Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week. Home internet's been wonky on and off. 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 - Nova #7: Marvel - The Nova Corps apparently has recruited Pokemon at some point. Granted, they've always been an homage to the GLC on several levels, but Abnett and Lanning have really been pushing the parallels lately. $2.99/$3.75Cn New Avengers/Transformers #4 (of 4): Marvel - Odd that they put this out as a First Look, they usually leave off the ends of stories. Big plot devicey end and a bit of geek service in the last bit of the battle, plus an obvious "dun dun DUUNN!" at the end. All told, passable but nothing to get excited about. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn New Warriors #5: Marvel - End of the big fight scene, then the inevitable recriminations all around. Some decent bits, but felt a little padded. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn X-Factor #24: Marvel - Well, the Isolationist plot wraps up and all the details come out, it's okay. Maybe a little too resolved, though. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn Fantastic Four #550: Marvel - McDuffie wraps things up, gets in one last Gravity appearance, and puts the status quo back together for the next writer. A bit abrupt, but plenty of good bits. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn 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): Empowered vol 2 Ms. Marvel #20: Marvel - Okay ending to the arc, I suppose. The whole "turning blue" thing gets a reveal too, but not one that means anything to me. Mildly Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn Howard the Duck #1 (of 4): Marvel - It seems to be Gerber Revival Week. This time with Ty Templeton on writing and Bobillo on art. And like the original, Howard still exists in the Marvel U, he just gets stuck with the weird underbelly and lesser lights...or even knockoffs of lesser lights. Good script from Ty, but the art isn't quite working for me. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #32: Marvel - And so Peter David's second run on this book ends. It's one of his weaker efforts, unfortunately. Part of it is that I've seen the "make Hydro-Man a serious threat" story done a lot better several times, but I think most of it is that it felt too much like this one was going on autopilot. Pushing the cliches a little too hard. That sort of thing. Neutral. $2.99/$3.75Cn Welcome to Tranquility #11: DC/Wildstorm - A little hard to follow on the main story, as Simone keeps bouncing from one scene to another in the chaotic zombie massacre thing, although she did "stand still" long enough to give one character a very touching last hurrah. The backup is the origins of one of the weirder members of the local teen hero team/band, Fearless Fairy Tentacle Shogun, seen in Gen13 of late. Recommended. $2.99/$3.65Cn Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #1 (of 4): IDW - And things go all the way cosmic, as Furman takes BWII and BWNeo stuff, mixes in his own Shokaract stuff from the BotCon stories, and then puts time in the blender. Like the first series, this one is shaping up to be mainly a minimal excuse to show as many characters as possible in the shortest feasible time. This issue not only reviews all the characters from Gathering, but also tosses in a dozen or so more. But it still has time to let Grimlock have a scene. At least Retrax gets to be part of it. Mildly recommended. $3.99 (I got Cover A, the Maximal side.) Transformers Devastation #1 (of 6) (TF G1 #17): IDW - Um, Ravage is feline, not canine/lupine. He should not "aroo". That aside, the premise behind "Devastation" is that Megatron's tossing aside the usual phase order (which we haven't even seen run through once) and dropping his poison pill on Earth. But that's practically a sideshow to the whole Hunt For Sunstreaker thing, which not only gets the A-cover this time, but also seems to dominate next issue, despite the nature of the cliffhanger this issue. Odd pacing and priorities. Mildly recommended. $3.99 (got Cover A by Su.) Conan #44: Dark Horse - A bit of Gunderman side plot to tie this to the next arc, but otherwise this is mainly Conan in desperate battle with the beastman. One of those payoffs that works better in the collected form, I think. Mildly recommended. $2.99 Empowered vol 2: Dark Horse - Once again, shrink-wrapped for your protection. Amusingly, Bomb Queen (all but guaranteed to have pink bits every issue) was not so protected, and the store had to bag and board it before putting it on the shelf. Mind you, despite BQ being explicit and Empowered not, Empowered is the pornography of the two. Nudity in BQ is simply part and parcel of the character's general state of moral turpitude... at least in the first mini it wasn't really about the sex itself. But Empowered has been about titillation from the start, and while it moves away from its origins as short bondage stories this volume (being made specifically for longer form this time, rather than being largely a collection of shorts), Emp is still about the fetish. And Adam Warren is VERY good at "porn without the pink bits". ;) That said, the plot and character development are quite excellent as well, even when they are about the pink bits, and we get to learn some potentially useful Japanese. I could probably keep going on about cool stuff in here until I'd written more just about this than all the other comics I got this week together, but I think I'll stop now. Strongly recommended, but not for the uptight. Well, maybe the uptight need it more than anyone, but they probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. $14.95 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 10/3: Still missing and might come in: Fallen Angel #15, Doktor Sleepless #2, PS238 #25. Can't find Miki Falls: Autumn anywhere, bookstores have shifted to "special order only" on it locally, so I'll order it online and review next week. Diamond did not shift the Beast Wars guide scheduled for this week. Cancelled by Diamond: Transformers Timelines. Awards: "Only The Second Most Blatant Example Of Superheroine Bondage This Week" Award to Ms. Marvel #20 "Yeah, You'd Think AIM Would Get Tired Of That" Award to Howard the Duck #1 (of 4) "Well, He May Not Learn, But At Least It's Evened Out Now" Award to Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #32 "You'd Think Getting Into Manga Would Make Her MORE Worried About The Stubs, Not Less" Award to Welcome to Tranquility #11 "Here At The Asc-ending Of Time" Award to Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #1 (of 4) "Of COURSE He's Phase Six" Award to Transformers Devastation #1 (of 6) "Exposition Kills" Award to Conan #44 "Does Hinata Get To Learn Some Of These Jutsu When She Turns 18?" Award to Empowered vol 2 Dave Van Domelen, "But for HER, the contradictory self-perceptions of HOTNESS and NON-hotness can CO-EXIST as superpositioned quantum states of HOTNESS INDETERMINACY...which COLLAPSE into a single state of either hotness or NON-hotness when you try to compliment her BUTT." - Thugboy, Empowered vol 2, and MAJOR props for using "indeterminacy" instead of "uncertanity". Heinieberg's Indeterminacy Principle, man.Back to the Main Rants Page.
Or rake the leaves back to October 2007.