Welcome to the Shipping Forecast, Ninth Art's pick of the best and most notable new releases hitting comic stores each week.

COMIC OF THE WEEK:

HELLBLAZER #184 (DC Vertigo)
When writer Mike Carey's arrival to HELLBLAZER was first announced, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the handover... but it's been curiously silent since then. Hopefully it's not because people aren't reading, because the book's been awfully compelling as of late. For everyone who hasn't taken a look yet, now's the perfect time, as a new three-part storyline begins with this issue. Carey's story involving shadow dogs, Brazil, and unusually high-stakes poker games is perfect for this darkly themed book, and Marcelo Frusin's gorgeous art should melt even John Constantine's cynical heart. When Carey's LUCIFER began, it was almost a year before comicdom seemed to figure out what it was missing; maybe you should try to keep history from repeating itself. [Plymouth]

ALSO THIS WEEK:

INHUMANS #1 (Marvel Tsumani)
Building on characters from the INHUMANS Marvel Knights maxi-series by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, the second title in the Tsunami line from writer Sean McKeever promises to be pretty special. Playing to his strengths once more, McKeever focuses on youthful Inhumans instead of the more familiar characters in the earlier storyline, and makes them exchange students in the US. The phrase 'ensemble drama' has been much mentioned, which is a relief, as McKeever does that kind of thing especially well. Matthew Clark's artwork looks typically radiant, as readers of FELON will have anticipated. Well worth investigating, particularly considering the success of McKeever's other Tsunami book, SENTINEL. [Finisterre]

POWERS VOL 4: SUPERGROUP TP (Image Comics)
Those of you reading this book on a monthly basis will know that writer Brian Michael Bendis has gone insane and is now writing about prehistoric monkeys. Ah well, we should forgive him his occasional indulgences, because POWERS remains a thoroughly gripping and frequently surprising read. (It doesn't get much more surprising than prehistoric monkeys, let's be fair.) Besides, artist Mike Avon Oeming never disappoints. I'm sure he only drew those monkeys because Bendis made him do it. SUPERGROUP sees the series hit a real high note, as Detectives Pilgrim and Walker investigate the spectacular breakdown of popular superteam FG-3. Police procedural drama, media satire and epic spectacle; it's all here, and it's monkey-free. [Fisher]

LEGION #20 (DC Universe)
The Legion (formerly "...of Super-Heroes") has probably gone through more reboots and revamps than any other team in mainstream comics. Aside from being 1000 years in the future, little has remained constant. (Oh, wait, there was that "Legion in the 20th Century" era as well. Nevermind.) Now there's a new editor, and he's decided to make the big sweeping change of... getting better stories out of the current writing team. Sound too easy? Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning seem to have risen to the challenge with the new storyline, "Dream Crime", with a refocused direction to make the book more science-fiction and less "superheroes with neat communicators", and there's some nice crisp artwork from Chris Batista and Mark Farmer. Add in computer-enhanced covers by Tony Harris and Tom Feister, and it's the best this book's looked in the past couple of years. Who knew such a simple revamp could be successful? [Plymouth]

GREEN LANTERN #165 (DC Universe)
A scant two weeks after Judd Winick's exodus from the title in GREEN LANTERN #164, a new creative team is unveiled in #165 as writer Ben Raab is joined by artists Rick Burchett and Rodney Ramos. While Winick's tenure was certainly an improvement over Ron Marz' tepid writing on the title, it fell short of the character-defining run that the series still desperately needs to put the ghosts of Emerald Twilight to rest. Whether Raab and company have the collective juice to make this incarnation something more than just another DC title remains to be seen, but hope springs eternal. [Trafalgar]

THE SHIPPING LIST FOR MAY 28th:

Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change.

