New Comics Reviews for Wednesday 6/25!
Hello! Here are our new comics reviews for the week of 6/25/25, featuring New History of the DC Universe, VR Troopers, News from the Fallout & Tramps of the Apocalypse!
Be sure to check out the review show if you want to hear our full discussions!
Joe’s Reviews:
Cover by Taurin Clarke
VR Troopers #1
BOOM! Studios
Written by Mairghread Scott
Art by Sebastian Piriz
Colors by JP Jordan
Letters by Taylor Esposito
Solicit: We are VR! Spinning out of Power Rangers Prime, the first VR Troopers series in 30 years! The perfect jumping on point for Troopers fans old or new! The VR Troopers are the most elite of the Eltarian empire’s human heroes on Earth, but what secrets are the Eltarian’s keeping? When VR Ryan tracks down a rogue Skug, he’ll come face-to-face with a foe who will change his understanding of VR-and himself-forever!
Review: I take issue with the solicit’s claim that this is a perfect jumping on point for new readers. However, Mairghread Scott’s script does a good job explaining what’s happening in the plot. However however, she doesn’t take any time at all to explain who the VR Troopers are beyond a declaration of their mission statement. The other members of the team aren’t given any sort of introduction at all. They just show up during the big battle and stick around to provide some exposition. It certainly isn’t the most difficult plot to follow, and I recognize that some of this is spinning out of recent issue of Power Rangers, but this issue needed to do a bit more to properly introduce the concept and the cast.
The art by Sebastian Piriz is pretty great. Some of the figures are a little stiff and his faces get kind of wonky here and there, but the layouts are interesting and he draws the hell out of an action scene.
VR Troopers #1 is a decent read with good art, but it needed to do a bit more to reestablish itself for readers that haven’t thought about the show in 30 years.
Rating: SKIM IT
Cover by Chris Samnee and Giovanna Nero
New History of the DC Universe #1
DC Comics
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Todd Nauck and Jerry Ordway
Colors by Matt Herms and John Kalisz
Letters by Todd Klein
Solicit: LEARN THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE! In celebration of 90 years of DC, super fan and writer Mark Waid turns back time to the very beginning of the DC Universe in a four-issue miniseries drawn by some of DC’s greatest artists and told by the newest chronicler of time, Barry Allen, the Flash! In our debut issue, Barry takes us from the very birth of the DC Universe to the rise of the Justice Society. The Golden Age of heroes begins here!
Review: 39 years ago, Marv Wolfman and George Perez created a follow up to their universe-redefining Crisis on Infinite Earths epic. Over the course of two issues, weaving together the old and the new, this History of the DC Universe established a specific timeline for DC’s new continuity. Fast forward to 2025 and a dozen or so Crisis-level events later, and a New History of the DCU is long overdue.
Mark Waid has taken an overwhelming amount of historical data and formed it into a narrative that we see through the eyes of Barry Allen, DC’s foremost expert on the Multiverse. It’s the perfect use for the character after the focus of the Flash series was rightfully shifted back to Wally West and his family. Barry has seen more shit than any other character in DC’s history that wasn’t intimately involved in its creation, so having him chronicle that history is a no-brainer.
Waid weaves together elements from every iteration of the DCU in a way that seems seamless. Perpetua with all of her nonsense? Yeah she’s here. But so are the Demon Knights from the New 52 and Icon from Milestone and All-Star Squadron from the Pre-Crisis Earth-2, all folded together into a single cohesive timeline. Waid has done an incredible job so far, and this issue only gets us up to the explosion of Krypton!
The art in this issue, courtesy of Nauck and Ordway, is lovely. They bring styles both classic and modern, illustrating the biggest moments from Barry’s account, and showing how some of those moments touched the future.
The cherry on top of this amazing sundae is the DEFINITIVE timeline found at the end of the issue. What came before was a thematic retelling of major events, but this timeline has EVERYTHING. It touches on things that even I forgot to consider, like the new galaxy-spanning elements added to Hawkman’s origin by Robert Venditti. It is a feast for continuity nerds.
