May 19, 2010

     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.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 
    Blindpacked Lego Mini-figures are hitting stores, keep an eye out!

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Galacta
Daughter of Galactus One-Shot, Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire
Dimension #3 (of 4).

"Other Media" Capsules:

     Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention.  They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.

     Nothing this week.  Well, I got some Iron Man 2 Mini-Mates, but don't
feel like reviewing them.  Maybe next week.  :)


Time-Shifting:
     Sometimes I get a comic a week or two late because of Diamond's
combination of neglect and incompetence.  If it's more than a week late,
though, I won't review it unless it's very notable.  Additionally, I will
often get tradepaperbacks long after publication or even sometimes before
Diamond ships them, and those will go here.  If I'm reasonably sure I'm
reviewing something that didn't ship this week, this is the section for it.

     Nothing this week.


New Comics:
     Comics and comic collections that I got this week and were actually
supposed to be out this week, as far as I can tell.  These reviews will
generally be spoiler-free, but the occasional bit will slip in.

     Jersey Gods #12: Image - Final issue (although future miniseries are
promised).  It's a decent enough ending, but the series never really
delivered on the premise suggested by the short preview.  In fact, the
preview story doesn't fit within the range of the 12 regular issues,
suggesting it might have to take place years later.  Anyway, even if the book
weren't ending, I probably would be dropping it from my pull...it just never
really broke out of the Kirby pastiche mold.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99
     Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #5 (of 5): IDW - Diamond didn't
ship this to my store, had to go get it from Hastings.  As expected, quite a
lot of death and dismemberment (which need not lead to death, when you're
talking about Cybertronians).  There's a fair amount of misdirection, but a
good story with a touching ending.  The MTMTE entries at the end flesh out
some of the characters, but most of the important character-development
information was in the story itself (if, in Ironfist's case, as an
epilogue).  Recommended.  $3.99
     Legion of Super-Heroes v6 #1: DC - Levitz returns to writing the Legion,
so of course he blows some stuff up.  Not Earth, that's been done already.
:)  Mind you, "done already" doesn't stop a few things from happening this
issue, and it definitely looks like Levitz intends to write at the cosmic end
of things rather than the personal for the most part.  Yildray Cinar's art is
pretty good, although it balances somewhat awkwardly between Perez-style
levels of background detail and something more cartoony.  Recommended.  $3.99
     X-Factor #205: Marvel - Second Coming: Revelations banner.  A lot of
scattered pieces of the whole "MRD is gunning for X-Factor" story, including
a little of the Guido/Monet side story.  Part of the incoherence comes from
being a tie-in to yet another Major Event, with the core of the story being
elsewhere.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99
     Avengers Assemble: Marvel - The fact that this guide includes the Phone
Ranger is a sign that the core Avengers have been pretty adequately covered
in other recent OHOTMU updates.  :)  Of course, there's three pages of
densely packed text devoted just to "Avengers Update" since the last Avengers
handbook (about 5 years ago, not counting some of the event books).  It's
heavy on Initiative characters along with the more obscure stuff.  Heh,
Unspoken's real name has a censor bar over it.  Recommended.  $3.99
     Atlas #1: Marvel - Heroic Age banner.  My goodness, what a difference
colors make, compared to the stark B&W preview in Prince of Power.  The lead
story is more of a 3-D Man tale, with Atlas being shadowy and backgroundy in
dreams and portents.  Just as the original "1950s Avengers" had 3-D Man among
them, the current holder of the identity is coming into the book, and
bringing a mystery or three with him.  Something of a slow start, though.
The backup story features the 1950s team facing one of the plans of the
Yellow Claw, and is a bit more like Parker's usual snappy writing.
Recommended.  $3.99
     Galacta Daughter of Galactus One-Shot: Marvel - No new stuff, strictly
speaking, but some that's new to me.  This collects the story from Marvel
Assistant-Sized Spectacular #2 plus some pieces that first appeared in Marvel
Digital Comics.  Sadly, her twitter feed hasn't been updated in honor of the
release, but most of the existing posts are reproduced in the last few pages
of this issue (making it a truly comprehensive compilation).  The
storytelling tone is deliberately bloggy, but more coherent than you might
expect from twittering.  As befits a story about cosmic entities, Adam Warren
throws in a lot of off-handed metaphysics of the Marvel Universe (and answers
the question "why not graft Wolverine's healing factor onto Ego the Living
Planet and just harvest it over and over?").  Sevilla Lujan's art is
generally very good, but he's one of those people who just can't draw the
Thing.  At all.  Strongly recommended.  $3.99
     PS238 #44: Do Gooder Press - Williams wraps up (for now, anyway) one of
the Space Plots, as 84 and Emerald Gauntlet find out what's up in the weird
dimension they both got sent to.  The palace intrigue plot on Argos continues
into next issue, though, with no guarantee that everyone's coming back.  Oh,
okay, this isn't a "kill 'em off" book, but one or more characters could
literally not be coming back, staying on Argos for some reason.  The backup
material includes part of a pitch for a possible animated series, discussion
of interdimensional invasions and several pages of Full Frontal Nerdity.
Recommended.  $2.99
     Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #3 (of 4): Red5
Comics - DOCTOR DINOSAUR HAS RETURNED, MAMMALS!  Ahem.  Anyway, by the time
the grammar argument started I was wiping away tears from the laughter.
Clevinger and Wegener have done it again.  Okay, so it has nothing to do with
the Vampire Dimension at all, being the origin story (well, the "first
meeting" story anyway) of Doctor Dinosaur, but I'm more than okay with that.
Very strongly recommended, despite being a pack of MAMMAL LIES.  $3.50
[Addendum: this is actually a sequel to the FCBD 2009 book, with the distant
"Boom" panel at the end of that story being repeated on page 2 of this
issue.]


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 5/19/10: Gold Digger Peebri's Big Adventure #2,
Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #2.

Awards:

"Daddy Issues" Award to Jersey Gods #12

"On The Internet, Nobody Knows You're A Dog...Or A Tank" Award to
     Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #5 (of 5)

"And In The Shadows Bind Them" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes v6 #1

"More Support For Galacta's 'Reality Warping Genome' Argument" Award to 
     X-Factor #205

"Would You Believe Phone Ranger Was A Major Campaign Villain In My First
     Marvel Super-Heroes RPG Game?" Award to Avengers Assemble

"Most Boring Dreams Ever To Involve Venus" Award to Atlas #1

"Don't Go There, Johnny" Award to Galacta Daughter of Galactus

"Wait...Hard-Wired Aliens And Chocolate?  At Least There Was No Swimming" 
     Award to PS238 #44

"CRYSTALS ARE VERSATILE, FILTHY MAMMAL!" Award to Atomic Robo and the
     Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #3 (of 4)

     Dave Van Domelen, "All of the human video wavelengths are open to me!
The Nickelodeon is fuzzy, but IT TOO will crumble and FALL before the heavy
weight of my GENIUS!" - Doctor Dinosaur, Atomic Robo v4 #3 (of 4)

     Bonus quote: "That is for me to know and FOR YOU TO DIE!"  "That's not
even a sentence."  "The simple mammalian subject AND predicate were both
represented!  I challenge your claim." - Doctor Dinosaur and Atomic Robo

Fly back to the May 2010 Rants Page via Milwaukee.