DARK HORSE

MAR030035 BTVS #57: SLAYER INTERRUPTED (PART 2 OF 4) ART CVR $2.99
MAR030026 SPYBOY 13.2: THE MANGA AFFAIR #2 (Of 3) $2.99
MAR030032 USAGI YOJIMBO #66 $2.99

DC COMICS

MAR030182 BATMAN #615 $2.25
MAR030239 CARTOON CARTOONS #18 $2.25
MAR030191 CATWOMAN #19 $2.50
MAR030207 FLASH #198 $2.25
MAR030248 GLOBAL FREQUENCY #8 (Of 12) $2.95
MAR030211 GREEN LANTERN #165 $2.25
MAR030271 HELLBLAZER #184 (MR) $2.75
MAR030215 JLA #81 $2.25
MAR030218 JLA: SCARY MONSTERS #3 (Of 6) $2.50
MAR030225 LEGION #20 $2.50
MAR030241 MUCHA LUCHA #2 (Of 3) $2.25
MAR030198 SUPERMAN #193 $2.25
MAR030231 SWEATSHOP #2 $2.95
FEB030206 THUNDERCATS/BATTLE OF THE PLANETS $4.95
MAR030233 TITANS/YOUNG JUSTICE: GRADUATION DAY #2 (Of 3) $2.50

IMAGE

MAR031264 AGENTS #2 (Of 6) $2.95
MAR031323 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS #10 $2.99
MAR031273 GI JOE VOL 3: MALFUNCTION TP $12.95
MAR031283 KARZA #4 (Of 4) $2.95
MAR031286 MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE VOL 2 SANTALUCIA CVR #3 $2.95
MAR031292 MISPLACED BLAYLOCK CVR #1 $2.95
MAR031297 PARADIGM #9 $3.50
MAR031299 POWERS VOL 4: SUPERGROUP TP (MR) $19.95
MAR031301 SAMMY: TOURIST TRAP #4 (Of 4) $2.95
MAR031312 VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE CVR A #1 (Of 5) $2.95

MARVEL

MAR031561 AVENGERS #67 $2.25
MAR031566 CAPTAIN MARVEL #10 $2.99
MAR031569 FANTASTIC FOUR #69 $2.25
MAR031519 INHUMANS #1 $2.50
MAR031521 MYSTIQUE #2 $2.99
FEB031324 NAMOR #2 $2.25
MAR031547 PETER PARKER, SPIDER-MAN #56 $2.25
MAR031555 PUNISHER #27 $2.99
MAR031603 SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU VOL 1: THE HELLFIRE APOCALYPSE TP $14.99
MAR031563 THOR #64 $2.99
MAR031571 ULTIMATES #10 $2.25
MAR031535 UNCANNY X-MEN #424 $2.25
MAR031543 WEAPON X #9 $2.99
MAR031541 X-MEN: PHOENIX #1 (Of 3) $2.99
MAR031530 X-TREME X-MEN #26 $2.99

OTHER PUBLISHERS

MAR031979 ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #71 $2.19
MAR031981 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #143 $3.59
MAR031982 BETTY #126 $2.19
MAR032070 BRATH #4 $2.95
JAN031884 COMIC BOOK LETTERING THE COMICRAFT WAY $9.95
MAR035155 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION #5 (OF 5) LTD PHOTO CVR (MR) $3.99
MAR032049 FUTURAMA COMICS #13 $2.50
MAR032080 MARK OF CHARON #3 (Of 5) $2.95
MAR032076 MERIDIAN #36 $2.95
APR032020 MICHAEL TURNER PRESENTS ASPEN #1 (Of 3) $2.99
MAR032078 PATH #15 $2.95
MAR032082 RUSE #20 $2.95
MAR032050 TAROT, WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #20 (MR) $2.95
MAR032149 TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS EYE OFFICIAL GUIDE #2 (Of 8) $5.25
FEB031994 VAMPIRELLA #20 REG ED $2.99

The 9A Lighthouse Crew are Trafalgar, Shannon, Fastnet, Plymouth, Viking, German Bight, Finisterre, Forties, Dogger, Cromarty and Fisher.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.