Capsules for December 22, 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 
     Santa Claus is more plausible than a complete Diamond shipment.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Atomic Robo:
Deadly Art of Science #2 (of 5)

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 12/22/10: Invincible #72, Transformers Ironhide #4,
Gorilla Man #2, Atlas #4, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update
#3 (which I probably won't bother reviewing if it ever comes in), Guarding
the Globe #1-2, Dynamo5 Sins of the Father #3, Science Dog #1, Chaos War #1,
Taskmaster #2, Transformers Drift #4, Official Index to the Marvel Universe
v2 #7, Tron Betrayal #2, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8, Chaos War Dead
Avengers #1, Shadowland Power Man #4, Transformers Timelines G2 Redux and
Gold Digger v3 #123, Hercules New Prince of Power TPB.  Add Transformers
Sector 7 #4.  Also, I'm taking Tom Strong off my pull and officially giving
up on ever seeing (or, frankly, caring about) the missing issues.


"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.

     Nothing this week.


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: Deadly Art of Science #2 (of 5): Red5 Comics - Ah, another
boring day in the lab, discovering the Vampire Dimension and so forth.  But
at night, exciting pulp vigilante adventures!  Romance!  Extremely annoyed
pulp vigilantes who don't particularly approve of the romance!  Strongly
recommended.  $3.50


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.

     Legion of Super-Heroes #8: DC - The Durlan assassin plot comes to the
fore this issue, so there's a lot of orange on the page.  The two pages of
leadership election results, though, may provide more characterization bits
than the entire rest of the issue, as we see who everyone voted for (not a
secret ballot).  Recommended.  $3.99

     Chaos War: Dead Avengers #2 (of 3): Marvel - Still no #1 anywhere around
here.  This is the middle issue of a siege, lots of emotional loose ends
being brought up if not actually dealt with.  And we learn some Kree
profanities, because sergeants are sergeants the universe 'round.  Still,
it's very much a side story, with no real indication that it will have an
impact on the Chaos War itself, which means it stands or falls on these
character bits.  And...eh.  I think Van Lente bit off a bit more than he has
space to chew here.  A three-issue series focusing on just one of the dead
Avengers might have worked, but it's just too superficial if you didn't
already care about the characters.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Invincible #76: Image - Loads more bloodshed and fighting, but the
Vultrumite leader makes an Important Decision just shy of what would have
been at least a tactical victory, and we're not told what it is.  The final
page shocker has Invincible deciding he knows what it is, but there's no
guarantee he's right.  Despite being confined to a single title, the
Viltrumite War feels a lot bigger than Chaos War, probably because it's a
one-writer show and doesn't suffer from Marvel's utter lack of top-level
vision.  Rather than an in-setting backup story, this time we get a preview
of "The Li'l Depressed Boy," which tries really really hard to be indie.
Recommended.  $2.99

     Dynamo5 Holiday Special 2010: Image - The main story isn't really
holiday-themed, it just takes place around Christmas for the characters.
It's dominated by a standalone story that's an obvious mirror to the D5
characters' lives...and in the standard storytelling style it would be used
to resolve the questions about Hector that were raised at the end of Sins of
the Father.  Instead, Faerber makes sure that the reader knows that those
questions are far from answered.  On the surface, it looks like they are, but
people who actually know Hector are less than confident about it.  There's
also a bunch of 1-2 page epilogues that are really just ways to keep several
other subplots simmering (i.e. Firebirds, Synergy, the FLAG command thing),
with the last one being setup for the next D5 miniseries.  Recommended.
$3.99 


Awards:

"Sometimes You NEED A Flexible View Of Pacifism" Award to Atomic Robo: Deadly
     Art of Science

"Of COURSE He Voted For Himself" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes #8

"Besides, Mantis Would Find A Way To Kill Him If He Did" Award to Chaos War:
     Dead Avengers #2 (of 3)

"I Only Showed You Your Own Entrails, Quit Whining" Award to Invincible #76

"Did She Steal That Girl's Scrunchie?" Award to Dynamo5 Holiday Special 2010

   Dave Van Domelen, "C'MON. I've done SOME adventuring. Fought a monster from outer space a while back." "What?" "And wrestled with vampire monsters from another UNIVERSE just this afternoon!" "Yeah, saying things like that is going to make me want to trust you with firearms." - Atomic Robo and Jack Tarot

Comments

[warendfeld.livejournal.com]

Odd, I thought the first issue to "Foundation" was due this week. S7 #4's supposedly out next week, however, so maybe both are due then.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Midtown's list showed S7 #4.

[warendfeld.livejournal.com]

...wonderful. Now I'm really confused.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Annnnd they show S7 #4 again for next week. Looks like they got the RI cover this week (which my store didn't order any of) and the regular cover next week. But no Foundation either week.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Legion leadership votes have rarely been secret in my experience, but not knowing much of the team's history...?