New comics are due to hit the shelves on Wednesday so here’s a look ahead at some of the books we’ll be picking up this week. To see what’s available at Paradox this week, click here.
Matt C: Marvel sets the ball rolling this week for their major event series of 2014, Original Sin. Okay, so it's not the start of the story proper - it's an #0 issue - but it's got Mark Waid and Jim Cheung at the helm for this prologue so it's not something I'm going to ignore. I'm a sucker for these event things anyway, even though the bad sadly outweighs the good by and large, and a whodunit featuring a dead Watcher and a culprit who may possess all his secrets is one of the most inventive high concept pitches I've heard of in a while from eithe of the Big Two. Elsewhere at Marvel, I'm keen to take a look at another of their All-New Marvel NOW! efforts, Elektra #1. I'll be honest and say it's because the covers for the series I've seen so far have been pretty astonishing, and while of course you should never judge a book by its cover, if said cover is good enough by itself to get me to take a look, that's a pretty good start. The highlight over at Image is, unsurprisingly, the book that sat atop our recent Top 15 Current Comics chart, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's masterful Lazarus, and any week that appears is a guaranteed to be a good week.
Stewart R: To tell you the truth I was seriously considering avoiding anything Original Sin related as I just have that gut feeling that it could turn out to be another one of those moments when the necessity for a 'Summer Event' could lead us to a publisher-wide wave of mediocrity. The idea of a murder-mystery is certainly interesting enough, especially considering who's going to be taking the bullet in this one, but coming up with hidden secrets and pasts for the wide span of Marvel characters sounds like a dubious attempt at shaking things up just for the sheer heck of it. When popular heroes have had skeletons pop out of the closet in the past it's never been a guaranteed success as more often than not the attempt to dull such popular protagonists' sheen flies in the face of what brought them to popularity in the first instance. Now I've aired all that I'll say that the names Waid and Cheung have leaned me towards checking out Original Sin #0 this week in order to make a final judgement on whether I'll avoid that event as fully as possible or whether my gut might just be wrong this time. I don't, however, believe that my gut is wrong when it comes to picking up Elektra #1 this Thursday (damn you holiday weekend delivery delays!). I was onboard as soon as this series was announced last October, and even Zeb Wells' departure from the project wasn't enough to dissuade me from investing $3.99 upon release. With W Haden Blackman (Batwoman) now steering the story I'm very optimistic that we'll be seeing an exciting plot unfold and the major factor of Mike Del Mundo's artistic involvement will nearly certainly guarantee a book to wow the eyes. There's one other debut that I'll be checking out this week and that's 7th Sword #1, written by John Raffo, with art from Nelson Blake II and Dave McCaig and published by IDW. It looks to be a science fiction samurai story which stirs my interest, and the preview pages suggest a small ode to Mad Max 2 through its opening sequence which is no bad thing. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the issue delivers!
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