"Loveless" (not to be confused with the Anime series of the same name) is a romance, too, of sorts; set in the post-Civil War south, it's the story of a former Confederate soldier who comports himself with that badass-toughguy style that so many comic book authors find impossible to resist. "Behind every bad man is a badder woman," gushes the cover of the first volume, but the love story between Wes Cutter and his wife, Ruth, pales in comparison to the romantic feelings that Wes holds for his pre-war way of life, before the Union came to town intent on changing everything. The books by Brian Azzarello and Marcelo Frusin, and colored by Trish Mulvihill , revel in lots of of messy shootings, and rapings, and draw-your-gun standoffs between men eager to cock their huge pieces at each other. There also seems to be particular attention paid to rendering the Union's black soldiers with hunched-over gaits, hungry eyes, and cruel sneers.

After the jump: Billy the Kid meets Frankenstein, the 2000 presidential election as seen from Japan, and Marvel's take on the Oedipus myth.