Hi Comic Shop Friends! We’ll be closed on Monday September 7th for Labor Day, and we’ll have more details about our September events next week!

We did a big restock of Green Lantern graphic novels and facsimile issues to fill your time in between new Lanterns episodes! You can find a row on our rec wall, and on the table when there’s room.

Looking for some affordable graphic novels? Looking for some great comic stories? Then check out the Marvel Premiere and DC Compact editions! You can read The Visions for $14.99 before Visionquest starts! You can read New Frontier from DC for $9.99! DC also has a Gotham Central Compact, which you can read before the new Bad Seeds tie-in starts next week! This is a great place to start if you’re trying to introduce someone to comics, or if you just need a quick recommendation.

This is also a good time to mention that if you have graphic novels, trade paperbacks and hardcovers you don’t want to keep in your collection, we’ll buy them! Bring them in anytime, and we can either give you cash or store credit, and it’s a better deal than taking them anywhere else!

MARVEL COMICS

Jubilee wants to prove she can handle things on her own, and she’s about to get her chance! Left to watch the New Mutants, Jubilee finds a strange device on the doorstep, and trying to solve its puzzle leads her into the Tomb of Apocalypse! With Wolverine along for the ride, the duo must stop a team of mercenaries from extracting whatever is hidden deep within the tomb. She’s not the one Apocalypse wanted to summon, but Jubilee will have to do, now that she’s trapped inside. Why does Apocalypse need an agent on Earth? What secrets are hidden in the tomb? Can Jubilee make it out? Find out in Ashley Allen and Domenico Carbone’s five-issue mini-series!

What if Cassandra Nova killed Charles Xavier? In this alternate reality, Cassandra killed Charles in the womb. Now she’s collecting telepaths, but for what purpose? Getting into mutants’ minds, she’s created her own X-Men to keep them in line. When Jean Grey and Emma Frost escape, Cassandra will stop at nothing to make sure they remain in her manor. But Cassandra isn’t the only one in Jean’s head, and the second voice may be the key to saving mutantkind! Written by Ashley Allen, with art by Sumit Kumar.

DC COMICS

Bad Seeds kicks off here! Set during one night, Gotham is set to be decimated by daylight! Ivy has given the city to the Parliament of Trees and prehistoric plants begin to change the environment. It’s a war between Poison Ivy, Vandal Savage, and the Bat-Family for the survival of the city and everyone in it! Everything you need to know is in this issue if you want to jump into this event, and if you’ve been reading Batman and Poison Ivy, things have been leading to this breaking point. This ten-week event starts with this Sunset one-shot from Matt Fraction, G. Willow Wilson, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and Cliff Rathburn, then continues across Batman and Poison Ivy. There are tie-in issues for Detective Comics, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Nightwing, along with new mini-series Gotham General, Street of Gotham, and Gotham Central, and wraps up with the Sunrise one-shot in October. There are some great Gordon and Croc moments in this issue, and it’s pulling in a ton of related characters. With these three sides vying for control, it’s hard to say who’ll come out on top, and what the repercussions will be. I’m looking forward to the new mini-series to get more of what’s happening with the non-powered citizens of Gotham.

New Vertigo title! Ram V and Mike Perkins mix magic with a contemporary spy thriller in Black Tower: the Raven Conspiracy. This occult mystery sends a young “esper”, Darren Burroughs, from the U.S. to London, where a phone call telling him to follow a diplomatic courier twists his life into something he never expected. Black Tower is an obscure department of British intelligence that specializes in paranormal incidents, and Burroughs is their newest recruit. He’s able to intuitively “see” the answer to things, like what the courier case contained, even though he didn’t look in it. He’s travelled to London on a search for magic, and he’s quickly coming face to face with it. Murder, intrigue, kidnapping, creatures, secrets, it’s all here in a series that feels like a real life B.P.R.D., especially with the elder Alistair Romeo in charge of the team. This first issue is giving enough to make you want to dive deeper, but is still leaving a lot of secrets buried. What’s to come for the young American in his new position?

Want to know what’s next for Next Level? The Next Level One-Shot has Deadshot following a trail to uncover a conspiracy that weaves through the DC Universe. Rick Flag is paranoid. Cadmus has clones, drones, and creatures following him, and the copies are trying to kill him. Flag passes all the information he has to Deadshot, and now Deadshot has only one shot to save the future of the world! His new mission will take him across the country and hint at what’s to come in the new Next Level titles. Get ready for Legion of Super-Heroes, Doom Patrol, Jonah Hex, Teen Titans, The Demon, and Vixen! Written by Gerry Duggan and Fernando Blanco, this is a fun Deadshot story on its own, and a great story to get you hyped for the new comics!

SMALL PRESS COMICS

R.L. Stine is back with more Stuff of Nightmares! This time the Nightmare Keeper has a tale of tails to tell you. Harvey Goodwin is down on his luck. Unemployed, he’s forced to move his family in with his elderly mother and her three black cats. He hates cats, but he’s sure the 200 year old stuffed cat his mother has is worth something, and selling it will turn his luck around. Ignoring his mother’s wishes, Harvey is about to learn what happens if you disrespect cats, and it is not going to be pleasant. There will always be a black cat crossing his path, and the only luck he’s getting now is bad. With art by Matthew Dunn.

Rick Remender and Steve Epting present a grindhouse crime story that takes a hell of a twist! Mike Denton is a low rent hitman using violence to fund his drug use. He’s a dirtbag and an absentee father, living in his truck, and moving from job to job, but he’s about to get the offer of a lifetime. When a couple hire him as muscle for a bank robbery, the amount they offer would change his life, but why would they bring him in on the cut, when they already have a full crew? They roll into a small town that seems frozen in time, and that’s just the first hint that something is wrong. Denton has been chosen for this crew for a reason, and he’s about to be thrown into something that will change his life in a different way than just getting a huge payday. It’s a filthy crime tale that takes a turn toward supernatural horror! I don’t want to give too much away as to where this comic is headed, because just going along for the ride as it unfolds like Mike is doing is the best way to experience it.

Originally a Kickstarter funded comic from Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Pier Brito, the creative team has brought it back as an expanded mini-series. A near-future world has been changed by an asteroid crashing into the moon and causing catastrophic changes to the Earth. Oceans have risen and covered all but a few cities, and Denver is one of the last safe places. Population and resources are closely monitored and rationed, and there is a waiting list to be sponsored by a citizen in order to enter. Max Flynn is a border officer, supervising what should be a normal crossing with a couple entering the city. But what their boat is carrying puts both the couple and the officers in danger, leading to death. It’s bad, but the next day is business as usual for his team. Following the regulations of Denver keeps their lives normal, and Flynn’s family protected, until he and his daughter are drugged and his wife is kidnapped. Now an enemy will force him to betray the city from within, or lose his family forever.