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This Week in Comics: 11/25/2009

Comic books are out to bankrupt me this week. A new volume of Shade the Changing Man? The first Chew trade at an affordable $9.99 price tag? Why do you love me so, comics? How can I pay you back? Besides with money.

Welcome to This Week in Comics, where every day is a comic book.

MONDAY – First Issues

Powers #1

(Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Avon Oeming)

ICON/Marvel Comics

The great thing about the guys who write for Marvel nowadays is that many of them have supercool indie books that working for Marvel affords them the ability to do. Ed Brubaker has Criminal and Incognito. Mark Millar has stuff like Kick-Ass and War Heroes when they actually come out. Matt Fraction has Casanova, which is finally returning. Brian Michael Bendis has Powers (formerly Law and Order: Super Human Victims Unit), which is finally back in a new ongoing. If you’re reading this column and not reading Powers, there must be something wrong, because it’s right up your alley. I know this.

TUESDAY – New Manga Day

The Lizard Prince Volume 1

(Asuka Izumi)

CMX/DC Comics

It’s a shojo manga with love triangles, royalty, and magic spells that turn princes into lizards, but my favorite thing about The Lizard Prince is the design of the lizard itself. It’s just too cute. The art ain’t too shabby, either. I’d read a couple volumes of this.

WEDNESDAY- Mainstream Superhero Stuff

Image United #1 (Of 6)

(Robert Kirkman/Erik Larsen/Rob Liefeld/Todd McFarlane/Whilce Portacio/Marc Silvestri/Jim Valentino)

Image Comics

Even though the ‘90s Image Comics style isn’t really my thing (oh, but how I loved WildC.A.T.S. As a kid), this scripted jam session featuring the founders of Image Comics (with Robert Kirkman at the mixing board) sounds like a fun comic book version of the Traveling Wilburys. The lineup is distributed as such: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty.

Hold up. Jim Lee’s not on this. There goes all my excitement about the project. That’s like having The Damn Yankees without Ted Nugent! That’s like The New Pornographers without Neko Case!

THURSDAY – Not Quite Friday, but Still Exciting

Chew Volume 1: Taster’s Choice

(John Layman/Rob Guillory)

Image Comics

Good work, Chew: not only was I trade waiting on this one (read the first issue, loved it), but you’re available at the incredibly affordable $9.99 introductory price (the “Vertigo Method,” I’ve deemed it). Again, here is the premise of Chew: Tony Chu is a detective who has the power to read people’s minds… provided he eats them. Naturally, he gets enlisted by the FDA to investigate weird food crimes. Did I mention that chicken has been criminalized in this world?

Ten dollars have been deducted from your bank account, and your volume of Chew is on its way.

FRIDAY – TGIron Man

Invincible Iron Man #20

(Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca)

Marvel Comics

I spent a day rereading Fraction/Larroca’s first volume of Invincible Iron Man, and boy is it even better than I remember. Fraction writes a tightly plotted, incredibly witty story that succeeds on near-Casanova levels while Larocca’s art is mostly great save for his tendency to draw character faces based on celebrities. Invincible Iron Man #20 (aren’t those covers gorgeous?) kicks off the “Stark: Disassembled” story arc wherein Tony Stark recovers from the “World’s Most Wanted” story that took up the last year. I can’t wait.

SATURDAY – Essential Reading

Shade the Changing Man Volume 1: The American Scream/Shade the Changing Man Volume 2: The Edge Of Vision

(Peter Milligan/Chris Bachalo/Mark Pennington/Bill Jaaska)

Vertigo/DC Comics

Shade the Changing Man is Vertigo’s forgotten masterpiece, not as straightforward as Preacher, Fables, or Y: The Last Man, and not buoyed by star power like The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, or Sandman. Thankfully Peter Milligan’s writing a bunch of things for Vertigo (Hellblazer, Greek Street, The Bronx Kill) and he has the fortune of writing the only Human Target books marketable (read: “new”) enough to promote the show, so Vertigo sees a good opportunity to reprint Shade Volume 1 and finally collect the rest of the series.

SUNDAY – Last Issues

Models, Inc. #4 (of 4), $3.99

(Paul Tobin/Vicenc Villagrasa)

Marvel Comics

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out how good and appropriate the Models, Inc. covers are–the women seem anatomically correct (for models, at least) while the magazine pastiche covers effectively scare away the men while selling the premise of the comic. I think Marvel might have learned from that ridiculous Marvel Divas debacle.