March 31, 2010

     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 
    Ten days ago, snow.  Today, mid to upper 80s F.  Love Kansas weather.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None

"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.

     The Cartoon History of the United States: Harper - This is an omnibus
edition of a two-volume work originally published in 1987-8 and first
collected together in 1991.  While the indicia say nothing on the matter, I
suspect that this 2005 Harper edition has a new cover, to judge from the art
style.  And man, is the art different.  Some of this is style evolution (plus
when the 1960s are covered, Gonick adopts an R. Crumb homage), but even
compared to early issues of Cartoon History of the Universe published about
the same time there's differences that suggest that he rushed the art on this
one, especially in the opening chapters.  Combine that with the style
evolution, and reading this right after Modern World Part II is...jarring.
(Minor nitpick on top of that: the omnibus edition renumbers the pages to be
continuous, and the index reflects this, but in-page references in the second
half weren't corrected to match the new pagination.)
     As for the writing, it fits the "thematic chunking" style he's still
using to this day, not much of a shift there.  Rather than working in a
purely linear fashion, he'll take a theme (like slavery or the women's
movement) and cover a range of a few decades around the current point in the
timeline, then move on to another topic.  Some topics get revisited several
times, rather than presenting the entire thing from 1585-1991.  But it does
allow for a more coherent reading experience than you'd get from a "here's
what happened in 1856, now here's 1857..." sort of pacing.  Of course, the
biggest "problem" with the writing is that it ends in the early 90s with a
fairly gloomy outlook.  Modern World II also ends on such an outlook, but it
always comes across less well with a two decade remove, since we now know we
didn't go foom immediately.  :)
     Overall, it suffers a bit from rushed art and some pre-computer
production values, but it's still a good read.  Recommended.  $17.99 cover
price, $12.23 at Amazon.com (eligible for free shipping on orders over $25,
and together with Cartoon History of the Modern World Part II that's just
barely over $25).

     X-Factor #203: Marvel - This one is all Strong Guy and M off on a side
story.  A bit of psychodrama for each separately, but Guido hogs all the
fight scenes.  The villain is built up slowly, but a bit oddly.  By the time
of the reveal, those who would recognize him in the first place will have
already figured it out, but those who wouldn't probably weren't enlightened
by the reveal, since he's not exactly a traditional X-foe.  Recommended.
$2.99 
     Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #3: IDW - Ow.  After seeing a
five page preview, there were predictions that a particular character
probably wouldn't survive the arc...but he didn't survive page SIX.  That's
brutal, but totally in keeping with the Wreckers' schtick.  I also
appreciated that Verity was neither totally unimportant nor implausibly
effective.  Definitely one of the better Transformers comics in the modern
era.  Recommended.  $3.99

