Comics for February 22, First Looks March 1

[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.
Sorting the past two years' of comics.  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.

March 1, 2006:

     (There was a DC pack, just nothing in it I wanted to read.)

     Daughters of the Dragon #2 (of 6): Marvel - Art is pretty much the same
as before...must be a cold snap.  Writing is a bit better, though, and they
actually manage to make Humbug kinda threatening.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     New Excalibur #5: Marvel - Kinda scattered, what with multiple fight
scenes against multiple foes (although it's possible they're all working
together).  Okay art.  Deals with continuity both old and new, which is
nice.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Ms. Marvel #1: Marvel - You basic story about a second tier super
wanting to break into the top tier.  Been done before a lot, but Brian Reed
does a good job of it.  De la Torre's art is very good, but he goes for the
easy cheesecake shots a little too often.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Next Wave #2: Marvel - Amusing so long as you ignore the pasts of, well,
everyone who has one.  And either Immonen is experimenting heavily, or Von
Grawbadger's using the pencils as vague suggestions.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Star Brand v2 #1: Marvel - One of the Untold Tales of the New U
one-shots.  JRjr does the cover, Pulido the interior art.  Jeff Parker
writes.  Rather talky and theory-laden, but amusing.  Recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn
     Amazing Fantasy #18: Marvel - The DH story takes an odd plot turn while
still not really doing much in terms of developing the lead's personality.
The Merc backup is okay.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #5: Marvel - Hm, methinks the sliding
timeline slid a little too far.  Still, a good done-in-one story.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     X-Factor #4: Marvel - Ah, right back in PAD's comfort zone.  :)  After
seeing Von Grawbadger's inks over Immonen in Next Wave, I think I may have
been a bit harsh on Sook.  The preponderance of shadows is still likely
Sook's doing, but the rest of the murkiness may not be.  Calero does some of
the pages as well, ehn.  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: Perchance to Dream TPB: Titan Books - I think this may be
the last one...hard to say, even if I went back and checked all the issue
numbers, I think some issues of the original series had multiple stories in
them.  The title arc is pretty good, although the ratio of buildup to payoff
is pretty high.  The next chunk of stories involve Thunderwing and what he
did before he came into the U.S. comic, plus some background on the
Micromasters.  You know, in a few really short pieces, Furman did a better
job portraying the Micromasters than Dreamwave did in a four issue
miniseries.  The last batch of stories focus on a human, and why the Autobots
just couldn't catch a break in the press.  :)  A good collection, it doesn't
come across as dregs.  Recommended.  $8.95/#5.99UK
     The American Way #1: DC/Wildstorm - Deconstructions of the Silver Age
have been done before, as have reconstructions.  John Ridley seems to be
trying to pull off both at once...show the man behind the curtain, then prove
he's a real wizard after all.  And it's off to a good start.  One could call
it Busiekian, sure, but as long as it keeps up this level of quality, I don't
mind at all.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     LSH v5 #15: DC - As a sort of breather before the big shake-up, we get
something like the Legends of the Dark Knight episode of the Batman cartoon:
kids telling stories about the core team that evoke various historical
periods of the old LSH comics.  Stuart Moore writes, Pat Oliffe draws, doing
a good job of homaging various art styles.  The lettercol is really a backup
that runs through all the Core Team to explain powers and origins and stuff.
Recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     Supreme Power: Hyperion #4 (of 5): Marvel MAX - Thanks to production
delays, the final two issues of this book come out after the Saga book gave
away the ending.  Oops.  Unfortunately, the scripting from JMS isn't
compelling enough to counter the stealing of thunder (and it doesn't help
that this isn't the only Squadron Supreme story this week).  The colorist
needs to learn that dark doesn't have to equal muddy.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$4.25Cn (Note: there's an explicit content label, but no actual
explicit content.  Probably just habit for the dead-line-walking MAX comics.) 
     Fantastic Four #535: Marvel - Decent main story, but the real meat is
the FINALLY-IT'S-OVER resolution of the whole Child Protective Services
subplot.  It's a good resolution, it just should have come a lot sooner.
McKone's art is lovely as usual.  Recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     The Thing #4: Marvel - Ah, much better.  With the Arcade arc resolved,
Slott gets down to the core issue established at the start of the series: Ben
dealing with his "new" wealth.  And he manages to show that Reed Richards
really IS a genius along the way, not just an egghead.  :)  Plus he gives
DiVito some nifty cosmic stuff to draw in addition to the regular Thing
action.  Strongly recommended.  $2.99/$4.25Cn
     eXiles #77: Marvel - Years after the flawed but otherwise good New World
Order TPB, with loads of Squadron Supreme stories in the interim that didn't
touch NWO, we finally get to see the world left behind by Len Kaminsky in
1998.  And Proteus shows he has some brains after all.  Good opening gambit
from Bedard and Calafiore.  Recommended (strongly recommended for old-school
Squadron Supreme fans who've been left hanging for almost 8 years).
$2.99/$4.25Cn 
     All-New OHOTMU A-Z #2 (of 12): Marvel - At first I was curious as to why
this collection (Benny Beckley to Crazy Eight) had another entry for the
Golden Age Black Widow so soon after the Golden Age OHOTMU, but a quick check
revealed she wasn't in that book...I was remembering her entry on the
unofficial Marvel Handbook, pointed to by a friend's blog.  Heh.  The
bibliography pages that I like from other OHOTMU books continue to be shoved
off on the marvelunapp.com page, and not-included-here characters within the
alphabetical boundaries are listed on the inside front cover with reference
to which OHOTMU of recent vintage carries their info (or OHOTMU-like book,
such as New Avengers Most Wanted or the 198 Files).  The entries are pretty
current (i.e. one has a spoiler for next week's Ms. Marvel #1), but not
necessarily comprehensive (Boom Boom's entry makes no mention of Next Wave,
for instance, although Next Wave may be officially alt.Earth...I certainly
would shed no tears if it was declared to be out of 616 continuity).
Recommended.  $3.99/$5.75Cn

     Note: I picked up the Ultimate Avengers movie, but haven't watched it
yet.  I'll try to remember to comment on it next week.


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 2/22:

     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: The Thing #4

"Bulk Processing" Award to Transformers: Perchance to Dream TPB

"It's Only Fun Until Somebody Gets Dead" Award to The American Way #1

"I Can Hardly Con-Taine Myself" Award to LSH v5 #15

"Message In A (Very Large) Bottle" Award to Supreme Power: Hyperion #4 (of 5)

"Call It The Z-Plan" Award to Fantastic Four #535

"Why, A Five Year Old Child Could Understand This...Get Me A Five Year Old
     Child, I Can't Make Heads Or Tails Of This" Award to The Thing #4

"How Does He Even Talk With His Tongue Hanging Out Like That?" Award to 
     eXiles #77

"Poor Boom Boom, All That Liefeld Art...OTOH, She's In Next Wave Costume On
     The Cover" Award to All-New OHOTMU A-Z #2 (of 12).

   Dave Van Domelen, "You're not bad, but my people *invented* shape-shifting!" "And yet you *still* run around with a *skid-mark* for a chin?" - Skymax and Morph, eXiles #77

Later note: I forgot to get Black Panther, and I don't think Outlaw Love even made it to the shelf, it wasn't there when I checked back today (and my pull was so messed up that I had to get most of my books off the shelf anyway). I'll review Black Panther next week.

Comments

[ardaniel]

I really think that odd looseness and distortion is von Grawbadger's fault; he inked Immonen on a few issues of Ultimate X-Men and I wasn't very impressed.