Comics for November 25, 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, deli-sliced turkey will do in a pinch, yes?

     This is one of those weeks I wonder if it's worth keeping up with comics
anymore.  The books I most want to recommend seem to be impossible to find in
stores, and even the Big Event Crap books don't always ship in a timely
manner due to Diamond's incompetence and/or deliberate neglect.  Even when a
book does ship these days, I have to wait until much later in the day to get
my books because the store has to waste time figuring out how they got
screwed this week (not whether, how...invoice, order and actual shipment
almost never match).  I'm tempted to ditch the weekly routine entirely, cut
my pull drastically and shift to monthly shipments from one of the few
retailers Diamond finds Worthy.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): The Incredible
Hercules #138, Larry Marder's Beanworld: Remember Here When You Are There

"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, I got the Dr. Horrible DVD but haven't watched it yet.


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.

     From now on, I will continue to track late books until I get them or
give up on them, but floppies that are more than a week late will not be
reviewed unless they're really good (i.e. worth tracking down or waiting for
the trade) or really bad (if you were thinking of waiting for the trade,
don't).  TPBs will still be reviewed, since they can generally be obtained
without having to deal with Diamond.

     Mighty Avengers #31: Marvel - Still not shipped from Diamond, I got it
at the newsstand.  The Slave Engine story wraps up with a lot of punching
things and some explosions, but more importantly with some self-examination.
Pym has one last moment of "Okay, I DO sound that pathetic" but determines
that owning up and moving on is best while Pietro gets a similar moment of
insight and draws a rather different conclusion from it.  And Hercules
romances a warship.  Recommended.  $2.99

     Also finally gotten: Ninja High School #169-170, Gold Digger Technical
Manual #3, Farscape Gone and Back #3 (of 4).

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 Tales of the Fallen #4: IDW - This is the origin of the
Fallen, as told by the Fallen...so, you know, Unreliable Narrator right
there.  Taken at face value, it certainly makes the AllSpark a LOT more
sinister, but given everything that happens to the Fallen it's impossible to
take it all at face value (GIVE ME YOUR FACE...VALUE).  It's definitely a
good example of how people can rewrite their own memories to cast themselves
as the heroes no matter how much the rest of the world considers them to be
villains, though.  Recommended.  $3.99  

     Justice Society of America #33: DC - The "Oh, if we only knew then what
we do now" narration is getting rather old, but otherwise it's pretty good
for a Big Fight Scene issue.  I liked the Shadowpact tie-in as well, although
I suppose with Willingham and Sturges writing this I shouldn't be too
surprised.  :)  Now the team splits, and it mostly seems to be "characters I
like" (staying in JSA) and "characters I don't like" (moving to JSA
All-Stars, which also has crappy art so I'll be avoiding it), although
there's a couple I'll be sorry to see go.  Recommended.  $2.99

     Ms. Marvel #47: Marvel - According to Previews, #50 is the final issue.
This issue wraps up the on-again-off-again Spider-Man teaming up stuff as
Carol and Peter try to go on a date, with both the usual complications and a
few they hadn't expected.  Reed borrows the "Peter's Page" recap style from
Amazing Spider-Man and does a pretty good job of nailing it.  The art's a
little uneven thanks to McKone only doing part of the book and DiSalvo (who
has a somewhat Humberto Ramos look to his work) doing the rest...DiSalvo's
stuff isn't bad, but it clashes pretty strongly with McKone's uber-clean
style.  Recommended.  $2.99

     Giant-Size Thor Finale #1: Marvel - AKA getting JMS out the door a month
sooner by taking the story that would have been the next regular issue of
Thor and packaging it with a reprint as a "special".  It's not really a
finale storywise, either, just the end of an act.  There's a preview of where
the new writer is taking things, and it's straight to "lazy obvious shock
value"-ville, so Thor's coming off my pull.  Still, this issue on its own is
worthwhile for Volstagg's big moment (like he has any other kind of
moment?).  Recommended.  $3.99

     Models Inc. #4 (of 4): Marvel - And thus the mystery is resolved, in a
fairly standard and obvious way.  Still, that beats a cheap shock-for-its-
own-sake ending any day.  Since there isn't a next issue, the text piece at
the end instead puts some other upcoming comics through the fashion lens.
I'd tend to disagree with the evaulation of the new X-Factor outfits, though.
Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Avengers the Initiative #30: Marvel - I believe the appropriate response
to the main game-changer of this issue (and I don't mean Nightmare's overt
plan, with him active over in Dr. Strange it's not like anything definitive
can happen on that front in this booke) is: ABOUT TIME.  Oh, and TANC.  As a
whole, the issue does suffer some from being on the fringes of events, but
that's a minor problem.  Recommended.  $2.99

     The Incredible Hercules #138: Marvel - With Agents of Atlas backup.
Always fun to rub it in a little when a plan comes together, yes?  Assault on
New Olympus commences both in the main story and in the (somewhat
anticlimactic) backup, and Van Lente's and Parker's scripting is firing on
all cylinders.  Strongly recommended.  $3.99

     Larry Marder's Beanworld: Remember Here When You Are There GN: Dark
Horse Books - Not only did I finally get a volume of this through Diamond, I
got it a week early (apparently a lot of stores got it early).  Where the
first two volumes collected the old Eclipse series, this one is new material
(and the only non-annoying reason this week's Capsules are being posted so
late).  This 220 page volume wraps up the first season of Beanworld, that
being Spring, and there's a lot of callbacks...as one might expect given that
some of the ideas have been percolating for decades.  Many things come full
circle, while others come more like a hook, the better to catch you with.
And through it all, Beanish does what an artist should, breaking taboos and
making new connections.  Strongly recommended.  $19.95

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 11/25/09: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Gold Digger v3 #105, Official Marvel Index #11.  Add Amazing
Spider-Man #613 (Diamond finally shipped #611 to my store, and more #612, but
no #613). 


Awards:

"There's Primitive, And Then There's PRIMITIVE" Award to Mighty Avengers #31

"Just Because Your God Really Does Talk To You Doesn't Mean You're Not
     Crazy" Award to Transformers Tales of the Fallen #4

"All You Need Is Love" Award to Justice Society of America #33

"But A Chili Dog Will Do If You Don't Have Love" Award to Ms. Marvel #47

"Modern Coloring + Vintage Inking = Uncanny Valley?" Award to Giant-Size
     Thor Finale #1

"Seeking Parity" Award to Models Inc. #4 (of 4)

"And Thus Is The Power Of Pu...Of Cats Confirmed" Award to Avengers the
     Initiative #30

"All This Anansi Stuff Should Be Old Hat For Him By Now, Actually" Award to
     The Incredible Hercules #138

"Segway Into Summer" Award to Larry Marder's Beanworld: Remember Here When 
     You Are There HC

   Dave Van Domelen, "Jessica, I live my life by ONE SIMPLE RULE: 'If someone asks you if you're a god...say YES!'" - Spider-Man, The Incredible Hercules #138