New Comics Reviews 5/7/25: Star Wars, Captain Planet, Blood & Thunder & Los Monstruos!
New Comics Reviews for Wednesday 5/7!
Hello! Here are our new comics reviews for the week of 5/7/25, featuring Star Wars, Captain Planet, Blood & Thunder, and Los Monstruos!
Be sure to check out the review show if you want to hear our full discussions!
Joe’s Reviews:
Cover by Merino & Diaz
Los Monstruos #1
Dark Horse Comics
Written by James Robinson
Art by Jesus Merino
Colors by K.J. Diaz
Letters by Jim Campbell
32 pages for $4.99
Solicit: The time is the 1950s and the place is a very unique American city. Los Monstruos is entirely populated with classic monsters from movies and folklore. Vampires, Man-Monsters, Werewolves, Mummies, and many other fantastic creatures. Perry Cutter, werewolf P.I., has just foiled a gill-man kidnapping when another case falls into his lap. The case: finding a missing vampiress, seems simple enough, until Perry realizes he must walk a razor’s edge between crime-boss and pyramid casino owner Ramses and the hardboiled team of vampire cops known as the Night Shift. Perry is reminded, yet again, that nothing in this city is simple. Come visit Los Monstruos, a wild, wonderful city full of monsters and mystery.
Review: I love hard-boiled detective noir. I love classic movie monsters. James Robinson is one of my favorite comic book writers of all time. Los Monstruos had everything going for it in theory. Thankfully it delivers at every turn. Robinson delivers the almost casual world-building that he became known for on books like Starman, giving you a complete sense of this bizarro verson of L.A. in just a few pages of dialogue. Perry Cutter is a good guy private eye, a former cop that ran afoul of police corruption, doing his best to help people as a gumshoe. The monster thing could seem like a tacked-on afterthought. Instead it informs everything from how Perry navigates the landscape to the cases he takes. And the case that drives the forward momentum of the book is really compelling. Jesus Merino became familiar to American audiences as an inker for the late, great Carlos Pacheco, but he struck out as an artist on his own years ago and has only gotten better with time. The citizens of Los Monstruos all resemble classic monsters, but each and every one has a personality of its own. The character designs are wildly varied and the backgrounds are full of beautiful detail. K.J. Diaz’s muted colors add an old-timey feel to the art that works perfectly with the time and setting. Los Monstruos #1 had me hooked from the first page, but I was already an easy mark given my love of its various themes. But I think any fan of compelling detective fiction is going to find a lot to enjoy here.
Rating: BUY IT
Main Cover by Mark Spears
Captain Planet and the Planeteers #1
Dynamite Entertainment
Written by David Pepose
Art by Eman Casallos
Colors by Jorge Sutil
Letters by Jeff Eckleberry
32 pages for $4.99
Solicit: Earth. Fire. Wind. Water. Heart. With their powers combined, they summon Earth’s greatest champion: Captain Planet. But they need to learn to trust each other first. Gaia, the latest High Priestess of the Earth has been kidnapped! Our Planeteers are forced to come together against the newly formed might of Lucian Plunder! Even with Captain Planet on their side, will it be enough to save the very Earth itself?!?
Review: Dynamite is taking its current formula of focusing popular children’s entertainment from decades past through a more grownup lens and mining it for all its worth. I can only assume that we’re just a few months away from a gritty Hammerman reboot. But I digress, back to Captain Planet… My familiarity with the property isn’t as strong as it was with Silverhawks and Thundercats, which may work in the book’s favor. Writer David Pepose successfully introduces the concept at a broad level, with the promise of a “gathering the team” moment to come. This version of the titular Planeteers skews a little older which works well, giving them each a stronger sense of identity other than “teenager.” I enjoyed the individual scenes of each member discovering their powers in a moment a crisis, and I’m intrigued by what appears to be a pretty violent personality shift in one of the characters, which I won’t spoil here. The art by Eman Casallos is pretty dang good, but his faces are WEIRD, with distorted mouths full of way too many huge teeth. I’m also not fond of the Captain’s redesign, with the addition of rocks to represent the “Earth” part of his powers, but really just look like his shoulders are covered in lumps of shit. Captain Planet and the Planeteers #1 is a mostly-successful revival of a mostly-forgotten relic of the early 90s. It’s not perfect, but it’s got a ton of promise.
