On September 16th, Showdown #4 comes out! The penultimate issue of our mini-series written/co-created by me, drawn/co-created by Tadd Galusha, colored by Triona Farrell, letered by Clayton Cowles, with a main cover by Steve Lieber & Jack Cole, and our variant cover by Tadd. The Final Order Cut-Off for this issue is going to be August 10th. Again, if you pre-ordered all five issues at once? You’re all set. If you’ve been going to the store every month hoping it’s there, give your local comic book store the head’s up. Here’s the solicitation copy of the issue courtesy of our publisher Ignition Press.

“It’s the last day before the showdown, and both Harvey and Trish have to face some hard truths. For Trish, she is starting to see that her brother may not have been the perfect young man she thought he was. For Harvey, it’s that there isn’t as much in his life to settle as he thought there might be. And for both, it’s the very real fact that the town they call home has very little regard for either of them. This penultimate issue sets up everything before the real final showdown begins.”

Issue 2 focuses on Harvey’s first 24 hours before the Showdown. Issue 3 focuses on Trish’s first 24 hours before the Showdown. Issue 4 alternates between both of them for both of their last day before the Showdown. And then Issue 5? We go back to the titular Showdown we saw at the beginning of issue 1.

Pen-ultimate issues/chapters I think are the hardest to pull off. At worst you read or watch them going “Hey, we could have just gotten to the ending of this thing.” And I’ll admit, I do think if this had been a six-issue mini-series instead of five that could have happened to us. But I think five issues was the perfect amount for this story. It’s another that Tadd has drawn the absolute heck out of and one I think is full of a lot of character moments that are going to make you both feel for and feel complicated about our lead characters.

Check it out when it’s out! And don’t forget Showdown #2 comes out on July 8th. Showdown #3 comes out on August 12th and FOC’s on July 6th. Again, you’ll be hearing me on podcasts in the weeks ahead talking about both these issues and hopefully Detective Comics 2026 Annual as well, which is on sale July 29th and ALSO FOC’s on July 6th. A lot going on!

Old Comic I Read: Barrier by Brian K Vaughan, Marcos Martin, & Muntsa Vicente. Sometimes I worry about not having things to look forward to, so I put off reading and watching things I know I would love. That’s why I didn’t read Barrier until last week. There are few creators I love more than Brian K Vaughan and Marcos Martin. When I was a teenager and I wanted to start reading more than super hero comics there was Brian K Vaughan on an absolute heater writing books like Y: The Last Man (with artist Pia Guerra), Ex Machina (with artist Tony Harris), The Escapist (with artists Philip Bond and Steve Rolston) and Pride of Baghdad (with artist Niko Henrichon). He’s one of those writers whose so foundational to me sometimes I forget how much of an influence he is and was on me. And then there’s Marcos Martin…one of the best living comic artists we have. He’s my favorite Spider-Man artist, with Brian K Vaughan he’s also done brilliant work like Dr. Strange: The Oath and Private Eye, and last year he wrapped up the brilliant Wednesday with Ed Brubaker. If Marcos draws something, I am there. While I put off reading Barrier for a while, I wasn’t wrong that I was going to love it. It’s a quick, brilliant, and brutal alien abduction story for the intense politically charged America we’re living in today. And it tackles those complications by showing how brilliant the medium of comics is. Most of this comic is either silent or in Spanish (with untranslated dialogue which I was a brilliant move) so for the most part you are just taking in the visual storytelling. It’s really incredible. I would say this graphic novel is kind of a mash-up of two my favorite Denis Villenueve movies, Arrival and Sicario, and I highly, highly recommend it.

New Comic I Read: Deathstroke The Terminator #4 By Tony Fleecs, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascenia & Wes Abbott. Deathstroke is a bad guy, like a trully amoral person. He’s one of the best villains of the DCU and one of the worst people in it, by a mile. The first three issues of this DC Next Level title have been a very smart, well-executed action movie. Deathstroke has been framed for the murder of his best friend Wintergreen, his considerable funds he’s gained as a mercenary have depleted, and now some of the greatest assassins in the DC Universe are hunting him down. That’s a lot of great narrative right there. Writer Tony Fleecs knows what he’s doing and the art from Carmine Di Giandomenico and Ivan Plascencia is some of their best ever. This issue slows down as Deathstroke is saved by his daughter Ravager AKA Rose Wilson and they go to a diner together. Every comic book writer wants to do the equivalent of the old X-Men Baseball issues, where you take a brief detour from the action narrative, set the characters somewhere quiet, and do something different. BUT those issues usually don’t work because you don’t reveal character. This issue reveals so much about Deathstroke’s character and his relationship with his daughter. I thought this was a necessary slowdown after the first three unrelenting (in the best way) issues, and I thought it was a tremendous character piece. And Tony never loses sight of how awful a person Deathstroke is. This comic is really coming up in my read pile.

New Movie I Watched: Toy Story 5, Directed by Andrew Stanton & McKenna Harris. This year movies feel kind of weird for me. We are getting a new Spider-Man, a new Avengers, and a new Toy Story. The last time these three movies came out was in 2019 right before the pandemic hit. Life was much different then, and returning to these franchises feels both good but also…a little sad. Toy Story 4 while very good in it’s own right was probably my least favorite of the franchise. Toy Story 5? I thought it was excellent. Especially because it mostly a movie about Joan Cusack’s Jessie, and if you know me…I absolutely adore Joan Cusack she is one of our greatest screen icons. And, I am also a lifelong Conan O’Brien fan, and everyone knows he’s in this movie, but he’s in way more than I anticipated and he was fantastic. The movie is a really great piece about how it’s hard to be a kid looking for friends. It goes up against technology to tell that story, but…it’s always been hard for some kids to make friends when they’re young. A kid who had a hard time making friends when he was young is writing this Newsletter, but…I eventually found my people. And it was really endearing to see the main character Bonnie look for her people in this movie.

That’s it for this week!

Next week we are going to have an awesome interview with the co-writers of Power Rangers: Unlimited from Boom! Studios, Kenny Porter & Joey Esposito! It’s going to be awesome. And we are going to talk more about Showdown #2 which is in stores on July 8th, 2026. Only a few weeks away.

Until then?

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz