Comics for Sept 21, First Looks for Sept 28

[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.
The Nerf Maverick truly rocks.  Get one.  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 28:

     Otherworld #7 (of 12): DC/Vertigo - They're really pushing this one
hard, I think it's been in every FL pack since it started.  Major things
happen this issue, but I got no sense of drama or importance.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     ABC A-Z #1: DC/ABC - This was billed as a sort of reference book, like
Secret Files or OHOTMU.  It's definitely more like the former in format, and
like the latter in being more infodump than story.  Both bits (Tom Strong and
Jack B. Quick) are written well enough to be engaging as well as
informative.  Recommended.  $3.99/$5.50Cn
     Cable & Deadpool #20: Marvel - This does seem to be more typical then
last issue.  Goes a bit overboard with the innuendo, but an amusing read.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Sentry #1 (of 8): Marvel - Nice to see a reprint of the very first issue
of Astro City, but they got the colors wrong.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Warriors v3 #4 (of 6): Marvel - The art continues to be horrible,
and the story merely passable.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Drax the Destroyer #1 (of 4): Marvel - Decent, uncomplicated story so
far from Giffen, making good use of obscure continuity.  However, Breitweiser
is one of those artists who really can't handle aliens.  They all look like
low-detail humans with maybe a blemish or two.  Mildly recommended.
$2.999/$4.25Cn
     Amazing Spider-Man #524: Marvel - Wraps up the big explody plot, catches
up on a few things, and massively foreshadows for The Other.  A decent read.
$2.50/$3.50Cn
     Hulk: Destruction #3 (of 4): Marvel - Innnnnnnteresting.  Not only is
Abomination getting retconned, so is one of PAD's more oddball supporting
characters.  Raiz's bits are pretty good this time, and he has a MUCH better
idea of how to draw a woman in bodyarmor than Muniz does.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 


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.

     eXiles #70: Marvel - HoM tie-in.  Good story, even if it gets a bit
exposition-heavy at times.  And I really like the Pelletier, Magyar et al
art.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Supreme Power: Hyperion #1 (of 5): Marvel MAX - Okay, so I guess they're
not moving it to Marvel Knights yet after all.  Klaus Jansen's inking style
meshes oddly with Dan Jurgens's pencils...not yet saying it's bad, but it
doesn't immediately grab me as good.  The story is mostly team-gathering as
more Squadron Supreme-setting characters get updated and so forth and the
unifying theory of superpowers for the new version is stated more clearly
(although it's come up before).  It gets a bit pretentious at times,
especially in the opening pages, but it's generally tolerable on that score.
Mildly recommended for now, too early to say about the series as a whole.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     New Thunderbolts #12: Marvel - Better late than never.  Not a HoM
tie-in.  More continuity-surgery, some of which may have been intended from
the beginning, but a lot of which reads like, "I meant to do that, really".
Not that Nicieza's had an easy time of dealing with "There are no other
writers in this sandbox" writers at Marvel.  The story does spend a bit too
much time on damage control to really work on its own, but it's about as good
as you could expect.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Conan #20: Dark Horse - Adapting "The Tower of the Elephant," one of the
more well-known tales (and oft-adapted).  The pacing is a bit on the slow
side, but Nord takes advantage of that to do some lovely atmospheric art.
Recommended.  $2.99
     JSA Classified #3: DC - Cute tie-in-mocking cover.  We're in the "open
mystery" part of the story, more or less.  We know from #2 who is behind all
the weirdness, but Power Girl doesn't yet at the start of this issue, so the
key is in how her reactions come across, since the reader's no longer focused
on the whys and wherefores.  Which goes down fairly well, but I do like that
the mystery is somewhat restored by issue's end.  Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn

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 9/21:

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

Awards:

Best Book: None.

"Welcome To My Parlor, Said The Fly To The...Wait" Award to eXiles #70

"A Potentially Hairy Situation" Award to Supreme Power: Hyperion #1

"See The Constellation" Award to New Thunderbolts #12

"Beware The Shrubbery" Award to Conan #20

"Origin And Tonic" Award to JSA Classified #3

   Dave Van Domelen, "Should I stop with the writing analogies now?" - Genis-Vell, New Thunderbolts #12 (and I'm amused as hell that not only is Photon talking like a Legion of Net.Heroes character now, he even looks like one of my LNH characters...I expect this is why scavgraphics insisted last week that I get a copy ASAP).

Comments

[jarodrussell.livejournal.com]

...so the key is in how her reactions come across, since the reader's no longer focused on the whys and wherefores.

I guess that means they can focus on her chest again! *ba-da-bing*

[scavgraphics.livejournal.com]

well, actually, I was just gobsmacked by the last page of TBolts...really didn't see that coming

[scavgraphics.livejournal.com]

While I find this entire lead up to Infinite Crossovers annoying and dirivitive...wouldn't it be cool if one of the people who were secretly Manhunters also wind up becoming an Omac,.....I found the last page of Boobage Girl's issue to be really cool...even if that Psyhco Pirate has been dead since Crisis 2