Comics for March 16, First Looks for March 23

[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.
Erin go bragh annat.  Arr, me hearties.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

First Looks:
     Every so often, I'll have the time (either while waiting for comics to
be sorted on Wednesday, or over the weekend) to pull out my PDA 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.
     If I read the First Looks on Wednesday, I won't include them in the next
week's review.  But if I don't get around to them until the weekend, I'll
include them in the next regular post.

For March 23 - 

     JLA Classified #5: DC - Part two of the not-quite-cancelled ICBINTJL
series.  Okay, it's definitely getting better.  More characterization, less
stale schtick.  And I actually liked how Guy Gardner was written.
$2.99/$4.00Cn
     Amazing Spider-Man #518: Marvel - Well, the flashback art is still
so-so, but they do more with the flashbacks this time, interesting
storytelling tricks.  And the Molten Man finally gets his due.  :)
$2.25/$3.25Cn
     Livewires #2: Marvel - Diamond STILL hasn't shipped #1 to my store.
Anyway, less boom and break this issue, but still plenty of action and
datadumping.  Quite funny too, in a macabre and overintellectual way.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn

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.

     Fantastic Four Foes #3 (of 6): Marvel - Better than last issue,
definitely.   And I like what they did with the featured foe, although the
abundance of false cliffhangers is a bit annoying.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     eXiles #61: Marvel - With the AoA background stuff out of the way,
Bedard gets down to the actual story here, and it's going pretty well.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Hulk #79: Marvel - Well, we get AN explanation for the weirdness, but
then we get another, so it's unlikely *either* is the truth.  Lotsa good
dialogue.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     JLA #112: DC - Looking at the cover, I guess the Elite come to play in
this CSA event.  It's a big throw-down on multiple fronts, and as an
action-intensive story, it would be better with different art.  Garney's just
not doing it for me.  Still, recommended.  $2.25/$3.00Cn
     Space Ghost #5 (of 6): DC - The endgame approaches, and there's plenty
of nice booms.  The big character development turning point is off-screen,
though, which is a bit disappointing.  Good art.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Teen Titans #22: DC - I'll say this for the "cured" Dr. Light, he didn't
try to revamp his costume into something more modern...he's trying to redeem
his entire rep, look and all.  In other news, there's a new character whose
arrival made me wonder if the writer wasn't paying attention to other books,
until I realized Johns wrote both books in question.  :)  Big fight and
bragging issue, but still fun.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn

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 3/16:

     Savage Henry Puppet Trap, Savage Henry Powerchords #2, Flare #2, Bill
and Ted's Excellent Adventures v1 TPB, Livewires #1 and Essential Luke Cage
v1, Love as a Foreign Language v2.

Awards:

Best Book: None.  Slow week, anyway.

"I'll Just Be Taking My 15%" Award to Fantastic Four Foes #3 (of 6)

"Power Pukes" Award to eXiles #61

"Excuse Me While I Beat You To Death With Galactus's Arm" Award to the
     Incredible Hulk #79

"Okay, Nasty Weapon" Award to the Tesseract Bomb in JLA #112

"The Ghost Of Cartoons Future" Award to Space Ghost #5 (of 6)

"Clover Seems To Be Moonlighting" Award to Teen Titans #22

   Dave Van Domelen, "You have the word of Fin Fang Foom...URKH!" "And the *tongue* of Fin Fang Foom." - FFF and Hulk