Oh, hello Comic Shop Friends! Welcome to March! We have a few things coming up this month:

First, John will be set up at the Harper Show at the DoubleTree in Westlake on Sunday, March 10th from 10am to 4pm, so stop out and see him!

Second, Ben is still co-hosting the Midnight Rental Secret Screening, so come out to the Grog Shop on Wednesday, March 20th at 8pm for a surprise film! Hopefully, this month’s is better than X-Ray in February. Maybe we’ll get Leprechaun in Space! It’s terrible!

Third, Late Nite Comics! Thursday March 21st from 8pm to midnight we’ll be bringing out a ton of dollar stock! Back issues will be 50% off! Will the wall books be on sale? Come out and find out!

And make sure to mark your calendars for Saturday, May 4th for Free Comic Book Day!

MARVEL COMICS

If you read the Original X-Men one-shot, then you know Phoenix had recruited the young X-Men to help stop another time-displaced disaster, and you saw a hint of what’s to come in this Weapon X-Men series. Writer Christos Gage and artist Yildiray Cinar create a team of Wolverines from across the Multiverse! Phoenix needs to stop the Onslaught, and the only way is with the five Wolverines the Phoenix Force has chosen as the best of the best there is at what they do! Including Zombie Wolverine! With a few dozen dimensions to search, the Wolverines start on Earth-93068, a world where humans and mutants live together in peace after a war with the Badoon. Things aren’t so peaceful for the Weapon X-Men team, when they have to face off against former friends, and keep Zombie Wolverine’s hunger in check while trying to protect this Earth.

Following the Spider-Gwen: Smash mini-series, Giant-Size Spider-Gwen from Melissa Flores and Alba Glez, finds Gwen dealing with Em Jay as Carnage, and new villain Orlando Octavius! The adopted son of Otto Octavius is up to something sinister, and he’s calling in Dazzler’s sister, Mortis, and Mysterio to snatch that symbiote. This special leads into the new Spider-Gwen: The Ghost-Spider #1 in April, and also reprints the first face-off between Gwen and Mysterio in a spooky Halloween story from Spider-Gwen #13.

Peter Parker! Miles Morales! They’re better than Amazing, Sensational, or Superior! They’re Spectacular! Peter and Miles are together in their first ongoing series from writer Greg Weisman and artist Humberto Ramos. The duo is trying to meet up weekly and chat as friends, with nothing “Arachnobatic”, since they are the only two people who know what it’s like to have spider powers. (Ha!) But you know things can’t just be normal for the web-slingers, especially when the Jackal shows up on the ESU campus. A fun first issue, full of quips, Peter’s juvenile humor, and what I’m saying is a Mystery Men reference: “…nemeses. Or is it nemesises? Nemesi?”

DC COMICS

Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins’ new three issue Black Label mini-series is a pulpy tale set against the backdrop of 1939, with the world still reeling from the First World War, deep in the Depression, where fascism is gathering strength. Gotham is besieged by violent murders committed by creature-like men, and the mysterious vigilante known as The Bat-Man has appeared. Commissioner Gordon doesn’t know if The Bat-Man can be trusted, but with most of the police force on the take, he needs any help he can get to stop the killings. And Bat-Man needs Gordon’s help with some evidence. Evidence that defies logic, and ties a murder weapon to a man executed in the electric chair. Can Bruce Wayne survive as a crime-fighter in a world that is brutally evolving around him?

It’s Talia al Ghul’s first appearance in this DC facsimile of Detective Comics #411 from Denny O’Neil, Bob Brown and Dick Giordano! In pursuit of Dr. Darrk and the League of Assassins, Batman finds himself on a trail that stretches from the top of the Statue of Liberty to an abandoned Buddhist monastery in Asia. This facsimile also features the Batgirl story, Cut…and Run, by Frank Robbins, Don Heck, and Dick Giordano. With some great early 1970s ads!

SMALL PRESS COMICS

They’re turtles! They’re ninjas! The new baby turtles are teenagers now and are ready to honor their ancestors by protecting the city. A decade after the Last Ronin defeated the Foot Clan, New York is in a state of steady decline, with gangs vying for control, and Casey Marie and the Resistance need all the help they can get. That means it’s time for the new generation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Kevin Eastman brings back the creative team for the next chapter of The Last Ronin!

Forty years after the events of The Fog, something from Antonio Bay’s dark past is rolling in. Like Halloween (2018), podcasters come to town to dive into the mystery and history of what happened in the small fishing community. Bringing back several of the surviving characters, their descendants, and mixing in some new characters, this supernatural story feels like the slow dread of the original film. From writer Steve Ekstrom and artist Marco Fodera.

Ben described this as “If Scorsese directed Thelma and Louise. Maybe with Tarantino.” Based on the novel by Barry Gifford, creator of Wild at Heart and co-writer of Lost Highway, this comic series is written by Chris Condon, with a rotating artist roster, this one illustrated by Brian Level. There are four interlocking tales, this first issue mainly follows Big Betty and Miss Cutie, two ex-cons who are spreading the word of Miss Jesus, and purifying the world of men’s evil influence, one reeducation, or one murder, at a time. “As Miss Jesus is our guide, before the shootin’ match is over… every man’ll know a woman’s touch.” It’s 90s low budget indie sleaze, with blood and Southern sweat pouring out of America’s subconscious, and overflowing with lust and violence. It’s late-night cable fever dreams, and the kind of weirdo stuff you find buried on Tubi, but in comic book form. Can I give it any higher praise than that?