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                    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.
Zero degrees and 5" of snow tomorrow.  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.

December 14, 2005:

     Captain Atom Armageddon #3 (of 9): DC/Wildstorm - Starting to get a bit
more interesting.  It treads some of the same ground as JLA/Avengers, but
does a decent job of it.  The art's starting to grow on me as well.
$2.99/$4.00Cn
     MK Spider-Man #21: Marvel - (brief pause while I grab FNSM from the
store employee and read it)  A bit dry and clinical, even allowing for the
possibility that JMS was trying to convey a sense of being in shock.  Lee's
art was okay, which for him is pretty good.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     GLX-mas #1: Marvel - Slott writes all the short pieces in this book,
various people draw.  Not everything works out great, but enough does.  And I
got a few belly laughs out of it.  Strongly recommended.  $3.99/$5.75Cn
     X-Factor #1: Marvel - Well, THAT was expectedly unexpected.  Or
something along those lines.  The art is a bit too shadowy, although without
seeing pencils I can't say if that's Sook or inker von Grawbadger.
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.

     Outsiders #31: DC = Split between part of the team going off to be
jerked around by unsatisfying bits of crossover, and the rest doing some
chatting and soul-searching, which was decent.  Different artists did the two
parts, neither thrilled me.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     JSA #80: DC - Generally only marginally messed-with by the Infinite
Crossover, fairly satisfying conclusion, although I got the feeling Champagne
would have liked to take a little more time on his guest stint story.
Recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Marvel Zombies #1 (of 5): Marvel - The front page more or less explains
where this comes from, but I can't recall seeing the original story
anywhere.  It is understandably full of morbid humor, and an exposition chunk
at the end fills in most of the gaps.  Hard to say where this is going,
though.  If it's just more zombie humor, not sure it's worth following.
Hopefully there's a bit more of a point, since this issue alone used up most
of the better jokes.  Mildly recommended for now.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #15: Marvel - Man, Kirkman's really on a slaughterfest
tear this month.  Interesting conceit to the tale, in how the particular
batch of heroes involved is going to team up.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn 
     Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3: Marvel - It's JMS's turn to write
all three books in the lateral crossover, and his narration-heavy style works
pretty well here.  Of course, even NOT knowing this was part seven of twelve,
the foreshadowing is falling more thickly than the snow outside my window.
:)  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 11/23:

     Transformers Way of the Warrior TPB (which shows as "backordered" on
Diamond's system, meaning they're out) Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder
Lizards GN, Exalted #1, Transformers Fallen Star TPB.  And, I suppose, Keif
Llama V2.1.  Add on Penny Arcade #1.

Awards:

Best Book: None.  Some good stuff coming next week, though.

"AAAAAH My Goddess" Award to Outsiders #31

"Where's Kwayq?" Award to JSA #80

"Lots Of Iron In That One" Award to Marvel Zombies #1 (of 5)

"Does This Mean My Book Is Doomed Too?" Award to Marvel Team Up #15

"Morlun Meets The Eye" Award to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #3

Dave Van Domelen, "I've wanted to hold Captain America's shield since I was SIX. And I've wanted to KILL Captain America since I was ELEVEN. This is a GOOD day." - Lord Chronok, MTU #15

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Date: 2005-12-07 04:51 pm (UTC)

From:

querldox.livejournal.com

no subject

Um, X-Factor *is* the Madrox detective book. Written by Peter David, has Madrox, Rahne, Guido, and a few new cast members, continues from the mini-series. Havok's getting nowhere near it.

As for the zombies, the premise was established in three fairly recent issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four. Ultimate Reed is in inter-dimensional contact with a Reed who seems to be the Earth-616 (mainstream Marvel U) version, sets up an inter-dimensional transporter and hops over.

Oops, it's a trap and not Earth-616 (it's been designated Earth-615 by Marvel in Handbooks). A few days before, a Superman patische had arrived on that Earth from yet another dimension. Said Superman was infected with something that effectively turns one into a (still-living) zombie if it gets through the skin. By the time U-Reed gets there, all superheros (and in a "what the hell" background bit, apparently even the Vision. He's very tiny in a multi-hero spread, but there) have been infected and many civilians have been eaten. Z-Reed is doing the inter-dimensional bit because they've run out of super-types to infect.

U-Reed gets rescued by that Earth's Magneto, who at least in the UFF story is the only powered entity not zombified. Z-Reed and the rest of the Z-FF travel to the Ultimate Earth, but the U-FF manages to temporarily defeat them (not very realistically, and helped quite a bit by gassing a room containing the Z-FF). The U-FF then travel to zombie Earth, hook up with U-Reed, Magneto and a few human survivors. U-FF and the humans return to U-Earth, while Magneto stays behind so that the transporter can be destroyed to prevent any more zombies from making it through.

The Z-FF are currently in captivity on U-Earth. Z-Reed has basically told U-Reed "Look, I'm more experienced and smarter than you. We will figure out a way out of here, and infect your Earth, since you're too much of a wimp to kill us." Me, I figure about 15 seconds after U-Nick Fury hears about this, the Z-FF should be dead, since U-Fury is *not* that kind of wimp.