Comics for November 29, 2006

[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.
Gonna be zero Fahrenheit wind chill....  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

First Look Comments:

     Books I read over the weekend as First Looks, but didn't buy, so can't
really say much in detail about.  DC has stopped having First Looks, so it's
just Marvel and Image...and there's word that Diamond doesn't want to bother
with the program at all anymore.

     The Immortal Iron Fist #1: Marvel - Well, Brubaker doesn't do anything
yet to annoy me, but given his track record and the fact that Iron Fist was
one of my first faves as a kid, I remain wary.  The storytelling style is a
bit more obfuscated than it needs to be, but the art is decent.
     Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #10: Marvel - Mostly a "mindfrell" story,
and decent as such things go.  Unfortunately, the fact that I find most of
the alternate takes shown in this issue more interesting than the actual
series isn't a good thing.


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.

     Books of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): None.

     Transformers Spotlight #3 (of 5): IDW - Hot Rod issue.  There's one
disad to being a major TF fan when reading a story like this one, and that's
the transparency of the plot.  As soon as a particular character appeared, it
was obvious (at least in broad strokes) where things were going, and what the
character's name was going to be changed to by the end of the issue.  Still,
a fun little one-shot story, with very good art by Nick Roche.  Recommended.
$3.99 (I got Cover A by Roche)
     Transformers Escalation #1 (Transformers #11): IDW - INDIGENOUS, GAH.
That's twice now Furman has referred to the "indigent species" of a planet.
If you're gonna get fancy and use something other than "native", *please*
look up the word you're using.  I suppose I should be grateful he didn't try
to use "autochthonous species," goodness knows what would have actually hit
the page.  Granted, this could be the fault of the editors "fixing" Furman's
correct usage.  Of course, given that a map shows the city of "St. Luis" on
page 12, I'm not really expecting much from the editors.  While I'm
nitpicking, while the exit 31 of I-94 shown on the cover is indeed on the
Lake Michigan shore, I'm pretty sure there's no buttes or cacti in that
vicinity (as seen on several pages).  At least they seem to have picked a
fictional town (Lebanon MI does not exist as far as I can find, unless it's a
two-house unincorporated thing), so they can't get its details wrong.  :)
Okay, having vented about the details the editors should have caught, the
actual plot/story/art is good.  Recommended.  $3.99 (I got cover A, of
Sunstreaker)
     52 #30 (of 52): DC - While there's a bit of the Question and Montoya arc
here, it's mostly a break to bring Batman, Nightwing and Robin on-screen.
Ehn.  And I'm getting a horrible foreboding about the possibility that
Montoya is being groomed to become the new Question by the end of 52.  The
origins backup is back, with the Metal Men.  Mildly recommended.
$2.50/$3.50Cn 
     Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #46: DC - A flashback story done by a guest
artist, explaining why it's out so soon after #45.  :)  A somewhat noir-ish
King Shark tale.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Teen Titans #41: DC - Big blow-out fight against Bombshell, with the
colorist going a bit nuts on making everything look dark and chaotic.  Also
has a staple-in six page mini-comic with the animated Teen Titans (by Sumerak
and Nauck) teamed up with Sara Hunter, who seems to be a feature character at
a new kid-infotainment site called Sparktop.org.  The writing definitely is
in the "talk down to kids" After-School Special mode.  About the most
interesting thing about it is how they rigged the staples so that the book
can be pulled out without either the main comic or the pack-in being
destapled.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Spider-Man Family Featuring Spider-Clan #1: Marvel - The full title
isn't on the cover, but it's in the indicia.  104 pages of new and old
material.  I got it pretty much purely for the Spider-Man 2099 story by Peter
David.  Unfortunately, I either misread the solicit, or it was misleading,
because it's just a reprint of Spider-Man 2099 #3.  The bulk of the issue is
an ultra-crappy Skottie Young story.  Well, the actual Mangaverse Spider-Man
story might not itself be crap, but the art is so horrible I couldn't make
myself read more than a half dozen pages.  Amazing Spider-Man #252 is also
reprinted for the Black Costume aspect (they're putting Spider-Man back in
that design in time for the movie), and what may be a new black and white
story drawn by Jill Thompson.  There's no attribution to say if it's new or
not.   It's okay, but not worth five bucks.  Avoid this unless you're one of
those people who actually like Skottie Young (he keeps getting work, there
must be SOME fans out there).  $4.99/$6.00Cn
     Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14: Marvel - It says something about
Eaton's style that his skimasked thugs immediately made me think of Rage (who
he drew when on Avengers back when).  As for the story, looks like he springs
back pretty quickly from the beating he took in Civil Bore.  Thing is...I
dunno.  It almost feels like this was written to take place before that
falling out, and then got hastily respliced to more or less fit into
continuity after it.  It just feels out of place.  In any case, there's too
many heavy footprints of the Crossover Gods on this one, and I didn't enjoy
it as much as I usually do this title.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn


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 11/29:

     Still missing Stinz Tribals (which Diamond's system now finally shows as
available, so the store has reordered it), Gold Digger Tangent #2, Devil's
Panties #3 and 5, Elric #4, the Transformers Beast Wars poster, Fred Perry's
S-Guild #1, Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories, Transformers Timelines Featuring
Beast Wars #1.  Giving up on Keif Llama V2.1.


Awards:

"Clouded Perceptions" Award to Transformers Spotlight #3

"Shell Games" Award to Transformers Escalation #1 (Transformers #11)

"Ten Eyes, No Waiting" Award to 52 #30 (of 52)

"Anenome Mine" Award to Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #46

"First We Crack The Shell, Then We Crack The Nut Inside" Award to Teen 
     Titans #41

"Buyer's Remorse" Award to Spider-Man Family Featuring The Spider-Clan #1

"Proof By Induction" Award to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14

   Dave Van Domelen, "That's the meanest drunk I've ever seen..." - Aquaman, Aquaman #46

Comments

[loki-liesmith.livejournal.com]

Suck. We NEED more Spidey 2009. Wouldn't object to more GR 2099 and Doom 2099 either. And the Daredevil 2099 one-shot was pretty good.