Comics for Feb 1 - Transformers Week!

[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.
3oz, not 8oz, of Velveeta to 6oz of pasta.  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.

February 8, 2006:

     Nada.  No First Looks arrived at my store.

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.

     It's apparently Transformers Week here at the Capsules.  Old TPBs, a
guest appearance or two, and I decided to review the fanclub newsletter here
as long as I was already swimming in TF content.  :)

     Ninja High School #135: Antarctic Press - Big fight scene resolution to
the Chobits-meets-Black-Magic parody arc, including a piloted version of
Megatron.  Heh.  The indignity of it!  IDW could do worse than to hire Dunn
to do a special or something.  Storywise...well, it's a big fight scene
resolution, not a whole lot more to say about that.  A few backstory bits for
new characters get filled in, and there's a Motive For The Future and plenty
of Mysterious (And Maybe Non-Fatal) Deaths, as one might expect.  Fairly fun,
though.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.05Cn
     Buckaroo Banzai Preview Edition: Moonstone - Sadly, this really reminds
me of Disney direct to video "cheapquels" in too many ways.  An overreliance
on repeating the gags of the original, rather than trying to do something
new.  Granted, this issue is mostly setup and flashback/dream sequence, so
you have to expect there won't be much plot yet, but still...it didn't
inspire.  There's also a text piece detailing the harrowing Intellectual
Property journey Buckaroo Banzai has been through, and some data files on
characters old and new.  On its own, as a fifty cent comic, it's probably
worth getting.  But as a presage to the long-awaited continuation of the
Buckaroo Banzai storyline, it doesn't fill me with hope.  Neutral.  50
cents. 
     Transformers Collectors' Club Newsletter for Feb/Mar 2006: Fun
Publications - These aren't available in stores, and backissues are sold
online as collectibles themselves for a premium, so you might guess right now
that I'm not writing this to convince people to buy it.  After the editorial
block, there's a review of the new Star Wars Transformers, which gushes so
much it feels botanical.  Either the reviewer got the only General Grievous
that doesn't fall apart, or he lives in a world of spun sugar and gossamer,
that he would call it "sturdy".  There's some good photos of upcoming toys,
some of which aren't available elsewhere yet (but will be within days, even
if no one scans these and posts them), and an overview of the BotCon 2005
exclusive toy set (which is only slightly ad-copy in nature).  Nearly three
pages are devoted to instructions on converting Ransack to the horribly
stupid fan character profiled last issue, and while there's some helpful
hints, the end product is pretty weak.  Sentinel Maximus gets profiled in
really tiny font, the super-rare Japanese "Lucky Draw" variant toys are
covered, there's a few pieces of good fan art and a weak picfic...and then
it's time for the comic.  Where the writing has merely been flat and lifeless
before now, this time it edges into stupid.  Like they're not sure if they
want epic or camp.  Dan Khanna's art is good as always, and not TOO messed up
by the oversaturated colors.  Anyway, after a year of reading this
newsletter, I am not at all inspired to renew my membership.  The tidbits of
news are almost always available via other means soon enough (if not before
they come out...and you have to pay extra to get the newsletter in a timely
manner anyway), the comic is horrible, and the remaining content is
missable.  $40 for 6 issues (plus you get a recolor of a $7 toy and the right
to pay regular retail price through the club store, and price breaks on other
overpriced things).
     Transformers: Way of the Warrior TPB: Titan Books - Finally broke down
and stopped waiting for Diamond to cough this (and Fallen Star) up, and made
a trade for 'em.  This is the second compilation of short black and white
stories from the waning days of the Transformers UK comic.  Fifteen five-page
stories, almost all following a single thread, that of the Survivors versus
the Decepticon Mayhem Team.  Only the last three stories (a one-shot and a
two-parter) are really unrelated to this theme, which is tighter than most
Titan collections.  The art quality is wildly variable, as usual for the UK
title (which was weekly, so had rotating teams), and isn't really helped by
the shrinking down to digest format from the original A4 magazine size.  And
having the opening Skids story feature a character who only barely LOOKS like
Skids didn't help much either (his head looked more like Grimlock's!).
Still, it's got some good stories using characters who otherwise get almost
no screen time in the U.S. comics.  Recommended.  $7.95/#4.99UK
     Transformers: Fallen Star TPB: Titan Books - See above.  This is the
third B&W digest, and it's not quite as tight as Way of the Warrior, since
they're running out of material and have to get it all in somewhere.  The
title story involves the story behind the recovery of Starscream's remains
post-Underbase that led to Pretender Starscream's creation, and it's okay.
The best part is the aftermath, where Starscream deals with some personal
issues.  Most of the rest of this collection concerns the various Decepticon
leadership battles and a few other Underbase-related bits.  Thematically tied
together, if not dramatically.  As usual, variable art quality, small
reproduction size, etc.  Recommended.  $7.95/#4.99UK
     Squadron Supreme Saga: Marvel - Basically, this is a summary of Supreme
Power and the two spinoff minis arranged more or less in chronological order.
It also includes summaries of the as-yet-unreleased issues of the Hyperion
miniseries, oops.  It does hearken back to the old Marvel Saga comic in terms
of the level of detail, although with slicker production values.  It lacks
the enthusiastic amount of naked mammary exposure of the Marvel MAX comics,
take that as a plus or a minus as suits you.  It's a good primer for anyone
thinking of getting into the upcoming Squadron Supreme title, and a decent
summary for those who've been reading along and want to organize their
thoughts on the book without having to go back through twenty-plus comics.
Mildly recommended.  $3.99/$5.75Cn
     Doc Samson #2 (of 5): Marvel - I dunno.  This book feels forced, like Di
Filippo is trying to capture the sort of zany stuff Slott writes over in
She-Hulk, but it comes out too "by the numbers".  Like a reality show.
"Let's put together some weird superhero types, and send them after outre
threats, it'll be a riot!"  Some of the humor works, but....  Very mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Fantastic Four #534: Marvel - This is more like Hulk, guest starring the
Thing and Human Torch, as JMS writes an inner/outer struggle for the Hulk.
McKone's art is lovely, and there's some good psychological stuff (although
most of it PAD did years ago), but it doesn't really sing to me.  Still,
recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Marvel Team-Up #17: Marvel - A lot of exposition, followed by a lot of
montage that doesn't always flow smoothly.  It's almost like the story got
changed at the last minute and Kirkman didn't have time to doublecheck pacing
and flow.  Nor does it help that I have no real affection for Kirkman's skip
week version of 2099 from a year or so ago.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     X-Factor #3: Marvel - I really hope this book gets a new artist soon,
because the scratchy murkwerks are really holding the title back.  Good
story, though.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Outsiders #33: DC - Going out with a bit of a muddle.  This is the final
issue before the "one year later" arc begins, and so they wrap up their
Crisis tie-in plot reasonably well, although it feels like it's being phoned
in at times.  Mildly recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #14: DC - A fallout issue with multiple
artists, it lacks focus on a lot of levels.  There's several good scenes,
though, even if they don't really hang together.  The cover is honest, at
least, as Atom Girl's background and personality get fleshed out.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn


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 2/1:

     Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards GN, Exalted #1, Keif Llama
V2.1, Captain America and the Falcon: Secret Empire TPB, PS238 #14.

Awards:

Best Book: None, sorry.

"Well, It IS A Copy Machine" Award to Ninja High School #135

"I Hope He Doesn't Expect To Actually Shoot Anyone With That Gun" Award 
     to Buckaroo Banzai Preview Edition

"I May Need To Try The Pumice Soap Thing" Award to TFCC Newsletter

"At Least He Didn't Look Like Ironhide" Award to Transformers: Way of the
     Warrior TPB

"Laughing Stock, Lock And Barrel" Award to Transformers: Fallen Star TPB

"Love Gloves" Award to Squadron Supreme Saga

"Rattrap Is A Bad Parent" Award to Doc Samson #2 (of 5)

"What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas...Except The Bits That Get Blown
     Over The State Line" Award to Fantastic Four #534

"This Is Livin'!" Award to Marvel Team-Up #17

"Tryp Ticked" Award to X-Factor #3

"I Read Her First Appearance, And I Was Still Confused" Award to Outsiders
     #33

"Brokeback Mountain" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #14

   Dave Van Domelen, "Boot of justice!" - Omega Prime, TFCC Newsletter comic.

Comments

[finback.livejournal.com]

I'm not renewing with the club, since all I EVER got (sent to Hooper_X's address) was the first issue. Nothing else. They claim to have sent me the free toy, but that it was sent back, so they sent it again. Hoop and Wendy said they never saw anything else. And the general impression I was given by MC was "Well, it's out of our hands, and you're in another country anyway".

So I'm working on a letter to Hasbro, explaining my bad experiences.

[scavgraphics.livejournal.com]

X-Factor may have to go. I like it, but it's stuck being the "what happened to the Mutants" book, while Bendis ignores the stupidy he wrote. We have the Plot Device that walked liked a goth stating plainly that they'll never learn, and once Claremont is fired from UXM, the whole thing is going to be forgotten anyway as Quesada's pot pals spend their time telling all new dark secrets from Xavier's past.

[z4nd4r.livejournal.com]

Heh, X-Factor's the only mutant book I can stand to read anymore. (eXiles too, but that doesn't really count)

Once they get away from the Deci(Goofy Magneto Logo Thing Here)ation plot, and start focusing on a detective story it'll be really cool. Basically I see this as picking up where Alias dropped off...

[1boringperson.livejournal.com]

> X-Factor #3: Marvel - I really hope this book gets a new artist soon,
>because the scratchy murkwerks are really holding the title back.

Who's responsible for that, the penciller or the inker? You may be getting your wish because Peter David has announced the next issue is the penciller's last (http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/archives/003757.html).

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw. It may be solely the inker's fault, but often murk can be laid at the feet of pencilers who just leave big chunks of space blank with X's in them.