Comics for November 11, 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 
     Well, at least some of my TAs can get the H1N1 vaccine tomorrow.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None

"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.

     None this week.


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.

     Assault on New Olympus Prologue One-Shot: Marvel - "Prologue" isn't on
the cover anywhere, but it's in the indicia.  And prologue is what it is,
mainly.  All the players get set into place, either accounted for on one of
the sides or established as neutral, and some of the basics of both the
immediate threat (Hera) and the long-term threat (Mikaboshi) are laid out.
And then there's a big fight scene between Hercules and Spider-Man because
Peter Parker had been set up on a blind date with Hebe by Aunt May (and trust
me, this actually made sense and was built up to over several issues of
Hercules).  As a backup, the Agents of Atlas Venus vs. Aphrodite storyline
picks up from X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas, as the AoA fight, um, Cthulhu.
Well, okay, it's Phorcys, the creator of the Sirens, but he's drawn as
Cthulhu.  In my experience, superheroes vs. Cthulhu tends to end in
dismemberment and devourings (I am an evil gamemaster).  Recommended.  $3.99 


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.

     Transformers Continuum: The Definitive Chronology: IDW - In theory, this
is filling the role of the various "Saga" freebies Marvel has been putting
out ahead of major events and launches, getting people up to speed for the
upcoming ongoing TF comic.  The tone, barring a few weaselly "that has faded
into legend" bits at the start that are likely there to allow for later
retcons, it pretty much hits the Saga tone and level of detail exactly.
Like, as if writer Andy Schmidt had the last several Marvel event Sagas open
in front of him as he wrote this.  As far as being a definitive chronology,
though, not so much.  There's a recommended chronological reading order of
the IDW books in the back, but it uses the "lost records" weaselling to avoid
nailing anything down definitively.  Now, taken purely as what it seems to
have set out to be, it's okay.  But anyone expecting something with hard data
or new information will be disappointed.  There are no revelations or even
clarifications, merely summaries and a few obfuscations.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.99 

     Jersey Gods #9: Image - Eh.  The more the story focuses on Neboron, the
less interested I am.  Sure, Zoe's along to provide some contrast and all
that, but we're drifting back into "weak New Gods homage" territory more and
more.  Mildly recommended.  $3.50

     R.E.B.E.L.S. #10: DC - Blackest Night banner.  Being trapped in a
forcefielded sector of space doesn't make one exempt from crossovers!  Okay,
maybe not exactly trapped when you have enough stuff trying to get in and
out.  A lot of this issue is dismantling the ongoing plot and bringing in the
crossover, while repeatedly pointing out how insane it all is (not quite
invoking DRHenry's Law, though).  The Final Page Reveal has Bedard setting
himself a rather tall task, though...it's the sort of opening move that is
very hard to back up without being a poison pill for an entire setting, which
means massive cop-out in the end since Bedard's not allowed to make the DCU
unwriteable.  Well, more unwriteable.  :)  Provisionally recommended.  $3.99

     Booster Gold #26: DC - Blackest Night banner.  No backup story this
time, but Reyes shows up in the main story.  One annoying thing about this
and REBELS is that there's an obligatory "here's the deal" scene where
characters get everything about the Black Lanterns explained to them...but
the READERS don't.  If there weren't also an obligatory "life story flashback
downloaded either from ring into corpse or corpse into ring it's not really
clear" scene in each issue, readers who don't follow the main Blackest Night
book would get diddly-squat.  Unfortunately, while Booster's little side trip
through time was pretty good, Jurgens really doesn't do anything interesting
with the premise.  Zombie Ted shows up, kicks butt, Booster's jaw drops, end
of issue.  At least in REBELS there was an interesting side element tossed
into the mix.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     SWORD #1: Marvel - Okay, I hadn't originally planned on getting this,
but news that Death's Head 1 would be showing up piqued my interest.  I've
only seen artist Steven Sanders's work once before, on Five Fists of Science,
but he's adopted a significantly different style here, reminiscent of Bernie
Wrightson (especially in how he draws Gyrich).  Writer Gillen I don't know
from Adam, but a quick Googling reveals he's done work for Warhammer Monthly,
and after reading this comic I am utterly not surprised.  At least Marvel's
alien race situation is more amenable to a 40K outlook than the LSH is, but
on the other hand consider what Abnett & Lanning did to Death's Head.  Ah
well.  On the plus side, Gillen definitely has a handle on Henry Peter
Gyrich, the man who's doing what he (correctly) knows is right and doesn't
really mind stomping on people along the way.  Sanders doesn't quite have
Death's Head down, by the way, and I'm not sure if he's portraying "pre-
Doctor Who" DH or just having trouble with perspective in the last page of
the main story.  The backup story plays damage control with the infamously
dumb (as in, I avoid most X-books and even I knew about it) "cosmic bullet"
thing that was used to remove Kitty Pryde from the playing field.  All in
all, a decent start.  Recommended.  $3.99

     Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #17: Marvel - Featuring Thor, Iron Man
and Captain America.  Plus Invisible Woman and Vision, who don't get cover
credit.  The story feels off, and it seems like it's supposed to be
pre-Avengers since Iron Man is reluctant to refer to himself, Cap and Thor as
a team.  But Tobin wrote this and writes MA Avengers, so it's not like the
trio isn't a team.  A footnote to the effect of "this takes place before the
founding of the Avengers" would have been nice, since the more I go over this
the more it seems like it's supposed to be pre-Avengers.  But it's also very
much present day...so is this not in the same setting as the other Marvel
Adventures books, or even previous issues of this title?  There can be such a
thing as too much stand-alone.  Ig Guara seems to be giving somewhat loose
pencils directly to SotoColors with no inker in between, and I don't much
care for the result.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99

     The Amazing Spider-Man #611: Marvel - Spidey and Deadpool have both
teamed up with Herc recently, now it's time to complete the triangle in this
Joe Kelly tale.  Well, okay, less "teaming up" and more "fighting" in two
legs of the triangle, but hey.  I don't like Ganette's art, but Kelly's story
does a good job of being a (relatively) light-hearted interlude before the
(apparently really NOT light-hearted) Gauntlet storyline gets started.
Recommended despite the art.  $2.99

     Comic Book Comics #4: Evil Twin Comics - What Van Lente does when he's
not writing half of Marvel's non-mutant books.  :) Oddly, the original UPC
was covered up by a sticker with a new UPC (the last four digits changed).
The cover is an homage to Fantastic Four #1, with Stan Lee as the monster,
Jack Kirby as the Thing, Steve Ditko/Spider-Man as the Invisible Girl,
Herge/Tintin as Human Torch and R. Crumb in Mr. Fantastic's cover position
but not his pose.  The opening six pages chronicle the rise and fall of Crime
Does Not Pay, but then it's into the Marvel stuff, and a crossover with
Action Philosophers!  (Page 17, panel 1, is taken from AP!'s Ayn Rand story,
the slight differences in Dunleavy's style between now and then are pretty
noticeable.)  The Marvel segment focuses mainly on Lee/Ditko/Kirby, so
naturally wraps up after both Ditko and Kirby had left Marvel by 1970.
Meanwhile, in Independent Comics....  The last piece backs up to cover the
European comics market's history, pretty much all of it in a few pages.
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 11/11/09: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Ninja High School #169-171, Gold Digger Tech Manual #3, Gold
Digger v3 #105, Farscape Gone & Back #3, Models Inc. #2, Official Marvel
Index #11.  Add Farscape D'Argo's Trial #4, because Diamond hates BOOM!
Studios, and I had to get Spider-Man #611 and Marvel Adventures Super-Heroes
#17 at Hastings because Diamond hates my store.


Awards:

"No, It's Too Perilous" Award to Assault on New Olympus Prologue One-Shot

"Legend Recounts That I May Have Had Bacon For Breakfast, But Sadly All
     Records Have Been Lost" Award to Transformers Continuum

"No Glove, No Love...Wait, Even Less Love With The Glove" Award to Jersey
     Gods #9

"Yeah, Like THAT'S Not Gonna Backfire On Starro" Award to REBELS #10

"Funeral Rongs" Award to Booster Gold #26

"Lockheed Is Not Allowed To Say 'Frottage'" Award to SWORD #1

"I Suppose The Giant Neon 'IT BEGINS NOW' On The Cover Could Be Considered 
     An Editor's Note Too" Award to Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #17

"Waiting For The Team-Up With Guy-With-A-Gun Girl" Award to The Amazing
     Spider-Man #611

"Crime Does Not Pay, Unless Ther Crime Is Ripping Off Other Publishers" 
     Award to Comic Book Comics #4

   Dave Van Domelen, "So that's Venus' old boss? At least the ancient freak speaks perfect English." "It speaks 'god.' Everyone can understand it." - Ken Hale and Namora, Assault on New Olympus Prologue