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Dave's Capsules for November, 2013 [message #200124] Sat, 30 November 2013 20:03
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Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
Intermittent Picks and Pans of Comics and Related Media

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
I seem to have a vole infestation in my yard. Or groundhogs.

Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): My Little Pony
Friendship is Magic #12.

In this installment: Thor: the Dark World, Atomic Robo: Real Science
Adventures #12, Atomic Robo and the Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #3, Double
Barrel #12, My Little Pony Annual #1, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic
#12-13, My Little Pony Micro-Series #9, Astro City #6.


"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.

Thor: The Dark World: Marvel Studios - I suppose I'll lead off with what
I considered the only real problem with the movie: cast expansion and
dilution. They kept pretty much everyone from the first movie except Coulson
and Hawkeye, and added a few new characters, which led to a lot of characters
being reduced to spear-carrier duty when they should have had meatier roles
(Sif in particular). That said, I otherwise quite enjoyed the movie. It
gave the Svartalfen a distinct visual style and a strong motive for warring
against Asgard. And if it didn't really teach Thor any new lessons, it did
drive home how hard it can be to bear in mind the lessons already learned.
Recommended.


Digital Content:

Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so, I won't be turning
this into a webcomic review column. Rather, stuff in this section will be
full books available for reading online or for download, usually for pay. I
will often be reading these things on my iPod if it's at all possible.

Atomic Robo Real Science Adventures #12: Red5 Comics - The titans of
industry plot wraps up neatly enough, although it felt almost anticlimactic
as all of the dominos that were clearly set up earlier in the arc needed only
be toppled over. Recommended. $1.99 at ComiXology.

Atomic Robo and the Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #3: Red5 Comics - I was
sort of hoping the Majestic-12 plotline would remain ominously simmering in
the background, but it ends up making the title plot look like little more
than an excuse to get Robo out of the way for a few days. Yeah, it's a
little hard to take Dr. Dinosaur seriously as a threat to drive an entire
arc, but I think the choice of ramping up MJ-12 was like throwing up of hands
and admitting the title plot was unimpotant. Mildly recommended. $2.99 at
ComiXology.

Double Barrel #12: Top Shelf - And after a significant delay, the series
wraps up its first year (with the implication that they'll be back soonish,
but not right away). The late addition Clandestinauts gets a rather large
installment in order to finish off in time. If there's a single theme
running through all three main stories it'd be that the hero doesn't always
get the girl, but that's okay.
Heck stands out as being very clearly a denounment, while the other two
are packed with climactic action. Clandestinauts even introduces a new cast
member, sort of, and spends much of its final installment in a many-cornered
running battle. If the goal of Clandestinauts was to capture the kind of
chaotic upgehuggery seen when you let a group of stereotypical teenaged D&D
players split up in the dungeon, it succeeded.
Meanwhile, Crater XV really started to get on my nerves with the "I am
narrating my actions for an unseen reader!" dialogue style. It's the sort of
joke that eventually wears thin, and it was pretty threadbare at this point.
As were the overly-descriptive sound effects. It's certainly possible to mix
serious and absurd without making a total mess of the story, but I think
Cannon just pushed this one too far and fell into the mulligan stew.
Finally, the first story of the issue, Heck, had perhaps more genuine
suspense in it than either of the other two stories, despite being past the
action climax of its storyline. By far the most effective of the three
serials in Double Barrel, Zander managed to create a sense that things could
all go horribly wrong even at this late point, as well as make me care if
they did. (By contrast, if everyone in Clandestinauts had been killed
horribly I wouldn't have particularly minded.)
On average, mildly recommended. $1.99 at ComiXology.


Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.

Nothing this month.


Floppies:

No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they
*are* floppy, yes?

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Annual #1: IDW - As the cover
indicates, this oversized and squarebound Annual is all about the Equestria
Girls movie. The first story is the short included as part of the ComiCon
exclusive version of a previous issue, with Cook and Price telling the story
of how Sunset Shimmer came to be in the human world. It was very good. The
main story, by Anderson anf Fleecs, was a fairly weak and overly long "how
the huMane 5 met" origin story that felt horribly redundant after watching
the movie. While I can see them being told not to write a sequel to the
movie, there's other things they could have done that wouldn't be so boring.
Mildly recommended, mainly because it's kinda expensive to get just for the
good short story. $7.99

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #12: IDW - The 80s teen movie
pastiche ends, backing up to show most of the story from Cadance's point of
view before showing the homecoming dance scene. While there's already some
continuity issues here and there with the framing sequence, and I've already
expressed my discomfort with the excessive topicality, it was a fun story on
its own. And Price and Cook do their usual good job hiding secondary stories
in the background, including one that wraps up on this being a Quantum Leap
episode. Hm, I wonder if the continuity glitches could be explained by the
Dark Leaper being involved somewhere? ;) Cook draws a two-page backup of
music parody that's definitely not meant to be in-continuity, not with Luna
dressed up as Mark Mothersbaugh in what's supposed to be a flashback
sequence. Strongly recommended despite some reservations. $3.99

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #13: IDW - And now for something
completely different. The high concept, "The Mane 6 join a pirate crew,"
sounds promising for the two seconds or so it takes to realize it'd be out of
character for pretty much all but Rainbow Dash. Nuhfer gamely finds reasons
to get most of them on board anyway (along with the strong implication that
pirates aren't actually criminals in Equestria, just freelance sailors with a
certain fashion sense), but it felt forced. And while it's pretty cool that
they found a way to make the "Rarity fighting a giant crab" thing
semi-canonical, it also felt a bit forced. The whole thing feels like a
one-paragraph pitch tossed in on a lark got taken seriously, and then the
creative team had to figure out how to make it work. (Aside: some have
complained about there being no adequate explanation for the rest of the
Apple family being in the pirate town, but they were the Pineapple family,
who just happened to be awfully similar to the Apples.) Mildly recommended,
there's some good gags in there, it's just uncomfortable forcing the plot
along to get to them. $3.99

My Little Pony Micro-Series #9: IDW - Spike gets Sea Monkeys, and they
form a civilization and fight religious wars. Seriously, this has
practically become its own subgenre of story. And Anderson doesn't really do
much with it other than run through the premise. It's workmanlike, but
that's about it. Neutral. $3.99

Astro City #6: Vertigo - Another callback to #1, this time the overt
plot, with the alien Ambassador. "Small-time hood gets his hands on a plot
device and becomes a supervillain" was already a hoary plot device when the
Champions RPG lampooned it by having a crook mail himself a powersuit by
swapping labels around in a secret lab's shipping room, but Busiek explores
it with his usual get-inside-the-skull thoroughness. I would have preferred
if the narrative captions were first person, though, as the pronouns get a
bit awkward at times (i.e. "Is THAT why he was surprised to see him back?"
which would have read more smoothly if the "him" were "me" instead).
Recommended. $3.99

Diamond left out an entire box of last week's shipment, so no Samurai
Jack this month (not planning to go down to Joplin again until December).

Dave Van Domelen, "Nopony has told me why I'm in a dress yet." -
Poindexter, MLPFiM #12
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