The Massive is Brian Wood’s epic take on a post-apocalyptic world, but you won’t find any zombies or Thunderdomes here. This is an incredibly realistic look at what might happen if the world suffered from multiple natural disasters all at once in a single cataclysmic event. The world of The Massive takes place primarily at sea, as the tsunamis and hurricanes that occurred have flooded much of the land. The world has changed dramatically, and, in the aftermath, people struggle to find food, seek out missing friends and allies, and, most importantly, try to maintain some sense of order and morality.

There’s a full splash page in this comic where a Tyrannosaurus rex, wearing a robotic exoskeleton, charges in and shouts “Today for snack, it’s missiles, and I brought enough for everyone.” End of review. Just go by this comic right now; there is nothing else you need to know. What? You’re still here? Fine, I’ll review the comic, but, honestly, there’s a dinosaur that shoots missiles, how cool is that? Super Dinosaur takes every single daydream that you used to have as a seven-year-old and mashes them together into a funny, heartwarming, and incredibly entertaining comic book. It’s like they found a way to bundle all of the joyful energy of a grade school jungle gym into a monthly comic.

What if you took the craziest villain you could think of, like Heath Ledger’s Joker, and mixed him with Hannibal Lecter, but with more showmanship. What if you took that psychopath and, right after he got away with the biggest, nastiest, most despicable act of terror ever, you tried to make him into a good guy? What if you fixed whatever was wrong in his brain, put him on a bunch of anti-psychotic medicine, and gave him another chance? What if you gave him a chance to put all of that ridiculously dangerous intellect to good use? This is the basic premise of Bedlam, a book that asks the question “is evil just something you are or something you do?”

Do you like old school film noir? Of course. Do you like big-headed green aliens? Uhh . . . yeah! Do you want to see what happens when you put those two things together? Then, you should really check out Dames in the Atomic Age by Christopher Ryder and Marc Sandroni.  These guys have taken an old school detective story, complete with the narrating private-eye protagonist, and combined it with the stylings of a 1950s B-movie filled with aliens, ray guns, and giant radioactive ants. Dames in the Atomic Age is the perfect marriage between the sci-fi and noir detective genres. It is colorful, humorous, and - best of all - a very intriguing mystery.

*Please note that this article is an opinion-editorial.

Dear Marvel and DC,

I’m a huge fan. I read a lot of your books and a lot of books from other “indie” publishers. In general, I’m just a big fan of comic books altogether. I’m 26 and my particular fandom started when I was 7 years old. My Saturday mornings and every day after school were dominated by Batman: The Animated Series and the X-Men cartoon; however, the fun didn’t stop there for me. My parents knew I was a big fan and started to buy me comics at the grocery store, the newsstand, and eventually at a local comic book store. I spent my formative teen and college years with a wonderful assortment of different characters and stories to enjoy. I even had my dark phase in my early 20s where I read a lot of Alan Moore and Frank Miller, but it always came back to superhero books for me.

The comic book event of the summer is nigh!  Before Watchmen, the much-anticipated prequel series to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, will consist of seven limited series and an epilogue one-shot.  Stay tuned, as the Fanboy Comics crew will be reviewing each title as it is released. Hurm. 

We have now reached the fourth issue of Before Watchmen: Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke, and I can safely state that if you are not reading this book, you are not missing anything worthwhile. I wondered from the beginning whether Before Watchmen would actually seek to tell good stories that expanded and improved upon Watchmen, or whether it was nothing more than an attempt by DC to cash in on the Watchmen property. Four issues in, it is clear to me now that this book doesn’t really have anything to add to the Minutemen subplot of Watchmen. It is simply retreading old ground and painfully trying to be shocking at every turn. It plays more like a bad Dateline exposé of the Minutemen than a thoughtful comic exploring one of Watchmen’s many subplots.

Jim Zub’s Skullkickers is an amazing concept. He has created two characters that do everything you are never supposed to do in a fantasy roleplaying game. His characters brutally kill anything in their path, never ask why they’re doing it, and are always terribly drunk while doing it. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that is the way you should play a roleplaying game. Zub has done such a good job establishing his characters that every once in a while, he takes a month off from crafting amazing Skullkickers tales and let’s some of the best talent in the industry play in his crazy fantasy world. This is how we get Tavern Tales.

Adam Levermore, known for his Firefly and BSG poster designs for QMx, talks with Fanboy Comics Contributor Jason Enright about his bid for the position of Production Designer on the new Whedon/Tancharoen/Whedon show, S.H.I.E.L.D. Levermore gives FBC the inside scoop on his short film, S.H.I.E.L.D.E.D., shows off a few props from the film, and talks about why he would be a good fit for the upcoming TV show. Please tell your friends: Adam Levermore for S.H.I.E.L.D.!

I never thought that Mind the Gap, an amazing, new mystery book from Image Comics, could pull me into its intrigue even more, but Jim McCann has proven me wrong, and I’m so happy that he has. With every issue, he peels back another layer, and with every reveal, the whole story is turned on its head. You think you’ve figured it all out, but then there’s yet another twist. Each panel has new clues, and you never know what might happen when you turn to the next page.

So, why aren’t you reading Chew yet? I mean, honestly, is there any good reason to not read Chew? It is expertly written, spectacularly drawn, ridiculously hilarious, and chock full of cyborg lions, chocolate assault rifles, Russian vampires, murderous chickens, and, of course, chogs ( a.k.a. chicken-frog hybrids). In the middle of all of this craziness is Tony Chu, a detective whose life is turned upside down because he’s a cibopath, which means when he eats something, he learns everything about its past.  His ability is incredibly important, because, in the world of Chew, chicken has been banned because of the bird flu, food crime is rampant, and the FDA is the last line of defense.