dvandom | Comics Addendum for January 22, 2009

     Dave's Capsules Addendum - Books I Grabbed On Thursday

     Well, my Monsterpocalypse game was a bust tonight (the shop shifted to
only five days a week, so now there's no completely open night to schedule
it, and it's everyone's second choice game), so while I waited around to see
if anyone was interested in giant monsters instead of L5R or Heroclix, I
browsed the shelves for a few things I'd heard about on Wednesday.

     Mysterius the Unfathomable #1: DC/Wildstorm - Jeff Parker's not quite on
my "if he writes it, buy it," but he's pretty close.  Still, I wasn't
interested enough by the solicits for this book to pre-order it.  I gave it a
shot and decided to buy it.  The art by Tom Fowler has a very Bernie
Wrightson vibe, appropriate for a story about snarky mysticism.  The setting
is a "masquerade" sort, where magic exists and is pretty common, but somehow
avoids being publically known by simply behaving impishly around skeptics.
And there's the prerequisite Stupid Skeptic character who's clearly wrong
because he foolishly thinks he lives in the real world rather than fiction.
These elements tend to annoy the crap out of me.  But Parker's scripting is
up to his usual standards, and Mysterius as a character is interesting.
Think of him as being like the crankier versions of Doctor Who, but using
magic and spiritualism with no pretense of science.  Or maybe Doctor Strange
meets House.  Anyway, I found the issue entertaining enough I'll give it a
few more issues.  Unless Wildstorm has gone all IDW on us, it's not a
miniseries, and it does seem to be set up to be episodic rather than using a
strong arc (although that could develop later).  Provisionally recommended.
$2.99 [Later correction: it's a stealth miniseries, sigh.]

     Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #1: Marvel - This seems to be set in
the Marvel Adventures world, although it lacks the red banner across the top.
It does have the All Ages label and shares ads and promos with the MA
Avengers issue I got the same week, though.  It's also written by Paul Tobin,
who wrote MA Avengers, and shares the sort of house style MA books seem to be
developing.  Anyway, this definitely fits in with MAA in tone, a sort of
"it's fun to be super-powered, even if we ARE evil" vibe.  This issue mainly
focuses on the Sinister Six, and while Zemo et al show up in a photograph I
sort of suspect that "Masters of Evil" in this case is more of a generic "any
really strong supervillain," making this book hearken back to the 1970s
Super-Villain Team-Up book.  Doctor Doom going around the MA-Universe and
manipulating various supervillain teams for his own ends, that sort of
thing.  One might argue that the book's a little TOO light-hearted for a
villain book, but if you liked the dynamics of Priest's Deadpool, you'll like
this too.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99

Books of Note Addendum: Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #1

"But I Don't WANT A Toilet That Opens Onto The Cosmos!" Award to 
     Mysterius the Unfathomable #1

"Doc Ock Rocks It Old School" Award to Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #1
Dave Van Domelen, quoting a visual this time: on a subway train, Mysterio disguises himself and the Sinister Six as a bishie boy and five Japanese schoolgirls. Harem Powers Activate! Um, and I really don't want to know which of the Six was cast as the slutty girl.
Seriously.