From The Vaults: UNCANNY X-MEN #137

While we spend a great deal of time engrossed in the current crop of comic books, let us not forget those fantastic tales from the past that still sit in amongst our collections and are always worth revisiting...

UNCANNY X-MEN #137

Writer: Chris Claremont

Art: John Byrne, Terry Austin & Glynis Wein

Marvel

Rob N: 'Phoenix Must Die!' screamed the sensational cover blurb of Uncanny X-Men #137 when it came out in 1980 as the concluding issue of the Dark Phoenix storyline. This had been a sequence of storytelling that had set fandom buzzing with excitement on a scale never seen before, and probably never seen again until Watchmen was serialised. A multi-part sequence that had its seeds sown in the equally epic Hellfire Club story arc, it inspired all manner of fan theories in the small press publications of the time and left us all on tenterhooks as each issue was devoured for clues, scraps of clues and, well, scraps. This was the very peak of the Claremont/Byrne partnership (not forgetting Terry Austin on inks – no one inked Byrne better than he did), pairing up great writing with exceptional art to deliver what is in retrospect a milestone of the late Bronze Age.

But of course we didn’t believe the cover blurb for a moment as we gazed at the cover. Yes, Marvel occasionally killed a supporting character for dramatic effect, but a central member of the X-Men who could trace her lineage all the way to the first issue? I mean – Jean Grey? No way. It was just the usual Marvel bombastic hyperbole that we came to expect on the covers.

Excelsior.

STAN LEE 1922-2018

Andrew B: I first met Stan Lee one Tuesday evening in late October 1972. In our front room. Over beans and poached eggs on toast.

I was ten years old then and, of course, Stan wasn’t there physically. That would have been odd. What was there instead was the first issue of a new comic my Nan who worked in a newsagent had dropped by. It had a big green guy not looking too happy on the cover. The Hulk. And another guy in a red and blue costume swinging across the cover on a kind of web. Spider-Man. And four other guys (one of whom was a girl), one in flames and one made out of what looked like orange house bricks. The Fantastic Four.

The Mighty World of Marvel #1. Day One of the rest of my comic-reading life.

Because the thing about Stan Lee was, he never had to be literally with you to make an impact on you. Like all great writers, all he needed to make you think, to make you feel, to make you change, were words. Words that when written down are just shapes and squiggles on a page, but when spoken to the spirit become stronger than steel, more powerful than plutonium.

“With great power there must also come great responsibility… Fate gave me some terrific super-powers and I realize now that it’s my duty to use them… without doubt… without hesitation…Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy. It’s when the going’s tough… when there seems to be no chance… that’s when it counts… Somehow, at the last minute, some of your own heroism reached out through the endless void… and touched him… In all the galaxies… I have found no planet more blessed than this… It is as though the human race has been divinely favoured over all who live… And yet… in their uncontrollable insanity… they seek to destroy this shining jewel… this softly spinning gem… this tiny blessed sphere… which men call Earth.”

Working The Boxes: The Unbearable Lightness Of Comic Marts, Part II

Working The Boxes is all about back issue discoveries, whether they're buried in dusty old comic boxes or digitally sourced online.

Rob N: Comic marts in the past may have been wet and windy affairs, but last Sunday saw the return of the heatwave that turned us all into sunbaked desert lizards for most of the summer. It was a fitting start then to our hunting expedition to London in search of old comic books and ephemera. No need to burden myself down with heavy coats and umbrellas this time around; just a small day bag and, tucked inside, a good sturdy hemp-based 'bag for life' to hold the inevitable books I’d be buying.

Other than that I armed myself with a single sheet of A4 paper on which I’d scribbled the numbers of comics I was particularly looking out for. I always have a full Excel spreadsheet of my comic collection loaded onto my phone, but in the heat of the crate digging that goes on at comic marts a single sheet of paper is easier to consult as you shuffle along the rows of boxes.

Working The Boxes: The Unbearable Lightness Of Comic Marts

Working The Boxes is all about back issue discoveries, whether they're buried in dusty old comic boxes or digitally sourced online.

