RANT: Dave's Capsules & Awards for Jan 4, 2007
Dave Van Domelen
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.
I got below 225 pounds this week, woot. Rants, Capsules can be found on my
homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
I'm going to be in Seattle next week at a conference, so comics next
week will be delayed.
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.
None this week.
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.
Bought but not reviewed due to length: Twisted Toyfare Theater vol 4 and
vol 6, Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad TPB, The Cartoon History of the
Modern World. These will go with me to Seattle for reading material. :)
Books of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): GIJoe
vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2)
Devil's Panties #3: Silent Devil - I ordered this and #5 online from the
publisher after Diamond said they were cancelling it on account of it no
longer being available. This is, of course, the sort of pure bull I'm
accustomed to Diamond slinging. Anyway, the main events of this issue are
Jen getting a job at a comic shop, thereby meeting her boyfriend and
eventually introducing him to her (somewhat crazy) family. Little to no
filler content, so it's packed with story and the usual endnotes.
Recommended. $4.95
Devil's Panties #5: Silent Devil - Breeden was going through a rough
patch during this time, so there's a fair amount of filler. It also looks
like there was more experimenting with color around this time, and not all of
it translated well to grayscale. One of the weaker issues, but still good.
Recommended. $4.95
52 #35 (of 52): DC - Most of this is Everyman fallout that was obvious
going in, but without any sort of sense of resolution. The rest is a bit of
the space team, where at least something plot-turning happens. Mildly
recommended. $2.50/$3.50Cn
Superman #658: DC - The second half of Arion's vision of the future,
presenting Superman with a Big Dilemma. Lots of gloom and doom and futility
that doesn't seem to leave Busiek much of an out to resolve this without some
sort of cop-out. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$4.00Cn
GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2): Devil's Due - Once again, we're
getting fewer issues in a series, but oversized ones (48 pages and no ads
interrupting it). And DUUUUUUUUDE. Yeah, there's fanwank going on here, but
it's the good kind. :) Both the Transformers AND GIJoe movies get melded in
this story, plus a new origin for Pretenders...and Eject gets to shine. And
even more stuff I'll leave as a surprise. Wildman's art is a bit scratchy in
places, and a couple pages look like there were uncredited fill-in artists,
but the layouts are excellent. Seeley's story isn't the best-crafted I've
seen, but it's so loaded with good ideas that I'm willing to overlook the
occasional clunker line. Strongly recommended. $5.50
Pirates vs. Ninjas #1: Antarctic Press - Okay, I'm not a big fan of
Babiar, but hey, it's pirates versus ninjas! And Perry's writing, so there's
that. :) Unfortunately...it's not his best work. The story starts out
serious and portentious, but then strips gears into anachronistic and not
very funny humor. I'm willing to give it another issue, but it's not the
most promising of starts. Mildly recommended. $3.50/$4.05Cn
eXiles #89: Marvel - Strung-together vignettes that comprise a farewell
from the creative team and a little bit of resolution for one of the founding
members of the eXiles. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
Bullet Points #3 (of 5): Marvel - Bah, stupid eMusic card ads. More
musical chairs played with character identities/roles, and the first direct
conflict between some of these revised characters. Okay story from JMS, ugly
art from Edwards. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
The Irredeemable Ant-Man #4: Marvel - Pretty much takes the entire issue
to get to where it should have STARTED. There's some decent bits along the
way, but MAN is this decompressed. Very mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
Ms. Marvel #11: Marvel - Reed gets back to mining obscure 1970s Marvel
continuity, this time directly tossing an old Ms. Marvel threat (or two) at
Ms. Marvel. Despite the ongoing "she's on the wrong side of Civil War"
stuff, it's a decent issue. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
newuniversal #2: Marvel - Ah, the dark side of being an Ellis book kicks
in. And I say this by comparison to the charred corpses in #1. There's a
few more glimpses at how the world is different from the one outside your
window, but it's also made explicit that the White Event is not where things
went from mundane to insane, it's just where things got turned up to 11.
Still, despite the excessive blood, it looks good and Ellis gives us plenty
of answers without really removing the mystery. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
Iron Man Hypervelocity #1 (of 6): Marvel - Yay, Adam Warren! Mind you,
he's only writing, not drawing, but apparently I'm in the minority in liking
his art, which he has said can hurt sales these days. :/ Denham does a good
job on the art, though, even if he DOES make Tony Stark look like Pierce
Brosnan. Seriously, there's a clear photoref in one panel. The story does a
good job of maintaining at least THREE mysteries until the very end, and even
then, one is stll completely mysterious and the other are only maybe
resolved. Good start to a miniseries. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
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 1/4:
Still missing Gold Digger Tangent #2, Fred Perry's S-Guild #1,
Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories, Transformers Timelines Featuring Beast Wars
#1, Fallen Angel #8, Devil's Panties #7. Add Devil's Panties #8, which was
on the invoice on Saturday when I had my store manager look online, but was
NOT on it (or in the order) today.
Awards:
"Roommates In Paradise" Award to Devil's Panties #3
"I Will Now Sing The Doom Song" Award to Devil's Panties #5
"Into Every Life, Some Men Must Fall" Award to 52 #35 (of 52)
"Khyber Passes" Award to Superman #658
"Kung Fu Brip!" Award to GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2)
"Okay, Pirates Are Durable, But This Is Ridiculous" Award to Pirates vs.
Ninja #1
"What Dreams May Come" Award to eXiles #89
"Sometimes Secrecy Is Better" Award to Bullet Points #3 (of 5)
"I Wonder If Issue 10 Will Have Flashback Scenes Happening During #1?" Award
to the Irredeemable Ant-Man #4
"Okay, He Doesn't Look Goofy Anymore" Award to Ms. Marvel #11
"Did He Used To Work For The Census Bureau?" Award to newuniversal #2
"Front Toward Enemy" Award to Iron Man Hypervelocity #1 (of 6)
Dave Van Domelen, "Not only do they yodel, they're bulletproof." -
Flint, GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2)