What you've Been Waiting For

Feel like there's something missing when you leave the comic book store? Noticing that there is a story left unfinished? Me too! But there might be a few books this week to fill those noticeable gaps.

Keep in mind that these are not always late comics, this is just to show what comics you've been waiting over a month for. However, after looking at this week's list, I do believe that most, if not all ARE actually late shippers. Ready? Here we go!

There was a group of comics that should have probably come out a couple weeks sooner than they are: Civil War #7, Amazing Spider-Man #538 (delayed because of CW #7's delay), Superman #659 and Powers #23. Each of these had their last issues arrive at comic stores 1/4/07. Let me ad that technically Civil War & Amazing are both actually MUCH later than they appear here because this is the second set of delays for Civil War and related titles.

Immortal Iron Fist, a new Marvel title, has been a big hit both in my store and elsewhere. Why? Because it's good. The problem now is that issue #3 is late. It was originally scheduled to ship 1/31 and issue #2 came out 12/28/06. I hope that this delay was so that Marvel could go back to press and print more - giving them the benefit of the doubt here. We'll see what happens as the series moves forward.

New Avengers Illuminati #2 is finally coming this week. The first issue was released 12/20. Like Iron Fist, this was also supposed to ship 1/31.

The Warhammer 40K has a comic book series, also on the second issue this week, and also had the #1 issue arrive 12/20.

Stargate Atlantis: Wraithfall finishes up with issue #3. Fans haven't seen an issue of that since December 6. Typical for it's publisher, Avatar.

Wonder where Wonder Woman has been? Yeah - we all know that long story. DC hires super-star TV writer to pen the first 6 issues of new series. Writer falls behind and issue #2 ships late. DC shortens super-star's run to 5 issues and announces a new super-star novelist will write the next arc, starting with issue #6. Super-star TV writer falls further behind, and issues continue to arrive later and later. DC announces that super-star writer will be given more time to finish story, and have it appear, apparently completely at random, sometime later in the series. In the mean time, poor fill-in writer was called to do a stand-alone issue #5. Anyway, Wonder Woman's last issue came out before Christmas, actually before Thanksgiving, November 22nd.

Impaler #3, an image book, was ordered back in October and should have arrived some time in or around December. Well, it did not. It is shipping the end of February instead, and you can find it in stores tomorrow. Issue #2 came out back on 11/22.

Finally, the latest of the late comics for this week............................................................................
Grimm Fairy Tales #11. Did you think the series ended at issue #10? It did not! In fact, we've ordered about 5 issues that have yet to ship, and continue to order issues every month. Thankfully they've come to their senses and started to resolicit some of the older issues. Maybe Zenescope is trying to get back on track??? How long has it been since an issue of Grimm came out? Since July 26, 2006. A mere 7 months--pretty Grimm if you ask me. Guess it's a good think each comic has a stand-alone story.

Let me just note that a grand total of 5 of these comics are published by Marvel, 2 by DC Comics, 1 by Image, and the remaining 3 by various indie publishers.

This week I'm reading:
52 WEEK #42
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #6
BIRDS OF PREY #103
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1
CIVIL WAR #7 (OF 7)
DMZ #16
ELEPHANTMEN #7
HELMET OF FATE BLACK ALICE #1
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #3
NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI #2 (OF 5)
WONDER WOMAN #4