Weekly Previews for August 24, 2011

New issues of Dark Horse Presents and Batman Incorporated (finally), along with the conclusion of Batman: Gates of Gotham, and more are on your way in this week's Previews. Read on to see 'em all.

Weekly Previews for April 20, 2011

A few collections making the Previews this week, including the première issue of the new Dark Horse Presents. Other than that, it's a slow week for me, and it'd be slower without mega-crossovers for Red Robin. Keep reading to see what I'm talking about.

Weekly Previews for March 16, 2011

Really late on the Previews this week, so I'll keep this short.

Weekly Previews for January 26, 2011

Another major week in the Previews, this time with the conclusion of “Three” in Fantastic Four. In other endings: the first arc of Scott Snyder's Detective Comics run ends this week; and the end of and end comes with the final issue of Chaos War, ending not only that title but Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente's über-story about Hercules and Amadeus Cho as well. That's going to be a hard spot to fill for me — I'm not sure what comics are out there with such humor and emotion all together. And the sound effects will be sorely missed.

Weekly Previews for December 29, 2010

December has been a crazy month for me, but things should be getting back on track now. That means I'll actually be posting some reviews and maybe some features, too. And most importantly (at least right now): this should be the last Previews to come after-the-fact (unless you're in a country where comic book day is not Wednesday).

With that out of the way, let's see what's up for this week! We've got a couple of great books by Jonathan Hickman, the last of the new Bat-books, another Chaos War tie-in, and a few others that've piqued my interest. Read on to see 'em all.

How I Got Into Comics, Part Two

My first introduction to comics, outside of newspaper strips, was because of my older brother. At some point (I can't quite remember when) he started collecting X-Men comics. I'd go with him to the LCS (a tiny place I can still remember bits of) and I'd get Ghost Rider. I remember it just seemed cool at the time. I mean, the dude's got a flaming skull for a head, he has a chain whip and he rides a motercycle — what more could a pre-adolescent boy ask for?

I also remember really wanting to read my brother's X-Men comics but not being allowed to. I can't remember how everything fit into the timeline, but I watched the X-Men animated series and thought it was awesome (I still do). I loved the epic-ness of it and the cast of characters, each with their own powers. I've always loved fantasy and sci-fi, and I especially love magic-users. Well, many super-heroes are basically like magic-users with a small subset of spells. Of course I'd love it all.

Even though I had never read or watched anything else Marvel-related, I had gained a decent knowledge of many of the characters and some plot points. Most people (especially more recently) know a bit about Spider-Man, and, this being the 90s, I knew of Venom and Carnage and some other general plots. I had a similarly general knowledge of the other major Marvel characters, too. My DC knowledge was limited to watching Batman: the Animated Series a bit and the Batman and Superman movies (and the big hullabaloo with the death of Superman). I'm not sure I even knew there were other comic publishers, let alone non-superhero comics.