February 29, 2024

     Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
     Generally Monthly 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 month.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
     I'm okay, the huge wildfire near Amarillo is only "Texas Near".

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Justice League
Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One, The Way of the Househusband vol 11, Hilo
vol 10: Rise of the Cat 

     In this installment: The Marvels, Justice League X RWBY Superheroes &
Huntsmen Part Two, Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1, Adventure
Finders Book 3 Chapter 16 Part 1, Chainsaw Man vol 14, Mr. Villain's Day Off
vol 1-3, The Way of the Househusband vol 11, The Way of the Househusband: The
Gangster's Guide to Housekeeping, Dreadstar vs. the Inevitable, Hilo vol 10:
Rise of the Cat, Fantastic Four #16-17, Superman Lost #10 (of 10), Gargoyles
Dark Ages #5 (of 6?), Vampirella/Dracula Rage #4 (of 6), Mech Cadets #5, My
Little Pony Classics Reimagined Valentine's Day Special: Romeo & Juliet. 


"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.

     The Marvels: Disney/Marvel - Yes, trying to give meaningful arcs to
three main characters (two of which had their own starring roles previously)
is a bit tricky, and sometimes it feels more like Captain Marvel 2 with some
sidekicks.  Monica's and Kamala's stories are heavily about how the two of
them interact with Carol (lingering bitterness and feelings of abandonment in
the first case, squeeing fangirling in the second) while Carol is just really
uncomfortable with all the mistakes she's made coming back to haunt her.
Still, they are all thematically tied together pretty well, and if the plot
device of Hala's condition is a bit Silver Agey in the bad way, it does
provide a solid reason for the teamup beyond "they were all Marvel ladies in
the comics."  In terms of execution, I concur with the voices saying that the
planet where everyone sings was rather underused, but otherwise I enjoyed the
movie even if I could see the structural underpinnings visible behind the
curtain on occasion.  Recommended.  Price varies by format and store, also
available on Disney+. 
     
     Justice League X RWBY Superheroes & Huntsmen Part Two: DC/WB - The
places I shop for media did not put this out on the front spots when it came
out, so this might've come out a few months ago, oops.  Anyway, the crossover
wraps up with scenes mostly in the JL's world (which has definite similarity
to the Tomorrowverse but is not quite the same).  Some of the plot devices
are a touch contrived, and it has that "kinda empty world" feeling generally
found in lower budget CG animation, but the writing does a decent job of
giving most of the characters some time to shine.  Oh, and while part 1 was
deliberately vague about placement in RWBY continuity (because it was a plot
point that they weren't sure), this one places it solidly in the "after I
stopped following RWBY" part of the timeline.  Recommended for dumb action
fun.  Price varies by store and format. 

     Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One: DC/WB - Okay, when I
got to the end of War World and saw that the next installment in the
"Tomorrowverse" would be Crisis, I was...skeptical.  It felt like DC was
doing it again, trying to get the Big Event without laying enough groundwork.
But I'm happy to say I was wrong this time.  As revealed in the bonus
features, the Tomorrowverse was designed from the beginning to justify CoIE
and they made sure to include enough to make it work.  Plus, the first half
or so of this movie is focused on Flash, who has become a little Unstuck In
Time and is reliving important points in his career, mostly around the
founding of the Justice League, his first (and last) trip to Earth-3, and his
relationship with Iris West.  (There is a short bit where we see why the
Tomorrowverse Batman has no Robin.)  Thus, when the Antimatter Wave is
revealed, we get to see how Barry was in the right places and times to put
together the important bits and play a starring role in saving the world, if
only temporarily (since this is, you know, Part One).  His heroic sacrifice
is much more organic and affecting than "gotta catch the tachyon" from the
comics, and he gets rewarded for his heroism along the way instead of just
being killed off shortly after his own book got cancelled.  Also, the "not
revealed but you can't miss it" identity of the new Pariah is perfect.
Strongly Recommended.  Price varies by store and format. 

     Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur season 2 dropped this month.  The entire
season.  And I'm getting really tired of season drops, it makes it hard for
me to motivate to watch at all...give me weekly episodes again, please.
Anyway, I've only watched the first ep of the season so far, but it's a
promising start.


