January 5, 2011

      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 
     The new year kicks off with two more books on the missing list.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Ant-Man and
Wasp #3 (of 3)

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 1/5/11: Invincible #72, Transformers Ironhide #4,
Gorilla Man #2, Atlas #4, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update
#3 (which I probably won't bother reviewing if it ever comes in), Guarding
the Globe #1-2, Dynamo5 Sins of the Father #3, Science Dog #1, Chaos War #1,
Taskmaster #2, Transformers Drift #4, Official Index to the Marvel Universe
v2 #7, Tron Betrayal #2, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8, Chaos War Dead
Avengers #1, Shadowland Power Man #4, Transformers Timelines G2 Redux and
Gold Digger v3 #123.  I went ahead and ordered Hercules New Prince of Power
TPB on Amazon.  Add Brody's Ghost vol 2 (no surprise there, vol 1 never did
show up) and Official Index to the Marvel Universe v2 #9.


"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 did get the Iron Patriot action figure, and
it's not too shabby, but it comes with the stupid plasma duncecap accessory.


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.

     The Transformers #15: IDW - So, having apparently decided to scrap
earlier plans and change direction a few months ago, Costa spends much of
this issue backfilling.  Apparently Rodimus's jobbing in #13 took place
several months before the events of #12, and this issue bounces all over to
fill in backstory.  Okay, so the actual plot elements make sense and have the
potential to be interesting, but it all feels like a continuity kludge, like
Costa got bored with the planned plot and rather than hand it off to another
writer so he could do something else, he just shifted direction and waved his
hands furiously to obfuscate any discontinuities.  In short, pretty much how
most of IDW's non-movie Transformers feels lately.  Mildly recommended.
$3.99  
     Adventure Comics #522: DC - DC's cover gimmick this month is white
backgrounds and floating characters over some sort of symbol (the obvious
Legion emblem here, but other books have abstractions of costume elements)
and a tiny title name in the upper right.  This particular cover has Scott
Clark doing tiny-waisted cheesecake of several female Legionnaires...most of
whom don't even appear in this issue (and one of whom is in a coma the entire
time).  It's really a Mon-El spotlight, if a bit meandering.  The "backup" is
a few pages of the DC Universe Online tie-in comic, meh.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99
     X-Factor #213: Marvel - An all-fallout issue, as the revelations of #212
sink in and get stirred around.  And Pip the Troll is apparently joining the
cast for a while, which will give M someone to toss off rooftops.  It also
does a decent job of working the book into the larger X-universe without
being excessive about things.  Recommended.  $2.99
     Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes #3: Marvel - Diamond's new experiment
with shipping on random days led to this arriving at my store last Friday,
oddly.  Again there's two stories written by Yost, with the first being in
animated style with art by Clevinger and the second in a more standard comic
book style drawn by Scherberger.  The lead story introduces the Elders of the
Universe, in which the Collector (who looks a lot like Adam Warlock) pits the
Hulk against a Grandmaster-controlled Thor.  Decent enough story.  The second
story is shorter than usual, featuring the Wasp protecting a fallen Captain
America from the Wendigo.  There's a bunch more datafile stuff at the end to
make up for this, including spoilers for unaired episodes of the show
(although for all I know, the relevant ep will air tonight).  Recommended.
$3.99 
     Iron Man Legacy #10: Marvel - Van Lente manages to work pretty much
everything we need to know about the Pride into this issue without it being
too terribly expository (for instance, rather than coming out and saying
where the alien members of the Pride are from, he simply has them recognize a
bit of relevant tech later on, which helps peg their origins).  And he's even
managed to fit a Big Damn Fight into the spaces between panels in Iron Man's
timeline (no, Tony versus the Serpent Society isn't a Big Damn Fight, at
least not by comparison).  Recommended.  $2.99
     Ant-Man and Wasp #3 (of 3): Marvel - A brilliant scientist puts a blonde
superhero in a series of inventive traps this issue.  Of course, the blonde
in question is Hank Pym and the scientist is Rappaccini, but I'm sure there's
fans of the role-reversal of the standard damsel in distress trope.  :)
Seeley does a good job overall of keeping everyone in character while letting
them interact in ways that aren't always a dead cert.  Marvel's three issue
minis always worry me, because you have to order the whole thing before the
first issue comes out, but this one runs counter to the usual, and is well
worth reading.  Strongly recommended.  $3.99


Awards:

"Gun Like A Think" Award to The Transformers #15

"Apparently Stars Are Very High In Calories" Award to Adventure Comics #522

"He's Probably That Kind Of Troll Too" Award to X-Factor #213

"Two Eyes, No Horns, And Not Particular About The Color Of The People He
     Eats" Award to Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes #3

"Masterminds And Mutants" Award to Iron Man Legacy #10

"With A Pitch Like That, It's No Wonder So Many People Join A.I.M." Award
     to Ant-Man and Wasp #3 (of 3) 

     Dave Van Domelen, "A.I.M. is the home of people like us.
Hyper-intelligent outcasts with an overriding desire to save the world from
the clutches of monkeys whose solution to problems is hitting them with a
stick." - Monica Rappaccini, Ant-Man and Wasp #3 (of 3)

     Bonus Quote: "I've developed one hundred and fifty-seven methods of
keeping you here long enough to hear my offer." - Monica Rappaccini, ibid,
demonstrating a dedication to the art of trapping rarely seen outside of
Scooby Doo.

Slide on the ice back to the January 2011 Page.