Major Spoilers Staff Picks for September 19, 2012

NEW COMIC BOOK DAY IS ALMOST HERE! You can hear the rustling of the papers and the fresh clean smell of glossy print from a mile away!

But what to buy?  Don’t let panic set in before you head to your local comic book shop! Major Spoilers offers up a selection of books you can’t afford to miss this week!

ATOMIC ROBO AND THE FLYING SHE-DEVILS OF THE PACIFIC
Writer: Brian Clevinger
Artist: Scott Wegener
Publisher: Red 5 Comics
Cover Price: $3.50
SOLICITATION: Flying airplanes! Robots in the sky! Monstrous things in the ocean deep!

STEPHEN: Gee golly gosh! This summer – and now leading into fall – has been filled with so much Atomic Robo goodness, that I think I may have busted my “BUY THIS BOOK NOW!” button that I have ready to go with each issue released in this series. Seriously, go pick up this book.

ZACH: Whoooop!! Twice the amount of SCIENCE this week! Do yourself the favor and pick this issue up. Once you are home settle into your comfiest reading spot, crack this baby open, and proceed to giggle to your heart’s content.

DAREDEVIL #18
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Chris Samnee
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $2.99
SOLICITATION: One of Daredevil’s biggest challenges begins with the debut of a new menace in New York – the killer called Coyote! And just how sane IS Matt Murdock?

ZACH: So you didn’t listen to Stephen, I, or everyone else and forgot to pick up that Waid/Samnee book titled the Rocketeer last week. Luckily for you, you can redeem yourself and pick up their other book, Daredevil. You may have heard about this one. But just don’t take our word on it, check out all the Eisners they just won!

DOCTOR WHO VOLUME 3 #1
Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Mark Buckingham
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: The Doctor is back! Welcome to a new, exciting era for everyone’s favorite Time Lord, as New York Times bestselling writer Andy Diggle (The Losers) pilots the TARDIS as the ongoing series architect. Joining him for this first arc is Eisner Award-winning artist Mark Buckingham (Fables), who also will provide covers for the series. Geronimo!

MATTHEW: Andy Diggle writing Doctor Who? With Mark Buckinham on art? Hell, yeah, I’m in! The Eleventh Doctor is slowly growing on me (He’s now in my top 5 Doctors, which is more than I could have said upon his debut) and I always enjoy a good comic book adventure. With the new season going on hiatus in a couple of weeks (until the Christmas episode, I believe) I’m hoping that this will provide some entertaining Doctor stories for the long, cool autumn season.

GHOST #0
Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick
Artist: Phil Noto
Publisher: Dark Horse
Cover Price: $2.99
SOLICITATION: Former journalist Vaughn Barnes has been reduced to moonlighting as cameraman for the shoddy paranormal-investigation cable TV show Phantom Finders. But when a curious device summons the specter of a beautiful, translucent woman, Vaughn is plunged into a mystery of criminal intrigue that spans two worlds! Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Noto launch their exciting new take on one of Dark Horse’s most popular characters ever!
• Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel) brings a keen new eye to the spectral heroine.
• Renowned artist Phil Noto (Angel & Faith, X-23) perfectly captures the wraithlike elegance of the enigma known as Ghost!

GEORGE: Halloween season is approaching, so it’s time to get spooky. And a book with Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Noto about a ghost sounds like the right place to get start. I enjoy both these creators’ work, so while I’m unfamiliar with the Ghost character from Dark Horse, I am plenty excited for this zero issue.

RODRIGO: I’ve always liked the design of this character, who in true bad girl fashion is probably not named “Ghost” (Kind of like Witchblade, Salem’s Daughter and Diehard). But as you can tell by my ignorance I don’t know much about her. COULD THIS BE THE ISSUE THAT TELLS ME THINGS!? I think that’s what they’re saying.

STEPHEN: I loved Ghost when the title first debuted as part of Dark Horse Comics first major push to create a universe in Comics’ Greatest World back in 1993. It’s been around a decade since we last saw Elisa Cameron grace comic covers with her big .38s, which begs the question, “Will Dark Horse give us a new spin on the character, or pick up where the last series left off?” I’m in regardless!

GODZILLA HALF CENTURY WAR #2
Writer: James Stokoe
Artist: James Stokoe
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: The year is 1967 and Godzilla is on the move… to Vietnam! With a war underway, Godzilla is the last thing the country needs. Lieutenant Murakami follows Godzilla to try out some new tech on the monster, but a super-sized foe named Anguirus might just be the most effective counter-measure. It’s a rumble in the jungle, don’t miss it!

GEORGE: Godzilla plus Vietnam? Tremendous concept that would already have me halfway sold. As it stands, the first issue of this five issue miniseries got some good reviews, and James Stokoe is bonkers enough as both a writer and artist that I’m all the way there. Just hope the comic shop didn’t sell that last lingering copy of #1 that I never got around to picking up…

JUSTICE LEAGUE #0
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Gary Frank
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: Billy Batson takes center stage in this issue as he unleashes the awesome power of Shazam in a special origin story!

Also featuring the not-to-be-missed origin of Pandora and the next seeds of TRINITY WAR!

JIMMY: I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for most DC events, and the promise of both a SHAZAM origin and further development of Pandora and the Trinity War mean I’m going to be devouring this title as soon as I pick it up. It’ll be interesting to see what a full issue of Gary Frank SHAZAM/Justice League is like (if indeed that’s what we get–the solicitation lists him as the sole artist, but given the amount of backup stories we’ve seen in Zero Month I’d be surprised if he drew more than 16 pages in this issue).

