March 9, 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 Epic fail. Diamond only shipped two of the books I ordered. And the store only had 8 or 9 titles arrive in total. Weaksauce. Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None. It seems like lately all of the potentially noteworthy books simply never ship to my part of the state. 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 3/9/11: Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8, Chaos War Dead Avengers #1, Shadowland Power Man #4, Transformers Timelines G2 Redux, Widowmaker #3, Invincible #77, Widowmaker #4, and Atomic Robo Deadly Art of Science #3, Transformers Foundation #1, Love & Capes Ever After #2 and Comic Book Comics #5. Add Legion of Super-Villains one-shot and Gold Digger #126. No one had Grim Ghost #1, which I was thinking of picking up if I could find it. "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. 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 #17: IDW - Had to get this at Hastings. The issue title is "Burning Chrome," but when Gibson used it he meant burning in the sense of a grift and Chrome was someone's handle. It's boringly literal here. Next issue is "The Demolished Man," which I'm betting won't involve psis. It's one thing to make references, it's another to make people think of much better stories while reading yours. And while this isn't a bad issue, writing-wise, it's no Burning Chrome. Mildly recommended. $3.99 Booster Gold #42: DC - Well, the reason for the jail sentence is revealed, sort of. The broad strokes are, and Booster is done with his jail time at the start of the issue, but then the rest is flashback ending on a not-terribly-cliffhangy cliffhanger. Assuming Batista didn't screw things up on the art, all of the complications introduced this issue are resolved. A clever idea, but dull execution. Mildly recommended. $2.99 Hawkeye Blind Spot #2 (of 4): Marvel - Loads of flashbacks (with a different artist who kindasorta manages a 60s/70s Marvel style) and pondering, broken up by a few fights with Steve Rogers (in flashback and present day). A big chunk of this issue is devoted to making sure people can follow the main plot without needing to have read a bunch of older comics, which is good craftsmanship on McCann's part in terms of writing for the trade, but does make for a somewhat thin issue if you know Hawkeye's background already. The Final Page Shocker may or may not lead to a retcon, it's entirely possible there's simply a big piece of misdirection in play. Mildly recommended. $2.99 Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #12: Marvel - I am shocked, SHOCKED that I had to get this at someplace other than my regular comic shop. Anyway, this is a filler issue by Raicht, not Tobin, and is a fairly forgettable Hulk story that's reprinted from Marvel Age Hulk #4, with equally forgettable art by an Udon guy (who at least gets his name in the credits, sometimes it's just "art by Udon Studio"). Mildly recommended. $2.99 I also saw Guarding the Globe #4 on the shelf at Hastings, the first time I've seen any copies of this series in hardcopy form. But it took two skim-throughs to be certain it wasn't just a repeat of #2, so I think I'll keep this book as dropped. Awards: Sorry, a disappointing week on both quantity and quality, gonna skip the awards this week. Dave Van Domelen, suspects he won't have to give up on comics, Diamond will simply stop shipping anything he wants to read.
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