Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
Generally Monthly 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 month.
An archive can be found on my homepage,
http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants Commercialism has really ruined Black Friday.
Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Nothing this
month.
In this installment: Agatha All Along, Deadpool & Wolverine, Moon Girl
and Devil Dinosaur "The Gatekeeper" withdrawn episode, Cat + Gamer vol 6,
Cthulhu Cat, Heterogenia Linguistico vol 2, After God vol 1, Asadora! vol 8,
Primer: Clashing Colors, Star Trek Lower Decks Warp Your Own Way, The Little
Trashmaid vol 2, Fantastic Four #26, Venom War: Fantastic Four, Moon Knight
Fist of Khonshu #1, Ultraman x Avengers #2 (of 4), My Adventures With
Superman #5-6 (of 6), Gatchaman Galactor #2-3 (of 4), Gatchaman #4,
Vampirella #672, My Little Pony Classics Reimagined: the Odyssey.
"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.
Agatha All Along: Marvel/Disney+ - Technically this did end in October,
in that they wrapped up with two episodes on Halloween. If you want a purely
linear story, this is not for you. On the other hand, if you're cool with
nested flashbacks, people unstuck in time, and "here's what was actually
happening that you only saw from a deliberately obscured viewpoint five
episodes ago" kind of stuff, you'll do well with this series. Appropriately
for the way it plays with time, this series looks both backwards at Agatha
Harkness's origins and life, and forwards in terms of setting up a potential
Phase Whenever They Get To It protagonist. While not exactly a musical,
there's a lot of diegetic music, and it's pretty good. Obscure Marvel magic
stuff from the comics is mined, although often just for the name
(e.g. Jennifer Kale has almost nothing at all in common with the version from
the comics), and generally ditching some of the more potentially racist
elements of some of the characters thus dug up. (Marvel's magic scene in the
comics is full of Romani, but not by that name, and leaning hard into
stereotypes.) On top of all that, it's sort of cleaning up a bit of the mess
left by Multiverse of Madness, which was not exactly the MCU's finest hour in
terms of character assassination. Despite the heavy load it's lifting, the
series manages to be pretty self-contained, with flashbacks or other
references explaining anything viewers really NEED to know about WandaVision,
and mostly focusing on characters who are blank slates in the MCU and so the
writers don't assume the viewers know anything about 'em. The plot threads
tie together nicely, and while the door is technically open to a season 2,
it's more likely that the followup will be someone else's series with Agatha
back to the supporting role. Oh, and in terms of content warnings, there's a
fair amount of sometimes gruesome death, a few seconds of Agatha's bare butt,
and technically a Kill Your Gays but It's Complicated. Recommended.
Currently only on streaming.
Deadpool & Wolverine: Marvel Studios - While previous Deadpool movies
have sort of hinted at Deadpool existing in the MCU, or at least a version of
it, this one explicitly brings Deadpool into the maddening multiverse with a
branch of the TVA being the inciting antagonist as well as the plot device
that lets Deadpool team up with Wolverine despite Wolverine being kinda dead.
And he does team up with the dead version of Wolverine, which is as nasty as
you might expect. Seriously, if some of the deaths in Agatha All Along are a
bit much for you, what are you doing watching any Deadpool movie at all, much
less this one? The stuff Deadpool does with Wolverine's remains isn't even
in the top five "disgusting abuse of the human form played for laughs" for
this movie. The very darkly comedic tone is probably a big part of how they
got away with this being only a hard R and not NC-17 for "a bit much even for
Americans" violence. All those warnings out of the way, I did find it funny
and it had some good character arcs as well as providing a second chance for
a lot of Marvel's abandoned ideas. Deadpool is solidly part of the wider MCU
now, while also being safely on a variant timeline so other movies can ignore
his presence if they like. Recommended with so, SO many warnings and
caveats. Price varies by store and format, also on streaming.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: The Gatekeeper: Marvel - Okay, normally I
avoid reviewing things that I didn't get 100% legally, but this may or may
not ever be available legally. Why? Because despite Moon Girl already being
cancelled anyway at the end of the upcoming season, Disney decided to
exercise preemptive obedience to the political atmosphere and yank an episode
about trans athletes. Naturally, copies of it were available within hours of
the news of the banning coming out, so I decided to grab one and try to
evaluate it on its merits, rather than on the controversy. This is
definitely a Supporting Cast episode, with Luna herself mostly in a
cheerleading/moral support role and Devil as part of the comic relief B-plot.
There's some other callbacks to previous seasons, such as the running gag of
the supervillain plot device rummage sale, exposition courtesy of the
Beyonder, and reference to Brooklyn's nerdy little brother, so it does mesh
into the series rather than being just a side trip for a Very Special
Episode. Oh, and it would have been so easy for a show that wallows in retro
70s cartoon tropes to have played this as a Very Special Episode too, but
they resisted the temptation. There is sometimes a jarring tonal dissonance
between the comedy beats and Brooklyn's very real struggle to just be
herself, but this series does tend to do that kind of thing pretty often, so
I guess avoiding the MCU-style bathos would feel wrong. If all the furor
results in it being put back on the schedule, it's definitely worth watching
legally. Whether you find it worth watching through other means depends on
the firmness of your stance on piracy, and I'm not going to push anyone to
violate such a stance.
I did start reading the second Dreadnought book, but slammed hard into
some story elements that really rub me the wrong way, that I find difficult
to articulate well enough to explain why I haven't had problems with some
similar material (although it does feel a lot like why I couldn't keep going
with the Wayward Children books). So I'm going to let it rest for now. I
did read a "deleted scene" from the upcoming third book on the author's
Patreon that might give me the impetus to try again, but for now there's some
other stuff on my reading pile I'd rather get through first.
Digital Content:
Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of
regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column.
Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for
reading online or for download, usually for pay. I will also occasionally
include things I read on Library Pass (check to see if your public library
gives access to it), although the interface can be laggy and freeze
sometimes.
Nothing this month. The first of the Adventure Finders epilogues is
expected to come out next month.
Manga Collections:
With manga collections coming to dominate my reading habits, I decided
to formally split them off from Trades (informally they'd already been split
for a while).
Cat + Gamer vol 6: Dark Horse Manga - The "inner thoughts of the cats"
elements mostly retreat into end of chapter one-pager bits, which I think is
for the better. Keeping the separation between what the human sees and what
the cats experience seems to work well, and breaking that barrier was giving
me some "meh" vibes. In this volume Riko realizes that her kittens have
"leveled up" into adult cats, but for the most part the story is "she games,
cats do cat things, parallels are drawn" without any significant change to
the premise. No new cats, no one else finds out she has cats, etc. It's
cute and a fun read, but it doesn't seem to want to or even need to go
anywhere new right now. Recommended unless you just Don't Get Cats.
$11.99/$15.99Cn (Dark Horse doesn't generally put age ratings on their
manga, but this is pretty safely all-ages.)
Cthulhu Cat: Dark Horse Manga - A one-shot collecting a bunch of short
strips done in a cute and pusheen-ish style, but with the Great Old Ones
deciding to take on the forms of cats for their own inscrutable reasons.
Now, this is a cat manga that is definitely going somewhere, but not
somewhere you'd want to go in real life. The creator admits to having come
to the Mythos fairly recently, and the treatment is a bit surface-level,
trying to cram as much into one volume as possible (including a bit near the
end where the author effectively admits that a bunch of names are being
tossed out with character designs despite there being no time to actually DO
anything with them). Now, this is not the first time I've seen someone meld
together Mythos stuff and cute cats, that would be the defunct webcomic Hello
Cthulhu (Mythos in Sanrio style). But this is a fun take on the mashup, and
it has a nicely "creepy but technically safe for kids" vibe to it, like
Rosamond from the Nate the Great books. (Speaking of creepy, when I looked
up Nate the Great on Wikipedia I discovered that the series I read as a kid
in the 70s is STILL RUNNING.) Recommended. $14.99/$19.99Cn (Again, no
ratings, and I suppose it could pass as All Ages?)
Heterogenia Linguistico vol 2: Yen Press - The protagonist and his
little band make their way up into the mountains, meeting a few more races
but perhaps more importantly learning of a role that seems to transcend
species and gender, the Ehyu. As with almost everything in this series, it's
never fully explained (the theme is, after all, incomplete understanding),
but they seem to be a sort of shaman class, wandering wise people who seem to
have been released from any obligations to clan or race. The cute little
half-werewolf girl who is the linguist's guide considers it to be a viable
"what I want to be when I grow up" choice, especially since she now sees the
protagonist as her father's successor (well, I'm presuming that...again, it's
not exactly made clear that the word she's using means her father's
profession rather than his biological role). As an educator with a degree
focus in how people learn (albeit how they learn science, not language), I
find this a fascinating puzzle and modeling of the process of learning about
languages and the cultures that shape it. You can't just learn about
language or just learn about culture, they're inextricably intertwined, and
Salt Seno is doing a very good job of showing this, even if the results can
be a little frustrating at times. Recommended. $15.00/$19.50Cn Rated Teen,
plus Language (ironically) and Violence.
After God vol 1: Viz Media/Viz Signature - This is sort of "Neon Genesis
Evangelion meets Chainsaw Man." Just replace the creepy giant robots with
even creepier human/god hybrids. The art is definitely going for the same
feel as Chainsaw Man, down to some of the facial expressions characters make.
According to the last page, writer/artist Sumi Endo has been getting
published for the last ten years, and I guess similarities to Chainsaw Man's
art are a result of being shaped by similar influences. Anyway, like both
Evangelion and Chainsaw Man, the world is suffering from the presence of
forces either divine or demonic or both, and humanity is slowly losing what
seems to be merely a holding action against the gods and monsters. Suicide
by god is a significant social problem...looking a god in the eye is
instantly fatal, but many seek out a look anyway because gods are said to
also be impossibly beautiful (they don't appear on film, unliving sensors, or
in mirrors, so no cheap anti-Medusa tactics). The two main protagonists are
one of the few scientists in the anti-god weapon program who still has some
ethics left, and a high school girl named Waka who is intent on killing the
gods and might just be able to pull it off because there's Something Special
about her. Of course, because this book just wallows in body horror, that
Something Special is also pretty disgusting, even in black and white.
Despite all this, it has a cute talking cat comic relief character to help
lighten the mood, which may not work for everyone. To use blurb-speak, if
you like Chainsaw Man, you may well like this, as it has a similar mix of "if
I saw that in person I'd throw up" and comic relief to break up the cosmic
weirdness and despair. I'm going to give it another volume at least, but I
would not really recommend this to general audiences. (Looking over the
stuff so far in this column, "disgusting horror humor" does seem to be a
thing for me lately. I'm not really into it for the scary or the creepy
though, so I may be doing horror wrong.) $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK
Asadora! vol 8: Viz Media/Viz Signature - The 1964 arc wraps up in the
first half, mostly focusing on Asa's friend the aspiring singer, with the
kaiju being mostly backgrounded. Then the narrative skips ahead to 1968,
where Asa is an adult in charge of her own business, the singer has had her
one hit and is dealing with the cost of trying to cling to fame, and the
other friend is solidly progressing in her pro wrestling career. And,
really, the plot is still dominated by the singer Yone, but with Asa more
directly involved in things at this point. This is the part in the kaiju
movie where the human plots pretty much dominate, and it's zoomed in more on
the characters than on the "country coming back from war" elements of earlier
volumes. If you're mostly interested in the kaiju bits, this is pretty
skippable, with only a few pages tying into the main plot here and there.
The Career Girls plots are decent enough, but I do hope vol 9 gets back to
the kaiju more. Mildly recommended. $16.99/$22.99Cn/#13.99UK
Expected next month: Kaiju No. 8 Exclusive on the Third Division, Tank
Chair vol 2, Magical Girl Incident vol 3 (of 3), Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 10,
Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 5. I've also ordered Heterogenia
Linguistico vol 3-5.
Other Trades:
Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger
than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.
Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way: IDW - This is Ryan North's
third "choose your own adventure" style book, and the first that is a comic.
As regular readers of North's work should probably be expecting, there's math
to do, and deliberate cheating (there is, however, the traditional orphan
page you can't actually get to even with the required mathematical cheating).
Of course, since a comic, even a graphic novel sized one clocking in at 196
pages not counting the extras in back, is going to have a much more limited
space for options, you can find the secret options pretty easily if you don't
feel like doing math. North also plays with the "you died again" aspect of
CYOAs, by making it a part of the story itself. All in all, it does feel
like it would make a good episode of the show. Recommended. $24.99/$33.99Cn
Primer: Clashing Colors TPB: DC - Wow, an original character YA GN
getting her own starring role sequel, it's almost like they've decided people
actually liked the new characters after all. This actually came out as a
miniseries of floppies this year, but I didn't become aware of it (DC
solicits are a hassle to track) until the collected edition was announced, so
I just ordered that. But hey, the collection is printed at the same size as
the original Primer OGN, so it will fit next to it on the shelf. Mostly the
same creative team as the first as well, but a second person is added to art,
although neither the credits nor the creator profiles clarify how the art
duties have been split up. The story picks up a vague but not terribly long
time after the end of the first book, with Primer having made a splash as a
local hero, if not seen as a very serious one. The Teen Titans (who seem to
be mostly the pre-Go cartoon Teen Titans in personality and abilities, rather
than the ones in the YA GN volumes by Kimi Garcia that I haven't really been
reading) end up in Washington DC on the trail of Deathstroke, who himself
seems to be seeking a macguffin that the Titans are trying to protect.
