Magical Realism
Air
What It's About: At its heart, Air is a love story between Blythe - a flight attendant who's afraid of flying - and Zayn, who is as much a mystery to himself as everyone else. But Air is much, much weirder, and more interesting, than that: For one thing, Blythe is a natural hyperpraxis pilot, which means that she can travel to places, times and ideas that don't, theoretically, exist... a skill she's honing with the help of Amelia Earhart, who by the way is still alive. For another, there's a war brewing between terrorists over control of the skies, and for a third, certain people may be very interested in that whole "hyperpraxis" thing. A series that's gentle, human, full of wonder and emotion, and at times just beautiful, Air is unlike most comics - and television shows and movies, for that matter - out there.
Where To Start: Two collections are available, Letters From Lost Countries and Flying Machine. Pick both up; the series is great, but the first collection (Letters) stops at a frustratingly bad point, and you need to read the second to fully appreciate what's going on.
Click here for a preview of Air.

Post-Invasion SF
Resurrection
What It's About: We've all seen stories about aliens invading Earth, but what happens after they leave? FlashForward producer and Green Lantern movie scriptwriter Marc Guggenheim's series starts with that idea and spins out a series that's part Y: The Last Man, part Lost and all-over fascinating. Why did the aliens invade? Where did they go? No-one knows yet, but considering they've left behind technology and even one of their own, you can sure that we'll probably find out somewhere down the line... but along the way, you can get sucked into the more down to earth stories of the humans left behind. Even if one of them is former president Bill Clinton, who was revealed to be more alive than everyone thought at the end of the most recent issue.
Where To Start: There's already a collection of the first black and white series out there, but we'd actually recommend waiting until the start of next year, when the 368 page Resurrection Vol 1: Deluxe Edition, featuring the complete first series and the first seven issues of the current series, hits the shelves.
Click here for a preview of Resurrection.

Urban Fantasy
Locke & Key
What It's About: Ignore the punniness of the premise - The Locke family move to the family estate of Keyhouse, wherein there are magic keys that can do various weird and wonderful things, which puts them right in the middle of some bad things that're about to happen - and instead, embrace and enjoy those weird and wonderful things that the keys can do: like open doors that turn people into ghosts or even open their own heads so that you can reach in and take out unpleasant memories. Mixing horror, fantasy, comedy and family drama and featuring moments that are genuinely unsettling, Locke & Key deserves all the praise it's gotten, and a lot more.
Where To Start: There're two collections out already; Welcome To Lovecraft and Head Games. Start at the beginning (Lovecraft), bearing in mind that Head Games is the better, and also the more freaky.
Click here for a preview of Locke & Key.

Nostalgia Done Right
Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka
What It's About: A reimagining of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (with some nods to his other work thrown in), Naoki Urasawa's Pluto is inventive, dramatic and in almost every single way, a lesson in how to take reboot and update an old concept the right way. Instead of retreading the old status quo, the series centers around robot detective Gesicht, who's investigating the murder of various high profile robots around the world... Murders that may have been committed by another robot. Even if you don't get sucked in by the economy and subtlety of the writing, there's no way you could fail to admire Urasawa's amazing artwork.
Where To Start: Unsurprisingly, Vol. 1. The seventh volume of the series is due in January, but that's still too far away; when you finish the first volume, you'll be hooked and get through the other five in days.
(No preview available, due to licensing issues. Sorry.)

Crime/Romance/SF/Everything
King City
What It's About: I've written before about Brandon Graham's stunning future crime book, but now that it's being re-released in an easier-to-find serialization by Image Comics, I'll use the opportunity to gush again; the bastard child of an orgy that included Moebius, Vaughn Bode, Jamie Hewlett and Osamu Tezuka (and maybe a little Alex Toth, come to think of it), King City is the tale of one thief, his broken heart, his cat that can literally do anything if given the right drugs, werewolves with war trauma, stolen organs, sidekicks in wrestling masks and pretty much all that's good in the world, all wrapped in something that takes noir's cliches and gives them a makeover laced with enough absurdity and love that it all seems new again. The whole thing manages to be both laid back and electrifyingly kinetic, and your heart will break for multiple reasons while reading it. Really, really worth tracking down.
Where To Start: The serialized reissue is on #2, so picking up back issues from the start really shouldn't be a problem. The original Tokyopop release may offer more story in one sitting, but the Image re-release comes with bigger pages and brand new material to accompany the serialized reprint.
Click here for a preview of King City.

