Comics for April 5, First Looks April 12

[dvandom]

                    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.
Grumble mutter rassumfrassum argh....  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     Warning: with mere weeks to go before I get a new car, my current one
has sprung a leak in the coolant system, a repair I can't really just let
go.  So I get to drop a few hundred bucks on it before going into new car
payments.  So, if my reviews are suddenly less enthusiastic in places today,
that's why.  At least I wrote the First Looks before finding out about the
leak.  

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.

April 12, 2006:

     Captain Atom Armageddon #7 (of 9): DC/Wildstorm - A lot more fight scene
stuff, but at least with some sort of point.  Still padded, but there's
something under the padding.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Annihilation: Super-Skrull #1 (of 4): Marvel - Surprisingly good story
about an aging warrior whose loyalties have been outpaced by reality, much
like the Captain America stories of the 60s and early 70s.  Art is okay.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Cable & Deadpool #27: Marvel - Innnnnnnnteresting.  Rather talky, like
last issue, and possibly writing checks that Nicieza's future work won't be
able to cash, but interesting.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     eXiles #79: Marvel - On to the Future Imperfect setting!  Things are
perforce wrapping up, so it's time to get clever.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     FN Spider-Man #7: Marvel - Good  fun issue, almost lets you forget the
whole Civil War thing coming.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Ms. Marvel #2: Marvel - Mostly a running fight scene with some plot
exposition.  But it looks good and reads decently.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Thunderbolts #101: Marvel - This is a transitional issue, for stepping
back and examining motives and relationships and so forth before plunging
into the next arc.  And Red Ronin has a cameo.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn


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.

     Essential Godzilla: Marvel - Back in the 70s, Marvel got pretty big into
licensed comics.  And unlike most licensed stuff these days, they tended to
integrate the property into their mainline universe (Star Wars being a
notable exception).  So, when Marvel got the license to do Godzilla comics a
few years after the end of what's now known as a "Showa Age" movies, they
dropped the Big G right into the Marvel Universe.  Mind you, they seem to
have gotten the rights to JUST Godzilla, none of the other characters or
monsters from the movies, but they did make it clear that all of those events
had happened off-screen in the Marvel Universe (it's also worth noting that
while Marvel's Monster Island predates Toho's, they do serve pretty much the
same purpose, and later on it was strongly implied that they were even the
same place).  The comic, by writer Doug Moench and artist Herb Trimpe (with
two fill-in issues by Moench's sometime collaborator and horror comic
specialist Tom Sutton) also inherited a few other things from the late Showa
movies.  Things like a somewhat heavy-handed environmental message (which got
dropped after a few issues) and Godzilla's ambiguous role as both hero and
destroyer (which got stronger as the book continued).  While the writing
wasn't exactly what I'd call stellar, it did certainly capture the desired
feel of late Showa movies set in the Marvel U.  Herb Trimpe's art started off
more at his Kirby-imitating end of things, but was more of a John Buscema
pastiche by the end (I'm not really sure Trimpe has his own style, he's more
of a chameleon in that respect...I've even see him do Liefeld style).
Anyway, as demonstrated in some of the recent roster books, Godzilla's
presence in the Marvel U remains as canonical as anything is these days,
although they have to avoid using his name in any ways that might violate
trademark.  And every so often, elements introduced in his comic show up (Red
Ronin, the Megas, Doctor Demonicus, Yetrigar, to name a few).  Recommended.
$19.99 (It officially released a few weeks ago, but Diamond says they still
have copies, so you may be able to get your store to order it for you.)
     Doc Samson #4 (of 5): Marvel - Back to the main cast, although the
storytelling is rather confusing, with what at first seems to be a flashback
later turning out to be...something else.  Not really sure, although there's
some likely culprits.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Young Avengers #11: Marvel - Lotsa secret origin infodump.  It's so
clear and complete that at least SOME of it has GOT to be wrong :)  Things
are getting interesting.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #19: Marvel - A brief interlude in the past to set up a
return to a plot thread that Kirkma has let lay fallow for a while.  Didn't
like the art at first, but it grew on me.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Infinite Crisis #6 (of 7): DC - Lots of easter egging and a big
resolution of sorts.  Of course, since this isn't the last issue, the latest
sacrifices will no doubt turn out to be as pointless as those in previous
issues.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99/$5.50Cn
     Teen Titans #34: DC - Probably better to read this after Infinite Crisis
#6.  Like the other OYLs so far, it doesn't really give away anything about
the end of Infinite Crisis, but also like most of the OYLs it sets up the new
status quo.  Johns uses the time-honored device of having someone just having
waken up from a long coma so that everyone can practice their exposition, and
it works well enough.  And the new status quo seems acceptable and carrying
dramatic potential.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn 
     Outsiders #35: DC - Meanwhile, the OYL version of this book continues to
go downhill, ethically speaking.  Even the one dissenter on the team is won
over to the "rightness" of their methods.  No, I don't insist all heroes be
shiny and clean-handed, and I'm willing to give this a few more months since
there are still places Winick could be going with this that wouldn't suck,
but...well, a lot of places do.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     JSA #84: DC - I was going to compare this thematically to Friendly
Neighborhood Spider-Man #7, but since that comes out NEXT week it wouldn't be
fair.  :)  Suffice to say, there's some metaphysical issues to deal with
here, and some retconnish issues as well.  And despite all the evidence being
presented here to support a new position on the main antagonist, there's
still occasional bits that indicate, well, it might all be smoke and
mirrors.  An engaging read from Levitz.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #41: DC - Having introduced the new Aquaman
last issue, it's time for some OYL catch-up on the rest of the usual Aquaman
supporting cast and setting.  As I think most people expected, Busiek brings
a more Conan-like feel to the setting, and provides fairly good justification
for the change in circumstances under the sea.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Planetary #25: DC/ABC - More backstory.  Lovely scenery, interesting
ideas, but very little forward plot motion.  Oh, the backstory revelation
itself is a plot point, as is the fate of one of the supporting characters.
And there's a fight scene.  But I still can't shake the feeling that I'm
reading the annotations of a story that I'm not getting to see.  Sure,
annotations can be fun on their own, but we're getting too high a ratio of
endnotes to story.  Recommended if you like annotations, mildly recommnended
if you don't care for them.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Bomb Queen #3: Image - Nothing new to say, really.  Other than to note
that the initial shyness about showing the title character's breasts from #1
has definitely gone away.  Feels kinda coasting-ish right now.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.50/$4.15Cn
     Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #3 (of 4): IDW - Forgot to even
look at the variant covers this time, took the one they stuck in my pull
(cover B, Nick Roche's Lioconvoy, who doesn't appear in this issue).  Oh, and
there's no actual indication in the comic that this is a 4 issue mini, which
is a bit irksome.  With only one issue left to go, the comic still spends a
fair amount of time on bringing more characters onto stage, leaving the plot
feeling kinda thin.  Which, to be honest, it is.  Strip out all the "here I
am and a little bit about me" scenes, and you lose about half the pagecount
so far.  Basically, it's written with the assumption of stories beyond the
initial miniseries, and trying to lay out all the characters now so that
these potential stories could focus more on plot.  But it doesn't make for a
very satisfying first story.  Also, the whole "we can see them, but they
can't see us, so we don't have to worry about being spotted" plot device rips
a lot of the drama out of the plot scenes we DO get.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99 
     Rod Espinosa's New Alice in Wonderland #2 (of 4, but no indication on
the cover): Antarctic Press - Store finally got its shipment of this one in.
This one covers the White Rabbit's house sequence and the caterpillar, albeit
in abridged form.  As with #1, it uses the novel as its main basis, but adds
in elements from the Disney cartoon here and there, plus a few things Rod
came up with himself, most likely.  So, in addition to being there for
trademark reasons, the "new" refers to the blend of elements.  :) Putting old
things together in new ways is still a valid form of artistic expression,
after all.  One minor complaint I have is that the final page doesn't look
like a final page, leading me to hunt through the house ads to make sure
there wasn't one last "gotcha" page.  I suppose this is to make the trade
paperback flow more smoothly, but it was still mildly bothersome.
Recommended.  $3.50/$4.75Cn
     Strangetown #1: Oni Press - I almost didn't get this one.  Not out of
any reluctance...I simply forgot I'd ordered it, and the store's pull
spreadsheet got corrupted the other day.  Fortunately, the older backups were
recent enough to have this one, and once I saw the creator name on the cover
(Chynna Clugston, who has dropped the Major) I realized I must have order
it.  :)  Anyway, as far as I can find, this is NOT a miniseries, so the
rampant character introduction found here isn't as much of a problem, since I
can be reasonably sure everyone will end up having plenty of time to develop
past the one or two notes they get here.  We have a mysterious protagonist
with a mysterious past wandering up and down the Pacific coast end ending up
in a mysterious town to possibly settle down and get some of the manifold
mysteries dealt with.  It SEEMS to be set in the early 1980s, although it's
often hard to place Clugston's stories at a particular time (see, for
instance, Scooter Girl) due to the preponderance of retro culture in her
works.  But, unless one of the characters hides her age really well, the 1981
reference in the text piece in the back (and the 80s style rollerskates she
wears) probably peg this between 1982 and 1985.  But it's a town that time
forgot, so who knows?  Well, we probably will know eventually, and I figure
I'll be sticking around for it.  Recommended.  $2.99