Digital Content:

     Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of
regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column.
Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for
reading online or for download, usually for pay.

     Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 16 Part 1: Patreon.com - Another
double-sized issue being released in halves so that Patreon subscribers get
something this month.  :)  This is basically the Big Boss Fight, where the
only sane response is to run away so of course Clari and most of her friends
fight.  (A few do run, though, although at least one has Very Good Reason to
want to stay away from the Boss beyond the obvious desire to not die.)  It's
the standard "throw everything at the monster and it's not enough" start to
the fight, complete with a few of the characters leveling up for the occasion
and it's still not enough.  The tone of the series is such that a TPK wipe is
not in the offing, but at the same time a retreat in defeat at the end of
part 2 is still plausible.  Recommended.  $2/month and up from Rod Espinosa's
main Patreon. 


Trades:

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

     Chainsaw Man vol 14: Viz - I almost didn't pick this one up.  The shift
in focus away from the title character to someone else hadn't really been
grabbing me...sure, it's the same world, and Denji does show up a little, but
the "Denji as reluctant big brother to the new Control Devil" thing indicated
at the end of vol 11 was just not materializing.  However, the back cover
copy of this volume got me to give it one more try, and I was rewarded by
seeing that big brother thing finally coming into the book.  Plus some really
awkward dates between two people inhabited by Devils but probably less
knowledgeable about how dating works than the devils are.  And one of the
devils is a chainsaw dog, so.  In this volume the next meta-arc plot gets set
up, raising the stakes way above the "War Devil has a personal beef with
Chainsaw Devil" arc of the last two volumes.  Recommended.  $11.99/$15.99Cn/
#8.99UK.  Rated Older Teen, mostly for horror elements but also some
low-detail breasts.

     Mr. Villain's Day Off vol 1-3: Square Enix Manga - These are collections
of short features from a website called Pixiv, which I gather from the
Wikipedia page is kind of a Japanese version of deviantArt but with an
increasing corporate presence.  Most installments are 4-6 pages depending on
whether they include a version of the premise page, and except for the last
story in vol 3, the longest stories run to 3 installments.  The premise is
that there's a Power Rangers universe, but just as the Rangers have civilian
IDs, so to do the boss monsters.  The protagonist, known as The General,
spends his days off in a fairly human-passing form indulging in various local
culture, cuisine, and touristy attractions.  So, like Go Go Loser Ranger,
this is an inverted Super Sentai story where the protagonist is one of the
baddies.  But this is more of an office comedy mixed with a fish out of water
comedy of manners and errors.  The General is a salaryman supervillain,
trying to avoid coworkers when not at work, and having to deal with red tape
and weird underlings in the rare strips where's on the job.  The closest we
get to an overall plan is when the General occasionally vows that some aspect
of Earth culture or environment will be preserved once his people conquer the
world and flee their own dying one for Earth (he is particularly fond of
pandas).  He frequently encounters the Red Dawn Ranger on his days off, and
the two establish a detente...made possible in part because Red is a bit of a
himbo.  A few other members of the Rangers are introduced along the way, if
slowly...the Pink Daybreak Ranger is kinda the flip side of the protagonist
in Magical Girl Incident, she wanted to be a magical girl and ended up a
ranger.  By the end of volume 3, we know all of the Rangers and their
origins/cosmology, and it's rather bittersweet.  Recommended.  $14.99/
$19.99Cn per volume, rated Teen, but I'm not sure why...maybe it's because of
the occasional scary monster "on the clock" look.

     The Way of the Househusband vol 11: Viz - Definitely firing on all
cylinders this time around.  One definitely gets the feeling that Katsu's
bloody swath through the underworld left a LOT of Yakuza out of work, because
it seems like ex-Yakuza form a major part of the local economy...and people
are generally fairly unbothered by this.  In fact, the rare story in which
someone IS freaked out (such as the salaryman going to the after-hours bar
run as a hobby by several of the series regulars) stands out.  The volume
starts strong with a visit to an amusement park providing some extra depth to
the often one-note ex-Yakuza characters, and it rarely falters.  Strongly
recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK.  Rated Older Teen for lots of implied
violence and gangland culture. 

