Comics for October 19, First Looks for October 26

[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.
Another 90-to-30 weather week, whee!  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.

October 26:

     Defenders #4 (of 5): Marvel - Well, I didn't read the previous two
issues, but it wasn't hard to follow this issue, which amounts to mostly a
running fight scene.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New X-Men #19: Marvel - Looks like another pointless tie-in ending.
Feh.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Drax the Destroyer #2 (of 4): Marvel - Decent, although the snarky kid
is getting old very fast, and I don't mean she's aging.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Captain America v5 #11: Marvel - A whole lot of backstory from an
unreliable source, and even if it's true, so what?  This is a Cosmic Cube
arc.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Amazing Spider-Man #525: Marvel - It's the end of Peter David Month in
this lateral crossover.  Annoyingly, the "story so far" bit on page one gives
away info NOT spelled out at the end of MK Spider-Man #19.  Anyway, this
issue is mostly not about Spidey, but while it's a major tease on the actual
storyline, I enjoyed it.  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.

     Robotech Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles #2 (of 5): DC/Wildstorm - Wow,
talk about bad storytelling.  This is one of those books where you keep
checking to make sure pages weren't stuck together, it keeps bouncing around
with all the flow of a constipated buffalo.  Neutral.  $3.50/$4.75Cn
     Astro City Dark Age #4 (of 16): DC/Wildstorm - Last part of Book One.  A
lot of resolutions, although unsurprisingly the personal, human story gets
the focus, and the big history-shaping story is mere backdrop.  :)
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Transformers Infiltration #0: IDW - Okay, I got all four covers (at 99
cents an issue, why not?), so I'll start with them (no, my store didn't buy
the huge number of issues needed to get the incentive covers).  Series artist
E.J. Su did two covers, an Autobot one and a Decepticon one.  The Autobot
cover has the theme "white vehicle Autobots" as Jazz, Wheeljack, Prowl and
Ratchet are clumped together as if starting to move towards an enemy.  It's
pretty good, although they don't seem to all be in the same scene.  The
Decepticon cover has Astrotrain and Blitzwing towering over Starscream and
Runabout in a "let's all look cool for the portrait" set of poses.  Looks
kinda bland.  James Raiz has a cover dominated by Megatron towering over a
horde of fleeing humans as Soundwave and Starscream hang around in the
background.  The people have a somewhat 80s Marvel New Universe look to
them.  Finally, "Milk" has Optimus Prime grinding Megatron's head into the
dirt.  Lots of subtle wrongness about this cover, from Prime's proportions to
Megatron's teeth.  If you only pick up one cover, I'd recommend either Su's
Autobots or Raiz's Megatron.  Anyhoo, on to the stuff inside.  The inside
front cover has the creator credits and a sort of fighting game headshot roll
call in which the heads of characters not appearing this issue are black
silhouettes.  The story focuses on a pair of humans (with one more human
waiting to show up in #1, we're told) who get involved with the secret war
between Autobot and Decepticon.  In the interview at the end of the issue,
Furman says that he wants to use outsiders to introduce things, and the
squishies this time out are definitely outsiders.  This is also clearly a
clean slate reboot, a "what if they went active in the past few years, not
20+ years ago" restart.  One nice touch is that mechatopia.com, a website one
of hte squishies frequents (or maintains) exists in real life as a companion
to the series.  The disguise factor is being taken seriously here, as it was
in early Marvel G1 comics.  A promising beginning.  Recommended.  99 cents
     Dork Tower #32: Dork Storm - Ah, another creator telling a tale of how
"fun" the creative process can be.  :)  Meanwhile, Wil Wheaton shows what a
gosh-darned nice guy he is.  Heh.  Cool Sendak homage in Snapdragons, plus
Mutants & Masterminds v2 stats for That Grrl and a Munchkin card by one of
the Brothers Grinn.  Fun stuff.  Recommended.  $3.49 (mostly in color)
     Supreme Power: Hyperion #2 (of 5): Marvel MAX - Mostly a fairly by-the-
numbers "Hyperion versus the new characters" issue in which we get to see
everyone's powers in action, but it takes a nice sharp left turn at the end.
The territory into which it turns may not be the freshest of places to take
these characters, but it's not totally farmed out.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     Marvel Knights Spider-Man #19: Marvel - Part two of the lateral
crossover called The Other, and Pat Lee draws over Peter David's script.  PAD
plays around with alternate viewpoints, advancing the storyline from outside
the window, as it were.  But I have to wonder how closely Mr. Funana (Pat
Lee) follows the script, since as mentioned above, the "story so far" bit for
next week implies that more was shown on the last page than was actually
shown.  Anyway, structurally it was an interesting issue, but felt
disjointed.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     She-Hulk v2 #1: Marvel - Slott and Bobillo are back after a hiatus to
pick up the pieces left by the hatchetwork done on Shulkie in Avengers, and
they do a pretty good job.  There's a bit of too-obvious protesting about
"waiting for the trades", but other than that it was a good, solid issue.  I
especially liked the therapy scene, and can see a particular friend of mine
acting out the role.  :)  Oh, and lovely final page shocker, all the more of
a shocker for its calm non-shocking delivery.  Strongly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 


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 10/19:

     Transformers Way of the Warrior TPB (which shows as "backordered" on
Diamond's system, meaning they're out), Flare #28 and Bone Sharps, Cowboys
and Thunder Lizards.  Add on Conan #21, which didn't get shipped at all to my
store.  


Awards:

Best Book: She-Hulk v2 #1

"Sir, Half The Story Went Stealthed!" Award to Robotech Prelude to the 
     Shadow Chronicles #2 (of 5)

"Humane Shields" Award to Astro City Dark Age #4 (of 16)

"We Were Somewhere Around Barstow On The Edge Of The Desert When The Giant
     Robots Began To Take Hold" Award to Transformers Infiltration #0

"For Piet's Sake!" Award to Dork Tower #32

"I Think You'll Find Reality Is On The Blink Again" Award to Supreme Power:
     Hyperion #2 (of 5)

"Stage-Door Nny" Award to Marvel Knights Spider-Man #19

"Waiting For The Death's Head Crossover" Award to She-Hulk v2 #1

   Dave Van Domelen, "Ooookay...this is going to require MANY HOURS of therapy." - She-Hulk