Comics for September 30, 2009

[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.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 
     My cold virus seems to have mutated and taken another go at me.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Cthulhu 101

"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.

     Cthulhu 101: Atomic Overmind Press - My excuse for this being in here is
that various Mythos comics are mentioned occasionally.  :)  As the title
implies, this is a brief overview of what's known as the Cthulhu Mythos, plus
guidance in learning more.  It's a fairly quick read, being large print and
small pages, and helped along by Kenneth Hite's brisk style.  And in places
it's *hilarious*.  Strongly recommended.  $8.95

     Iron Man Armored Adventures Mandarin and Crimson Dynamo Action Figures:
Marvel/Hasbro - The cartoon's been out for a while, albeit only on the
high-numbered digital cable channels (in most U.S. markets, anyway), so I was
a little surprised to see it was even getting toys.  Another 3.75" line, this
is more like the Wolverine and the X-Men line in terms of limited
articulation.  But the IMAA animation style lends itself less well to the
production values of Hasbro's recent 3.75" figure lines, and the figures are
further hobbled by gimmicks that range from merely ugly to utterly useless.
The Mandarin is at the useless end, having the absolute worst "sword slash"
gimmick I can recall seeing, and I've seen a LOT of bad sword slash gimmicks.
The sculpt looks nice, though, and while the paint job is minimal it seems in
keeping with the animated design.  Crimson Dynamo is a powersuit of the
"pilot is scrunched up in the torso, all the limbs are waldos" variety, with
a nicely menacing aesthetic and an "arm smash" gimmick that is only
moderately intrusive (and only moderately interesting).  I didn't get any of
the Iron Man figures, the lack of elbow articulation and the general lack of
crispness in the mold lines was offputting.  Crimson Dynamo is mildly
recommended, avoid the others.  $7.99 at Toys R Us (currently on a two for
$9.99 sale, though).


Late Books:
     These are comics that were not listed as shipping during the week they
were reviewed.  Sometimes someone recommends a book to me that's already out,
and I grab it over the weekend.  Sometimes it's a trade paperback I ordered
online rather than trusting Diamond.  Sometimes the store screwed up or I was
inobservant and I missed something I meant to get.  USUALLY, though, it's
because Diamond didn't ship what it was supposed to ship and I had to
scrounge around or wait on a reorder.

     Invincible #66: Image - Not, strictly speaking, late.  My store did get
it on time.  But it wasn't on their invoice, and it was in a box that wasn't
supposed to have any new comics in it, so it wasn't found until after closing
on Wednesday.  This issue picks up on Allen the Alien's arc and is corner-
bannered as a prelude to the "Viltrumite War" arc...what would be a 450-
comic mega-crossover event at Marvel or DC, undoubtedly.  The original series
artist Cory Walker returns for a guest stint, and as a latecomer to the book
I must say his work looks odd on some characters.  :)  Recommended.  $2.99

     The New Justice Machine High Gear Edition vol 1: Millennial Concepts -
This came out a while ago, but surprise surprise, Diamond not only didn't
ship it to my store, I don't recall ever seeing it on a release list.  I
ended up getting it online at Amazon.  While it never says so anywhere that I
can find, this is a reprint of the Innovation series from the 90s and if
volume 2 ever comes out it'll include the two Millennium Comics issues as
well.  Taking the color art from those issues and grayscaling it results in
some pretty murky work.  And the 80s-style costumes that Ellis talks about
being so bad in the endpiece get upgraded into painfully 90s costumes for,
IMO, a net loss.  I will confess to taking several influences from the
Innovation series, though, in my Legion of Net.Heroes writing.  The System
Corruptors anthology title was a deliberate inversion of "Justice Machine",
and stationing my villain Acton Lord on Andale Atoll is a reference to the
Ariba Atoll of this title.  Mildly recommended.  $16.99

     The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Companion: TwoMorrows Publications - I think
this one was actually out even longer ago than the Justice Machine book.
This one I got from deepdiscount.com rather than Amazon.  Really, it's at the
point where if I want a TPB or other book-sized publication related to
comics, it's best to just ignore Diamond and go straight to the online
places.  Anyway, this is a guide to the whole history of the THUNDER Agents
(typing in all the dots is a pain), including a lot of false starts, such as
a recent relaunch that made it to solicitation stage but never actually
shipped.  There's the expected issue guides and fan art, but is otherwise
VERY heavy on interviews.  It ends with a Paul Gulacy-drawn story from one of
the more recent failed relaunches.  Mildly recommended, unless you like
interviews (I don't particularly) in which case recommended.  $24.95

     Wolverine First Class #6: Marvel - For some reason, Diamond kicked loose
some extra copies of the Marvel Apes variant cover and it got put in my
pull.  But since I hadn't been buying the book back then and it's a slow
week, I decided to go ahead and buy it.  A "girls' night" issue with Kitty,
Siryn, Amp (a new character for this series) and little Illyana.  Light fun,
but with some drama (or Teh Dramaz, more like, but these ARE teenaged girls,
mutants or not) worked in between the cracks of the Cockrum-Claremont UXM
issues.  The Wolverine Chimp cover has nothing to do with the story inside,
but that's normal for the Ape Month variant covers.  Recommended.  $2.99

New Comics:
     Comics and comic collections that I got this week and were actually
supposed to be out this week, as far as I can tell.  These reviews will
generally be spoiler-free, but the occasional bit will slip in.

