Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero


Travis Beacham - 2013
    and Legendary Pictures Pacific Rim. Chronicling the very first time Earth is menaced by incredible monsters known as Kaiju, these inhuman beasts rise from the ocean depths and threaten to extinquish all mankind! Witness the race to develop massive robot fighting machines called Jaegers, each one controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. This action-packed book features many of the key characters from the film as we follow them in their early careers. Written by Pacific Rim screenwriter himself, Travis Beacham, and with del Toro's hands-on supervision, this volume is beautifully penciled by Sean Chen, Yvel Guichet, Pericles Junior, Chris Batista and Geoff Shaw; inks by Steve Bird, Mark McKenna, Pericles Junior and Matt Banning.

Kieli, Volume 1: The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness


Yukako Kabei - 2003
    Her only friend is her "roommate," Becca, the precocious spirit of a former student still residing in Kieli's dorm. Everything in Kieli's life changes suddenly when the girls meet the handsome but distant Harvey who, like Kieli, can see ghosts. He also turns out to be one of the legendary Undying, an immortal soldier bred for war now being hunted by the Church. When Kieli joins Harvey on a pilgrimage to lay to rest the spirit of a corporal possessing an old radio, as unlikely as it seems, she feels she may have finally found a place where she belongs in the world. And in Kieli, Harvey may have found a reason to live again.

Inuyashiki, Vol. 1


Hiroya Oku - 2014
    While only 58 years old, his geriatric looks often have him written off as a pathetic old man by the world around him and he’s constantly ignored and disrespected by his family despite all that he’s done to support them. On top of everything else, his doctor has revealed that he has cancer and it appears that he has little time left in this world. Just when it seems things couldn’t get any worse, a blinding light in the night sky strikes the earth where Ichiro stands. He later wakes up to find himself unscathed, but he soon starts to notice that there’s something…different about himself. However, it turns out that these strange, new changes are just what Ichiro needs to take a new lease on life and now it seems like there’s nothing to stop him from being a hero worthy of the respect that he never had before…unless, that is, there was someone else out there with these same “changes”…

Apollo's Song


Osamu Tezuka - 1970
    Just ask the young cynic Shogo, who sinned against love. Electroshock therapy was only meant to bring him face to face with his own violent misdeeds, but instead landed him in the court of a stern goddess. If the encounter was a hallucination, then it's a hallucination that starts to encroach on reality in this unforgettable tale penned by manga-god Osamu Tezuka and inspired by Greek myths of divine unforgiving. Sharing with his longer work Phoenix the themes of recurrence and retribution as well as the spirit of high invention, Apollo's Song explores the meaning of love and the consequences of its absence. Shogo's mother is a bar hostess, his father could be any one of a dozen of her regular patrons. Growing up, he learns nothing of genuine love and tenderness, and when he witnesses his mother in the nearest approximation of which she's capable--lustful embrace--he receives a merciless beating soon afterwards. Shogo comes to hate the very notion of love. But goddesses, who are neither the Buddha nor Christ, do not excuse misfortunes of upbringing. Apollo's Song reaches Olympian heights of tragedy as the story proceeds from a boxcar bound for a Nazi concentration camp to a dystopian future where human beings are persecuted by an ascendant race of their own clones. Will Shogo ever attain redemption, or, like the human race itself, will he have to relearn the lessons of love forever? Is it better to have loved and lost if the heartbreak must recur eternally?Love, propagation, nature, war, death--Tezuka holds his trademark cornucopia of concerns together with striking characterizations, an unfailing sense of pacing, and of course, stunning imagery. Though marked by a salty pessimism, this unique masterpiece from Tezuka's transitional period is also unabashedly romantic--and, at times, profoundly erotic. Combining a classic tale of thwarted love with cognitive ambiguities reminiscent of the work of Philip K. Dick, Apollo's Song is guaranteed to plumb new depths of the human heart with each rereading.

Ender's Game, Volume 1: Battle School


Christopher Yost - 2009
    The same aliens who almost destroyed Earth once are coming back to get the whole job done this time. But we aren't going to just sit and die. The international military is taking our best and brightest to mold them into the finest military minds ever - and they're taking them young.

