This week we’re picking up two new series and we’re pretty excited about them. Kylee is revisiting an old favorite from Chuck Palahniuk in the form of Fight Club 2 #1. Meanwhile Sam is discovering new reasons to be afraid of stepping into the ocean with Surface Tension #1.

Capture Creatures continues to be adorable and Order of the Forge still hasn’t given Kylee any real zombie action.

Browse through our selections for this week and let us know what you think! Did you read any of the same comics? Have some to recommend? We’d love to hear from you.

Sam’s Reads

Capture Creatures #4

Author: Frank Gibson
Artist: Becky Dreistadt
Publisher: KaBOOM!
Source: BOOM! Studios DRC
★★★☆☆

This month we’ve got a brief showdown at the tree house after our heroes try to rescue the ‘stranded’ rangers. They’re stopped by the mask figure from the woods who is ultimately run off, but they can’t escape from the island as intended. It turns out something super shady is going on. The boat they were going to escape on actually has boxes that are being used to capture creatures from the island – and Jory says they come from Prof. Buttercup’s lab!

Capture Creatures is such a cute book. I love the art style. Seriously, it’s the most adorable thing ever. That said, a lot went on this issue and it didn’t alway seem that cohesive. The minor battle also wrapped up a bit quickly and wasn’t as interesting as I would have hoped (Jory needs a Capture Creature of his very own!). All in all, though, I still love this book. I’m looking forward to discovering what’s really going on and what those people were doing taking creatures from the island.

Grindhouse: Drive In, Bleed Out #5

Author: Alex de Campi
Artist: Mulele Jarvis
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Source: Dark Horse DRC
★★★★☆

Issue #5 kicks off a brand new storyline – the third of four in this eight-issue relaunch of the Grindhouse books – and it’s awesome so far. Channeling old school blaxploitation films, Lady Danger: Agent of BOOTI features the titular Lady Danger as a one-woman operative going into even the most dangerous of situations. She gets sent to Thailand to rescue a kidnapped Red Cross medical team and after running off the offending warlord and rescuing Hot Doctor Derek everything seems to be great. Or is it? Hot Doctor Derek isn’t exactly who he seems to be and the CIA is out to get BOOTI and Lady Danger in particular.

Fun, silly, and Grindhouse to the core, these books are always pretty much awesome. Alex de Campi is an awesome writer who somehow manages to tell some of the best stories in just two issues. Lady Danger features all the kung-fu fighting and scantily clad ladies you could want while setting up for what will undoubtedly be an epic climax in next month’s issue. Seriously, if you love old school exploitation films you should be reading this series.

Surface Tension #1

Author: Jay Gunn
Artist: Jay Gunn
Publisher: Titan Comcis
Source: Titan Comics DRC
★★★☆☆

Are you a fan of all things post-apocalyptic? You might want to check out Surface Tension, then. The first issue came out this week and it’s actually pretty good. The book takes an interesting angle on the post-apocalyptic genre and unlike a lot of other books it doesn’t shy away from pinpointing the origins of it’s particularly terrifying, waterborne end-of-the-world.

It’s also notable if for no reason other than the fact that Jay Gunn is doing double duty as author and artist for this creator-owned title.

Check out my full review here.

Sam Wildman is a co-founder and co-editor at Nerdophiles. She’s already not a big fan of large bodies of water and Surface Tension just validates that distrust. @samaside

Kylee’s Reads

Fight Club 2 #1

Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Artist: Cameron Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse
Source: Dark Horse DRC
★★★★☆

The long wait for Fight Club 2 ended this week, with the release of Chuck Palahniuk’s first comic series revisiting our old friends, The Narrator (Sebastian, as he’s now known), Tyler Durden, and Marla. With the addition of their son, Sebastian’s heavy regiment of pills to keep him ‘sane,’ and Marla’s growing sense of discontent with the life they’ve settled into, we find ourselves almost exactly where Fight Club started.

So far, the attempt at satirizing the middle-aged family man falls a bit flat, Palahniuk’s characters have morphed into bombastic caricatures of what we saw in the first book, but the art is gorgeous and the writing is signature Palahniuk in a new medium.

Read our full review here.

The Order of the Forge #2

Writer: Victor Gischler
Artists: Tazio Bettin, Nate Piekos, Juan Ferreyra
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Source: Dark Horse DRC
★★☆☆☆

The Order of the Forge got a little bit better, which isn’t saying much as I didn’t feel like the first issue set the bar very high. At the end of their fight, George Washington’s magic overflows into his friends around him, giving them each their own abilities. Alright, you’re building a superhero team. I guess I can buy that for now. They all take to their newfound powers extremely well and set about stopping Kate’s uncle from enacting a plan to make him ruler of the colonies.

After snagging a map to show them to their destination, things are almost too easy for our heroes. They fight off thugs and giant wolves without breaking much of a sweat before finding themselves in Roanoke. Danger lurks around the corner, but with the way they dispatched the first wave, I can’t say I’m too worried.

I think I’m going to give this another issue or two before considering dropping the series, but it’s not what I was wanting out of the pitch. Maybe if we bring about other people with powers to counteract how unstoppable our team seems to be, I’ll enjoy it more. Or you know, those zombies I was promised. Pick up issue two to judge for yourself how this historical re-imagining is shaping up.

Past Aways #3

Writer: Matt Kindt
Artists: Scott Kolins, Bill Crabtree, Rob Leigh
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Source: Dark Horse DRC
★★★★☆

As expected, everyone survives the perilous end of issue two and eventually the team reunites in the head of the robot. Margaret leads Ursula through the robot and we get another look into her past (the ‘before’), where she showcased her cunning and survival skills while working towards becoming one of the Knight’s Order.

Herb and Phil are also together and making their way back towards the team when we get a look at Phil’s ‘before’ and the start of his feud with Art. In a good-hearted (and badly executed) attempt to force Phil into give up pieces of himself for the team’s ship, Phil naturally declined and an immortal feud was born. All I got out of that sequence was Phil’s a robot?!

When the team reunites, the story of the robot is mildly interesting, if a little bit predictable in how it ends, but the characterization continues to be solid and intriguing and I find myself more invested in the team dynamics. I can’t wait to see what the next arc brings the team and how they handle it. Past Aways delivers another solid issue while keeping me hooked with teases of the ‘before.’ If you haven’t given this series a look yet, I can’t recommend it enough.

Kylee Sills is an associate editor at Nerdophiles. When she met Chuck Palahniuk, she got Survivor signed instead of Fight Club because she not-so-secretly believes that’s his best work. @kyleewho