New This Week: May 29, 2008

I've gotten out of the habit of doing these, but I'll try to do them more often. But especially this week I couldn't miss it, because there's a lot of great comics hitting the shelves on Thursday!

There are a couple of large omnibuses (omnibi?) this week: The first hardcover omnibus of James Robinson's Starman, one of the best super-hero comics of the past twenty years (and, we should add, a series that launched as part of the oft-maligned Zero Hour). Fifty bucks might seem steep, but that for seventeen issues—448 pages— which works out to about $3 each, and you get it in a handsome hardcover.

If you're looking for an even bigger bang for your omnibus buck, you might take a gander at the massive (900+ pages!) Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives, featuring three decades worth of work by the humorist. There's also the first volume of John Byrne's Next Men, which features the first twelve issues of that comic plus the 2112 graphic novella.

Other collections of interest include the hardcover of Joshua W. Cotter's offbeat Skyscrapers of the Midwest; a paperback of Jessica Abel's La Perdida; and a new Hellboy trade, Darkness Calls.

In floppy-land, it's a huge Grant Morrison week; Of course there's the debut issue of Final Crisis, but there's also the penultimate issue of All-Star Superman and the second chapter oof "Batman RIP" in Batman #677. Marvel have–finally–the conclusion of Joss Whedon & John Cassaday's X-Men in Giant Size Astonishing X-Men; Paul Tobin & David Hahn bringing the fun in Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #36; and Jeff Parker's X-Men First Class #12 is an all-Angel issue, so I'm really hoping that it includes the previously-bumped Colleen Coover-illustrated "Warren Worthington III, The Poor Little Rich Mutant."

Outside of super-heroes, there's the final issue of Nightmares and Fairy Tales; and new issue of Sabrina (#94); and Dave Sim's Judenhass, which however it turns out will surely be interesting.