This week’s round-up of the best of ComiXology Submit features: super powered weather-based science fiction in Brainstorm #1; an eclectic british anthology in Doghouse #5; post-apocalyptic ice hockey hilarity in Hockeypocalypse #3; and spiritual robot super-spies in Sector Four: Season One.

Brainstorm #1 (Future Dude)

In a near future world where weather has become the ultimate force of evil the US government are looking to fight back with their own secret weather combating super troops in Jeffrey Morris and Ira Livingston IV’s Brainstorm #1. Super-scientist Cale Isaacs is helping the US government tackle the powerful storms that batter the country with his Project Zephyr, but when his tornado busting plan is taken out of his hands, things don’t go quite as intended for the men in suits. This first issue is heavy on dialogue thanks to Morris and Washington’s smartly written script but there’s plenty of action too courtesy of X-Men Noir artist Dennis Calero. This complex tale of scientific double crosses and military mishaps contains as many twists and turns as the tornados it’s trying to stop, so be prepared to be blown away by this super-smart sci-fi thriller.
Purchase Brainstorm #1 from ComiXology for £2.49/$2.99

Hockeypocalypse #3 (Rent-a-thug Comics)

Even if you’re not the biggest ice hockey fan then you’ll still have a lot of fun with Jeff Martin’s post-apocalyptic hockey comedy comic Hockeypocalypse. When Skully was in high school his coach told him the only way he would go pro would be if the end of the world happened – well guess what, it did and now he gets to live out his dream along with his fellow mutant hockey players Squid, Stretch and Ugly Dave. As Skully and co take on other misfit teams in pursuit of glory and revenge they barter their belongings for essentials (sometimes more successfully than other!). Having lost to the Calgary Cataclysms in issue #1 they look to gain revenge in issue #3 as only they can in this superb mix of Slapshot, Scott Pilgrim and Mad Max! It’s a bit rough around the edges in terms of quality, but is a great idea for a series and with a really fun sense of humour it makes this underdog series a real winner!
Purchase Hockeypocalypse #3 from ComiXology for £0.60/$0.99

Sector Four: Season One (Line Height)

We’ve seen many sci-fi tales of a world where robots have taken over and humans are struggling to rebel against their metallic masters. However Bradley Samuelson’s Sector Four gives this idea a fresh spin with a human led robot-based resistance featuring bible reading spiritual super-spy APA-26 at it’s heart. Instead of your atypical evil robots vs human story, Samuelson has upped the game thanks to a back story that see humans attempting to make robots more empathetic and in doing so creating droids who are both more evil and more human. This means that when APA-26 goes into the mysterious Sector Four to find lost agent Kin he encounters more than just your stereotypical soulless automatons. Sector Four reads more like a classic crime noir (but with a generous dash of sci-fi of course!) with double crosses, secret agents and damsels in distress. With a quirky art style that mixes stark lines and tightly rendered panels with pencil sketch flashbacks and superbly designed characters, Sector Four is a brilliantly realised take on a well-worn sic-fi standard and we can’t wait for our ‘upgrade’ to season two!
Purchase Sector Four: Season One from ComiXology for £2.49/$2.99

Doghouse #5 (Sleepy Dog)

We read a lot of digital anthologies released via ComiXology Submit, but this awesome Brit collection is one of our favourites. Instead of giving you a random selection of eclectic stories in every issue, it collects together a semi-regular set of adventures that follow on from issue to issue. This makes for a much more enjoyable read as not only do we get a sense of continuity, but we get to see our favourite titles develop from month to month. In issue 5 of Doghouse those titles include: Avalon, which sees a UK army helicopter transported back in time to the world of King Arthur and Merlin (who happens to be a fighter pilot stranded from the 1940s); Repo Deluxe, a slapstick tale of a high end repo firm who specialzie in quirky cases (which reminds us a bit of Chew and has awesome duotone artwork from Dave and Pete Kennedy); and Flipside, which debuts in this issue and features a cool mix of zombies and time travelling biker chicks with a very Scott Pilgrimy kind of vibe. All three stories are written by Mike Sizemore who has a great diverse range for his writing with each story feeling very different to the last. While the art is provided by the aforementioned Kennedys (who draw both Avalon and Repo Deluxe) and also Nicola Anderson who draws Flipside. In previous issues we were also introduced to creepy supernatural prison drama Spider and goofy police procedural NYPD Wierd, all of which we cannot wait to see develop in the coming months. With a great mix of cool stories and fantastic art Doghouse is no mongrel, this is most definitely a pedigree digital comics anthology!
Purchase Doghouse #5 from ComiXology for £0.69/$0.99