Rob N: Summer frankly wouldn’t be summer without a few weekend outings to look forward to, and so it is that this coming Sunday I’ll be joining a handful of the PCG regulars in the capital to run rampant through the double conference rooms that make up the decades-old London Comic Mart. Like hyperactive kids who’ve binged on too many sugary snacks I suspect we’ll be gleefully ransacking the boxes, inevitably making those agonising life or death choices as to what we can afford to pick up and what we’ll have to leave behind for another day, after which we’ll probably retire to a nearby watering hole to proudly compare and contrast our bags of savage plunder.

The humble comic mart is something of a throwback to a pre-Internet age; a world apart from the growing sophistication of the major comic book conventions that offer a very professional weekend experience with top end creators as guests and slick panel discussions with their carefully curated insights into the creative process. Often situated in town or church halls or the sort of hotel conference rooms that Alan Partridge might frequent, the comic mart is concerned only with retail, packing in rows of trestle tables piled high with back issues, licensed toys and vintage ephemera. Sometimes resembling a land where ageing comic dealers come to die, this elephant’s graveyard of comic book dealing is the Mecca for back issue collectors like me.

The Shipping Forecast: October 2018

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the August issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in October 2018.

SHURI #1

Writer: Nnedi Okorafor

Art: Leonardo Romero

Marvel $3.99

Jo S: With her brother King T’Challa travelling the multiverse, the Wakandan princess is being drawn away from the safe space of her scientific work to satisfy her duty as regent in his absence, a role which does not sit lightly on young shoulders. For me, Shuri is one of the best parts of the Black Panther stories; she’s fantastically intelligent but also calm, witty, capable, loyal, honest and independent and I'm genuinely excited to read a comic with her in the lead role. Artist Romero is producing some really interesting work on Immortal Hulk currently and feels like a good fit for this project, and writer Okorafor has written for Wakanda-based stories previously: her background in science fiction and Afrofuturism makes her the ideal person to give Shuri the right stuff to take on this new challenge.

The Shipping Forecast: August 2018

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the June issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in August 2018.

FANTASTIC FOUR #1

Writer: Dan Slott

Art: Sara Pichelli

Marvel $5.99

Matt C: Before the likes of the X-Men and the Avengers caught my attention, the Fantastic Four were the first superteam I fell in love with at an early age. It was probably the family angle that appealed the most, the bonds between the characters bringing them to life in ways that ensured the foursome found a permanent place in my heart. I've not religiously picked up Fantastic Four comics since - there have been periods were it wasn't even close to being the 'World's Greatest Comics Magazine' - but when it's been good it has up there with the best the genre has to offer, and their absence from the Marvel Universe over the last couple of years has been felt. The recent Marvel 2-In-One series was a highly enjoyable reminder of why these characters are so enduring and while there's no guarantee this relaunch will result in another classic run, it will be great to have them back.

Do You Remember The First Time? THOR #175

In Do You Remember The First Time? we take a nostalgic trip back in time to discuss a seminal purchase that introduced us to a character, title, creator, or even a hobby.

Rob N: This has to be the tattiest looking comic in my collection, which probably speaks volumes as to how often I read and re-read it as a kid. Sandwiched in-between my glossy Fine Plus to Very Fine vintage collectables, it skulks like a scruffy urchin who has wandered in by accident to an Eton School line up, with grass stains on his knees. It’s possibly my first ever Marvel comic, or if not precisely the first, then certainly close enough. I’d already bought a few DC titles previously because early ‘70s DC covers just begged you to pick them up and see what was inside, but soon enough I was experimenting with Marvel, and Thor #175 was possibly my introduction to the House of Ideas.

And what an introduction it was!

I think it was the Kirby interior art that did it for me, because looking through the pages again for the first time in decades, I’m struck by how dynamic and bright his art really is. It’s amazing to see how on top of his game Jack was towards the end of his tenure with Marvel (within a few months he’d be gone, taking up a new job with DC) when logically you might think he’d be turning in half-hearted work, simply meeting his remaining obligations until he was free to go and unleash his Fourth World concepts for Marvel’s rivals. But no, this is classic Kirby that also benefits from a period when Marvel's printing quality was first rate (contrast with the rather grubby looking printing of many mid- to-late '80s Marvel comics).

