This Week's Picks: Terminal and Absolute Superman's Endgame, Plus a Wave of Fresh Marvel #1s

This is a week of endgames and origin points landing on the same Wednesday. Absolute Superman's "Reign of the Superman" finally reaches its finish line while a new Skybound universe launches with the most anticipated debut in weeks. Marvel stacks in three very different flavors of #1 on top of it — a locked-room mystery, a retro Gambit solo, and a facsimile reprint of one of the great company crossovers. 

Terminal #1

Robert Kirkman and Joe Casey co-write, Andy Kubert draws, Dave McCaig colors, and Rus Wooton letters this new ongoing from Image's Skybound imprint. Kirkman built Skybound on the premise that creator-owned books can carry the scale of a company crossover, and pairing him with Joe Casey — whose Wildcats and Automatic Kafka work proved he can twist a superhero premise sideways — signals Terminal wants to be more than another Invincible chaser. Kubert's linework, sharpened across two decades of Marvel event books, gives the covert-war concept the widescreen treatment it needs. The story follows Marilyn Howe into a hidden conflict between two factions of superhuman operatives, with power itself tied to unlocking one's own genetic code — a premise that reads like the greatest hits of both writers' careers filtered through a brand new cast. First issues rarely arrive with this much combined firepower behind them.

Absolute Superman #21

Jason Aaron writes, Rafa Sandoval draws, Zander Cannon colors, and Ulises Arreola letters the issue that finally closes out "Reign of the Superman." Aaron's Absolute take has spent its run stripping away the Boy Scout comfort of the character, dropping a teenage Kal-El into a Krypton-inflected class struggle, and this finale pits that harder-edged Superman against King Shazam in the fight the last several issues have been building toward. Sandoval's storytelling has quietly become one of the best-kept secrets on DC's Absolute line, staging city-scale carnage without ever losing legibility. Closing out a "Reign" arc is a real swing — these payoffs live or die on whether the finale earns the build — and this is the clearest test yet of whether Absolute Superman deserves its reputation as one of the strongest books in the line.

X-Men: The Hellfire Murder #1

Saladin Ahmed and Tony Daniel handle this chapter of the anthology one-shot, with Oren Junior on colors and Ariana Maher on letters — one entry in a murder-mystery event that also pulls in Jed MacKay, Gail Simone, Eve L. Ewing, and Erica Schultz. Ahmed's Miles Morales and Black Bolt work has always leaned on strong genre framing over decompressed plotting, which makes him a smart fit for a locked-room Hellfire Gala mystery that puts Wolverine and Jubilee in the detective's chair. Killing a marquee mutant power player at Sebastian Shaw's own masquerade could easily curdle into gimmick, but stacking five writers across one book, each following a different thread, is a real structural bet on the mystery format rather than just costuming the X-Men as detectives for a week. It's the most purely fun premise Marvel has floated for the X-line all year.

Gambit: Wanted #1

Chris Claremont writes, Robert Gill draws, and Bryan Valenza colors this five-issue retro limited series. Claremont co-created Gambit in 1990 and hasn't written the character regularly since his own Uncanny X-Men run ended, so a Claremont-scripted Gambit solo carries different weight than the usual nostalgia relaunch — this is the writer settling an old account rather than someone doing an impression of his voice. The story slots into the exact stretch when Gambit first proved himself to the X-Men, delivering Ororo Munroe back to the team and surviving the trial that made his membership stick, with a fan-favorite villain turning up the heat in New Orleans. Gill's linework has the kinetic, character-forward energy Gambit stories need — this is a book about a thief who talks his way out of everything until he can't. A retro series is only as good as its reason to exist, and "Claremont finally gets to finish the story" is as good a reason as this format offers.

Spider-Man: Long Way Home #2

Jonathan Hickman writes and Adam Kubert draws, with Arthur Hesli on colors and Ariana Maher on letters. Hickman and Kubert previously teamed on some of the most structurally ambitious Marvel work of the last decade, and Long Way Home trades cosmic architecture for something meaner and more contained: Frank Castle alone in the South American jungle with the Cosmic Cube, Hulk already hunting him down, and Spider-Man arriving under S.H.I.E.L.D. orders to secure the Cube before either of them can use it. Putting Peter in the middle of a Punisher-Hulk collision is a blunt instrument next to Hickman's usual multi-year game boards, but that's the point — this is Hickman writing lean, and Kubert's grounded, textured pencils are built for a hunt-through-the-jungle story instead of a widescreen event. Three of Marvel's most dangerous characters in one small space rarely stays contained for long.

