Andrea’s Absolute Picks for 06.26.2024

Hey Comic Shop Friends! Thank you to all of you who came out for Late Nite Comics, and thanks for helping us clear out a bunch of dollar stock! The next Late Nite will be Thursday, July 18th.

A heads up that we will be closed on Thursday, July 4th for the holiday, so grab your comics before then!

We’re still processing the new collections, so keep checking in to see what’s new! There are a few new keys on the wall, and a long box of mostly all-ages titles! John’s back in the shop this week, so he’ll probably (definitely) be adding more too!

If you missed out on grabbing a copy of the Spider-Man Reign trade, we just got more in! We sold out of all 50 copies in a week! It’s the best $20 you can spend in the shop!

I also want to personally thank all of you who took our recommendation on the Nights trade. We sold all 20 copies in one day! And the five reorder copies were gone before the week ended! It means a lot that you trust us with our recommendations, and are willing to give the books we love a shot. I get a little thrill when one of my rec row books sells, especially when someone picks up The Goon for the first time.

And speaking of Nights, issue #8 is out this week and is a Halloween issue! We also restocked issues #6 and #7, so if you read the trade, you can grab these and get caught up! Add it to your pull list!

MARVEL COMICS

Blood Hunt continues this week with Blood Hunt and Red Band Edition #4, Midnight Sons #2, Union Jack the Ripper #2, X-Men: Magik #1, and Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6! We keep restocking all the Blood Hunt titles we can, so let us know if you’re missing any. There are three rows of Blood Hunt books on the Rec Wall, with variants and second prints too!

Magik may have been forged in the fires of Limbo, but will that be enough to survive the Blood Hunt? The second X-Men Blood Hunt one-shot from writer Ashley Allen and artist Jesus Hervas features Illyana Rasputin! Back in her homeland after the events of the Fall of the House of X, Illyana finds herself caged by vampires with ties to her favorite folktale hero Ilya Muromets. Can Magik protect her first home and the children captured by the vampire army? Will her Soulsword be enough to stop their living Hell?

Skottie Young’s pint-sized versions of the Marvel Universe’s heroes and villains are on some Giant-Sized adventures with four adorable all-ages-friendly stories! First, Captain America tries to get his friends to film his four hundred-and-ninety-two-page movie in “Sorry, Cap!” Iron Man judges a competition to find a new suit in “Project: Iron Way!” Then, Rocket and Groot take a trip around the Universe to track down the Death Stone for the Collector in “With This Stone… I Thee Dead!” And lastly, why is Doctor Doom the only one who gets a throne when his bad buddies come over? Find out in, “Shame of Thrones!” Super cute! Grab one for the kids, and one for yourself!

The mightiest menace of them all is coming your way! Marvel presents a facsimile of the first issue of Godzilla from Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe! After a mild winter in Alaska gives way to an even warmer spring, Godzilla emerges from a disintegrating iceberg and starts on a path of destruction! It’s up to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. to stop the legendary kaiju’s rampage. With the original 1977 ads and all!

This year’s Annual Event, Infinity Watch, starts here with Thanos from Derek Landy and Salvador Larroca. Thanos has distilled Death into a new Infinity Stone, and across the universe the other Infinity Stones have evolved and found new bearers. Alone, these stone bearers are forces to be reckoned with, but together they could reshape the universe. And Thanos cannot let that happen. He wants the stones back to strengthen the Death Stone, and regain his power, but the Death stone may have other plans. Follow the Death Stone Saga throughout the Annuals, with chapter one by Derek Landy and Sara Pichelli in this issue. And it all continues in next week’s Amazing Spider-Man Annual!

DC COMICS

Bridging the events in Batman, Superman: House of Brainiac, and Suicide Squad: Dream Team into Absolute Power, this prelude kicks off Amanda Waller’s seismic shake-up of the DC Universe! Using the combined might of Failsafe, Brainiac Queen, and the Suicide Squad, along with the writing talents of Absolute Power architect Mark Waid, Chip Zdarsky, Nicole Maines, and Joshua Williamson, Waller has found a way to remove the powers of every metahuman on Earth. The stage is set. The players are in position. The war begins in Absolute Power! With art by Skylar Patridge, V Ken Marion, Gleb Melnikov, and Dan Mora. We made a checklist, so you can add all the tie-in issues, starting with Green Arrow #13 and Superman #15 this week.

Another consistently great Tom King series, The Penguin, has its first trade paperback out this week! Collecting the first seven issues, and the Chip Zdarsky Batman #125-#127 backup story, this is a vicious tale of redemption and revenge. The Penguin has “died” and is living in secret in Metropolis, but with his children fighting over his criminal empire, the U.S. government enlists Oswald as their agent to take back the Iceberg Lounge. Oswald is all too happy to step back into his role and reclaim his throne as the king of the Gotham underworld. Issue #11 is out this week, and we have #8, #9, and #10 in stock!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for! Zatanna is the greatest entertainer at the freest show in the crappiest hotel in Las Vegas in Mariko Tamaki and Javier Rodriguez’s new Black Label book! After a childhood incident with magic, Zatanna has turned away from the family legacy and real magic and only does illusions and tricks on stage. But there’s someone who keeps showing up to all her shows. Her rabbits are acting strangely. And now her past may be coming back when an interdimensional vortex opens up during her act. She’ll have to take herself, and her power, seriously for the first time in order to survive. You can run, you can hide, but you can’t outrun your past forever.

SMALL PRESS COMICS

Neil Gaiman teams with writer Marc Bernardin and artist Shawn Martinbrough to bring his acclaimed novel to comics for the first time! Anansi stories go back as long as people have been telling each other stories, and now Charlie Nancy is about to become a part of one. Learning of his estranged father’s death, Charlie travels to Florida from London, and learns two things: he has a twin brother he’s never met, and his father was Anansi the Spider, the African trickster god. Now Charlie embarks on a reality-spanning odyssey of sibling rivalry and jealous deities.

Jerry Hauser is a down-on-his-luck rideshare driver. Darren Hart is an uber-successful self-help guru. Every fare Jerry picks up tells him how much he looks like Darren. After Jerry picks up Darren for a ride, Jerry’s given the chance of a lifetime, a chance to change his luck, but if he’s not careful, it may end up making it worse. Writers Owen King and Jesse Kellerman and artist Marianna Ignazzi kick off this pulp noir mini-series with a bang. “Only you can help you.”

The triumphant return of Gatchaman! Writer Cullen Bunn and artist Chris Batista bring back the bird-themed science ninjas in an ongoing series that expands upon the original anime. The world’s greatest scientists are disappearing and a mechanical terror is wreaking havoc in multiple cities. Gatchaman is the only hope against the threats from the international terrorist organization known as Galactor! I know a lot of you are excited for this one!

Also, this week, the first in a series of self-contained one-shots that focus on a separate member of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! Ken goes undercover to infiltrate an underground gambling ring where martial artists fight to the death! But the winners are captured to be recruited by Galactor, and if they refuse to join, they’re hunted as prey in the terrorist group’s training program. Can Ken make it out alive? Can anyone? Written by Tommy Lee Edwards with art by Mindy Lee.