One of the first questions that's worth asking is "Is anyone left?" It's hard to top the much-stated 5000+ characters contained in Marvel's IP, and it'd be a tough argument to suggest that there are any other comic publishers available who could offer anything even vaguely similar, especially considering that the larger companies that aren't DC or Marvel don't own the majority of their IP (Dark Horse, Image, and IDW all predominantly offer creator owned or licensed material); although purchasing one of those publishers may offer existing relationships with creators, it doesn't necessarily translate into anything that Disney (or any other company with large pockets) could immediately take advantage of.

(That said, if I were looking for a publisher purely for the IP rights and wasn't specifically looking for superheroes, I'd probably see if either Boom! Studios or Tokyopop were looking to be bought out; neither has an IP farm anywhere close to the size of Marvel's, but both have had some success coming up with new series and concepts that could easily be adapted into movies or television - at least, until Tokyopop's cutback "restructuring" last year, on their side. Or, of course, Rebellion, who own the 2000AD rights, which could definitely use some exploiting.)

If IP is really what's being looked for, Disney might want to follow Hollywood and go for toy and game companies; Hasbro has been positioning itself as more of a intellectual property generator than toy company since their deal with Universal Studios last year, after all, and with already successful properties like Transformers and GI Joe, they must be looking pretty tempting to any company wanting to buy an immediate in to existing markets right about now. Perhaps not as obvious, but arguably more worthwhile, a videogame publisher like Electronic Arts - owner of The Sims and Dead Space, amongst others - or Valve may not bring the instant brand awareness of Hasbro or Marvel, but unlike both, is currently creating new properties as successful as their Greatest Hits, which might be a better investment in the long run.

All of this conjecture, however, ignores the Bantha in the middle of the room: Lucasfilm.

The privately-owned Lucasfilm may not own have as many separate franchises as Marvel, but it has Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and there's definitely an argument to be made that Star Wars alone is worth as much as the entire Marvel Universe (Containing almost as many characters, and with the ability to spin out as many sub-franchises as it has, after all). More to the point, unlike Marvel, Lucasfilm is much more than an IP factory; alongside the movie studio, publishing arm, online division and animation department - all of which a self-respecting media juggernaut like Disney also has - it includes industry leaders Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, making them almost unique in terms of value add (Yes, Marvel may be the industry leader in comic book publishing, but how important is that to Disney's core business?).

It's extremely unlikely that Lucas would sell Lucasfilm, especially as he seems to have become interested in the possibilities television offers to him and the company. But everyone has their price, as the saying goes. The question is just how high Lucas' price would be - and whether anyone could afford it.

It's a relatively solid week for new releases, with both Marvel and DC offering a raft of them. DC have Red Tornado, a new mini-series featuring one of the most defective, voyeuristic (as readers of Justice League of America know) and powerful robots in comics, and Magog, a new monthly series written by Justice League International's Keith Giffen, drawn by JLA's Howard Porter and starring a pro-active former soldier out to solve the world's socio-political problems by hitting folk. Marvel, meanwhile, have The Torch, and reviving the original (robotic) Human Torch. Plus Marvel Zombies Return is the first issue of an event that'll bring well-known zombie novelists into comics. There's an interesting bunch of collections, including a reissue of Hulk: Grey, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's look back at the early days of the the gamma-irradiated goliath, and a new hardcover collection of the very enjoyable New Avengers: The Reunion series by Jim McCann and David Lopez, bringing back everyone's favorite superhero couple, Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

Image Comics, meanwhile, launch Fall Out Toy Works - the first issue of the sci-fi series co-created by Fall-Out Boy's Pete Wentz. Dynamite offer up the collection of the underrated Dead Irons, which takes Universal's classic monster movie monsters and puts them into the Wild West with creepy and understated results. If you're looking for something a little more upbeat, IDW has the first collection of GI Joe: Origins to give you the secret origin of the little paramilitary group that could at the box office, even though you didn't believe it.
The two most interesting books of the week come from the crossover side of creatordom. DC/Vertigo's Sweet Tooth, by Jeff Lemire, brings a different take on familiar (post-apocalyptic, stranger in a strange land) themes. And Marvel's Strange Tales shows the strength of Disney's new IP farm by letting a whole bunch of awesome indie comic creators loose to cause trouble, kick some ass and take some names while they're at it.

