New Comic Book Day: Sinestro’s Super Slam and Barbarella’s Big Book!

How in the flippin’ flip is it almost flippin’ Halloween? I mean, sure, it’s a month away, but when The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors is on comics shelves, you know that most of your year has passed right on by.

Farewell 2014 (kind of, sort of) and hello books about Sinestro in lockup. Will he recite Rorschach’s “You’re locked in here with me” speech? Because it’s a bonus if he does.

Meanwhile, over at IDW, G.I. Joe gets a new number one (and change in directon. Magneto goes hunting for the ultimate Nazi – the Red Skull. I mean, cyborg Wolfenstein Hitler is technically the ultimate Nazi, but the Red Skull is up there. Oh, and Humanoids offers a massive reprint of Barbarella that might be a little too rich for my blood.

Roche Limit #1 (Image Comics)

New science fiction!

Michael Morcai’s space frontier mystery could possibly maybe be a thing, even if I’m kind of rolling my “part of a planned trilogy” tease/warning. Because by all means, please tell me that the book that I’m buying won’t be a self-contained story.

Vic Malhotra is on art in this story of a woman who travels to the titular space colony to find out what happened to her missing sister. Apparently, space crime is real, and her sister might have gotten mixed up with it.

Also: do we yet have the first, documented space crime? Forget rocket ships, because that’s when we’ll really be in the future.

You can pick up Roche Limit #1 at your local comic shop or via comiXology.

Barbarella Super Oversized Deluxe Edition (Humanoids)

Old science fiction!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the final publication of Jean-Claude Forest’s original Barbarella comics, and Humanoids has decided to re-release them in a coffee table-sized format – with a script adapted by Pretty Deadly creator Kelly Sue Deconnick, no less.

The downside: the damned thing is $80 for 72 pages of content. Humanoids is, according to its site, limiting this printing to only 1200 copies, so I guess I understand the gouging. And given how impressive their Incal reprints have been in the past, I can’t expect anything less than the highest of quality, but that’s still some “this book better include the actual Barbarella” pricing right there.

You can buy Barbarella Super Oversized Deluxe Edition at your local comic shop or via Amazon.

G.I. Joe #1 (IDW Publishing)

Reading the Previews synopsis for this book makes it sound like the new G.I. Joe is borrowing a page from the recent, short-lived animated series (which wasn’t so bad once you got past its weird “Snake Eyes and His Boring Friends” vibe).

Oh yeah – it was called Renegades!

Anywhere, there as here, Cobra has become a global peacekeeping force (somehow) with Scarlet leading an outsider band of Joes. I haven’t been keeping up with the book, but was Cobra operating in the shadows up until now? Because this turn is the narrative equivalent of ISIS deciding to become the new U.N. otherwise.

Also, nice try with that cover, but all of those extraneous lines on and around Scarlet’s back and butt seem beside the point.

You can pick up G.I. Joe #1 at your local comic shop or via comiXology.

Magneto #10 (Marvel Comics)

If there’s one thing Matthew Vaughan’s X-Men: First Class showed us, it’s that the world loves Magneto: Nazi hunter. And if there’s one thing I’m into, it’s Jews in pop culture and fiction taking down Nazis.

Now let’s throw the Red Skull into the mix and see what shakes out, as Cullen Bunn paves the way for the latest Marvel event that I probably won’t read, Axis.

By the way, I love how big and goofy the stakes are for this book: not only is the Red Skull enslaving mutants and throwing them in camps, but he has also stolen Magneto’s best friend’s brain.

That’s so dumb, it’s brilliant.

You can pick up Magneto #10 at your local comic shop or via comiXology.

Sinestro: Futures End #1 (DC Comics)

More villainy!

Somehow, Sinestro is one of the few characters to escape the shit show that is the New 52 (or really, any of DC’s ill-conceived permutations) without coming off too badly. What’s the deal with that?

The villain with the pencil-thin mustache is maybe more rigid than some of the other concepts in the revamped universe. He’s a dick, but he remains a dick with integrity, and no one is trying to sell him as some kind of king badass (*cough* Deathstroke), a secret rapist (pre-New 52 Doctor Light), or whatever the hell it is with the Joker that makes everyone think he’s the best and baddest villain every created (he’s not).

This Futures End tie-in sees the Yellow Lantern Corps leader getting locked the fuck up and I want to know who in the yard he’ll break a chair over first to prove he’s the craziest alien in the block.

You can pick up Sinestro: Futures End at your local comic shop or via comiXology.

Clive Barker’s Nightbreed #5 (Boom! Studios)

Before I knew any better, I used to love Cabal, the novel that inspired the not-so-great film that would be come Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. Actually, there was a period where the sex and gore elements of Barker’s horror work was kind of my jam.

And it still is, but I’m a grown enough-ass man to know that part of that was just being attracted to the goofy extremes of some of his work. For every The Great and Secret Show or Candyman, there’s shape-shifting magic sex in Imajica. Do not read Imajica!

2014 seems to be the year that Barker and the horror community are trying to reclaim Nightbreed – the film was mangled by Morgan Creek editors prior to release, and there’s been a push for an unadulterated cut of the film – which is on the way later this year from Shout! Factory. BOOM!’s Nightbreed anthology, on the other hand, serves up some side fiction for the book, with a helping of universe building as we learn about more of the freaks and monsters of (and outside of) Midian.

You can pick up Clive Barker’s Nightbreed #5 at your local comic shop or via comiXology.

The Simpsons: Treehouse of Terror #20 (Bongo Comics)

We need to stop pretending like The Simpsons is now garbage. It’s not as good as it used to be, but it’s still funnier than most other long-running comedies on TV (even if shows like the nerd minstrel The Big Bang Theory set the bar punishingly low).

Having said that, how the actual fuck is this Halloween issue so far behind the curve? This all-zombies issue (ugh) keeps alive-ish (argh) horror’s most played-out creature (barf).

Wait… did they say there’s a “Zombienado?” Fuck it, I’m done. Have a great week everyone.

You can pick up The Simpsons: Treehouse of Terror #20 at your local comic shop and maybe via comiXology. Who knows? Their digital strategy is beyond weird.

Those are my picks for the week. What’s on your list?