ERIC'S "SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER EXTRAVAGANZA SPECTACULAR"
COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 9 #7 - July 2007

INTRODUCTION
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It's the Summer Blockbuster Extravaganza Spectacular issue here at Eric's Newsletter. We've got so many comics to talk about this month that my head is just spinning. Everyone's going nuts. Dark Horse is going nuclear, DC is taking us back to Year One, Image is throwing baby showers and Marvel's trying to steal all our money with no less than sixty intertwining maxi-series running all at the same time! I may be exaggerating a LITTLE bit with the Marvel stuff but the rest of it is true. Read on to find out more.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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It's been a while since I've had this much trouble picking out the comic I love the most. Green Arrow: Year One sounds groovy as we get to see what Oliver Queen was like as a young man (was he EVER really young?). Hiding in Time is also pretty intriguing with time-traveling assassin-hunters. Stracynski's writing Thor while Bendis is playing... errr... writing about Halo. But, the comic of the month has got to be NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS. I'll be 30 in May so I'm looking back at the past 20+ years that I've been collecting comics and remembering how it all started with the first run of Transformers #24. Ahhh, those were the days. $0.75 cover prices. I mean, holy crap. You could buy almost 4 comics at today's average $2.99 price. *sigh* Anyway, the Transformers crossovers were how I found out about new titles I hadn't previously discovered so I'm all about reliving my childhood with this one.

MAY072146 New Avengers/Transformers #1. $2.99 retail.
*** 50%-OFF AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM ***

DECONSTRUCTING COMICS
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It's a constant, consistent, mad demolition of different comics (and they feature my newsletter!) at Deconstructing Comics. Deconstructing Comics always has a wide variety of comics news as well as their awesome podcasts - http://www.globalcomics.net/podcast. There are MP3s available of all previous podcasts as well as XML feed links if you'd like to have an ongoing subscription!

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:
MAY070167 Black Canary #1 $2.99
MAY070228 Faker #1 $2.99
MAY070165 Green Arrow: Year One #1 $2.99
MAY070209 Programme #1 $2.99
MAY072110 Champions #1 $2.99
MAY072084 Civil War Chronicles #1 $4.99
MAY072115 Fantastic Five #1 $2.99
MAY072085 Halo Uprising #1 $3.99
MAY072146 New Avengers Transformers #1 $2.99
MAY072156 Thor #1 $2.99
MAY072155 Thunderbolts Desperate Measures #1 $2.99
MAY072123 World War Hulk Gamma Corps #1 $2.99

40%-OFF TRADE PAPERBACK DEALS:
MAY070211 Alan Moore The Complete Wildcats HC $29.99
MAY070171 JSA Vol 1 The Next Age HC $19.99
MAY070243 Scalped Vol 1 Indian Country TP $9.99
MAY070186 Tangent Comics Vol 1 TP $19.99
MAY072194 Hulk Visionaries Peter David TP $19.99
MAY072191 Moon Knight Vol 1 Rock Bottom TP $14.99
MAY072187 Squadron Supreme Hyperion vs. Nighthawk TP $10.99
MAY072189 Wonder Man My Fair Super Hero TP $13.99

THE BIZ
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SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN

In case you have been wandering through the world with a blindfold on
and earplugs in, the new Spider-Man movie comes out on May 4th (or, errr...
came out on May 4th) and new Spider-Man 3 video-games are being released for every system under the sun. WOO-HOO! I just love Spidey-mania!

HEROES ABOUT TO WRAP UP FOR THE SEASON -- EVERYONE DIES!

I have no idea if everyone's going to die but rumor has it that the final episodes are going to be super-exciting. Woo-hoo. I'm losing my steam on this series a little bit. Sylar's still pissing me off terribly. As far as bad guys go, he's just really annoying to me. Yes, more powers are cool, but after a while I need my arch-villain to have a little more motivation then "Hey, it'd be pretty cool to paint the future." Seriously, is this guy the Beavis & Butthead of the villain world or what? "Huh... huh... huh... I love painting... hehehe."

ANOTHER HULK MOVIE?

Rumors are starting to solidify that Edward Norton will be playing Bruce Banner in the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who was completely disappointed with Ang Lee's perspective on the Hulk... Marvel was a little steamed, too. So, it's being done over again... hopefully, this time it will be done the right way. I guess we'll just wait and see (though I must say that I absolutely love Norton's previous work so I've got high hopes for this, too).

