Here are my favorite things that got put up on Marvel Unlimited this week. All of the X books continue to be mostly excellent. I'm not looking forward to the upcoming break as the Marvel Unlimited release schedules approaches when the COVID shut down began.
A little over a month ago, for no reason in-particular, I decided to embark on a re-read of the entirety of the Marvel Ultimate Comics line. All of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited in publication order, so I decided to go for it. Why Ultimate Comics? The Ultimate line holds a special nostalgic place in my heart. I first started seriously reading comics at around 10 or 11 years old. That just happened to coincide with the launch of Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men. In fact, I think the first comic I bought since I was 5 was the first collection of Ultimate Spider-Man. The Ultimate line has its flaws, but to a young me it was the coolest thing I'd ever read.
After the Rain is the graphic novel adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor's story "On the Road". The story is adapted by John Jennings and illustrated by David Brame. After the Rain is slated to come out in January of 2021. I received an advanced copy through NetGalley. The story follows Chioma, a Nigerian-American detective from Chicago, who is on a trip to a Nigerian village to visit some of her relatives. After the beginning of her visit is plagued by a fierce rainstorm lasting days on end, Chioma finds herself in trouble when she answers the door to a boy with a serious head injury. His touch burns Chioma and things begin to spiral out of control.
LaGuardia is a 4-issue series written by Hugo award winning author Nnedi Okorafor with art by Tana Ford. The series is part of the Berger Books imprint at Dark Horse that's run by legendary former Vertigo editor Karen Berger. Taking place an indeterminate amount of time in the future, LaGuardia finds an Earth where aliens are now integrated with human society. Future, a pregnant Nigerian-American doctor, is returning home to New York City after several years living in Lagos, Nigeria. Future's stated reason for returning home is to raise her child at home in America, but some mystery surrounds Citizen, the father of her child, and the sentient illegal plant named Letme Live that Future has smuggled into the United States.
I'm a subscriber to both Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe, so I'm perpetually behind current releases, but I get to read just about everything from those two companies at like 10% of what it'd normally cost. Every week I peruse the "new" releases to the services and catch up on most of what gets added. This week, I figured I'd do a roundup of the comics I read that finished up some volumes and give a brief review for each. Check them out below!
Here are the books and comics I'm most looking forward to that come out in June!
Something Is Killing the Children is a new series from BOOM! Studios written by James Tynion IV and drawn Werther Dell'Edera, with Miguel Muerto on colors. This first volume of the series finds a small town plagued by a number of missing and murdered children. Not great! When one kid named James does return, the police don't believe his gruesome story of monsters in the woods being responsible for the dismemberment of his friends. The mystery escalates when a woman going by Erica Slaughter shows up in town, saying she believes James and that she's come to take care of the problem.
Green Lantern: Legacy finds a brand new take on Green Lantern, albeit featuring some familiar faces. The main character of the book is 13 year old Tai Pham. Tai's grandmother is a Vietnamese immigrant who owns a local neighborhood shop called the Jade Market. What Tai soon finds out is that there's a lot more to his grandmother than he knows. These developments launch him into his adventure as a full-fledged member of the Green Lantern Corp.
Joe Golem: Occult Detective volume 2 brings back the same creative crew as volume 1 (Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Patric Reynolds, Dave Stewart, and Clem Robbins) for the second entry in the series. Much like volume 1, the second entry in the series was a bit uneven.
Joe Golem: Occult Detective, Vol. 1: The Rat Catcher and the Sunken Dead is the first volume of the Joe Golem series. This volume is written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden with Patric Reynolds on art and Mignolaverse legend Dave Stewart on colors. Most of the names here are familiar to anyone who's read Hellboy and BPRD and, as you'd expect, they bring a certain floor to the quality of a book they're involved in. I found that to be true of Joe Golem.
