The psychological horror series by Alex de Campi and Carla Speed McNeil concludes its second arc with the most powerful issue yet. It’s also a great starting point, if you’re curious, since it’s a flashback issue focusing on a single one of the doomed teens. (If you’re looking for a more chronological starting point, the first four issues of No Mercy have been collected at a discount price.) Back in issue #6, we saw how poorly siblings Chad and Charlene […]

Now that The Fuse issue #18 is out, I can talk about the entire The Fuse: Perihelion storyline. If you want to read the entire thing (and you haven’t been intrigued enough to start reading with the first two mysteries, The Russia Shift and Gridlock), the collection comes out at the end of April in comic shops, early May in bookstores. It reprints issues #13-18, and I’ve previously talked about issue #13, issue #14, and issue #17, so I will […]

Writer Nick Spencer and artist Steve Lieber worked well together on The Superior Foes of Spider-Man during their 17-issue run from 2013-2015. Under them, a villain team-up book became a wacky heist series with a sardonic tone and imaginatively outrageous occurrences for its team of losers. However, that kind of thing doesn’t last forever when dealing with other people’s character property in a shared universe, so now Lieber and Spencer are doing something similar on their own turf. The Fix […]

I haven’t talked about this science fiction mystery series in a while, because once the situation was established, the middle issues just made it all more interestingly complicated. But I wanted to make sure to check in on The Fuse #17 as we work towards the solution to all the crimes taking place during the satellite version of Mardi Gras. I was pleasantly surprised to see how effective this “part 5 of 6” was on its own. As established at […]

Well, Top Cow’s got balls. I thought the first storyline, issues #1-4 of The Tithe, was gutsy, taking on mega-churches and criminal preachers, but this one goes even further. This time around, the subject is Muslim terrorists. Issue #5 kicks off a new story arc with the bombing of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. It’s written by Matt Hawkins, with layouts by Rahsan Ekedal and art by Phillip Sevy. With all the action and investigation, this is the […]

Jeremy Haun, aided by Jason A. Hurley on story, has come up with a doozy of a premise. There’s a sexually transmitted disease that makes its victims beautiful — skinny, clear-skinned, and glowing — so people want to catch it. I was intrigued by the kinds of stories that could be told with this idea, pieces about how relationships were changed or how society reacted. Unfortunately, what the creators do with this outstanding starting point winds up pedestrian and typical. […]

Starve is an intriguing blend of food culture and science fiction layered with comment on the life of the privileged and a redemption story. In the near future, the economy has collapsed, and everything has been privatized. The distinction between rich and poor is greater than ever. Gavin Cruikshank has run away from being a celebrity chef after creating Starve, a cooking competition show. The series, now dedicated to ridiculous excess, is a huge success, and he’s been living off […]

Part two of Perihelion by Antony Johnston and Justin Greenwood ramps up the tension as we are given hints of the various areas set up to explode by the end of this public holiday. Attention moves from the “Haircut Killer”, a serial murderer case established in the previous issue, to the more public (and dangerously crowd-based) sources of conflict. There’s the official celebration, mc’ed by a functionary who’s boring those gathered with his politicking. There’s a demonstration by rebels demanding […]