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. Pretty cruddy day at work, whee. 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. July 7: Comics delayed by long weekend next week. Comics were ready when I hit the store today, though, so no 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. Tales of the Champions #4: Heroic Publishing - Fairly lackluster finish to the origin of the Tigress, and so-so finish to the origin of the new Giant. About the only thing keeping me from dropping this right now is that Tony Isabella's coming to work for Heroic, and I'll wanna see if what he's going to be writing before I make drop decisions. Neutral. $3.25/$3.99Cn GIJoe vs. Transformers III #4 (of 5): Devil's Due - Following the Shakespearean five act structure pretty well, as things start to turn around for the heroes. I liked the philosophical parts revolving around Serpentor, although Prime's own meanderings were a bit stale. The art's not always easy to follow, but the colored borders on the word balloons at least help with keeping track of the factions. Recommended. $2.95 X-Factor #8: Marvel - Civil War tie-in. Murky, murky art, but at least it fits the mood. Oh, and if you didn't read Son of M, be sure to read the recap page, since it covers the important result of that series as it impacts this issue. It also has a bit of bloggishness to it. :) Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn eXiles #83: Marvel - Okay transitional story from Bedard, so-so art from Casey Jones. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn Annihilation: Ronan #3 (of 4): Marvel - Mostly fight scenes, booty shots, and Glorian being a nutter. Oh, there's some important plot points in there, but it all felt pretty pointless nonetheless. Neutral. $2.99/$4.25Cn Young Avengers #12: Marvel - After long delay, the first "season" wraps up with some well-executed mass battle scenes and clever solutions (although the writers are gonna have to find a way around the Annihilation-caused holes in their solution). Also has one of the Masked Marvel backup teasers, which tries too hard to be 70s-style "visiting the Marvel offices" stuff and falls flat. Recommended. $2.99/$4.25Cn All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #6 (of 12): Marvel - Justice (New Universe) to Marvel (from the hideous Marville book). Still, despite some clunkers, lots of good entries, including the golden age Ka-Zar. Recommended. $3.99/$5.75Cn Truth, Justin and the American Way #3 (of 5): Image - Speaking of the Shakespearean five act structure, here it is again, where act 3 is the low point of the hero's life in a comedy. He wins the fight scene but loses the war, as it were. Unfortunately, the whole thing feels too long. Not decompressed, as the plot ticks along at a decent pace. No, it's just that the jokes go on a few panels past where they stop being funny (but don't pull keep going until they become funny again). Repeatedly. Chuckle followed by sigh. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.50Cn Invincible #33: Image - A bit scattered, largely by intent, but doesn't drag. Okay art from Ottley. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.50Cn American Way #5 (of 8): DC/Wildstorm - Misleading cover. Anyway, with things having gotten Very Bad last issue, now it's time to show glimmers of hope, and that is indeed what happens. Recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn 52 #8 (of 52): DC - Mostly the Irons family saga, but a good post-facto foreshadowing scene with Green Arrow in there too. Execution overall is a bit flat, though. The rapid-fire summary in the backup resolves one of the questions people had about Hourman. Mildly recommended. Brave New World: DC - This is a promo book showing teaser stories for six upcoming new titles. Before I go into details, I'll note that the Atom is the only one that even nudged me in the direction of buying that title. Martian Manhunter tries so hard to be mysterious that it ends up confused and muddled, and I think it's taking a cheap way out of the "what to do with J'onn?" issue. OMAC was shooting for "did it really happen?" but failed on the "do I really care?" issue. Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters has murky art and oh-so-fun evil government conspiracies with tarnished heroes. Sure, it sets this up with the intention of fixing it, but between the art and the preachy writing, I'm not interested. Either the Creeper is a Year One backstory, or they're rebooting the character with no explanation for any previous appearances...in any case, neither the art nor the hiply-aware clunky writing interest me. Atom is amusingly written by Simone, if a bit full of "aren't I a clever writer" tricks. Byrne's art is decent. Trials of Shazam just didn't interest me. All in all, worth plunking down a buck, but I doubt I'll be picking up any of the books previewed herein. $1.00/$1.35Cn Action #840: DC - Okay ending to "Up, Up, and Away!". Yes, I understand the impetus behind changing things to be more like the "chrome" on Superman Returns (which I plan to see Friday, in case you were curious), but it did end up making the story feel more like an excuse for the ending than a journey of its own. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn Blue Beetle #4: DC - Okay, Giffen and Rogers are back to firing on all cylinders, and Hamner's art works well with it. The cover-promised Oracle meeting was really only a small part of the book, but it was a good part. Strongly recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #19: DC - Reep Daggle solo story, with only a few pages with Supergirl or the other Legionnaires. It was shooting for Noir, but sometimes overshot and hit dry. Still, recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn 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 6/28: Still missing Keif Llama V2.1 and Big Max #1 (argh), Five Fists of Science, Fallen Angel #6. Awards: Best Book: Blue Beetle #4 "To Be Fair, All Mortals Are A Lot Younger Than She" Award to Tales of the Champions #4 "Whosoever Holds This Matrix, If He Be Worthy, Shall Possess The Power Of... Thor!" Award to GIJoe/Transforemrs III #4 (of 5) "Typhoid Pietro" Award to X-Factor #8 "Shouldn't There At Least Be A Cover Over That Switch?" Award to eXiles #83 "Camel Skull" Award to Annihilation: Ronan #3 (of 4) "But...He Didn't Use Contr...Oh, Never Mind" Award to Young Avengers #12 "Nebulous Family Tree" Award to All-New OHOTMU A-Z #6 (of 12) "The Clothes Oft Proclaim The Man" Award to Truth, Justin and the American Way #3 (of 5) "We Can Rebuild Him...Stronger, Faster, Freakier" Award to Invincible #33 "Divided In Twain" Award to The American Way #5 (of 8) "Deliberate Irony Is A Dangerous Tool" Award to 52 #8 (of 52) "From Many To One, From One To Many" Award to Brave New World "That Had To Have Looked Weird In The Cape" Award to Action #840 "At Least It Doesn't Seem That Giffen Reads Something Positive, Fortunately" Award to Blue Beetle #4 "Bogart Boggart" Award to Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #19
Dave Van Domelen, "Annnnnnd we're back to you sucking." - Jaime to Oracle, Blue Beetle #4
To expand on the "bad day" thing above, since this IS a blog: a power outage fried part of the network switch system, knocking most of my floor at work offline. My work machine is an XP box, meaning that without the network it's a paperweight (the only software I've installed directly onto it is all for online stuff, and any files I save in Word or whatnot isn't kept). It wasn't back up until 3:30 PM, although I was able to log in via other machines during the day to do vital stuff.
On top of that, the lunch I brought with me had at some point been dessicated in the store, so when I microwaved it, it went straight from cold to charred interior without ever being properly cooked. Had to resort to eating my emergency rice and then grabbing a convenience store sandwich after a beta testing session (in another building, which HAD a net connection).
Not horrible, horrible day, but a nuisance.
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That Jaime kid is starting to grow on me.
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*chortle*
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Meanwhile, La Dama (crimelord and aunt of one of Jaime's friends) is using magic to consolidate gang activity in the area, and sends her lothario-like mage henchman to test the Blue Beetle to see if he's worth recruiting. This test ends up taking place in the park, where the mage summons some aggresive ents to attack the kids, both drawing out BB and letting him "rescue" La Dama's niece as a means of ingratiating himself to La Dama. BB's armor gives him some hassles about not wanting to destroy nature, but ends up going along with it, and he manages to break the spell.
At the end, Jaime decides to go seek out the gang from #2 to help him figure out what's going on, since he doesn't really trust the government or the superheroes (he feels a little betrayed that no one came looking for him for a year).
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And that's just something you never hear often enough about comic books. :)