The world is still reeling from the devastation of the final battle between the world’s strongest metahumans. Empire City has been left in shambles as it struggles to rebuild. Overnight, the world’s metabands, mysterious bracelets that offer their owner’s superhuman powers and abilities, have all ceased working. Guilt ridden over his possible hand in all of this, the masked vigilante Midnight has hung up his cowl. Instead of fighting crime, he now spends his sleepless nights searching for clues to recover the device that might be responsible for all of it before it can fall into the wrong hands. Along the way he meets Amanda Khan, a teenage girl with a metahuman history in search of her missing friend. Both find the clues to what they’re both searching for lead them to The Receptive, a secretive cult which offers a path to meta humanity to its most loyal followers and may just hold the answers to the missing device. Don't forget to check out the other books in the Meta series, including Meta, The Second Wave and Rise of The Circle.

    Zot! is Scott McCloud's critically acclaimed take on superhero comics, and was one of the greatest cult comics of the '80s.Volume 2 collects issues 11-15 and 17-18, the beginnings of the black-and-white relaunch of the series.

    At 42, many would say he's done that - probably including Mourinho, who has called himself the Special One. From translator and assistant to Sir Bobby Robson at Barcelona, to Champions League-winning manager at Porto and on to (potentially) Europe's most successful football club at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho's ascent has been rapid. Backed by Abramovich's billions, Mourinho has weeded out those not fully committed to his methods, has made several astute signings and has improved the game of many Chelsea stars. The result: in his first season, Chelsea won both the Premier League title and the Carling Cup. Patrick Barclay, award-winning football correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, has written an intelligent, analytical and concise account of the psychology of Mourinho. To develop this portrait, he has interviewed those who have worked with him, such as Sir Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal, as well as the players who provide a revealing insight into what has made Mourinho the most successful manager in the world at the moment.

    Untreated, they fester and grow into the diseases of fear, uncertainty and hopelessness. Unaided, the law is blinded by bureaucracy and bound to a justice bent toward the protection even of the criminal. The face of a kinder and gentler nation is destroyed, carved into a harlequin's mask; a grim skull. And the wielders of the scythe laugh, secure in the knowledge that their crimes will go without punishment.They are wrong. In the urban jungle, there is one who stands alone and apart; one who lives not for the law, but only to see justice done. The Punisher reaps a different harvest.Once, he was Frank Castle, loving husband and father. A tour in Vietnam had shown him what war was. Part of him died there, but a precious part stayed alive, determined to return to the family he loved, and the peace and freedom that was his America. Part of him held on to live, until his family died in a hail of mob gunfire, victims of the wrong place and wrong time.Daily, criminals greedily cut their portions from the souls of the weak and weary, the foolish and the frightened. One man senses how the guilty feed like parasites on the heart of the American Dream. One man hears when evil laughs at the law. One man sees clearly that the most powerful criminals have placed themselves above the law. One man has become their judge, their jury.One man has become their Punisher.

    Chris Crutcher, the acclaimed and bestselling author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, shares a provocative story about family, loss, and loyalty that is perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books called Losers Bracket “Genuine and affecting.” When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that.But when a family argument breaks out at Annie’s swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home.Award-winning author Chris Crutcher’s books are strikingly authentic and unflinchingly honest. Losers Bracket is by turns gripping, heartbreaking, hopeful, and devastating, and hits the sweet spot for fans of Andrew Smith and Marieke Nijkamp.

    But there aren’t many important goalies. And Jacques Plante was an important goalie.” Ken DrydenOn and off the ice Jacques Plante was a true original; he was extremely talented, boastful, defiant, mysterious, and complex. Throughout his tumultuous career as a goalie, he played for Montreal, New York, St. Louis, Toronto, Boston, and Edmonton. His contributions to and impact on the game were extensive and are reflected in today’s rules, equipment, and style of play. Thoroughly investigated through archival and primary research, and including interviews with figures such as Jean Béliveau, Henri Richard, Dickie Moore, and Scotty Bowman, this biography sheds light on one of the most pivotal figures in the history of hockey.

    . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.” So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.” The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self-professed “mediocre” athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’t shoot, Conroy” that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.

    No more "Agent of the Cosmos." No more "Lethal Protector." It's time for a new Venom, and it's great to be bad.

    Call him the Maestro! After deposing Dystopia’s ancient ruler, the Maestro sets his sights even bigger. It’s time everyone left on the ravaged planet Earth recognized their one true god! But the Maestro isn’t the only would-be immortal left…and if he wants to truly dominate the globe, he’ll have to face the most powerful beings left in creation. The Pantheon sees all — including a Hulk too powerful to leave alive! Peter David continues the tale that he began decades ago in the legendary HULK: FUTURE IMPERFECT!COLLECTING: Maestro: War And Pax (2021) 1-5

    Its editor, Vin Sullivan, also drew the debut issue's cover. It features the character "Fui Onyui" who served as the "yellow peril" villain (battled by Slam Bradley and his humourous sidekick Shorty Morgan).No Batman until issue #27.

    Their ultimate goal: the Olympics. As each girl struggles with life's challenges and rejoices with each triumph, the encouragement of the other Girls Only club members and their faith in God give the girls the moral support needed to push their limits and learn important lessons. Dreams on Ice When Livvy's family moves across the country and away from her amazing ice-skating coach, Livvy is sure her Olympic dreams are shattered. Only the Best Jenna lives and breathes gymnastics, but now she must decide: compete in the all-important meet at the Olympic Training Center or go with her parents to meet her adopted brother. A Perfect Match Heather wants to end her couples' ice-dancing career to skate solo, but when she doesn't get her family's support, she wonders if she's really going for what she wants or if she's just being selfish. Reach for the Stars Manda is focused on her ski competition, but when her mom needs help, Manda has to put her dream of winning the Dressel Hills Downhill Classic on ice.

    He worshipped Mark Spitz, swam his heart out, and just missed qualifying for the Olympic trials in swimming as a college senior. Although he didn't qualify for the 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, or 2004 Olympics, he never stopped believing he could make it. And despite past failures and the passage of time, Carter began his quest once more at the age of forty-two. Maybe he's crazy. But then again, maybe he's onto something. He entered the Masters Championships. He swam three to four miles each day, six days a week. He pumped iron, trained with former Olympians, and consulted with swimming gurus and medical researchers who taught him that the body doesn't have to age. He swam with sharks (inadvertently) in the Virgin Islands, suffered hypothermia in a relay around Manhattan, and put on fifteen pounds of muscle. Amazingly, he discovered that his heartbeat could keep pace with the best of the younger swimmers'. And each day he felt stronger, swam faster, and became more convinced that he wasn't crazy. This outrageous, courageous chronicle is much more than Carter's race with time to make it to the Olympics. It's the exhilarating story of a man who rebels against middle age the only way he can—by chasing a dream. His article in Outside magazine, on which this book is based, was the winner of a Lowell Thomas award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

    Mom left years ago to join the Nova force and never came back. So it's just Anwen, her dad, her sister and her grandpa against the huge insects. That is, until she finds a mysterious stone that may or may not hold incredible cosmic power. Don't miss this incredible new series by Deadpool writer Gerry Duggan and Edge of Spider-Verse writer/artist Dustin Weaver. The series that will set the cosmic table for the Marvel Universe for years to come!

    This might be his dad’s last chance to coach. And his teammates need a quarterback that can lead them to the championships. But as Ben watches the heavy toll ALS takes on his dad’s body, he begins to question if this should be his final season after all.

    Taking place on the most evil of holidays, Halloween, the Dark Knight Detective confronts his deepest fears as he tries to stop the madness and horror created by Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, the Penguin, Poison Ivy and the Joker.