This Might Be One of the Best New Comic Wednesdays of the Fall

Some Wednesdays you walk into a comic shop, grab the three books already on your pull list and you're done.

October 7 isn't one of those Wednesdays.

This week has a little bit of everything.

Marvel is launching its entire new Midnight Universe on the same day. DC has Batman and two Absolute Universe books sitting near the top of reader anticipation charts. Something Is Killing the Children reaches issue #50. Paul Chadwick's Concrete returns. Lara Croft somehow finds herself hanging out with G.I. Joe.

And Archie Andrews is fighting a Terminator.

Comics are ridiculous.

We love them.

So instead of giving you a giant checklist of everything arriving October 7, we're doing something more useful.

Here are the 10 comics we'd actually put at the top of the stack this week, ranked.

#10 — Archie vs. The Terminator #1

Let's start with the comic that sounds like somebody picked two franchises out of a hat.

A teenage John Connor enrolls at Riverdale High—and, naturally, a Terminator isn't far behind.

Rory McConville writes the four-issue series with Steven Butler and Lily Butler providing the artwork.[1]

Is this necessary?

Absolutely not.

Do we want to see Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica dealing with a killer machine from the future?

Absolutely.

Even the cover lineup is fun, with Francesco Francavilla, Robert Hack, Bill Galvan and ATL favorite Björn Barends among the artists.[1]

Sometimes comics should just be comics.

#9 — G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero / Tomb Raider #1

Lara Croft meets G.I. Joe.

Honestly, you probably already know whether you're buying this.

The five-issue crossover comes from writer Kyle Higgins and artist Elena Casagrande, with Alex Guimarães on colors and Pat Brosseau lettering.[2]

That's a surprisingly serious creative team for a premise that could easily have been treated like a novelty crossover.

The other interesting piece is the variant program. Chris Mooneyham is producing a series of “Vintage Joe” incentive covers designed to evoke classic G.I. Joe packaging.[2]

If you grew up with G.I. Joe and later spent ridiculous amounts of time playing Tomb Raider, this one was basically engineered in a laboratory for you.

#8 — Concrete #1

Here's the book we don't want getting lost underneath all the superhero noise.

Concrete is back.

Paul Chadwick's acclaimed character returns in a new five-issue series, marking the first new Concrete story in roughly 20 years.[3]

If you've never read Concrete, don't assume this is simply another big-rock-guy superhero comic.

Ron Lithgow is a human consciousness trapped inside an enormous stone-like body. Chadwick has historically used that bizarre premise to tell deeply human stories about isolation, relationships, celebrity, nature and what it actually means to live inside your own body.[4]

In a week dominated by massive franchises, this might be the book people are still recommending years from now.

#7 — Absolute Green Lantern #19

The Absolute Universe continues to prove that Batman isn't the only reason this line works.

Absolute Green Lantern #19 arrives this week from Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay, and reader anticipation data currently places it among the three most anticipated comics of the entire week.[5]

That's impressive.

Green Lantern isn't Batman. It doesn't automatically win the Wednesday popularity contest just because its logo is on the cover.

The Absolute line has given creators permission to fundamentally rebuild familiar DC mythology instead of simply changing costumes and origins.

That's exactly what we want alternate universes to do.

#6 — Midnight Fantastic Four #1

Now things get difficult.

Marvel launches all three of its Midnight books tomorrow, and Midnight Fantastic Four may actually have the concept most naturally suited to horror.

Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker take Marvel's First Family into cosmic horror, turning Reed Richards' endless scientific curiosity into something considerably more dangerous.

We've said this before: Reed Richards is basically the guy who sees a door marked DO NOT OPEN and thinks, Well, somebody should probably find out why.

That's fantastic superhero storytelling.

It's even better horror storytelling.

#5 — Something Is Killing the Children #50

Fifty issues.

That's a serious accomplishment for any modern creator-owned comic.

James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera have turned Something Is Killing the Children from an intriguing BOOM! Studios horror title into one of the defining independent comics of the last several years.

Issue #50 arrives this week with an enormous variant program—more than 70 covers are currently catalogued for the milestone.[6]

We're not suggesting you need 70 copies.

Please don't do that to yourself.

But if you've followed Erica Slaughter this far, #50 belongs on the stack.

Milestone issues don't automatically make comics good.

Reaching fifty issues while readers still genuinely care about the characters?

That means something.

#4 — Midnight Spider-Man #1

This is where Marvel Midnight gets nasty.

Phillip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc are taking one of the most recognizable superhero origins ever created and pushing the part everyone conveniently ignores:

Getting bitten by a radioactive spider should be horrifying.

This Peter Parker isn't simply getting sticky fingers and spider-sense.

