Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week. Here we go, last shot at comics for 2007. Rants, Capsules can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants First Look Comments: Books I read over the weekend as First Looks, but didn't buy, so can't really say much in detail about. DC has stopped having First Looks, so it's just Marvel and Image...and there's word that Diamond doesn't want to bother with the program at all anymore. Books for next week - (Note, comics will come in either Thursday or Friday, depending on how UPS runs the holiday.) Omega the Unknown #4 (of 10): Marvel - The story meanders about, although there is some self-contained business with the school bullies and one of the weirder threads gets some explanation. $2.99/$3.05Cn Thunderbolts #118: Marvel - Lots of nasty stuff this issue, but nothing like what's on the cover. Okay, the two characters on the cover are together, but the closest they come to fighting is to watch rugby on TV. That said, Ellis seems to be winding up to have ALL the wheels come off at the same time here, and perhaps wrap up in a Hamletian slaughterfest. $2.99/$3.05Cn Exiles #1: Marvel - New series kicks off with an anthology of sorts, all written by Mike Raicht but with different art on each bit. In a world where World War Hulk and Annnihilation teamed up, the only hope is to try to find the eXiles. On one of the stops, he picks up some unfinished newuniversal business. Overall, it's okay, but not enough to get me back as a reader. $3.99/$4.05Cn [Later note: I'm told this is a one shot, and unrelated to the New Exiles relaunch. It's just that it says nowhere on the actual comic that it's a one-shot, and the indicia simply calls it Exiles #1.] Annihilation Conquest #3 (of 6): Marvel - Abnett and Lanning show their usual penchant for ablative rosters and gory deaths, whee. $2.99/$3.05Cn Ms. Marvel #23: Marvel - Looks to be the penultimate part of the Brood deal, with the obligatory "things get really bad" and the almost equally obligatory Danvers fanservice. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Capsules: Short, relatively spoiler-free reviews of books I actually bring home (as opposed to reading in preview form in the shop or online). If I get a book late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing section. Books of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Blue Beetle #22 Conan #47: Dark Horse - Back to Tim Truman writing, with Tomas Giorello on art. This promises to be the tale wherein Conan makes the transition from brash young man to adult...and having undead monsters running around is a good ingredient for that, I suppose. :) Promising start to the arc. Recommended. $2.99 Badger Saves The World #1 (of 6): IDW - At least, I'm pretty sure it's a six issue mini. Anyway, in a world where magic exists, you need to be careful, because it's not always something that requires intent. Certain actions will have mystic consequences whether you realize it or not. And therein lies the conflict of this series...someone's doing unpleasant things that could have dire mystical outcomes, but has no idea that this is the case. And Badger has to, well, Save The World. A good start, and while I still find Caron's art rougher than I'd like, it does look better than in Bull. Recommended. $3.99 [Later note: five issue mini, not IDW's usual six.] Captain Marvel #2 (of 5): Marvel - It looks like someone involved in this is messing with time. That, or Reed was plotting on index cards and they got shuffled. Decent heart to heart scene with Danvers, but otherwise still not a very satisfying standalone read. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Thor #5: Marvel - The revealed reborn god this time out is a bit of a trick play, an amusing twist. JMS throws in a bunch of new complications this issue, but there is also cake. $2.99/$3.05Cn New Warriors #7: Marvel - Thanks to the new artist, I'm back to not being able to tell half of these people apart. Story-wise, the implied revelation about Thrash is confirmed. Gah, the artist makes Ultra Girl look nasty. Anyway, art badness aside, they're playing to the strengths of the premise. