I’ve previously read exactly three issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, a three part story called “The River” from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s original Mirage Comics run with art by Rick Veitch. It was fantastic, but the series just wasn’t something I wanted to get into at the time. The cowabunga/pizza turtles on TV may have been a big factor in that (although I do have a Donatello action figure in my collection and I was a huge fan of the Turtles arcade game). A lot has happened with the Turtles property since that time and discovering a new comic book series from IDW with Eastman’s name attached certainly piqued my interest.

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Continuing the onslaught of new books for the month of September, this week sees the return of Ultimate Comics X-Men to Marvel’s relaunching Ultimate line. In the spirit of all of these new books (both from DC Comics’ “New 52″ and beyond), we’ve been trying to showcase as many as we can in a what is a truly remarkable time for comics. Ultimate Comics X-Men #1 is a book I would have passed on otherwise, and I’m a serious X-Men fan. Writer Nick Spencer and artist Paco Medina introduce a dramatically new status quo for the mutants of this world here and as first issues go, this one puts a lot on the table.

Spoilers regarding everything you thought you knew about the X-Men will follow.

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We continue our look at September’s “other” number one issues (i.e. books that aren’t part of DC Comics’ “New 52”) with the debut of Dark Horse Comics’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine. The series continues the highly successful transition of Joss Whedon’s television series to comics and it’s arguably everything you’d want and expect. I know it might be unfair, but I had a really difficult time reading this book without considering Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar’s new show Ringer that also premiered last week.

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With DC Comics’ “New 52” dominating comic shop shelves this month with more number one issues than any other time in history, other titles that are launching right now couldn’t have more competition for readers’ attention. This week, we’re going to try to shine a light on some other big titles that are launching this month, beginning with last week’s Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1 by Brian Bendis and Sara Pichelli. It’s part of an entirely revamped Ultimate line-up from Marvel, and as a jumping on point it’s hard to do better.

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