Hi there folks! Welcome to our April look ahead blog. In the interest of helping folks stay up on new comic series and happenings well before they hit the shelves, we're delving into the catalogues each month to put forth reviews and recommendations as well as notifications about new series for popular franchises and tie-ins for big crossovers. So if you were wondering what's new and fun coming out this April, read on and find out more!

Reviews and Recommendations

Looking for a new series or two to follow? Here are a few recommendations for new series courtesy of Team Phoenix! This month's reviews are all from Nick! Apologies for the lack of quantity - we ran out of time putting this together. (We'll do better in the future, promise).  

Quests Aside

Vault Comics, Brian Schirmer (Writer), Elena Gogou (Artist)

This one's for all you D&D fans out there who've ever managed to get through a game and retire your characters. Or for those of you wanting to read stories about the things your new characters do in their time off. Quests Aside looks like a fun and probably silly story about a bar run by a once-legendary adventurerer, filled by a cast of misfit would-be-adventurers working shifts while waiting for their first big dungeon adventure.

Blood-Stained Teeth #1

Image Comics, Christian Ward (Writer), Patric Reynolds (Artist)

I know Christian Ward from his amazing work on Ody-C, the Ultimates, and Invisible Kingdom (all great work btw!). Now he's trying his hand at writing a sleazy misanthropic vampire criminal who's out to make a quick buck by turning people into vampires...for the right price!  Turns out immortality might be a little on the pricey side. Patric Reynolds definitely does Ward a good turn here with the art. It's rough and colorful, which gets that 'dirty-city' vibe to come across real good.

Captain America

Marvel Comics, Tochi Onyebuchi (Writer), Mattia De Julis (Artist)

Double Captains America! Sam is back as Cap, alongside Steve in this zero-issue relaunch of the series. The book features a wraparound cover that covers the whole Captain America gamut of heroes and villains. As someone who kinda skipped Coates' run on Cap, I'm oddly excited and jonesing for Sam to be back! 

Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country

DC Comics, James Tynion IV (writer), Lisandro Estherren and Yanick Paquette (Artists)

Just in time for its streaming debut - a new story in the Sandman Universe. This one features the fan favorite Corinthian (serial killer nightmare made manifest, mouths for eyes) going on a little road trip to hunt down rogue nightmares! Art-wise, looks like Lisandro and Yanick are dividing up the book, with Lisandro taking the earthly pages and Yanick the nightmare dream sequences. 

Noteworthy Tie-Ins

For the second half of this little post we'll be trying to help you stay up to date on any crossovers or tie-ins that might be popping up. We won't be covering things in detail as much in this section, instead our goal is to give you some cursory info on each series and let you decide for yourself how deep of a dive you want to do. For the most part, we'll limit things in this section to the big two (Marvel / DC), but if something else comes up that's noteworthy, we'll endeavor to include it here too.

X-Men

X-Fans! You've got 4 books and a one shot to add to your pull list this month:

• X-Men Red by Al Ewing!!
• Legion of X by Si Spurrier!
• Knights of X by Tini Howard!
• Giant Size X-Men: Thunderbird #1 (One-shot by Nyla Rose & Steve Orlando)
• X-Men '92: House of XCII by Steve Foxe (5-issue mini)

Subscriber Notes: If you were down for SWORD, Excalibur, or Way of X, we'll be pulling issue #1 of X-Men Red, Knights, and Legion of X for those respective titles since they're the follow-ups to those series. 

Fun One-Shots and Nice-To-Haves

Secret History of the War on Weed

Image Comics, Gerry Duggan & Brian Posehn (writers), Scott Koblish (Artist)

In the mood for a darkly satirical and maybe apparently true story about the US' war on drugs? I give you this gem, written and drawn by the team that brought you a number of great Deadpool stories. Plus it's got a bonus activity page, and portions of the proceeds will be donated to helping casulties of America's immoral and failed drug war.  

And yes, it definitely comes out on 4/20.

And that's it for this month's look ahead! We'll be back later this month for another look at what's in store for you comics fans in May and June. In the meantime, if you'd like to subscribe to any of these books, we've got you covered! Follow this link and let us know which comics you'd like to add to your pull list, or if you don't have one going yet, you can also start up a pull list in that very same link. For more details about our subscription policy, head over here.