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We’re No. 1! is a weekly feature looking at first issues in new comic series, as well as one-offs and special releases. In his reviews, Jeff highlights stories with diverse characters and plot lines Geekquality readers can care about, as well as points out comics that miss the mark.

The past two years of putting together We’re No. 1! have been a wonderful ride and I hope it’s also been enjoyable to you, our readers. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to look back at what series have stood the test since their #1 issue, enduring as great examples of inclusion and representation. But first, a look at a new release that helped me put things in focus, as I look back and prepare for a change in direction.

Storm #1 brings us to the new ongoing series for the first Black female superhero in Marvel’s history. It’s almost hard to believe that in almost 40 years since her creation by writer Len Wein, Storm has never had an ongoing solo series of her own. Here, she’s handled beautifully by writer Greg Pak (Code Monkey Save World, X-Treme X-men) and artist Victor Ibañez. Storm has always been the nobility in the X-Men’s backbone, that leader of high moral standing and unbreakable will that the team coalesced around in its darkest times. More so than any team leader, Storm has stewarded the X-Men and the young mutants in their care though terrible tragedy. In the new series, Storm comes to the aid of some local humans caught in the path of a deadly tsunami. The perils of global climate change are nothing to the mistress of weather, of course, but Pak deftly utilizes her extreme compassion combined with her role as a leader, making Storm a shining example in comics. Storm a role model to so many readers that it’s impossible to keep it out of the pages of the story itself, as she befriends a local child and helps one of her student make a difficult decision about her education, all in the same story. This was an excellent debut for her book, and I hope to keep reading it for a long time to come. Continue reading →

We’re No. 1! is a weekly feature looking at first issues in new comic series, as well as one-offs and special releases. In his reviews, Jeff highlights stories with diverse characters and plot lines Geekquality readers can care about, as well as points out comics that miss the mark.

Marvel is really ramping up their push for the upcoming release of Guardians of the Galaxy in theaters. Unfortunately, neither Gamora nor Drax (portrayed by Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista respectively in the upcoming film) feature in any of the three new GotG books out this week. So for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how they fare onscreen.

The first of the three books focuses on the team leader who is (unsurprisingly) a blond white man. He’s not a terrible person, but a bit wayward in this new series The Legendary Star-Lord #1. Peter Quill’s origin story is thankfully limited here, as he manages to battle the alien Badoon for a valuable crystal stashed away in an interstellar orphanage, and save the children in the process. He also manages to have a slightly smarmy sort of “what are you wearing” interstellar holographic phone tryst with Kitty Pryde of the X-Men that’s a little offputting. Frankly, I’d rather see Kitty (one of my all time favorite X-Men) standing with Star-Lord kicking some butt, rather than have her depicted in her pajamas at the X-Compound grading papers and flirting with the book’s male lead. She has that potential, and the book might even go there, but I’m not sure I’m interested enough in it so far to follow along. Continue reading →

We’re No. 1! is a weekly feature looking at first issues in new comic series, as well as one-offs and special releases. In his reviews, Jeff highlights stories with diverse characters and plot lines Geekquality readers can care about, as well as points out comics that miss the mark.

This is another light week, with a standout for me being a new series featuring Emily The Strange. Emily and the Strangers: Breaking the Record #1 is a true sequel to her most recent series, and it maintains all the delightful highlights. Emily and her diverse new group of friends have assembled into a new band, and she’s at odds with some bandmates over their next direction. Emily thinks music is all about “rockin’ out” and making art, rather than making money. Her witty dialogue and fabulous original vocabulary abound as she hotly debates with bandmate Evan on the merits of a new recording contract offered to her by Awesomely Awesome records, whom she vies as “The Man.” Emily continues to be a fantastic example for young readers: a girl who never apologizes for her ideas or her identity, but her new friends round her out well, even when they argue. Emily does concede their points, now and then. She’s as dedicated to her ideas, her inventions, and her music as she ever was, but she is also willing to listen to the people around her. Continue reading →

We’re No. 1! is a weekly feature looking at first issues in new comic series, as well as one-offs and special releases. In his reviews, Jeff highlights stories with diverse characters and plot lines Geekquality readers can care about, as well as points out comics that miss the mark.

We’ll be keeping it short and sweet this week, but we wouldn’t want you to think that’s because there weren’t many great comics on your local store shelves this week. There were wizards, spaceships and adventures galore, but this week three really great books stood out above the rest of the new series.

Possibly the most complex and wonderful new book in quite a long time is The Wicked and the Divine #1, from Image Comics. From the longstanding comics superstar team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, we’re presented with an unusual mythology: the gods of old have always been real, all of them, and every ninety years, twelve of them are incarnated as humans and walk among us. They are revered or loathed in equal measure, and then after two years, they die. The current crop exist in the open, proudly proclaiming their supernatural nature and living lives as super celebrity pop-stars. The sheer volume of action adventure in this first issues would be impressive, even without the fantastically original concept, and it’s a gripping plot line worthy of a read all on its own. But it’s the modern day imaging of these deities from across all spectrum of human mythology that’s so captivating, no matter what might be happening to them. I’d watch Lucifer, the Shinto god Amaterasu and Sakhmet reincarnated as three young women (with a heavy David Bowie fan thing going on), if they were just reading the paper and drinking tea. It’s exciting to imagine them as super celebrities, exceptionally unapologetic women with no fear of how the world sees them. Gillen’s story is about the worship of art and the fetishization of celebrity, about why people love the talented and the outspoken, but it’s told from the point of view of these gods. It turns the examination of religion and fervor into an exploration of identity in a masterful and original way not seen in comics before. Continue reading →