Skybound X (2021)

Celebrate a sensational 10 years of Skybound with a cavalcade of your favorite creators and all-new stories of your favorite series past, present, and future! Each issue of this oversized, weekly series will kick off with a new chapter of a serialized The Walking Dead story – Rick Grimes 2000.

Also debuting all-new series and characters every issue, starting with the first appearance of the most requested Walking Dead character of all-time: Clementine, star of the bestselling Telltale’s The Walking Dead video game series!

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel (2005)

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel (later collected as simply Luthor) is a five-issue monthly limited series written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Lee Bermejo, which features Superman‘s nemesis Lex Luthor as the protagonist.

It explores Luthor’s motivations behind being a constant foe to the Man of Steel inside a city that has largely embraced him. Luthor views Superman as a demigod who looks down on humanity and believes that in order to “save” the human race from extraterrestrial threats, Superman must be stopped.

The Incredibles (2004)

Based on the smash cinematic blockbuster, this graphic novelization recounts the reawakening of dormant heroism that has seemingly been stifled by social conformity and lowered mid-life expectations. Bob Parr, his wife Helen, daughter Violet, son Dash, and baby Jack-Jack grapple with the banality of a comfortable suburban existence and yearn to reaffirm their individuality by expressing their unique “super”-powers.

Unlike most movie adaptations, this succeeds in both being faithful to and expanding the original plotline. It helps when the artist is a Pixar storyboarder and the writer is the film’s director. Serving up high quality art and narrative, this tale lives up to expectations.

Tales from the Crypt (1950)

Tales from the Crypt was an American bi-monthly horror comic anthology series published by EC Comics from 1950 to 1955, producing 27 issues (the first issue with the title was #20, previously having been International Comics (#1–5); International Crime Patrol (#6); Crime Patrol (#7–16) and The Crypt of Terror (#17–19) for a total of 46 issues in the series). Along with its sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of HorrorTales from the Crypt was popular, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s comic books came under attack from parents, clergymen, schoolteachers and others who believed the books contributed to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. In April and June 1954, highly publicized congressional subcommittee hearings on the effects of comic books upon children left the industry shaken. With the subsequent imposition of a highly restrictive Comics Code, EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines cancelled Tales from the Crypt and its two companion horror titles, along with the company’s remaining crime and science fiction series in September 1954.

Shogun Warriors (1979)

The Shogun Warriors characters were licensed by Marvel Comics to create a comic book series written by Doug Moench and drawn by Herb Trimpe. The series was composed of 20 issues that were published from February 1979 to September 1980. In the comic book series, the Shogun Warriors were created by a mysterious group called the Followers of the Light, and human operators were chosen from all around the world to operate the massive robots in order to battle evil.

The Creech: Out for Blood (2001)

The new series picks up right where the original left off when reporter Chris Rafferty sees Agency Director Dross on TV. Rafferty is certain he saw Dross fatally impaled during the heated battle with the aliens where the Creech sacrificed himself. Now, if Dross is alive, Rafferty questions if anything he remembers actually happened at all.

Dross, who has mysteriously returned from the dead, finds himself in deep trouble for having allowed his genetic engineering program to spin so far out of control. The disappearance of the Creech seems be the triggering event leading to an intergalactic war between two alien races.

Moonshadow (1985)

Moonshadow was originally a twelve-issue maxi-series by Marvel Comics under the Epic imprint. It was the first American comic book whose art was done entirely by painting. The series was subsequently reprinted as a single volume in 1989. Also in 1989, a limited edition hardcover was also released by Graphitti Designs. Only 1200 copies of this edition were published, each individually numbered and signed by DeMatteis and Muth.

The story takes the form of an eclectic and quirky fairy tale with satirical elements and dealing with philosophical concerns. It is told via the framing device of Moonshadow, now 120, looking back on his earlier life. The action concerns the events leading up to the “awakening” of Moonshadow, the child of a hippy mother and an enigmatic alien father. The alien, who resembles a glowing orb of light bearing a stylized human face, abducted Moonshadow’s mother from Earth in 1968 along with her black pet cat, Frodo. When the idealistic and naive Moonshadow is orphaned at approximately age 15, he becomes friends with a venal and opportunistic furry humanoid named Ira. Moonshadow and Ira and Frodo the cat set out to find a life for themselves in the stars.

In 1994, DC Comics, under their Vertigo imprint, republished the individual issues as a limited series. The Compleat Moonshadow followed in 1998. This edition also included Farewell, Moonshadow, a one-issue sequel, also published by Vertigo, which, set long after the action of the first miniseries, acts as a coda to the series. The Compleat Moonshadow included textual revisions to the original series.

 

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996)

This six-issue comic book series was written by John Wagner and illustrated by Kilian Plunkett; Steve Perry was a story consultant. It focuses on Boba Fett and his fellow bounty hunters (first seen briefly in The Empire Strikes Back) as well as Jix, a hireling of Darth Vader who infiltrates Jabba the Hutt’s gang of bikers (led by Gizman) to prevent their attempt to kill Luke Skywalker.

Two separate mini-comics were released with Micro Machines toys (with three alternative covers) and Ertl model kits. A pop-up comic was also made, entitled Battle of the Bounty Hunters. A one-shot comic titled The Jabba Tape also features Gizman around the time of Return of the Jedi and was illustrated by Plunkett.

Moebius: Tueur de Monde (Killer of the World) 1985

Tueur de Monde (translation: Killer of the World) follows a space traveller named Fildegar, a human crew member on a tubular vessel called the Laché Tout (Drop Everything), a floating greenhouse filled with fields of flowers. When Fildegar is not nurturing the flora inside the ship, he passes his time painting frescoes on the corridor walls, gazing into the ship’s central crystal and on rare occasions filing away old photographs which often reminds Fildegar of past memories. Suddenly Fildegar’s ship enters an unknown galaxy and discovers a planet called Bar-Jona inhabited by the contemplative creatures the Tragos. After landing on the planet’s surface and greeting it’s indigenous population, Fildegar inexplicably becomes pulled by some mysterious force and finds himself gazing up at a giant fungi.

Wolverine V2 (1990’s)

John Byrne stated, in both interviews and his website, that he drew a possible face for Wolverine, but then learned that Dave Cockrum had already drawn him unmasked in X-Men #98 (April 1976), long before Byrne’s run on the series. Later, Byrne used the drawing for the face of Sabretooth, an enemy of the martial artist superhero Iron Fist, whose stories Chris Claremont was writing. Byrne then conceived of the idea of Sabretooth being Wolverine’s father. Together, Byrne and Claremont came up with Wolverine being approximately 60 years old and having served in World War II after escaping from Sabretooth, who was approximately 120 years old. The plan had been for Wolverine to have been almost crushed in an accident; he would discover, when attempting to stand for the first time after recovering, that his healing factor does not work on bones, and his legs immediately break. He then spends over a decade in a hospital bed, almost going mad, when the Canadian government approaches him with the idea of replacing his skeleton one bone at a time with adamantium, the claws being a surprise. This origin, too, was never used.