In this week’s Wednesday Comics column, a trip down the aisle with Seven Wives #1, and a trip back to childhood with Young Hellboy: Thrilling Sky Adventues. Plus, FOC Watch and The Prog Report!
Seven Wives #1
Writer: Zoe Tunnell
Artist: V. Gagnon
Inks: Maria Keane
Colors: Antonio Del Hoyo
Letterer: Brian Kolek
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Review by Tim Rooney
Young Hellboy: Thrilling Sky Adventures #1
Writers: Mike Mignola and Thomas Sniegoski
Artist: Craig Rousseau
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letters: Clem Robins
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Review by Jordan Jennings
A comic set within a comic, Young Hellboy: Thrilling Sky Adventures #1 features the golden-age pulp-style adventures of the Sky Devil as she is on the run from the criminal underworld and trying to make much needed cash to finance her war on the criminal underworld. To accomplish this comic within a comic, writers Mike Mignola and Thomas Sniegoski use Young Hellboy enjoying his saturday morning by eating a bowl of Tasty Flakes cereal and reading his copy of Thrilling Air Stories. When the story dovetails from Young Hellboy into the Sky Devil adventure is where the issue takes off.
The premise is simple enough–What if a barnstormer fought organized crime. Combine that with the mystical eldritch horror of the global threat and you’ll find Mignola and Sniegoski deliver a strong take on Golden Age pulp that feels right in the world of Hellboy. The only thing I felt missing from the narrative structure is a bit more fidelity to Golden Age comic trappings. The pacing is definitely far more modern than a comic from the 1940’s would be. This is more a nitpick as a true Golden Age experience may be too much for most comic readers.
The Art by Craig Rousseau and Chris O’Halloran is stellar. Young Hellboy is rambunctious as always but the aesthetic of the Sky Devil story feels perfect. It is obviously a more modern art style than the Golden Age, but this is an upside. Still, the art style captures the cartoon feel of that era especially in combination with the use of screentones. Screentone is a pretty great way to try to evoke the Four Color printing method of the days of yore without having to forgo the modern printing techniques. The emotional range alongside the dynamic action sequences really makes this book pop off as a pulp. I do wish there were more page layouts evocative of the era, namely circle-shaped panels, but just with the writing that is a bit more wistful thinking and critiquing the comic for what it is NOT instead of what it actually IS.
Overall, Young Hellboy: Thrilling Sky Adventures #1 is a real barnstormer that manages to capture the feel of the pulps but with a bit of modern flair. Hellboy fans will find stuff to love here with the hints of eldritch horror. Meanwhile, pulp comic fans will find a great bit of action with all of the trappings one would expect and want.
FOC Watch
This title is currently available for pre-order at your local comic shop!
The Trillion Dollar Kid #1
Writers: Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi
Artist: Stefano Simeone
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Publisher: Image Comics – Ghost Machine
Due Out: June 17, 2026
Review by Clyde Hall
“Inventions should solve problems and make people smile.”
Boil The Trillion Dollar Kid #1 down to its essence and you come away with a concept that radical, that simple, and that complex. Especially when spoken by a wunderkind 13 year old trillionaire named Tommy Townsend III. He’s that rarest of commodities in any world, fictional or real-life: A financially successful genius who enjoys showing off, but only in ways which make people happy. Without a selfish agenda, guided by a caring and generous heart. Tommy and Dolly Parton would make a great team in that respect.
And as far as first impressions go, I found myself wondering if writers Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi were pulling a Tony Stark with this title. Marvel famously took a segment of society bearing scrutiny and even public disdain in 1962, that being a wealthy member of the military industrial complex which President Dwight Eisnhower had warned about a few years prior, and placed him on a hero’s journey. One that resulted in the invincible Iron Man.
In Tommy, the creators have taken a juvenile member of the Billionaire’s Boys Club as he passes into Trillionaire status, surpassing the financial width and breadth of some reviled 1% richest individuals on the planet in our modern times, and made a hopeful, worthy protagonist. The kind of teenager who invents a fun student delivery system for schools in his town, a system that doesn’t use buses, and creates new jobs in his company for the bus drivers out of work. Jobs with better benefits and paying double their original salary. All that, and he’s also the inventor of self-folding laundry! Yeah, he’s that kind of hero.
