Comics for January 17

[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.
Getting up early, ruining lives, same old.  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.

     None this week.

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): Marvel
Adventures Avengers Designed Only For Conquest, er, #9.

     52 #37 (of 52): DC - Supernova is Monarch!  Well, who I thought Monarch
was originally.  Mind you, the cover kinda blows the reveal.  Fortunately,
they have a spare reveal in the wings for the last page.  It's something I
kinda expected in some fashion, but I didn't expect it to hit quite so soon.
Recommended.  $2.50/$3.05Cn
     Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #48: DC - Villagran brings a sort of 30s
newspaper strip feel to the art this issue as we get back to the main
storyline.  And Busiek takes one of the lamer members of Aquaman's rouge's
gallery and makes him...maybe not exactly interesting yet, but certainly with
hidden depths.  He has potential.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Shadowpact #9: DC - Thematic artistic whiplash this issue, going from
McManus to Derenick.  Willingham delves more into some stuff he's explored
before (including at least one plot element from Ironwood).  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.00Cn 
     Transformers Spotlight #5 (Ultra Magnus): IDW - The #5 is an
extrapolation, they're back to not having issue numbers anywhere on it.
Makes it hard to order when sometimes they're listed under number and
sometimes just under character.  Anyway, this story makes Ultra Magnus out to
be a sort of freelance peacekeeper, yes?  Well, more like a circuit-riding
marshal.  And depending on whether Furman means years or days when he says
"Stellar cycles" on the last page, this is either current events or
background worldbuilding.  Robby Musso's art is pretty good, if a bit on the
Dreamwave-bulky side.  There's a preview for a new Star Trek TNG comic, but
no creator credits, and the art looks like a bad cel filter on photos.
Recommended.  (I got cover A.)  $3.99
     Fallen Angel #8: IDW - Finally shook this loose.  Store goofed on
ordering it originally, and then reorder took a while to be fulfilled.
J.K. Woodward's art is really variable in quality this issue, as if several
pages were knocked out in a few minutes in order to leave time for more care
on other pages.  I'm not sure if it's a credit to #9 or a debit to this issue
that I really didn't need to read this issue to follow what happened in #9.
Or, for that matter, that I didn't really notice the gap.  :)  I guess I'm
used to a certain amount of in media res from Peter David.  Still,
recommended.  $3.99 
     Conan #36: Dark Horse - The King Conan two-parter wraps up with Tim
Truman writing and Paul Lee drawing.  And, at last, the true nature of Wazir
(from the recurring framing sequence) is revealed.  The story's resolved a
little abruptly, although I suppose there could be plans to revisit some of
the elements just scratched this time (for instance, in the "Conan and the
Midnight God" miniseries).  Recommended.  $2.99  (Hm, an ad for Drawerboxes
on the inside back cover...I need to bug my store owner about those.)
     Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #5 (of 8): Marvel - A rather large
chunk of this issue is dedicated to explaining why no one immediately pointed
out Yellowjacket was Hank Pym back in the day.  It's a reasonable explanation
(although Casey misuses the term schizophrenia), but takes up way too much
pagecount.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99/$4.75Cn
     Cable & Deadpool #36: Marvel - An extended exercise in showing that
Deadpool Just Doesn't Get It.  By the end, he thinks he gets it, but, being
Deadpool, he doesn't really get it.  Got it?  Good.  No Cable this issue, but
that's okay.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Marvel Adventures Avengers #9: Marvel - Yay, Parker is back!  And in
fine form.  The cover alone, showing the Avengers as MODOK-style big heads,
is reason enough to pick this issue up, but Parker's script makes it worth
reading too.  :)  Santacruz's art works well too, cute Tuckerizations among
the AIM agents.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     She-Hulk v2 #15: Marvel - Nice Steranko-homage cover.  And we've cycled
back to Slott's first issue, volume 1 number 1, in a way.  But I wanna know,
is Agent Cheesecake related to Social Butterfly?  :)  Recommended.
$2.99/$3.75Cn 
     Twisted Toyfare Theater vol 8: Wizard - More of the usual.  :)  Funny
but twisted, and more than a little obscure at times.  Recommended.
$12.99/$15.99Cn 


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 1/17:

     Still missing Gold Digger Tangent #2, Fred Perry's S-Guild #1,
Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories, Devil's Panties #7, #8.  Add Cthulhu Tales
#1, which I apparently missed even seeing on the release list the first time,
since this is supposed to be a second printing.  Boom's books have been very
unevenly distributed and published from what I hear, though (mainly from
Warhammer fans complaining).
     And I dropped eXiles, in case you were wondering.


Awards:

"The Zone Diet" Award to 52 #37 (of 52)

"The Mad Hat" Award to Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #48

"SO Not Worth The Grad Stipend" Award to Shadowpact #9

"Mixed Marriages Never Work" Award to Transformers Spotlight #5

"Good In The Sachs" Award to Fallen Angel #8

"Kulling The Herd" Award to Conan #36

"Gone Buggy" Award to Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #5 (of 8)

"Cuff 'Em, Dano" Award to Cable & Deadpool #36

"Go To The Class Of The Head" Award to Marvel Adventures Avengers #9

"Quaterstaff" Award to She-Hulk v2 #15

"It Wasn't Cancer After All!" Award to Twisted Toyfare Theater vol 8

   Dave Van Domelen, "But Karl was helping us, so we failed and turned back to normal." - Storm, MA Avengers #9