ATOMIC
EMPIRE

All New Guardians of the Galaxy by Gerry Duggan, with artist Aaron Kuder Gerry Duggan is currently writing for the Deadpool (2016), so getting him in this new project is excellent. The dynamic of Baby Groot with the GotG cast is such a fun relationship to explore, and it's more than enough to whet the appetite of anyone awaiting the GotG: Vol 2 movie in a few months. Sadly, the super-hush-hush sound-bite sized preview is a couple of panels with no dialogue *silently rages and shakes fists*, but it looks fun.

Secret Empire // Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man, with Chip Zdarsky and art by Paulo Siqueira
Secret Empire
This is coming straight out of the now infamous Captain America "Hail Hydra" story. Since Captain America as having been an agent of Hydra this whole time (don't worry, this is an unusual alternate universe situation), the entirety of the Marvel Universe is being threatened by Hydra. Spider-Man, the Avengers, X-Men, Inhumans, Defenders, Champions and more are banding together to destroy Hydra.

Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man is a new "back-to-basics" Spider-Man series which will run parallel to the current volume of The Amazing Spider-Man written by Dan Slott. You can look for the new title to start in June 2017. Chip Zdarsky's best known work is with Matt Fraction on the wildly popular Sex Criminals. He's well known for irreverent humor, and excellent writing that will get you hooked.

I Hate Image by Skottie Young
This is delightful bloody romp through many of the titles from Image starring the cast of I Hate Fairyland. If you are not familiar with Skottie Young already, see my I Hate Fairyland review. Based on the cover of this title, our heroine Gertrude is standing over the broken bodies of very recognizable characters from some major Image titles: B!tch Planet, Walking Dead, Savage Dragon, Spawn, Invincible, Wicked and Divine, Saga, Southern Bastards, Descender, Black Science and more. If you don't know any of the series I just listed, you might feel quite lost. With the limited preview pages available, I was able to see a brief snippet of this quirky love letter to Image. This might prompt some people to pick up these titles, but the references are fast-paced and seamless enough that if you blink, you might miss the point entirely.

DC Girls -- This is an all-ages comic about teenage versions of Wonder Woman and the most visible super-ladies in DC. This is a light read, geared towards a younger audience that will catapult them into reading some of the main titles. Or simply realizing how awesome Wonder Woman is.

Boom! Studios Summer Blast -- This is a neat collection of stories from Mouse Guard, Brave Chef Brianna, and from the Lumberjanes' universe a new series: Coady and the Creepies. I'm looking forward to reading everything in this book, as Mouse Guard is an old favorite, somewhere between Redwall (book series) and Game of Thrones. Brave Chef Brianna is an owner of a new bakery, who moves into a reasonably priced store location which happens to be in Monster Town. Shenanigans ensue. Coady and the Creepies is a story of teenage band members that survive a horrible car accident, but the one person who was uninjured isn't talking about what happened.

Kid Savage -- The concept behind this is solid: a survival story of a caveboy and his two-headed pet in a prehistoric landscape. Then a strange thing from the sky crashes into his world, and nothing is ever the same. I'm told it's the beginning of a graphic novel conveniently releasing on the same day, so if you want more, it's available for order.

Knowing is half the battle; the other half is hiding the bodies,

Dee