Wednesday's comic round-up gives us Richard Corben drawing Hellboy, some newly reprinted 2000 AD work from Gorillaz maven Jamie Hewlett, and the Scott Pilgrim boxed set. A motley crew if ever there was one!
One big reason to get excited this week is Mike Mignola and Heavy Metal illustrator Richard Corben's Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil (Dark Horse). Mignola has been punching out some strong Hellboy one-shots as of late (such as the Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson team-up with Beasts of Burden), so this should be equally entertaining. Over at Marvel, another big crimson fellow, the Red Hulk, joins the Avengers in Avengers 7, and some deceased Earth's Mightiest Heroes' (paging all Dr. Druid fans) make a comeback in Chaos War: Dead Avengers 1 (Marvel). Also, the 64-page Heroic Age: Villains 1 (Marvel) should fill you in on the vagaries of Marvel's bad guys.
There's a reprinting of Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever's 1993 espionage-and-sex-clubs miniseries The Extremist (DC/Vertigo). IDW's got a duo of titles from high-profile prose authors — first off is George R.R. Martin's Doorways which is about transdimensional portal traveling. There's also a new issue of Harlan Ellison's Phoenix Without Ashes 4 (IDW).
Kelly Sue DeConnick and Warren Ellis tackle the Marvel Universe's most notorious sociopath in Osborn 1 (Marvel), and Araña takes over the Spider-Girl mantle in the aptly titled Spider-Girl 1 (Marvel). If DC's Bat-books are more your taste, Grant Morrison's Batman Inc. begins this week, as does Tony Daniel's run on Batman. We also see a White Lantern Batman in Brightest Day 14, and DC Comics Presents: Batman 2 reprints some of Ed Brubaker's lesser known Bat-adventures.
There's a hodgpodge of graphic novels this week that look interesting. Grant Morrison tackles the Sankrit epic Mahabharata in 18 Days (Dynamite), and there's reprints of 1982's Legion's Great Darkness saga by Paul Levitz, Tony Millionaire's collection of Little Maakies on the Prairie (Fantagraphics), the surrealist 2000 AD trade paperback Hewligan's Haircut (Rebellion, below) by Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett, and Pat Mills Sláine (Rebellion), a 2000 AD series that was pure swords-and-loincloths.
Other eclectic fare includes the Scott Pilgrim boxed set (Oni), which collects every one of Bryan Lee O'Malley's SP books, a reprint of classic horror mag Eerie Volume 5 (Dark Horse), and a collection of cartoonist Jason's tales in What I Did (Fantagraphics). As usual, here's the list of everything being released to comic stores tomorrow, and you can find your nearest comic retailer here. Happy reading, gang!