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

ALPHA FLIGHT (Complete Series Trade Paperback) (Marvel Comics)

Being Canadian can be kind of rough in superhero comics, as we northerners are frequently reduced to waiting for Spider-Man to make fun of Wolverine’s country of origin or for the only prominent team of Canadian superheroes to get murdered. Luckily, every once in a while, something like Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and Dale Eaglesham‘s Alpha Flight mini-ongoing-miniseries comes along to give us the bit of Truth-North-Strong-And-Free action we’re polite about demanding.

The plot is wonderfully insane: amid the horrors of Fear Itself, Canada elects the seemingly innocuous Unity Party, who immediately set about enacting a gloriously, cartoonishly evil agenda of propaganda, suppression of dissent and good old-fashioned brainwashing. The government-sanctioned team of Alpha Flight tries to resist and fight for freedom, etc, but what happens when betrayal rocks the team?

Hint: fights! Explosions! Magic!

Pak, Van Lente and Eaglesham pulled off something great with Alpha Flight: a traditional American superhero story that is simultaneously bursting with references to Canada and a surprising amount of understanding and love for the country. As it turns out, the fine touch in having a series like Alpha Flight land with Canadians lies in the contradiction of reassuring Canadians that we’re just like you Americans while also treating us like the individual snowflake of a nation that we are. Canadians: we’re just like you, except all those ways we insist we’re different!

Seriously, kudos to Pak and Van Lente for braving that minefield and also delivering a great comic. If you’re ever in town, I’ll get you some poutine.

CASANOVA: AVARITIA #4 (Icon Comics)

Come on, you really didn’t think we were going to forget our favourite series ever, did you? That’s not exaggeration. Casanova is our favourite comic, and Avaritia has been one incredible turn after another. Tomorrow, the first act of the series comes to a close, and we regroup for what comes next.

Casanova is put together by probably the finest team in comics. Matt Fraction. Gabriel Bá on art (he and his twin brother Fábio Moon alternate arcs) and Cris Peter doing the best colours in the game. Dustin Harbin showcasing the art that is lettering. All nudged and improved by editor extraordinaire Alejandro Arbona. Whatever they were gonna make, it was always gonna be great, and Avaritia #4? It’s amazing.

We’ll have a rundown on why tomorrow, but why not check out the preview and get a taste of what we’re talking about?

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #13 (Dark Horse Comics, unsurprisingly)

Dark Horse Presents is already one of the best deals in comics every month, providing 4 standard issues worth of comics, advertisement free, for only $7.99. It’s already something you should be checking out; an anthology series featuring some of the best creators in comics, telling a combination of serialized and one-off stories. For your money, it’s just about the best way to see top creators doing great work and discover new favourites. But this month, it’s even better:

It’s got Kelly Sue DeConnick!

More specifically, it’s got the first look at Ghost, the re-imagining of Dark Horse‘s 1990s superhero, written by DeConnick with art by the incomparable Phil Noto. Ghost is about a down-on-his-luck former journalist moonlighting on a paranormal investigations television show who stumbles across an actual ghost, and about the ghost’s quest to find out who she was and what happened to her. Like noir? Check this out. Like mystery stories? Check this out. Like JJ Abrams? Check this out. Heck, just check it out to hear DeConnick‘s beautiful dialogue in your head and gawk at Noto‘s gorgeous art.

And that’s just one part of Dark Horse Presents #13. The rest of it features new material by Carla Speed McNeil, Tim Seeley, John Layman (writing Aliens!), Steve Niles, John Arcudi and Francesco Francavilla. It’s bursting with talent and I can’t imagine it ever disappointing.

HIGHER EARTH #2 (Boom! Studios)

When the first issue of Higher Earth ended, the series had just opened the door from the dystopia readers first saw in the issue to something… bigger. Something unknown. In a multiverse of Earths, what could be out there? Paradise? Even if you found it, would you be allowed inside?

Higher Earth looks to join the grand tradition of science fiction that questions as it entertains. On one hand, we get the adventure of Rex and Heidi as they try to escape their pursuers, and I would read a Jason Bourne-esque sci-fi series by Sam Humphries and Francesco Biagini as long as Boom would let me. On the other hand, however, is an interesting discussion of class, immigration and state. Good sci-fi acts as a mirror to our own world, and Higher Earths does that despite its bold, dimension-hopping premise.

Plus, the first issue had a hollowed-out, nuclear-powered cybernetic bear. I want to see more of that, too.

REBEL BLOOD #4 (Image Comics)

Like science fiction, horror only really works if it’s more than just shocks or gore. Good horror speaks to something primal inside of us, some aspect of our human experience that’s raw, however much we try to hide and protect it. It presses buttons.

Rebel Blood, by Alex Link and Riley Rossmo, is one of these good horror stories. It could have been just a story about a guy being attacked by monsters in the woods, but in Link and Rossmo‘s hands, it’s a visceral, haunting story about loss, loneliness and isolation. It’s a story that means something and provokes thought long after the initial shock at the gore is gone.

One way Link and Rossmo do this is in how they reveal information about the main character. Instead of expository dialogue, we see flashes of his old life, contrasted against what he has now. We feel his isolation, deep in the woods, even before people are killed. We care about his life, and we feel his loss.

The creators also create this great juxtaposition of dreamlike fear and stark horror. Multiple versions of events play out in gauzy colours and shadows, making it hard to always know what’s really happening as you first see it, but then a scene, image or splash of blood snaps the reader back into “reality.” This serves to heighten the fear, because you truly don’t know what could happen next if you’re always questioning what’s happening. Wrapped in Rossmo‘s aggressive, evocative art, Rebel Blood is the kind of frightening, squirm-inducing horror story I’ve been waiting for since I first saw Nosferatu and Hitchcock. It might be ending this week (pick up the back issues!), but it’s going to be on my mind a lot longer.

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.