LEN WEIN RIP

Rob N: Growing up in the '70s and '80s in the UK, it wasn’t actually that easy to get hold of Len Wein’s most groundbreaking work. The first time I really registered his name (in conjunction with Bernie Wrightson) was with Swamp Thing in the early '70s but, by the time it was being touted as a must-have series, back issues were hard to come by and comparatively expensive (almost as scarce as anything drawn by Neal Adams). I remember saving up my pocket money and sending off a postal order for a couple of early copies of Swamp Thing from a back issue ad in Alan Austin's Comics Unlimited (the main UK comics fanzine at the time) only to have my money returned a week later with an apology note telling me that back copies of Swamp Thing sell out really quickly, and better luck next time.

I was on board though when Len Wein took over writing Phantom Stranger, one of the other quality mystery/supernatural comics put out by DC in the early '70s, and that quickly became a firm favourite in my teenage years. His run between issues #14 to #26 were a high point for the character in my opinion. I was also on board for some classic Batman stories, including the murder of Talia al Ghul (spoiler alert: she’s not really dead) and a rather bizarre and offbeat piece of Bronze Sge comic history – a very unofficial crossover of stories between the Marvel and DC universes in which Len Wein himself, and other comic book creators and their wives, guest-starred with established Marvel and DC heroes all attending the Halloween celebrations in Rutland, Vermont (presumably all taking place on the same night). The first that Marvel and DC knew about this unofficial crossover was when the unauthorised stories saw print. It is a sign of the innocence of the times that writers were able to get away with such things without ruffling any editorial feathers higher up in the food chain.

From The Vaults: MARVEL PREVIEW #11

While we spend a great deal of time engrossed in the current crop of comic books, let us not forget those fantastic tales from the past that still sit in amongst our collections and are always worth revisiting...

MARVEL PREVIEW #11

Writer: Chris Claremont

Art: John Byrne & Terry Austin

Marvel

Rob N: 'All New! One Man Against a Galactic Empire!' screamed the exclamation mark heavy cover.

It was the summer of 1977 – a hot one, as I recall - and like every other 13 year-old boy I was getting rather too excited about a new science fiction film called Star Wars that hadn’t yet reached the rundown Flora Cinema in Helston, Cornwall (a place where films came to die after a long run in more respectable movie theatres the length and breadth of the UK). Everyone was suddenly in a Sci-Fi frenzy, as starships and blaster rays and old fashioned pulp storytelling had bludgeoned the rather more literary pretensions of the New Wave of SF which had dominated the scene since the late '60s. Just a few years ago a typical SF title might have been something like I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, or Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones or "Repent, Harlequin!" Said The Ticktockman, with narrative flourishes that matched the ambiguity of the titles.

But that was then, and now it was now, and by 1977 it was the return of Space Opera, harking back to the 1930s, '40s and '50s, when chiseled-jawed heroes (almost certainly American) piloting jet-fighter starships in combat with surprisingly humanoid looking aliens who were trying to carry off long-legged heroines with heaving bosoms. The pseudo-intellectual titles were soon to give way to Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica and Battle Beyond The Stars.

You get the idea.

Do You Remember The First Time? CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON #182

In Do You Remember The First Time? we take a nostalgic trip back in time to discuss a seminal purchase that introduced us to a character, title, creator, or even a hobby.

Rob N: I should perhaps come clean and begin by admitting that Captain America #182 wasn't actually my first Captain America comic, but sadly the advance of senility combined with the fact that I didn't buy that title in my early years of comic collecting means that the memory of my actual first issue is lost to posterity.

It could have been anything, to be honest, and probably was.

