This Week in Comics

Here are some new releases worth rushing home to:

Ennis mellows out with Jennifer Blood. Dynamite Comics

Jennifer Blood chronicles the daily grind of Jennifer Fellows, a sexy Brooklyn housewife by day; by nightfall, she slips out of her suburban home to take the form of a hit woman in true punisher-esque fashion. Written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Adriano Batista (Jungle Girl, Red Sonja), Jennifer Blood takes a fun and kinky look at vigilantism, with, of course, a healthy dose of the brutally clever violence that Ennis is so well known for. “It was our most popular new title this week,” said Clay Ikler of . “We even had to order extra copies.” Ennis has covered a lot of ground in past story lines, including the hellishly affable tale of a preacher named Jesse Custer in Preacher, to the stories of World War II in Battle Fields, Ennis delivers an entertaining read in Jennifer Blood, with writing that impacts like a sledge hammer.

Evil Geneticist Tests the Surfer’s Mettle. Marvel Comics

The Silver Surfer returns in the new five-part series, An All-New Beginning, written by Greg Pak, when he faces the world’s most brilliant geneticist, Herbert Edgar, and his debilitating powers of devolution that he uses to clobber the Surfer. The premise of the series doesn’t stray from what readers have come to expect from stories of the Surfer, floating in outer space, contemplating his duties to his master Galactus while feeding him planets and stars, followed by casually doling out justice by the megaton on Earth. The menacing geneticist who goes by the title, High Evolutionary, crosses the aesthetics of Ironman with the powers of Magneto that even the “Powers Cosmic” possessed by the Silver Surfer (a.k.a. Norrin Radd) can’t contend with.

Dealing with loss; the death of the Human Torch Marvel Comics

Well, as some Fantastic Four fans might have heard, the five-part series, “Countdown to Casualty,” concluded a couple of weeks ago with the death of the Human Torch. The story pulls the FF in all different, tumultuous directions, pinning all of the members in dire situations. Reed Richards, a.k.a Mr. Fantastic, races to save as many inhabitants of an artificial planet before it’s consumed by the planet-devouring Galactus. Sue Storm Richards, a.k.a. Invisible Woman, attempts to bring peace between the ancient tribes of Atlantis and the regal submariner Namor, all while Ben and Johnny, a.k.a. The Thing (who’s powerless at the time) and The Human Torch, try to defend their home against the cult known as the Other Side of Zero who feverishly tried to breach their way through to the negative zone in order to unleashing multitudes of Annihlus’ insectoid soldiers. While Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic bring some resolve to their situations, The Human Torch isn’t as lucky and was destroyed by the Annihlus wave. Or was he? “You don’t actually see him die,” said Ikler at Lee’s, noting that the Torch’s death was only implied. The series was excellently written by Jonathan Hickman and is very entertaining for both seasoned fans of the Four as well as for those who are uninitiated.