     The Way of the Househusband: The Gangster's Guide to Housekeeping: Viz -
When I went to get volume 11, the store hadn't put it out on the shelf yet,
but next to where it would have been I spotted this book, so on impulse I
decided to get it.  It distills all the various househusbandry tips from the
first ten volumes into a guidebook, written mainly in Tatsu's voice and
interspersed with both panels from the manga and new (to me, anyway) chibi
spot illustrations.  It also has a cookbook section, for those wishing to try
making some of the recipes seen on the page.  (It doesn't include the useful
tip from volume 11, to put a little baking soda on ramen to render the
noodles more firm and chewy.)  I'm fairly set in my housekeeping ways, but I
can see this being a very useful resource for people newly living on their
own and wanting an "adulting" guide that's more geared towards the manga fan.
Recommended.  $24.99/$33.99Cn/#19.99UK/$36.99Aus (191 pages, hardcover) 

     Dreadstar vs. the Inevitable: Monkey Wrench Press - The second
crowdfunded Dreadstar book from Jim Starlin, this features Dreadstar and
company trying to defeat or deter the world-killing threat that they were
warned about in the previous volume.  This is basically a Galactus story, but
with the resources available to Vanth et al.  And there's also real world
politics in here, more integrated than the incident last time, and the whole
thing ends up turning into a COVID lockdown metaphor.  Along the way, we
finally get to see that at least some of Peter David's stories are part of
the vague timeline, and the next volume promises to clarify it further, if
not to the benefit of the newer characters.  (There have been statements that
there's rights issues around reprinting the PAD stuff due to how the property
was handed off legally, which would explain dancing around everything that
happened after #40 of the original series.  But going into Kalla's story
suggests that at least the content of the Malibu stuff is easier to include,
even if actual reprints are still up in the air.)  Now, if you're a fan of
the old Dreadstar, you probably already backed this, and it's a bit more
expensive post-crowdfunding, but if you're in that tiny slice who are
interested but didn't know about the crowdfunding campaign, it's a decent
followup (even if the political inserts are on the blunt instrument side).
$39.95 ($30 plus shipping as a backer on Kickstarter, there will probably be
copies available as add-ons for the volume 3 campaign). 

     Hilo vol 10: Rise of the Cat: Random House Kids - Meanwhile, during (and
at least partially following) the events of the epilogue to the previous
volume, Polly the magical cat and her brother Pip are back home and it's time
to pay the piper for all of the stuff they've been doing lately.  Like, oh,
relocating all of the sapient robots Razorwark created to their homeworld.
Or teaching Gina magic, which resulted in the previous arc's shenanigans.
And, well, shenanigans in general.  And in specific. So it's off to magical
reform school for them, where they get to deal with a mystery as well as
dealing with a new friend and the prejudice she faces from other students.
(On the one hand, this IS a school for troublesome sorts, which means the
bullies are more incorrigible.  On the other, we saw enough before going to
the reform school to know that almost everyone on the planet shares this
prejudice, they're just more refined about their snubbing and insulting.)
There is almost no actual Hilo in this volume, but his influence is
indirectly felt quite a bit.  But given that the vaguely Scottish sorcerous
cats tend to steal every scene they're in anyway, it's only moot to give them
an entire book. They may not be commoners, technically, but they are quite
unsettling nonetheless.  Hazzah!  Strongly recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn 


Floppies:

     No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they
*are* floppy, yes?  (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular
schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even
"Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)

     The local shop I briefly shopped at has separated its online and brick
and mortar businesses, and the new storefront is open now, but they still
have a "no opening up the books because we need to preserve mintness" policy,
and I am not gonna judge books by their covers.  So I will continue not
picking up any comics titles on impulse (although I do still pick up manga on
impulse because Barnes & Noble is cool with browsing). 