Primer does not make a good impression, but does seem to have at least one
fan, a new girl at her school. Yeah, readers who know anything about
Deathstroke (or who read the Priest series, at least) will see the plot twist
coming a mile off, but given the intended audience it can be forgiven. For
people who are several times older than the target audience, it's less a plot
twist and more an easter egg. Recommended. $12.99/$17.50Cn for all ages.
The Little Trashmaid vol 2: Silly Studios - This volume introduces some
more characters, such as the Flares (a sort of street gang of merfolk who see
themselves as an elite guard for Tidy's father, the king) and goes in for
slightly longer arcs now that the creators have established the characters
and situations. Still wordless other than occasional signs. The tone
continues to be broad physical comedy over an undercurrent of tragedy and
pain. Not just the overt environmental message, one of the human
protagonists storms out of his house after an argument with his mother,
although the reader is left guessing at the details, and it never does seem
to resolve (the kid does end up back home later on, but it feels more like
the plot was just dropped rather than being dealt with). Recommended. $20
plus shipping from Italy, which is actually charged properly this time ($17,
as opposed to the $5 I was charged for vol 1).
Expected next month: Cursed Princess Club vol 4 (of 4), Empowered vol 12
Floppies:
No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they
*are* floppy, yes? (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular
schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even
"Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)
Fantastic Four #26: Marvel - There's been a lot of "just two of the
Four" stories from North, and this "biding their time until they're allowed
to do the Doom War" issue shows why Reed and Johnny are a very dangerous
pair. Reed's main criterion is "Will this produce interesting results?" and
Johnny's is "Will this produce awesome results?" and that combination tends
to end in some sort of explosion or other hazard to local or wider reality.
Perhaps a bit silly at times (why does the blood-vomiting skull have a tiny
hat?), but amusing enough. Mildly recommended. $3.99
Venom War: Fantastic Four One-Shot: Marvel - I don't care about the
Venom War crossover, I got this because it's written by Adam Warren and plays
with time travel in interesting ways, featuring the Fantastic Four snatched
from between moments during the Simonson run where they were using the
"Rosebud II" time sled. And, frankly, this isn't really a Venom War
crossover in any meaningful way, it could've been any fight scene happening
in any book at this time, it's all about the convoluted schemes of Doom and
Kang throughout the timestream. While technically not truly standalone, it's
more connected to old Fantastic Four continuity than current Venom War.
Recommended. $4.99
Moon Knight Fist of Khonshu #1: Marvel - Another #1 for Jed MacKay and
Moon Knight, and it's a fresh start. Moon Knight has a new problem in town
and has gone to introduce himself. This is intercut with discussion between
Detective Flint (from way back in the original Moench series) and a new
Detective who's determined to get the white-clad lunatic off her streets.
Very expository, but a lot of it is captions over Moon Knight beating his way
through the goons of the new druglord threat. A few good bits, but really
more for new readers than existing ones. Mildly recommended if you've been
reading MacKay's Moon Knight for a while, but a good place to start if you're
curious. $4.99
Ultraman x Avengers #2 (of 4): Marvel - About half of this issue feels
like an excuse for writer Higgins to do some Avengers and Spider-Man schtick,
albeit some amusing schtick. There's a bit of macguffin hunt, helping bring
some of the Ultraman cast up into parity for the big fight scene (well,
against Galactus, so there's not a lot they can do to get up to his level).
True to how he's been portrayed, Ultraman does try to negotiate with
Galactus, but since there's two more issues left it's not really a spoiler to
say that it does not work. Mildly recommended. $4.99
My Adventures With Superman #5-6 (of 6): DC - There's only so many ways
things can go for characters introduced in an interquel like this, and Josie
Campbell doesn't exactly surprise with the resolution here, which also seemed
to dance around making an explicit Iron Giant reference. The big plot device
introduced at the end of #5 also seems to be deliberately playing up the
Evangelion motifs seen in season 2's climax. I guess the story itself
doesn't really grab me, given that I'm more focused on the easter eggs.
Mildly recommended. $3.99 each.
