Reading a Scott Snyder comic is like sitting back with your favorite novel and savoring every page. You know that the next page will be just as good or better than the one that you are currently reading, but it’s so hard to go on. Snyder is a deliberate storyteller who wants you to read carefully into every phrase, dialogue bubble, and thought box – because there is always a subtle detail lurking in the text.

Batman #2, part of the 52 reboot, does a lot of things right about the Batman franchise. For starters, it doesn’t really reboot the series at all. Instead, Snyder has continued to stay true to the core characterization of Batman. While the Dark Knight’s costume may have had a military upgrade – the suit now has sharp points on Batman’s forearms – the character and his colleagues remain completely the same. If anything, ...

Struggling economies and job markets all over the world, mass media sensationalism, consumerism, religious wars, and natural disasters have all contributed to the very real state of the world. Never has there been more fear manifested and felt than today. Marvel reflected that in their event comic of the year, Fear Itself. It’s a wonderful concept about on a Norse god named the Serpent: The God of Fear who rises to power by feeding off the fear of others. He has a bone to pick with Odin who used magic to hide him but now he’s loose and Asgard and the Gods at their weakest.

Written by Matt Fraction and art by Stuart Immonen, the main book is seven parts but will eventually cross over into every major Marvel Universe book, including the X-Men books. If readers choose to supplement the main book, they can purchase eight mini-series, two one-shots, 14 ...

Daytripper reads like an intricately woven novel, which is brought to life through vivid illustrations that look like a slice of life. Creators Gabriel Ba and Fabian Moon have delivered a tale of immersion. From the moment you are introduced to Bras de Olvia Domingos, a Brazilian obituary writer, you will be overwhelmed by this brilliantly composed story. The tale dissects a single life, through several life altering moments. Yet, one question always emerges and will have readers questioning their own existence. Is today the day that I am truly alive?

In the first pages of Daytripper, we meet Bras de Olvia Domingos. He writes obituaries for the newspaper. However, he’s never realized one important detail. “Even when he’s not writing about it (death), people will keep dying.” The words deliver a resounding smack-in-the-face against the blood soaked backdrop of comic panel. It’s a brief, but modest epiphany for both Bras ...

Forget that Marvel or the creator-owned Icon imprint is publishing it. Never mind that the team that brought us Powers creates it. If you bring in any of that baggage when reading Takio, you’re selling the title short. The best way to experience Takio is to walk in with no expectations, besides the fun that comes with an “all-ages” book. Takio is the genesis of a new world where two bickering sisters of a multi-cultural family become the least likely of heroes.

Olivia is a seven-year old spitfire and too-smart-for-her-own-good chatterbox; Taki is the adopted big sister, doing what every thirteen-year old is trying to do: fit in. Taki is instructed by their mother to walk her younger sister to and from school, the most dreaded parts of her days. Their mother is a widow so if she’s not busy working, she’s off running chores. Taki is as much a parent ...

Issues #1-5 of Sweet Tooth introduced us to an innocent young boy with antlers, who was thrust into a world he didn’t know to face a fate he didn’t ask for. It’s an Ugly Duckling story set in a world mixed between Children of Men and The Walking Dead. However, this story is anything but cliché post-apocalyptic tale. Jeff Lemire created something bold and unique when he mixed his expressively grizzled artwork with a suspenseful, page-turning story. Oh, and the dialogue is outstanding too.

Sweet Tooth Vol. 2: In Captivity collects issues #6-11 of the Vertigo comic series. In Vol. 1, we were introduced to Gus, the boy with antlers who lost his loving father –the only person he ever knew. Shortly after breaking into the wild, he is discovered and rescued by a hardened man named Jepperd. He had a rifle and a fighter’s spirit. Gus knew Jepperd long enough ...