If you're looking to pull a mini-Disney and buy some comics instead of a comic company, then kindly direct your attention to the Diamond Distributors Shipping List for the week to see what else is available, besides what's listed above, before heading out to your local comic store to find some IP to invest in. And remember: It's now that much smaller of a world, after all.

Image Comics, who'll be publishing the Cho/Murray/potentially-you collaboration 50-Girls-50, call the new series "a science fiction, action adventure miniseries," and offer up Liberty Meadows creator and Marvel Comics' Mighty Avengers artist Cho's designs of the lead characters as an example of what readers can expect.
Cho himself, on the other hand, has no set idea of what he's looking for:

When creating 50-Girls-50, Doug and I knew we wanted to go with a very different look than we've had on any previous collaboration. Given the immense wealth of talent online, we decided an open call would be the best way to find someone. We're open to seeing all styles for our prospective illustrator and look forward to the results.

That openness is something that co-creator Murray shares:

I can't say we have a definitive style in mind, which is what makes this whole process all the more exciting. We're eager to see what the emerging artists of the world have to offer.

Interested artists can find more details here, including the six pages of script from Murray that they'll need to illustrate by October 2nd in order to submit their work. Even more details can be found here.

Comic books are full of men and women with amazing superpowers and uncanny abilities, but what about those even more powerful? Take a look at some of our favorite cosmic entities, quasi-deities, and a couple who just ought to be:

1. Darkseid (DC Comics)
Okay, so maybe his debut appearance was in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen (not exactly the most impressive of origins), but he's come a long way since then. Once the second in line to rule dystopian torture-planet Apokolips, Darkseid is now pretty much officially the most powerful of the New Gods - and, in the recent Final Crisis, someone who managed to destroy reality as we know it. Not only ridiculously strong and annoyingly indestructible, he's also telekinetic, telepathic, and a pretty darned impressive military strategist. (He also no longer looks like Jack Palance, who was said to be the original inspiration for his appearance. This is only debatably an improvement.)

2. Apocalypse (Marvel Comics)
As if just being called Apocalypse isn't enough, this Egyptian science geek has a list of powers longer than he rightfully ought to (like shapeshifting, teleportation and invulnerability). Not to mention the immortality. And technology from onetime creators of humanity, the robotic Celestials. And the intelligence and wisdom that you can't help but gain from being over 5000 years old. Maybe you could try to claim that he isn't exactly a "cosmic entity," but I wouldn't say that to his face. (Besides, his name is Apocalypse. So. Hardcore.)

3. Lodovica (Sky Doll, Soliel Productions)
Lodovica is the leader of one of the two warring papacies in this very strange (yet strangely beautiful) comic, which has been released in English translation by Marvel. According to Wikipedia, she's:

The power-mad ruler who strives to keep the faith of the populace through any means possible, whether by creating the illusion of divine power or by distracting them with the erotica of the Sky Dolls.

Hey, when you're the pope (or papess) of your own religion whose main weapons are false divinity and distracting erotica, you're not doing too bad. And even if you aren't technically divine, if you can convince everyone you're a deity, you're close enough.

4. God (Battle Pope, Image Comics)
First off, there's no denying God his deity status; he's kind of the guy that invented it. Set in after the Final Judgement, life is literally Hell on Earth, and all God's really got to protect us from the demon hordes is the Pope, a cigar-smoking womanizer. God himself, however, is delightfully sardonic and has a seemingly endless flowing beard. He also isn't afraid to get into a cosmic smackdown with the Pope if he feels the need, and seriously? That's pretty awesome. Plus, God can pull out the whole deus ex machina act and get away with it. And he doesn't even need the machina. (Additionally, Jesus is an endearing slacker type to the point where you almost expect him to take up bowling and carry around some Creedence tapes.)

5. Mr. Mxyzptlk (DC Comics)
Sure, all these guys have nigh-unlimited power, but Mxyzptlk here is the only who seems to have so much fun with his. Call him what you will - jester, imp, trickster - but this derby-hatted fellow from the fifth dimension has a ball messing with our world here in the third dimension, especially at the expense of poor Superman. His power is essentially unlimited and basically (but not technically) magical, and the only way to (temporarily) send him back home is to trick him into saying his name backwards. Lucky for us, we're just his playground.

