Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week. And the PeopleSoft hurting continues. Rants, Capsules can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants First Look Comments: Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #43: Marvel - Orka is the featured villain, but Sumerak sets up a plausible excuse for Spider-Man to fight the Atlantean villain. Of course, there's plenty of aquatic puns. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Amazing Spider-Man #571: Marvel - Part four of New Ways To Die. Mostly a series of running fights, but with some good revelatory dialogues and internal monologues in there, plus post-fight wrapup stuff. Good writing from Slott, good art from JRjr. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn 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. Books of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): None. Secret Six #1: DC - Gail Simone is back with what appears to be an unlimited SS series. It starts relatively slowly, introducing a new threat and then bringing the cast on-screen a bit at a time. The dialogue continues to be the book's strength, although there's not really enough plot yet to say if that'll work. Recommended. $2.99 US/Cn Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow: Marvel/Lion's Gate - Take a bit of M2's Avengers Next, toss in some Earth-X, and start with the premise that Ultron killed the Avengers and conquered half the planet during the time that the scions of the Avengers were growing up in hiding. While starring tweenaged/teenaged (they're supposedly 15, but several of them act more like 12) heroes, the story is pretty dark, containing numerous very creepy elements (i.e. Stark places the secret entrance to something as part of his own grave marker). Some of the plot elements are telegraphed, other elements are Awfully Convenient (Ultron knows where all his tech is, except when he doesn't, for instance), but it generally works. I found the ending a touch too deus ex machina, though...I think the kids should have been a bit more active in the final victory. I picked up the Target exclusive version with a CDROM of Spidey and the Mini-Marvels #1 (annoying Flash app, not sensible PDFs). Oh, and some of the background music is disturbingly like Stargate Atlantis BGM. Recommended. $14.99 at Target. Invincible Iron Man #5: Marvel - Tony hunts for Stane, fights Stane, big shocker ending that's fairly telegraphed in terms of how the cliffhanger will resolve. Not much in the way of new ideas, a sort of Inevitable Fight Scene issue with the really clever stuff (or what Fraction hopes will be really clever) held off for #6. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Iron Man Golden Avenger #1 (of 1): Marvel - This is basically a Marvel Adventures Iron Man story left over from the cancellation of that book, repackaged as a one-shot and without the Marvel Adventures banner. Odd. It ties off some threads that had been running around in MAIM, and tells a reasonably entertaining story along the way. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Amazing Spider-Man #570: Marvel - The variant Marvel Apes cover has a gorilla Venom fighting a regular Spider-Man. A three-way battle between Spider-Man, Venom and Anti-Venom dominates the issue, although the Menace plot looms in the background. Good dialogue from Slott and art from JRjr. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn The Twelve #1/2: Marvel - Reprints of two Fiery Mask stories, a Mister E story, and two Rockman stories (he also got a piece in The Twelve #0). The cover is a Chris Weston piece based on the cover of Daring Mystery Comics #1 (featuring the first Fiery Mask story). The Fiery Mask stories are pretty unexceptional, and the futuristic cover image has nothing to do with the stories or the setting. The Mr. E story is likewise nothing special. The first Rockman story is written and drawn by Basil Wolverton, and has the advantage of being rather weird. The second Rockman story was written by Stan Lee and is...amusingly bad, let's say. Mildly recommended. $3.99/$4.05Cn Ms. Marvel Annual #1: Marvel - A self-contained tale of a Singularity gone a bit awry. Thing is, while Ms. Marvel's name is on the cover, and regular MM writer Brian Reed is at the helm, this is really a Spider-Man story guest-starring Ms. Marvel. He's the viewpoint character and narrator. Mind you, it's a good Spidey story, although the Mark Robinson art is a bit weak. Recommended. $3.99/$4.05Cn Transformers Saga of the AllSpark #3: IDW - Heh, more Target recolor characters show up here, but in toy design rather than redone to the movie aesthetic. Hence, you can actually tell who they're supposed to be. :) Two more short pieces as everyone tries to get back together after being scattered through space in the wake of the battle of Tyger Pax. Ironhide, who looks rather gorilla-like under Guidi's pencils, leads off, splitting his story between a present-time threat and a flashback. Jazz follows suit with the same story structure, but different threats and Matere art. Generally decent, but not much to 'em. Mildly recommended. $3.99 Galaxy Quest #2: IDW - Time to step back and fill in some more of the blanks between the end of the movie and the start of #1. A bit more exposition than we really need, though...most of it could have been covered in a couple of pages or was already implied sufficiently last issue. In short, a bit padded out. Mildly recommended. $3.99 Igor Movie Adaptation #3: IDW - On the other end of the spectrum, Barbara Kesel has to service a bit too much plot here, and things tend to whipsaw around as all the plot twists and complications get smooshed together without really leaving enough time to sink in. Mildly recommended. $3.99 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 9/4: Nothing that I haven't utterly given up on. Awards: "Crate Expectations" Award to Secret Six #1 "Jungle Fury Black Panther Spirit Unleashed!" Award to Next Avengers "Probably A Bit Kinkier Than Intended" Award to Iron Man: Golden Avenger #1 (of 1) "The Old Shell(head) Game" Award to The Invincible Iron Man #5 "White Night" Award to Amazing Spider-Man #570 "The Dreaded Pixie Empire? Oooookay" Award to The Twelve #1/2 "At Least Rule 34 Didn't Get Invoked" Award to Ms. Marvel Annual #1 "Count The Faces" Award to Transformers Saga of the AllSpark #3 "Worst...NDA...Ever" Award to Galaxy Quest #2 "Runaround Sue" Award to Igor Movie Adaptation #3 Dave Van Domelen, "That's the most cumbersome thing I've heard since whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for this week." - Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel Annual #1Back to the Main Rants Page.
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