Issue Forth - Week of 4/6/11

So I'm guessing this might get repetitive quick, especially on top of the reviews, but figured I'd try a feature of looking at the first books in a series that came out in a week, at least the ones I picked up. This week, my pile included the initial issues of Identity Wars and Fear Itself, and the first issue of Herc, all from Marvel, as well as the start of the new B.P.R.D. flashback story, The Dead Remembered.

Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente have been working with Hercules for a while, from World War Hulk to Incredible Hercules taking over the Incredible Hulk series, until his death during the events of Continuum and fairly rapid return in the Chaos War crossover series. In Chaos War, we saw Hercules return as an all-powerful "supergod", and by the end lose it all, sacrificing his powers to save the universe and becoming a mere mortal. Herc #1 picks up here, with Hercules in Brooklyn, depowered but still acting the hero with an arsenal of ancient Greek magical artifacts and weapons at his disposal, including Peleus' sword and Perseus' Medusa-faced shield. Chaos War was, as far as any of us knew, the end of Pak and Van Lente's tenure with the character, and it made sense to be, as after ramping their way up to saving the whole of the universe there weren't too many more stakes to raise. Herc takes the character in a new direction, making it a more personal tale of family businesses and gang warfare, with all the mythology still present but not the focus. The book itself seems to have a more serious tone than most of the Hercules books have been under Pak and Van Lente, but not at the cost of Hercules the character. He may be more driven in his role as neighborhood guardian, and a bit depressed in the same measure, but the drunk, womanizing buffoon we've all come to love is still there, shining through. All signs point to this being another great chapter in the Hercules saga.

Identity Wars kicks off in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #38, a three-part story told between the Spider-Man, Deadpool and Incredible Hulks annuals, all three books being written by John Layman (Chew) and pencils by Lee Garbett. The story is an old one for comics, science goes awry and our heroes find themselves in another dimension, with different versions of themselves. Peter finds himself here as the Amazing Spider, billionaire playboy superhero, playing off a great number of Superman and Batman tropes. Injured in the experiment that brought our Peter to this world, the Amazing Spider has Peter take his place until he can recouperate, giving Peter a chance to explore a world where he's the number-one (and only) superhero, he's dating both Gwen Stacey and Mary Jane, and his Uncle Ben is still alive. Meanwhile, Deadpool is hanging out with his near-identical counterpart, Death Wish, and Bruce Banner seems to be enjoying a rather peaceful time all by himself. As the Spider, however, Peter is faced with being himself in a "perfect world", and dealing with the version of him it took to craft one in the first place. Again, it's not the most original story to dump a hero into, especially Spider-Man, but Layman brings some fun and some nice drama into the world he's built, and this should turn into a pretty good mini.

With Liz depowered, Professor Bruttenholm dead and Hellboy off stabbing stuff with Excalibur, none of them have shown up in the pages of B.P.R.D. too recently. The Dead Remembered #1 gives us all three, in a story set two years after Liz had become a ward of the B.P.R.D. Bruttenholm is heading from the department's Fairfield, CT headquarters all the way to the far-off land of Massachusetts to look into a supposed haunting. As Liz is still wholly withdrawn and distrustful of everyone and her own self, Hellboy suggests Bruttenholm take her on the trip instead of himself, rather than keeping her locked up. The story of the ghost, an alleged witch killed during the Salem Witch Trials era of hysteria, is related by the priest currently living in her house, while Liz bitches and moans about being dragged along with typical adolescent spite. The story itself feels like pretty standard Hellboy-verse fare, which will certainly keep me reading, but the real draw is the tone of the series. With a teenage protagonist, and Moline's style a departure from the usual heavily-shadowed, rougher-looking art these series usually have, there's something of a lighter tone to the book, although still wholly grounded in the existing world of B.P.R.D. books.

The big one this week was Marvel kicking off its summer event, Fear Itself, with the first issue of the main, seven-part story, although we've already had the prologue in Brubaker's Book Of The Skull one-shot, plus pages of sketches and previews in every damn Marvel title for the past few months. The main focus seems to be on Thor, who is trying to rebuild relations between man and god after the events of Norman Osborn's seige, and Odin, who's and trying to do what he feels is best for Asgard as a new threat approaches, in the form of Red Skull's daughter, Sin, taking up the hammer of the Norse god of Fear, Skadi and restoring her (Skadi's) father, the serpent Jorgamund, seemingly taking human form. Beyond that, we're seeing Cap and the other Avengers dealing with the fear, distrust and hatred that seems to be boiling over in the rest of the world. I'm still not sure I care about the series itself, but Fraction tells a good story, especially on the Thor titles, and Stuart Immonen as always is doing some amazing art. I imagine I'd keep reading this anyways, as most of the Marvel titles I read are getting tied into this somehow, and as stupid a reason as I know it is to put my money towards a book, I'd rather keep abreast of how The Marvel Universe Is Changed Forever. But if I'm going to be continuity-guilted into a reading a book I could do a lot worse than those two working on it.