The thing is, I wasn't actually that keen on Cap to begin with. Yes, he was the mainstay of the Avengers, but he seemed a bit old fashioned even by Marvel standards, what with him lecturing Rick Jones and the 'Teen Brigade' (a worrying concept these days in light of Operation Yewtree) on the importance of getting at least eight hours sleep each night instead of riding around on Chopper bikes pretending to be the Fonz from Happy Days. He was a bit too clean cut and patriotic for the early 1970s when all the world seemed to be growing its hair long and protesting against Vietnam. I perhaps missed the point of Cap to begin with – that he was indeed a Stranger in a Strange Land, relegated to an era he didn't fully understand, and trying desperately to come to terms with it. By the mid-'70s writers like Steve Englehart took that concept in interesting directions when, with issue #175, Cap had his moment of doubt in the concept of Truth, Justice and the American Flag. At the culmination of a long running 'Secret Empire' saga he tracked down the leader of the villainous cabal that was out to corrupt American society to the very offices of the White House itself. There, in the heart of Government, Cap unmasks the villain as central to the US Government, though we don't see his face ourselves. The man commits suicide and Cap is left shaken with the realisation that... shock, horror... politicians may not always be honourable men! (Relax, this is only comic books – it could never be the case in real life).

Ten Forward: June 2016

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the April issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in June 2016.

SUPERMAN #1

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi

Art: Patrick Gleason & Mick Gray

DC $2.99

Stewart R: Words and art, art and words. First it was beckoning me into their world of Green Lantern Corps and keeping me there. Then it was dragging my eyes and heart willingly through Batman And Robin's emotional father/son drama as they explored Bruce, Damian and Alfred's relationship. So yes, without hesitation, I will be buying and reading Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's Superman come this new 'Rebirth' as this creative combo have delivered the most consistent and gloriously high calibre DC superhero experiences to me since I've been reading works from the publisher. Doug Mahnke is joining in on the fun as a regular artist (to keep up with DC's challenging/punishing schedule) in tandem with Gleason and that should be a reasonable fit for visual consistency. Tomasi is currently dealing with the mortality of Superman in the current volume so we shall see what sort of rollercoaster he inevitably delivers when the Last Son of Krypton is reborn this June.

Ten Forward: April 2016

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the February issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in April 2016.

STAR WARS: POE DAMERON #1

Writer: Charles Soule

Art: Phil Noto

Marvel $4.99

James R: He may have been given slightly short shrift in The Force Awakens, but the Resistance's best pilot has certainly gained some traction in the world of comics. Firstly, we learned all about his parents in Greg Rucka's Shattered Empire series, and now it's Charles Soule's turn to tell us about Poe Dameron's adventures right before the events of Episode VII. With luscious art from Phil Noto, this was an immediate 'Yes' for me as a rabid Star Wars fan. Given the track records of the creators in both comics and the Marvel Star Wars books, this looks like another successful addition to a line of titles that's quickly established itself as the market leaders in the mainstream.

Ten Forward: March 2016

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the January issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in March 2016.

BLACK WIDOW #1

Writer: Chris Samnee & Mark Waid

Art: Chris Samnee

Marvel $3.99

Stewart R: I quite enjoyed Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto's recent Black Widow series (though some of the later issues remain in that growing pile of unread comics presently), but the prospect of Waid and Samnee picking up Natasha's story after their incredible run on Daredevil is just a reader's dream. It certainly appears that following Scarlett Johansson's successful portrayal of Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the publisher are keen to push the character's profile ever more to the fore - something we can expect of Janet(Hope) Van Dyne in the next few years too I imagine - and from an interview with the pair over at CBR last year it seems that they have a fairly open plan with very few constraints. The interesting thing for me is that where Waid really got to the heart of who Matt Murdock was in Daredevil it seems that Natasha has always been a more mysterious, enigmatic character and I'm excited to see this master writer tackle her motives and emotions.

The Paradoscars 2015

This is now the 9th year we've run the Paradoscars here (formally known as the Paradox "Oscars") and it was in existence 'offline' for several years before that. Yep, we like voting for a best 'things' of the year and we like it even more ever since we invited our readership to join in. So, while the PCG may have come up with the nominations in each category, the winners were chosen by you. As ever, in some categories the voting was very tight, in others (*cough*'Best Publisher'*cough*) the winner left their fellow nominees in the dust.

