Joey Mad, childhood icon of mine, is returning to Marvel in June. This should be something resembling news to me. However, I can’t bring myself to even give a fuck on a nostalgic level. I just can’t. How about you children of the 1990s. Does this tickle your goods? I imagine just his name will be enough to drag many back onto the shelves. Not me though. No. I can’t.

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Joe Madureira was like, the jam. Man. Way back in the day, I was obsessed with the guy. Then he stopped drawing watermelon boobs and hands the size of basketballs to tool around on other projects. Which is probably for the best, allowing me to not actively figure out how much I didn’t enjoy his style any longer. Now the dude is returning to comics though seemingly full time, and my past self is pretty excited.

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It’s official. Scott Lobdell and  Joe Madureira are both employed by the major comic book companies, heralding the feared return of the 1990s onto the comic book market. Joey Mad will be penciling the  Zeb Wells written title, ‘The Avenging Spider-Man.’

Barf Sense tingling.

Hit the jump for all the news and some preview pencils.

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Yo! Welcome to Variant Covers. This is the weekly column where I kick you my pull list for the week, and you spit back at me with yours. There’s too many titles to keep up with and buy on a weekly basis, so don’t nerdfroth if your favorite comic isn’t here. It’s part of the fun, send the recommendation my way.

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Breakneck #1.
Comic books are a crapshoot. The market is flooded, and as I’ve often intimated, there’s too much good shit out there. Sometimes things fall by the wayside, and I’m not a perfect dude! Take for example Breakneck #1. I came across the title when searching for a sweet header image. I thought the artwork was fantastic, and pressed I carried on my way. Snagged it, cropped it, didn’t think of even promoting it until a reader pointed out the douchery behind that in the comments section. Douchery, indeed. My bad.

Dropping this week, Breakneck a superhero title daring to exist outside of the gauntlet of Marvel and DC titles. The indie offering by writer Mark Bertolini and artist James Boulton is an inversion of the superhero motif, deciding to fixate on the workings of a bottom feeding supervillain. What’s the world look like to someone peering through the opposite side of the looking glass? Superheroes as menacing bastards, the supervillain as enterprising down on his luck protagonist. Don’t be like me, deciding to feed the machine while simultaneously bemoaning it. Check this out.

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Infinite Vacation #2.
I really dug the first issue of this series by Nick Spencer and Christian Ward. It strums up the zeitgeist of the modern dude or dudettes: we’re never happy, we’re always searching, we are missing life in search of something better, newer, faster. Vacation seems to posit that we can be perfectly happy if we just sit down and appreciate the moment. All done through the conceit of multiple dimensions, and modern technology, riding a couple of our other obsessions.

I don’t know if that’s something that rings of the Man Stuffing Us Back In Place, or as I imagine Spencer hoping, as a life-affirming notion.

This issue continues the main character’s search for the killer who is wiping out him out across dimensions. Gulp!

Around The Horn:
Casanova: Gula #4 is coming out, and it concludes the collections of Fraction’s first two stories in the Casa-verse. This summer the title will kick off new content. Then there’s Northlanders #39. I’m not really feeling this Northlanders storyline, but that’s the beauty of the title. With smallish storylines, you need just wait a couple of issues for something new to be introduced. Also, let’s face it: Wood’s lesser storylines carry more heat than most people’s fastballs. I just mixed all sorts of metaphors.

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