Comics for April 21, 2010

[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 
     You don't put it in the crazy, but how about in the overly wise?

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Atomic Robo
and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #2 (of 4), Hercules Fall of an
Avenger #2 (of 2).

"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.

     Kick-Ass: MARV/Lionsgate - See previously posted Rant for more details.
In short, I liked the way it took the ultraviolet nihilism of a Hong Kong
revenge actioner from the 1980s and totally changed its meaning by having a
geek in a wetsuit stumble into the plot.  It's hardly high art, but it's very
well done ultraviolence and a decent story that apparently has the good bits
Millar came up with for the comic without most of the crap bits.  And as
discussion of the full review revealed to me, there were a LOT of crap bits
to remove.  Recommended, with loads of caveats.


Time-Shifting:
     Sometimes I get a comic a week or two late because of Diamond's
combination of neglect and incompetence.  If it's more than a week late,
though, I won't review it unless it's very notable.  Additionally, I will
often get tradepaperbacks long after publication or even sometimes before
Diamond ships them, and those will go here.  If I'm reasonably sure I'm
reviewing something that didn't ship this week, this is the section for it.

     Atomic Robo Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #2 (of 4): Red5 Comics -
This is notable for having an entirely new supporting cast...the only
character in this issue who has appeared before (unless someone had a bit
part that I'm forgetting) is Robo himself.  And the plot seems to be
unrelated to the Vampire Dimension, although last issue's events are the
pretext for Robo being in Japan in time for this little super sentai homage.
Well, sentai and Evangelion and Super Robot.  There's a five-team, but they
get a non-combining mech (with a head suspiciously like Robo's own), and
while there might be an obscure or one-episode-of-the-series example that's
escaping me, five person sentai teams ALWAYS have combining robots.  Singular
robots usually have solo pilots, sometimes trios (Mach Baron or Boss Borot,
for example) or more rarely duos.  In fact, the only large-squad singular
mecha that come to mind are Defender X and Sky Sentinel from the
Monsterpocalypse comic (Nova ESR and Laser Knight may have smaller crews,
Legionnaire is a combiner).  Of course, given the "Biomega" monster in this
issue, a Monsterpocalypse comparison is certainly apt.  The Evangelion
elements come from the Big Gun used by the mech.  :)  There's also a certain
amount of DaiGuard in here, but that may just be parallel evolution rather
than a sign that Clevinger or Wegener are as mecha-geeky as I am.  All in
all, though, a very funny and well done survey of the "Japanese robots versus
monsters" genres.  Strongly recommended.  $3.50

     Gold Digger Peebri's Big Adventure! #1: Antarctic Press - This is
actually two stories, the title adventure and a Peegi-focused story called
"Raiders of the Styrofoam Peanuts!" plus a couple of short interludes in
between them (the Peebospy one-pager required me to do some googling and I
rather regretted it).  With a few exceptions, both are told as a series of
vertical four-panel strips (the exceptions being full page height half page
width "splash" strips), with the sort of marginal notes at the bottom we've
come to expect from Peebo and Tiff&Charl stories.  The first story involves
Peegi on an archaeological quest while being thwarted by a Roomba.  Peebri's
Big Adventure involves a bicycle, and the learning to ride thereof.  Let's
just say the police in the Diggers' neighborhood are getting awfully jaded by
this point.  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 Spotlight #25 (Prowl): IDW - Interestingly, the alternate
covers are coastally themed, with a Hollywood sign background for the west
coast and a damaged Statue of Liberty for the east.  I decided the east coast
cover was more interesting.  This is another intermezzo, set between All Hail
Megatron and The Transformers, showing what Prowl was up to during some of
the two year gap between series (and also revealing what happened to
Thrust).  E.J. Su's art has a blockier feel to it now, in places looking like
an homage to Geoff Senior's, although I dislike the random grime marks on
everything mechanical.  Maybe they're supposed to be shadow outlines, but
it's up there with Pat Lee's "everything is cracked" in terms of annoying
visual affectations.  In terms of the story, I found Prowl's change of
attitude to be cliched in its abruptness and completeness.  I can see what
Costa was shooting for, and it was broadly telegraphed, but that's not the
same as making sense.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #4: IDW - As the penultimate
chapter, it's time to lay out a bunch of backstory, some of which happens
while Ironfist's group is hanging out waiting for the Decepticons to break
into the room with the plot device.  There's also some more flashbacks (okay
a LOT more flashbacks) and most but not all of the cards are laid on the
table.  A bunch of UK-comic Decepticons show up briefly in one of the
flashbacks, and the pencilling definitely drifts into UK art homage in
several places.  The switching between Roche and Guidi on the art is far from
seamless, unfortunately, and Burcham's coloring sometimes gets so gaudy as to
obscure things.  While a bit scattered, the story's otherwise good, and
Verity manages to slip some innuendo past the editors.  :)  Recommended.
$3.99 

     REBELS #15: DC - The cover's a bit misleading, or at least jumping the
gun.  The character on the cover may be joining the team soon, but she
doesn't even MEET them this issue.  The issue is a mix of her getting onto
the scene and everyone else tying up loose ends from the Starro arc.  And ya
gotta give Vril credit for thinking big.  :)  Recommended.  $2.99

     X-Factor #204: Marvel - Second Coming Revelations banner.  Yeah, the big
X-over interrupts the ongoing plots, but PAD is an old hand at this by now
and while the opening sequence is totally cheaty he makes up for it by making
the X-over stuff flow organically into the existing plots.  The ending
cliffhanger is pretty transparent, although if the "D.R. Tech" is the same as
www.drtechinc.com it'll be interesting to see how THAT worked out.
Recommended.  $2.99

