It's been a few weeks since I last updated, because I didn't have anything new on the shelves last week (March 7.) This week, though - three books! Darth Vader #13, which begins a huge new story arc, Astonishing X-Men #9, continuing Charles Xavier's rocky post-reincarnation reintroduction to reality, and of course, the biggie, the ne plus ultra... CURSE WORDS #12!!!

A few words on each below, and as always, each image is a link to a spot where you can buy that cover, if you so choose. Let's start with CURSE WORDS, since it is objectively the best.

CURSE WORDS #12 has three covers - the A cover by series artist and gentleman scholar Ryan Browne, the B cover by scholarly gentleman Buster Moody and the C cover, a gorgeous beast of a thing by gorgeous beast Ryan Browne - a wraparound, logoless poster cover that shows most of the main Curse Words cast and is crammed full of "hidden Simons" for you to find. If you didn't know, Ryan hides his strange, ridiculous cat in every issue of Curse Words, sometimes more than once. Here, he's taken that questionable practice to an extreme and stuffed Simons all over the place. The wraparound is part of a special celebration of artists during all of March by Image, and our cover stands in some great company along similar wraparounds by Jamie McKelvie (Wicked + Divine), Esad Ribic (Vs.) and many more. Here's the Buster Moody cover:

And the stunning wraparound, which really is best experienced in real life:

Now, what's going on in this issue? Well, it's part two of "The Hole Damned World," the book's third story arc. We follow Jacques Zacques deeper into his hellish tour of the hellish hell dimension that is the Hole World, homeland of Wizord, Ruby Stitch, Margaret and many of our other terrible, wonderful characters. Wizord gets really mad. We have a massive, super fun magical battle with a surprise twist ending, and... Margaret changes forms again! You won't want to miss it. Ryan Browne and I were both at Emerald City Comicon a few weeks ago, and we were thrilled at all the love this book was getting. People enjoy funny, dark books about a family of wizards in NYC - who knew? If you haven't tried CURSE WORDS yet, you can check it out here - give it a try!

Darth Vader #13, with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Daniele Orlandini, colors by David Curiel and letters by Joe Caramagna, begins a new arc entitled "The Burning Seas." The story flash-forwards from where we left off in Vader #12, to a point about three years into the reign of Emperor Palpatine. So, we get some awesome new additions to the Imperial arsenal (Star Destroyers, Stormtroopers and such), and a Vader who has settled fully into his role as Jedi-Hunter Supreme and head of the Inquisitorius. Those folks have settled down a bit too from how we last saw them - they're a lean, mean fighting force. No one messes with them, and no one messes with Vader.

The arc is set on one of my favorite planets in all of Star Wars, the water world of Mon Cala that's home to one of the best characters in all of Star Wars, Admiral Ackbar. He's not an admiral yet in this story, though - just the head of the royal guar for King Lee Char, a character we saw coronated back in the Clone Wars TV series. This arc has some of my deepest continuity cuts, calling back to all sorts of Prequel-era stuff as well as Rebels-era things - it's a lot of fun, and (a) helps to set up the galactic importance of the Mon Calamari in the wars to come, and (b) dovetails very neatly with what's going on right now in the Star Wars comic being written by Kieron Gillen, too. I hope you'll check it out!

Astonishing X-Men #9 - drawn by Matteo Buffagni, colors by Giada Marchisio, and letters, as always, by Clayton Cowles. We're getting deeper into the battle with Proteus here, and he reveals his ultimate plan (or at least some of it.) The X-Men books have often been a vehicle for commentary on the current state of affairs in the world, and this issue is a bit of that, #10 even moreso. What even is reality these days?

So there you have it, three books from me this week, and I think they're all pretty great. If you have a chance to check any of them out, please let me know what you think!

March 14, 2018- CURSE WORDS #12, DARTH VADER #13, ASTONISHING X-MEN #9