Batman: Ego

Quick recommendation: Focused on writer/illustrator Darwyn Cooke, this collects Batman: Ego, Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score, and a few smaller Batman stories. While Batman: Ego gets the cover, Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score is the real treat here. Previously published as a standalone, this train robbery tale fills in Selina’s backstory while finding a balance between a gritty crime noir and an Ocean’s Eleven style heist story.

Put a hold on Batman: Ego.

Punisher Noir

WWI vet Frank Castelione lost his wife to cancer, has a son who’s fallen in with hoodlums, and owns a store mobster Dutch Schultz wants to “protect.” This is the setup for Punisher Noir, a four-issue series alternating between 1918, 1928 and 1935. At the center of it is a skull-masked vigilante who’s declared war on Schultz.

It’s easy to take The Punisher model and plug him into different settings (the Wild West, for example) and he’s a natural fit for Marvel’s Noir imprint – so much so that I was worried this would merely be a rehash. But Frank Tieri shakes things up, giving the reader something other than a conventional Punisher story.

As a longtime Punisher fan, it’s interesting to see how Garth Ennis’s Punisher has become definitive. Tieri pulls from Ennis’s Marvel Knights and Max runs, but his versions of characters like Detective Soap and Barracuda don’t feel forced into the Noir setting.

Shadowland

The short version is the Daredevil has gone rogue. He’s built a Japanese temple in the heart of Manhattan and has surrounded himself with ninjas. As the new leader of The Hand, he intends to use the silent assassins to keep peace. Instead, he descends into darkness and his corruption leaches out to the city around him.

Heroes like Spider-man, Moon Knight, Luke Cage and Iron Fist try to reason with Daredevil, but after he goes too far it seems like killing him is the only solution. Enter Ghost Rider, The Punisher and Wolverine.

Put a hold on Shadowland.

Star Wars: Invasion v1: Refugees

The Yuuzhan Vong invasion (25 after the Battle of Yavin) was the focus of the New Jedi Order series of books, starting with Vector Prime in 1999. This new comic book series, I assume, will tell the untold stories of the invasion. And, like most Star Wars fill-ins, features an extremely important character you’ve never heard of.

Finn Galfridian of Artorias is saved by the New Republic when his homeworld is taken by the Vong. Leading the rescue mission is Luke Skywalker, who detects Finn’s connection to the Force. Luke begins training Finn, alongside the Solo children, but the question is: will Finn’s anger towards the Vong lead to his undoing?

Running parallel to this, Kaye Galfridian is trapped in a slave ship with the rest of Artorias’s survivors. There she ingratiates herself with the Vong captain — but what are her true motives?

Dark Horse has found an interesting way to revisit a decade old storyline. It helps that the Vong are like fanboy-designed badasses and major franchise characters are used judiciously. Really good art too — I especially loved the detail in the Nar Shaddaa panels.

Put a hold on Star Wars: Invasion.

Locke & Key

Quick recommendation: Locke & Key is a disturbing tale about three siblings whose lives are thrown into turmoil after a vicious attack on their parents. Sent to live in Keyhouse, the family home in Lovecraft, MA, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode try to adapt to their new surroundings, but youngest brother Bode won’t give up his delusion that some of the doors in Keyhouse are magical portals if you use the right key.