PEANUTS VOLUME 2 #2
Writers: Charles Schulz, Mona Koth, Shane Houghton, Vicki Scott
Artists: Matt Whitlock, Mona Koth, Vicki Scott
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: All your favorite Peanuts characters can’t wait to join the fun as the carnival rolls into town! But it’s not all fun and games – September doesn’t just bring the fair, but the start of the new year of school, too, and Peppermint Patty just can’t hide her, well, lack of excitement. Throw in Linus and his beloved blanket, a crop of Charles Schulz Sunday strips, and a 1st appearance Pig Pen variant cover, and you’ve got another classic issue of PEANUTS!

RODRIGO: I have never found Peanuts to be funny. Don’t get me wrong, I recognize its importance to the American zeitgeist, but I never much cared for it. But, maybe the characters written by someone else would be good? Unlikely, but I’ll check it out anyway.

PENGUIN: PAIN AND PREJUDICE TPB
Writer: Gregg Hurwitz
Artist: Szymon Kudranski
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $14.99
SOLICITATION: Learn how young Oswald Cobblepot went from being the apple of his mother’s eye to the leader of underworld gangs and adversary of The Caped Crusader!
Collecting the 5-issue miniseries from GREGG HURWITZ and SZYMON KUDRANSKI, plus: JOKER’S ASYLUM: THE PENGUIN #1.

JIMMY: Gregg Hurwitz and Szymon Kudranski’s Penguin mini-series has been the book that I’ve enjoyed the most since The New 52 kicked off. Kudranski draws the best Gotham City I’ve ever seen, and Hurwitz has proven himself as a great Batman writer between this and his work lately on The Dark Knight. If you didn’t pick this up in the original issues, you really owe it to yourself to read this.

REVIVAL #3
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Mike Norton
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $2.99
SOLICITATION: Ms. Vang is a little old lady who wants her piece of the pie. And the creature in her basement is how she plans to get it. Meanwhile, Dana and her new partner are on a case, Em has more secrets, and a walking corpse goes to her daughter’s funeral.

MATTHEW: This book was a complete surprise to me when I picked up issue #1, the kind of surprise that makes me immediately want to come back for more. The kind of surprise that I felt when I read Invincible, the kind that I felt when I read Saga, the kind of surprise that I felt when I read Video Jack. (Well, maybe less of that last one.) Given how prevalent the zombie motif is right now, I’m happy to see someone playing with the tropes and not hitting all the same buttons or plot points. You should really check this one out.

ZACH: There are some weird creepy things happening inside of Revival, all of which you should make yourself familiar with. So far, the story has been an interesting take on the living dead genre and shows no sign of letting up. If you are bored with all that is happening in the land of tights and capes you should pick this up.

SPIDER-MEN #5
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Sara Pichelli
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: The shocking conclusion to the Spider-Man event of the year! How will the amazing Spider-Man get back to his own reality? What will both Spider-Men do now that they know they’re not alone in the universe? Will Peter Parker give Miles Morales his blessing?

JIMMY: Despite this being one of my staff picks this week, I’m not actually excited for this issue. I want to read it, but I just can’t see anything improving on the perfection that was Spider-Men #4 last month. Bendis has proven me wrong before, but in this case I think we’re just going to be getting nothing but denouement in this final issue.

SWORD OF SORCERY #0
Writer: Christy Marx
Artist: Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: In this new series featuring the long-awaited return of AMETHYST, Amy Winston leads a strange life on the road with her mother. She’s about to learn why it’s all been necessary when she discovers she’s the lost princess of Gemworld — and has powerful enemies hunting her! • AMETHYST is written by Christy Marx, best known for her work on animated TV series including G.I. Joe, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more, as well as the comics series Sisterhood of Steel. • And in the backup story set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the monstrous warrior BEOWULF is charged with finding and defeating the evil Grendel.

MATTHEW: When they relaunched the New 52, I was happy to see DC intentionally launching non-superhero titles as part of the mix, which is part of why I’m excited for the return of Amethyst, the erstwhile princess of the Gemworld. The original series back in the 80s was atypical and charming, the kind of comic book written when girls reading comics was not only more common, but expected. Fingers crossed that they don’t ruin this one with too much dark and brooding blah blah blah…

WOMANTHOLOGY SPACE #1
Creators: Sandy Carpenter, Ming Doyle, Renae Deliz
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $3.99
SOLICITATION: Womanthology: Space, the follow up to the hit Kickstarter project, Womanthology: Heroic, starts off with the first of five out-of-this-world issues: Moon. Each issue contains three 6-page stories, plus pinups, how-tos, and more, by women of all ages and experience. Check out a haunted space station, a snarky robot, and so much more in this debut issue.

RODRIGO: I like anthologies. I like women. I like space. this is pretty much their game to lose.

X-FACTOR #244
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Publisher: Marvel
Cover Price: $2.99
SOLICITATION: PART IV: Devastated by the recent tragedies befalling X-Factor, one member of the team makes a terrible sacrifice in hopes of making things right.

GEORGE: Off in a corner of the X-Universe essentially untouched by the AvX mega-crossover, Peter A. David’s been churning out some pretty good X-Factor stories. X-Factor has a massive cast, which provides the perfect backdrop for David’s soap operas, but this latest arc has found him focusing laser tight on one or two characters as the team gets dangerously close to fracturing. It looks like issue #244 is all about Siryn, who I’ve always liked. If you want some classic X-Men drama without all the crossover craziness, X-Factor is where you should look.