“Dark Reign: The List — Spider-Man”

The conclusion of “The List” story arc sees Norman Osborn finally reach the last item on his diabolical to-do list: kill Spider-Man.

As we all know, Osborn (a.k.a “The Green Goblin”) has been trying to kill Spider-Man since the Green Goblin’s first appearance in the early ‘60s and, of course, has always failed, so this isn’t anything new.

Everybody knows that Marvel will never kill off its trademark character, Spider-Man.

With all superhero comics, the heroes never die, and even if they do, they always come back. Just look at Superman, the original Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, and (even though he isn’t back from his death just yet) Batman.

Despite knowing the likely outcome before even picking up the comic, whenever Osborn attempts to kill Spider-Man it always makes a great read.

This one brings out great talent (superstar artist Adam Kubert draws) and as usual the Green Goblin will probably do something to traumatize our hero as he’s done in the past, e.g killing Gwen Stacy, paralyzing Flash Thompson and so on.

If you’re looking for what is probably going to be an action-packed finale to a well-written series buy this.

“Dr. Horrible #1”

The origin story of the tragic hero Dr. Horrible from last year’s Internet phenomenon “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog” hits stands today.

Joss Whedon fans can stop trying to watch “Dollhouse” and rejoice.

The series is a one-shot that explores what drove Dr. Horrible to a life of crime and like the above comic, it features a battle between a compelling protagonist (Horrible) and a grade A jerk (Captain Hammer).

It also features a wide array of characters you’ll remember from the web-series like Penny, Moist and many others.

Obviously this book is for fans of the series and of Whedon, so if you didn’t watch the series or hated it, you probably shouldn’t plan on picking this up.

“Punisher #11”

After being sliced to pieces by Dark Wolverine at the end of his “List” one-shot, Frank Castle’s remains are recovered by the Moloids and Man-Thing, and put together to form Franken-Castle.

That’s about all I know about this issue, but even this brief plot summary suggests that we’re in for the biggest “WTF”

moment of any Punisher comic book – including the MAX imprint.

I have no idea where the writers of the Punishers are going with this and don’t think it’s a great idea.

But I will admit that it seems very interesting and I have to give them credit for killing the character in one of the best one-shots I’ve read this year.

I’ll probably end up picking this issue up because it’s drawn by original “The Walking Dead” artist Tony Moore and written by “Ghost Rider” writer Rick Remender (and, if I’m being honest, out of serious sense of curiosity).