DC Comics’ relaunch of the anthology title Weird Worlds begins this week with an impressive array of creators and characters.

Kevin VanHook and Jerry Ordway are presenting new adventures of the bad-ass fan favorite Lobo. Kevin Maguire debuts a new character called Tanga.

But for me, the one I’m most looking forward to is Garbageman, a new variant in the “monster-as-hero” genre from Aaron Lopresti (most recently the artist on Wonder Woman).

I’ve known Aaron for a number of years, ever since he worked on the Ultraverse on a book called Sludge. Aaron pencilled and occasionally wrote issues of the UV’s monster-hero that was created by Steve Gerber, who created an earlier monster-hero called Man-Thing for Marvel Comics.

Garbageman fits perfectly into the monster comic genre that includes Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, The Heap, Sludge and others. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for someone to step up and revive the concept.

But I’m happy to see Aaron is the guy to do it and I’m looking forward to this first issue. I had dinner with him at San Diego last year and he was full of genuine, wide-eyed excitement over his creation. Since then, he’s been posting Garbageman art on Facebook and it looks great.

Now that the first issue is here, I can’t wait to get my own copy.

Here’s a great interview with Aaron at Newsarama where he talks about Weird Worlds and Garbageman.

[Artwork: Garbageman by Aaron Lopresti, © DC Comics]