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Comics for March 15, First Looks March 22
Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
The Week's Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit
Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does
not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
King of Geeks, no. In the nobility, tho. Rants, Capsules can be found on my
homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
First Looks:
My comics shop subscribes to the First Looks program, in which a
selection of titles from DC and Marvel for the next week are shipped a week
early for preview purposes. I usually have time to read some of them while
the comics are sorted, although they don't always arrive on time.
March 22, 2006:
Daughters of the Dragon #3 (of 6): Marvel - Gray and Palmiotti continue
to shoot for a She-Hulk-ish semi-camp, but it rings kinda off. Art issues
remain the same. It's not horrible, but neither is it very good.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
Captain America v5 #16: Marvel - It's okay. I'm not in love with the
coloring, which tries to make the art look painted at times, but it's okay.
And leaving aside the fact that it builds on plots I wasn't interested in,
the writing is okay too. $2.99/$4.25Cn
Amazing Spider-Man #530: Marvel - Road to Civil War. More taking Spidey
out of his niche, which seems to be JMS's "thing" on this title. Oh, and
while doctors generally need to be licensed to practice, I'm pretty sure the
AMA isn't the group that does the licensing...states do it. :) $2.50/$3.50Cn
Ares #3 (of 5): Marvel - New artist, very different look. As befits the
middle chapter, there's a fair amount of infodump, but it's well told.
Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn
X-Factor #5: Marvel - New art team, but just as murky. Story is
something of an interlude, pausing in the A plot to examine the effects of
DeciMation on the little people. Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn
She-Hulk v2 #6: Marvel - Art by Will Conrad is a bit wooden, but it gets
better as the isse progresses. Not Slott's strongest writing effort, but
still good enough for a Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn
The America Way #2 (of 8): DC/Wildstorm - Good followup to the first
issue, straddling that line between feet of clay and the best of intentions.
Recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn
Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16: DC - 1001 Years Later.
Heh. Relativity rears its complicated head behind the scenes here, and while
Supergirl's addition to the book may or may not have been mandated from on
high, Waid and Kitson do a good job of bringing her in. No backup stories or
lettercol this time. Recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn
Capsules:
Short, relatively spoiler-free reviews of books I actually bring home
(as opposed to reading in preview form in the shop or online). If I get a
book late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing
section.
Ultimate Extinction #3 (of 6): Marvel - Well, the massive exposition
bombs are gone, but replaced by a pointless hero-on-hero fight as the two
plot threads finally start to cross. Emphasis on start. The Misty plot is
essentially on hold for the issue as it gets spliced in verrrry slowly.
Mildly recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn
Annihilation: Prologue #1: Marvel - This is the big crossover event for
people who don't want to buy into Civil War, basically. Although it's not
really a crossover, since no pre-existing titles are involved. Anyway, this
sets up the Big Threat and kicks over some anthills to get stuff started. A
decent read. Mildly recommended. $3.99/$5.75Cn
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #6: Marvel - I definitely missed an
important plot point somewhere, and it makes the timing seem odd, especially
after last issue where the timing WAS odd. Okay story otherwise.
Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn
Untold Tales of the New Universe: Justice #1: Marvel - A good
introduction to both the charcter as he was introduced and what he turned
into after his retcon. Of course, I really only know him from PAD's later
use of him in other titles, but it feels right. And it works well for
someone who never read the original series, too. :) Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
Green Arrow #60: DC - One Year Later. Winick goes to rather great
lengths to be coy about what happens to Ollie...and the cover gives it away.
