ERIC'S "SUPERHERO VIDEOGAME MADNESS!"
COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 9 #2 - February 2007

INTRODUCTION
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There are certainly plenty of new comics coming out in February, but what blew me away this November was the release of three massive superhero-based videogames: Superman Returns, Justice League Heroes, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Not all three of them are worth running out and spending your hard-earned money on, but if you read The Biz this month, you'll get to see a little bit of what I thought of them and make your own decision. Also, there are the comics! Here we go...

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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Although there are quite a few new titles to look forward to this month, I'm most intrigued by the Civil War Initiative one-shot, if you can believe it. Marvel is supposedly wrapping up the Civil War storyline with this title and showing us what's to come for the future of the Marvel Universe. If they pull this off right, it should be pretty darn cool. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath but I am excited about this particular issue for what it could possibly mean. Check it out!

DEC062306 Civil War Initiative $4.99 retail
*** 50% OFF AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM ***

HOLY COMIC PODCASTS, BATMAN!!!
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One of our partners has discovered the joys of technology (I still hand-write this newsletter by candle-light with a quill pen and whale ink blotter) and is releasing regular comic-book podcasts! Totally awesome, I believe. Check out the podcast online. There are MP3s of all previous podcasts as well as XML feed links if you'd like to subscribe!

HUGE DISCOUNTS AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM
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Aside from always offering 35% off the cover price of monthly comics with no minimum to buy, each month Comics NOW offers incredible deals on some of the newest titles out there. Just point your browser to http://www.comicsnow.com to order any of these titles below at huge discounts or any other comic at least 35% off the cover price.

Here are this month's deals:

50%-OFF COMIC DEALS:
DEC060210 Brave and the Bold #1 $2.99
DEC060211 Brave and the Bold Cvr B #1 $2.99
DEC060270 Ex Machina Inside the Machine Vol 1 #1 $2.99
DEC060202 Helmet of Fate Sargon the Sorcerer #1 $2.99
DEC060203 Helmet of Fate Zauriel #1 $2.99
DEC060247 Shazam The Monster Society of Evil #1 $5.99
DEC062306 Civil War Imitative #1 $4.99
DEC062284 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #1 $3.99
DEC062315 Ghost Rider Trail of Tears #1 $2.99
DEC062323 Legion of Monsters Werewolf by Night #1 $2.99
DEC062360 Orson Scott Cards Wyrms #1 $2.99
DEC062354 Punisher Presents Barracuda Max #1 $3.99
DEC062338 Thunderbolts Presents Zemo Born Better #1 $2.99

40%-OFF TRADE PAPERBACK DEALS:
DEC060188 All Star Superman Vol 1 HC $19.99
DEC060271 Ex Machina Vol 5 Smoke Smoke TP $12.99
DEC060297 Exterminators Vol 2 Insurgency TP $12.99
DEC060243 Secret Six Degrees of Devastation TP $14.99
DEC062375 Civil War Road to Civil War TP $14.99
DEC062381 Nextwave Agents of Hate Vol 1 TP $14.99
DEC062378 Spider-Woman Origin TP $13.99
DEC062377 X-Factor Longest Night TP $14.99

THE BIZ
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SUPERMAN RETURNS VIDEOGAME RELEASED!

I was very excited about this one -- Superman meets Grand Theft Auto with a huge city where you can do whatever you want and help save people and stop the bad guys. Sounds awesome. Unfortunately, this one simply didn't pan out... at all. The graphics are surprisingly bad, even on an X-Box 360. Surprisingly, there's not much to do in Metropolis. You end up getting... bored... if you can believe it. Insane, I know. I'd recommend steering clear of this one, especially with other better titles (read on) that came out.

JUSTICE LEAGUE HEROES VIDEOGAME RELEASED!

Now, this is more along the lines of what I'm talking about! There's good customization of the characters here and overall the game is quite a bit of fun. I was disappointed with some of the AI not working quite the way I feel like it should and the hand-to-hand combat leaves something to be desired. Overall, though, it's a darn fun game. Basically, this is X-Men Legends in the DC universe.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE VIDEOGAME RELEASED!

