New Comics Reviews 3/12/25: Assorted Crisis Events, Nick Fury Vs. Fin Fang Foom, Dark Pyramid & Defiant!
New Comics Reviews for Wednesday 3/12!
Hello! Here are our new comics reviews for the week of 3/12/25, featuring Assorted Crisis Events, Nick Fury Vs. Fin Fang Foom, Dark Pyramid & Defiant!
Joe’s Reviews:
Cover by Eric Zawadzki
Assorted Crisis Events #1
Image Comics
Written by Deniz Camp
Art by Eric Zawadzki
Colors by Jordie Bellaire
Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
48 pages for $4.99
Solicit: Time is having a crisis. Mingling in the red-light district, you can find actual cavemen, medieval knights, and cyborg soldiers on leave from World War IV. Victorian debutantes amble their way into cell phone stores, confused and bewildered (what is a data plan?). On their way to work, bleary-eyed commuters get trapped in time-loops, assaulted by alternate-reality versions of themselves, and try to avoid post-apocalyptic wastelands. And LOOK: the 3:15 bus just took a wrong turn… into the neolithic era. Rising stars Deniz Camp and Eric Zawadzki and Eisner-winners Jordie Bellaire and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou are proud to present Assorted Crisis Events, an ongoing, zig-zagging anthology series about the compromised clicks of our clocks-full of one-shot stories both beautiful and ugly, tragic and redemptive, surreal and somehow all too familiar.
Review: After The Ultimates had me singing his praises for an entire year straight, there was no way I was going to pass up the next book by Deniz Camp. The world-building is so fast and fully formed that you’ll forget this is a one and done story. The high concept is genius and the script is full of tiny moments of comedy and tragedy. Zawadzki and Bellaire do a PHENOMENAL job on the art. The panels are jam-packed full of tiny details and the layouts eventually start spilling out of the page, which really drives home the collapsing/overlapping timeline idea. Assorted Crisis Events #1 blew me away. I loved every second of it. I’ll be sure to go back and read 20th Century Men as well. I feel like a dummy for skipping it.
Rating: BUY IT
Cover by Gary Frank & Alex Sinclair
Nick Fury Vs. Fin Fang Foom #1
Marvel Comics
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Art by Elena Cassagrande
Colors by Mattia Iacono
Letters by VC’s Travis Lanham
40 pages for $4.99
Solicit: THE HOWLING COMMANDOS TAKE ON FIN FANG FOOM! NICK FURY knows how to handle problems, no matter the size – but he’s never faced a foe THIS big before! Witness the next chapter in J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI’s team-up event as he is joined by Marvel Stormbreaker ELENA CASAGRANDE to bring you one of the most wild pairings in Marvel History!
Review: I’ve been giving these weird JMS team-up comics a pass so far but I couldn’t pass up one this ridiculous. I had to turn off my brain a bit and not worry so much about how the timeline fits together, but that speaks more to gaps in my own knowledge than holes in Straczynski’s plot. JMS’s writing is sharp and clever, and the way he weaves this pre-Strange Tales appearance of Fin Fang Foom into the mix is great. Cassagrande and Iacono’s art is really excellent and it sells the scope of this battle. I’ll admit it…This was a lot more fun than I was expecting! It’s not going to change your life or anything, but you’ll probably spend five bucks on worse things this week.
Rating: BUY IT
Matt’s Reviews:
Cover by P.J. Holden
Dark Pyramid #1
Mad Cave
Written by Paul Tobin
Art by P.J. Holden
Colors by Sara Colella
Letters by Taylor Esposito
28 pages for $3.99
Solicit: Hooky Hidalgo, adventurist and popular live streamer, has gone missing while climbing Mt. Denali in Alaska! When his girlfriend, Becca, arrives at the base of the mountain to retrace his steps, she soon discovers something beyond the dreamy and impressive landscape. There’s a conspiracy deep within the heart of Denali itself — a dark pyramid, silent, waiting. Becca — and the scores of Hooky fans determined to either find him or find some fun — will face death, avalanches… and monsters to find the truth.
Review: I am always on board for a creepy comic based on real-world conspiracy stories. There’s an excellent episode of The Why Files on YouTube if you want more background on the Alaskan Dark Pyramid conspiracy theory. Had Tobin’s script leaned more into the high strangeness of the conspiracy, the story might have worked better. However, the frequent panels of viewers watching the events unfold detract from potentially scary moments, and when the horror finally arrives, the art struggles to sell the creep factor. Dark Pyramid is a fast-moving story that doesn’t spend enough time developing its main characters beyond some awkward live streaming—an odd choice for someone desperate to find a missing loved one who also happens to be a live streaming adventurer.
Rating: SKIM IT
Cover by Pat Olliffe
Defiant #1
DSTLRY
Written by Chuck Austen
Art by Pat Olliffe
48 pages for $8.99
Solicit: NEW DSTLRY SCIENCE-FICTION DEBUT FROM CHUCK AUSTEN (Edgeworld, X-Men, Superman) and prolific Marvel and DC artist PATRICK OLLIFFE! On his final mission, Sandusky returns to the stars to reclaim his son Devon’s body and uncover the truth surrounding his death. Light years from home, among a cascade of twisted metal, Sandusky finds Devon – his body entombed in the remains of his ship, The Defiant-lost in a massive battle that sparked an intergalactic war. But nothing is what it seems, as Sandusky digs deeper, he and his allies are drawn into a galaxy-spanning mystery, one that holds secrets far darker and more complex than anticipated. Every issue from DSTLRY is presented in our perfect bound Prestige format, featuring wraparound covers with spot gloss on robust cover stock, complemented by 48 pages of exquisite interior stock. It’s the DSTLRY difference. For fans of DUNE, FIRELY, and ANDOR.
Review: Citing Dune and Andor in your solicitation lets readers know this story will move at a slow and deliberate pace—and the pace is slow here. Austen spends much of the book establishing the flawed human, Sandusky, as the real alien among far more evolved species, to the point that the story at times feels like therapy for the main character. There’s some comic relief with a talking dog-like alien named Dog, but not quite enough to capture the whimsy and character of a show like Firefly, which is also mentioned in the solicitation. Olliffe’s art is on full display, and even with many talking-head scenes, he gets to showcase some great alien designs and beautiful space vistas. Defiant is a slow-burn sci-fi story set in the far future that uses a father’s trauma to humanize a mystery. It just needed to pick up the pace a bit, and I’d be on board.
Rating: SKIM IT
NEED MORE THN?
Join us for the THN Gang Hang on Saturdays at 11:00AM Central. Check out our Discord for details. Head over to the THN Facebook Fan Page and check out our YouTube channel for extra content you can’t find in the show!
WANT TO BE A PART OF THE SHOW?
If you’re looking for a new read from the Comic Pushers, have a Hot Take or Ask a Nerd question, or just want to share your thoughts, send us an MP3 and we might use it for a segment!
KEEP THE SHOW ALIVE!
If you like what you heard, please consider donating! THN is a listener-supported podcast that we aim to keep ad-free; without your support, we don’t have a show. You can become a Patron where you’ll hear all kinds of Patreon-exclusive content, or just make a one-time donation via Paypal because you’re a comic nerd of the highest quality!
Excelsior!
