3. Letter 44 #5 by Charles Soule and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque (Oni)
Charles Soule's superb comic spanning multiple genres from sci-fi horror to political drama to thriller/mystery continues to impress five issues in. Soule maintains the mystery of the overall story by feeding the reader pieces of the larger story which manages to ask more questions than answers. Pritchard and Gomez, the away team from the spaceship Clarke, have made it into the alien-modified asteroid and discovered an Earth-like atmosphere with breathable air within but the odd robotic sentries are alerted to their presence! Meanwhile, President Blades deals with Michter, his untrustworthy chief of staff, and elsewhere a group of armed FBI agents prepare to storm what looks like a replica White House in the middle of Denver's rocky mountains! I love how Soule's teasing out the alien storyline. We haven't seen one yet nor are we any clearer on what they're doing in our solar system, but the asteroid and its robot sentries (at least that's what I think they are) hint at some ideas. Maybe the aliens are preparing Earth-like environments for humans because they want to relocate the human populace into zoo-like enclosures? Or maybe the aliens have more in common with humanity than we realise maybe they're humans themselves? The robot sentries are weird and wonderfully designed by Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque whose art on this book has been stellar in every issue. The colourful asteroid environment makes a nice contrast to the bleakness of space and the FBI's attack on the mountain White House was superbly drawn, especially in the way he drew the flash bangs sequence. And just when the Blades storyline looks to be becoming stale, Soule throws in a new element to spice it back to vitality which I won't reveal here. Again, no clue as to where this storyline is headed but the comic is so entertaining that you're happy to keep reading to find out. Letter 44 #5 is another stunning issue in Oni Press's best ongoing series check it out!