Here we have it. Raven Software, the company behind X-Men Legends 1 & 2, is responsible for unleashing this addictive little monster on the world. I have to warn you -- if you played either of the X-Men Legends games and didn't like them then this game is definitely not the one for you. Same sort of group-oriented gameplay except now you get to play with 20 Marvel Universe characters instead of just limiting it to the X-Men. Nice. I really enjoyed it and I'm definitely not a huge fan of most RPG-type games.

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions. Download the January 2007 Top-100 PDF file (it's 8KB!).

It's Comics NOW!'s very own Top-10 and Top-100 lists. This list is based on the internal sales quantities of the titles with Premiere being the big guns who pay the extra bucks to be listed first in the ordering system: Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. The Independent list is everyone else, all those pea-shooters who no one really pays attention to... or do they?

Here's an example of how to read the format:

1. (3) The Amazing Eric Comic

"1." - the place of the title in the list this month

"(3)" - where the title was LAST month ("-" if it wasn't)

the title - this one should be pretty obvious

TOP 10 PREMIERE COMICS

1. (2) Batman
2. (3) Superman Batman
3. (8) Detective Comics
4. (9) Superman
5. (-) Teen Titans
6. (-) Civil War The Return
7. (-) Ultimate Spider-Man
8. (-) Uncanny X-Men
9. (-) 52 Weeks
10. (-) Spider-Man

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (1) Transformers Escalation
2. (2) Transformers Spotlight
3. (3) Transformers Movie Adaptation
4. (5) Battlestar Galactica
5. (7) Red Sonja
6. (-) GI Joe vs Transformers
7. (6) GI Joe America's Elite
8. (-) Fallen Angel
9. (-) GI Joe Declassified
10. (-) STNG The Space Between

THE GOOD STUFF
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DARK HORSE COMICS

CITY OF OTHERS #1 of 4

Bernie Wrightson has always drawn a disturbing comic and this one should prove to be no different. It follows the life of a remorseless killer named Stosh Bludowski who encounters two people he can't kill and realize that there is another group of humans called "Others" who seem to have powers. Now, Bludowski has to figure out whether he's normal or whether he's an "other."
By Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson with Jose Villarrubia.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

THE SECRET #1 of 4

Tommy Morris has been invited to a big party with the social elite of Franklin High but then he gets a prank phone call that somehow turns so very wrong that his entire life is turned upside down. Maybe it's just another hormonal high school kid coming of age story, eh?
By Mike Richardson and Jason Alexander.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

DC COMICS

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1

Man, this series has been restarted more times than I can even remember. This "first" issue will star Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batman fighting together on the Ventura gambling planet. That Green Lantern stuff always has everyone flying all over the galaxy. Strange.
By Mark Waid, George Perez and Bob Wiacek.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

SHAZAM: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL #1 of 4

A strange origin but not origin story from Jeff Smith, the creator Bone. Billy Batson discovers that he's got amazing magic powers right about the same time there's this invasion of alien and earthly monsters hell-bent on destroying the planet. Lucky!
By Jeff Smith.
48 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $5.99 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

BLACK MIST #1

*sigh* Image is at it again. The Death Cult of Kali is dedicated to the reincarnation of a dark goddess of death named, you guessed it, Kali. At any rate, this comic seeks to answer the question: what happens when you give in to the dark side of your soul and sacrifice yourself to the reincarnation of a dark death goddess? Well, I've got a few answers but I'm sure I'm not quite creative enough to pull it off like you know the Image guys will, right? We can only hope.
By James Pruett and Mike Perkins.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $3.99 retail.

