I almost didn’t pick issue one off the shelf. In a year saturated with vampires, the cover suggested that this would be one more silly dark romance yarn but with added naked and fanged women: not always what I look for in a comic. Still, in the spirit of being one of the rare new New 52 readers – previously I had only bought the trade collections – I had a quick peek within and immediately added it to my haul. Settling down at home with my spread of Batmen, ex-Vertigo characters, Morrison-penned heroes, and random picks, I came to I, Vampire last. And was immediately delighted. This was it, this was the comic I’d been waiting on. I foisted it upon my friends, “read this,” I instructed, and begged them to ignore the cover.

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Okay, so looking at the actual trailer, the argument for R.I.P.D. being a MiB clone is actually pretty strong. Dagnabbit. But wait. There are two reasons the comparison is flawed. But let’s look at the similarities first.

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This week I sat down and caught up with Wonder Woman. She’s a character I’ve never quite got on with as well as I feel I should, her blankness never quite being filled despite tremendous efforts from Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and more. Unlike Superman and Batman ,DC’s foremost female hero has no secret identity to ground her, no strong motivation to steer her path. And yet, just beyond tantalising reach is surely some of the greatest stories never told.

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Mark Millar is, of course, the master of hype. From the headline-grabbing The Authority to the more recent Superior, Supercrooks, and Secret Service, Millar has taken the screen success of Wanted and Kick-Ass and turned himself into a one-man media machine. With any hype there is the very real danger of a project failing to live up to its massively projected expectations, and Jupiter’s Legacy is no exception with fans ready to turn a harsh eye on what is offered. The writer has drawn parallels with some of the biggest stories in pop culture – Lord of the Rings and “this is my Star Wars” – a very ambitious benchmark to say the least.

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Based on the popular bande dessinée Le Transperceneige, this is the story of a future world where the remnants of humanity live on board a single train, powered by a perpetual motion engine. The Earth is encased in a bitter Ice Age, induced by a failed attempt to halt global warming. The train, one thousand and one carriages long, holds an entire society within; the last society, segregated by class via position. The further away from the engine, the more poverty and tension can be found. Revolution is in the air.

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When Black Mask Studios went live back in February, it was Occupy Comics with its star studded roster that understandably stole the headlines. Yet out of the other books lined up, there was one in particular I was already looking forward to. Liberator, with its glowing praise from Scott Snyder, Steve Niles, Chris Burnham, Jimmy Palmiotti and others, had smashed its Kickstarter target earlier that month.

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2000 AD, a sci-fi anthology that has run continuously since 1977, has enjoyed a reputation for creating fantastic women characters (Halo Jones!) in the various strips that focus on personality first, and gender last. Judge Anderson is perhaps the most well known example, and her portrayal in the 2012 film Dredd by Olivia Thirlby cemented that wonderfully by showing her as Dredd’s equal in every respect – including costume. In fact that very under-appreciated film is one of the strongest comic book movies of all time in terms of gender politics, carried out in a very “no big deal” manner.

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I really love these, and it’s heartening to see the positive reactions. In my own world, superheroes would have more than one outfit because while some days we all feel like sex kittens, other days we just want to wear our pyjamas and veg out while reluctantly saving the world. And who wants to wear the same thing every day? Stick to a colour scheme to be recognisable, but work that capsule wardrobe folk. Lunsford is now working on a series called Super-Casuals, starting with Spider-Man.

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Elysia is a 300 page urban fantasy and sci-fi graphic novel written by the prolific Serena Obhrai, that is currently causing a storm on Kickstarter. With 21 days still to pledge the project has already achieved 74% of the funding required and shows no sign of abating. In other words, get in quick!

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When Morrison was announced as the writer of Action Comics #1, back in 2011, there was a great deal of excitement within the comics community. The man who had given us one of the greatest Superman books of all time, All-Star Superman, seemed a poetic choice as the architect of this brand new history. Morrison spoke of his love for the original Golden Age character, his socialist roots and desire to do good in the world; Superman as a folk tale, before he became the centrepiece of our modern mythology. The young Kal, standing proud and over-confident in his American jeans and self-branded t-shirt, cape flying behind him as he raced from one adventure to the next...

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