July 30, 2014

     Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
     Intermittent Picks and Pans of Comics and Related Media

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 
     Been here a month, settled in, starting on lesson plans.  Whew.

     This week's Humble Bundle (humblebundle.com) is a whole lot of IDW
Transformers collections.  Just the two volumes of More than Meets the Eye
are worth $15 if you don't have 'em yet.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None, but I
strongly recommend getting that Humble Bundle.

     In this installment: Batman: the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga #1, Atomic Robo
vol 9 #2-3, Batman: Through the Looking Glass, Spider-Man 2099 #1, Gold
Digger #212, Ragnarok #1, Transformers Robots in Disguise #30-31,
Transformers More than Meets the Eye #31, Transformers Windblade #4 (of 4),
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #21, My Little Pony Friends Forever #7.


"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 time around.  I did buy the Atomic Robo RPG, but I'm going
to wait until the hardcopy arrives before I try reviewing it.


Digital Content:

     Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so, I won't be turning
this into a webcomic review column.  Rather, stuff in this section will be
full books available for reading online or for download, usually for pay.  I
will often be reading these things on my iPod if it's at all possible.

     Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga #1: DC - The whacked-out Batman manga
from the 1960s got a collected release recently, but I think I misinterpreted
it as being a book about the series, rather than a complete collection.  But
this month DC started serializing it weekly on ComiXology, so I decided to
try it out, on the grounds that if I really like it after a few weeks, I can
always order the collection online rather than waiting for the online version
to finish.
     The first installment is 36 pages for 99 cents, the complete first Lord
Death Man story.  The story is an interesting read, but they went a bit too
hipster on the tech: to wit, because the full pages were left in original
right-to-left order, they decided to make the panel-advancement work in
reverse too.  Dude, if you're advancing panel to panel, it doesn't matter
which way the page is laid out, keep a consistent user interface.
     #2 doubles the price and halves the pagecount, so I decided not to buy
it.  A paperback collection is due later this year, I'll get that.
     
     Atomic Robo: Knights of the Golden Circle #2-3: Red5 - These came out in
consecutive weeks.  It's a fairly slow build, and took a while to even reveal
what the titular Knights are the antagonists, not Robo's side.  There's a
sort of ticking clock here, Something Bad is going to happen to Robo soon,
but it's not clear what, or why (i.e. it seems like he's running low on
power, but previously it was established that his power source is scary good
and he's never really had a power shortage plot before, so it's still unclear
what's up).  It seems mainly to be there so that Robo can't just plow through
the opposition trivially...beyond his other handicaps related to not wanting
to damage the timeline and not being a killer if he can help it.  I get the
feeling that when this arc ends, I'm not going to be too satisfied with the
plot.  But at least the dialogue is up to Clevinger's usual standards.
Recommended.  $2.99 at ComiXology ($3.50 floppies).
     

Trades:

     Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.

     Batman: Through the Looking Glass: DC - Yes, this came out a while ago,
but I got it as a birthday present (it arrived a bit late for birthday, but
arrived exactly on Batman Day, so things worked out).  
     While I've been largely ignoring mainstream DC for some time now, I'm
pretty sure this is intended to be a pocket continuity.  Basically, as long
as you know the basic Bat-stuff, and don't assume anything about the
antagonists or any other new characters, you'll be okay reading this.  By
that, I mean that while there's a Jervis Tetch Mad Hatter, this Batman has
never dealt with the guy before.  And while there's obvious Tweedle brothers,
they have no relation to other versions that I'm aware of.  And so forth.
Jones wanted to do his own take on Batman in Wonderland (title and use of a
mirror aside, it's really based on the Wonderland book and not the Through
the Looking Glass sequel).
     Does it work?  I expect it would work better for a new reader who only
knows the general pop culture stuff about Batman.  Even once I'd figured out
it had to be a pocket continuity, I still kept thinking, "Wait, that
character's wrong...oh yeah."  But Sam Keith's art definitely fit the
headtrippy story Jones wanted to tell, and they got across the core message
that even when totally out of his head, Batman is still Batman and will get
things down.  Somewhere between mildly recommended and recommended, I guess
it depends on how well you can disengage any Bat-history knowledge you have.
$14.99 


Floppies:

     No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they
*are* floppy, yes?  

     Spider-Man 2099 #1: Marvel - I've been loosely following some of the
recent Superior Spider-Man stuff, so I knew about Mig coming back to the
present in order to stop another time traveler from killing his grandfather
(this does not constitute spoilers, it happened months ago).  This series,
written by Peter David, picks up on that thread and practically begs for
Continuum comparisons.  :)  So far no apparent involvement from PAD's other
time-traveling Spider-Man (from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), but this
time he has the advantage of theoretically not having to deal with a bunch of
other books competing for his star's time.  No Peter Parker in this issue at
all.  It's a promising start, I'm going to add it to my pull.  $3.99 

     Gold Digger #212: Antarctic Press - Diamond may be shorting my new store
on Transformers books (which I have to go get at Hastings), but somehow they
willingly coughed this up with only a couple weeks' notice.  This is a bit of
a respite before going into the cosmic plot uncovered in #211, dealing with
one of the title's longer running danglers (which is kinda spoilered by the
cover).  A nice light read, recommended.  $3.99

     And now for all the IDW stuff....

     Ragnarok #1: IDW - Walt Simonson tells a tale set after Ragnarok, during
the eternal twilight in which the great enemies of the gods hold sway.
Basically, the part of the whole tale that tends to get very little attention
(the D'Aulaire edition I first learned it in skipped ahead to a reborn Earth
borrowing elements of the Flood Myth to repopulate it).  Simonson does a good
job of setting up the protagonist: she's an enforcer of the evil order so you
know her success will be a bad thing, but at the same time she's just
sympathetic that you'd like her to at least avoid too many bad consequences
of her failure (or that she finds a way to succeed without it being as
evil).  Recommended.  $3.99

     Transformers: Robots in Disguise #30: IDW - Derp.  So, this one came out
the week I moved, but the regular comic shop had already sold out by the time
I first visited it.  So I went to Hastings, and picked up a copy...of #29.
Again.  It bodes ill for Barber's scattered implementation of the flashback
format that I didn't realize I'd bought the same issue twice, a month apart.
And mostly it's incremental advancement of the threads from #29, although
with a different Big Reveal at the end.  Mildly recommended.  I have some
hope that it'll turn around soon now that the secret of Megatron's trial has
been revealed and the flashbacking might be settling down.  $3.99

     Transformers: Robots in Disguise #31: IDW - Not sure I'm going to be
following this title much longer.  The flashbacking ISN'T settling down
(although there's a clever bit of using a G/SOL trick to realtime flashback
one scene), I don't really enjoy Barber's style of using asynchronous
storytelling (he's no Priest), and while I like his Thundercracker that's
about the only character I do particularly like.  I don't even enjoy his
Manipulative Bastard Prowl, and I do generally go for that kind of
character.  Very mildly recommended.  $3.99

     Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #31: IDW - A bottle episode aboard
one of the shuttlecraft that bailed out last issue, with a new mystery for
Nightbeat to chew on.  The mystery is sufficiently solved by the end of the
issue to count as a decent short-term story resolution, but enough remains to
drive the arc forward.  In the process of trying to figure things out,
Roberts gets to do a lot of deep worldbuilding, but it comes out in a way
that feels organic to the story rather than just an infodump.  I suppose one
of the bits (the hand language) was a bit clumsy in how it became immediately
important to the present plot right after coming up in a flashback.  Oh, and
I finally noticed that the Rod Pod looks like an Angry Bird.  Recommended.
$3.99 

     Transformers: Windblade #4 (of 4): IDW - Scott did a good job with the
reveal of who was behind the real issues.  On the one hand, it wasn't someone
I would have suspected after reading #3, but by the time of the reveal she'd
made it plausible.  My only real problem with it was that the resolution was
a bit unsatisfying, the consequences for the villain nearly nonexistent.
Basically, the real villain got a G1-cartoon-Starscream ending, even though
it wasn't actually Starscream.  Recommended despite that.  $3.99

     My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #21: IDW - Ted Anderson starts a
mystery story in which Trixie gets in trouble and drags several Ponyvillers
along with her.  While it did acknowledge the Friends Forever story in
Diamondia, way too much of the story felt generic.  Yes, a lot of MLP plots
are generic, but the goal of the writers is to make them feel specific.  And
Anderson doesn't really manage that.  It felt like a spec script for "Kids
Adventure Series" with a few quick search and replace jobs.  It also runs
afoul of the "How can the Mane 6 not be well-known by this point?" problem.
I mean, you'd think that if the one-time bearer of the Element of Honesty
makes a claim, the police would be inclined to believe it, yes?  Garbowska
got some decent visual humor in there, but as others have noted, tended to
put the ponies in bipedal poses too often.  Very mildly recommended.  $3.99 

     My Little Pony Friends Forever #7: IDW - Pinkie Pie teaches Luna how to
be funny.  The story would have made more sense if Fleecs had drawn Twilight
Sparkle without wings, because it feels like a season 2 story, especially
with Pinkie's initial reaction to Luna.  It's a small thing, perhaps, but
enough to sour me on the story.  Nor did I really care for the hallucinatory
friends from "Party of One" making a return appearance, another thing that
felt wrong.  Neutral.  $3.99

     Wondering why no review of Transformers vs. GI Joe #1?  I just don't
care for the Kirby-homage art or the retro-camp feel they're shooting for.


     Dave Van Domelen, "I've got ANOTHER plan.  Don't worry, it's better than
the one that got us here.  Also it's WORSE." - Atomic Robo

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