Each week, CBR has your guide to navigating Wednesday's new and recent comic releases, specials, collected editions and reissues, and we're committed to helping you choose those that are worth your hard-earned cash. It's a little slice of CBR we like to call Major Issues.
If you feel so inclined, you can buy our recommendations directly on comiXology with the links provided. We'll even supply links to the books we're not so hot on, just in case you don't want to take our word for it. Don't forget to let us know what you think of the books this week in the comments! And as always, SPOILERS AHEAD!
After five years, author cultural commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates' lengthy tenure as Black Panther writer has come to an end with Black Panther #25, which also includes the work of Daniel Acuña, Brian Stelfreeze, Laura Martin and Joe Sabino.
Coates’ run had a grand scope that explored the ramifications of the fulfillment of Wakanda’s cosmic ambitions while telling a deeply personal story about T’Challa. This final issue makes for a fitting capstone to Coates run by embracing both of those ideas. Most of the book revolves around the well-orchestrated and well-illustrated battle between Black Panther and his allies and the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda before slowing down to explore the emotional aftermath of that fight on T’Challa. While this is very much the final part of the larger piece, it brings things to an appropriately grand finale.
Despite its unassuming title, Geoff Johns, Todd Nauck, Hi-Fi and Rob Leigh’s Stargirl Spring Break Special carries some meaningful ramifications for the larger DC Universe. This issue sees the teenage hero and her superhero stepdad S.T.R.I.P.E. team up with Green Arrow, Red Arrow and the rest of DC’s Seven Soldiers of Victory to take on a time-traveling threat who’s rewritten DC history.
The creative team’s decades of experience comes through in this engaging special, with Nauck’s tight, cartoony pencils and Hi-Fi’s vibrant palette making this book a candy-colored visual treat. While the sharp script stands well enough on its own, the intriguing revisions to Green Arrow’s lore make this a must-read for fans of Oliver Queen or the larger DC Universe.
In some ways, every issue of Marvel’s main Heroes Reborn miniseries feels like a looser, freewheeling crossover tie-in to an event that’s primarily happening elsewhere. For example, Jason Aaron and James Stokoe’s Heroes Reborn #4 highlights the savagery of Doctor Spectrum, the Squadron Supreme’s answer to Green Lantern.
As this cosmic soldier terrorizes the outer reaches of a timeline where the Avengers never formed, this issue serves as a showcase for Stokoe, who packs pages with hyper-detailed drawings that twist familiar heroes into fascinating, almost grotesque new shapes. While the work of moving the crossover along is left to a few lines of dialogue and Aaron and Ed McGuinness’s back-up, this comic revels in this strange, brutal permutation of the Marvel Universe.
With the “Hellfire Gala” crossover event set to begin next week, X-Men #20, by Jonathan Hickman, Francesco Mobili, Sunny Gho and Clayton Cowles, sets the stage with a harrowing secret mission to stop one of the X-Men’s greatest fears from coming to pass. Although this X-Men series has had an incredibly broad scope, this penultimate issue focuses on Mystique, the unlikely antihero who has become its emotional core in recent months.
Although the cover of the issue heavily suggests the book’s biggest revelation, the execution still makes this a more-than-worthwhile read. Despite the well-drawn action-heavy proceedings, this issue finds a compelling story in Mystique’s emotional journey and adds an affecting tragic twist to another X-Men villain.
With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #3, Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau, Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, Samuel Plata, Luis Antonio Delgado and Shawn Lee continue to tell the Ninja Turtles’ darkest epic. As April O’Neil and the last living Turtle make plans to free their dystopian world from the Foot, flashbacks reveal what happened to another two major TMNT figures after a valiant last stand.
While this issue contains a variety of contrasting art styles, they all work and seem thematically appropriate for the distinct sections of the book they cover. Although the final fates of some Turtles still aren’t revealed, this issue effectively depicts the end of the Ninja Turtles as they were in their traditional form, and it handles the weight of those final moments work.
With both TMNT creators on board and a compelling high concept at its core, the bar was always set high for The Last Ronin. And so far, the Turtles have had no problem coming out of their shells to clear it.
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