Shrapnel: Hubris (1-3, Radical Comics) is the second chapter of the sci-fi Shrapnel Trilogy, following Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising. If you did not read the first part of the trilogy, do so because it is a far stronger, stand alone chapter than Hubris. Shrapnel follows the complex socio-political dynamics of interplanetary domination. The Solar Alliance is the new political infrastructure in a future where humanity has colonized all the planets of the solar system. They use aggressive military tactics to take over these planets, usually at the expense of the civilizations inhabiting the planets. The last free planet, Venus, is under siege by Marines. A defected military officer, Samantha “Sam” Vijaya, makes the decision to side with the Venusian rebels. In Aristeia, Sam’s rise to notoriety and authority as a war hero is shaped, while simultaneously delving into Sam’s emotional and psychological struggles while undertaking this challenge.

Hubris follows Sam’s story ...

There are three things a horror franchise needs: a haunting location, creative ways of dispatching with innocent victims, and a mysterious, creepy, insane, yet articulate psychopath. There is no one with better pedigree than Darren Lynn Bousman, director of the SAW films, who provided the source material for Abattoir. Seeing as how SAW 3D is the final chapter in the psychological-torture-gore genre, Abattoir may be looking to become the next big franchise.

Does Abattoir offer a creepy location? Look no further than the name of series: ‘abattoir’ is French for “slaughterhouse”. And where would this slaughterhouse be? Of course, an average home in Middle America, just so you get the feeling that this could happen to you. Are victims killed creatively? Does being wacked by a weed-wacker count? And the creepy conductor of chaos in Abattoir? Mr. Jebediah Crone, an ...

So the long awaited Uncanny X-Force #1 has arrived and it is pretty kick-ass as far as first episodes go. The most recent and widely lauded incarnation of X-Force set fire to an X-franchise needing a new direction. With Marvel’s Dark Age in full effect, it was only natural that a no-holds-barred, clandestine group of X-Men surfaced. Charged with the elimination of all immediate threats to the rapidly endangered mutant population, X-Force, led by Wolverine and supported by X23, Warpath, Wolfsbane, Elixir, Domino, Archangel, and the Vanisher, were disbanded by Cyclops after the conclusion of Second Coming.

Unbeknownst to Cyclops, Wolverine has formed a covert strike team to continue proactive, protective agenda of X-Force. This incarnation includes Archangel, Psylocke, Fantomex, and the controversial Deadpool. Deadpool’s inclusion on the team is ironic given that he was one of X-Force’s original nemeses, under the creative control of Rob Liefeld in the ...

Driver for the Dead #2 keeps the peddle to the metal adding layers to an already interesting plot, but letting up on the gore, suspense, and action. Writer John Heffernan settles you into moments of quiet discomfort and then whips your neck with startling twists (some characters suffer the twists on your behalf)! Illustrator Leonardo Manco is still delivering the goods, having fun by playfully building in characters with likenesses to prominent super stars. Last issue, Morgan Freeman appeared to be the template for the now deceased Moses Freeman. In Issue #2, we are introduced to Aunt Sadie, whose grin is none other’s than Oscar Winner Mo’Nique.

The story continues where it left off as the titular hearse driver, Alabaster Graves, picks up the Freeman’s corpse from the township of Shreveport, Louisiana, with Freeman’s great-granddaughter, Marissa. Meanwhile, Uriah Fallow, the scavenger zombie, has been hunting down powerful ...

It seems these days that an “original” idea is nothing more than a synthesis of established genres. Take Time Bomb from the creators Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (Freedom Fighters, Power Girl) and artist Paul Gulacy (Jonah Hex) of which issue #2 is released today. Combining time-traveling sci-fi appeal of works like Stargate or Dr. Who with historical fiction, Palmiotti and Gray are betting that the sum of science and history will be greater than the parts.

Time Bomb started with a bang. Issue #1 introduced the dilemma: a preserved World War II city under Berlin was unearthed, which in turn resulted in the accidental firing of a doomsday Omega missile carrying a viral load that was quickly decimating the world’s population. The scientific community had only one solution for this disaster: an experimental device called a “time bomb”, believed to successful send its occupants back into the ...