April is just around the corner, which means it's time for another round of reviews, recommendations and general comics fun from your friends on Team Phoenix. This month's comics are brought to you by Sloane, Elise, and Nick! Read on and see if something catches your eye.

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This is your friendly super-early reminder that May 3, 2025 is this year's FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! Put it in your calendar, get your time off requests in, and tell your friends! We'll have more details with our May Comics Look Ahead, and a whole post dedicated to this yearly comic book holiday in early April.

Reviews and Recommendations

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Lost Fantasy

Image Comics

By Curt Pires (writer) and Luca Casalanguida (artist)

Let me start by saying that I really wasn’t initially a big fan of this book. The ad-copy doesn’t do it justice, and the cover art didn’t do anything to really get me. So imagine my surprise when I get a chance to read a preview copy of this book and it’s way better than it looked in the previews.

Lost Fantasy is one of those hidden-world books. You know the ones - like Hellboy, Planetary, or the most recent run of Outsiders. Magic exists, the governments of the world know it. It comes from a world ‘underneath’ our world. There are five houses of paranormal investigators / guardians whose job it is to safeguard our world against that world. And our POV character is the adoptive son of the head of the US-based house who was raised to be a sort of chosen one and has a lot of probably-repressed trauma around it.

The preview issue was well paced. It does a great job of setting up the world and Henry’s (our protagonist) place in it as he gets called in to investigate an incident in rural Montana. The art is solid too, a kind of mix of Jeff Lemire and Mignola, which works well together it turns out. So yeah, color me impressed and now ready for the second issue!

- Nick

Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over

DC Comics

By Joanne Starer (writer) and Stephen Byrne (artist)

Last year’s Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville saw the two classic heroes moving to Smallville to run a beauty salon after falling into irrelevance and obscurity. It was a classic buddy comedy, really funny and heartwarming, a charming superhero slice of life book. At the end of the series they returned to the Justice League, and it was just in time to fight alongside the rest of the team during last year’s Absolute Power crossover event. But when everyone’s powers were restored, Fire and Ice’s were switched! The pair retreat to Smallville, where their barely controlled and short-circuiting powers terrorize the town. If it’s anything like their last series, their path to restoring their original powers and getting back to normal is going to be another romp, and definitely worth picking up. 

- Sloane

Amazing Spider-Man

Marvel

By Joe Kelly (writer) and Pepe Larraz & John Romita Jr (artist)

Spider-fans, spider-fans! 

Here’s your reminder that Spider-man’s

back as a new series. 

This tiiiiiime written by Joe Kelly.

Check it out foooolks 

Here comes the new Spider-Man

….okay that’s all I could do with that theme song. So yeah, hey folks! The new creative team of Joe Kelly, Pepe Larraz & John Romita Jr are taking over the flagship Amazing Spider-Man line, so Marvel is restarting the series with a brand new first issue. If you’ve been looking for a good place to jump into the saga of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, this is the perfect spot. I mean we’re talking big big fight scenes, a gathering of old sinister spider-villains, and of course, Peter’s ultimate nemesis - finding gainful employment with a resume that’s..impressively long to say the least.

I mean c’mon he’s been a freelance photographer, chemist, teacher, CEO, amateur wrestler, and bodyguard. What’s next?

- Nick

Mischief of Magpies

DSTLRY

By Si Spurrier (writer) and Matías Bergara (artist)

I honestly can’t find a ton of information about this book other than the fact that it will be a unique fantasy genre bending feast for your eyes. It tells the story of a boy named Mar who finds himself traveling between his normal mundane world and a new fantastical one unexpectedly and quite uncontrollably. The place he visits is a giant city machine wandering a world made entirely of a shoreless ocean. While its tall bright spires house science and wonder and innovation its underbelly is teeming with monsters and gloom. Spurrier and Bergara have collaborated before on Step by Bloody Step and Coda and in interviews they both say that Mischief of Magpies is the pinnacle of their creative partnership and having the gorgeous art as a large format DSTLRY book also promises much to see as Bergara’s art unfolds across the pages. I personally cannot wait to see it.

- Elise

Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma

DC Comics

By Ram V (writer), Anand RK (artist), and Jackson “Butch” Guice (artist)

Leave it to Ram V to find a character that, last time I checked, was most recently written by Grant Morrison and put together an awesome looking new series. If you’re not familiar with the schtick for Mark Sievers, AKA Resurrection Man, here it goes - he’s a guy who dies and comes back to life. Every time he dies, his power is based on the circumstances of his death. Electrocuted? Back with electricity powers. Falls out of a plane? Now he can fly.

So what if he were to die of old age, content and with a family?

Some pretty wild DC cosmic stuff involving time travel, turns out. To save this life, Mark will have to use his new powers to travel back through his past, seeking answers to threats to all life in the universe. And if that doesn’t sound like some vintage 90’s Grant Morrison enough to you, they’ve even got the art style to match. Honestly this was a sleeper for us and I’m kinda down with it. If you love Ram’s run on New Gods, definitely give this a try.

