Comics for June 7

[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.
Looks like I have jury duty tomorrow.  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, Marvel and Image 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.

June 14:

     Comics were all ready by the time I arrived, so I didn't read any First
Looks. 


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.

     Flare #34: Heroic Publishing - Hm.  Supposedly the Big Payoff after
several years of buildup in the Lady Darkon plot, and it's not too bad, but
it felt a little too flat for a dire struggle.  The backup is the main story
from the Liberty Girl FCBD issue, they seem to have run out of the painfully
bad Sparkplug backup stories for now.  Mildly recommended.  $3.25/$3.99Cn
     52 #5 (of 52): DC - The plots shift around some more, with Booster
barely appearing and other characters appearing quite a lot, in many senses
of that word.  :)  It's rather angsty in places, with loads of "crippling
heroes for dramatic impact" stuff, some of which has been seen in OYL titles
already, and some of which...well, it's hard to say what's up, since the OYL
titles are so badly out of synch with each other.  The history backup is more
Crisis on Infinite Earths summary.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Outsiders #37: DC - Speaking of out of synch OYL, the big reveals of
this issue happen significantly before the OYL issues of Teen Titans.  As a
result, some of the scenes that could have had more impact fail to do so.
The rest is a combination of "Gotcha, it wasn't so bad!" reveals and
established heroes coming in to say, "We're watching you."  At least they do
clear up a bunch of stuff, rather than letting danglers dangle.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     JSA #86: DC - In the penultimate chapter of the Gentleman Ghost arc (and
of the series in general, prior to a relaunch), the rest of his new origin is
revealed, and there's lots of fighting.  And the Green Lantern here doesn't
seem to be the Green Lantern in Outsiders, but for all we know the One Year
Later startups for the two books are months and months apart.  Y'know, if
you're going to do this big coordinated event and relaunch, it'd help to, oh,
COORDINATE.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #21: Marvel - Kuhn's art is more off than on this issue,
unfortunately.  But Kirkman's writing remains good, and he exposes a
heretofore unexplored advantage of the new Spider-Armor.  :)  Kirkman remains
one of the writers who can make you believe that everyone lives in the same
universe, rather than being split up into editorial sub-reality fiefdoms.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #9: Marvel - Almost the entire issue is
a flashback.  Flashforward.  Something like that.  It's a bit too infodump
for me to want to strongly recommend it, but it is a good read.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Invincible #32: Image - Mostly a "slice of very weird life" issue,
touching on a couple ongoing subplots, before jumping into the crossover with
Marvel Team-Up from last year.  Speaking of forward and back....  Rather than
a Capes backup, there's some pinup art.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.50Cn


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 6/7:

     Still missing Keif Llama V2.1 and Big Max #1 (argh), Five Fists of
Science.


Awards:

Best Book: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #9

"Miles O'Keefe" Award to Flare #34

"Drat, No Question About It" Award to 52 #5 (of 52)

"For A Few Pages, I Wasn't Sure That Was An Improvement" Award to 
     Outsiders #37

"Green Apple Of His Eye" Award to JSA #86

"Pull The Lever And Release The 16 Ton Weight" Award to Marvel Team-Up #21

"Brotherhood of Evil Net.Villains Has A New Member?" Award to Friendly
     Neighborhood Spider-Man #9 

"Got Some 'Splainin' To Do" Award to Invincible #32

   Dave Van Domelen, "Well. THIS is awkward." - Uncle Ben, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #9