March 30, 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 
        Can we have a "Godzilla steps on Diamond" alternate cover?

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): The Amazing
Spider-Man #657

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 3/29/11: Shadowland Power Man #4, Transformers
Timelines G2 Redux, Love & Capes Ever After #2, Gold Digger #126, PS238 #49,
Time Lincoln Cuba Commander.  Add Transformers Dark of the Moon Rising Storm
#2.  

     Note, the only book on my pull that Diamond even shipped to my store was
Amazing Spider-Man.  The rest I found at Hastings.


"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 time.  I did get some free Iron Man figures in the mail
today from Hasbro's "Supercharge your holidays" promo (MkVI and glowy MkVI),
but don't feel like reviewing 'em.


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 today, but I posted a huge backlog review the other day.


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.

     Godzilla Kingdom of Monsters #1: IDW - I suppose one upside of having to
go to Hastings to look for 75% of my pull this week was that Hastings is one
of the stores with a special retailer-exclusive cover with Godzilla stepping
on their storefront.  And lest anyone think all of these incentive covers
were one or two templates with the logos swapped in, there's a gallery of all
75 different covers (Godzilla's foot is the same in all, but each store was
drawn separately).  Anyway, not a whole lot of story here, per se.  In a
world that's the same as the real world except that there's no fictional
kaiju, Godzilla emerges, rampages, shrugs off various attacks and heads for
Tokyo.  A...certain amount of disbelief is expressed by various characters,
but never any recognition.  The timing is perhaps a bit tacky, given real
life events in Japan right now, but considering that Godzilla's always been a
walking metaphor for nuclear devastation, it's also strangely appropriate.
Mildly recommended on its own merits, but if you're a kaiju fan it's
definitely worth picking up.  No price on the cover and I lost the receipt,
but I'm pretty sure it's $3.99.  [Later note: Some comic shops are making
donations to Japan relief for every copy of Godzilla sold.]
     Spider-Girl #5: Marvel - Mostly a running battle between Spider-Girl and
Ana Kravenoff (Kravenova?), with a few subplots getting a couple pages here
and there.  The Creepy Neighbor subplot gets a significant twist to it, and
while still sinister it's at least not as skeevy.  Mind you, the book's been
cancelled, so the Creepy Neighbor subplot probably won't get very far in the
time the title has left.  Anyway, it's a well-told running fight, emphasizing
skills and knowledge over powers or handwavy Special Techniques.
Recommended.  $2.99
     The Amazing Spider-Man #657: Marvel - And here's where Spider-Man's
joining of the FF ties into his own book.  This is a sort of private wake for
Johnny Storm, reminiscences of untold tales of Spidey and Torch as related by
each of the surviving three.  The rotating art is a bit uneven, but Slott's
story is very good.  Strongly recommended.  $3.99


Awards:

"You Have To Be %$@#ing Kidding Me!" Award to Godzilla Kingdom of Monsters #1

"This Is Why You Put Points Into Area Knowledge" Award to Spider-Girl #5

"Graduate Of The Ork School Of Design" Award to The Amazing Spider-Man #657

     Dave Van Domelen, "Tell me he doesn't ACTUALLY believe that."  "I'm not
sure.  He also puts fins on all of our deep space vehicles."  "But in a
vacuum they wouldn't do anything."  "I know, but -- " - Spider-Man and Reed
Richards, referring to Johnny Storm, The Amazing Spider-Man #657

Arrive late to the March 2011 Page.