Griffin’s Picks for the week of 2/25/2026

1: The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery #1 - Vertigo/DC

            From the creative team that brought you The Enfield Gang Massacre and That Texas Blood is The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery #1 written by Chris Condon and art by Jacob Phillips. 

            Ezra Cain is a private detective in New York City in the 1940s with a pension for getting into rough situations if the first issue is any indication. When we first meet Cain, he’s already in the middle of a job that’s gone wrong as he attempts to track down a briefcase for his client. Afterward, he’s almost immediately pulled into two different jobs that just might end up being interconnected. The one that he decides to follow first is the theft of the Anvil of Hephaestus, which is said to have supernatural capabilities. In some ways, this is standard detective fare but it’s got an Indiana Jones flavor to it that makes it more interesting than your run of the mill pulpy detective story. 

            This is the first of the Vertigo books that really hooked me, in large part because it felt like I was jumping into something pre-existing that didn’t require the first issue to introduce that premise of the book. Part of that is due to the fact that Ezra Cain is a little bit more archetypical as far as stories go. Chris Condon’s writing is tight and despite the multiple plots introduced, the story doesn’t feel convoluted. The idea of 4-6 issue mysteries with this character sounds appealing so I’m looking forward to where this series goes.

2: Universal Monsters: Phantom of the Opera #1 - Image

            Surprise, surprise, another Universal Monsters book made my picks. This time it's from Tyler Boss, writer of What’s the Furthest Place From Here?  And Martin Simmonds who also did entrancing art for Universal Monsters: Dracula (the best of the bunch, for me anyways). 

When Mademoiselle Biancarolli is hanged during a showing of  Faust, Inspector Dubert must figure out who could have been responsible for the murder of the young opera singer. But as he begins to investigate, he learns that Biancarolli isn’t the only one that’s been murdered. 

Phantom of the Opera is one of the Universal Monsters pictures that I have the least connection to. As a kid, my sister loved musical theater, Phantom of the Opera notwithstanding, so it was immediately relegated to something for girls in my adolescent brain. I’ve matured and realized the errors of my ways though and thought this was a great start to this mini series. Martin Simmonds' art is incredible and is kind of like a mix between Sean Phillips and Bill Sienkiewicz with some astounding layouts to boot. Although I’m shocked that they did Phantom before the Wolf Man, I’m not complaining!

3: Infernal Hulk #3 - Marvel

            Infernal Hulk continues to be a standout series from Marvel at the moment, written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson with art by Nic Klein. If you haven’t been reading, the idea of this series is that Bruce and Hulk have been split by a primordial being named the Eldest, leaving Bruce powerless and the Hulk persona/powers absorbed by the Eldest.

            This issue features the Hulk being trapped within what I presume to be the Edelst’s subconscious alongside all of the other Hulk alters like Joe Fixit, Immortal Hulk, etc and any other being that the Edelst has absorbed thus far. Not the first time that Hulk has had to interact with his alternate personas but I love it when it happens and especially when it feels like it serves a larger purpose and that fits this description.

            Marvel should have either made this book part of their Red-Band imprint or just gone all in with the violence. There’s an interlude in issue #3 (which I read immediately before) that feels seriously neutered because Marvel editorial presumably made the colorist use black (with a tiny bit of dark red) to portray blood. This results in a weird middle ground where the weight of the story is removed to maintain its ability to be sold to less mature audiences. Story was great, so was the art, but I couldn’t help but find myself being annoyed at Marvel’s risk aversion more than anything else. Most of this doesn’t apply to #4 but I needed to get that out.