Runner-Up: Lobo (DC Comics)
Okay, Lobo's no deity or great cosmic entity, but he'd probably like to think he is. Besides, he'd fit pretty well into a bunch of Norse myths, what with the killing and the violence and the dismemberment and all. More than that, however, he became an Archbishop of First Celestial Church of the Triple-Fish God, where he wears an awesome get-up and hangs out with space dolphins. Of course, he killed the fish god, so he basically wins all around.

We're fans of seeing real life political figures pop up in comic books. Although, will anything ever be able to top Teen Titans: The Lost Annual that revealed that the real JFK was alive and well, and that the assassinated version was an alien duplicate? But we would've preferred an Obama that looked a little more like the real life version, and less like Robert Guillaume.

The Savage Dragon is Back in Blue! [Geek To Me]

It's not just big budget summer blockbusters anymore; now cable television is looking to the world of comics for material. Cartoon Network announced today that it's adapting three indie comics into made-for-TV movies, making sure that the adults of the future will have fond memories of warrior mice, teenage dragons and time-traveling families to look back on in years to come.

Ramsey Naito, the network's VP of Long-Form, talked up the projects:

We’re thrilled to expand our movie slate with both cinematic quality CG and live action... As we bring these and other titles into development, we’ll be seeking out projects that combine distinct voices with striking, contemporary visual worlds.

Live action, you say? Well, only two of the three movies - Mice Templar and Firebreather, both from Image Comics - will be animated, with the third, The Vanishers (based on an IDW comic from 2004), being planned as a live-action project similar to the network's successful Ben 10 movies.

The channel is clearly trying to grapple with the idea of "family friendly TV", with each of these family-centric tales: Templar has rodent hero Karic trying to save his family by reassembling a long-broken order of warrior mice, while Firebreather's teenage half-dragon, half-human hero, Duncan Rosenblatt has to wait until he's finished his chores before fulfilling his inherited destiny to save the world. Vanishers' heroes, Andy and Arvis, on the other hand, have a much less noble goal: they're just traveling through time so that their family can escape a group of robot bad guys out to enslave humanity, and who hasn't had to deal with that at least once in their life?

All projects have just moved into development; expect them to air late 2009 at the earliest.

Beloved Comic Book Titles Coming To Cartoon Network [The Futon Critic]

Marvel Comics are keeping their side of the bargain, admittedly; if you're not interested in the hardcover reprint of poorly-drawn 1980s miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine or the Skrulls! oneshot (pretty much a collection of fact files to bring you up to speed about Secret Invasion's Secret Invaders), then you're pretty much limited to two books: the reprint of the first couple of issues of the Halo: Uprising comic to remind you what happened now that the end is finally nigh, and the far-more-enjoyable-than-it-has-any-right-to-be 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men, where the team moves to San Francisco and parties at the SFMoMA. In other weeks, it'd easily be the must-have book of the week.

Sadly, though, DC are doing their best to claim that title for themselves with the long-long-long awaited return of Ambush Bug in Ambush Bug: Year None, wherein Keith Giffen's fourth-wall breaking snarkfest takes the last five years of DC's output to task for being confusing, depressing and just plain not fun. You know you want to read that. Collections-wise, you can catch up on space religion in the unfortunately-named-but-actually-fun Countdown To Adventure (starring Animal Man, Starfire and Adam Strange from 52), catch up on the joys of matrimony with Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Road To The Altar, and catch up on how the mighty have fallen with Authority: Prime, where superhero comics' one-time most daring title is reduced to generic continuity schlock. If that last sentence made no sense to you, then perhaps you should avoid superheroes altogether and pick up the X-Files Special, instead.

Image Comics are also making a strong showing this week: The next big Witchblade storyline begins in the first issue of Broken Trinity, Mark Millar and Tony Harris get their political satire on with the debut of War Heroes, Mike Allred's Madman questions reality in the first collection of Madman Atomic Comics, and Tori Amos finally becomes the comic character she's always wanted to be in the indie-creator-tastic anthology Comic Book Tattoo.

And just in case none of that is enough for you, consider the two takes on post-Buffy female heroes available in the indie comicsphere this week: Oni Press' The Apocalypstix finally bring their post-nuclear brand of rock, roll and kick-ass to stores at the same time as Cassie Hack of po-mo horror book Hack/Slash teams up with real-life emo pornlets in the Hack/Slash Annual Featuring The Suicide Girls. And, yes, I wish I was joking about that last one as well.

As ever! All of these books and many, many, more are listed here for your perusal and, if you've somehow made it this far without knowing where your local comic book store happens to be, you can find that out by clicking here. It's probably a great week to go to the store, really, because chances are they may be really quiet...

