Comics for September 29, a day late

[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.
Looks like a pretty slow week this time.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants

First Looks:
     Every so often, I will take my PDA and its folding keyboard down to the
comic shop on the weekend and type up reviews of the stuff I read out of the
First Looks pile.  Books I end up buying will be moved down to the Capsules
section on Wednesdays.  If I don't say I'm not buying it, then I'm planning
to buy it.

     X-Men #162: Marvel - Well, they keep putting it in the First Looks
packs, I'll keep watching it go down in flames like the Hindenberg.  Austen
is plotting by twist this issue, apparently equating "confusing" with
"clever" as motivations and loyalties seem to shift every few pages.  He
squanders foreshadowing and buildup in exchange for trying to shock the
reader.  Feh.  $2.25/$3.25Cn
     The Amazing Spider-Man #512: Marvel - Ah, the joy of retcons.  On the
one hand, it does tie some things together a bit more strongly.  On the other
hand, they were fine as they were, and the cost incurred in character
assassination (okay, perhaps the term is a bit strong) is more than the
"improvements" are worth.  On the art side, it looks like Deodato has taken
some "drawing from life" courses.  The execution (art and writing) is good,
but the plan is not, IMO.  Not buying.  $2.25/$3.25Cn

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.

     Black Panther 2099 #1: Marvel Knights - This is a one-shot, although
vague plans were bandied about for continuing high-selling Marvel Knights
2099 books into regular series.  As a one-shot...it stinks.  If it was the
start of even a 3 issue miniseries, so that there was a reasonable chance
that the danglers left at the end of the issue would be resolved, then I
might be willing to recommend it.  But Kirkman plays things too cute and
close to the vest and "I know who this is but won't tell you" for it to be
enjoyable as a book that has no real chance of continuation.  I did like that
Kirkman seems to have familiarized himself with Priest's long run on the
book, and if my guesses about some things are right it could be pretty
interesting as a regular series, but as it stands it's just irksome.  It
reads like a trailer for the actual comic.  Hotz's art is...not so hot.
Sorry, couldn't resist.  He has his moments, and the art is very dynamic, but
he's a bit too cartoony for the tone Kirkman seems to be shooting for.
Neutral.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Transformers G1 v3 #8: Dreamwave - Bwah?  Okay, this issue runs smack
into another HUGE continuity disconnect, where they've decided on a new
backstory for a bunch of characters and then just drop it in as if we all
know it already.  "Rules of Extinction" is something we're apparently
supposed to have read before this, introducing the continuity implant and the
villains of this issue.  But I've never heard of it, and running
"Transformers" and "Rules of Extinction" through a few search engines turns
up squat.  Maybe it's a convention exclusive I never saw, maybe it's not out
yet, maybe it was *supposed* to be out already but isn't.  Dreamwave's site
isn't searchable, but in my manual searching I found nothing about Rules of
Extinction either.  Anyway, on top of that story hole, there's a problem with
the speech bubble layout this issue...every so often, a bubble is almost
completely transparent, making it hard to read the text against the art.  At
first I thought this was supposed to represent humans being quieter than
Transformers, but it shows up without obvious pattern.  Finally, while
Figueroa does great Transformers, his humans are still kinda disturbing.
This could have been a decent, creepy story, but it gets lost in storytelling
and production problems.  Neutral.  $2.95
     Outsiders #16: DC - Jurgens guest-draws this issue (well, I'm guessing
it's a guest shot, he generally doesn't do long runs on lower profile books
anymore) and he's characteristically stiff in a few places, but limbers up
where it counts.  One of the simmering subplots that's been running since #1
comes to a boil this issue, and I kinda liked how Winick resolved it.  Well,
maybe not *resolved* exactly, but dealt with the immediate problem.
Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn

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!)

     Still no Savage Henry: Powerchords.  I did get an email from Howarth
saying they're available for sale through his webpage, so they *exist*.
Diamond's just being nass-headed about it.

Awards:

Best Book: None.

"Not Your Older Brother's 2099" Award to Black Panther 2099

"Mmmm, Chewy Center" Award to Transformers G1 v3 #8

"Hairstyle Takeover" Award to Outsiders #16

   Dave Van Domelen, "And you should talk about costumes. You ran around in those skintight pajamas with the shirt opened all the way down to your fly." "I had to. It kept me breezy. Do you know how hot it gets conducting electricity?" - Thunder and Black Lightning, Outsiders #16

Comments

[asterphage.livejournal.com]

Not sure when it came out, but I thought I'd post a caveat about the new Metal Gear Solid comic series, based on the series of video games... since I don't currently read anywhere else that people discuss comics in general.

The first issue's script is 95% taken from the dialogue of the first Metal Gear Solid PlayStation game. It's not just retelling the story of the game, it's got the same characters saying the same things... It's like one of those old movie-adaptation comics that would be an abridged, illustrated version of the script, except that Kris Oprisko also felt the need to show us the hero collecting items (Seriously, Snake picks up weapons and grenades and stuff in the same places the items are in the game).
However, the fact that you can tell that these fully illustrated locations are the same as the squarish, low-res ones in the older game is a testament to Ashley Wood's art, which is very nice, though occasionally muddy.