By Zack Quaintance — January is always a month of newsness. It certainly was around this blog, with a pair of new features rolling out, those being the Things I Liked and Didn’t Like update as well as the One Hot Panel thing, which is named after a mostly bad RHCP album for some reason I’m not even entirely sure about. 

Thankfully, there were also good new comics too! And that’s what we’re here now to discuss. So, let’s do this!

Quick Hits

I know this is far from cool, but I kind of liked Iron Man 2020. Since moving off of Amazing Spider-Man and onto two other Marvel books, Iron Man has been the stronger of Dan Slott’s two titles, with the other being the wildly inconsistent Fantastic Four. This pairing with Pete Woods now sees the duo doing a Blade Runner-esque thing with the most recent storyline, and the first issue was great.

Would you believe that ROM: Dire Wraiths #1 was the first-ever ROM comic I’ve ever read? Well it was, and I liked it, I think I liked it quite a bit. Though I still know much about this franchise, other than ROM is a space knight. 

A new Vault book is always a big deal, and so Vagrant Queen: A Planet Called Doom #1 is no exception. I read the first season of this comic, but I think this is a good jumping on point for those who didn’t. It’s also getting a TV show! So read it now before it was cool(er).

I read Weapon Plus World War IV sort of on a lark, and I actually really liked it. Writer Ben Percy has really found his voice at Marvel where he didn’t quite do so at DC, perhaps owing to this publisher putting him on properties that fit better with his unsettling sensibilities. This is a fun read on its own merits (the Ryan Cady/ David Baldeon back-up is strong, too), and, more importantly, it also feels like it’s going to tie-in to X-Men at some point, be it with Percy’s X-Force comic or, more likely, with Wolverine.

Alright then, let’s move on to the top five new #1 comics of January 2020...

Best New #1 Comics January 2020

The Clock #1
Writer: Matt Hawkins
Artist: Colleen Doran
Colorist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Troy Peteri
Publisher: Image Comics - Top Cow
Rooted in real-world ongoing questions about overpopulation, The Clock #1 is an ambitious comic, one that delivers a debut that has me very interested to see where it’s going. I really enjoyed all of writer Matt Hawkins work on a title with similar current events-based ambitions, Think Tank, which I read as research for a (failed) bid in the Top Cow Talent Hunt. ANYWAY. This book feels like the next evolution of that, and it’s very impressive.

Frankenstein Undone #1
Writer: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie
Artist: Ben Stenbeck
Colorist: Brennan Wagner
Letterer: Clem Robbins
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Of all the post-Devil You Know Hellboy and Hellboy-adjacent comics, Frankenstein Undone #1 is perhaps the most intriguing yet, featuring as it does wonderful visual storytelling from veteran Mignola-verse artist Ben Stenback and intriguing tie to ideas from other facets of this shared world. There’s also a wonderful heart to this first issue, although one would do well to come into this expecting said heart to get broken.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Juann Cabal
Colorist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Cory Petit
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Guardians of the Galaxy #1 is the work of a creative team that is currently peaking. The work is strong, the swagger is there, and the comic book-specific ideas are flowing. It is an interesting start to a run on a property that has become one of the trickiest Big 2 books to write, and it’s got the complex ideas and giant blockbuster bombast that writer Al Ewing in particular has honed as of late on other titles.

Protector #1
Writer: Simon Roy & Daniel Bensen
Artist: Artyom Trakhanov
Colorist: Jason Wordie
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: Image Comics
The premise of this book is a strong one, with an apocalypse littered with recognizable places and words. The art by Artyom Trakhanov is absolutely stellar, which is enough on its own merits to earn a pick-up for the second issue. Simply put, there are no other comics out there that look quite like this one.

Thor #1
Writer: Donny Cates
Artist: Nic Klein
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Thor #1 is Donny Cates best debut issue for Marvel yet, at least when it comes to ongoings (to be fair, I think this is his third ongoing, with Venom and Guardians of the Galaxy being the others, although the latter turned out to be a maxiseries). Anyway, this issue had all of Cates usual bombast (illustrated expertly by Nic Klein) but with a bit more restraint than some of his previous starting points, likely owing to his position at Marvel being very much secure nowadays. Anyway, this was a well-done debut that hinted at much more and bigger things to come.

Read this week’s comic book reviews here!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.