Comics for Feb 7, 2007

[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.
Well, we had ONE nice day this week.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     Other-Media note: If you're thinking of getting the DVD of the Hellboy:
Sword of Storms animated movie, you may want to get it at Wal-Mart.  Their
exclusive bundle tosses in a $6.95 80-page Hellboy Animated digest for free
on top of the 22 page comic that comes with the main DVD.  The digest has the
longer Black Wedding story, and a short "Hellboy as a kid" The Pyramid of
Death story.  I'm told Best Buy's version is $16.99 and comes with some
action figures.  Target has no exclusive that I saw.


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.

     Books for next week - 

     Truth, Justin and the American Way #5 (of 5): Image - Well, after a VERY
weak middle, it picks up steam for a pretty good end.  Really, this should've
been a 3 issue series, 4 at most.  $2.99/$3.50Cn
     Thunderbolts #111: Marvel - Well, this is mostly a running fight scene,
the new Tbolts versus Jack Flag, who does pretty well for himself.  It
doesn't have Ellis's worst excesses, but neither has it got his best stuff.
Ehn.  $2.99/$3.75Cn

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): Iron Man:
Hypervelocity #2 (of 6)

     The Irredeemable Ant-Man #5: Marvel - I'm hoping the split timelines
thing ends next issue, although at least this issue is mostly in the
flashback sequence, rather than trying to bounce back and forth.  There's
also a Franklin Richards story that's a little late for Ape Month (and it
appears in a few other books this week, like FNSM).  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$3.75Cn 
     Bullet Points #4 (of 5): Marvel - Very narrate-y, like JMS wanted to
cram another two issues' worth of story in before setting up the big finale.
The main origin makes some sense, in terms of parallel structure, but it's a
little too pat.  It's clear that this really should have been a 12 issue
maxiseries, given how much we've been shown in compressed "tell don't show"
form.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Ms. Marvel #12: Marvel - Eh.  Hangs too much on an "Okay, now I'm mad"
plot point, making it clear that most of the action this issue and part of
last was just Ms. Marvel wasting time.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #17: Marvel - Wow, they're sure going
through some serious gymnastics to make sure that the Back in Black event
mirrors the Spider-Man 3 movie as much as possible.  Of course, Peter David
still manages to put a twist on things so that while the surface stuff is
there (black costume, Sandman, Uncle Ben's death coming to the fore), the
underlying structure is WAAAAAY different.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     newuniversal #3: Marvel - Oooookay.  Some lovely visuals, and a lot of
the stuff brought up in #1-2 gets fleshed out, but that's about it.  A
charitable interpretation would be that this is breathing space.  An
uncharitable view would be that it's padding.  And the one new thing that
does happen was so spread out that it left almost no impression on me.
Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Iron Man Hypervelocity #2 (of 6): Marvel - We find out what really
happened, and then we find out what *really* happened, and we're still in the
dark about what REALLY happened.  :)  Along the way, plenty of juicy
ultratech stuff, some signature Adam Warren visuals (despite the art being by
Denham, Warren gave good stage directions), and lots of posthuman musings.
This is the sort of thing that Iron Man really needs more of.  Strongly
recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Fallen Angel #12: IDW - Hopefully I've got things sorted on this book,
at least through #15.  Somehow it got left off the store's order, despite the
fact I've been bugging 'em about backissues for at least three months.
Anyway, Asia Minor is the focus of this issue, getting it from multiple
angles, and while he doesn't have blue eyes, he probably knows what it's like
to be the sad man, to be the bad man, behind blue eyes.  His role in Bete
Noire is looking less and less like something he wants...but that seems to be
the way of the city.  It decides what your role is.  Recommended.  $3.99
     52 #40 (of OH DEAR IT'S NEVER GOING TO END DID YOU HEAR ABOUT
COUNTDOWN?): DC - Well, after dragging for so long, the Luthor plot takes up
almost the entire issue, and does finally resolve.  No backup feature, those
two pages are used to get back to the Osiris plot.  I might be more enthused
by the resolution of the Luthor Plot if it hadn't dragged out so much.
Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$2.99Cn
     Outsiders #45: DC - Mostly set during 52, plus it has a "three years
ago" scene that is likely to get renumbered or ignored later, since tying
down the timeline too much always causes that sort of thing.  Winick does
manage to finesse a solution out of the whole Black Lightning murderer issue
that I'm satisfied with, while also letting it be grist for further
complications.  Art is iffy, but serviceable.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.65Cn
     Action Comics Annual #10: DC - The cover proclaims it to be 48 pages and
giant-sized.  Sigh.  I remember when the "Giant-Sized" label meant 80 or more
pages.  Frankly, I haven't followed much Superman continuity lately, so I
can't say for sure how much of this fits into it and how much doesn't, but I
don't think it can all fit.  The Mon-El story, for instance, is almost a
straight retelling of the Pre-Crisis origins of the character, just with more
detail...and while the new LSH continuity could certainly accomodate it, I
have no idea if the current Superman continuity can.  Geoff Johns and Richard
Donner are co-credited with writing this, but while the artists on each piece
are specifically credited, there's no indication who wrote how much of each
story.  The "how Zod's crew got condemned" story is clearly in the
Donnerverse, though.  Overall, it seems to be dipping a toe into nostalgia
while still occasionally trying to keep tied to the current storylines.  This
vacillation hurt it in my opinion.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99/$5.50Cn
     Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #1 (of 4): DC - Yes, this is the
Jeff Smith book.  Smith delivers a new take on the Captain Marvel story,
retaining many classic elements while bringing in new (or, at least, new to
me) ones.  So far, it's not mindblowing or anything, but it is good.  Cute
use of replacement cypher for the issue titles (which parallels the use of
the Mr. Mind font from Power of Shazam over in the Mon-El story in Action
Annual).  Recommended.  $5.99/$7.25Cn
     Welcome to Tranquility #3: DC/Wildstorm - Hm, rather than resolve
anything in the current murder mystery, it's apparently time to tack on a few
more subplots and layers of confusion.  And it's made clearer that this
series does take place in the same universe as the Authority, although it may
be a sort of "through the looking glass" version.  Recommended.
$2.99/$3.65Cn 
     Astro City: The Dark Age v2 #2 (of 4): DC/Wildstorm - A good
juxtaposition of the cosmic and the desperately mundane, as the lives of the
Williams brothers continue to spiral out of control.  Recommended.
$2.99/$3.65Cn 


