Comics for Feb 16

[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 Bitter Single Person Day.  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 #6 (FINAL ISSUE): Marvel - It ends, neither with bang nor
whimper, but with inconsistent and bad art, and a lot of exposition that
STILL doesn't result in any sort of emotional resonance.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Stormbreaker #2 (of 6): Marvel - Well, it bounces around between
aftermath and flashback, lots of exposition but nothing that really grabbed
me.  I don't regret dropping this title.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New X-Men #10: Marvel - This issue is almost on fast forward, as if
there's a cancellation looming and DeFilippis doesn't have time to run this
as one of several plot threads.  Or like they have to cram everything in
before all the X-continuity impacts prevent the story from being told with
the characters they wanna use.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     JLA Classified #4: DC - Equal mix of funny, lame, ultra-lame, and
annoying.  There's one bit that might either be clever or just Giffen not
doing enough research.  $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.

     Heaven Sent #7: Antarctic Press - Well, I will say this, when I read #1
I didn't expect the story to go in this direction, but looking back it makes
sense.  :)  I'm reminded of Foglio's "Stanley and his Monster" series in many
ways, although this is far more action-oriented.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn 
     Teen Titans #21: DC - Johns ties together Winick's Green Arrow plotlines
(although he misses a small bit in one place) and fallout from Identity
Crisis fairly well.  I generally don't care for the "I'm not a joke, I kill
people, see?" charcacter "development" trick, but I'm willing to cut Johns
some slack here.  And McKone's art does a good job of carrying the story.
Recommended.  %2.50/$3.85Cn
     Space Ghost #4 (of 6): DC - Kelly does a good job of bringing in more
classic elements while retaining a very dark and serious tone.  And while the
cover has the classic goofy looking Zorak, Olivetti manages to create a new
look for the Zorathians that works pretty well.  Recommended.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Tom Strong #31: DC/ABC - Moorcock kicks off a two part story here that
is, well, a Moorcock story.  Having only read about a dozen of his books, I
can't tell if he's bringing in established characters here, or just reusing
archetypes that he favors (yes, "only" a dozen, the man's prolific).  It's
pretty talky, but Ordway's art and Todd Klein's lettering (it seems almost
everyone has their own font and bubble style) help punch things up.  And,
amusingly, the story seems to be an homage to a classic FF story, although
that may be accidental.  Recommended.  $2.95/$4.50Cn
     Promethea #32 (of 32): DC/ABC - This is it, the final issue, big
gimmick, and summing up of what increasingly read like a high school
student's breathless term paper on mysticism.  32 pages of a naked Promethea
floating around and expounding on how everything is magic and unified and
stuff, with plenty of the text being yellow or white on light colors
(ironically, a point is made that comics are great at conveying
information...not THIS comic).  Since I didn't want to pay fifty bucks for
the special edition, I took mine apart to see the two posters (it's not just
stapled, it's glued).  In poster order, it does seem to make about as much
sense as it does in the original page order, a neat trick, but does require
that both orders kinda ramble.  Here's a small scan of the assembled posters:
http://www.dvandom.com/images/promethea32.JPG (this is a spoiler, I suppose,
so don't cut and paste if you don't wanna know).  A neat gimmick, but if
you're one of the people who got into Promethea because of the story rather
than for the Mysticism For Dummies stuff, it adds nothing.  Neutral.
$3.95/$6.00Cn
     Livewires #1 (of 6): Adam Warren's latest project, once again with Rick
Mays doing the interior art.  Part of the Marvel Next thing.  Warren once
again delves into nanotech AI sort of themes with this team.  The cover kinda
spoils the end of issue surprise, not that it was too hard to figure out
anyway.  Talky, but interesting.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn (Note: I do not
have this comic, it wasn't shipped to my shop and someone beat me to the
First Look copy.)
     She-Hulk #12 (FINAL ISSUE): Marvel - Lots more cleanup, cleverness,
continuity and combat, whee!  I'd be sadder that this is ending, but I
already knew it was getting relaunched later this year, so I can wait.  I'm
glad Pelletier did this issue, too, I think it worked better with his art
than it would have with Bobillo's.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Dork Tower #30: Dork Storm - This one is in color, but on the same paper
as usual (as far as I can tell), so it looks more like Amelia Rules's
coloring than anything else.  All things considered, while this was a nice
experiment, and while a lot of Dork Tower is done in color online, I think
most of these characters look better in black and white.  Especially some of
the hairstyles that, Dilbert-like, just sort of blend into the flesh and look
weird in color.  Storywise, the main piece is the Tao of Igor, which is
great.  And the backups are decent too.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99
     PS238 #10: Dork Storm - You need to read this book.  Seriously.  $2.99
     Serenity Rose #4-5: Slave Labor Graphics - Diamond finally coughed up
the most recent two issues, and it actually worked out better for me to read
them the same day, because while the plot side of things is a little gappy
(and, judging from some of the margin notes, intentionally so), there's a
strong thematic contrast as Serenity visits with the two people who have gone
into the sort of career she might fit well in.  One epitomizes indulgence: of
desires, of hatreds, of whims.  The other is more about wonder: it's not the
HAVING, it's the FINDING.  The first is where Sera could fall to, the second
one of the places she could rise to.  The lettering style and layout make it
a bit more work to read than most comics (although nowhere near the form-
wank of Promethea #32), but it's worth it.  Recommended.  $2.95
     The Little Endless Storybook: DC/Vertigo - I guess I missed this the
first time it came out in 2001, but I noticed it in 2004...but then it failed
to ship so long ago I'd dropped it off the missing list as a lost cause.  It
comes shrink-wrapped, I suppose to keep children from reading it.  There's a
Mature Readers label, which I can only guess is there purely because this is
a Vertigo book, because there's nothing more objectionable than a dog-whiz
joke.  A cute (in pretty much every sense) story, with nice watercolor (I
think) art, everything by Jill Thompson.  Recommended.  $9.99/$15.95Cn

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 2/16:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2, Flare #2,
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures v1 TPB.  Add on Hardy Boys #3, Livewires
#1 and Essential Luke Cage v1.

Awards:

Best Book: PS238 #10

"Ah, The Theological Cop-Ou...Er, Explanation" Award to Heaven Sent #7

"Making Light Of Someone" Award to Teen Titans #21

"Bad Breath" Award to Space Ghost #4 (of 6)

"Arrrrrrr!" Award to Tom Strong #31

"Maybe I Shoulda Made A Note Of What The Original Order Was" Award to 
     Promethea #32 (of 32)

"Trying To Remember The Other Story That Used This 'Cleaning Up After
     Mad Scientists' Plot Is Driving Me Nuts" Award to Livewires #1

"We Have Firmly Established That It Is NOT A Chalkboard" Award to 
     She-Hulk #12

"Mmmm, Strawberries" Award to Dork Tower #30

"That's Some Pretty Serious Putty" Award to PS238 #10

"Tea And Antipathy" Award to Serenity Rose #4-5

"PUPPEEEEEZ!" Award to The Little Endless Storybook

   Dave Van Domelen, "Use your fan powers for GOOD!" - Stu Cicero, She-Hulk #12

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