Just one with some weighty, unresolved issues hanging over his head. The legal kind, wherein an underage person with vast wealth could see his status and reality upended by rivals and systems happy to exploit him should those secrets become known. It’s why he sets off looking for answers to the mystery which could undo all the positive differences he’s attempted. To that purpose, Tommy’s taking the ‘improving people’s lives by invention and investment’ show he began in his little hometown of Cherry Pit, Michigan, on the road.
If that sounds way too unbelievable based on our worldly perspective at the moment, it should. Because the Trillion Dollar Kid is at the center of bringing together other unique beings his parents once described as the Unbelievables. This book is a solid, satisfying start for that coming-together process, and it owes a lot to the character build we get on Tommy.
As scripted by Tomasi and Johns, he’s brilliant yet obeys his parents’ wishes initially to keep their successful bandage business interests a secret and go about living an ordinary life despite their wealth. Only when the company is in trouble of folding does Tommy apply his inventive gifts and save it. Then decides he can do more to make people happy with the newfound revenue by doing it boldly. Publicly. Extraordinarily.
But Tommy also understands that money doesn’t buy the most important things in life. And that no one, no matter how well-intended, can make everyone happy. Himself included. He encounters opposition. He gets accused of trying to buy friends. Yet, it never stops him from trying to do right by everyone around him anyway. The kid’s heart is big, and he’ll likely have harsher lessons coming regarding the ideology of ‘Lord, save us from the good people’. Because best intentions can sometimes do more harm than good.
So far, however, Tommy is a young man who anticipates and counters most bumps along the roadway of his altruistic aims. As in the way he creates Sterling, a mech manservant/bodyguard with at least some level of AI. He’s a robot that Tommy treats well and who in return is appreciative of being created. Their relationship appears to be what Baron Frankenstein’s and Adam should have been, and its an interesting, hopeful exploration we should see more of.
Stefano Simeone has an artistic style that glows in a singular ‘ray of sunshine’ manner. It’s put to excellent use here, both in the upbeat moments and in the more troubled private moments Tommy goes through. What could become syrupy is granted foundation in seeing that, as much joy and happiness as Tommy tries to share, one person who doesn’t always partake once the spotlights dim and reporters file their stories is, ironically, himself. Simeone keeps the downside subtle, never dragging us through malaise negating Tommy’s drive to do right and make the lives of others better. The visual balance is masterfully achieved.
One thing about the Ghost World imprint; whether it’s The Unnamed, Hyde Park, or Rook: Exodus, their creators always stay on point establishing the mood intended and exploring their varying genres. In that vein, the Unbelievables introduction is more of the same. If you enjoy their other titles like The Rocketfellers and Hornsby and Halo, you’ll want to grab a copy of The Trillion Dollar Kid #1. Because the crossovers with those two books are getting ready to commence. And more Unbelievables character introductions are on the horizon as well.
The Prog Report
2000AD #2481: This week’s 2000AD is significant, because it marks the first week that the best English language anthology comic will be available in U.S. comic shops, in a timely manner. That’s huge for us over here, and I’m very hopeful it will find a big audience. That said, this is a pretty standard issue of 2000AD, which I think is the right move. For the most part, the magazine rolls forward as it always does, continuing its interested multi-part big swing sci-fi concepts and stories. The exception in this issue if the Judge Dredd lead story, which does feel deliberately aimed at enticing new U.S. readers. It’s part one of a new Dredd story, dubbed Judge Dredd: Crossed Lines, and it’s from writer Ken Niemand, artist Andrea Mutti, colorist Pippa Bowland, and letterer Annie Parkhouse. Mutti is an artist that weekly comics sickos (the target readership of this very column) surely know from his work at any number of direct market publishers, and he absolutely shines in this story, colored to near-perfect by Bowland. It’s a very good opening chapter with a twist at the end that I won’t spoil, and it’s also one that I think anyone can jump into without prior knowledge of Dredd or his continuity. I also think the decision to not wait for a bumper issue or something to anchor the move to US comic shops is a good one, because part of the fun of becoming a new 2000AD reader is jumping into stories mid-stream. This week’s cover (above) is by Toby Willsmer. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. And it is also now available weekly in US comic shops! —Zack Quaintance
Column edited by Zack Quaintance.
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