Oni Press is developing a shared universe of licensed titles, with said licenses obtained from the Nacelle Company, which has acquired some long dormant toy lines from the 80's & 90's.
First up is Biker Mice From Mars, which is gearing up for an animated revival, nearly 20 years after the last series. Actor Ryan Reynolds ("Deadpool & Wolverine") and his Maximum Effort group are attached to the forthcoming cartoon.
This, then, is a prequel to said series, and it can be said that it's also a prequel to the original 1993-6 syndicated cartoon produced by Marvel's television arm. The artwork is crisp and clean, even better than Rurik Tyler's interpretations back in 1993. Looks like fun.
Rating: A.
Oni is also the home of the revived EC Comics brand, which is good news for horror comics enthusiasts from EC's glory years of the 50's. The bad news is that the books coming from Oni are miniseries.
Epitaphs From The Abyss is the first of these, a 5 issue anthology series that captures the mood, atmosphere, & spirit of EC, right down to the lettering, now done, of course, by computer programming. 4 short stories make up the 1st issue, and if you're a true EC fan, you'd be well served to make the investment ($5 per issue). The Grave Digger, your genial host, wasn't an original EC character, but there was a host by that name in the 70's over at Marvel.
Rating: A.
Coming in October from Oni & Nacelle is Sectaurs, which was a short-lived toy line in the mid-80's from Coleco which led to a comic book from Marvel and a 5 part miniseries from Ruby-Spears. Winter brings the Power Lords, which was Revell's entry into the toy sweepstakes (better known for model kits), adapted by DC in a 3 issue miniseries, written by comics vet Michael Fleischer.
Mad Cave has laid its first egg, in this writer's opinion, with their adaptation of Flash Gordon. Bear in mind that the continuity created by writer Jeremy Adams is completely separate from the publisher's forthcoming Defenders of The Earth miniseries. In Defenders, Flash was married to Dale Arden, but Dale was killed, leaving Flash to raise his son, Rick, and train him.
As Adams sees it, however, Flash is assumed dead, and Dale has become Empress Arden. So not digging. Luckily, the 2nd issue doesn't come out until September, giving Adams time to put more context on a bad idea, perhaps making it better, but I doubt it.
Rating: B--.
I can't speak to sales figures, but Mad Cave has done a good job of building a line of Gatchaman titles, the latest of which is a Galactor miniseries, focusing on the planet bent on conquering Earth. Forget what you know about the characters from previous American translations (i.e. Battle of The Planets), this is based on the original Japanese source material dating back to 1972.
Rating: A.
Short bits: DC has delayed the final chapter of Tom King's The Penguin to the 1st week in September. No reason given for the delay, but with King's workload, coupled with talk that he may be attached to a forthcoming film project, that would explain it.............Archie Comics is giving Sabrina's familiar, Salem, another 1-shot try-out in October. The Nine Lives of Salem puts him in a heroic role once again........Speaking of Sabrina, she and Archie and their friends have to deal with Amber Nightstone in October's Archie-centric Halloween special. You know the drill. One new story, plus reprints.......Diamond is still marketing Titan's revival of Savage Sword of Conan as an ongoing series, though GoCollect.com claims it's a 6-issue miniseries which would wrap up this winter. Who's right?
Back to Archie's horror line. There was a reason I never really gave any lip service to the just concluded Judgment Day miniseries. The artwork by Megan Hutchison shifts as the story goes, there isn't much cohesion, and the daemonic forms of Betty & Veronica just don't work. Personally, I'm tired of "grimdark" in its various forms, and we've talked about the flaws in the Archie Horror line before. I wouldn't wish this on an enemy.
Archie, though, is heavily pushing Madam Satan as their go-to big bad, although she appears to be an anti-hero in the Cursed Library trilogy of 1-shots that begins this month. Jinx, now a teenager, as the devil's daughter?? No sale. If they keep turning out dreck, people are going to be asking for a return to the classic Archie stories. Trust me.
Mad Cave's Dick Tracy is not being solicited for October, which suggests that they'll take a break after issue 5 comes out in September. I can deal with that.
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