Comic Book Mix Tape ::: Free Comic Book Day 2024

Let's try this again!  During my (brief) time attempting to create this column about comic books, I learned that it was too difficult to post every month and keep up with the issues because once you started getting into six titles then they would dominate the entire column, since I was only posting about six at a time.   This didn't make way for anything new.  My new plan is for this column to feature only first issues and then once a series hits issue number six I can go through and do an entire review about it.

But, that is not what this column is about because we are hitting that reset button with a trip to Boom Tube Comics in Southington Connecticut for Free Comic Book Day 2024!   I say this as someone who has a lot of anxiety about going out in public, but nothing compares with going into a comic book shop and seeing what is on the shelves rather than just browsing titles online.  Actually seeing the covers and titles is something virtual shopping simply cannot compare with.  

As such, I did pick up a number of titles from browsing around the store and looking at what was new and what looked cool to me.   There was a one shot where Joe Biden put together a team of superheroes to take on a similar team from Donald Trump and I just... I don't need that.  But, there are a lot of new things I am excited about as well as returning names like Dick Tracy.  But this all will come soon enough as now we are focused on the comic books from FCBD 2024!

The first comic book I read from this day was Doctor Who.  I found out there would be a new season of this series coming because it is also coming to Disney+.   My favorite Doctor is the tenth one and though I watched Season Nine I fell off after Season Eleven.  I really do want to kind of go back to the beginning and watch them all- from Season One- with all of the comic book tie ins now.

This issue begins with The Doctor and Ruby following a sound, which they find out is a scream.  It takes them to 1700 England where someone has some high tech weaponry and the story unfolds fairly quickly because this isn't a long issue since it's free, but it is worth reading and, again, I want to watch this new season when it comes out but I also want to go back and really deep dive into the Doctor Who lore for some reason.  

Next I read "Gannibal", which it says to read before watching the series on Hulu.  This is manga style but the art in it is so detailed.   The story follows a cop who moves to a village where everyone appears to be cannibals and if he doesn't keep their secrets then he might get eaten by them.   Speaking of cannibalism, I next read an issue of Jonny Quest and this also had a preview for Thundercats in it.  Something I bought on FCBD was the first three issues of the new Thundercats series so that worked out.   New Jonny Quest comes out soon as well!

Three issues that I picked up which seem to need no real explanation are from Star Wars, Spider-Man and Pokemon.  It feels like there's been a Star Wars and Spider-Man issue for every Free Comic Book Day we've been to (and there used to be an Avengers one as well) and Pokemon has been steadily becoming one we pick up every year as well.   So these three are just kind of the backbone, in many ways, of FCBD.   I also got an issue for MAD, which has newsprint for the pages and it's just everything you would hope it would be.

Flash Gordon #0 was a definite highlight of Free Comic Book Day.   This story was about Flash Gordon faking his own death to try and stop Ming.  In July, a new series will start for Flash Gordon and of course the Defenders of the Earth are out there as well.  I really wish they'd reboot Flash Gordon and The Phantom as movies, start a little franchise and ultimately bring them all together to make a Defenders of the Earth movie as well.  Or just give them television shows and let them crossover like the DC shows did (or maybe they still do, I don't watch them anymore)

Conan has a new story to tell in "Battle of the Black Stone" and it won't be out until the Fall but at least you can have a nice preview of it here.    But in a lot of ways I went to FCBD for this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles issue.  For months now, I've heard about how this new series would be starting and this would be the issue to do it.   There is a lot of TMNT content out there- I only recently picked up The Last Ronin Director's Cut.  I really want to dive into all of it, and have Quentin join me, but after all of this and the other issues we picked up, we'll just have to wait and see.