Wednesday's comics are a Whitman's Sampler of superheroes going through profound life changes that require the guidance of a certified mental health professional. Do superheroes have therapists? I always assumed Alfred and Jarvis psychoanalyzed Batman and Tony Stark, respectively.
First Issues
DC resurrects the original moss man in Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search For Swamp Thing (and John Constantine's along for the ride). More of that Flashpoint tie-in shebang comes your way with the following miniseries: Kid Flash Lost, Lois Lane and the Resistance, Reverse Flash, and The Outsider.
Finally, Dark Horse is releasing both a Guild tie-in focusing on the show's MMORPG rogue Bladezz and a comic adaptation of the upcoming id Software first-person-shooter Rage, while IDW spins a new zombie yarn with Infestation: Outbreak.
Other Releases
Two interesting anthologies out this week include a Vertigo Resurrected reprint of Mike Carey's Sandman Presents: Petrefax and the second issue of Dark Horse Presents, which includes contributions from Richard Corben, Paul Chadwick, and Carla Speed McNeil.
Also in the grab bag are new issues of Journey Into Mystery, Batman: Gates of Gotham, DMZ, Fables, and Mark Millar's CLiNT magazine. Can't we just call it Millar Monthly now? I sort of hate typing CLiNT.
Weirdest solicitation of the week goes to the fifth issue of Hack/Slash: "[The] skull-faced mystery woman Fantomah comes to Cassie and Vlad for help. But, what could a super powerful goddess, known for her horrible (yet creative) methods of tormenting evil doers, need with a teenage girl and a mutant with a machete?" Holy crap, they're referring to that insane 1940s Fletcher Hanks character Fantomah. And she's public domain! No more writing Fantomah fan fiction for this guy.
Also, Marvel wraps up its "Death of Spider-Man" storyline in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man. The Associated Press has already spoiled the dickens out of it.
Graphic Novels
Brian Azzarello's pulpy First Wave miniseries is collected in hardcover, ditto goes for Mike Carey's alternate dimension X-Men series Age Of X. Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover's mad-scientist-family-drama webcomic Gingerbread Girl is out on hardcover (and you can sample the whole thing at Top Shelf Productions' site).
Tobin also pens the graphic novel adaptation for TNT's extraterrestrial roadshow drama Falling Skies. Jill Thompson's all-ages Scary Godmother: Comic Book Stories is on the stands, as is Volume 1 of John Byrne's Next Men and the final volume of Terry Moore's Echo.
As usual, here's the list of everything being released to comic stores tomorrow, and you can find your nearest comic retailer here. Rock over Gorilla City, rock on Cursed Earth! Blackbird — the best-selling stealth jet among prep schools!