     Iron Man Iron Manual Mark 3: Marvel - Like the second Iron Manual, this
is just a themed OHOTMU issue focused on Iron Man, rather than a specialty
book covering just the Iron Man armors.  In fact, Iron Man himself only gets
a single page update, since he had an extensive entry fairly recently.  Iron
Man 2.0 also gets a page, while Iron Man 2020 gets two pages.  Like most of
the recent themed OHOTMUs, there's some odd omissions (i.e. no Bethany Cabe
or Crimson Dynamo) as well as a few "Huh?" entries like the Ani-Men who
barely brushed up against Iron Man but wouldn't fit into more appropriate
books.  The back cover copy describes this book as having been kitbashed, but
most of us kitbashers try to make our creations look a little more coherent.
I suppose we'll never get a true update of the Iron Manual, but this is as
good as any of the other recent OHOTMUs.  Recommended.  $3.99

     The Amazing Spider-Man #628: Marvel - Part two of Stern's Captain
Universe story, plus a backup by Waid, Peyer and Nauck.  Over on
rec.arts.comics.creative there's a discussion about comicbook tropes that get
on your nerves, and Stern just highlighted one of the most annoying ones
here: people who will spent half an hour fighting and saying things like "You
wouldn't understand!" when it would take them twenty seconds to explain
matters.  It's pretty obvious that the current Captain Universe suffers from
this in spades, and once we do hear his tale it'll be exasperatingly simple.
Spidey will probably hang a lampshade on it by saying something like, "You
could have said so three hours ago!" too.  Eh.  The backup is okay, although
I have no idea why Absorbing Man is unable to stop from turning into things
he touches or why Iron Man is in the old Mk V armor...it's not like this is
an ancient inventory story, it's predicated on Parker's current joblessness
plot.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Avengers vs. Atlas #4 (of 4): Marvel - The main story ends decently
enough, although for a moment I thought it might be leading into a crossover
with Mighty Avengers.  Parker plays in that most Lovecraftian of sandboxes,
divergent timelines and the struggle every time travel story has to face
between nihilistic infinitely branching worlds (where nothing matters because
everything happens) and stultifying one-track timelines (where time travelers
can never change anything).  Speaking as someone who's wrestled that
particular nine-crocodile, I think Parker manages it pretty well.  The backup
is a bit of a gunslinger story featuring Gorilla Man...decent, although the
art didn't work for me.  Recommended.  $3.99

     Hercules Fall of an Avenger #2 (of 2): Marvel - The main story opens
with a contest of champions (but not a Contest of Champions), with
representatives of Apollo, Artemis and Nyx (now there's an ironic alliance)
facing off against champions of Athena, Poseidon and Hebe.  Since this is
only part of one issue, we're not talking massive knock-down-drag-out, but
there's a decent amount of fighting before Amadeus thinkifies his way out of
the situation.  The upcoming Prince of Power series is then set up as Cho
manages to fulfill his destiny but for his own reasons.  Oh, and there's a
lovely bit of out of context dialogue with Phobos and Cho to which I respond,
"Well, I know *I* would, but aren't you a little young to?"  The backup
continues to be rather touching as we see the jewel in the crown of
Hercules's financial legacy.  Strongly 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 4/21/10: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Gold Digger v3 #105 and #116, Gold Digger Sacred Library #3,
Marvel Boy: the Uranian #3.

Awards:

"Do All Small Payload Orbital Launch Vehicles Have Pistol Grips?" Award
     to Atomic Robo Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #2 (of 4)

"Eagerly Awaiting Crossover With Questionable Content" Award to Peebri's
     Big Adventure #1

"One More Time And 'Transform To Save Child' Officially Becomes A Trope"
     Award to Transformers Spotlight #25

"The Power Rangers Managed To Make Theirs Pocket-Sized" Award to 
     Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #4

"And I Rann, I Rann So Far Away..." Award to REBELS #15

"If It IS The Same D.R. Tech, Can We Expect A Cow-Boy Crossover?" Award to
     X-Factor #204

"You'd Think People Would Stop Using A Codename After So Many Predecessors
     Died Messily" Award to Iron Man Iron Manual Mark 3

"Kinda Scary When Juggernaut Is The Reasonable One" Award to The Amazing
     Spider-Man #628

"Once Again, Pym Screws Up On A Cosmic Scale" Award to Avengers vs. Atlas
     #4 (of 4)

"Hmm, Could That Be Kirby 2.0 In The Backup?" Award to Hercules Fall of an 
     Avenger #2 (of 2)

   Dave Van Domelen, "Why are Transformers such a buncha size queens?" - Verity, Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #4

   Bonus Quote: "Why do we even HAVE the Square Cube Law?" - Atomic Robo

Comments

[minorirritant.livejournal.com]

Bethany Cabe and the Crimson Dynamos were both in the last Iron Manual.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and the Crimson Dynamos were in a different OHOTMU expansion fairly recently.

[minorirritant.livejournal.com]

Right, so their omission wasn't that odd. Don't wanna have too many repeats.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

It just means that this isn't really the Iron Manual, it's an Iron Man themed OHOTMU update.

[zqadams.livejournal.com]

The Herc backup reminded me of the Johnny Guitar issue of Initiative: kind of a cheap method to go for the heartstrings, but done so well that it doesn't matter. And it should be noted that X-Factor has the Second Coming banner, but it's very much a side story--as it should be, since the main crossover has basically been a three-issue fight scene with interspersed chase scenes and Cyclops giving orders.