The reading pile, alphabetized by publisher.
It’s that time of year again, but delayed on my part! Saturday, May 6th was the 22nd Free Comic Book Day, that annual celebration when comic shops nationwide offer no-strings-attached goodies as a form of community outreach in honor of that time-honored medium where words and pictures dance in unison on the printed page, whether in the form of super-heroes, monsters, cartoon all-stars, licensed merchandise, or in rare instances real-world protagonists. It’s one of the best holidays ever for hobbyists like me who’ve been comics readers since the days when drugstores sold them for thirty-five cents each and comic book movies were shoddier than actual B-movies.
Each year comic shops lure fans and curious onlookers inside their brick-and-mortar hideaways with a big batch of free new comics from all the major publishers and a bevy of smaller competitors deserving shelf space and consideration. Normally my wife Anne and I get up early, venture to one or more comic shops as soon as they open for their occasion, pick up samples, and spend money on a few extra items as our way of thanking each shop for their service in the field of literacy.
Our tradition was interrupted this year by the Indiana Comic Convention‘s unfortunate scheduling that very same weekend, a one-time relocation from their previous berth around Easter. (Next year ICC is moving to March, probably when March Madness and basketball fans will take over downtown Indy and fight them for crowd supremacy.) We consequently didn’t get to a shop until late Saturday afternoon, a long walk from the Indiana Convention Center to the nearest retailer — in fact, the one that was my New Comic Day home every Wednesday for years until the pandemic threw a planet-sized wrench into my weekly routine and the lives of billions.
By the time we dragged ourselves in from our two-day comic-con experience on our sorely wounded feet across all those Monument Circle bricks, I’m pretty sure all the best, most unusual FCBD titles were long gone. I consoled myself with the available universes and picked up eight titles in all from seven companies, possibly my smallest stack ever. And yes, I bought a couple of big-ticket items as a thank-you for having us. (Yes, you’ll notice the picture and list include a ninth title from an eighth company. We’ll get to that.)
My reading pile results came out as follows, ranked woefully subjectively and upwardly from “Not My Thing” to “Highly Promising”. It wasn’t the greatest Free Comic Book Day of all time, but it was a Free Comic Book Day. And now, on with the countdown!
9. Uncanny Avengers #1 (Marvel Comics) — Other than following Kieron Gillen’s adventures in Immortal X-Men and Day of Judgment (the only comics crossover I’ve enjoyed in the past ten years) I’ve given up on Marvel’s team books altogether, so I had no idea the X-Men and Avengers had assembled a composite team for me to also not follow. Apparently they have, so here they are. I appreciated the brief return of one of Deadpool’s old pals, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Emily Preston; otherwise, it’s just more of the same ol’ sound-‘n’-fury.
8. Star Trek: Day of Blood Prologue (IDW Publishing) — The lead story kicks off a crossover that I wasn’t planning to follow even before this revealed the longtime TNG supporting player who’s been cheapened with his sudden heel-turn as an evil cultist Big Bad. I’m sure the writers have a head-canon explanation that bridges the gap between his Deep Space Nine appearances and here, but it clashes with mine and arguably with actual canon, because I can’t believe he’d be driven that far off a mental cliff. On the brighter and lighter side, the backup story is an excerpt from the recent Lower Decks miniseries that I did buy because it was written by Unbeatable Squirrel Girl‘s Ryan North. The short version is, Our Heroes tangle with the sinister Holodeck Dracula! The long version is even more fun! But I’ve already read it.
7. Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures (Dark Horse Comics) – Someday I expect I’ll care about Lucasfilm’s “High Republic” corporate transmedia product-launch initiative that amounts to a Saturday morning cartoon called “Yoda and the Jedi Kids”, but that day hasn’t arrived for me yet with this perfunctory chase scene that reads like a half-chapter, all lightsabers and no insights. More inviting is the Avatar: The Last Airbender backup, whose universe gave us some of the best FCBD tales year-to-year back when Gene Luen Yang was writing them. This one’s a cute trifle that introduces a few characters and their powers for a journey that’s maybe a couple blocks long, and yet I feel far more welcomed to their world. I really ought to check out that show sometime.
6. Archie Horror Presents The Cursed Library (Archie Comics) — Riverdale killed most of my interest in the nü-Archie overhaul with the single concept “Archie sleeps with Miss Grundy,” but on rare occasion I’ll glance over. The two stories and one excerpt here left me cold (one of them seems to have panels printed out of order), but the framing sequences by Magdalene Visaggio and Craig Cermak, with no-longer-Li’l Jinx as a teenage scary-story host, has solid tongue-in-cheekiness to it that shows she’s ready to headline her own Tales from the House of the Vault of the Unexpected Treehouse of Horror of Shadows, albeit populated with grimdark Archie-In-Name-Only characters.