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions.
Download the June 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. (1) Batman
2. (2) Justice League of America
3. (3) New Avengers
4. (-) Amazing Spider-Man
5. (4) Superman Batman
6. (-) World War Hulk
7. (5) Detective Comics
8. (-) Justice
9. (-) All-Star Superman
10. (-) Ultimate Spider-Man

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS
1. (-) Transformers Spotlight 2006
2. (-) Boys
3. (-) Transformers Movie Adaptation
4. (1) Red Sonja
5. (3) Fallen Angel
6. (2) Battlestar Galactica
7. (4) GI Joe America's Elite
8. (7) Simpsons Comics
9. (10) GI Joe Storm Shadow
10. (-) Terminator 2 Infinity

THE GOOD STUFF
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DARK HORSE COMICS

ZERO KILLER #1 of 6

Okay, so it's another postapocalyptic future where nuclear bombs have ravaged the planet. This time, the storyline's set in New York City where gangs are running rampant in what remains of the city. Of course, there is one man who stands against it all... a daring survivor with allegiance to none who will take jobs from all for the right price. You've got it -- his name is Zero. And, with all of his unbelievable killing prowess, he is the... Zero Killer. {dramatic chords placed here}
By Arvid Nelson, Matt Camp and Dave Stewart.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL #1 of 6

Here's an interesting story premise: Val Castillo is a gymnast who is the neighborhood peeping Tom at night. Strange, huh? Well, I guess she's kind of a gossipy type and likes to see what's going on the lives of her neighbors. A friend finds out what she's doing and starts to join her in galavanting around the neighborhood. All seems well until the two discover secrets that would be better left in the houses of their neighbors. Different. I'm not sure if the story's got legs but at least it's got a start.
By Gilbert Hernandez.
24 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $3.50 retail.

DC COMICS

GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE #1 & #2

I love Year One storylines. Yup, I said it. I can't lie. I loved Batman: Year One. I love it whenever writers go all the way back down the lineage with a hero and show us how the hero makes the decisions to what s/he does. Andy Diggle (I can't even write his name without breaking into giggle fits) pens the story of Oliver Queen who suddenly discovers that he has compassion for his fellow man. In a strange twist of fate, he decides to don a Robin Hood-like costume and shoot arrows at bad guys. In today's era, this probably wouldn't be the best way to fight criminals with automatic weapons and Cop Killer bullets but I guess it was a simpler time back when Queen got his start.
By Andy Diggle (hehe) and Jock (really!? This guy's name is Jock?!)
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

BLACK CANARY #1 & #2

Black Canary goes solo to help protect a child, unfortunately named Sin, from the "League of Assassins." The LOA (what a terribly obvious name) believes that Sin is the next great assassin in the DC Universe so, naturally, they want to capture her so they can train her, kill her, basically do nefarious things to her (I mean, when your team name is League of Assassins you're not going to run around inviting people over for tea and crumpets, right?).
By Tony Bedard, Paulo Sequeira and Amilton Santos.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

THE PROGRAMME #1 of 12

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was developing a secret weapon plan called The Programme. Instead of having nuclear bombs and new weaponry be at the forefront of the modern battleground, Russia believed that super-soldiers were the way to go. As we all know, the Cold War ended without Russia and the U.S. ever having a head-on confrontation. The U.S. is a cocky bastard as always and is running around the world stirring up trouble in various battlefronts, and inadvertently wakes up some of the Super Soldiers that Russia was developing. Now that they're awake with plans to kill us all, do we even stand a chance defending against them? Yikes! This sounds nifty!
By Peter Milligan and C.P. Smith.
32 pages. 12-issue maxi-series. $2.99 retail.

FAKER #1 of 6

Jessie Kidby is a freshman in college so, of course, her friends have a big party at the beginning of the second semester. Her best friend is a dude named Nick Philo who, after the party, no longer seems to exist. No one outside their clique knows who he is and the college doesn't even have records for him! The information on this title is somewhat sketchy, but you can see where this is going: there will be lots of twists and turns as the different people in the clique realize that one of these things is not like the others.
By Mike Carey and Jock (still can't believe that name).
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

THE CHEMIST

Finally, an interesting twist on drug-dealing stories from Image. Vance Larroche isn't a drug dealer so much as he is a manufacturer. Instead of focusing on illegal street drugs like heroin or cocaine, Larroche realizes that the future of drug-dealing is in prescription drugs, and being that he's a chemist, well, that just makes things all the more interesting, now, doesn't it?
By Jay Boose.
32 pages. Oneshot special. $3.50 retail.

DUST #1 of 2

So, this seems to be a bit of a twist on the typical World War II story; Previews describes it as "the 'Dirty Dozen' vs. robots, zombies, and more!" The U.S. and the Soviet Union team up to fight the evil Axis (Germany, Japan, and... Africa?) when alien technology is discovered in a crashed space ship. Now, that'll put a spin on things!
By mink (*sigh* again... really!?) and Paolo Parente.
32 pages. 2-issue mini-series. $3.99 retail.

HIDING IN TIME #1 of 4

Okay, so Image is impressing me this month. I'll say it. In the future, we discover time-travel so in an effort to run the Witness Protection Program more safely, witnesses are placed in protective custody... throughout time. Of course, there's a crew of hired assassins who begin finding and killing the witnesses in the different eras they're placed in so Nathan Crew needs to restart the Time Portal Division in an effort to go back through time and stop the killings. A hugely complicated time-traveling mess but I'm actually really excited about this one!
By Christopher E. Long and Ryan Winn.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $3.50 retail.