The winners have now been announced, once again at the local curry house with a tipsy PCG. While all the nominees deserved the limelight, we feel the winners have come out on top because they deserved to be there – in other words, they’re the best of the best.

Thanks to everyone all of you who voted, especially considering many of our nominees weren’t more mainstream, predictable choices, and we do hope you all come back for more passionate opinions on our beloved medium next year.

And so here they are, the winners of the Paradoscars 2015:

Ten Forward: January 2016

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the November issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in January 2016.

Also this month, we welcome Ann L and Billy P to the assembled ranks of The PCG.

GUTTER MAGIC #1

Writer: Rich Douek

Art: Brett Barkley

IDW $3.99

Ann L: I don’t know if it’s the fact that this book is being released on my birthday next year or if it’s the part fantasy, part noir feel to the cover that’s drawing me in, but any comic that has its main character, Cinder Byrnes, trying to "lie, cheat and steal his way into wizardry" has my vote. Like you, I’m picky with what I read, and if I’m going to commit four months of my life and invest in a book, then it’s got to have that je ne sais quoi! Set in a modern NYC, where World War II was fought with magic and not bombs, Rich Douek’s Gutter Magic seems to be asking: what if Cinder Byrnes could use magic? And what if your closest ally was a green-skinned goblin, and your sidekick a powerful magician reminiscent of Hermione Granger? This has all the elements of Scott Snyder’s terrifying Wytches, Greg Rucka’s excellent Black Magick and Marguerite Bennett’s stunning DC Comics Bombshells all wrapped up into one glorious hodgepodge, and I for one can’t wait to blow out my candles, have a slice of cake and cosy up and dig into what is surely going to be a dark magical adventure.

Ten Forward: December 2015

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the October issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in December 2015.

LAST GANG IN TOWN #1

Writer: Simon Oliver

Art: Rufus Dayglo

DC/Vertigo $3.99

Rob N: I was 12 in 1976, which is more or less the age when you begin to take in cultural references and develop your own tastes in music and other forms of media, so to an extent I'm probably of the 'Punk Generation'. Whenever I see old news clips of the Seventies, often strangely tinted as if the ageing film stock has gradually decayed in a derelict warehouse over the years, the word 'beige' always springs to mind, and yet my memories of the decade are far more colourful. The Last Gang In Town is pitched as a retro-crime drama spanning three decades that kicks off in 'Punk' England in 1976, a year which I recall was a cultural wasteland, sandwiched as it was at the tail end of the mid-decade, somewhere between the cosmic 'anything goes' experimentation of 1970 to 1972 and the 'rip it up and start again' attitude of 1977 to 1979. Frankly, even Marvel and DC comics weren't particularly good in 1976. I suspect this new title will almost certainly over-romanticise the Punk movement and make it seem like everyone under the age of 19 wore tartan bondage trousers, grew a mohawk and put a safety pin through their nose in 1977, whereas in fact the typically bemused audiences at punk gigs tended to look like members of Oasis circa 1995, only wearing flared jeans and Led Zeppelin t-shirts, but I am resigned by now to the late Seventies being depicted in a way that would be unrecognisable to anyone who wasn't a regular at a handful of counter culture clubs in the back streets of London and Manchester. I recently read the superb The Long Firm trilogy of crime novels by Jake Arnott that takes a similar approach and succeeds to epic effect, so what I'm hoping for here is that this comic series may do something similar without sliding too far into the fictional clichés inherent in the various decades.

Ten Forward: November 2015

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the September issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in November 2015.

DARK KNIGHT III: THE MASTER RACE #1

Writer: Frank Miller & Brian Azzarello

Art: Andy Kubert & Klaus Janson

DC $5.99

James R: This is one of those titles that, as an old school fanboy, you just have to flag up and take a look at. I distinctly recall being sat in a DC panel at the late, lamented Bristol Comics Expo, and being shown the first images from The Dark Knight Strikes Again - back then, there was a genuine sense of excitement that Frank Miller was continuing the story of the aged Batman. It's fair to say that DK2 was a book that divided opinions - some people loved it, others found it indicative of a great talent in decline. The announcement from DC that there would be a third chapter in the Dark Knight saga was a surprising one, as was the news that the series would be co-written by his close friend Brian Azzarello, and illustrated by Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson. I think it's questionable how much this will be Miiler wanting to return to his Batman mythos one more time, and how much it will be DC trading on the Dark Knight Returns name. They're certainly releasing it in formats that will test both the patience and wallets of fans, but the bottom line is this first issue will be a fascinating read, and a required purchase.

