The 5/28 Comics Stack: The Marvelous Girl Who Played With Tombs

Inspired by the #YesAllWomen Twitter trend over the weekend, I wanted to find a handful of books this week featuring female leads to spotlight here at the Comics Stack.

Yeah… “Best of luck with that,” says Future Me. “Must you be so cynical,” asks Me From This Weekend?

We’re in a perilous spot in our (pop) culture where women are just this side of non-entities, a paradigm which may not create a direct line to violence against women, but it sure as hell doesn’t help.

Anyway, on with the funnybooks!

Disney Kingdoms: Seekers of the Weird #5 (Marvel)

What are the chances we’ll see Disney characters infiltrating the Marvel U Kingdom Hearts-style? Wait, does Disney’s ownership of Marvel mean we could see characters from the House of Ideas in Kingdom Hearts 3?

That’s… I think I need to sit down. That would be the kind of grotesque, busy, and brilliant kind of synergistic nonsense I could get behind.

Ditto this series featuring the art of Karl Moline and a pair of teens – Melody and Maxwell – on the hunt for their parents in the odd corners of the Disney U. I have nothing to back this up, but expect Queen Ursula to keep it creepy if she shows up.

Get Disney Kingdoms: Seekers of the Weird #5 from comiXology.

Tomb Raider #4 (Dark Horse Comics)

So are we going to be stuck with the crew of the Endurance when the second Tomb Raider game finally comes out? Lara Croft has never really had a deep bench of supporting characters, but the other survivors from last year’s Tomb Raider reboot didn’t really offer very much in the way of a compelling cast.

Still, writer Gail Simone has plugged them into her miniseries, meaning at least they’ll be well-written here (sprawling casts of supporting characters is kind of Ms. Simone’s forte).

This issue, Lara returns to London where someone is out to tag her fellow survivors. There are tombs in London to raid, right?

Who, what, when, where, and why remain to be seen, but if this is an extension of Lara from the reboot, expect some fools to get got. With prejudice.

Get Tomb Raider #4 from Dark Horse Digital.

Ms Marvel #4 (Marvel Comics)

Could we ever see Kamala Khan as the big-screen Ms. Marvel?

I mean, the comics’ company’s movie decision is still hemming and hawing about the Carol Danvers iteration of the character, but part of me remains hopeful that we can see a female superhero of color at the movies without her being flanked by a bunch of hero bros.

This new Ms. Marvel is one of the few “legacy” heroes at Marvel and it’ll be interesting to see how long they continue to support the character and the book. The character has a huge Twitter following and G. Willow Wilson is a writer who has some quality work behind her and ahead of her, but those two things don’t always translate to sales.

Get Ms. Marvel #4 from comiXology.

Thanos Annual #1

Jim Starlin and Ron Lim on a Thanos book? I’m down.

I really got into comics around the Infinity Gauntlet era so make of that (and my subsequent comic book interests) what you will. Starlin and artist Ron Lim were a major part of that – hell, I even kept up with Captain Comet post-52 and that book was all kinds of lousy.

I’m going to try to follow how hard Marvel decides to pimp this book, given that we’ve got Guardians on the Galaxy on the way in August and (presumably) another cameo by the Mad Titan. I’m half-surprised this doesn’t have a GotG header before the full title, actually.

Anyway, this is leading to something called The Infinity Revelation which sounds bonkers and appropriately end of days for a character like Thanos who’s been semi-prominent since becoming not-dead a couple of years back just before the Guardians’ battle with the Cancerverse.

And it’s at this point that I feel half-compelled to explain what a Cancerverse is and largely compelled to just move on.

Get Thanos Annual #1 from comiXology.

Girl Who Played With Fire HC (Vertigo)

I experienced the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy the way God intended: through the increasingly terrible and exploitative Swedish films, where hyper-competent and nigh-Aspergian hacker Lisbeth Salander teams up with a disgraced reporter to solve sex crimes.

The films put me off: they were like high-toned exploitation movies in the vein of I Spit on Your Grave, and there was always something vaguely icky about the fairly broken Lisbeth serving as the empowered female. On reflection, I don’t think they were necessarily bad stories so much as they were terrible movies squandering interesting stories.

With writer Denise Mina onboard, Vertigo is bringing the second novel in the series to life, this time following Lisbeth who’s on the run after being framed for a pair of murders.

The solicits have Leonardo Manco “and various” on art for this graphic novel, which is always a sure sign of quality.

Get The Girl Who Played With Fire from comiXology.

Trees #1 (Image Comics)

I can mess with me some Warren Ellis – even if he has a tendency to cast ongoing projects to the wayside.

His latest is a bit of high-concept science fiction, featuring one of those close encounters you read so much about (and never want to have). According to the solicits, this one sees tree-like objects descending up Earth, much to humanity’s chagrin. The damn things don’t do anything for a solid decade – until they do.

Expect Ellis to hold forth on the nature of intelligence and consciousness with artist Jason Howard in tow.

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