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.
And, of course, now it's ragweed season.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

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.

September 14:

     Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct #1 (of 5): DC/ABC - Di Filippo's
story just sort of meanders around.  Ordway's art is jammed full of easter
eggs, as is the norm for this series.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     (Note: the Marvel pack didn't arrive.)

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.

     Incredible Hulk #86: Marvel - Hm.  On the one hand, the arc is over and
the main plot stuff specific to this book is wrapped up, including Pyro's
status.  On the other, there's no oveall HoM resolution, so hopefully
there'll be an epilogue next issue so I don't have to buy some other book
just to see what happens to Bruce.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     eXiles #69: Marvel - Another HoM tie-in.  They say you can't go home
again, because either it's no longer home, or you're no longer the you that
left.  And while Beak has changed a bit, the former is definitely the real
reason here.  :)  Anyway, good setup for the HoM crossover.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #12: Marvel - Good storytelling technique here, as the
words tell one tale and the art tells a different (if related) one.  Not the
big climax that's normal for an issue twelve, but that's not necessarily a
bad thing.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Outsiders #28: DC - This is the story that should have appeared in #26,
a sort of "contemplating where to go from here" aftermath piece.  A number of
good jokes and interesting character bits, but not a lot "happens" in the
usual sense.  Would have had more impact as #26, but at least it's a big
improvement over the fill-in two-parter we got.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn 
     Villains United #5 (of 6): DC - Well, you kinda expect bad things to
happen in the penultimate issue, and happen they do.  Your basic
Troubleshooter Briefing Room Bloodbath straight out of Paranoia (the RPG),
although to preserve some sense of suspense I will not reveal which faction
has it happen to them (or maybe it's both, which would certainly make
sense!).  Also, there's a fairly blatant clue/red herring about the identity
of Mockingbird this issue.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Serenity #3 (of 3): Dark Horse - As a prequel to the movie, there's some
fairly strict bounds on what can happen.  For instance, anyone seen in
trailers probably won't get killed here.  But enough people DON'T show up in
the trailers that there's some room for suspense, and the writing team takes
advantage of this.  There's one point where I think the art could have been
clearer in terms of showing what was going on, but otherwise no complaints.
And plenty of "correct sounding" dialogue.  Recommended.  (I got the Wash
cover.  No one cover stood out as great this time, though.)  $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 9/8:

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

Awards:

Best Book: None.  All good, none stood out clearly.

"Offscreen, But Not Obscene" Award to Hulk #86

"Be Careful What You Wish For" Award to eXiles #69

"It's Almost As If Spidey Was Looking At The Art" Award to Marvel Team-Up #12

"It's...Red?" Award to Outsiders #28

"Tuna Baguette" Award to Villains United #5 (of 6)

"It Pays To Be Thorough" Award to Serenity #3 (of 3)

Dave Van Domelen, "Sounds fair to me." "Shut up, Jayne." - Serenity #3

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Date: 2005-09-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

From:

lurkerwithout.livejournal.com

no subject

I decided to go with the River cover. 'Cause she looked cute with her little gun...

Date: 2005-09-08 06:55 pm (UTC)

z4nd4r.livejournal.com

You mean you didn't pick up "Attack of the 50 ft tall Spidergirl"?
It was actually a pretty cool issue, I didn't start picking up the series until about 20 issues in so I guess I missed her intial fight with the villian...

Ultimate Spiderman was sweet. Mmm more Felicia Hardy.
Outsiders was much better this issue, agreed. I dunno anything about their new member though.

Serenity was good, looks like they are dumping us off right onto the opening credits too. I picked up all 3 covers *shrug* The River one was cute, Lurker. The only one I wasn't terribly fond of was the Doc.