Ai no Kusabi Vol. 1: Stranger


Rieko Yoshihara - 2001
    Ruled by a computer system named Jupiter, men are divided into classes based on their hair color. The Blondies, genetically altered by Jupiter, are the highest class and occupy the capital city of Tanagura. Those with black hair, Mongrels, are forced to live in the slums, Ceres. Iason, the leader of the Blondies, encounters Riki, a mongrel, in the streets of Ceres one night and sets out to own him.---Taken from back cover:The Man's upturned blue eyes were so unimaginably beautiful that they could make anybody tremble with awe. In this moment, however, they also glimmered with an icy fire--perhaps revealing the fury of his wounded pride, or rather, a manifestation of his uncontrollable obsession.Ceres: a city without ethics or taboos, ruled by instincts and lusts. These are the slums--immutable, eternal, home to those poor, caged souls stricken with a perpetual melancholy.After three years, Riki unexpectedly returns to Ceres, but all is not well. The "Charisma" of the slums is a changed man. Faced with growing suspicion that he's lost his spark, and haunted by the memory of what happened during those three years away from the slums, Riki finds himself pulled into the escalating gang warfare as rivals attempt to wipe out his pack before they can regroup under their newly-returned leader. And then there is the frighteningly cold, regrettably familiar man he meets by chance one day: the beautiful Iason Mink. What secrets lie behind the smile of that bewitching Blondy?

Star Wars: Princess Leia


Mark Waid - 2015
    When her rescue came, Leia grabbed a blaster and joined the fight, escaping back to the Rebel Alliance and helping strike the biggest blow against the Empire - the destruction of the Death Star! But in the aftermath of that victory, the question remains...what is a princess without a world? As Leia comes to grips with her loss, a new mission leads her to the underground world of Sullust. The Empire is rounding up fugitive Alderaanians, and that doesn't sit well with their Princess! But what can one woman do against the Galactic Empire? They're about to find out! Join the galaxy's toughest Princess on a quest to save her people and rebuild her life!COLLECTING: PRINCESS LEIA #1-5

Welcome to the Jungle


Jim Butcher - 2008
    A police consultant and private investigator, Dresden has to walk the dangerous line between the world of night and the light of day.Now Harry Dresden is investigating a brutal mauling at the Lincoln Park Zoo that has left a security guard dead and many questions unanswered. As an investigator of the supernatural, he senses that there’s more to this case than a simple animal attack, and as Dresden searches for clues to figure out who is really behind the crime, he finds himself next on the victim list, and being hunted by creatures that won’t leave much more than a stain if they catch him.Written exclusively for comics by Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle is a brand-new story that’s sure to enchant readers with a blend of gripping mystery and fantastic adventure.

Harmony


Project Itoh - 2008
    This perfect world isn't that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine by attempting suicide via starvation. It doesn't work, but one of the girls--Tuan Kirie--grows up to be a member of the World Health Organization. As a crisis threatens the harmony of the new world, Tuan rediscovers another member of her suicide pact, and together they must help save the planet...from itself.

Yokohama Station SF


Yuba Isukari - 2021
    Much of the country has been swallowed by Yokohama Station, a mysterious, ever-growing series of buildings that's been around for as long as anyone can remember. The few who live outside its many entrances have never seen Inside and know only rumors and legends of the station's interior. That all changes when Hiroto is given an 18 Ticket, a mysterious item that lets him enter the massive complex for five days. The young man has always sought a purpose, but the one he finds may not be the sort he'd hoped for...

We3


Grant Morrison - 2005
    But they are just the program's prototypes, and now that their testing is complete, they're slated to be permanently "de-commissioned"-until they seize their one chance to make a desperate run for freedom. Relentlessly pursued by their makers, the WE3 team must navigate a frightening and confusing world where their instincts and heightened abilities make them as much a threat as those hunting them-but a world, nonetheless, in which somewhere there is something called "home."

All You Need Is Kill


Ryōsuke Takeuchi - 2014
    Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his fifth iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally—the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji's escape or his final death?

Ronin


Frank Miller - 1983
    In this tale of a legendary warrior, the Ronin, a dishonored, masterless 13th Century samurai, is mystically given a second chance to avenge his master's death.Suddenly finding himself reborn in a futuristic and corrupt 21st Century New York City, the samurai discovers he has one last chance to regain his honor: he must defeat the reincarnation of his master's killer, the ancient demon Agat. In a time and place foreign and unfathomable to him, the Ronin stands against his greatest enemy with his life and, more importantly, his soul at stake.

Mass Effect, Volume 1: Redemption


Mac Walters - 2010
    The story of what happens next - exclusive to this graphic novel - will have the commander's companion Dr. Liara T'Soni undertake a deadly mission of extraordinary importance in the Milky Way's lawless Terminus Systems.Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 6/2/2010 Pages: 96 Collects MASS EFFECT: REDEMPTION #1-4.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1


Alan Moore - 2000
    The Victorian Era draws to a close and the twentieth century approaches. It is a time of great change and an age of stagnation, a period of chaste order and ignoble chaos. It is an era in need of champions.In this amazingly imaginative tale, literary figures from throughout time and various bodies of work are brought together to face any and all threats to Britain. Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man, form a remarkable legion of intellectual aptitude and physical prowess: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.