First Looks for Nov 3

[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.
Happy Halloween, Samhain, et cetera.  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 give it a recommendation, I'm probably not
buying it. 

     Avengers #503: Marvel - Ehn.  VERY talky, lots of "how could you be so
stupid as to believe everything else that has been written about that
character in the past?" stuff.  Some amusing moments, but too much "prime
time TV with costumes thrown on" for my tastes.  $3.50/$5.00Cn
     Justice League Unlimited #3: DC - Three so-so tales for the price of
one, as they add two backups.  The main story is okay, the second has a few
good moments, but the last one is a drag, both in writing and art.  Also, it
doesn't seem like the third story even fits the setting...it's just a weak
story drawn cartoony to stick in.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Astonishing X-Men #6: Marvel - Most of the scenes are good, with some
great dialogue in them.  However, I kept checking to make sure pages weren't
stuck together, the transitions between scenes were so incredibly bad.  As
with New X-Men, if I didn't have to worry about all the X-continuity stuff, I
might pick this up despite the bad transitioning.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     eXiles #54: Marvel - The title of the issue is "Rube Goldberg", and
that's very apt.  And Bedard has sown enough uncertainty in his previous
issues that the outcome is completely up in the air, so you have to go along
for the ride.  Nice to have a story where predicting the outome is hard to
do.  :) Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn

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.

     Pending.  I picked up the DC Encyclopedia over the weekend and will
comment on it Wednesday (not looking good, though).  Midtown Comics' list has
for me the following titles: Lovecraft SC (maybe, I can't remember if I
ordered it), Rising Stars #22 (at last), Alpha Flight v3 #9, Cap & the Falcon
#9, eXiles #54, Arsenic Lullaby #16, Savage Henry Puppet Trap (maybe...I
still haven't seen Powerchords #2-3 from Diamond), Gold Digger Perfect Memory
#4, Transformers vs GIJoe v2 #1.

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!)

     Pending.  Looks like Amelia Rules will have to be reordered, Diamond
doesn't "remember" the store's order for several copies.

Awards:

Best Book: Pending.

   Dave Van Domelen, "...because the fate of the planet depends on that danish!" - Blink, eXiles #54

Comments

[liabrown]

Eeek! Now you must tell me what they are!

(please)

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, you know who DID come back in Astonishing #5, right? Assuming Pyro died of Legacy and not of getting pulped while trying to go out in a blaze of glory, he should be revivable the same way, given a little retconned-in graverobbing.

[liabrown]

Oh, I thought (hoped) there was something specific about it in this issue. Okay, thanks.