Every week, Comics! The Blog goes through the list of new releases and we tell you which comics to plug into your mindhole. Your mileage may vary.

HAWKEYE #13 (Marvel Comics)

It’s back!

I honestly feel like this is all I should have to say, but it looks kind of lazy if I do, so I guess I’m going to have to write a bit more. After an unintended break, Hawkeye returns with the next stage of its alternating story. Last issue we saw Kate “Hawkeye” Bishop set up Rockfordian shop in Los Angeles, and this week we return to the story of Clint “Hawkeye” Barton and his returning brother Barney (previously, briefly “Hawkeye” as well), as Clint tries to make sense of he woe-be-gotten life while also not killing his brother. You know, sibling stuff.

This issue also marks the return of Dave Aja after issues from Francesco Francavilla and Javier Pulido, which is another reason to make sure you pick it up, as if you weren’t already. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Aja‘s take on Clint, and man, I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to more. Hawkeye is a series that remains incredibly easy to sell to disbelieving friends, and a big reason is that you can open an issue and they’ll do the rest. The entire team - Matt Fraction, Aja, Matt Hollingsworth and Chris Eliopoulos - is never anything short of miraculous, and the fact that they’re making a book that doesn’t look like anything else in the world is a big reason.

MORNING GLORIES #33 (Image Comics/Shadowline)

Brandon informs me that Morning Glories is a bimonthly book for the current arc, and normally, I’d be at least a little worried about this - not for any concern about rushed schedules or a potential dip in quality, but simply because I’m always behind on my reading and this is just more reading to do. But here, I’m nothing more than excited, because Morning Glories is a book that I always make a point of reading, well, if not first, then pretty close to it. It’s just consistently that good, and there’s no reason to think Issue #33 will be anything different.

The series has taken some truly big leaps recently in how it’s expanded its world. This used to be a series about life at a sinister school the way Lost was originally a series about being stranded on an Island or Star Trek was about the voracious pansexuality of a starship captain. But with the last few arcs, it’s been ramping up towards increasingly bigger ideas, and that’s where #33 finds us: juggling time travel, causality, dream realities and our own hardened, aged doubles, along with a smattering of religion, myth and maybe even god’s-honest-magic. Through it all, Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma keep it all turning and moving, while still keeping it all somehow accessible. Of course, the backmatter from “Professor” Mikhail sure helps, too. It’s just a great book, and you should be reading it. The paperbacks and deluxe hardcovers are available, you know…

SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS (Vertigo Books)

Hey, did you know there’s a new Sandman series starting in two weeks? Vertigo sure does, which is why they’re rereleasing one of the iconic series’ most easily-accessible stories in a new $20 non-Absolute edition. If there’s any bite-sized area of the entire series that’s easy to jump into, Endless Nights is it: seven single issue-length stories about the series’ main character and his siblings, the godly Endless, each Endless’ chunk serving as a great starter for who they are, as well as the tone and feel of the series itself.

With the upcoming Sandman: Overture‘s focus on events outside the original series, this is arguably the best way to jump in if you want to feel ready for the new series, or just get re-acquainted with it if it’s been a while since you cracked open your copy of Preludes & Nocturnes. It’s a microcosm of what made the original series so good, including the wide variety of artists you’ll find here, from Stardust artist P. Craig Russell to stars Frank Quitely, Milo Manara and Bill Sienkiewic. It’s a great thing to just hand to someone to get them interested in the book, so hey, maybe do that, too!

S.H.O.O.T. First #1 (Dark Horse)

First off, this title is straight-up delightul. It’s not just a fun, catchy phrase, but the actual acronym - Secular Humanist Occult Obliteration Taskforce - is just wonderful. After all, it’s not every day one sees a sci fi action comic directly namedropping a philosophical idea that’s often defined by its desire for peaceful reasoning and not, you know, big guns. But that’s what S.H.O.O.T. First is, apparently: a book where a highly trained team of specialists fights monsters they don’t actually believe in anyway. It’s a kind of fun dissonance that only piques the interest.

Dark Horse is selling this book as something “Original, irreverent, and controversial,” and while I can’t speak to the last third of that, the previews definitely sell the first two. Justin Aclin‘s script is fun and familiar to those who know the kind of action movie this is almost definitely poking fun at, while Nicolas Daniel Selma and Marlac‘s art doesn’t look anything like a science fiction/action book usually does; it’s bright and pops, with flat colouring for the characters to make them really stand out. This book looks unique, and the voice and concept are definitely promising.

WONDER WOMAN #24 (DC Comics)

Cards on the table: you do not have to look or listen on this site to find us being critical of DC Comics right now. But our default state will always be Talk About What We Love, and two years in, Wonder Woman isn’t showing any signs of being anything but one of the company’s best books month in and month out.

It helps that it basically plays in its own world; you won’t find any Justice League or Superman / Wonder Woman shenanigans here. Brian Azzarello‘s scripts are firmly rooted in the world he’s spent years building, and it just happens to be one of the biggest self-contained world in the DC Universe. Left all off to her own, Diana is fighting gods and monsters and dealing with complex family issues. She’s got her own defined cast. The stakes keep getting raised, and this lets the book’s team showcase what’s best about Wonder Woman: she can handle anything. She’s one of the best and most iconic for a reason.

Goran Sudzuka steps in from Tony Akins and Cliff Chiang for pencil duties on this arc, and it looks like he’s as good as in previous Vertigo books like Y: The Last Man and Hellblazer. It’s hard to jump into a book with such a defined aesthetic, but Sudzuka is strong, adaptable and well-suited for the role. I expect good things, and this book has a good track record to fill me with optimism.

These are some of the many great books being released this week! You can find the full list of comics being released here. If you have any other recommendations, let us know in the comments below.