Raf’s Featured New Releases 10.20.21

Hey everybody, and welcome to a New Comic Book Day! Halloween is fast approaching and I hope you all have some fun plans in the works and some great costumes too. My girlfriend and I haven’t been able to agree on ours just yet (I suggested Hunter S. Thompson and his lawyer from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and she suggested Lady and the Tramp, so we’re a little ways apart right now haha), but one thing we can all agree on is that there are always great comics on Wednesdays. Let’s see what’s new this week.

Marvel Comics

Spinning out of the pages of Jason Aaron’s Avengers, this week sees the debut of a new solo miniseries for the newest host of the Phoenix force: Echo. She’s got a lot to learn about her new cosmic powers, but first and foremost, why was she chosen by the Phoenix? Look, I wish I had some super powers too, but I pity the fool who gets stuck with the Phoenix force. It never seems to end well for anybody.

And new this week also is Thor #18 starring Throg! He’s on a secret spy mission for Thor across the realms in this issue which also sees the reunion of the Pet Avengers. Since his brief blink-and-you-miss-it cameo appearance in Loki (is it safe to talk about that yet?), Throg’s been getting a lot of attention recently and it’s awesome to see him get some play now.

DC Comics

Probably my pick of the week, it’s a new DC Black Label book, and this is a big one; it’s Catwoman Lonely City. “Ten years ago, the massacre known as Fools’ Night claimed the lives of Batman, The Joker, Nightwing, and Commissioner Gordon and sent Selina Kyle, the Catwoman, to prison. A decade later, Gotham has grown up—it’s put away costumed heroism and villainy as childish things. The new Gotham is cleaner, safer and a lot less free, under the watchful eye of Mayor Harvey Dent and his Batcops. It’s into this new city that Selina Kyle returns, a changed woman with her mind on that one last big score: the secrets hidden inside the Batcave! She doesn’t need the money—she just needs to know… who is ‘Orpheus’?” Written, drawn, colored, and lettered by superstar artist Cliff Chiang, this is his Catwoman passion project and it really shows. It’s awesome!

Well this just goes to show how far behind I am on somethings, Nubia became Queen of Themyscira during Infinite Frontier!? That’s pretty cool. And new this week is the beginning of a six issue miniseries detailing her reign as Queen and the horror that waits beneath the island that threatens the Amazons. This sounds like a sleeper series that has potential for big changes for the DC Universe.

The Hill House Comics imprint from DC is back this week, with Refrigerator Full of Heads (what a gnarly title). The sequel to the original Basketful of Heads from a couple years ago, I missed out on the first series myself, but Ben recently got caught up and loved it. If the title didn’t give you a hint, this one looks just as twisted as the rest of the Hill House books. And this one even has a killer great white shark. Rad!

Small Press

Killadelphia has been one of my biggest recommendations this year (honestly, grab volume 1 if you haven’t yet and throw on the Nine Inch Nails Quake soundtrack from 1997 and you’ll thank me later), and new from the same creative team comes a spinoff book called Nita Hawes Nightmare Blog. Subbing out the vampires of Philadelphia, the streets of Baltimore in this book have demons and ghosts, and great covers too! I’m really excited to read this book.

And new from possibly the best creative duo in comics, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, comes the next installment in their crime noir original graphic novel series Reckless: Destroy All Monsters. Every one so far has been great stuff, as is expected from these two, and this one doesn’t look to be any different. Ethan Reckless has a new case, tracking down a real estate mogul, and while that sounds simple enough, we’ve learned by now that nothing in Ethan’s life is as simple as it sounds. Picking this up is a no-brainer if you’re a fan of Brubaker/Phillips or crime noir in general.

And that’s about it for my featured new releases this week. I’m trying to binge reread Saga now so that I’m all caught up again and all the feelings are fresh for issue 55 in January. We’ve got a lot of cool merch this week too. Some great $10 Kenner Marvel Legends Magneto and Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel figures and some Classic Hawkeye POP figures. These POPs are Previews Exclusives also so you won’t see them outside of comic shops.

Thanks everybody for reading. We’ll see you all in the shop this week.