Comics for November 5, 2008

[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.
Batted about 0.500 on the election votes.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

"Other Media" Capsules:

     Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics
(i.e. comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention.  They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.

     Nothing this week.

Comics 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.

     Books of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Amazing
Spider-Man #576

     Transformers Spotlight #20 (Blurr): IDW - Back to non-arc stuff, with
Shane McCarthy writing this "how Blurr became an Autobot" story.  Some of the
backstory gets hazy, though, with a non-Prime Optimus showing up.  I mean,
the TF:A Bulkhead cameo is just an easter egg, but I guess I'd been more or
less assuming that most of the War Within background was still part of the
IDW backstory.  That aside, the story is pretty color-by-numbers.  The good
art by Casey Coller and Joana LaFuente (who is the artist of the webcomic
Loli Loves Venom) mitigates this somewhat, but a flat story is still a flat
story.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99 (I got Cover B, the art deco-ish one by
Hutchison, rather than the magazine-cover-like Cover A.)

     Marvel Zombies 3 #2 (of 4): Marvel - Wow, continuity.  With the
Galactus-powered zombies off of Earth, there's a new game in town, and Aaron
Stack and Jocasta get to stumble into it.  A bit less gory than #1, although
that's kinda like saying the Yukon is a bit less frigid than the North Pole.
Van Lente continues to bring the banter, and in fact it's a bit more
enjoyable a read than #1 on that score, as the two mechanoids have a rather
complicated backstory that leads to great dialogue and multi-layered
references.  And someone finally calls Aaron on his toupee.  Recommended.
$3.99/$4.50Cn

     Avengers the Initiative Special #1 (of 1): Marvel - Set post-Secret
Invasion, as far as I can tell.  This takes the long-simmering Hardball
subplot and cranks it to the next stage pretty violently.  It also includes a
particular plot element that was recently railed against in the Devil's
Panties webcomic, and I agree it was rather stupid of both characters
involved, although the one initiating it has never been noted for making good
choices.  Backup story sets up Trauma's origin, and established the real
reason behind his powers...a fairly busy prime mover, apparently, given an
arc in Hulk a few years ago.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99/$4.50Cn

     Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller #1 (of 1?): Marvel - Brings back the
storyteller kid from the Ms. Marvel Special of a few years ago.  It's really
a #2 of 3, pacing-wise, not really resolving much but establishing that the
kid's gonna be a Serious Threat next time out.  Camuncoli's art is decent, if
a bit on the angular/Stroman side.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$3.50Cn

     The Invincible Iron Man #7: Marvel - Epilogue to the first arc, rather
than the start of a new one.  Fraction definitely has a handle on writing Ben
Urich, and the fact that this is as much a Spider-Man story as an Iron Man
one helps take the bad taste of #6 out of my mouth.  The status quo between
Iron Man and Spider-Man is also fairly clearly laid out, for anyone
wondering (although there's still one or two retcon-related questions).
Recommended.  $2.99/$3.50Cn

     Amazing Spider-Man #576: Marvel - Kelly definitely has the patter down,
and I rather like Norah Winters (hopefully she doesn't turn out to be some
supervillain in disguise or something, that'd be bad-cliche).  The art's a
little hard to follow at times, though.  Recommended.  $2.99/$3.50Cn

     Justice Society of America #20: DC - The Earth-2 plot wraps up, at least
for now, with certain Big Secrets revealed and some temptation laid down for
the series of one-shots I'll likely be skipping over the next few weeks.
Still, it's not a "never ending story" sort of lead-in, there's plenty of
actual plot resolution to be found here, merely teases for the next stories.
Recommended.  $2.99 US/Cn

     Secret Six #3: DC - Simone paces the mystery of the macguffin nicely,
making it possible for readers to figure it out before the Big Reveal without
making it painfully obvious.  And the macguffin is certainly the sort of
thing one would expect from its reputed maker, a real golden apple.
Recommended.  $2.99 US/Cn

     Atomic Robo Dogs of War #2 (of 5): Red5 - A friend of mine shops at the
same place as artist Wegener, so that was one store certain to not get hosed
by Diamond, and he got me a copy.  This issue is mainly Robo fighting with
various Nazi powersuits, so in terms of plot I didn't really miss out by
reading it out of order.  Good banter, but not as strong an issue as #3.  The
vignette at the end is classic, though.  Recommended.  $2.95 (although with
postage and so forth I'm paying a bit more than that)
     

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 11/5: Transformers Saga of the AllSpark #4, Ninja
High School #164 (supposed to have reshipped this week, but the store got
shorted a lot of stuff).

Awards:

"At Least They Used The Space Bar" Award to Transforemers Spotlight #20

"Naked Robots!" Award to Marvel Zombies 3 #2 (of 4)

"Gonna Need Another Emergency Election" Award to Avengers the Initiative
     Special #1

"Might Wanna Get That ? Looked At, Kid" Award to Ms. Marvel Storyteller 
     Special #1

"You Will Find Him Most Grave" Award to the Invincible Iron Man #7

"Personality Sprites, Yay!" Award to Amazing Spider-Man #576

"Too New Two Knew" Award to Justice Society of America #20

"Don't Ask About His Graduation Party" Award to Secret Six #3

"War Is Hell...And Giant Robots" Award to Atomic Robo Dogs of War #2 (of 5)

   
Dave Van Domelen, "Two out of three inner voices agree! SNEAK ATTACK IT IS! Yay!" - Spider-Man, ASM #576