March 23, 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 
     Oops, I forgot to put something on this line last week.  Ah well.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None, but it
was a really slow week.

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 3/23/11: Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8, Chaos War
Dead Avengers #1 *, Shadowland Power Man #4, Transformers Timelines G2 Redux,
Widowmaker #3 *, Invincible #77 *, Widowmaker #4 *, Atomic Robo Deadly Art of
Science #3 *, Transformers Foundation #1 *, Love & Capes Ever After #2, Comic
Book Comics #5 *, Legion of Super-Villains one-shot *, Gold Digger #126,
Adventure #524, Transformers Foundation #2 *, PS238 #49, Time Lincoln Cuba
Commander.  * are titles a friend has grabbed for me from his store and will
be mailing to me at some point.  Add Power Man and Iron Fist #3.


"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.

     Marvel Universe figure 033 Iron Man 2020: Hasbro - On March 17,
Hasbrotoyshop.com was having a free shipping deal, this looked decent, so I
ordered it.  Mistake.  As cheese as some of the remolds have been in the Iron
Man movie line, this is even worse.  There's a head remold, but all the other
distinctive details of Arno Stark's suit are made from rubbery plastic that's
barely connected to the toy.  The chest/shoulders piece is glued onto the
unibeam spot, the belt isn't glued at all.  And to add insult, the
"accessory" is that same stupid plasma cone thing that most of the Iron Man
toys seem to get in this line.  Pass on this piece of crap.  $8 price point.

     Iron Man Armored Avenger Concept Series Subterranean Armor: Hasbro -
Same order as the Iron Man 2020.  They've ditched the Iron Man 2 trade dress
and restarted the numbering, this one is 05.  This toy is a red and gold
redeco of the Deep Dive Armor, which was Recommended back on March 3, 2010.
The stand and the never-happened game cards are replaced by a shoulder-
mounted rig with two rock saws, spring loaded so the blades don't stay down
unless you press the "upper arms" all the way down to lock.  The ball joints
at the "elbows" of the saws pop out easily, so it's not the greatest of
accessories.  Still, it's a good base mold, and the retool is at least
half-assed (2020 is at best quarter-assed).  And it wouldn't be too hard to
modify the forearms so that the saws could plug in there instead.  :) Oh, and
the right hand can just barely keep a grip on one of the saws at the ball
part of the joint, although the left is molded just differently enough that
it can't.  Mildly recommended.  $8 price point.


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.

     Turns out I already had Halo & Sprocket vol 2, I'd merely misfiled it.
So now I have a spare to give someone as a gift.


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.

     Legion of Super-Heroes #11: DC - This picks up in the wake of the Legion
of Super-Villains one-shot that I have yet to read, but it doesn't really
require knowing more than what's tossed out in early exposition.  In fact,
it's tied more to JSA than LSV, since Thom is finally brought back home.  For
the most part, this is scattered scenes without a strong central story, but
the implication is that next issue more of the threads will be pulled
together.  A decent read, if a touch steeped in deeper continuity (i.e. Vi's
line about being in a stasis tube doesn't seem so bad unless you know the
backstory).  Recommended.  $2.99
     Invincible #78: Image - Two for two, an aftermath to an issue I have yet
to read.  This one is a leeeetle bit harder to follow, since a war-ending
treaty of some sort was hammered out in #77 and the nature of it only roughly
outlined here.  Still, the main emphasis this issue is on repairing the
personal relationships strained by a year of absence and presumptions of
death.  And, this part being a nice touch, the vaguely sinister government
organization actually standing down its contingency plans now that the war is
over, rather than going ahead and putting an ethically questionable and very
dangerous program into operation.  Recommended.  $2.99


Awards:

"Clearly He Turned Evil When The Other Cosplayers Mocked This Suit" Award to
     Iron Man 2020 action figure

"Underwater, Underground...Whatevs" Award to Subterranean Armor Iron Man
     action figure

"Gamera Is Really Neat, But May Have A Criminal Record" Award to Legion of
     Super-Heroes #11

"Somehow, I Don't See That Staying Low-Profile For Long" Award to Invinicible
     #78

     Dave Van Domelen, "Despite all logic, my feelings for you short-lived,
small-brained, foolish idiots are sufficient that I have chosen to spend my
life among YOU, instead of on my own world where my intellect would be
suitably HONORED...because you are truly my friends.  Stop sniffling."
- about as warm and fuzzy as Querl Dox gets.

Arrive late to the March 2011 Page.