STRONGARM #1

Okay, so imagine Witchblade with a techno-feel and a male lead. That's where I think this one is headed. Rob is a 30-year-old delivery boy when he's attacked by an assassin with huge biomechanical arms. Somehow Rob manages to kill the attacker (yeah, right) and then the arms graft themselves to him. See, Witchblade?
By Steve Horton and David Ahn.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

BLOOD NATION #1 of 4

Vampires are everywhere. They're getting everyone. Now, the normal attitude here would be "What the heck, I guess we're all vampires now." But, no, not in an Image Comic from Platinum Studios -- here Captain Ethan Cutter is going to develop and lead a special forces unit to stop the vampire horde. Who really wants an immortal life and the ability to fly, anyway, right?
By Rob Moran and James Devlin.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

WATCHDOGS

Sam Garrison and his wife move into an inner-city neighborhood that's plagued with gangs and drugs. I'm confused by the choice there. At any rate, Sam meets his neighbor, Mark Buchanan, and they decide to become masked vigilantes fighting the local crime. Unfortunately, Mark's up to something else, Sam finds out, and then Sam finds himself accused of murder. Ack!
By Fred Van Lente, Brian Churilla and Andy Walton.
72 pages. Graphic Novel. $11.99 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN #1 of 7

There are certain genres of the comic book industry that I just don't share any interest in -- the galactic space apes and the western. I just don't get it. But, in this case, Stephen King's character, Roland, is going to have his past revealed in this comic book that will be overseen by Stephen King himself as well as drawn by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove. For the first time ever, I may actually be looking forward to a western-themed comic. Strange, huh?
By Peter David, Robin Furth, Jae Lee and Richard Isanove.
48 pages. 7-issue maxi-series. $3.99 retail.

SPIDER-MAN FAMILY #1

My god, another Spider-Man title? At least this one's only bi-monthly but I can't honestly tell you whether there's anything that makes this title different from the other 3,000,000 Spider-Man titles Marvel has.
By Sean McKeever and Terrel Bobbett.
104 pages. Ongoing series. $4.99 retail.

CIVIL WAR: THE INITIATIVE

At the risk of beating the dead horse over and over again, Marvel's trying desperately to wrap up their Civil War storyline with the claim that "the post war Marvel Universe begins here!" Let's see what happens next, eh?
By Brian Michael Bendis and Warren Ellis.
64 pages. One-shot special. $4.99 retail.

GHOST RIDER: TRAIL OF TEARS #1 of 6

Basically, it's Ghost Rider in the Civil War era. This storyline is a prequel to the storyline Road to Damnation. Travis Parham gets sucked into the world of the Ghost Rider and it's Ghost Rider... with a horse. Got to give it the proper cred seeing as how it's a Garth Ennis book, tho'. Ennis makes everything taste better, doesn't he?
By Garth Ennis and Clayton Crain.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

PUNISHER: BARRACUDA MAX #1 of 5

Barracuda was a big badass character just introduced in a recent Punisher Max storyline and he had such an impact on the community that we all demanded to see more. That, and Marvel can't resist capitalizing on any new character that seems to have any kind of a following. Enter the Barracuda Max mini-series. If everyone buys enough copies, you can just bet that there's an ongoing storyline in the near future.
By Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $3.99 retail.

ORSON SCOTT CARD'S WYRMS #1 of 6

Orson Scott Card is a big bad science fiction writer. He's trying to create a universe where Patience is a slave in the court of King Oruc and a daughter of the King's most trusted advisor so when her father dies she needs to go out and bring back these creatures known as the Wyrms. She's a skilled diplomat and assassin but also doesn't really seem to give a crap. Will she fulfill her destiny or just give up entirely?
By Orson Scott Card and Jake Black.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

FINAL NOTES
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I just realized that these are the February titles and there weren't any Valentine-oriented comics this month. Wow. I can't believe all the companies decided to skip out on trying to market to that holiday; wait, the majority of us don't care. Maybe that's it, eh?

And, always remember, it takes a heck of a lot more than just a superhero license to make videogames -- sometimes it takes gameplay, too!

And, as always, thank you for your business!

Eric Jacobson