First Look Capsules for Dec 30 or thereabouts

[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.
Felicitous Chrikwanadanukkativustice!  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. 

     Amazing Spider-Man #515: Marvel - Good use of flashback sequences,
although the whole "old style dot-filled coloring" effect didn't quite work
in them.  The story's bound to resonate with picked-on-geek readers.
$2.25/$3.25Cn 
     Iron Man v5 #2: Marvel - Heh, Ellis continues to have his cake and eat
it too as far as pacing is concerned.  About half the issue is people sitting
around and talking a lot (amusingly written, though), the other half is an
action sequence, and the two halves are intercut and often on the same page
(top and bottom).  Near the end of the issue a question is posed, and then
it's implicitly answered, nice.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     What If Aunt May Had Died Instead Of Uncle Ben?: Marvel - One of a
passel of "fifth week event" What If comics Marvel's putting out this week,
this one is written by Brubaker and drawn by DiVito.  It has a cute framing
conceit, although it makes some lazy plotting choices, IMO.  Still,
recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     What If Doctor Doom Had Become The Thing?: Marvel - Written by Karl
Kesel, drawn by Paul Smith.  Rip-roaring tale that takes great advantage of
the cascading nature of a single change to a timeline, and a lot of fun.
Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     What If General Ross Had Become The Hulk?: Marvel - Peter David writes,
Pat Olliffe draws, Sal Buscema inks.  This is more of a classic What If?,
showing how things would have gone...poorly if things were different.
Well-crafted, but a downer.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     JSA Strange Adventures #5 (of 6): DC - At last, we see the very Jack
Williamson-esque origins of Lord Dynamo.  Being penultimate, this is the last
big data dump before the final fight scene, so it moves a little slowly.
Still, recommended.  $3.50/$5.25Cn
     Elric: the Making of a Sorceror #2 (of 4): DC - Finally this comes out,
I'm starting to wonder if this is a quarterly.  The story is less
pretentious, more portentious, and generally has more of the "look and feel"
of Melibone.  Recommended.  $5.95/$9.25Cn
     Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1: DC - I'll do a separate full Rant on this
one, I think.  The opening pages worried me, since there was what felt to be
hevy-handed symbolism and satire, but as the issue progressed I liked it more
and more.  By the end of the issue, I was confident Waid and Kitson will do a
good job on this book.  It's not the classic Legion, but I think it's a
worthy addition to the mythos.  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.

     I'm doing this earlier than normal, and comics are shipping later than
normal, so I have no reliable list of what should be coming out.  Diamond's
list says Dec 29, but I don't really believe that, so I don't believe the
contents much either, but here goes: Elric #2, JSA Strange Adventures #5, LSH
#1, Tom Strong #30, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #4, eXiles #57, Iron
Man #2, Supreme Power #14, Ultimate Fantastic Four #14, the three What If's
above.

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 12/22:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2, Flare #2,
Serenity Rose #5, OHOTMU Golden Age.  Add Invader Zim action figures.  Filthy
humans! 

Awards:

Best Book: Pending.

   Dave Van Domelen, "Eat it, grandpa!" - the new LSH's first battle cry