Comics for August 25

[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.
Someone stole my lawn flamingo, grrrr.  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 #13: Marvel - A short piece of Warren Ellis's Iron Man
#1 with so-so painted (or computer painted) art by one of the "Young Guns"
Marvel is promoting (mind you, Coipel is one of the Young Guns, so...) and a
few pages of Earth's Mightiest Heroes #1.  The Iron Man piece is really just
an art sample, the writing has only the tiniest hint of character.  The EMH
pages make it clear that if there weren't trademark issues to deal with, this
would be titled "Avengers: Year One".  Joe Casey's writing is pretty good,
for what little we get, and Scott Kolins's art isn't as annoying as his
previous Avengers stint.  I will probably get EMH, not sure I want to get
Iron Man.  Not really interested in the Captain America #1 shown here,
though.  99c/$1.50Cn or free with Previews
     Essential Iron Fist #1: Marvel - Took me a few days to get through all
31 issues' worth of material in this black and white phonebook.  The art and
writing had their moments, both good and bad, but what really struck me as I
read this was the sense of continuity.  Not so much the adherence to details
as the general feeling that yes, there was a bigger world outside of this one
title, a world that came crashing in on Iron Fist every so often.  From the
obvious interactions like Shang Chi or Spider-Man (because EVERYONE ran into
Spider-Man back then), to those that weren't so obvious in the mid 70s, like
Iron Man or the X-Men (like, Iron Fist's girlfriend Misty Knight shared an
apartment with Jean Grey, and Iron Fist dropping by unannounced led to a
then-not-horribly-common fight with Wolverine).  I'd never read any of these
issue before, being slightly before my time, but I enjoyed it.  Although I
think maybe the world would have been better off if Iron Fist hadn't saved
Claremont and Byrne from those gang members....  Recommended.
$16.99/$27.25Cn 
     Ultimate Fantastic Four #10: Marvel - Ellis does a good job of
simultaneously mocking the "classic" FF stuff and also embracing it, a nice
balancing act.  And he's also transitioning Van Damme (bleah) nicely into Von
Doom.  Recommended.  $2.25/$3.25Cn
     Transformers G1 v3 #7: Dreamwave - Cute references in the first few
pages, apparently one of the more controversial (at least in Transfandom)
supporting characters from the cartoon got a new career some time in the past
two decades.  And yes, that's a Takotank on page 3.  I was a bit thrown by
Figueroa's depiction of the "new" major human character debuting on page 5,
though.  The story itself is pretty standard "bug hunt" SF/horror material,
and it's pretty clear McDonough knows we know he's ripping off Aliens (among
other sources).  Recommended.  $2.95
     DC Comics Presents Justice League of America #1: DC - Okay, if I recall
the premise of these Julie Schwartz tribute books, one or more teams of
creators were given a classic Julie cover and given the chance to write a
story that would go with the cover.  This one gives us two stories based on a
cover where the weapons of the JLA are attacking them.  Peter David "adapts"
a Harlan Ellison story that brings Julie into the story directly, with good
Joe Giella Silver-Agey art.  Marv Wolfman turns in a fairly tepid tale with
massively uneven art by Dustin Nguyen (dunno if this is the 21 Jump Street
actor).  Worth getting for the first story.  Mildly recommended.
$2.50/$3.85Cn 
     Legion #38: DC - I was not able to buy this issue, Diamond shorted my
store pretty severely.  But I did read the one copy that came in.  Perhaps
the ending of the arc was a little facile in places, but it *felt right*.
This was a Legion ending...sure, bad things happened, sure there will be long
term consequences, but the overall sense is that things will be okay again
pretty soon.  And it came down not to powers, but to a simple act of
courage.  Gail Simone gets it.  Strongly recommended.  I forget the price.
     Promethea #31: DC/ABC - Okay, the first half, roughly, is metaphysical
wan...well, let's just say my opinion of it is pretty low, and I saw much the
same thing done a lot better in a White Wolf Mage novel.  The aftermath in
the second half, while still having its weak spots, was a much more
interesting read.  Very mildly recommended.  Less pointless nudity than
usual.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Conan #7: Dark Horse - Well, loose ends are taken care of and the story
moves on to the next chapter, but not quite in the way I'd expected.  Not
that this is a bad (or good) thing, just different.  Good, solid storytelling
from Busiek with high quality art by Nord.  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!)

     The Transformers Poster Book did not get shipped to my store again.
Diamond only sent one copy of Legion #38, which went to another customer's
pull box (cursed alphabetical order), but I read his copy before he showed
up, hence the review above.


Awards:

Best Book: Legion #38

"Fear And Self-Loathing In Manhattan" Award to Marvel Previews #13

"Tony Isabella Fells Iron Fist!" Award to Essential Iron Fist #1

"Breaking Curfew...With A Hammer" Award to Ultimate Fantastic Four #10

"Mech-y Horror Picture Show" Award to Transformers G1 v3 #7

"Fear The Power Of The Edit" Award to DC Comics Presents Justice League
     of America #1

"It's The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Ambivalent" Award 
     to Promethea #31

"There's Always More Gold" Award to Conan #7

   Dave Van Domelen, "You don't send small robots with little stabby things to kill Ben [Grimm]." - Reed Richards, Ultimate Fantastic Four #10