November 17, 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 big chunk of that $400,000 order got shipped anyway.  Oops.

     Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Fnord.

"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.  I liked Skyline for the slasher flick that it was,
though. 


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.

     Ant-Man & Wasp #1 (of 3): Marvel - This wasn't on my pull, but it came
in late this week, and fnord even if my entire planned order had come in (it
didn't) it'd be a light week, so I decided to give it a shot.  A good chunk
of this issue involves fnord catching up on threads from O'Grady's fnord
short-lived series, helping establish to new readers why he deserves to be
the universe's punching fnord bag.  Seeley's pencils are okay, if a little
too generic-Image in places and heavily focused on cheesecake shots.
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.

     X-Factor #211: Marvel - Almost entirely devoted to X-Factor fighting
undead Vikings.  At least Shatterstar's having a good day, although the
intersection of his idea of a good day and everyone else's is pretty small.
Some good snark, at least.  Mildly recommended  $2.99
     Spider-Girl #1: Marvel - Big Time tie-in.  Interestingly, the tweets
seen in this issue were posted to http://twitter.com/the_spider_girl almost
exactly the same time I was reading the issue.  This is supposed to take
place shortly after Amazing Spider-Man #648 (SG references the Octo-Bots from
that issue), but the whole "I have no friends" theme clashes with Young
Allies, where she has at least a couple of friends who know her costumed ID.
That niggling bit of continuity aside, though, it's a good starting issue.
Spider-Girl's tweeting gimmick is established without being too excessive,
and having her take down Screwball in the first scene provides a nice
contrast between use and abuse of social media by super-types.  The backup
story fills in some of her backstory, showing the day she first met the
Fantastic Four (her father was retconned into being the first reporter to
seriously interview the Four).  Recommended.  $3.99
     Thunderbolts #150: Marvel - 96 page anniversary issue.  New content
makes up almost half the issue, with the current lineup undergoing a sort of
crisis of membership but coming out perhaps a little better for it (and
showing that while Steve Rogers may be an idealist, he's nobody's fool).  A
sort of Marvel Saga history of the team narrated by Moonstone and Songbird
sits in the middle of the issue, and then a reprint of Thunderbolts #1 rounds
things out.  Recommended.  $4.99
     Legion of Super-Heroes #7: DC - The lead story is mainly about advancing
the Durlan assassination plot storyline, with a sideline of the Mon-El/Earth
Man/Tasmia soap opera, which will apparently be continued over in Adventure
Comics to replace the "Legion Year One" storyline.  The second story involves
Brainy being generally cranky and deciding to deal with one of the sources of
his crankiness in the hopes it will help him with at least one other.  Said
source remains sphinxlike, at least for now.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99


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 11/17/10: Invincible #72, Tom Strong and the Robots
of Doom #3, Transformers Ironhide #4, Gorilla Man #2, Atlas #4, Official
Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update #3 (which I probably won't bother
reviewing if it ever comes in), Guarding the Globe #1-2, Dynamo5 Sins of the
Father #3, Science Dog #1, Women of Gold Digger #1 and Gold Digger Books of
Magic #2, Chaos War #1, Taskmaster #2, Transformers Drift #4, Tron Movie
Adaptation #1, Official Index to the Marvel Universe v2 #7, Tom Strong and
the Robots of Doom #6, Tron Betrayal #2, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8.
Add Chaos War Dead Avengers #1.

 
Awards:

"Pym Just Can't Stop Tampering In God's Domain, Can He?" Award to Ant-Man
     & Wasp #1 (of fnord 3)

"Astarte Would Find That Outfit A Little Skimpy, Hela" Award to X-Factor #211

"Hopefully Anya Doesn't Have Location Enabled" Award to Spider-Girl #1

"We'll Pretend The Pro-Wrestling Version Of The Thunderbolts Never Happened,
     Okay?" Award to Thunderbolts #150

"As Long As She's Not Related To Booster Gold" Award to Legion of Super-
     Heroes #7

     Dave Van Domelen, "Anya...you've been in the Baxter Building for almost
an HOUR.  That means you're probably SWORN TO SECRECY about something by NOW,
aren't you?"  "Uhhh." - Sue Storm and Anya Corazon, Spider-Girl #1 (backup
story) 

Gobble on over to the November 2010 Page.