The Midnight version pushes Peter toward grotesque human-spider transformation and body horror.

Good.

If Marvel is going to create an entirely separate horror universe, don't give us Spider-Man with slightly sharper teeth.

Make us uncomfortable.

That's the assignment.

#3 — Absolute Superman #24

Here's something that caught our attention.

Current reader anticipation data has Absolute Superman #24 sitting at #2 for the entire week, behind only Batman #14.[5]

Not Marvel's heavily promoted Midnight launch.

Not a milestone #50.

Superman.

Jason Aaron's Absolute Superman has steadily built an identity separate from both traditional Superman and Absolute Batman. Juan Ferreyra is handling the current storyline as Superman's hunt for Brainiac pushes him through increasingly disturbing corners of this universe.[7]

If you've been treating Absolute Superman as the Absolute title you'll eventually catch up on, this might be the point where you stop waiting.

#2 — Midnight X-Men #1

Jonathan Hickman writing X-Men again.

We could probably stop there.

But Midnight X-Men has something else going for it that we really like: Hickman has indicated that this will be the Midnight Universe's one central X-Men title, rather than the beginning of a giant family of mutant books.

That's refreshing.

One book. One direction. One place to follow the story.

Marvel's Midnight launch has generated enormous retailer interest, and current reader anticipation data puts Midnight X-Men #1 ahead of the other two Midnight launches.[5]

Of the three, this is the one we'd read first.

But it still isn't our #1 book this week.

#1 — Batman #14

Yep.

Batman wins.

And we're okay with that.

Batman #14 continues DC's Bad Seeds crossover, the Gotham-wide event built around Poison Ivy, Vandal Savage and a city being transformed into a prehistoric botanical nightmare.[8]

The larger event is being driven by Matt Fraction and G. Willow Wilson, while Batman itself has become one of the hottest books on the stands.

Current pull-list tracking puts Batman #14 at #1 for October 7.[5]

There's also something we like about Bad Seeds conceptually.

Batman events can get enormous. Multiverses. Alternate Batmen. Cosmic threats. Reality collapsing.

This one brings the danger back to Gotham.

One city.

One terrible night.

Batman trapped inside it.

Sometimes that's all you need.

ATL Pick of the Week: Batman #14.

What Are We Actually Buying?

If you gave us enough money for only five books tomorrow, our stack would be:

Batman #14
Midnight X-Men #1
Absolute Superman #24
Midnight Spider-Man #1
Something Is Killing the Children #50

But we'd probably stand at the register, look back at Concrete #1, sigh, and grab that too.

That's how they get you.

For ATL Comics & Cards readers, this is also a particularly fun week because several of the creators showing up on these books and covers overlap with artists our customers already know from our exclusives—including Björn Barends and other artists we've featured throughout the year.

And then there's the little matter of New York Comic Con beginning Thursday.

So Wednesday gives us a monster New Comic Book Day.

Thursday starts NYCC.

Friday brings DC's Absolute Universe panel.

Yeah.

This could be a pretty damn good week to be a comic fan.

Sources & Credits

[1] Dynamite Entertainment — Archie vs. The Terminator #1 solicitation.
Writer Rory McConville; artists Steven Butler and Lily Butler. Covers include Francesco Francavilla, Björn Barends, Robert Hack and Bill Galvan. On sale October 7, 2026.

[2] Image Comics / Skybound — G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero / Tomb Raider #1.
Creative-team and release information, plus Chris Mooneyham's Vintage Joe variant-cover series.

[3] October 7, 2026 New Comic Release Calendar.
Release information for Concrete #1 and other titles arriving this week.

[4] Dark Horse Comics — Concrete.
Background on Paul Chadwick's Concrete and Ronald Lithgow.

[5] Weekly reader-anticipation data based on League of Comic Geeks pull lists.
The October 7 rankings currently place Batman #14 at #1, Absolute Superman #24 at #2 and Absolute Green Lantern #19 at #3, followed by Marvel's three Midnight launch titles. A pull-list ranking measures reader intent, not confirmed retail sales.

[6] Key Collector Comics — New Comics This Week: October 7, 2026.
Release and variant information for Something Is Killing the Children #50, Marvel Midnight and other October 7 releases.

[7] DC Comics — Absolute Superman.
Absolute Superman by Jason Aaron, with Juan Ferreyra handling the current storyline.

[8] DC Comics — Batman: Bad Seeds.
Official DC announcement outlining the Gotham-wide crossover led by Matt Fraction and G. Willow Wilson.

Creator & Artwork Credits: All comic-book characters, titles, logos and artwork remain the property of their respective publishers and creators. Any cover artwork reproduced with this article should be credited to the individual cover artist and publisher.