Marvel's November previews reviewed

Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 3 features work from a whole bunch of admirable creators, all originally commissioned and published by Dark Horse Comics, and will apparently include the 1996 Aliens: Mondo Heat one-shot drawn by Ronnie del Carmen in a style I loved back then, and love to this day. 

These are some pretty dang good comics, though I couldn't imagine ever spending $125 on a collection, no matter how worthwhile it might actually be. 

Last month's solicitation of an issue of the Deadpool anthology series featured a cover (and interior story) by Stan Sakai. This month's solicitation for Deadpool: Black, White & Blood #4 features a cover (and interior story) by Mike Allred. I'm not much of a Deadpool fan, but I may need to check the eventual trade series out...which it turns out will also be available in November, as the Deadpool: Black, White & Red Treasury Edition.  

Not sure exactly what's going on on this Javier Rodriguez cover for Defenders #4, but I kind of love it.  

Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley kick off a new series starring the jade giant in Hulk #1. I lost track of The Immortal Hulk after about a half-dozen collections, I think, but it certainly seems like it will be a tough act to follow. 

II do dig Ottley's cover, although there are of course ten other variants available. 

Star Wars: Life Day #1 seems like a really good idea for a holiday-timed special issue, but I can't help thinking this would have been a better project for IDW and their Star Wars Adventures crew, just based on the relative quality of their various Halloween-related Vader's Castle specials. I'm hopelessly behind on the Marvel Star Wars stuff, although I do plan to make an effort to catch up at some point, at least with the mains series.

This special will be written by some experienced Star Wars folks like Cavan Scott and Jody Houser, and a comic book guy in Steve Orlando (whose inclusion of Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III's Promethea in his Justice League series has landed him on my own personal Do Not Buy list). The artists involved seem to be primarily TBD, as the solicit lists only Ivan Fiorelli "and more." 

I'm not familiar with the work of prose writer Walter Mosley, but he seems like a pretty good "get" for Marvel. He'll be writing The Thing, starring Ben Grimm and drawn by Tom Reilly. That's Reilly's cover above, and it sure looks nice. 

Seeing Joshua Cassara's cover for X-Force #25 is the most interested I have been in an X-Men comic in a long time. 

Speaking of X-Men comics... Wow, check out Kaare Andrews' adopting a '90s style for his X-Men Legends #9 cover! I realize he's doing a pastiche, but Andrews' pastiches are better than many artists' most earnest work.

I'd definitely read a whole comic drawn like that, but Andrews is only drawing the cover; Billy Tan is responsible for the interiors. Marvel has a Rob Liefeld-drawn and co-written X-Force thing coming out this month—X-Force: Killshot Anniversary #1—and I can't help but wonder if that book wouldn't look infinitely better if Leifeld just handled the writing and maybe some layouts, while Andrews did full pencils in this style instead. But I guess Liefeld still has his fans, even the way he currently draws...