The Gosh! Authority 14.02.24

Hello, and Happy Valentine's!

This Wednesday sees Reads, the graphic novel reading group, convene to discuss Lucie Bryon's excellent Thieves. Forget those Valentine's day plans you might have had (or didn't really want to have anyway): getting into a group discussion of one of our best books of 2022 is a far better idea. Get the details here.

Wednesday also marks 38 years since the doors of 39 Great Russell St opened for the first time! Happy Birthday to us!

Okay, let's get to the comics...

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• RED HOOD THE HILL #1 - Jason Todd dusts off his hood to help defend his new neighborhood against villains, vigilantes, and gentrification in this new series by Shawn Martinbrough and artist Sanford Greene. The art on this is lovely, and Martinbrough has already proven himself as a solid writer for Todd. Should be a good six issues.

• DUTCH #1 - Joe Casey returns to the 90s with Chap Yaep's Youngblood-adjacent creation, Dutch, following on from his Image 30th Anniversary story with Nathan Fox. In this new all-action series with artist Simon Gane, Dutch is drawn back into the world of superhero action that he left behind 30 years ago, with a cybernetic kill-team on his tale. I do love Casey's work when he goes off the rails, and Gane, one of the UK's best, most criminally under-appreciated artists, is always worth the price of entry.

• NIGHT THRASHER #1 - Speaking of the 90s, I know you're out there, Night Thrasher fans! One of the ultimate 90's heroes returns courtesy of Jason Holtham and Nelson Daniel. Long retired, Dwayne is lured back into the vigilante life when he gets a call from ex-New Warriors teammate Silhouette. The publisher blurb for this says he's leaving the 90s behind him, but then it also starts with the sentence "It's time to thrash the night!", which sounds pretty damn 90's to me. But hey, it's Night Thrasher! The 90s is what we want!

• CREEPSHOW JOE HILL’S WOLVERTON STATION ONE-SHOT - A standalone story by celebrated horror writer Joe Hill (adapting and expanding one of his own short stories with Jason Ciaramella) and artist Michael Walsh. When a businessman takes a late-night train, he finds himself with some unwelcome furry carriage-mates after a stop at the mysterious Wolverton Station.

• SINISTER SONS #1 - Forget the adventures of the Super-Sons, Peter J. Tomasi and David Lafuente have an entirely more entertaining proposition. The sons of Zod and Sinestro, Lor-Zod and Sinson, have some serious daddy issues, so they're hitting the galactic road to show they've got the villainous goods to carry their family names.

• IF YOU FIND THIS I’M ALREADY DEAD #1 - Matt Kindt teams up with Gosh fave Dan McDaid for a dimension-hopping sci-fi series. The US make a military incursion into Terminus, a dimension of mad alien gods and monsters. Attached to a squad of Marines is reporter Robin, who finds herself alone after the Marines are slaughtered, surviving as best she can, and determined to do her job in a hostile, alien world.

• DISPLACED #1 - The town of Oshawa, Ontario has vanished, the place and nearly all its populace of 170,000 souls. Nobody even remembers the place ever existed, apart from those residents who were out of town when it occured. Now they need to piece together what's happened and find each other in a world that doesn't believe their story. There are some big mysteries in Ed Brisson and Luca Casalanguida's new series, and the preview I've read makes me very optimistic about this one.

• SCARLET WITCH AND QUICKSILVER #1 - Steve Orlando and Luciano Vecchio pick up where their Scarlet Witch series left off, changing the format a little to tell an extended story with Wanda and her twin brother Pietro. The pair fall out after Wanda destroys a final missive from their father Magneto to ostensibly protect Quicksilver. But the pair need to get their act together to tackle the menace of an upgraded Wizard, who's after their heads.

• THE INFERNALS #1 - How nasty does a power struggle get between the descendants of the devil? Well, we're about to find out in this new series by Ryan Parrott, Noah Gardner and John Pearson. The son of Satan gathers his three children, announcing he has only one month to live, and one of them must take up his mantle as the Anti-Christ. But which one is worthy? Let the evil in-fighting begin!

• BLUE BOOK 1947 #1 - The return of James Tynion IV and Michael Avon Oeming's adaptation of the stories from Project Blue Book. The US Air Force investigation into UFOs that ran through the 50s and 60s documented people's stories of close encounters and abductions. This time we're going through tales from 1947.

• THE CABINET #1 - A light-hearted adventure of mysterious, magical cabinets, ancient evils, and parricide. Jordan Hart, David Ebeltoft and Chiara Raimondi tell the story of two teens road-tripping (well, teleporting) across America trying to put their past wrongs to right.

And with that, I'll see you next week!

Andrew.