Comics Capsules for July 21

[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.
My AC was broken all weekend, whee.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     Go check out http://www.whiterose.org/HowlingCurmudgeons/ when you're
done here. 

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.

     Marvel Previews #12: Marvel - Previews are for Ultimate Nightmare and
Ultimate Elektra.  Neither particularly interests me.  Ultimate Nightmare
seems to be yet another "The Tunguska Event Was More Than You Think" story,
and in this case it clearly was, since the Ultimates version left a serious
crater, unlike the real event.  Not adding any new Marvel titles from this,
so I suppose it failed in its purpose.  99 cents/$1.50Cn or free with the
main Previews.
     Captain Marvel v4 #25: Marvel - FINAL ISSUE.  Welp, a eulogy for the
departed, and the Fourth Wall takes something of a beating.  Giffen's art is
at his "Late Ambush Bug" level, which is to say that it's weird and stylized
but not horribly so (as in Trencher).  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Outsiders #14: DC - Doctor Sivana gets a GREAT scene, although it does
border on DRHenry's Law (if the characters are complaining about the plot,
you're in trouble).  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn
     Batman Adventures #16: DC - Wow.  I am boggled.  Templeton and Burchett
return for the first part of what looks like it'll be a tremendously good
two-parter.  Batman Adventures may be getting killed off to make room for the
tie-in to the new cartoon, but it's definitely going out with a bang.
Strongly recommended.  $2.25/$3.50Cn
     Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #11: DC/ABC - Lead story had lovely Bruce
Timm art, but Moore's pushing a gag way too far and it stops being funny
pretty quickly.  The Jonni Future story, for once, was not about finding ways
to almost show nipples, and was actually pretty good, if talky.  Finally,
the Young Tom Strong story was a pretty good "view from outside" tale.
Recommended.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Quantum: the Rock of Ages #4 (of 12): Dreamchilde Press - Review Copy.
The production values are going up, with better art and better printing on
better paper, but the story isn't.  Mostly an extended fight scene
interspersed with moderately awkward exposition, the main character moment of
the issue (trying to convince someone to join the group) resolved rather
abruptly.  "No, are you crazy?" becoming "Oh, all right" in little more than
the blink of an eye.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn (delisted from
Diamond, available via Cold Cut and FM)
     Gold Digger v3 #54: Antarctic - While there's some subplot asides here
and there dealing with family business, this is mostly another Luan focus and
another Ultimate Fighting story.  Despite the potential dire personal
consequences building in this arc, it's mostly fairly fluffy beatdown fun.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn
     normalman 20th Anniversary Special #1: Image - Well, if you've read any
of the few normalman/Captain Everything stories to come out in the past
decade, you won't be surprised by the rather bitter, yet goofy, tone of this
one.  A litany of all the arguments that the industry is dying and may well
deserve to do so, under a thin veneer of humor.  Enjoyable but kinda
depressing.  Also contains a list of appearances for normalman, and a reprint
of the normalman story from Epic Lite.  Recommended.  $2.95/$3.95Cn
     Dork Tower #28: Dork Storm - Mmmm, Chynna Clugston-Major cover, rowr.
Heh.  Loved the lead story, especially Igor's Cunning Plan.  Usual assortment
of good reprints from online strips, a piece that was clearly made for Games
Magazine, another Snapdragons crossover that makes me feel old too.  I feel
the pain of the guy in the second Dr. Blink story.  Good Lethargic Lad
three-pager.  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!)

     Serenity Rose #4.  Wasn't quite enough lead time to get it ordered after
I was attracted by the FCBD piece.  

Awards:

Best Book: Batman Adventures #16

"People Still Watch Posh Spice In 2004?  Ultimate Nightmare INDEED!" Award to
     Marvel Previews #12

"Will Jess Nevins Do A Plush Annotation?" Award to Captain Marvel v4 #25

"Schmucks" Award to Outsiders #14

"Mulch Thing" Award to Batman Adventures #16

"Bridging The Generation Gap" Award to Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #11

"Were The FurryFan Multiple Breast Pairs Really Necessary?" Award to 
     Quantum: the Rock of Ages #4 (of 12)

"HUDs Prevent SIDS?" Award to Gold Digger v3 #54

"You Don't Want To Know Where Warren Ellis Keeps That" Award to normalman
     20th Anniversary Special #1

"Sometimes Too Much Understanding Is A Bad Thing" Award to Dork Tower #28

   Dave Van Domelen, "Does being...a superhero...always involve...this much...puking?" - Thunder, Outsiders #14

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Yep. Decided to stick to one comet nitpick since I was already planning to nitpick the music too. :)