     Fantastic Four #16-17: Marvel - Now that the big arc is resolved, it's
time for some done in ones again, and the first is getting the newly returned
kids into school in Arizona...because New York City isn't sure they want any
of the extended Richards/Grimm families back any time soon, best to not poke
the municipal bear.  So, we get an object lesson in why being overqualified
is a valid reason to not hire someone...they get bored and make their own
challenges.   Oops.  #17 is technically a retcon, but in such a way that it
spackles over itself.  An interesting bit of "Bill & Ted time travel" but
taken slightly more seriously.  Both issues recommended.  $3.99 

     Superman Lost #10 (of 10): DC - Priest is a firm believer in putting the
toys back on the shelf when he's done with them, so it shouldn't be too
surprising that (even if DC believed in continuity anymore) other writers
won't need to deal with any changes to Superman.  On the other hand, he's
also a firm believer in putting characters on the bus rather than killing
them, so a lot of stuff is still available if anyone DOES want to pick up on
any of the themes.  So, much like FF #17 it kinda spackles over itself, but
leaves just enough danglers and a hook to be picked up if anyone at DC
decides to do so.  On the one hand, some parts of this might be more
satisfying if they made it explicitly an Elseworlds, but on the other hand
finding a way to fix things is a core part of Superman's identity and the
promise he made at the start.  While it may ultimately feel a bit narratively
unsatisfying, Superman is Superman not just because of his power, not just
because of his hope, but because when presented with an impossible choice he
can find that secret third thing and make it work.  (Disclaimer: my advisory
role ran out about halfway through the series, I didn't know where this was
going either.)  Recommended.  $4.99 

     Gargoyles Dark Ages #5 (of 6): Dynamite - Well, I suppose "why are they
the Wyvern Clan?" was a question that could be answered, and it's answered
here.  The text piece backup continues, and I continue to not read it because
I find the prose style kinda bleh.  The main story ends one page after the
staple, because Dynamite comics are about one third house ads and variant
cover galleries by volume...I think if they did the retro thing and put the
ads between story pages it might feel more satisfying, instead of hitting the
halfway point and then the story's done for the issue.  And yes, I'm
complaining a lot more about structural things than engaging with the story,
because I didn't really engage much with the story in the first place.  This
series did start off stronger than the main book, but it's losing me too.
I'm certainly not getting the collection of the previous comics...for such a
great cartoon, Gargoyles doesn't seem to have much luck with generating good
comics.  Neutral.  $4.99 

     Vampirella/Dracula Rage #4 (of 6): Dynamite - See, this one DOES
intersperse the ads among the pages, which can be a little confusing since
several of the ads are for other Vampirella books, but despite the story page
count being the same as Gargoyles, it felt more like a full issue,
physically.  Of course, it also helps that Priest is being very twisty with
interweaving multiple timeframe plot threads in this series, making for
rather "chewy" individual issues...if sometimes a bit gristly (and grisly,
but this is technically a horror comic).  Vampi is dancing up to the line of
abomination in her quest for vengeance and thinks she's not crossing it, but
this time she's forced to pause and at least recognize that she can't just
get her vengeance against the deserving, not without collateral damage.
Recommended.  $3.99  

     Mech Cadets #5 (of 6): Boom! Studios - The team is still split and
mostly not all that combat-capable in the half that's at the sharp end, so
this is a very talky issue.  Some of the talk is good, some of it feels like
marking time because the story is being wedged into the 6-issue format.
Unfortunately, one thing that continues in this arc from previous ones is the
theme that whoever's technically in charge of the Mech program is always
wrong-headed and their plans will get people needlessly killed.  It's getting
kinda old that the command structure feels like the main antagonist.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.99 

     My Little Pony Classics Reimagined Valentine's Day Special, Romeo &
Juliet: IDW - The last for now of the Classics Reimagined (nothing currently
solicited except a Unicorn of Odd collection), this one admits in-story that
it's gonna need a LOT of modification to be pony-safe.  It's also rather more
compressed than the previous adaptations, doing it in a single issue rather
than taking four issues (about triple the pagecount, I think this is slightly
oversized) to do it, so it's a lot more surface of a treatment.  Still fun,
but not on the level of Little Fillies or Unicorn of Odd.  Recommended.
$4.99 


     Dave Van Domelen, "Oh.  A giant eyeball tentacle monster."  "It's
DISGUSTING."  "I love it."  "Me too." - Polly and Pip, Hilo vol 10