- Nick

Golden Rage: Mother Knows Best

Image Comics

By Chrissy Williams (writer) and Lauren Knight (artist)

Golden Girls meets Battle Royale is BACK with a new 5 issue mini-series! If you have not read the original series, definitely go in and read it. It’s a short one, but clearly good enough for Image to greenlight another series to expand on the world. The basic gist is that in a world not too distant from our own, women who can no longer bear children are deemed useless to society are exiled to an abandoned island to live out their golden years making desserts, making friends, and fighting to the death. 

And nothing upends the status quo like a new resident! Especially if this one comes with a surprise that threatens to bring the authorities back onto the island.

- Nick

One-Shots & Graphic Novels

Elise and Sloane are teaming up this month to bring you a selection of four excellent new trade paperbacks!  

Love Languages

IDW Publishing

By James Albon

When an English ex-pat meets an au-pair from Hong Kong on the streets of Paris, the two quickly form a bond over just how hard French is, and how isolating living abroad can feel. The two begin spending more time together, learning each other’s languages, and communicating in an excited blend of English, Cantonese, and French. The only hitch in communication comes in telling each other how they really feel. This adorable love story about cross-cultural connection and the unfamiliar becoming familiar is rendered in beautiful watercolors and inks by award winning writer and illustrator James Albon (author of The Delicacy), and it’s just a joy to look at. Albon is especially exciting as an artist not just because of his beautiful flowing lines, but also because of the masterful angles and page layouts that he employs. I’m excited to be able to throw a couple copies up on the queer wall when it comes out.

- Sloane

Goat Magic

Oni Press

By Katie Wheeler

What would you do if just as you were about to change your life forever the princess of your kingdom crashed your plans, and on top of that she’s been turned into a goat and maybe you’re the only one who can help her? In this swan princess inspired tale Trill, a goat herder with the magical ability to communicate with and heal her flock, meets princess Ayla, the uncertain new monarch being thrust into the spotlight before her time after her mother’s death. When an assassination attempt on Ayla by her own uncle leaves her cursed to transform into a goat every sunrise, Trill might be the only one who can help. As the two girls set out on a fantastical journey and their adventure brings them closer they must learn to have confidence in themselves and their connection to each other. The preview pages I’ve seen for this book feature such sweet pastoral art and fairytale retellings are right up my alley so I, personally, can’t wait for this.

- Elise

Low Orbit

IDW Publishing

By Kazimir Lee

Malaysian-American teen Azar finds herself a lonely new kid in Vermont after her mother is forced to move for work, not sure how she fits in. The only friends who she has are her next door neighbors, an aging sci-fi author and his nonbinary highschooler, fellow misfits. She finds herself drawn into the escapist world of her neighbor’s novels, but increasingly realizes she can’t escape her own emerging queerness forever. 

Artist of Harriet Tubman: Towards Freedom, Asylum, and SCFSX, this is Kazimir Lee’s graphic novel debut as a writer and artist both, and it’s been brewing since at least 2019, if not before then, and it seems like all the time and effort have shaped it into something really promising. Store favorite author Tillie Walden writes: “Low Orbit is a tender and evocative graphic novel about the pain and joy of all our relationships.” I’m really excited to get my hands on a copy soon, and anticipate this one having a near-permanent spot on our queer wall once it comes out.

- Sloane

The Horizon Experiment Vol. 1

Image

Horizon Experiment Vol. 1 collects all five one of the series one-shot in a 5-1 combo meant to function as pilots for potential new series. Each one focuses on a different cast of characters from diverse backgrounds each in a familiar genre setting with a twist. It’s like a flight of beer but for comics!

The Manchurian

Pornsak Pichetshote (The Good Asian) and Terry and Rachel Dodson (Adventureman) team up to bring you a James Bond inspired spy thriller starring a suave Chinese super spy. 

The Sacred Damned

Sabir Pirzada (Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel) and Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin) bring you a book following Inayah Jibril, a Muslim professor of the Occult and exorcist in what Image describes as, “a love letter to classic horror from Dracula to John Constantine.”

Moon Dogs

Tananarive Due (The Keeper) and Kelsey Ramsey (Dark Spaces: Good Deeds) have set out to write about a family of black werewolves getting swept up in a building conflict as the truth about werewolves begins to come to light. 

Motherf#cking Monsters

J. Holtham is making his comics debut alongside artist Michael Lee Harris (Black Hitler, Coco Leche) in this book described as “Evil Dead for blerds.” Heavily pop culture inspired, they tell the story of “A nerdy Black kid from Brooklyn and his friends stumble upon demon-worshipping frat assholes trying to take over the world in this love letter to Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright, set to a Wu-Tang soundtrack.”

Finders//Keepers

Finally Vita Ayala (X-Men, Wonder Woman) and Skylar Patridge (Relics of Youth, Resonant) team up for “reverse Indiana Jones” in a story focusing on archeology student Ines Guarua as she steals artifacts from museums and returns them to their native cultures.

- Elise

And that's a wrap on our April Comics Look Aheads! If you saw something here that caught your eye and want to subscribe or preorder it, head over to our subscription page now and get it ordered! Otherwise we'll be back towards the end of the month with May's Comics Look Aheads!