Wednesday Number Ones is a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We take the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and give a quick opinion on them. From time to time we may also include more than issue number ones in this feature. If a noteworthy one-shot or the first issue of a new story arc is released, we may talk about it in this feature.

This week we will cover Annihilation Conquest: Star Lord #1 of 4, Black Summer #1, Chemist #1, Doktor Sleepless #1, Dust #1 of 2, Hiding In Time #1, Multiple Warheads #1, Speak of the Devil #1, and Star Trek Year Four #1.

Nick Budd Read and Thought:

Doktor Sleepless #1
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Ivan Rodriguez
Company: Avatar Press

Fans of the Vertigo series Transmetropolitan, Doktor Sleepless is your new drug of choice. Full of the keystone and always entertaining Ellis snark and bite, Sleepless is a romp that in many ways parallels Transmetropolitan, keeping up with the story element of truth being one of the most important things while also being as scary as all get out. Mainly though, the book introduces us to a man named John Reinhardt, a man who has turned himself into what he describes as a cartoon mad scientist and his return to the city of his birth. Why does he do these things? Why are they important? Well, that part is something that Ellis is keeping in the dark for the moment, but it’s obvious that he definitely has a plan. It’s an interesting first issue, both funny and disturbing, and the art by Ivan Rodriguez is simply perfect with its intricacies. A book to keep your eye on.

Hiding in Time #1
Writer: Christopher Long
Artist: Ryan Winn
Company: Image Comics

The main concept behind Hiding in Time, a witness protection program that hides its charges in the past to keep them safe, is one that seems as though it could be used to tell a good story, or if not a good one, at least one that goes out of its way to be a bit different and a little entertaining. Sadly with this issue, that isn’t the case, as the story opens with several of the people being hidden whacked by a group of cookie cutter headhunters. From there it all goes downhill with the obvious “We Have to Save Them” bit that comes from a few hero types that seems to be similar to the selling points of a hunderd early 90’s action flicks. Think Timecop without all of the chop-suey action that made it watchable. Overall, Hiding in Time is a bit dull ride and falls into that category of easily skipable.

Dave Farabee Read and Thought:

Star Trek: Year Four #1
Writer: David Tischman
Artist: Steve Conley
Company: IDW Publishing

Inspired no doubt by Dark Horse’s Buffy Season Eight, IDW presents a hypothetical season four for the original Star Trek. Sounds like old-school Nirvana for Trekkies, but alas…alas! The problem with David Tischman’s story is that it seems to take Trek for granted. It’s got the familiar tropes - high-concept humanism, a doomed “red shirt”, McCoy’s familiar “he’s dead, Jim”, and Kirk eyeing a scientist’s hottie daughter - but it’s all as cold as Vulcan logic. Served up hastily and superficially, it does little to draw an emotional attachment from the reader. Instead, it feels like a capsule summary of a TV episode that - who knows? - with some good music and the charismatic interplay of Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, could’ve been at least solid. But a comic doesn’t have music, doesn’t have live actors to lure in the audience. Its foremost virtue over live-action is artistic style, and the artistic style of Year Four is an ill-fitting Silver age pastiche served up by the talented but poorly cast Steve Conley. If this series is to find its way - and this Trek fan would certainly like it to - I’d wager it needs a more progressive art style and longer stories (48-page stories instead of 22?) that really serve up their sci-fi concepts with the wit and charisma that defined the original series. Kirk and company going through the usual motions just isn’t enough.

Paolo Parente’s Dust #1 of 2
Writer: Mink
Artist: Paolo Parente
Company: Image Comics

Both unique and derivative, the one hook that really pops for Dust is its gorgeous, painted artwork. It’s reminiscent of Heavy Metal’s airbrushed sci-fi, balancing the twin “guy” fetishes of cheesecake babes and sexy military futurism. The premise of the book is that the Axis powers co-opt alien technology in World War II and in 1946 the Allied powers are waging a very different (and very losing) war against them. In concept, it’s the kind of hypothetical situation that could be played as straight sci-fi. In practice, it’s an odd excuse to show off the curves of an ultra-chesty Russian soldier-babe, tribute the powered armor drop sequence of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and delve into some big-time pulp conventions (cybernetic gorillas anyone?). Writing seemed uninspired and I couldn’t take the serious stuff seriously what with all the cheesecake, but there’s a guilelessness to it all that has a certain melodramatic charm. And the art’s pretty pretty. A “maybe” for fans of Mignola’s pulp action in Hellboy and fans of Russian babes in tank tops.

