‘Black Panther And The Crew’ Tops This Week’s Best New Comics

Superhero comics have struggled with race from the beginning of the medium, both in the pages and behind the scenes. But Black Panther And The Crew, with its second issue out today from Marvel, is unique in that Ta-Nehisi Coates and Yona Harvey seek not only to balance this with Marvel’s heroes, but to create an explanation for why, if there’s been so much racial injustice, superheroes haven’t done more about it.

The book follows Storm and Misty Knight as they try to unravel the death of Harlem activist (and former vigilante) Ezra, and keep running into attempts to kill them for their trouble. And that, in of itself, is a fun, tightly written thriller. But just as important are the ways Coates and Harvey put Black Panther, in particular, into actual history to explain why the hell he wasn’t punching out cops at Selma. The book opens not with a thrilling action sequence but a flashback to the Bandung Conference, and the revelation Black Panthers have been falling afoul of Avengers for much longer than we suspected.

Butch Guice, on pencils, and Scott Hanna, on inks with Mack Chater assisting on both jobs, deliver a careful, clean book. While they’ve got plenty of action sequences and elaborate lairs to draw, they take more care to emphasize the reality of the setting. Whether you can really incorporate real social problems into superhero comics and have it work remains to be seen, perhaps, but this is a bold effort to pull it off.

Jack Kirby’s New Gods get an unusual tribute from Lee, Michael, and Laura Allred in the form of obscure character Forager, a superhero from a society of humanoid insects who gets tangled up in Kirby’s trippy Fourth World and… well, we don’t want to spoil it, but this book, while accessible to newcomers, is in its own way a tribute to Kirby’s opus about mythology and spacefaring gods. And it throws in a tweak to another beloved DC book as well, which should have interesting results down the road.

Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire finish up their megaseries tackling the meaning of life without death, among other light breezy topics. What’s most interesting about the story isn’t the science fiction setting, although that has enough creative vigor for another hundred issues. It’s that Lemire and Snyder have explored the crevices of regret in Jonah, a man who will have to live with his failures forever, and just what that means. It’s a comic that will linger with you for a long, long time.

Luke gets recruited by former Vader associate Doctor Aphra to revive an ancient Jedi AI trapped in a crystal. What could possibly go wrong with a noble young Jedi, the single most impulsive and thoughtless archaeologist in the universe, and two droid assassins Well, we suppose the better question is how entertaining Kieron Gillen and Marco Checchetto can make it, and the answer is “Very.” The whole book feels, very much, like a Star Wars movie we never got.

Kirsten Smith, Kurt Lustgarten, and Naomi Franquis take on The Goonies with an affectionate parody, of sorts, of what it’s like to live in a small town famous for something fictional. Something fictional that, it turns out, happens to be true. Sometimes Smith and Lustgarten are a little too on the nose in their gags; the fratty tourists are a little much. But it’s a funny idea, and it’s got a lot of promise.

Redline #3, Oni Press: Neal Holman (of Archer fame) continues his sardonic mash-up of SF, noir, military, and bitter black comedy with Clayton McCormack’s art as perfect gritty accompaniment.

Eternal Warrior: Awakening, Valiant: Robert Venditti and Renato Guedes offer a parable about the poisonous nature of greed in an old-fashioned barbarian comic celebrating the Eternal Warrior’s 25th anniversary.

Tank Girl: World War Tank Girl #2, Titan: Tank Girl sticks it to British war comics and their conventions in a hilarious parody from Alan Martin and Brett Parson.

Regression #1, Image Comics: Cullen Bunn, the busiest horror writer in comics (with another excellent issue of his Harrow County on stands this week as well) asks a simple question: What if you got regressed to your past life, and you were the reincarnation of an insane necromancer

All-Star Batman #10, DC Comics: A new arc starts with a flashback to a young juvenile delinquent being chased by the London police, one who refuses to return to Wayne Manor. Think you know who it is Guess again, as Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque have a few twists in store.

The Atomic Blonde: The Coldest Winter and The Coldest City, Oni Press ($15 Each, Softcover): Before Charlize Theron storms theaters, get caught up on the spy stories that inspired the movie. Although you might be surprised that they’re more stale beer than dirty martini.

James Bond: Hammerhead, Dynamite ($25, Hardcover): Or if you’re just in the mood for some classic spy theatrics, Andy Diggle’s take on 007 will do quite nicely.