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 4/5:

     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,
and Essential Nova.  Diamond's system shows them all in stock, and my store
has ordered them, but who knows when they'll actually arrive?

Awards:

Best Book: Strangetown #1

"History Shows Again And Again" Award to Essential Godzilla

"But Now He's Only C9 Loose!" Award to Doc Samson #4 (of 5)

"Younger Than They Look" Award to Young Avengers #11

"That's Gotta Sting" Award to Marvel Team-Up #19

"Infinite Diversity in Infinite Crises" Award to Infinite Crisis #6 (of 7)

"No, No Spoilers On The Cover Here, Move Along" Award to Teen Titans #34

"Is It Okay To Root For The Villains This Time?" Award to Outsiders #35

"At Least SOMEONE Knows About Mens Rea" Award to JSA #84

"You Know There's Trouble When The Shark Guy Is The Calming Influence" Award
     to Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #41

"Strucker?  I 'Ardly KNOW 'Er!" Award to Planetary #25

"Crack of Doom" Award to Bomb Queen #3

"A Veritable Menagerie" Award to Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #3
     (of 4)

"A Hookah-Smoking Character Has Given You The Call" Award to Rod Espinosa's
     New Alice in Wonderland #2 (of 4)

"The Walls Have Ears.  And Holes" Award to Strangetown #1

   Dave Van Domelen, "Where is Vernon? I can't find my thermos and I have a sneaking suspicion he's been sleeping with it." - Freddy, Strangetown #1

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Trimpe does have a style. We called him Wimpe Trimpe, back in the day. However, he did have a knack for finishing other people's work.

I am very curious whether Trimpe, imitating the Robgoblin, still draws feet.