First Looks for December 22

[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.
Bad gaming experience today, bleah.  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. 


     X-Force #5: Marvel - I guess they figure that if they always put it in
the First Looks packet, at least SOMEONE will read it, for free.  Most of the
issue is talk talk talk, and not particularly interesting stuff at that.
Nicieza is clearly having to do a data dump, and he's not one of the few
writers who can make such a thing interesting (especially when it's a Liefeld
plot dump).  But the last few pages are, at least, pretty good.  Not good
enough to BUY this turkey, of course.  But you might want to read the third
to last page.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Astonishing X-Men #7: Marvel - Okay, some really fun scripting,
especially how everyone gets a page of action with internal monologue
captions...and then we get to Wolverine's page.  Heh.  On the other hand, the
plotting, the stuff being done to characters over in other books and then
dropped into here as if I'm reading all the X-Books, that still turns me
off.  This is where continuity works against a book, I think.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Thunderbolts #3 (84): Marvel - You know, this comic does a number of
things that I complained about in other books lately, yet Nicieza manages to
pull them off in such a way that I *like* it.  Plus the usual good stuff with
the Thunderbolts.  I'm vacillating between recommended and strongly
recommended here, hopefully I'll decide by Wednesday (and remember to edit
this!).  $2.99/$4.25Cn 
     Solo #2: DC - A bunch of Richard Corben shorts.  For those who don't
know who Richard Corben is, I could tell you what he's done, but you probably
wouldn't recognize it either.  :)  John Arcudi co-writes the stories.  Corben
flexes his art in here, using variations of his style ranging from art that
is either CG or rendered so closely to that as to make no difference, to
deliberately sketchy ink work.  All but one story is of the "something
horrible happens to the protagonist, the antagonist, and frankly just about
everyone who comes on panel" variety, which isn't exactly a surprise.  :)
The "one story" is a Spectre story that's, well, rather upbeat for a classic
Spectre tale.  Anyway, the craft is good, but I'm not really into the gloomy
style.  If more of the stories were like the Spectre one, though, I'd be
buying this.  $4.95/$7.50Cn
     Space Ghost #2 (of 6): DC - Pacing is pretty good on this one. Last
issue was what he was before, this issue is how he becomes Space Ghost, and
that leaves four issues to tell the story of his first adventure at a good
level of detail.  There's a few more cliches than I think were really
necessary, but it's a good story, taking a camp character and making him a
serious hero.  Recommended.  $2.95/$4.50Cn

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.

     From Midtown Comics List: Conan #11, Green Arrow #45, Space Ghost #2,
New Thunderbolts #2, Gold Digger #58, Black Enchantress #1 (didn't order, but
might grab if I see it on the shelf), Hardy Boys #2.

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 12/15:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2-3, Flare #2.  Add
Serenity Rose #5 (didn't ship) and OHOTMU Golden Age (all copies shipped to
my store were missing the middle HALF).

Awards:

Best Book: Pending.

   Dave Van Domelen, "--but up front, I don't trust you any further than I can throw you!" "You've thrown me pretty far before." - Spider-Man, Mach IV

Comments

[jim-smith.livejournal.com]

The Thunderbolts quote sounds fun. I have to admit, if I had more disposable income, I'd be inclined to pick up this title and a couple of others. Maybe I can swing *one* more title.

Dooooo it...

[liabrown]

I'm going to regret saying that, aren't I? ;)