Comics for Feb 9

[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.
Climbing into my car from the back seat.  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. 

     Captain America #3: Marvel - On the cover, it looks like Cap's armor
shirt is made of roofing shingles.  Inside, there's a couple of good scenes
(mostly flashbacks), and then oh joy, loads more killing off of established
characters, and more assurances that the Skull really is dead, honest.  They
can't retcon this arc away fast enough for my tastes (and there's a ready-
made plot device for doing it, too).  Oops, forgot to write down the price.
Not like I advocate buying this.

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.

     JLA #111: DC - Okay, this is part 5 of 6 for the arc, and finally the
JLA and CSA are fighting.  Fun fight, at least, and a bit of setting
development to boot.  Recommended, if you can get past Ron Garney's art.
$2.25/$3.50Cn 
     Outsiders #20: DC - After the end of the After-School Special arc, it's
time to unwind.  Shift and Indigo get to star in this somewhat fluffy (and
possibly squickful) issue, which had me laughing on several occasions.
Kerschl's art is a little off in places, but he manages to generally capture
the correct feel for the various characters.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn
     Green Arrow #47: DC - While new artist Fowler continues to be uneven, I
will give him props for managing to capture the feel of Jim Aparo without
blatantly swipefiling (an Aparo creation figures heavily in this issue, and I
suppose subtle swipefiling is a possibility).  A good, solid story from
Winick.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn
     JSA #70: DC - All of the plot threads advance nicely, and Johns uses the
social mores of the time to good effect without getting bogged down in
condemning our elders.  Kramer's art is really working well this issue.
Recommended.  $2.50/$3.85Cn
     Alpha Flight v3 #12 (FINAL ISSUE): Marvel - Kinda sad, really.  It's the
final issue, and Lobdell almost visibly throws up his arms and says, "It
doesn't matter what I do now, no one's reading anyway."  He does wrap up the
plot stuff, more or less, but also breaks the fourth wall and makes claims
about characters that you know will be ignored by the next writer to come
along.  It was funny, but in a despairing way.  Nostalgically recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #7 (of 8): Marvel - While the nature
of this series tends to toss themes out all over the place, Casey does a good
job of driving home the themes of redemption and of an ideal that transcends
the idealists.  And Iron Man gets a great payoff scene.  Recommended.
$3.50/$5.00Cn  
     Fantastic Four Foes #2 (of 6): Marvel - Reed being obsessed with
something to the point of overlooking obvious flaws is, well, kinda old hat
for FF stories.  But Kirkman brings along enough weirdness to satisfy.
Recommended.  $2.95/$4.25Cn
     New Thunderbolts #5: Marvel - Fun running combat scene with side
stories, and some good character bits.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Hulk #78: Marvel - Hot Hulk-on-Hulk action!  A good continuing set-up,
plus the humor is just restrained enough to avoid some of Peter David's
tendency towards pushing a joke too hard.  Weeks's art works well with the
story.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Captain America and the Falcon #12: Marvel - New artist Tocchini takes
over, and while anyone would look bad after Bennett, he generally holds his
own aside from a few breaking-in issues.  There's plenty of slugfesting,
existential crises and even a little sumpin-sumpin.  But, while officially
the end of the arc, it deliberately ends feeling very unresolved.  Hopefully
the two more issues Marvel has given this book will be enough for Priest to
at least clamp off the most serious unresolved threads.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     OHOTMU Golden Age 2004: Marvel - FINALLY.  It took Marvel almost two
months to replace the "missing the middle half" copies our store got sent.
Anyway, this is a pretty good reference for the older Marvel (or bought-by-
Marvel) characters as well as some of the more recent continuity implants.  I
doubt it's complete, but it seems to cover just about everyone who has been
reused in the Silver Age or later.  The art is an oddball mix of original
Golden Age stuff, pieces from the comics they later appeared in, and
recolored OHOTMU (1980s series) drawings.  Extremely useful is the listing in
the back tallying important appearances, including their modern revivals.
Unlike some of the new OHOTMUs, everyone gets exactly one page, no weird and
sometimes inexplicable two-pagers (well, Red Skull gets two pages, but that's
because the Communist Red Skull is one of those pages).  Strongly
recommended.  $3.99/$5.75Cn


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 2/9:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2, Flare #2,
Serenity Rose #4-5, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures v1 TPB.  Diamond
claims to have sold out of the Invader Zim figures so I guess I won't be
getting them.  And I considered getting the Gift #10 for an Arsenic Lullabies
piece in it, but the store only ordered one copy for someone's pull.
     Oh, and I skimmed Young Avengers in the store.  Cute reveal.  Not really
interested in the book, tho.

Awards:

Best Book: None.  OHOTMU is from December 15, and none of this week's books
     really inspires a "Best Book" from me.

"Not The Best Way To Get A Cameo" Award to JLA #111

"At Least He Got Her A Rose" Award to Outsiders #20

"Cowboys And Indians?" Award to Green Arrow #47

"Legacy Plague" Award to JSA #70

"Thunder, Comet, Whatever" Award to Alpha Flight v3 #12 

"Burch Bier" Award to Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes #7 (of 8)

"Infestication Comes" Award to Fantastic Four: Foes #2 (of 6)

"Synergy Bonus To Intimidate Checks" Award to New Thunderbolts #5

"Only Apparently Dead" Award to Hulk #78

"I Usually Needed 30 Minutes" Award to Captain America and the Falcon #12

"If Your Villain List Doesn't Include Hitler, You Weren't Happenin'" Award
     to OHOTMU Golden Age 2004

Finally, a pox on BMG for its annoying cardstock ads.

Dave Van Domelen, "But I really wish people would stop having sex in the Pequod. It's a high-tech BATTLE CRUISER, not the back seat of a FORD DURANGO!" - Jade, Outsiders #20

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

No, I just reference their online list to know what to expect. I shop at a local place just next to the K-State campus.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're *not* a Manhattanite, you can actually go to a mall, find a Hot Topic, and buy the Invader Zim toys there. If they're in Michigan, they're in Kansas. ;)

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Hastings had the Tallest Purple, but I didn't want it $17 worth. And yeah, when I lived in East Lansing, I noticed that Hot Topic stocks the full Zim line.