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 Yeah, I have an air fryer now. It was on sale.
Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Magical Girl
Incident vol 3 (of 3).
In this installment: What If? Season 3, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 10, Tank
Chair vol 2, Heterogenia Linguistico vol 3-5, Magical Girl Incident vol 3 (of
3), Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 5, Empowered vol 12.
"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.
What If? Season 3: Marvel/Disney+ - The first four episodes tended
towards the light-hearted or even goofy despite all the implied or depicted
death, and I particularly liked the "Agatha Harkness stars in Howard Stark's
movies as cover for a massive ritual" episode that involved a sort of Busby
Berkeley vs. Bollywood dance sequence. I did like the fact there didn't seem
to be any particular connections. Episode 1 was basically a riff on Mech
Strike meets Godzilla and/or Ultraman, Ep 2 with Agatha was song and dance
and making the Eternals movie never happen, Ep 3 a goofy buddy comedy, and Ep
4 a sort of followup to a throwaway gag in one of the season 1 episodes. But
then the arc showed up, and it kinda retroactively made me cringe about the
first four eps, because I knew that they'd somehow be roped into the endgame.
Look, tying multiple What If? stories into a single narrative was somewhat
fresh and interesting in season 1, but it was already feeling tedious in
season 2. Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be a big "everyone has to save
the multiverse" story, but more of a personal thing about friendship. And
blowing stuff up. The stakes were still cosmic, in a way, but really about
changing someone's heart even if it took a large dose of Kirby Krackle to get
there. All in all, a bit uneven, and some of the episodes felt like they
were driven by what voice actors were available. If you already have
Disney+, it's worth taking the time to watch this season, but it's not
something I'd recommend subscribing just to watch.
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
delayed due to artist hand pain.
Manga Collections:
Most of these are "tankobon" or collections of work serialized in a
weekly or monthly publication, although some were written directly for the
collection. All of them have been translated from Japanese (or maybe Korean,
although I don't think I'm reading any manhwa) into English. Things with a
manga aesthetic but done in English originally will go in one of the sections
below as appropriate.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 10: Seven Seas Entertainment - With the fighting
done and the escort mission a success, time for a vacation break. Well, a
working vacation, but nothing gets blow up or killed this volume, so that
counts as downtime. Instead, this is sort of an emotional arc climax as Yuna
is forced to face the fact that she's not the person she thought she was.
Mortifyingly, as has been obvious to all observers for nine volumes, she's a
Good Person. The actual plots and subplots don't really change direction
yet, Yuna's still focused on getting the creature comforts she left behind in
the modern ("real") world, but it's harder to ignore that she at least
APPEARS to be the sort of person her grandfather hoped she'd become.
Recommended. $13.99/$17.99Cn Rated Teen 13+ (a little suggestive stuff,
mostly confined to a single panel).
Tank Chair vol 2: Kodansha - Time to do a little more worldbuilding, and
Manabu Yashiro goes a little nuts with it. First off, the book veers into
being a high school drama/comedy (albeit with viscera), like a Marshal Law
goes to Furinkan High sort of story. Then we get the origin of the chairs
themselves, and finally a plot arc longer than the existence of humanity gets
thrown into the mix. It all ends up feeling like the "seat of the pants"
plotting style, but coming together somehow coherently anyway. There's a
high background radiation of excessive violence and a lot of Rule of Cool
logic. And just when it seems to be settling down into a general "inhumanity
of humanity and inevitable consequences of end stage capitalism," vibe, it
takes a sharp left turn into Full Metal Alchemist or something. I guess
Manabu decided the scope was a little too mundane to support the crazy set
pieces. I'm curious to know where this goes next, and Manabu probably is
too. Mildly recommended. $13.99/$18.99Cn, rated Older Teen 16+
Heterogenia Linguistico vol 3-5: Yen Press - Okay, all caught up, and
vol 6 doesn't have a publication date I can find, leaving me hanging, oops.
Anyway, this is a very slow burn story, more like a Victorian travelogue in
pacing (but not in racism or paternalism, it's the opposite there). It's all
about the process of learning about culture and language, and while there's
occasional "man vs. nature" conflicts and (sometimes literal) cliffhangers,
you really gotta be there for the process or you're probably not going to
enjoy this series. There is an overall long term plot of sorts, with the
concerns that human civilization will eventually just steamroller the
Netherworld in its hunger for resources. It's a ticking clock with an
unknown amount of time left, and if humanity continues to think of those in
the Netherworld as mere creatures the next war will not go very well for the
Netherworlders. Can researchers like the protagonist and his mentor convince
the outside world that these are people, and would it even matter given that
humans will exploit other humans? To make things worse, the Netherworld
seems to lack a number of cultural norms that would let them mount any sort
of unified resistance to human encroachment...faced with seemingly nonviolent
colonization they'd just shrug and let themselves get pushed into smaller and
smaller pockets before being wiped out entirely...just like the culture of
the protagonist's grandmother, the last living speaker of a now-dead
language. Is this series full of metaphors regarding real world treatment of
"primitive" peoples? You betcha. But it's far more wistful than preachy or
polemic. That tone may change in future installments, of course.
Recommended with the warnings above. $15.00/$19.50Cn, rated Teen plus
Language and Violence. (Okay, there's a LOT of language, but very little is
actually harsh. Just potentially confusing and frustrating.)
Magical Girl Incident vol 3 (of 3): Yen Press - I do not recommend doing
what I did, and just picking this up to read it. If you read vol 2 when it
came out, you really should reread it before starting this one. Why?
