Comics for December 14, FL Dec 21

[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.
Got a flu shot, and then got flu symptoms.  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 21, 2005:

     Iron Man the Inevitable #1 (of 6): Marvel - While we're waiting for
the"ongoing" Iron Man book to put out another issue, here's another
(inevitable) mini.  Casey Jones's writing is okay, but nothing spextacular.
Frazer Irving's art is ehn, and the new character designs are quite bad.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Captain America v5 #13: Marvel - And the beat goes on.  Some nice fight
scening, and signs that the villain has half a clue, but generally felt
padded.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Fantastic Four #533: Marvel - The Child Welfare subplot rears its stupid
head again, but there finally seems to be an end in sight.  The main plot is
okay, but mostly prelude.  Mildly 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.

     Transformers: Earthforce TPB: Titan - FINALLY Diamond shipped one of
these, after missing the previous two.  Most of these stories take place in
between the leadup to Unicron, looking at what was going on back on Earth
while the attention of the original Marvel stories was on Cybertron.  The
tales get a bit goofy and arch at times, and the smaller size doesn't help
the art, but it's a decent read.  Oddly, three of the artists of these
stories are not credited on the cover, only Wildman and Staz Johnson are.
Recommended.  $8.95/#5.99UK
     Tick Days of Drama #3: NEC - Ehn.  I've given it three issues, and
that's gonna be it.  There's a few good things here and there, but a lot of
weak humor as well.  Not enough to keep in my pull.  Neutral.  $3.95
     Teen Titans #30: DC - Weird.  In parallel with the Teen Titans main plot
involving Brother Blood (which is itself weird enough), there's also a story
within the story seen through comics read by characters in the book...
starring Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew running through a sort of Watchmen
parody.  Johns writes both tales, but Scott Shaw! (the exclamation point is
part of his credit) draws the Zoo Crew stuff.  When you know everything's
gonna get rebooted, you're free to try all sorts of stuff.  Usually that ends
up being self-indulgent crap, but this is one of the exceptions.  It may not
be great in the end, but it at least looks promising.  Recommended.
$2.50/$3.50Cn 
     JLA #123: DC - Okay, after playing the "what, you didn't know who this
was without being told?" game for several issues, Harras finally decides to
actually say who the villain is.  Sadly, by this point I no longer care.
Massive crossover damage, too.  Neutral.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Green Arrow #57: DC - The cover says "The Shocking Conclusion", but it's
not really the conclusion.  Or shocking, although it's moderately interest-
piquing.  Ron Lim does the art on the second half, but inker Reinhold manages
to largely obscure Lim's rather distinctive style (so, maybe the brickbats
aimed at Garney may be unfair).  This issue is all about stretching the
cliffhanger, unfortunately, which hurts it.  Not only is the cliffhanger set
up in #56 not really resolved, it gets more hangy and tosses in more
complications.  One could see that as ratcheting up the tension, but it
didn't really feel to me like it worked.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     The New Avengers Most Wanted Files: Marvel - Like the Bloodstone files,
this is an "in story" sort of dossier.  Unlike the Bloodstone book, there's
no section giving the references for the characters out of story (i.e. what
comics they appeared in).  The inside back cover lists various super-prisons
and does provide references for them, suggesting there as an editorial
decision to cut the character refs in favor of another entry or two.  Anyway,
this supposedly covers all the villains involved in the breakout at the Raft
in New Avengers #1, with OHOTMU-ish entries and comments by various
Avengers.  Some poking at continuity happens too, with comments like, "I was
positive he was dead" or "This version doesn't even have powers, what was he
doing on the Raft?"  Heh.  A nice villains reference, though.  Recommended.
$3.99/$5.75Cn 
     Cable & Deadpool #23: Marvel - A lot of backstory and dialoguing.  The
focus is mostly on Cable and the baddie, with Deadpool shoved largely to the
back burner.  Hence, not as funny as previous issues.  Kinda dry, really.
Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Thunderbolts #16: Marvel - Huh?  This reads like Nicieza was trying
to spoof Supreme Power, but also do it straight, and also got distracted by
the phone a few times, or had his computer explode at a critical moment.
Leonardi's art is okay, but I'm not sure if it manages to follow the story
all the way.  There's a lot of nifty stuff in here, but it doesn't feel like
it's all going the same direction.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn 
     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
     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
     Amelia Rules #16: Renaissance Press - And the "Superheroes" arc ends.
Very emotional, moving bits, plus the use of flashforward to give some
resolution without requiring Cownley to put a quick bow on everything right
away.  Strongly recommended.  $2.95

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 12/14:

     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, Penny Arcade #1.

Awards:

Best Book: Tie between GLX-Mas Special #1 and Amelia Rules #16

"Legion of Substitute Autobots" Award to Transformers: Earthforce TPB

"Llama!" Award to Tick Days of Drama #3

"DC Zombies?" Award to Teen Titans #30

"World Without A Good Story" Award to JLA #123

"Dr. Light Does Communion Now?" Award to Green Arrow #57

"Godzilla: Final References" Award to New Avengers Most Wanted Files

"All I Wanted To Do Was Escape Liefeld, Is That So Wrong?" Award to Cable &
     Deadpool #23

"It's...." Award to New Thunderbolts #16

"Hey, If You Could Live Down That Action Figure, This Should Be A Snap" Award
     to X-Factor #1

"What The Flock?" Award to GLX-Mas Special #1

"Light Our Darkest Hour" Award to Amelia Rules #16

   Dave Van Domelen, "Wow. That's like every trap I set. AND a snake. How does he DO that?!" - Deathurge

P.S. I'm stressed because last night I did my twice-yearly puzzle solving to assign 90 or so jobs to 30 or so TAs. It fit pretty well, and I only had a couple minor issues to nail down. Then, on my way out the door today, I'm told three TAs are being removed from the pool, GAH. Given that Friday is the last day of final exams, it's a bit late to recruit more TAs.

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, he was part of the whole "sons of villains" contest, playing the role of referee as people like Shinobi Shaw ran around being jerks for points. He had one of those Lobot headsets or something.