JLA/Avengers #3 Facsimile Edition

Kurt Busiek writes and George Pérez draws this facsimile reprint of the third issue of one of the most significant crossovers either company has ever published. The original 2003–2004 miniseries took nearly a decade of rights negotiation to exist at all, and Pérez treated the assignment as career-culminating, packing every panel with cameos and callbacks across both universes' histories; Busiek's script matched that ambition with an actual plot sturdy enough to carry the spectacle — a cosmic wager between the Grandmaster and Krona that turns dangerous for both rosters as reality itself becomes the battlefield. Facsimile editions are easy to write off as a reprint gimmick, but this is the rare crossover that holds up as well on a re-read as it did as an event, and the wraparound cardstock reissue is a legitimate way to read it for the first time without hunting down twenty-year-old back issues.

This Week's Full Release List

Everything else shipping to shelves this Wednesday, condensed:

Single Issues of Note

• Estuary: A Ghost Story #4 (series finale)
• Swamp Thing 1989 #4 (series finale)
• Powers 25 #11
• Absolute Wonder Woman #22
• Action Comics #1100
• The Beauty #7
• The Flash #35
• Mind MGMT – New & Improved #2
• Odin #3
• The Peril of the Brutal Dark – An Ezra Cain Mystery #6
• Skate Ali #2
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #20 (300th Issue Special)
• Usagi Yojimbo – Kaito '85 #5

New #1s and One-Shots

• Dark Knights of Steel – Heir to the Sea #1 (one-shot)
• Dread the Hall H 2026 #1 (one-shot)
• Dungeons & Dragons: Total Party Killers #1
• Giant Robot Hellboy Returns #1
• Giant-Size Youngblood #1 (one-shot)
• Godzilla Conquers the Multiverse #1
• Godzilla vs. America: Godzilla vs. San Diego #1 (one-shot)
• Good Devils Don't Play Fair With Evil #1 (one-shot)
• Sicko #1
• Star Trek Red Shirts – Ghost of the 21st Century #1

Graphic Novels & Trade Collections

• 30 Days of Night – Falling Sun TP
• All-New Roy of the Rovers Vol. 1 TP
• Amazing Spider-Man Pocket Book Facsimile Edition TP
• Apocalyptic Horseplay HC
• Atlas Comics Library Vol. 9: Adventures Into Weird Worlds Vol. 1 HC
• Avengers by Jed MacKay Vol. 6: The Grail TP
• Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees HC
• Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees – Rite of Spring HC/TP
• Bitchy! The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken TP
• Captain America Omnibus Vol. 5 HC
• Captain Henry and the Graveyard of Time HC
• Craniacs Vol. 1 TP
• Cruel Universe Vol. 2 TP (EC Comics)
• D'Orc Vol. 1: The Book of Certain Doom TP
• DC Finest: Suicide Squad – The Nightshade Odyssey TP
• Dick Tracy 1944 TP
• EC Archives: Panic Vol. 2 TP
• Flash by Joshua Williamson Omnibus Vol. 3 HC
• Flight Vol. 8: Inklore Edition
• Grit Vol. 1 TP
• Gunnerkrigg Court Vol. 4: Materia TP
• House of Slaughter Deluxe Edition Book 2: The Colors Trilogy HC
• Infinity Wheatpaste Vol. 2: Universe Sol Remote TP
• Internet Crusader TP
• John Constantine, Hellblazer by Paul Jenkins and Sean Phillips Omnibus HC
• Milestone Compendium 5 TP
• Nightwing Vol. 3: The Cirque Du Sin HC
• Powers 25 Vol. 1 TP
• Radiant Black Vol. 8: New Number One TP
• Salvage: A Graphic Novel HC
• Spawn Origins Collection Vol. 17 HC
• Star Trek Strange New Worlds – The Seeds of Salvation TP
• Star Wars Modern Era Epic Collection Vol. 3: The Screaming Citadel TP
• Supercrooks Library Edition HC
• Superman: Action Comics by Dan Jurgens Omnibus Vol. 2 HC
• Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – A Very Mechazoid Summer TP
• Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 4: One Last Day TP
• Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone Vol. 4: Where Monsters Dwell TP
• Void Rivals Vol. 5: Quintesson War TP
• X-Men: The Messiah Trilogy Omnibus HC

This week rewards patience and impatience in equal measure — three new #1s to jump into cold, two long-running arcs reaching their breaking points, and a twenty-year-old classic worth a first (or fifth) read. Grab whichever pulls you in first. There's no wrong door into a week like this.