Because Zero Akabane is not exactly good at accommodating readers returning
after a break (important characters don't get named or even clearly
identified for chapters at a time), and this series does not have the
commonly-found "story/characters so far" pages at the start. It REALLY needs
those catch-up pages. There's a lot of worldbuilding and character stuff
that took a while for me to pick back up on, and I regret not stopping and
going back to reread previous volumes first. That said, this is a very
satisfying end to the story, and while there's a bunch of worldbuilding
elements I wish could be explored, I guess I can hope for a sequel/prequel/
spinoff or something. (I suspect some of those elements were avoided because
the creator wasn't sure they could do a good job with 'em.) The core story,
the characters, and how things resolve are all great. The storytelling craft
itself needs some work, though...this goes beyond "writing for the trade" and
into "writing for the omnibus." A binge-read series of three volumes. Worth
the time, but since it came out spread across a few years it was hurt by the
formatting. I'd actually give it a strongly recommended if there was a
little better craft going into making things hang together, and I'm still
marking it as a Book of Note. Recommended. $15.00/$19.50Cn, rated Older
Teen with Language and Violence.
Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 5: Viz Media/Viz Signature - And now,
more magical girls, but these get health benefits and a good paycheck! Of
course, unlike the Magical Girl Incident characters, they do actually need
health benefits, since they're really only human outside of their tech. The
mild cliffhanger of volume 4 resolves and the mentoring storyline wraps up,
and then it's time to plunge into the Main Arc that's been hinted at for a
few volumes: the problem of magic use and its effect (or lack of effect) on
Kaii mutation. For four volumes we've been getting shown how things have
been getting worse lately, with repeated hints that it's directly tied to the
use of magic, but we finally get to hear the other side of the argument.
Sure, it's a little strawman-ish, and not just because we're following
protagonists who disagree with it. The whole "late stage capitalism ruins
everything" theme kicks in HARD this volume, and it's pretty clear that the
rich and powerful will cheerfully doom the world as long as they get to make
obscene profits along the way. The counter-argument is really just a
paper-thin mask over their greed, similar to (and possibly inspired by) the
old Big Tobacco claim that already having cancer caused people to want to
smoke cigarettes, rather than cigarettes causing cancer. On the lighter
side, we get to meet another new magical girl, this one being obsessed with
paperwork and data, so of course her transformation sequence involves signing
forms that appear in mid-air. Anyway, while there's some good action stuff
and emotional development bits, there's also a LOT of Boardroom Drama that
advances the plot but is kinda dry and deliberately understated.
Recommended. $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK, rated Teen (mainly monsters).
Expected next month: Spy x Family vol 13, Chainsaw Man vol 17, After God
vol 2, The Great Cleric vol 12.
Turns out the Kaiju No. 8 book I was expecting this month was not a
guidebook as I thought from the name, but rather a light novel, meh.
Other Trades:
Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger
than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.
Empowered vol 12: Dark Horse Publishing - This is the final OGN
installment of Empowered, as between the shrinking orders and Adam Warren's
declining hand health he's looking into other options (also, this has been
done and ready to go for years now, Dark Horse just sat on it, further
souring Warren's view of this format). Those who follow Warren's Patreon
have gotten to see a lot of in progress work over the years, and even
recently some deleted scenes, and this volume changed direction radically
after the first chapter had been drawn, instead using that chapter for
flashbacks interspersed between a revival of an abandoned "someone else will
draw it" miniseries concept in which Emp is forced through a seemingly
endless series of reboots. Fantasy RPG Emp, hardcore badass Emp, horror
movie Emp, married to Captain Havoc Emp, etc. This has the dual purpose of
letting Warren run through a lot of nifty ideas that can't quite support a
whole volume (or even more than a few pages in some cases), and forcing Emp
to process the fallout of the Trial By Fire that Neurospear put her through a
few realtime years ago in volume 11. Warning, a big part of Emp's solution
to all of her problems earns this volume its shrinkwrap and advisory
sticker...no nudity beyond what 9PM network TV can't get away with, but
SITUATIONS aplenty. Now, this doesn't actually fix all of her problems and
wrap them up in a nice bow, but it's clearly Emp's big turning point, and as
happy an ending as she's likely to get in a serial genre. The path is now
clear, the remaining challenges look surmountable. Other than, you know, the
potential destruction of the world still lingering on the horizon like a
stormcloud, but at least Emp's going to be going into that crisis with a
lighter heart. Recommended. $19.99/$25/99Cn with an Explicit Content
Parental Advisory with strongly implied throuple.
Expected next month: Cursed Princess Club vol 4 got pushed back, and is
technically coming out in January, on the 28th, but if I have to order it for
delivery I won't get it until February.
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.)
Yeah, a month off from these as I build up enough of a stack to be worth
the shipping costs. The store where I get my floppies is going to be under
new management, but it looks like it'll be a smooth transition.
Expected next month: Fantastic Four #27, Gatchaman #5, Gatchaman
Galactor #4 (of 4), Moon Knight Fist of Khonshu #2-3, Star Trek Lower Decks
#1-2, Vampirella #673, Ultraman x Avengers #3 (of 4), and whatever else comes
out in the first week or two of January.
Dave Van Domelen, "Freedom ain't a flaw to be fixed!!" - Hiromi Sakura,
Magical Girl Incident vol 3
Dave's Capsules for December 2024