Ten Forward: October 2015

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the August issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in October 2015.

PAPER GIRLS #1

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Art: Cliff Chiang & Matt Wilson

Image $2.99

Rob N: If you're a highly respected writer with a devoted following then you have the luxury of launching a new ongoing series without going into much detail of what it's about. You can simply say, for example, “This is my new comic book and it's about a group of paper girls having adventures!” and leave it at that because your devoted following will then say, “Wow, it's a new Brian K. Vaughan series, so it's obviously going to be good. We must buy it!” It helps then if your name does happen to be Brian K. Vaughan, which in the case of Paper Girls, it is. 'Paper Girls', if you're not familiar with the term, is a somewhat outdated concept in the modern world (now that we all get our news from the internet) which may still exist in quiet rural villages in Dorset where small children on bicycles deliver newspapers for three shillings and sixpence an hour and a handful of Werther's Original Toffees as a tip at Christmas. If they have adventures it usually involves thwarting dastardly foreigners who are almost certainly Communists or Germans or working class, or all three. They wear shorts or pleated skirts and say “Golly Gosh!” a lot. This may not, however, be an accurate prediction for the tone of a new Brian K. Vaughan series called Paper Girls.

Do You Remember The First Time? FANTASTIC FOUR #92

In Do You Remember The First Time? we take a nostalgic trip back in time to discuss a seminal purchase that introduced us to a character, title, creator, or even a hobby.

Rob N: Despite it being labelled 'The World's Greatest Comic Magazine' I didn't initially pick up the Fantastic Four during my weekly trips to the newsagent. I was going by the covers in the early 1970s and around about '71, '72 all the most enticing covers were DC ones. When I did pick up Marvel titles they tended to be Avengers and various solo books. I think I was put off Fantastic Four by the fact they all wore the same costume... that and the fact they were very small 'c' conservative in a 1950s wholesome Midwest American way. Reed Richards seemed to be the same age as my dad and Sue Storm seemed to simply dream of being a housewife with a life spent baking, hosting coffee mornings and swapping tips for exciting new cleaning products that can cope with stains that ordinary bleaches fail to remove. As for Johnny Storm, if he was a teenager, he certainly wasn't like any teenager I'd ever seen. Somehow you just knew he didn't like King Crimson. If the Fantastic Four were a family, then they were a Don Draper 1950s family, and that felt very outdated by 1974 when I did eventually pick up some second hand copies of the title. Even then there was another problem in that I'd sort of promised to not buy the Fantastic Four in a detente agreement between the kids on my street who collected Marvel comics - an agreement that was every bit as formal as U.S./Russian missile treaties were at the time.

Ten Forward: September 2015

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the July issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in September 2015.

TOKYO GHOST #1

Writer: Rick Remender

Art: Sean Murphy & Matt Hollingsworth

Image $3.50

Stewart R: Whilst suffering through Mark Millar's recent Chrononauts series, the element that compelled me to continue picking it up was the illustrations of Sean Murphy. The man could put his hand to drawing an entire issue of Bendis' talking heads and I'd probably pick it up. So when Murphy's visuals get paired with a writer of astounding quality and consistency, well that surely makes a series unmissable!? With Tokyo Ghost, Rick Remender IS that writer and with the great run he's been having - see Deadly Class, Low, Black Science, Uncanny Avengers - a story about digital addiction in a toxic New Los Angeles future sounds like the perfect fit for this creative duo. The preview art seems to have a few nods to Akira in there and with Tokyo being set as a mysterious, 'lost' Garden City in the year 2189 I'm interested to see if we get any more manga influences along the way.