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Hulk vs. Fin Fang Foom #1: Marvel - PAD's story seems to be set back in the old "Hulk Smash" days (to the extent it's in continuity at all), and Jorge Lucas is in full Kirby pastiche mode. We also get some OHOTMU-style entries for the mains in very abbreviated form. It wrap up with a reprint of the first ever Fin Fang Foom story. Recommended. $3.99/$4.05Cn Avengers the Initiative #8: Marvel - Yay, Ant-Man joins the cast...and gets punched out by Hank Pym on the cover. Christos Gage also joins the writing staff (alongside Slott), and he brings asynchronous storytelling with him. We open with the aftermath of a Big Disaster, then jump around to various events supposedly leading up to it, although looks like we won't actually catch up to the first page until a few issues from now. Individual pieces are good, but the choice of storytelling device kinda scrambles things up and removes a lot of the story flow. Still, worth it for the Ant-Man scene. Recommended. $2.99/$3.05Cn Teen Titans #54: DC - Um, okay. The whole Tomorrow's Titans arc ends, and I have to wonder if McKeever got a last minute edict to wrap it up an issue early or something, because there's plot threads flailing about all over the place. Not to mention an ending that suggests nothing that happened in the entire story matters, everyone's going to turn out rotten anyway. Eh. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn The Brave and the Bold #9: DC - A bunch of short team-ups as Megistus runs his trans-temporal scavenger hunt. Cute Indiana Jones references in the Blackhawk/Boy Commandos segment, and Waid was careful to copy the look and feel of the new Atom's book in the Atom/Hawkman segment. Recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn Action Comics #860: DC - LSH fix number one for the week. This one's short on revelations (although there's a requisite end of issue "shocker"), and mainly about catching up with more characters and upping the odds. Which is to say, I could summarize most of the issue without it really constituting a spoiler. :) Still, this sort of "things happen but about what you'd expect" issue is necessary to heighten tension. And Johns gets Brek. Recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn Legion of Super-Heroes #37: DC - And fix number two. Shooter jumps in with an all new threat approaching Earth, as Lightning Lad finds that being Legion leader isn't what he'd hoped it'd be. :) I don't much care for Manapul's art, but the story's okay. I should state here that I'm one of those people who wasn't eagerly awaiting Shooter's return, because I remember things like Plasm even more strongly than I remember his old Legion work. I was, in fact, somewhat dreading his return to the Legion, and I'm glad to see that it's not so bad. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn Blue Beetle #22: DC - Rogers and Albuquerque are back, yay! And we finally get to see the Reach's big secret plan, plus more of Danni Garrett (and Ted Kord's tech) and some more mining of obscure DC background characters. The snark level is a little lower than usual for Rogers, although the armor seems to be learning snark as well to make up for that. Oh, and I finally see that the armor's speech is a font, not random shapes (unless they just started doing it as a font now), so I suppose someone who's better than I am at cryptoquotes should use this issue as a key to go back and work out the rest of the armor's statements. :) Strongly recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn 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 12/28: Still missing and might come in: Fallen Angel #15, PS238 #25, Transformers Beast Wars Sourcebook #1 (all of these have been covered in my CBR Special), Sky Sharks #2, Gamma Files, Official Handbook to the Gold Digger Universe #11. Awards: "Wait, If They Killed Everyone, How Did Anyone Know About The Kid Frothing At The Mouth?" Award to Conan #47 "Mmm, Eyeballs" Award to Badger Saves the World #1 (of 6) "Why Can't Anyone Stay Dead?" Award to Captain Marvel #2 (of 5) "Not A TOTALLY New Look For Him, Actually" Award to Thor #5 "Sibling Riflery" Award to New Warriors #7 "Ice Station HOLY HANNAH!" Award to Hulk vs. Fin Fang Foom #1 "I Can Have Thunderbolt Fist?" Award to Avengers the Initiative #8 "So, All's Well That Ends...Bwah?" Award to Teen Titans #54 "Setting His Cap On Her" Award to The Brave and the Bold #9 "Long Line Of Descent" Award to Action Comics #860 "Signal Lancer Feels Your Pain" Award to Legion of Super-Heroes #37 "Aggressive Product Testing" Award to Blue Beetle #22 Dave Van Domelen, "Stomped by giant jailbait. I know guys who'd PAY to die like this." - Ant-Man, Avengers the Initiative #8 Bonus quote, "--got it in my notes somewhere. Filed under Kord-slash- inventions-slash-" "*Danni.*" "-don't just call something 'slash' if you file it on the internet, though, you get some very interesting-" "DANNI!" - Danni Garrett, Blue Beetle, Blue Beetle #22Back to the Main Rants Page.
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