June 16, 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 
     A "scattered shower" decided to set up shop here all afternoon.

     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.

     None 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.

     Transformers Nefarious #4: IDW - I got cover B, with Ransack strafing
the twins.  Eat hot photons, ya turbo-revvin' punks!  Sadly, artist Magno
practically ignores the nifty Ransack toy and designs a Random Pile Of Panels
robot that bears almost no resemblance to...well, anything much.  Bah.  On a
similar note, the blocking suggests that we're supposed to recognize the
character in the Last Page Reveal, but it's another Bayformery mess and rings
no bells.  Furman's story is decent, at least, and he manages to make the
twins in-story annoying without being annoying to the reader.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.99
     REBELS #17: DC - The cover kinda gives away the big plot twist, eh?
That aside, it's a decent enough story of interstellar conflict from Bedard,
and the two new GL rookies are explained a little better.  An old LSH
character gets another new origin story in the teaser at the end, too.
Recommended.  $2.99
     The Amazing Spider-Man #633: Marvel - I'm surprised it took this long
for a production delay to cause the thrice-monthly book to accordion like
this (including coming out at the same time as Web of Spider-Man, which I
thought was supposed to be the off-week book).  Not that I was champing at
the bit to read the end of this arc...just to *see* it end.  Anyway, it's
over, and Wells took the opportunity to finally write an end to the Negative
May subplot.  Yes, I know this was meant to be the absolute lowest point, so
that when the Grim Hunt kicked off Peter would be as put-upon as possible,
but there's such a thing as piling on too much.  Frankly, taking away Rhino's
happy ending should have been enough, this was just despair porn padding.
Neutral.  $2.99
     The Amazing Spider-Man #634: Marvel - New arc with main story by Joe
Kelly and a couple of backups (the cover gives away the twist ending of
DeMatteis's backup, oops).  The spider hunt is on in earnest, with a bit more
killing and maiming to make sure the reader knows they're Deadly Serious (but
not Deadly Ernest, he's an Alpha Flight villain).  On the other hand, Kelly's
a lot better than Wells at keeping the humor flowing amid the darkness, both
intentionally dark humor and "Spidey doesn't yet realize how deep this goes
and so does his usual schtick" humor.  That laughing past the graveyard
actually does more than the blood and guts to make this feel dire, because
it's clear to the reader that Spider-Man hasn't yet grasped the kind of
trouble he's in.  You get more Impending Doom that way.  The main backup is
an "untold tale of Kraven" and deals with the original's weltschmerz (I don't
know enough about the mid-90s retcons to say if it's set shortly before
Kraven's Last Hunt, or well before it, though).  The last backup is billed on
the cover as "Spidey Sundays" although the two-pager itself doesn't say it's
a newspaper strip reprint.  It's done by the newspaper team, though (Stan Lee
and Marcos Martini).  Recommended.  $3.99
     Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update #2 (of 5): Marvel -
Definitely one of the weirder updates, with stuff like King Solomon's Frogs,
Night Shift and Verminus Rex.  Oh, there's some old standbys like Attuma or
Maximus.  But there's a lot of demonic and generally bizarre stuff here.  :)
Recommended.  $3.99
     Age of Heroes #2 (of 4): Marvel - Heroic Age banner.  Like #1, there's
four stories, the lead (Gravity) taking half the issue, the second (American
Son) taking most of what's left, then a two-pager (Young Masters) and a
one-pager (Gauntlet).  Speaking of production goofs, the Gravity story is a
prequel to last week's Young Allies, although despite also being written by
Sean McKeever doesn't really feel like it fits together.  However, at least
it's a story complete unto itself, unlike the second story, which is little
more than an ad for the new American Son series.  The Young Masters two-pager
is confusingly laid out, going across the top half of both pages first
without any obvious cues.  Even as vignettes go, though, it's not worth the
effort to decode, it's a clumsy introduction to the characters and little
more.  Slott's one-pager is okay, but rather saccharine.  Mildly
recommended.  $3.99
     Atlas #2: Marvel - Ah, the smell of retcons in the morning.  While 3-D
Man was part of the "What If?" 1950s Avengers, he was left out of the revived
Agents of Atlas backstory, which stuck with actual Atlas characters (3-D Man
being a retro-50s implant created in the 70s).  But as this particular plot
thickens, we get to see memories of events in the untold history of
Department Zero...both with and without the original 3-D Man along for the
ride.  And therein lies the mystery.  There's also implications that we may
not have gotten the full story behind the crystal fragments that empower the
various 3-D Men, that there was a missing step or two left out of Tremont's
story back in Avengers.  Meanwhile, Gorilla Man keeps up Spider-Man-like
levels of snappy patter.  :)  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 6/16/10: Gold Digger Peebri's Big Adventure #2,
Invincible #72, Prince of Power #2, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #3, Gold
Digger v3 #118.

Awards:

"Because Silent, Mind-Controlled Characters Are SO Interesting To Read"
     Award to Transformers Nefarious #4

"Not Exactly DOVE-Tailing..." Award to REBELS #17

"A Piece Of Shed" Award to The Amazing Spider-Man #633

"Does Peter Porker Get The Human Flu?" Award to The Amazing Spider-Man #634

"It Doesn't Say If Lady Bullseye's Costume Is A Patterned Body Stocking Or
     White Makeup And Electrical Tape" Award to Official Handbook of the
     Marvel Universe A-Z Update #2 (of 5)

"Either This Is A Power I Hadn't Seen Before, Or A Really Weird Cover Art
     Error" Award to Age of Heroes #2 (of 4)

"Gorillas: the Ultimate Trump Suit" Award to Atlas #2

     Dave Van Domelen, "Once again...who ARE you people?"  "CLEARLY we're the
inner circle of a secret society that goes back to the MONGOL EMPIRE and has
a DRAGON ADVISOR, duh." - 3-D Man and Gorilla Man, Atlas #2

Or precipitate back to the June 2010 Rants Page.