New York, Andrea Mutti, Bunny Mask Volume 1 is out from Aftershock Comics. John S. loved this series and just how creepy it was, and he’s been telling all of us to read it too. “Sealed in a cave before the dawn of man, released by a crazed madman, Bunny Mask walks our world once more. But for what dark purpose does she use her unnatural powers? And what’s her connection to Bee Foster, a young girl murdered by her father fourteen years ago? In order to save his life – and his sanity – one man will have to discover the truth of what waits behind the mask.” Bunny Mask is also getting a second volume later this summer and is even getting a Free Comic Book Day special too, so this looks to be the next big series from Aftershock.

Those are just some of the new books we have out this week, but we’ve got one more big book to talk about.

Hero Initiative Fundraiser

In December of 2021, legendary artist George Pérez sadly shared that he had been diagnosed with terminal stage 3 pancreatic cancer. George’s contributions to comics go far beyond just some of the books he’s drawn including Wonder Woman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The New Teen Titans, and Avengers. A juggernaut of the industry for nearly half a century, George Pérez is recognized as one of the most influential creators in comics. In 2003, Kurt Busiek wrote and George Pérez drew the inter-company crossover JLA/Avengers that has long been out of print since. But in the wake of George’s cancer diagnosis, DC and Marvel as well as the Hero Initiative have joined forces for a very small print run of 7000 to put JLA/Avengers back into fans’ hands, with all the proceeds going to the Hero Initiative, an organization that helps and aids aging comic creators in need. We here at Carol and John’s were lucky enough to get 5 copies of the book, all in perfect shape, and in an effort to raise even more money for the Hero Initiative, we’ll be raffling off all of our copies. Starting this Wednesday, March 16th, and running through Sunday the 20th, you can purchase raffle tickets in the shop to enter to win one of our five copies of the book. Tickets are $5 apiece, and all proceeds will be donated to the Hero Initiative. We are even starting our efforts off with a $500 (ticket free) donation from our shop to H.I. You can purchase as many tickets as you’d like throughout the week and on Sunday the 20th on Facebook Live at 6 pm, we’ll have the drawing. You can only win once, but there are five chances to win. It’s a sad circumstance for the reprint, but it’s a great cause.

We hope to see you all in the shop this week to pick up some great comics and maybe buy some raffle tickets too. Stay safe.