Whoops. Manages to be a New Orleans parable without being TOO blatant about
it, but it's still kinda played out already. Has some good bits, but like I
suspect a lot of OYL will be, I think it'd have been better to see it
happening, not skipping over the year. Mildly recommended. $2.50/$3.50Cn
Teen Titans Annual #1: DC - One Week Late. Remember when Annuals were
self-contained stories you could pick up and read with minimal knowledge of
what was going on in other titles? Okay, I barely remember it myself. This
book is a weird mix of catering to that idea and utterly ignoring it, making
me wonder if Johns and Wolfman wrote separate chunks without really
consulting each other. The opening piece is all about the backstory and
accessibility, but another part of it is still fairly opaque if you haven't
been reading...Robin. It's as if it's not a crossover with Robin so much as
they crammed several issues of Teen Titans into Robin because there wasn't
enough room for them before IC. Mildly recommended. $4.99/$6.75Cn
Ninja High School #136: Antarctic Press - A transitional issue, segueing
from the recent "parodies of high school manga comedies I've never read"
stuff into what looks to be Naruto-inspired stuff, including several new
characters, one of which is insanely annoying. Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.05Cn
Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #2: IDW - Got Figueroa's cover A,
preferred the clean lines to the somewhat murky colors of the other three
covers. I think the opening caption lost a zero somewhere...if this is
supposed to be set about the time of the Beast Wars cartoon with its
fur-covered proto-hominids, it can't be merely 70,000 years BC. 700,000
years is more like it. The plot's pretty thin this issue, with everyone
racing for a macguffin, but it's a decent read. The sunset (sunrise?) fight
sequence is a successful experiment in color, conveying the blinding light of
having the Sun right in your face without actually concealing the figures.
The writing still suffers some from the "cast of thousands, characterization
of a couple" problem. Two or three characters who were ciphers get fleshing
out, but most are still generic, and there's an awful lot of them. That's
one way in which the Beast Wars cartoon made a virtue of necessity...they
couldn't simply drop dozens of "characters" onto the screen at once, so they
had to actually spend some time developing the ones they had. Mildly
recommended. $2.99
Conan #26: Dark Horse - The framing story becomes the real plot after
lurking in the background for a couple of years, although there's plenty of
Conan action along the way. Recommended. $2.99
Conan: Book of Thoth #1 (of 4, I think): Dark Horse - Conan doesn't
actually appear in this issue, which is about Thoth (unsurprisingly, I
suppose). Busiek and Len Wein share adaptation duty, while Kelley Jones does
the art. Page thirteen (unnumbered, sigh, 40 total pages) panel 3 is a very
nice echo of the cover art without actually *being* the cover art.
Recommended. $4.99
The Devil's Panties #1: Silent Devil - This is a collection of 45 pages
of the strips from www.devilspanties.com (133 strips total, the first page is
a full page strip) with annotations and a bonus paper doll page. The
annotations are kinda scary, because while they point out the places where
the semi-autobiographical strip exaggerates stuff, this also reveals the
stuff that was NOT exaggerated. Skeeery art student people. Presuming this
sells well enough that Diamond doesn't kill it, the comic will probably
eventually catch up to the webpage. :) At the moment, in these early
strips, the proofreading is pretty good, but the strip is known for an "oh,
&*$@ it" attitude towards spelling, so be prepared to see that go downhill in
later strips (and do NOT email Breeden to point out spelling errors). Funny
and weird enough to overlook that issue, though. Recommended. $4.95 Cn
Body Bags: 3 The Hard Way #1: Image - Two reprinted shorts from Dark
Horse anthology books, and one new piece. Body Bags is Jason Pearson's comic
for people who find Sin City to be too subtle and restrained. The original
miniseries is fresh and funny, but I found the stories in here to be a bit
too...hollow, I guess. Like Pearson was just milking the premise for some
cheap gags (contrary to some opinions, the original series was more than just
T&A and cheap gags). Okay stories, but...ehn. Mildly recommended.
$5.99/$6.85Cn (what the heck happened to the exchange rate in Imageland?)