Dan Grendell Read and Thought:

The Chemist #1
Creator: Jay Boose
Company: Image Comics

Vance is a chemist. Not a drug dealer, a chemist. He reverse engineers pharmaceuticals for illegal sale on the black market. When his long-time connections in the Trust screw him over and try to kill him, Vance takes it on the run, accompanied by dangerous hottie Alexis, who helped was manipulated into setting him up. With the attractive but slightly annoying addition to his structured life, Vance has to figure out what to do next. Boose has a fun buddy-movie vibe going here, and the mix of action, humor, and flirtation combines well to form a strong first issue.

Black Summer #1
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Juan Jose Ryp
Company: Avatar Press

If you were a normal person, and then were given abilities that modified how you saw the world, how you saw yourself even, what would happen to your mind? That’s what Warren Ellis is exploring in this series about an enhanced hero who kills the President. As usual in series from Ellis, there are some very intriguing ideas here, and everything has its cost. This isn’t just a book about heroes gone crazy- it’s a book about why heroes would go crazy, and that makes a big difference. Juan Jose Ryp does a fine job on the artwork, with incredible detail on every panel and powerful storytelling. Mark Sweeney’s colors pop off the page, delivering Ryp’s art in fine style. I suspect Ellis has another hit here.

Speak of the Devil #1 of 6
Creator: Gilbert Hernandez
Company: Dark Horse comics

From Gilbert Hernandez, one of the comics geniuses behind Love and Rockets, comes a new mini-series looking at life as a teenage girl. Val is a beautiful girl and a talented gymnast, on her way to the state championships, but she has a secret that could ruin her- at night she dresses all in black, wears a devil mask, and looks in windows all over town, including her own family’s. What drives her to do this? What does her peeping reveal about the people she sees? Hernandez’ artwork is as expressive and powerful as ever, with his trademark round, sexy women and focus on the eyes. I’m very excited to see where this goes.

Randy Lander Read and Thought:

Annihilation Conquest: Star Lord #1
Writer: Keith Giffen
Artists: Timothy Green II & Victor Olazaba
Company: Marvel Comics

The third Annihilation Conquest miniseries begins here, and it’s just as good as the rest of them, maybe the best one so far. Giffen did some great work with Peter Quill a.k.a. Star Lord in Annihilation, and he does equally good work here, positioning the one-shot obscure Marvel hero as a legendary space hero fallen from grace, punishing himself for sacrifices he had to make. At one point in Giffen’s clever script, Quill makes a crack about “The Dirty Dozen,” and indeed, Star Lord #1 has touchstones in that movie, as well as numerous others, as the first issue is a familiar (but well-executed) “gathering the team” issue that puts together a handful of C- and D-listers that most will never have heard of, makes them seem potentially cool and then gets them set to rock and roll in three more issues of a big secret mission against Conquest’s over-arcing bad guys. Mix in European-style artwork from rising star Timothy Green II and inker Victor Olazaba and bright, striking colors from Nathan Fairbairn, and you’ve got another impressive launch for Marvel’s space/cosmic adventure sub-universe.

Multiple Warheads #1
Writer/Artist: Brandon Graham
Company: Oni Press

It’s the same old story. Boy meets girl. Girl smuggles organs past a radioactive wasteland and horny, dumb robot guards. Boy gets wolf dick sewn on as a present from girl, has wolf dreams, builds intelligent car from spare parts. Or, to be a little more serious, Multiple Warheads #1 is another whacked-out, fun as hell ride from one of my favorite up-and-coming original cartoonists, Brandon Graham. His art is terrific, like a cross between the manic exaggeration of Jim Mahfood and the expressive work of Steve Rolston, and I’d honestly buy his books for the art alone, but even better are his ideas. Graham’s work covers the gamut from Morrison-level crazy fun ideas (”Werewolves fighting aliens out in deep space” and organs that come from “host bodies for gods that want to walk on Earth”) to silly, effective puns (”Dick-Tation, a penis that writes”), and in Multiple Warheads, as with his Tokyopop book King City, he creates a whole strange, fascinating world that readers will find themselves sucked into, and explores it through some very interesting lead characters. Difficult to describe but absolutely worth a look.