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 #5: IDW - I got cover A, with Figueroa's Stunticons.
There's a footnote that clarifies that this issue happens after the Bumblebee
miniseries, so we have at least one reference point.  :)  The first half of
the issue is Prime philosophizing at Spike, then Spike mulling things over.
The second half is the inevitable confrontation with Rodimus's group and the
equally inevitable doublecross.  Said doublecross involves Figueroa's new
design for Menasor, which looks even more like the limb robots are simply
being worn as armor rather than being integral to the combined mode...Menasor
has a lot of kibble.  Prime's bit is a little stock and/or cliche, but at
least it makes sense.  Bumblebee mainly wibbles, showing little of the
character growth experienced in his miniseries.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99
     Adventure Comics #9: DC - Last Stand of New Krypton banner, with
s-diamond crossover number 35 (last issue was 30, so there's four parts
theoretically missing for me).  Again it's split into several short pieces.
The lead piece has Querl Dox mostly flashing back on the his predecessors in
between parts of the actual story (starting with a "don't read until you've
read X!" blurb and ending with a "to be continued in Y!")...it nails down a
few bits of the Brainiac lineage, but deliberately leaves plenty of wiggle
room so it can be largely ignored later.  (Saying that Vril Dox Jr. is killed
because of his own plots blowing up in his face doesn't really narrow matters
down or constitute a spoiler.)  The Connor/Espionage Squad story does a tiny
bit more in terms of advancing the overall plot, but it's still pretty
cardboard.  The only story contained solely within Adventure Comics,
featuring one of Zod's undercover agents...is boring.  I do not find the
focus character interesting, the idea of Sam Lane as a poor copy of
Thunderbolt Ross is weak, and the art is nothing to write home about.  All in
all, I may consider dropping Adventure until the diamond is off the cover.
Two unsatisfying nibbles of a mega-crossover plus a weak backup do not equal
a book worth my time or money.  Neutral.  $3.99
     Justice Society of America #37: DC - More flashbacks from the future as
Mr. Terrific narrates the battle with the Fourth Reich and how it led up to
Nazis taking over the world.  Months of buildup and hinting and...eh.  I
think it would have worked better without the fake suspense, if they'd just
laid out six months ago what it was about and told the story forward rather
than in Ominous Looking Back Narration.  It's strongly hinted that this will
be undone by time travel, but I suspect that the reset button will take a
different form.  Assuming Willingham isn't totally phoning it in, that is.
Mildly recommended.  $2.99
     Astro City the Dark Age Book Four #3 (of 4): DC/Wildstorm - Ghost Rider
meets the Punisher at his most irrational, that's pretty much what the Pale
Rider seems to be.  The pacing feels a bit off here, a lot of montage pages
as if Busiek realized too late that he really could have used another issue
or two in this book and had to squeeze things down in #3 in order to flesh
out events that ended up in #2 or #4.  There's also two Inspirational Moments
that don't really resonate, although the second one I suspect was supposed to
fall flat, feel insufficient to the needs of the day.  Mildly recommended.
$3.99 
     She-Hulk Sensational #1 (of 1): Marvel - Well, this is the 30th
Anniversary Special for She-Hulk, consisting of two new stories and a reprint
of Sensational She-Hulk #40 (the one with the "naked jump rope" sequence).
Peter David writes the first one, which is decidedly non-continuity, a bit
whiny (as to be expected given that Shulkie doesn't even have her own regular
book right now) and full of the usual "pushed too far to be funny anymore"
humor that happens when PAD's not restraining himself.  I did like the design
of Misstro, though.  The second piece, by Brian Reed, looks like it might
have started life as a Ms. Marvel issue, albeit a good done in one Ms. Marvel
issue.  And the reprint is what it is, slightly more fourth-wall-breaking
than PAD's lead story.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99
     The Amazing Spider-Man #627: Marvel - Roger Stern picks up the writing
hat this issue, with Lee Weeks on art.  I've been amusing myself the past few
issues playing the "could this have been in the can before they decided to
fire Peter?" game, seeing how much it would take to excise all references to
that event, on the assumption that the rotating writing team might have been
caught off-guard by a late decision to change direction and they might have
had to go back and do some patching.  This one could easily have been set
before the firing, just change a few thought bubbles and small talk speech
bubbles.  :)  Anyway, as to the actual story, it's awash in continuity, much
of it written by Roger Stern himself.  Still, Stern has a light hand with the
flashbacks, establishes a mystery and has it (start to) pay off by the last
page.  Nice, solid storytelling.  Recommended.  $2.99

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 3/31/10: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Gold Digger v3 #105, Gold Digger Sacred Library #3, Marvel Boy:
the Uranian #3.  Add Gold Digger v3 #116

Awards:

"Well, American History IS Kinda Sketchy" Award to The Cartoon History of 
     the United States

"Guzzle Needs A Hug" Award to Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #3

"When Did She Pose For That Picture?" Award to X-Factor #203

"I Bet He Could Do It At 150mph" Award to The Transformers #5

"It's Not Bad Science, He Just Wanted Everyone To Think They Were Helping"
     Award to Adventure Comics #9

"They Gotta Be Captains To Command The Minions" Award to Justice Society of
     America #37

"Hey, He Stole Han Solo's Gun!" Award to Astro City the Dark Ages Book Four
     #3 (of 4)

"You'd Think Dan Slott Would Own A Nicer Outfit" Award to She-Hulk
     Sensational #1 (of 1)

"Gonna Need To Launder That Costume Again After The Duct-Shimmy" Award to
     The Amazing Spider-Man #627

     Dave Van Domelen, "Hang on...you're saying the evil crazy terrorist army
doesn't have enough liquid capital to be both evil AND crazy?" - She-Hulk,
the Reed story in She-Hulk Sensational #1

Alternately freeze and bake back to March 2010's reviews.