Gatchaman: Galactor #2-3 (of 4): Mad Cave - Berg Katse continues to work
on cleaning up loose ends without letting Leader X know that those ends were
loose in the first place, and the details of his mutation start to come out
(if not the gender instability seen in the original Gatchaman anime, at least
not yet). The crime family that formed the original basis for Galactor
wasn't 100% killed off, and in the decades since it has rebuilt with an eye
towards vengeance. Yeah, that part is important to the setting, and how
Gatchaman differs from Battle of the Planets...the alien invasion plan's
roots were laid down about 20 years ago, and it built up in the shadows until
fairly recently before springing out into the public eye. Along the way, we
get a view of how Galactor is rather more idealistic than the
U.S. translation (or, frankly, the regular Gatchaman title) would have us
believe. Their goal, at least as far as everyone but Berg Katse is
concerned, is to save humanity from itself. They do not hire sociopaths or
mere thugs, everyone needs to be on board with the heroic mission. A lot of
the time when childhood nostalgia properties get revived, they make it more
"adult" by just adding in violence and moral grayness, and there's certainly
been a lot more blood and killing in Mad Cave's Gatchaman books than in
Battle of the Planets (if perhaps not much more than in the source
material!). Making things adult by making the antagonists heroic is a less
common choice than making the protagonists unheroic, and I support it.
Keeping in mind that I am right in the target age for Battle of the Planets
nostalgia and I'm in my 50s, setting up a war where even the most snarling of
villains is actually trying to save the world adds welcome moral complexity.
(Of course, the heroes as child soldiers is harder to push aside in that case
too, so we have the "heroes who aren't that heroic" element too.)
Recommended. $4.99 each, rated Teen+.
Gatchaman #4: Mad Cave - Mostly a Jun story, but the beta team finally
gets taken off the mantlepiece and fired. And, as a Jun story, there's
rather more upskirt shots than are strictly necessary. Also, rather a lot of
killing and blood spatter. If the Galactor miniseries above is trying to add
some nuance to the story, the main book seems to be leaning into simple
"people die in war" attitudes, and the Galactor mech commander seems to have
slipped past the "no sociopaths" screening. Orlando and Bunn may need to
coordinate a little better on tone? Mildly recommended. $4.99, rated Teen.
Vampirella #672: Dynamite - Vampirella herself only shows up in
flashbacks and imaginings, but this installment of the Dark World story is
shaped around a Vampirella-shaped hole. Dracula and Nyx are trying to track
Vampi down (he's been a few steps behind her for several months now), while
Draculina is stuck in a pile of lethal metaphors in her perception of the
Dark World, which continues to be depicted as uninked and uncolored pencil
art (albeit very tight pencils, and lacking some of the usual elements of
pencils intended for inking and coloring). Gotta admit, some of the bits
with Draculina come awfully close to a character complaining about their
writer's creative decisions, although she never quite blames it on anyone
other than the Dark World itself, whatever it really is. Oddly, Silva's art
looks better in the pencils-only Dark World segments than in the fully done
Dracula scenes, Silva may be putting too much on the colorist's back in the
inked pages. Recommended. $4.99
My Little Pony Classics Reimagined: the Odyssey: IDW - This uses the
framing sequence of Pinkie Pie returning from the Great Trojan Baking
Competition to tell bits and pieces of the Odyssey as well as several other
Greek myths as told to Pinkie in her travels. My first reaction to this
premise was, "Why did they feel the need to pad out the ODYSSEY? It's not
exactly short...it is in fact notorious as being the opposite of that!"
(Greek myth was my first "fandom" at age 5-6, and the Odyssey was the first
one I read in a version not simplified for kids, being from my English
teacher mom's collection. It was a slog at the time.) But by the time I was
about halfway through, I saw the point of it. The Odyssey is also very much
a one character show, and the side stories let them use the rest of the Mane
Six without having to elevate some really obscure side characters. Also, to
be honest, Odysseus is a jerk, and there's not a lot of tales within the
Odyssey that can be told wherein the pony playing him wouldn't look like a
jerk. Discord gets to return in this one as Hades, and he's getting tired of
all the "defanged" stories (Romeo and Juliet where nobody dies, Little Women
where nobody dies, etc.), so naturally Fluttershy is Persephone and tells him
to hush. The stories adapted in this book are definitely far less rapey than
the original myths, which are pretty bad even in the absence of Zeus,
although they do sometimes have to twist in pretzels to avoid giving the
Wrong Message by modern standards. Atalanta isn't forced to wed, just forced
to have a friend, for instance, but her agency is still being taken away by
her father. Recommended mostly as an interesting writing puzzle. $7.99 (80
pages).
Expected next month: Might be another month off from floppies. Two from
this month were one-shots and won't be out again, one of my titles finished,
and only one (Lower Decks ongoing) is has started up after the comics above
were shipped. There might not be enough to warrant shipping costs again
until January.
Dave Van Domelen, "Whatever -- just SHOOT THE METAPHOR--!!" - Adam
Wendel, Vampirella #672
Dave's Comics and Manga Capsules for November 2024