By Zack Quaintance — Oh no, I’ve gone and filled our Top Comics to Buy for October 14, 2020 list with superheroes…there by negating all the work we’ve been putting in to move away from superheroes and onto broader coverage of the medium. However! I think the list of superhero books we have here (four of our top five are capes and tights) is about as good as superhero books get, with subversive takes on the subject matter, including Commanders in Crisis and Stealth, both from Image Comics.

Anyway, you can check out our full list below…enjoy!

Top Comics to Buy for October 14, 2020

PICK OF THE WEEK
Commanders in Crisis #1
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Davide Tinto
Colorist: Francesca Carotenuto
Letterer: Fabio Amelia
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
The last survivors of the Multiverse live among us under new, superheroic identities, five survivors of doomed worlds...taking a second chance to ensure our world lives on. A new twist on strange superhero comics, with a bleeding-edge eye on the modern moment, COMMANDERS IN CRISIS follows in the footsteps of Doom Patrol and Thunderbolts as five unexpected heroes come together to solve a murder unlike any other. The victim? Compassion itself…This is ideacide!
Why It’s Cool: Commanders in Crisis #1 is an event story for a new superhero universe built (and built well) within the space of a single #4 comic. If you like superheroes at all, you owe it to yourself to buy, read, and love this comic. Read my full review now!
Buy It Digitally: Commanders in Crisis #1

Dark Nights: Death Metal #4
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Greg Capullo
Inker: Jonathan Glapion
Colorist: FCO Plascencia
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $4.99
Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman are trapped in nightmare worlds within the Dark Multiverse! They’ll need to face down their fiercest foes once again if they hope to accomplish their mission and bring back a power capable of stopping the Darkest Knight. But what horrors has he unleased on Earth while they’ve been locked away?!
Why It’s Cool: Look, I still love a great Big 2 event, one that mixes up one of the corporate superhero publishers heroes, goes big with the story, and delivers Michael Bay-esque action and explosions throughout. Dark Nights: Death Metal is certainly all those things, but what makes a bit more exciting to me than some of these affairs is that it’s at once also paying homage to one of my favorite things in comics — the messy 8-decades-and-counting DC continuity.
Buy It Digitally: Dark Nights - Death Metal #4

Immortal Hulk #38
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Joe Bennett
Colorist: Paul Mounts
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
He’s been chained. He’s been suppressed. He doesn’t even know if he’s real. But something is reaching through the Green Door. It wants to hurt Bruce Banner. And when you hurt Banner...the DEVIL HULK takes it personally.
Why It’s Cool: If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times — right now my favorite thing happening in all of superhero comics is the Al Ewing-Joe Bennett run of Immortal Hulk, which strictly speaking is a superhero comic…but it reads more like a deep exploration of fallibility and familial trauma played out over the vast mythos of one of the Stan/Jack creations that gave rise to the Marvel Universe as we know it today. Every issue of this book seems to get better, and so it once it again continues to land on our weekly list.
Buy It Digitally: Immortal Hulk #38

Seven Secrets #3
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Daniele Di Nicuolo
Colorist: Walter Baiamonte
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99
The only thing standing between Caspar and his dream of protecting one of the Secrets -- and getting to know the mother who abandoned him -- is the Trials. Caspar is pitted against the best and brightest of his generation, fighting for his life -- but will it be worth the cost of winning?
Why It’s Cool: Look, I have to be honest here — I did not really dig the very first issue of Seven Secrets. I found it to be a confusing introduction to a world that might have been engaging if I would have had more clarity as to what was going on. I did, however, even within that suggest that the book was built for long-term success, likely to be a better read in trade than it is month to month…and now I’m feeling pretty good about that prediction, having just really loved both of the subsequent issues that have seen release.
Buy It Digitally: Seven Secrets #3

Stealth #6
Writer: Mike Costa
Artist: Nate Bellegarde
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
Stealth has lived long enough to be both hero and villain in Detroit. With the entire city on the verge of destroying itself, Stealth must take his legacy into his own hands.
Why It’s Cool: I’ve thought Stealth had a really compelling concept from its inception. In this book, the protagonist essentially begins to suspect that his father has for years been a local superhero named Stealth, after Stealth’s increasingly-erratic behavior corresponds with his father suffering from dementia. It’s one of those concepts that’s simple yet complex, and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been tried before. This issue is the series finale (for now), and now that it’s ending, I can say that I also really enjoyed the execution of this father-son tale that is also in some very real ways about the deterioration of American cities. Great stuff from start to finsih.
Buy It Digitally: Stealth #6

Others Receiving Votes

• Amazing Spider-Man #50

• Atlantis Wasn’t Built For Tourists #2

• Bill and Ted Are Doomed #2

• Bleed Them Dry #4

• Cable #5

• Hellions #5

• New Mutants #13

• Once and Future #12

• Superman #26

• Usagi Yojimbo #14

• Vampire The Masquerade #3

• Wonder Woman #764

New #1s and One-Shots

• Concrete Jungle #1

• DC: The Doomed and The Damned One Shot

• Devil’s Red Bride #1

• DIEnamite #1

• Miranda in the Maelstrom #1

• Rorschach #1

• True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys National Anthem #1

• Vain #1

• Villainous #1

• Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar #1

• We Live #1

• X of Swords Handbook #1

Graphic Novels and Trade Collections of Note

PICK OF THE WEEK
Dracula, Motherf**cker
Writer: Alex De Campi
Artist: Erica Henderson
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $16.99
Vienna, 1889: Dracula’s brides nail him to the bottom of his coffin. Los Angeles, 1974: an aging starlet decides to raise the stakes. Crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is the only man who knows it happened, but will anyone believe him before he gets his own chalk outline? And are Dracula’s three brides there to help him...or use him as bait? A pulpy, pulse-pounding graphic novel of California psych-horror from acclaimed creators ALEX DE CAMPI and ERICA HENDERSON.Release Date: October 14, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Dracula, Motherf**cker
Read our full Dracula, Motherf**cker review!

• Ash & Thorn TP

• Chris Ware Monograph HC New Edition

• Dead Dudes TP

• Dollhouse Family HC

• Survival Fetish Vol. 1 TP

• Swamp Thing: Twin Branches TP

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IDW Collection Vol. 11 HC

• War of the Realms Omnibus Book Market HC Russell Dauterman Cover

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.