Comics for December 29

[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.
Ending the year on a BIG note.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     Note: The infamous victim of recto-cranial inversion, hipcrime, has
decided to ruin the holidays for news admin everywhere by unleashing a
program that dresses itself in the shells of already-approved posts so as to
get past modbots.  So if you see a second copy of my posts to RACR and they
include bodies that are off-topic and offensive, it's almost definitely
hipcrime's fun little proggie.

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 

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.

     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
     eXiles #57: Marvel - Well, we finally get the origin of one of the
eXiles, just in time for said origin to boomerang on everyone.  The main
plotline almost gets brushed aside as a result, which was a little
dissatisfying.  Still, there's enough of interest here for me to recommend
the book.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #4 (of 8): Marvel - Given how the
plot is so much about the personal issues of one of the characters, it feels
awfully "at arm's length" emotionally.  There's some good stuff in here, but
I couldn't help but feel that some opportunities were missed.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.50/$5.00Cn
     Ultimate Fantastic Four #14: Marvel - For an issue in which very little
"happens" in a plot-advancement sense, a lot happens.  :)  Of course, it's
part 2 of a 6 part arc, so there's a lot of exposition and motivation to get
out of the way, and Ellis does a good job of it.  Recommended.  $2.25/$3.25Cn 
     Supreme Power #14: Marvel MAX - Ah, things are cooking along nicely.  I
think JMS overplayed the collateral damage aspect a little, giving a feel of
shock for its own sake.  There's a good running theme of "not making the old
mistakes, but making new ones" in the various scenes, and a couple of good
bits of business.  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
     Teen Titans #19: DC - Y'know, whether you've heard the rumors of a
Crisis 2 (and believe them) really colors how this story reads.  On the one
hand, you could see it as a sort of "A Christmas Carol" for the Teen Titans,
a cautionary tale of what could go horribly wrong.  On the other hand, it
could be seen as the opening salvo in an ongoing war of ideals.  Of course,
Johns is also playing around with timelines in JSA, so even without a
company-wide Crisis, Johns could easily be setting up his own little
crossover event.  Anyway, despite some muddles here and there, I'm interested
in seeing where this goes, so it's done its job.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn 
     Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1: DC - I've done a separate full Rant on
this one, look for it on RAC.DC.LSH.  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
     Tom Strong #30: DC/ABC - You know, the way a story's epilogue goes can
really influence how the overall tale is taken.  This two-parter was running
along quite nicely as far as I was concerned, but then the broad social
commentary nod and wink kicked in on the last page, and I groaned in
annoyance.  Very mildly recommended.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Arsenic Lullaby #17: AAA Milwaukee - The cover story dominates the new
material, and is darkly amusing, if not Doug's best long-form story.  The
second piece got a chuckle less for what happens than for the implications of
its setup as revealed in the last panel.  :)  The rest is reprints of the
bonus material from the last TPB, making this one of the only comics out
there that actually makes bonus material available in the regular comic.  If
not THE only.  Apparently it was in response to reader complaints, and when
you're a small publisher you don't get to ignore the readers.  Recommended.
$2.85/$3.85Cn 
     Heaven Sent #6: Antarctic - I should probably sit down and reread the
first six issues all at once, because the story feels scattered spread out
like this.  Of course, most of this issue is origins and background, with the
rest having a lot of scheming types keeping things close to the vest.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn
     The Courageous Princess TPB: Antarctic - Thanks to the magic of TPBs, I
continue to look at Espinosa's earlier works.  I can see in the title
character elements that would be later used in Nalyn for the Neotopia cycle,
but where Neotopia was gearing up for an apocalypse, this story keeps to a
more fairytale feel.  Many fairytales, in fact.  The story in this TPB is
complete in a way, but incomplete in many others, so I really hope that
Espinosa is planning a Courageous Princess II now that he's done with
Neotopia.  Strongly recommended.  $15.95/$21.55Cn

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 12/29:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2, Flare #2,
Serenity Rose #5, OHOTMU Golden Age, Invader Zim action figures. 
     I saw Superman: Strength, but it was on my mental "if I have a slow
week" list.  I did not have a slow week.

Awards:

Best Book: The Courageous Princess TPB

"Pick Your Poison" Award to Iron Man v5 #2

"Watcher?  I Hardly KNOW 'er!" Award to What If...Aunt May Had Died Instead
     Of Uncle Ben?

"It's All About The Tertiary Cosmic Rays, Dummy" Award to What If...Dr. Doom
     Had Become The Thing?

"The Speaking Part Is Important" Award to What If...General Ross Had Become
     The Hulk?

"Canada Always Was More Progressive" Award to eXiles #57

"Cursed Time Out Of Joint" Award to Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #4
     (of 8)

"Woodchipper, Dude" Award to Ultimate Fantastic Four #14

"Shopping Maul" Award to Supreme Power #14

"[ARCH][ARCH][TECH] 4, Fighting 6, Provides [ARCH][TECH][TECH], Gains +3
     Damage when subject of a Zeppelin state" Award to JSA Strange 
     Adventures #5 (of 6)

"So, It's All..." "Monster Vomit, Yep" Award to Elric: the Making of a
     Sorceror #2 (of 4)

"We Must All Hang Together, Or Surely We Shall Hang Separately" Award to
     Teen Titans #19

"What DOES A Bomb Look Like In The 30C Anyway?" Award to LSH v5 #1

"The Turret Mill Of Heaven?" Award to Tom Strong #30

"Mmmm, Barons" Award to Arsenic Lullaby #17

"Birdy!" Award to Heaven Sent #6

"Shoulda Taken Up Bratz Instead" Award to The Courageous Princess TPB

   Dave Van Domelen, "Young man, I am going to drag your scrawny little body into the lab and experiment on you until I figure out how to make you die. I *am* a scientist. I can do that." - A somewhat peeved Dr. Storm, Ultimate FF #14