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 2/7:

     Still missing Gold Digger Tangent #2, Fred Perry's S-Guild #1,
Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories, Devil's Panties #7, #8.  Diamond cancelled
the reorder on Devil's Panties #7.  I didn't order Cthulhu Tales: the Rising
because I didn't know about it until last week, but the shop did order it and
didn't get it.  Also add Roy Thomas's Anthem #4.  I decided to drop Pirate
vs. Ninja.


Awards:

"Read The FAQ, Noob" Award to The Irredeemable Ant-Man #5

"You Know The Coloring Is Iffy When You Have To Be TOLD A Costume Is
     Black" Award to Bullet Points #4 (of 5) (and yes, I thought it was just
     red and blue until dialogue clarified)

"Suicide By Cop" Award to Ms. Marvel #12

"Nobody Makes Me Bleed My Own Blood" Award to Friendly Neighborhood
     Spider-Man #17

"They Don't Make Paradigm Shifts Like They Used To" Award to newuniversal #3

"Sticks And Stones Can Break My Bones, But Words...OW!  Okay, Words Can Hurt
     Pretty Bad Too" Award to Iron Man: Hypervelocity #2 (of 6)

"Jude, Blued And Tattooed" Award to Fallen Angel v2 #12

"Okay, So HOW MANY Evil Overlord List Rules Did He Just Break?" Award to 
     52 #40 (of 52)

"Penguins!" Award to Outsiders #45

"Non Plussed" Award to Action Comics Annual #10

"The Eyes Have It" Award to Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #1 (of 4)

"Life Comes At You Fast" Award to Welcome to Tranquility #3

"Hey Joe, Whaddya Know?" Award to Astro City: The Dark Age v2 #2 (of 4)

   Dave Van Domelen, "So the suit's programmed for autonomy, AND it's designed to imitate him, AND it can read his mind. Can't see THIS possibly going wrong." - "Major Tom" of SHIELD, Iron Man: Hypervelocity #2 (of 6)

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

The new armor is programmed to do that on its own.

[jarodrussell.livejournal.com]

*sob*

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

It also shakes its booty.