Rating: BUY IT
Matt’s Reviews:
Cover by Phil Noto
Star Wars #1
Marvel Comics
Written by Alex Segura
Art by Phil Noto
Letters by VC’s Clayton Cowles
32 pages for $4.99
Solicit: AN EPIC NEW ADVENTURE BEGINS FOR LUKE, LEIA AND HAN IN THE WAKE OF RETURN OF THE JEDI! New York Times best-selling author ALEX SEGURA launches the bold next era of STAR WARS. LUKE SKYWALKER must defend the NEW REPUBLIC from a bloodthirsty gang of mercenaries! HAN SOLO investigates a deadly underworld mystery — and saves a surprising ally! LEIA ORGANA must grapple with a new alliance opposed to the goals of the New Republic!
Review: Marvel’s Star Wars flagship title gets a new #1 and picks up right after the end of Return of the Jedi, but presumably before the events of Heir to the Empire. Segura has been on post-ROTJ storytelling duty since last year’s Battle of Jakku mini-series, and he’s got the formula and character voices down. The story, like the movies, tends to screech to a halt when the diplomacy angles come into play (somehow, Star Trek always makes talking heads interesting), but it gives Segura’s Leia a chance to show off some attitude. Luke’s side story involves a pirate some readers may recognize, who tells him a secret off-panel—which was a bit odd. Han is teaming up with a character from Marvel’s original Star Wars comics (again, who some may recognize) from the ’70s, and again, Segura’s dialogue for both is solid.
The art is where the story stumbles. I’m a fan of Noto’s work, but he doesn’t always choose projects that suit his stiff, composed style. His character work is strong, and most of the ships—especially the X-Wings—look great, but the action, particularly the space dogfights, lacks the motion and energy that artists with animation backgrounds might bring to the page. Luke blocking a weapon with his lightsaber and using the Force to disarm a pirate should feel sudden and dynamic, but instead comes off like three flat panels with dialogue in between.
This latest Star Wars relaunch takes place during a fascinating stretch of canon, with lots of new ground to explore, but any mystery being set up feels pretty telegraphed—unless issue #2 goes in a very different direction.
Rating: SKIM IT
Cover by E.J. Su
Blood & Thunder #1
Image Comics
Written by Benito Cereno
Art by E.J. Su
Colors by Michele Assarasakorn (AKA MSASSYK)
Letters by Rus Wooton
40 pages for $3.99
Solicit: Set in a far future where Earth has integrated alien species into a new society, Blood & Thunder plays by a whole new set of rules… and a whole load of new crimes to solve. Bounty hunter Akeldama “Blood” Bledsoe and her cantankerous talking gun, Thunder, are the best there is at bringing in the bad guys. However, when the galaxy’s most dangerous criminal breaks out of prison, Blood’s hunt delivers her down a path that will unlock secrets about her past, present, and future… and that’s when things get REALLY BAD.
Review: Blood & Thunder sets up a beautifully illustrated, layered satellite city with some familiar themes: the top layer is wealthy and seemingly dominated by humans—one of whom we meet is rude and clearly human-centric—while the lower layer is populated by impoverished aliens. We get a brief glimpse of the prisoner mentioned in the solicitation, but the focus quickly shifts to Blood, an alien with a floating cloud of blood for hair (explained only in the back matter).
Su’s art is excellent—he brings an animator’s eye and energy to the story, keeping the chase scenes dynamic, and his alien designs are fantastic. The setup is strong: a loose-cannon bounty hunter with a talking gun named Thunder that refuses to kill. But the dialogue is overloaded with excessive swearing, which undercuts the script’s impact, and the story never gave me enough reason to care about the main character. I’m not sure if I was hoping for more heart or a more serious Blade Runner-style tone, as hinted at in the press for Blood & Thunder #1, but the story gets clunky when trying to do either. Su’s art is undeniably impressive, but the story and script didn’t hold my interest enough to keep me invested moving forward.
Rating: SKIM IT
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