Ok. That's not fair!
I'll admit it, I lost. Walt is definitely taking this month's prize for best single issues newsletter. I cannot beat the amount of shiny new stuff that was revealed last week.
Allow me to step out of my employee hat for a moment. I was a single-issue customer first and continue to be to this day (I'm actually subscribing to the things I tell you that I do, no lies) and it's great to see the advantages of pre-ordering growing in the last year. It's very much an investment to subscribe to single issues and WCS is investing back on us which is awesome.
Funny thing: I found a message from January 2024 I sent to my boyfriend, way before coming to Europe that reads “Hey, just found out this thing called Walt's Comic Shop, they let you subscribe to single issues like you are in the U.S and my wallet is dead when I get there”
That sweet Brazilian summer child had no idea. Funny how things happen. Will not announce the number of series I subscribe to as respect for the memory of Wallet (1996-2025). We miss you everyday.
Ok, enough blabling around, FOCs babyyy.
Escape #1
Rick Remender and Giant Generator are sure work horses. It feels like every month there's a new title coming from him and they're always pretty good. And this is a reunion with Daniel Acuña. I fell in love with Rick first while he was working at Marvel and this is the duo from the Uncanny Avengers run. I always felt that this run was massively underrated and kinda felt undiscovered among what Hickman was doing at the time. So I was very excited to receive advanced reading copies of this new collaboration.
I was never a guy of war stories to be honest. But, as a cinephile, I know that when they are made well, they have an indescribable ability to strip humans to their core and get all of us crying our hearts out like we never watched a movie before. Remender and Acuña get this and that's why this is such a promising start.
This is basically a story about a chief of a group of pilots tasked with dropping a bomb in a key enemy territory, only to then be stuck in that exact same space with very little hope of leaving. Hence the escape. This is told with an anthropometric animal version of our reality where the villains are the bats. This is very much something we have seen before, mainly because the medium of comics is quite far the best place where this type of analogies can happen. And they work for a reason.
This is a book of dialogues and reflections amongst the action, which was certainly my favorite part of the first issues. It feels like it belongs amongst Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and if you know those shows, you know this is high praise.
You can check out the trailer here. Subscribe Here
Imperial War: Planet She-Hulk #1 and Imperial War: Black Panther #1
This is the first batch of the Imperial one-shot spinoffs.
If you don't know what Imperial is yet. Jonathan Hickman (Ultimate Spider-Man) is basically doing what he did to the Avengers, the Ultimate Universe and to the X-Men line, this time with the Marvel Cosmic side. This is highly anticipated because all of us remember how gold Annihilation was a few decades ago (jesus!) and all the untapped potential of this whole side of the publisher was always something fans were craving.
Now we're getting these one-shots that are kind of pilots to possible future spinoffs. Hickman is co-writing the books with the authors that I think would write the titles that will hopefully be announced this Comic-Con. Victor LaValle (Sabretooth) is doing Black Panther and Stephanie Phillips (Phoenix) is doing She-Hulk. And these are both characters that always make me feel like Marvel is insane when they don't have ongoings, so I'm excited for that.
And, I also realize that the sad ending of my adored Rainbow Rowell run on She-Hulk was probably because of Hickman's plans for this event, so getting an ongoing would make me feel a little bit better about that mistake. (but not a lot!).
Stitch #1
This is an out-there pick for the newsletter but I know there's a lot of you with small kids to please (and slowly manipulate into comics fans) and also a lot of Disney adults that would love a bit of nostalgia into their veins (oh how I crave it!).
Dynamite has been killing with these licensed comics so much that I feel Marvel is losing out hard on not exploring more with this territory. But let's not poke a winning team. This is their second series on the Lilo & Stitch brand but removing Lilo from the title this time (Free Lilo!) and giving the chaotic alien his solo-adventures (Like he needs to sell MORE toys this summer).
I read the first Lilo & Stitch series they put out and really enjoyed. It was written by Greg Pak guys!!! (Greg Pak Stitch man, why didn't anyone tell me about this sooner??). It had the vibe of watching the Disney Channel tv series version every morning before going to school so much so that I was kinda feeling annoyed like I actually had to do geometry after reading. This new one is being written by newbie to comics Connor Ratliff, that you might recognize from the Dead Eyes podcast (hilarious that I mentioned both him and Band of Brothers in the same newsletter by pure chance) and The George Lucas Talk Show improv show!!
And my favorite part of the whole thing. JAE LEE is doing the B covers here and they are so awesome. You know I'm picking this up for that reason alone.
For my kid tho of course ;) (the one I don't have) Subscribe Here
That's It for this week peeps. And yes, I did choose to talk about Stitch instead of the new Punisher.
Ok. Ok. I'll mention Punisher so you leave me alone Punisher fans (and inner voices, funnily enough very similar concepts).
Marvel is doing a Red Band Punisher series by Benjamin Percy and Julius Ohta and it promises to be very bloody and violent and everything that you guys love! (I'm talking as if I'm not reading this too probably). So go pre-order your R-Rated Punisher but don't overlook Stitch!
(R-Rated Stitch and PG-13 Lilo & Frank would kinda rule tho)
(Hey Marvel, I have a pitch)
(Boss, sorry for calling you a thing in the first paragraph)
See you guys,
Math
