Comics for October 20

[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.
Team America: World Police was fun.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     I think this is a good time for my occasional reminder about how I write
these.  My recommendation at the end of a capsule represents my overall
opinion of the book, including factors that I may not have seen a need to
elaborate on.  So I might spend most of the capsule complaining, but then
recommend a book anyway, because it was still good despite the problems.

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.

     New X-Men #6: Marvel - End of the first arc under the new title.  Micael
Ryan is on art now, which explains why the FBI guy looks like Tony Stark.
The story is okay, if fairly stock.  If I didn't have to worry about possible
future X-over entanglement, I might be tempted to start buying this book, but
it's ot really good enough to overcome that qualm.  $2.99/$4.25

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.

     Transformers the War Within v3 #2 (of 6): Dreamwave - The story jumps
ahead by some unspecified amount of time, probably on the order of weeks
rather than months or years, though.  There's a certain amount of confusion
in the storytelling that I don't think was intentional (although Ng has a few
"off" pages in terms of storytelling, it's not just Furman).  The three
inkers and three colorists do make for some unevenness as well.  What I did
get of the story was decent, and felt like Furman was at least trying to wrap
up the foreshadowing/setup more quickly this time and leave room for a more
satisfying middle of the story.  Mildly recommended.  $2.95
     JSA Strange Adventures #3 (of 6): DC - Another somewhat uneven story
(and I was a bit irked by the "Trojans bearing gifts" line, which seemed to
be merely an error and not some sort of intentional irony or what have you).
While Kitson is only credited with breakdowns, it looks like he did fairly
tight pencils...either Erskine's style complements Kitson's really well
naturally, or he was riffing Kitson.  Anyway, the two plotlines cross over
pretty strongly this issue, and one might even consider it the climax of one
of them.  Recommended.  $3.50/$5.25Cn
     Teen Titans #17: DC - Well, the redesigns/changes/etc look pretty good,
but the story Johns gives us sticks pretty closely to cliches.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn
     Conan #9: Dark Horse - Ah, Nord is back.  I am told that the story
started in #8 will appear every so often as a sort of collected backup (a
full issue every three or four, rather than a third or quarter of every
issue).  While there's some Big Arc Stuff hanging around in this issue, it's
mostly an entertaining tale of Conan being Conan, and meting out a little
justice here and there for purely selfish reasons.  Recommended.  $2.99
     Fantastic Four #519: Marvel - Clever solutions, nobility under fire,
funny dialogue, and then turning it up to eleven at the end.  Damn good issue
of FF from Waid.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Madrox #2 (of 5): Marvel - Peter David is definitely doing some
interesting stuff with Madrox here, as well as making amusing use of some of
the X-universe trappings.  The colorist's nighttime pallette is a bit murkier
than it needs to be, but otherwise the art does a good job of supporting the
story.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Heaven Sent #5: Antarctic Press - Mostly a Training Sequence issue,
turning a number of cliches on their head without making the main character
too unbelievable.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn
     NHS #120: Antarctic Press - A good origins&development issue.  And
there's an amusing variant on the Backstory Dump.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.05Cn (yeah, I'm getting terser...dinner is almost ready)
     PS238 #8: Dork Storm Press - We've been seeing some of the backstory of
the setting in recent issues, but now that comes more directly home for the
students, and a Serious Plot Arc starts.  Fortunately, Williams continues to
make with the funny even when being serious, a good balance.  Strongly
recommended.  $2.99

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!)

     Somehow, Amelia Rules got dropped from my pull list, and the store
didn't order any copies for the shelf.  So it'll be a week or two before I
get a copy.

Awards:

Best Book: PS238 #8 by a nose.

"But He's Not Made Of Red Rubber" Award to Transformers the War Within v3
     #2 (of 6)

"The Write Stuff" Award to JSA Strange Tales #3 (of 6)

"At Least There Isn't A Winnebago In The Hall Of Mentors" Award to Teen
     Titans #17

"The Secret Is To Be The Second-Biggest Jerk In The Room" Award to Conan #9

"One Hot Mama" Award (given while hiding behind a blast door) to FF #519

"Does Lilandra Know About This?" Award to Madrox #2 (of 5)

"The Once And FuturZZZZZZORCH!" Award to Heaven Sent #5

"Hey, Sweet-Cheeks" Award to NHS #120

"The Calm Before The Storm" Award to PS238 #8, because somebody had to say
     it.

   Dave Van Domelen, "This is the WORST day in Social Studies class I've EVER had." - Tyler, PS238 #8 (the funniest "quote" from that issue is a visual, though, on the last panel of the classroom sequence)

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thanks for informing me that P.S. 238 is out this week! It doesn't get as much play as most books, so I don't always catch it the week it's out.