Now here’s where it gets tricky. For someone like me, New History of the DC Universe #1 is an INCREDIBLE read. It’s everything I wanted the series to be and it’s only just getting started. But can I really justify recommending it to everyone? I’m not really sure. I suspect it will come down to a game time decision when we record these reviews next week, but for now, this gets the strongest Skim It I can muster.
Rating: STRONG SKIM IT…LIKE…REALLY STRONG
Matt’s Reviews:
Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love
News from the Fallout #1
Image Comics
Written by Chris Condon
Art by Jeffery Allen Love
Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Design by Tivey
32 pages for $3.99
Solicit: Writer CHRIS CONDON (THAT TEXAS BLOOD, Ultimate Wolverine) teams with visionary artist JEFFREY ALAN LOVE (The Last Battle at the End of the World, The Thousand Demon Tree) for a thrillingly dark sci-fi horror story unlike any you’ve seen before! In 1962 Nevada, a nuclear bomb test goes horribly awry and unleashes a contaminate into the atmosphere that turns people rotten. Otis Fallows, a private in the U.S. Army who is present for the test and is the only known survivor, flees the secret army base in search of a safe haven — but does such a place exist?
Review: News from the Fallout’s cover immediately conveys the kind of nuclear nightmare Condon and Love are crafting—one that fans of Stanley Kubrick and George Romero will instantly recognize. Jeffrey Alan Love’s name is new to me, but after this debut, I’m betting we’ll be seeing much more of his stark black-and-white art. The only thing more stripped down might be Condon’s story, which is equal parts Night of the Living Dead, Doctor Strangelove, and the Hulk if Bruce Banner was the only one to survive the Gamma bomb explosion intact.
Condon’s story sets up a mystery behind the nuclear experiment, but he lets Love take the storytelling reins. Love’s smoky panels create truly nightmarish moments that invite the reader to add details to the irradiated monsters chasing the gas-masked hero. Though the art can look simple at first glance, Love’s small touches—like flashes of light off the sunglasses of an otherwise pure black silhouette, the way he draws Otis a little lighter than the other soldiers, or the crooked monsters with sharp teeth and long fingers—all help to create deep, emotive dread. Hats off to Otsmane-Elhaou’s incredible lettering as well.
News from the Fallout #1 is not only a standout first issue for yet another Condon project with nothing but promise, but also an incredible debut for Love’s unforgettable art.
Rating: BUY IT
Cover by Alice Darrow
Tramps of the Apocalypse #1
Dark Horse Comics
Written and drawn by Alice Darrow
Colors by Hugo Blanc
Letters by Frank Cvetkovic
40 pages for $3.99
Solicit: The year is 2094, and men rule the world. So what has changed in seventy years, you ask? Following the ten-year Sildenafil wars of 2053, Earth has become a barren wasteland. Factions of surviving men led by “Quest Ragnor, King of Males” have taken over the remnants of cities and towns across the globe, capturing and enslaving all women… Well, all women except for three super bimbos with unparalleled bloodlust and an unquenchable thirst for violence: Baby, Belladonna, and Babette. Unwilling to bend to the whims and desires of the buffoons in charge, too slippery to be caught, and too sexy for chains, these three bangin’ babes are at the top of Quest Ragnor’s most wanted list. Unfortunately for him, they couldn’t care less!
Review: If Russ Meyer had directed a Mad Max film, there’s a solid chance it would have looked exactly like Alice Darrow’s Tramps of the Apocalypse. Colored in black, white, and pink, Darrow’s trio of tramps unleash pure violence on the cartoonishly macho men trying to maintain their post-apocalyptic patriarchy. Like Russ Meyer’s vixens, the three buxom stars of the book are sexy outlaws playing by their own vicious rules, proving why a good guy with a gun has no chance against a bad bitch in boots.
Darrow’s art is a joy as we watch her stars stab flip-flop-wearing muscled morons in the face and spray black blood all over the page. Darrow is clearly having fun here, and it shows in her over-the-top story. Tramps of the Apocalypse isn’t going to win any awards for high art or taste, but fans of other outsider comic artists like Tom Scioli and Michel Fiffe will love Darrow’s take on 90s bad-girl comics meet’s 70s sexploitation.
Rating: BUY IT
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