Truth, Justin and the American Way #1: Image - Another one of those
titles I'm gonna have to settle on an abbreviation for lest I go nuts typing
it out all the time (see also FNSM, TFBWtG above). I'll get this right out
of the way before anything else: while there's certainly elements from all
across the dial in here, and the writers (Kurtz and Williams) would probably
at least roll their eyes at the reductionism inherent in my next statement,
this book is "What if the Greatest American Hero was a slacker instead of a
teacher?" It's good, but for whatever reason it didn't really click with me
like other works Williams is involved with do. Recommended. $2.99/$3.50Cn
Flaming Carrot Comics Photo Comic Special #1 (aka #37): Image - A very
weird fumetti (photo comic) with some computer manipulation and deliberately
cheesy special effects. A typically bizarre Flaming Carrot adventure as he
and some other heroes provide security at a comicon. I will provide
translation for the Esperanto sections (Ha! Page numbers exist in this
book!) after some spoiler space below the signature. Strongly recommended.
$3.50/$4.15Cn
Gone Missing:
Stuff that came out some places this week and that I wanted to buy, but
couldn't find for whatever reason, so people don't have to email me asking
"Why didn't you review X?" (If it's neither here nor in the section above,
though, feel free to ask, I might have forgotten about it!)
Current list as of 3/15:
Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards GN, Exalted #1, Keif Llama
V2.1, Captain America and the Falcon: Secret Empire TPB, PS238 #14 and 15.
Add Flare #32 (which I'm not losing sleep over, considering dropping the book
anyway) and Essential Godzilla (GAH. Of COURSE the short-run book that will
not be getting a second printing is missing, since there's really no way to
get a copy if I miss this.).
Awards:
Best Book: Flaming Carrot Comics Photo Comic Special #1
"Does That Come With Fin Funnels?" Award to Ultimate Extinction #3 (of 6)
"Poor Schmuck's Getting Hosed In TWO Crossovers" Award to Annihilation:
Prologue
"Red-Headed Symbol Of Pointless Back To Basics Retconning" Award to
FNSM #6
"He Spent Some Time At The Bobby Ewing Clinic" Award to Untold Tales of the
New Universe: Justice
"Rebuilding, One Brick At A Time" Award to Green Arrow #60
"Well, Hestia Sure Won't Be Taking Zeus's Place As Patron" Award to Teen
Titans Annual #1
"Corporate Shark And Cub" Award to Ninja High School #136
"The Decloak Coulda Been Clearer" Award to TFBWtG #2
"The Vile Redactor" Award to Conan #26
"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished...Especially When Your Best Friend Is A Dick"
Award to Conan: Book of Thoth #1 (of 4)
"The Joys Of Electrical Tape" Award to The Devil's Panties #1
"The Real Junk In The Trunk" Award to Body Bags: 3 the Hard Way
"The Contest Would Be Easier If There Were Page Numbers" Award to TJ&tAW #1
"Ahhhhh, Booth Babes" Award to Flaming Carrot #37
Dave Van Domelen, "The fumes! The FUMES! I can SEE through TIME!" - Devil's Panties #1
Spoiler Space for Flaming Carrot:
Note: most of the verbs in the comic use the -i ending, making them
infinitives (I presume the Esperanto was written using a dictionary). I've
put in correct tenses where necessary. It's been a decade or so since I
studied Esperanto, but I still know how to use my dictionary. :)
Page 26:
Panel 2 - "STOP, STOP! I must clarify!"
Page 27:
Panel 1 - "Hi there. What brings you to the Earth?" "I came to fit in with
the strange." Grammatical note: should have been "la strangojn" not
"la stranga". Noun as prepositional object (-ojn), not adjective as
subject (-a).
Panel 2 - "Hell yes." Note that at no time does the alien say he's an
exchange student. Ackerman must be taking telepathy courses on the
side too. Or a few panels' worth of dialogue were deleted.
Panel 5 - The correct translation is given, and "estis" is even the correct
tense formation. Note, the gx should have been a g with a ^ over it,
unless their font is really limited. The gx convention was devised for
use with limited keyboards, as I found out when I looked at the
Esperanto newsgroups back in 93.