Comics for Feb 14, First Looks Feb 21

[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.
0 degrees F plus 20mph wind really bites.  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.

     Books for next week - 

     Immortal Iron Fist #3: Marvel - Moving slowly, and the narration is a
bit overwrought in places, but it generally works.  The multiple artists are
all in clearly defined time periods, too, so it doesn't feel like a deadline
blowing issue.  :)  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Cable & Deadpool #37: Marvel - While theoretically part of an arc, this
works just fine as a standalone story.  And no Cable on screen either.  Just
plenty of Deadpool weirdness as he deals with a little problem.
Recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     She-Hulk v2 #16: Marvel - Fun story from Slott, dealing with some old
business...and old pleasure.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn
     Invincible #39: Image - The Sequid plot gets in gear, but while we wait
for things to really hit the fan in that respect, another plot goes on the
front burner.  Kirkman's not afraid to juggle world-threatening plots.  :)
Recommended.  $2.99/$3.55Cn
     Retro Rocket #4 (of 4): Image - FINALLY.  I was definitely concerned
that one issue wouldn't be enough to resolve this story without a massive
deus ex machina (or cyborg), but despite a pretty heavy dose of exposition,
it came through pretty well, and made sense.  A tad of a downer ending,
especially for fans of extropianism, but good.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.50Cn


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): Gold Digger v3
#82 

     Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes II #6 (of 8): Marvel - Again, this
issue is mostly concerned with making sense of the Yellowjacket/Wasp
marriage, and it does a decent job of that.  The background Black Panther
plot gets a couple of pages, but that's it.  Recommended.  $3.99/$4.75Cn
     Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo Born Better #1 (of 4): Marvel - Diamond
actually didn't ship this to my store, but I read the First Look on Sunday,
so I'll do this from memory.  The basic framework follows two viewpoints,
both of which focus on Zemo's past in different ways.  It's VERY talky, as
one might expect from the nature of one of the viewpoint characters (a PhD
candidate in history doing a thesis on Zemo), but decent otherwise.  Nice art
from Grummett over story from Nicieza.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.75Cn (I think)
     Marvel Legacy: the 1990s Handbook: Marvel - Yay, an entry for Slapstick!
Ron Lim does the cover, which is...uninspired.  Better than the A-Z covers,
but that's damning with faint praise.  Avengers and Spider-Man are the only
real "iconic" characters who get space in this one, although alternate
versions of other majors (such as 2099 versions of Ghost Rider or X-Men, or
stuff like Iron Teen) are in here too.  The amount of painfully bad 90s art
is, thankfully, no more than absolutely necessary, and later, saner
interpretations of most characters are used.  :)  Recommended.  $4.99/$6.00Cn 
     Gold Digger v3 #82: Antarctic Press - Cute opening Star Wars reference.
This is a single-focus story dealing with the fallout from Gina's hijinks
last issue.  Not really the legal ones so much as the emotional ones.  While
he clearly likes doing the cosmic Big Plot stuff, Perry really does a good
job with these personal stories that don't go all cosmic.  Strongly
recommended.  $2.99/$3.40Cn
     Official Handbook to the Gold Digger Universe #3: Antarctic Press -
Cheetah through Dark Bird.  I can't believe I *just* noticed that the covers
are a composite of all the individual profile shots.  :)  Not much to add at
this point that I didn't cover for #1-2, but it is worth noting that the
open-ended nature of this series means that characters can get much more
complete entries than their relative importance might otherwise allow in a
standard book (i.e. Dark Bird is fairly minor, all things considered, but has
been around since almost the beginning and has a lot of background to
cover...so she gets four pages).  Recommended.  $3.95/$4.55Cn
     52 #41 (of 52,000): DC - Mostly Montoya's angst, with a little Strange
angst and some Dibny not actually angsting much and almost back in form.  The
Montoya part feels like either too much or too little, but certainly not just
right.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$2.99Cn
     Green Arrow #71: DC - Ugh.  McDaniel's art actually manages to get
uglier, it's like he drew two pages to a sheet to save time.  Winick's
writing is pretty good, but overall...eh.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.65Cn  
     Justice Society of America #3: DC - Origins burstin' out all over the
place.  I'm getting the feeling that all the original JSA'ers are going to be
rotated out by the end of the first arc, at this rate.  Very little Starman
(and no 30C callbacks this time), but a page or two of good Stargirl.
Recommended.  $2.99/$3.65Cn
     Gen13 v4 #5: DC/Wildstorm - The stupid/insane evil leader guy makes a
little more sense this issue, and a few other characters get deeper
motivations.  Caldwell's art hews to the house style okay, but colorist
Strachan tries to get a little too fancy in places, causing visual clashes.
A definite "catch your breath" issue, although things weren't really going so
fast that one was needed.  Mildly 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 2/14:

     Still missing Gold Digger Tangent #2, Fred Perry's S-Guild #1,
Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories, Roy Thomas's Anthem #4, Devil's Panties #7,
#8.  Diamond cancelled the reorder on Devil's Panties #7.  Add Thunderbolts
Presents: Zemo Born Better #1 (because several people had it on their pull,
the store decided not to sell the First Looks copy to anyone, as it'd be
unfair).


Awards:

A special "Who Thought THAT Was A Good Idea?" Award to Hulk "eau de toilette"
     in the Perfumania ads in Marvel books.  Like, who wants to smell like
     the Hulk?

"A Nice Day For A Yellow Wedding" Award to Avengers Earth's Mightiest 
     Heroes II #6 (of 8)

"Ninja Mimes On Unicycles May Very Well Attack This Thesis Defense" Award 
     to Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo Born Better #1 (of 4)

"A Veritable Catalog Of Bad Ideas" Award to Marvel Legacy: the 1990s 
     Handbook

"The Rather Cool Equations" Award to Gold Digger v3 #82

"I'd've Thought Tempest Mode'd Have Better Stats" Award to Official Handbook
     to the Gold Digger Universe #3

"Kirbian Reflections" Award to 52 #41 (of 52)

"It Was An Honor Just To Be Beat On" Award to Green Arrow #71

"Ew, Nazi Drool" Award to Justice Society of America #3

"Might Not Be The Best Time To Visit Sunny Tranquility" Award to Gen13
     v4 #5

   Dave Van Domelen, "I read it for the interviews." - "Crush", Gold Digger v3 #82

Comments

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Mine are filed as well but from what I remember:

#1: battle against rebel/terrorists, aliens arrive

#2: futile battle against aliens, only Rocket and Sparky escape

#3: Rocket and Sparky in cave, capture alien then get captured