5. 2000 A.D. Regened: The Best Comic Ever (Rebellion Publishing) — The current home of the world of Judge Dredd now does kids’ comics! Or maybe they have been for years but no one brought them over to America, or at least pointed them out. Of the three tales, one is a portion of Full Tilt Boogie that takes some time to arrive somewhere, suggesting it might read better in a longer installment; a kiddie-thick future-sports exercise that definitely isn’t aimed at me or fans of plot; and a surprise gem from the always funny Roger Langridge (Fred the Clown, The Muppet Show), who teams with Brett Parson (Tank Girl, New Romancer) to bring us Pandora Perfect, a space thief in the vein of Marvel’s Doctor Aphra whose latest scheme sees her going undercover as basically Evil Mary Poppins, with wacky results.
4. Conan the Barbarian (Titan Comics) — My Conan reading experiences have been sporadic over the decades, but I had to chuckle when Marvel regained the Conan license for about ten minutes only to squander it on contriving an entire ludicrous Avengers team just for him. Now he’s migrated to the current home of Doctor Who and other licenses, and he’s brought his comrades-in-arms Jim Zub, Roberto de la Torre, and Jose Villarrubia with him. Newcomers to Cimmeria and its neighboring realms get a succinct primer to where he came from and what he does best, replete with old-school sword-and-sorcery ink-brushed art and actual captions upon captions, nary a word balloon in sight. It’s like his 1970s heyday never ended.
3. Marvel Voices #1 (Marvel Comics) — I realize I’m part of a problem: I like opportunities to experience the work of new creators, but I’ve become disenchanted with the ultimately disposable nature of one-shot anthologies, which happens to be the primary format that Marvel and DC presently use to show off (more like sequester) their latest onetime recruits under their ongoing DEI initiatives. Most of this is a sampler platter culled from previous one-shots I didn’t buy, which means this is my intro to an Inuk teen hero named Snowguard, a potential winner annoyingly buried among the hundreds of Marvel IPs who exist chiefly as background extras in their overcrowded team books and crossover events. The lead story is all-new for this edition, an Ironheart short by Hugo Award winner John Jennings (Parable of the Sower), Paris Alleyne (Black Panther Legends), and colorist Erick Arciniega that introduces a successor to C-list villain Chemistro and stacks up pretty well with Riri’s series from a couple years back that had a good run till it was saddled with too many blatantly sales-boosting guest stars. With creators and characters like these, I don’t want tiny treats tucked away in the bottom shelf of Marvel’s pantry — I want to see them rewarded with full series.
2. Dawn of DC: Knight Terrors Special Edition (DC Comics) — Another FCBD, another prologue to a Big Two major crossover event. I skipped this on FCBD on purpose, but the following Wednesday I returned to my usual shop and found they had plenty of copies left. Their current star writer Joshua Williamson (whose Flash: Rebirth is my favorite Barry Allen comic so far this century) sets up the basic event premise — Our Heroes face their deepest fears in their dreeeaaams! — but flies high above Elm Street thanks to artist extraordinaire Chris Bachalo, whose experience in the worlds of Death, Doctor Strange, X-Men, and other monster-filled playgrounds makes him the perfect craftsman for super-powered horrors. And Lord knows our protagonist Damian Wayne has plenty of nightmare fuel in his backstory. It comes with a handy-dandy checklist of the next 46 chapters and I thought, “I ain’t buyin’ all that,” but at least the intro was really cool.
1. The Sacrificers #1 (Image Comics) — Rick Remender’s next series takes us to an alien kingdom where a family of bird-humanoid farmers keeps their teenage son locked up in the barn as well-meaning yet cruel protection from the oppressive laws of their tyrant sun-god. Our Villain in turn has a headstrong teenage daughter who’s inherited his fire-hair, chafes under his rules, and surely won’t disobey him and totally lead a rebellion in the months and years ahead. A full-length, fully satisfying Chapter One firmly lays the new world’s foundation, grounds the reader in the farmer-family’s lives and hearts, introduces emotional stakes on both sides, and showcases the art of Max Fiumara (Infinity Inc., the Hellboy universe) and ace colorist Dave McCaig through the dueling contrasts of pastoral nighttime and spartan palace life. The highest compliment I can pay this is that I’m sincerely curious to know what happens next.
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…and that’s the free reading pile that was. See you next year, time and temptations permitting!