Comcis for Aug 3, First Looks Aug 10

[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.
Going to Salt Lake City next week.  Whee.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

     Next week I'll be off at a conference, so I won't be picking up my
comics until Friday at the earliest.

First Looks:
     Every so often, I'll have the time (either while waiting for comics to
be sorted on Wednesday, or over the weekend) to pull out my PDA and type up
reviews of the stuff I read out of the First Looks pile.  Books I end up
buying will be moved down to the Capsules section on Wednesdays.  If I don't
give it a recommendation, I'm probably not buying it.
     If I read the First Looks on Wednesday, I won't include them in the next
week's review.  But if I don't get around to them until the weekend, I'll
include them in the next regular post.

     Captain America v5 #8: Marvel - Well, Brubaker is doing one of those
Things That Should Not Be Done, but at least he's setting it up well.  And
there's a Cosmic Cube in this story, so you never know what'll evaporate at
the end.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Warriors #3 (of 6): Marvel - There are no cacti fifty miles from
Wichita.  Especially on the busy interstate leading there from Salina.  Even
if I didn't already despise Skottie's art, this would be a good reason to at
least dislike it.  The story itself is...passable.  Too many tired Hollywood
Exec cliches.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Megamorphs #1 (of 4): Marvel - This is a followup to the pack-in comic
for the toy line...and while a couple of the toys have been spotted one or
two places, they haven't really hit wide release yet.  The high concept is
various Marvel characters piloting giant transforming mecha.  McKeever's
story is a bit weak in places, although he does have a good ears for Spidey
wisecracks.  Kang's art is okay, but his human faces are a bit too cartoony.
Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Gravity #3 (of 5): Marvel - Ahh, Act Three, the emotional low point of a
standard "comedy" (in the Shakespearean sense, not necessarily the funny
sense).  Good turning point, it's clear that McKeever is shooting for an
actual story here, not just trying to fill five issues and hoping it gets
picked up for more.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Incredible Hulk #85: Marvel - HoM tie-in.  Fairly standard "serpent in
the garden" sort of story.  No Pyro appearances, so sad.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Green Arrow #53: DC - Messner-Loebs picks up the writing duties this
month.  Decent standalone story that takes advantage of recent events.  Eric
Battle's art is okay. Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn


Capsules:
     Short, relatively spoiler-free reviews of books I actually bring home
(as opposed to reading in preview form in the shop or online).  If I get a
book late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing
section.

     Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventures vol 2 TPB: Amaze Ink/SLG -
Collects #5-7 and #9-12 of the cut-short-in-its-prime Marvel comic.  Why not
#8?  Because it's a sucky fill-in that doesn't deserve to be reprinted.
Bleh.  Anyway, assuming you can FIND it in stores, what with Diamond's bogus
behavior lately, it's definitely worth picking up.  Strongly recommended.
$13.95 
     Marvel Team-Up #11: Marvel - Okay, not much actually happens this issue,
as it's mostly a "get the gang together to fight the menace" story, but it's
quite fun, and even touches on (gasp) continuity.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy #3 (of 4): DC - Lots and lots of
turgid narration from after the events of the story, lots of fighting and
angst.  A very few good bits.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     JSA #76: DC - OMAC tie-in, whee.  Feels a bit jump-cut-ish, but decent
as running fight scenes against walking plot devices go.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Legion of Super-Heroes #8: DC - Another late book.  The guest art by
Sharpe and Rollins is serviceable, and it looks like yet another error has
crept into the rollcall info.  Lots of stuff comes to a head, both large and
small, including what looks like the invisible hand not belonging to Adam
Smith handing out both bennies and slaps to the Legion.  It's clear that
several of the Legionnaires have power sets unlike those of previous
versions, but Brainy is still a Level 12 jerk.  :)  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.00Cn 
     Tick Days of Drama #1 (of 6): NEC - Comes with a copy of #0 gummed to it,
something the inside front cover claims hasn't been done since 1942 (but they
don't say who did it).  It's not Edlund, but the Griffiths are in fine fettle
on the writing.  Garcia and Atkinson are okay on the art, but it looks a bit
rushed and sparse in places.  There's also a kiddie-style backup story in
which Tick and "Artie" are bugs in the park, fighting evil bugs.
Recommended.  $4.95
     PVP #0: Image - A grab bag of strips wrapped in a new bookend 'story',
plus the Secret Origin of Skull.  Worth picking up.  50 cents/60 cents Cn
     Serenity #2 (of 3): Dark Horse - Seriously short-shipped to my store, if
I hadn't been looming over them as they sorted comics, I might not have
gotten one.  Got the Kaylee cover, shiney.  Good stuff in general, and while
the "slavish likenesses over visual storytelling" art style can be annoying
at times, it does convey information not provided by the text.  Recommended.
$2.99 

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 8/3:

     Tales of the Champions #1, Transformers Way of the Warrior TPB (which
shows as "backordered" on Diamond's system, meaning they're out).

Awards:

Best Book: Bill & Ted vol 2

"Non-Buoyant Death" Award to Bill & Ted vol 2

"Armpitting" Award to Marvel Team-Up #11

"But Will The AR Legion People Buy It?" Award to DC Special: the Return of
     Donna Troy #3 (of 4)

"At Least They Don't Have To Add Indecent Exposure To The List Of Charges"
     Award to JSA #76

"Communications Issues" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #8

"There Is No Tuna, There Is Only Baal" Award to the Tick: Days of Drama 
     #1 (of 6)

"This Explains Much" Award to PVP #0

"In A Brown Mood" Award to Serenity #2 (of 3)

   Dave Van Domelen, "Oh, wait -- did she *armpit* you?!" "Yeah -- she did." "SEE -- nobody likes that. It's not even *remotely* comfortable." - Spider-Man and She-Hulk, MTU #11

Comments

Re: Serenity

[skyjammer.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Kaylee....

I couldn't find that cover today, and I couldn't find a Malcolm cover last month. I hope to find both at Wizard World Chicago, but with me not being there until Saturday, I'm sure they'll be sold out by then.

Granted, I've only seen the first 4 hours of the show, so I'll have to power through the remaining DVDs and the comic before the movie. But hey, I powered through 8 eps of BSG in 5 days before Season 2 started. (And now I say "Frak" in every day conversation....)

Speaking of missing books, Dave, does your store have any of the recent Titan TF US hardcovers? I'm missing whatever one does 6-12, and then the ones that collect 19-whenever they caught up to what they had previously released (53?).

-Phil

Re: Serenity

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Nope. They didn't order any of those for the shelf, and I don't think anyone ordered them at all (I know I didn't). Mind you, I *did* order the B&W digests, and Diamond didn't ship those either. :/

Re: Serenity

[skyjammer.livejournal.com]

Frak.

-Phil