For the first major convention of the year, Wondercon was surprisingly light on any real news, with the biggest player, DC Comics first suggesting that they were going to tell us something big the next day, and then telling us that they'd rather wait until April after all. The lack of any major surprises to take away from the con (Both of the stories that actually did break, J. Michael Straczynski working for DC Comics and Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan working on new issues of Demo for Vertigo, seemed to be common knowledge on the con floor before their official announcements) seemed to affect the regular con-goers with an unusual feeling of malaise hitting even the 501st Legion as they performed con security. This wasn't helped by the no-shows from creators - not only was the Image Comics panel cancelled, but both Boom! Studios' Mark Waid and Aspen Studio's Michael Turner failed to make it to the show.

That isn't to say that the entire show was a disaster, mind you; the pros who did make it there were entertaining and available - Particular shout-outs should be given to Oni Press's James Lucas Jones (Expect me to tell you all about Wonton Soup very soon) as well as DC's Jann Jones and Dan DiDio, whose late-Sunday panel "For The Love of Comics" turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable conversation not about upcoming DC Comics but what is awesome about comics in general (Goofiness and obsessive collecting being two of the answers), entirely free of the kind of hucksterism that you might expect from a DC panel.Bill Willingham proved to be a fine gentleman able to keep people's attention throughout the various panels he dominated (and I'm not just saying that because of his apology to me about this), and even if some DC panels may have been half-empty, the two showings of the animated version of Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier were packed with enthusiastic fans (With good reason; it's a better movie than I expected).

That's not even talking about Saturday's CBLDF party that we co-sponsored, populated by the creme de la creme of comics folk, from retailers to creators (Hi, Cecil!) to fans, with we journalist types mingling and posing for photos that I feel like I should be apologizing for; I didn't mean for my head to be that shiny. Overall, it may not have been the most exciting weekend in terms of comic conventions - that'll be San Diego Comic-Con in July - but it was definitely a fine, exhausting, one nonetheless.

DC Comics make the largest grab for your science fiction dollar this week, with three collections aimed right at your sweet spot. Mark Waid's run on Legion of Super-Heroes concludes in the uneven, but worth reading, Supergirl and The Legion of Super-Heroes: The Dominator War collection, which sees a time-travelling Supergirl join the 31st Century's favorite teenage rebels in a battle against alien invaders. For more interplanetary action, look no further than Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Volume 1, a hardcover collecting the first half of the popular storyline that aims to make you scared of at least half of the rainbow.

And then there's Booster Gold #0, in which the super-hero Quantum Leap series flashes back to mid-90s time-travel crossover Zero Hour.

Less expected - but no less worth searching out - is the reprint of Time Masters, a semi-forgotten 1990 series by sci-fi writer (and Fiction Liberation Front creator) Lewis Shiner, along with Bob Wayne and artist Art Thibert. Starring Rip Hunter (now appearing in Booster Gold after a star turn in 52), the series saw time travellers at war with an Illuminati led by an immortal caveman, and if that hasn't made you even slightly curious, I don't know what will.

Marvel Comics, in comparison, are travelling in time in a different way. A previously-incomplete story by original creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby sees print (aided by artist Ron Frenz, filling in for the deceased Kirby as best he can; the now-85-year-old Lee completed the script last year) in Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure. Will it be more than an experimental curiosity? Pick it up to see for yourself. Also, the relaunch of the Fantastic Four hits the shelves. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, who came up with the critically acclaimed and popular Ultimates series, are taking over with this week's #554.

Also from Marvel this week: X-Force #1, in which Wolverine - yes, io9ers, your favorite character - gets together with lots of similar characters (including his clone ex-hooker daughter; yes, really) to kill bad guys and grimace a lot. I'm being sarcastic, but watch this be the best selling book of the month, depressingly.

The comic that may deserve that position is Image Comics' The Next Issue Project, which sees an all-star line-up of creators take on public domain characters from the 1940s to create what would have been the next issue of their adventures had their series continued. The high concept may not grab you, but creators like Mike Allred, Bill Sienkiewicz and Ashley Wood should. You can read creator Erik Larsen talk up the project a little more here.

If none of those grab your fancy, the complete list of tomorrow's releases is available here, and for those who want to know where their closest comic book store is? You can do so here. Honestly, sometimes we make it so easy for you...