By Zack Quaintance — Look, I enjoy the comics every week, but I really enjoyed the comics for this week’s Top Comics to Buy for May 12, 2021 list. They were just so rich and varied, with a wide range of (mostly) great stories in the DC Festival of Heroes #1: The Asian Superhero Celebration book, as well as some of my other regular favorite series, including Ice Cream Man. It’s all good, adding up to a strong and varied week.

Check out the full list below!

Top Comics to Buy for May 12, 2021

DC Festival of Heroes - The Asian Superhero Celebration.jpg

PICK OF THE WEEK
DC Festival of Heroes #1: The Asian Superhero Celebration
Writers: Amy Chu, Gene Luen Yang, Greg Pak, Mariko Tamaki, Mihn Le, Pornsak Pichechote, Ram V., and more
Artists: Audrey Mok, Bernard Chang, Dustin Nguyen, Gurihiru, Sami Basri, Sean Chen, Trung Le Nguyen, and more
Publisher: DC Comics
Grab your favorite boba and pull a chair up to the dim sum table as we celebrate Asian Heritage Month with all your favorite Asian DC characters, old and new! Join Cassandra Cain, Katana, Green Lantern Tai Pham, the Atom, Dana Tan (a.k.a. Batman Beyond), Red Arrow, Lady Shiva, Damian Wayne and the al Ghul clan, New Super-Man, and more as we present new tales of these characters from their thrilling history! Plus, Cheshire Cat’s relationship to Cheshire is revealed as Shoes asks Selina Kyle to take her under her wing as Cat Girl. And that’s just the start!
Why It’s Cool: DC Comics is really firing on all cylinders right now under new editorial leadership, and it’s manifesting in most everything they do, including their regular short story anthologies. This one is a celebration of Asian Heritage Month, and what results from it is some very good comics about characters (and their cultures) that don’t often get the spotlight. There’s also an absolutely fantastic new character introduced here by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang, whose final story is the real star of this very good how.
Price: $9.99
Buy It Here: DC Festival of Heroes #1: The Asian Superhero Celebration

Black Hammer Visions #4
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Diego Olortegui
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Nate Piekos
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Mariko Tamaki! Diego Olortegui! Eisner Award-winning writer Mariko Tamaki and her superstar Marvel collaborator Diego Olortegui team up once again for a truly unusual Black Hammer issue that moves our heroes away from the farm to bizarre setting that's a cross of gothic soap opera and space opera. Written by Mariko Tamaki (The One Summer) and drawn by Diego Olortegui (X-23) with colors by Dave Stewart!
Why It’s Cool: I absolutely love this series, in which writer Jeff Lemire has given the scripting and ideating keys to his Black Hammer Universe over to an eclectic bunch of writers from all over comics. And — as this issue is here to attest — the guest artists here aren’t lacking either. This is one absolutely gorgeous superhero comic book, that’s for sure.
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: Black Hammer Visions #4

Ice Cream Man #24
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colorist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Good Old Neon
Publisher: Image Comics
“TELETHON”
We'll be up all night, trying to raise $3.99 to save this guy's life.
Why It’s Cool: First and foremost, it’s cool because it’s Ice Cream Man, which is unofficially the favorite comic of this august website. Secondly, it’s yet another interesting experiment of a comic book for this great series. It doesn’t play with comics as a form as aggressively as some of the book’s recent issues have, but the narrative is a really interesting one, using a telethon as metaphor for how hard it can sometimes feel to get help from society as your own problems start to spiral down and out of control. Great work by the entire creative team, as always.
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: Ice Cream Man #24

Proctor Valley Road #3
Writers: Alex Child and Grant Morrison
Artist: Naomi Franquiz
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
The girls are supposed to stay out of trouble... and away from the haunted stretch of Proctor Valley Road. But a stolen police car leads to the return of the Proctor Valley Bull and more danger than anyone could imagine...
As the town -- and even their families -- closes in on the girls, August makes a choice to visit that haunted road one last time.
And even if she survives, an even greater threat may have its eyes on these four friends...
Why It’s Cool: This is yet another comic on this week’s list that I just can’t say enough good things about. Whereas on past lists I’ve talked about how great the dialogue and dynamics are between this set of great characters, what I most enjoyed this week was just how fast this story is moving. It’s really humming along, delivering one of the best new comics of the year.
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: Proctor Valley Road #3

Project Patron #2
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Patrick Piazzalunga
Colorist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: AfterShock Comics
Thirty years ago, we lost THE PATRON in a prehistoric fistfight with the monster WOE! The United Nations secretly replaced the Patron with a perfect duplicate, a Reploid.
This is the story of the five pilots who embody the Patron to repay the world’s faith and hope, and risk their lives to do so. When the leader of Project Patron dies, the team is shattered. Can they come together in time to solve the murder and stop Matthew Mammon, the Patron’s greed-worshipping nemesis, without the world figuring out the truth?
Why It’s Cool: Through two issues, I’ve really fallen in love with this book, which is essentially an alternate imagining of the aftermath of the Death of Superman. That’s what drew me in within the first issue, anyway. In this second issue, we start to see that taken to really interesting places that explore appearances, group dynamics, and the nature of serving a cause. It’s a really interesting and well-done book that superhero fans should all be reading.
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: Project Patron #2

Others Receiving Votes

American Vampire 1976 #8
Batman Urban Legends #3
Canto and the City of Giants #2
Dreaming: Waking Hours #10
Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey #6
Guardians of the Galaxy #14
Heavy #6
The Joker #3
Scout’s Honor #5
Silver Coin #2
Space Bastards #5
Superman #31

New #1s and One-Shots

Future State: Gotham #1
Giant-Size Amazing Spider-Man Kings Ransom #1
Hank Howard - Pizza Detective In Caligua’s Safe #1
Heroes Reborn: Hyperion and the Imperial Guard #1
Heroes Reborn: Peter Parker, The Amazing Shutterbug #1
House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery #1
Justice League: Last Ride #1
Silver City #1
Time Before Time #1
X-Corp #1

Trade Collections and Graphic Novels

Barbalien: Red Planet TP
Batman Universe TP
Billionaires GN
Ether Library Edition TP
Penultiman TP
Sleeping Beauties Vol. 1 HC
Static TP
Stone Fruit HC

See our past top comics to buy here, and check out our reviews archive 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.