Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
Superman: Earth One Vol. 2
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Art by Shane Davis
Promo copy:
Following the events of the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling graphic novel by acclaimed writer Michael J. Straczynski and superstar artist Shane Davis, comes the long awaited sequel SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE VOL. 2!
Young Clark Kent continues his journey toward becoming the World’s Greatest Super Hero, but finds dealing with humanity to be a bigger challenge than he ever imagined! From a ruthless dictator to a new love interest who’s NOT Lois Lane, things are never easy for this emerging Man of Steel.
And the worst is yet to come, in the form of a man-monster with an insatiable appetite, the Parasite! The only thing that might appease his hunger is The Last Son of Kryptonian! But that will also mean he will have Superman’s powers without his conscience, and Kal-El cannot come anywhere near him, even though he has to stop him!
Bloodfire Quest: The Dark Legacy of Shannara
by Terry Brooks
The Hobbit: An Illustrated Edition of the Fantasy Classic
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Adapted by Charles Dixon
Art by David Wenzel
Cover by Didier Graffert
Promo copy:
AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THE FANTASY CLASSIC WITH SIX NEW PAGES OF ILLUSTRATIONS!
First published in the United States more than seventy-five years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is one of the best-loved books of all time. Now a blockbuster film by Peter Jackson, Academy Award–winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit was also adapted into a fully painted graphic novel, a classic in its own right, presented here in a new expanded edition.
When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim stolen treasure from the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an unlikely accomplice: Bilbo Baggins, a quiet and contented hobbit. Along the way, the company faces trolls, goblins, giant spiders, and worse. But in the end it is Bilbo alone who must face the most dreaded dragon in all Middle-earth—and a destiny that waits in the dark caverns beneath the Misty Mountains, where a twisted creature known as Gollum jealously guards a precious magic ring.
I’ve never read this graphic novel. Perhaps unlike any of Tolkien’s prose books, I could actually finish a comic adaptation. Might as well give it a shot.
The Doctor and the Rough Rider
by Mike Resnick
Cover by J. Seamas Gallagher
Promo copy:
It’s August 19, 1884. The consumptive Doc Holliday is preparing to await his end in a sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, when the medicine man Geronimo enlists him on a mission. The time the great chief has predicted has come, the one white man he’s willing to treat with has crossed the Mississippi and is heading to Tombstone—a young man named Theodore Roosevelt. The various tribes know that Geronimo is willing to end the spell that has kept the United States from expanding west of the Mississippi. In response, they have created a huge, monstrous, medicine man named War Bonnet, whose function is to kill Roosevelt and Geronimo and keep the United States east of the river forever. And War Bonnet has
enlisted the master shootist John Wesley Hardin.
So the battle lines are drawn: Roosevelt and Geronimo against the most powerful of the medicine men, a supernatural creature that seemingly nothing can harm; and Holliday against the man with more credited kills than any gunfighter in history. It does not promise to be a tranquil summer.