FIRST BORN #1 of 3

Here it is -- Sara Pezzini (a.k.a. Witchblade) is having her child. Agents of the Angelus are looking for a new host... they also still want to kill Jackie Estacado (don't those guys ever give up) and then there's the big cold war between the powers of darkness and lightness... (errr... lightness?). Anyway, it all starts here with Pezzini giving birth (maybe the Witchblade will make it less painful and just give Pezzini a self-induced C-section?)
By Ron Marz, Stjepan Sejic and Marc Silvestri.
32 pages. 3-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

CONSUMED #1 of 4

Sometimes I can't even come up with a way to mock an Image title for being so darn nutty. Here's the Previews description for this one: "When nerdy Oliver falls in love with beautiful Casey, he has no idea that she's been marked by her ex-boyfriend Gavin to be possessed by Kavaleth, Lord of Kaos. A supernatural drama about the consumption of love, desire and power plays out in this demonic love triangle." Man, and I thought MY relationship break-ups were tough!
By Asa Shumskas-Tait, Dennis Budd, Joe Caramanga and Stu Chaifetz.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

HALO: UPRISING #1 of 4

Bendis?! What the heck!? You're writing comic books about videogames?! Have we all stooped so low? *sigh* Alright, I'm back. Bendis has decided to write about "mankind's struggle against the alien threat of the Covenant." I'm as big a Halo fanboy as the next... and I do love Bendis (marry me? PLEEEEASSSE?! Maybe just send me free stuff?) but the combination of the two just comes across as a little strange for me. I'll get over it. Anyway, Master Chief's story continues in this 4-issue mini-series. I have to buy it just because I believe it's one of the seven signs that Satan is, indeed, coming to reclaim the planet.
By Brian Michael Bendis (oh, how you have forsaken us) and Alex Maleev.
40 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $3.99 retail.

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #1 of 4
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #1 of 4
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #1 of 4

Ah, yes... fresh fruit for Marvel to squeeze the ever-loving juice out of. The Annihilation: Conquest storyline continues across these mini-series telling what may be a never-ending storyline of epic proportions.
By Various.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail each.

THE CHAMPIONS #1

The Fifty-State Initiative has begun from the falling-out of the Civil War and the Champions are the flagship superhero group based in Los Angeles. Naturally, this comic will cover their life and times. Of course, there's a flip-side to this new world of superheroes: "you can get fired at any point along the way." Neato! Where do I sign up?
By Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

WORLD WAR HULK: GAMMA CORPS #1 & #2 of 4

Is it just me or does Marvel have about five million different storyarcs running right now? Wow. At any rate, this story is about the DNA of The Hulk, The Abomination, The Leader, The Harpy, and Doc Samson whose offspring have been formed into the Gamma Corps by General Ryker to... wait for it... kill the Incredible Hulk. Are you surprised? I mean, dude, it's General Ryker. He's been doing this for 50 years now. It shouldn't come as a surprise.
By Frank Tieri and Carlos Ferreira.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS #1 of 4

And there it is. I love the New Avengers. I love the Transformers. Two great tastes that may or may not taste great together. The New Avengers and the Autobots team up to fight the Decepticons and Dr. Doom. *droooooool* Need I say more?
By Stuart Moore (look! I said "Moore") and Tyler Kirkham.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

THOR #1

Thor returns and he brings J. Michael Straczynski with him And "he's not a clone, a robot, or an imaginary story!" Big surprise. Heroes never stay dead and if Nova can keep getting his on ongoing series, we all knew that Thor would have to come back, too. I'd mock this one more but Straczynski's the bomb... even if he is working on a Thor comic.
By J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

DEADPOOL/GLI - SUMMER FUN SPECTACULAR

There have to be some seriously nasty assignments if you're a superhero in post-Civil War America. I mean, who's clamoring to be in the North Dakota super-team. Or Nebraska? Who even remembers Nebraska? But Wisconsin? Oh, good lord. The puns abound here. Deadpool heads off to the state most famous for... cheese (gah, the pun is so bad I can't even bring myself to type it without gagging). He teams up with GLI for some summer fun (do they even have summer in Wisconsin?).
By Dan Slott, Fabian Niceza, and Various.
48 pages. One-shot special. $3.99 retail.

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS ANNUAL #1

I've been truly enjoying the Wolverine: Origins series so I'm excited to hear that Marvel's releasing a nice-sized annual which... is... an... imaginary future story. Okay. I can still get on board, if, for no other reason, but it appears that Wolverine has lost an eye and now wears a patch and smiles as he does whatever the heck it is he's the best at. You ever notice how he always says "I'm the best at what I do" but never really clarifies? I mean, for the majority of the 1980s through the 1990s, Wolverine would pop his claws every comic and then never stab anybody with him. I mean, sure, he'd cut open some doors, mess up some electronics, and threaten to pick Spider-Man's nose with them, but he never really killed anybody. So, does that mean that Wolvie's just the best at cutting stuff up? Hmmmm...
By Daniel Way and Kaare Andrews.
48 pages. One-shot special. $3.99 retail.

FINAL NOTES
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WOW! What a month! I mean, seriously. Can you even remember the last time that there were so many new comics coming out at the same time. It's better to have way too much choice than too little. Maybe some of them will even be good, eh?

As always, if you can't think of anything nice to say, say whatever's on your mind and then apologize for it later.

And, as always, thank you for your business!

Eric Jacobson

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