     X-Factor #49: Marvel - Hm, the "When Last We Left Our Heroes" blurb
actually reveals something that was not made clear last issue (i.e. it was
only established who Cortex was in general, not specific, but the When Last
clarifies the specific).  A big chunk of the issue is flashback to getting
Guido, Rictor and Shatterslut, er, Shatterstar back to Detroit, and most of
the rest is Doom stealing the show (and the plotline) in the future.
Recommended.  $2.99

     Thor #603: Marvel - I wonder if the long delay was done to retrench in
preparation for JMS leaving, or just a result of JMS or Djurdjevic falling
massively behind.  In any case, it looks like JMS's plot is wrapping up in a
one-shot, with a new team coming on for #604.  This issue kinda meanders,
poking at a few plot threads here and there and then swinging the camera back
onto Bill's adventures in Latveria.  I liked the short Warriors Three scene,
but otherwise it was kinda coasting.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Marvel Mystery Handbook: Marvel - An OHOTMU for the characters
introduced in Timely's first year of superhero comics, an odd mix of Marvel
regulars (like Namor or the Human Torch), recent revamps (the Twelve, among
others) and plenty of obscure characters who haven't been revamped yet.  And
a few that probably shouldn't be.  The lesser lights get half-page entries at
the back, and many get new art because there's apparently no suitable pieces
left that could be used.  Recommended.  $4.99

     Amazing Spider-Man #607: Marvel - More from Kelly and McKone.  I was
reading the Spider-books back during the heyday of the Spidey/Black Cat
romance, and Kelly's definitely retconning certain elements of it, but some
of that is probably in-story "memories are always a little skewed from the
way things happened" changing of things.  Still, I like the way it recasts
the relationship...and while McKone is no Mark Beachum, he definitely brings
the heat.  Recommended.  $2.99

     Justice Society of America #31: DC - Well, Sturges and Willingham are
doing a good job of making this look like an "open" mystery to some extent,
but with just a few hints here and there suggesting that it might be quite
closed after all.  Fortunately, the Magog fight featured on the cover is only
a few pages and not all that big a deal, all told.  It's more of a tense
waiting game sort of story.  Recommended.  $2.99

     Astra an Astro City Character Special #1 (of 2): DC/Wildstorm - The
cover is done up as a supermarket checkout line gossip/style magazine.  Last
time we saw the First Family in the "present" rather than a flashback story,
Astra was your basic Franklin Richards character, a little girl with powers.
This issue takes place the night of her college graduation...and it struck me
that enough real world time has passed for that to be dead on.  Anti-Franklin
in that sense, she aged a year per year.  A decade of her life is mentioned
here and there in passing, just part of what passed for normal for her, with
her perfectly normal boyfriend standing in for the reader in his reactions to
all of this craziness.  Given the track record of these character-based Astro
City specials, though, I don't think much of the chances of him still being
her boyfriend at the end of #2...but I can still hope to be pleasantly
surprised.  Recommended.  $3.99

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 9/30/09: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Ninja High School #169-171, Gold Digger Tech Manual #3, Gold
Digger v3 #105, Marvel Adventures Super-Heroes #14, Farscape: D'Argo's Trial
#1-2, Middleman GN, Atomic Robo Shadow From Beyond Time #4, Farscape Gone &
Back #3.


Pull Adds:

     Comics sorting is running late these days because of staff cutbacks, so
I spent the time waiting by going through Previews.  Here's what I'm adding
to my pull that's solicited for December:
     Thunderbolts: Just for #139-140, written by Jeff Parker and sounding
more like Agent of Atlas take over the book for two months.
     Empowered One-Shot: Like this would surprise anyone.
     Serenity Rose vol. 2 GN: Collecting the almost-but-not-quite-done
webcomic sequel to the short-lived comic.  It's good.
     Transformers Bumblebee one-shot: Written by Zander "Chainsaw Vigilante"
Cannon.  


Awards:

"Squamous AND Rugose" Award to Cthulhu 101

"You'd Think Mandarin Could Afford Newer Swords" Award to Iron Man Armored
     Adventures action figures

"Least Romantic Planetary Ring Ever" Award to Invincible #66

"Third Gear, Maybe" Award to The New Justice Machine High Gear Edition vol 1

"I Think One Of The Relaunches Had More Creators Than Readers" Award to 
     The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Companion

"Bored Now" Award to Wolverine First Class #6

"You're Far Too Trusting" Award to X-Factor #49

"Hasn't Doom Been There, Done That?" Award to Thor #603

"No, Not That Human Top.  The Other Human Top.  Okay, The OTHER Other Human
     Top" Award to Marvel Mystery Handbook

"Amazingly, Absolutely No 'Getting Lucky' Jokes That I Noticed" Award to
     The Amazing Spider-Man #607

"Also, He Has Super-Dickery Powers" Award to Justice Society of America #31

"He Should Be Glad She Didn't Take After Her Father's Side" Award to Astra
     an Astro City Character Special #1 (of 2)

   Dave Van Domelen, "And the ironic phrasing just keeps comin'." - Guido, X-Factor #49

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

"such as a recent relaunch that made it to solicitation stage but never actually
shipped."

Might make it out after all. It was announced at San Diego that DC has the rights to the THUNDER Agents, and since the aforementioned was a Dan Didio favorite, something like it seems likely to result. As I recall, the hangup was that the previous rights owner, who died about a year ago, really didn't like the direction of the relaunch, and kiboshed it.