This Week's Picks: Absolute Batman's Reckoning, Plus Miles Morales Meets a Ghost from His Father's Past

Every strong week of comics has a spine, and this one's is inheritance — the stuff you can't put down even when you'd rather. Batman spends this issue deciding whether his own legend is a choice or something fear built for him. Miles Morales gets handed a villain assembled entirely out of his father's old sins. Gambit, reformed and freshly married, learns reform doesn't erase a debt. Even Wolverine's rescue mission this week is really an argument about what's already been done to the people he's saving. Add a Gotham "relaxing day off" that turns into a referendum on Harley's most complicated relationship, and a superhero war that still won't explain itself, and you've got a week that keeps asking who gets to walk away clean.

Absolute Batman #24

Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta have spent two years making the case that this stripped-down, resource-poor Batman is the most interesting version of the character in a decade, and issue #24 is them cashing that trust in. Bruce finishes his business with Scarecrow while a memory of his mother talks him back from the edge of losing himself entirely, and Barbara Gordon finds the first physical evidence that she's about to become someone else too. What makes it work is the reframe buried underneath the fight choreography: this Batman's iconic silhouette gets built here as something chosen out of hope, not fear-conditioning. Dragotta's linework has always done double duty as world-building and horror-movie staging, and this issue asks it to do a third job — sell a costume's origin as a rebirth. Snyder crosscuts hard between three plots at once, and it occasionally costs the quieter beats their full weight, but the density reads as confidence, not clutter. A big turning point for one of the best-reviewed runs DC has going.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #2

Bryan Edward Hill relaunched this title on the premise that Miles has never really had to answer for his father Jeff Morales' history as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and issue #2 makes that debt literal by introducing Grendel, a villain built entirely out of grievances against Jeff. It's a smart structural trick — Miles has spent his whole career outrunning Peter Parker's shadow, and now Hill hands him a shadow that's actually his own family's. Grendel is written as a puzzle box with a counter for every one of Miles' usual moves, which forces the kind of improvisation that made the character interesting in the first place. Nico Leon's linework keeps the acrobatics legible even when the fights get chaotic, and colorist Bryan Valenza leans into a nighttime Brooklyn palette that makes the book feel distinct from the main Spider-Man line. Hill has a real ear for legacy-as-liability stories, and this is the strongest hook the relaunch has given him yet.

Gambit Gone #1

Steve Orlando picks up Remy LeBeau in the wake of "X-Men of Apocalypse: Omega" and asks the question every redemption story eventually has to answer: does becoming a better man erase what the old one owed? Gambit is newly married and reformed here, and Orlando structures the issue as two interlocking narratives that keep pulling him back toward both his personal ledger and mutantkind's larger mess, refusing to let him cash in his character growth for a quiet life. Eduardo Aoudino and Gerardo Sandoval split art duties without losing a consistent sense of momentum, and colorist Federico Blee's work leans warmer than the moody purples this character usually gets, which suits a story more interested in Remy's interior life than his heist-thriller aesthetic. Letterer Ariana Maher gives the dual narratives distinct rhythms so the crosscutting never gets muddy. A sharper showcase for Gambit than the X-office has managed in a while.

Infernal Hulk vs. Wolverine #1

This is the first domino in Marvel's "March to Hulk War," and Phillip Kennedy Johnson wisely doesn't waste the one-shot on table-setting — Wolverine finds out the Infernal Hulk, now a vessel for the ancient entity called the Eldest, has been abducting and corrupting mutants, and goes in with no intention of negotiating. Johnson has made a career out of writing rage as a moral position rather than a personality quirk, and that instinct pays off here: this isn't a slugfest for its own sake, it's Wolverine treating what's been done to the missing mutants as the actual crime. Jonas Scharf's art leans into body horror without losing the clean staging a fight book needs, and the ending is built to surprise even readers who think they know how a Hulk-Wolverine grudge match has to end. A strong, mean little primer for a bigger event.

Harley Quinn #66

Elliott Kalan has built this run on the joke that Harley's idea of downtime never survives contact with Gotham, and #66 delivers the bit at full scale: the city starts getting torn apart by prehistoric plants and poisonous pollen just as Harley's finally sat down to relax. The obvious suspect is Poison Ivy, and Kalan gets real mileage out of making Harley investigate the person she loves most without letting the book curdle into melodrama — it's a story about trust that still finds room for slapstick. Carlos Olivares draws chaos well, which this issue needs in bulk, keeping the escalating plant-based destruction visually coherent even as it swallows City Hall. Kalan's Harley has always worked best when her comedy and her heartbreak share a page, and this is one of the better recent examples of that balance.

Terminal #3

Robert Kirkman and Joe Casey's superhero team book pits the Liberators against the Oppressors in a fight over a billionaire's compound, and three issues in, Terminal is still leaning almost entirely on the strength of its art team to carry a premise it hasn't fully explained. Andy Kubert draws violence with a clarity that makes the carnage land even when the motivations don't, and colorist Dave McCaig's work gives the whole book a grim, high-contrast weight that suits Kirkman's gorier instincts. The issue's real problem is structural: the villains retreat mid-fight for reasons the script gestures at rather than earns, and the cosmic stakes behind the Liberators-versus-Oppressors conflict remain more implied than built. It's a book coasting on pedigree and craft while its actual mythology stays frustratingly out of focus — worth picking up for the art, worth watching to see if the story catches up.

This Week's Full Release List

Comics Beat's weekly rundown flagged plenty more worth your pull list this week, including a handful of creator-owned standouts that don't move the same volume as the Big Two books above but are doing some of the sharpest work on the shelf.

Also New This Week

• A Mischief of Magpies #2 (DSTLRR Media) — Simon Spurrier and Matias Bergara's fantasy of a wandering city, built for creators willing to take big swings.
• Dispatched #3 (Ignition Press) — B. Clay Moore and Daniel Gete's tense, modern riff on Die Hard, with real thematic weight under the hostage-thriller mechanics.
• Fort Psycho #2 (Oni Press) — Matt Kindt and Brian Hurtt's character-driven G.I. Joe deconstruction, set on an island full of secrets and ex-commandos.
• Star Trek #1 (IDW Publishing) — Christopher Cantwell opens a mystery-driven psychological thriller arc; a strong jumping-on point for a consistently good line.
• That Texas Blood: Hell Comes to Allison Ranch #1 (Image Comics) — Christopher Condon and Jacob Phillips return to Ambrose County for a 2003-set one-shot with bonus interviews and essays.

Other Comics Worth Your Time

• Absolute Wonder Woman #24
• Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy #2
• The Dogsitter #3
• Exquisite Corpses: Rascal Randy #3
• The Flash #37
• The Forged #13
• The Foundry #2
• Shaolin Cowboy: Staying A.I. Live #3
• Universal Monsters: Blood of the Wolf Man #4

New #1s and One-Shots

• Conan: Tides of the Tyrant King #1
• Crimes Against Nature #1
• Escape From New York: Escape From Chicago #1
• Ghost of a Ghost #1
• Hellraiser Resurrections: Hell's Council #1 (one-shot)
• Marvel Mangaverse: Ghostlocke #1 (one-shot)
• Muppets Take the Marvel Universe #1 (one-shot)
• Smile: Any Given Smile #1

Graphic Novels and Trade Collections

• A Beginner's Guide to Leveling Up TP
• Adventure Time Compendium Vol. 4 HC/TP
• Atlas Comics Library Vol. 10: Sports Action HC
• Batman by Grant Morrison Book 3 TP
• Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia HC
• Breaklands Season 3: The City TP
• Cardoselli & Perillo Collection HC
• Charley's War by Joe Colquhoun Apex Edition HC
• Curse of Sherlee Johnson Vol. 1 TP (Spawn)
• Daredevil Omnibus Vol. 4 HC
• Dark Judges: The Fall of Deadworld Omnibus HC
• Dark Souls: Mother of Mourning TP
• Darren Aronofsky's Human Nature Book 2 HC
• DC Universe by Keith Giffen HC
• Excommunicated TP
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: The Silent Missions Vol. 2 TP
• Green Lantern Earth One Vol. 1 TP
• Havana Split Vol. 1: Welcome to Cuba HC
• Hellboy Universe: The Secret Histories Vol. 2 HC
• Locke & Key IDW Classic Collections: Crown of Shadows & Keys to the Kingdom TP
• Magic: The Gathering: Untold Stories: Elspeth TP
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Compact Comics Edition Vol. 1 TP
• Minor Arcana Deluxe Edition Book 1 HC
• Names and Faces: A Graphic Memoir HC
• Peanuts: Your Choice Snoopy TP
• Pride of Baghdad: The 20th Anniversary Edition HC
• Roots of Madness TP
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy's Anniversary Special HC
• Strontium Dog: Search and Destroy Vol. 5 HC
• Superman: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 2 HC
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IDW Classic Collections: The Mirage Years 1984–1987
• Toxic Crusaders TP
• Ultimate Endgame TP
• Universal Monsters: Phantom of the Opera HC
• Wiccan: Witches Road TP
• Witchblade Vol. 4 TP
• Wolverine Epic Collection Vol. 5: Valley of Death TP
• Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Absolute Edition HC
• X-Men Epic Collection Vol. 21: X-Cutioners Song TP
• X-Men Legacy Omnibus HC

Take the through-line seriously this week: nobody on this list gets to outrun what they've already done, and the best books here are the ones that treat that as a feature, not a punishment. Start with Absolute Batman if you only grab one thing, then let Miles Morales and Gambit Gone fill in the rest of the "your past is still due" theme.

The Multiverse Comics Podcast — with Stephen, Jason, and Scott — is available wherever you get your podcasts.