Thursday, June 08, 2006

Dental news and comic reviews (Spoilers for Wonder Woman only)

I'll start with the fun stuff (no, that's not the dental news). Comic reviews. This week we have Civil War: Frontline #1 (checking it out), Wonder Woman #1 (checking it out) and the latest Wizard Basic Training TPB on Storytelling.

Civil War: Frontline #1 (minimal spoilers just in case): The art was adequate. Not overly great but better than I've come to expect for offshoots of a central big event series. Despite it being a lot of talky talky it wasn't overly boring to look at. The writing was good too. It was very left wing though and I know that will turn off many. But then again, it's a story about two left wing journalists so you're bound to get that slant. My complaint about this series, stuff happens in it. Stuff that I was expecting to happen in the regular Civil War series happens here instead (or maybe it will be duplicated in Civil War). I was expecting this series to be the outside looking in (reporters discussing it from an outsider's perspective) and for the most part it was (and even some of that covered events that I didn't expect to see here) but there was a scene or two that went on the inside. So why am I complaining about stuff happening? Because I would have thought that these Civil War events would be covered in Civil War and not in the offshoot that I was thinking wouldn't be worth reading. And Spider-Man's talk with the reporter was what I was expecting from Spidey. I recommend it for the lefties who are eager to read more about Marvel's Civil War.

Wonder Woman #1: I keep wanting to give DC a try and I thought a #1 issue would be a good jumping on point. Perhaps it was but I was very disappointed. We have Donna Troy using the title of Wonder Woman while Diana is still away. We get a quick recap of Donna's origins which is good for people like me but I've been told it's been changed (I would guess this has to do with Alex Luthor's mucking around in Infinite Crisis). That would stink if I were a fan. Donna is lured into a hostage situation by some villains who hope to lure Diana out of hiding. I was surprised to see a cheetah's claws and teeth cutting into Donna so easily, I had thought she would be more immune but I guess I don't know the character too well or maybe Cheetah's cheetahs are more powerful or magical. Then for some reason she stops fighting and lets Cheetah take her lasso (Cheetah even raps it around Donna's neck for one panel and then just walks away with it in the next???). This all confused me. In the end, Donna is defeated by Dr Psycho's little illusions, some guy named Nemesis reveals himself to the reader (I guess he was supposed to be dead), and a woman named Diana Prince (an alias Wonder Woman used to use) and who looks an awful lot like Wonder Woman (even having a costume similar to one "Diana Prince" used to wear) is assigned as his partner to watch over human/superhuman relations. All in all, too many winks and nods to old hardcore fans for newbies and not even substance to get me hooked.

Wizard Basic Training: Storytelling. Huge disappointment once again. Over half the book is once again reprinting stuff from their previous books (mainly the first one). They even throw in drawing sound effects as part of storytelling. I'd still like to see more of the original Bart Sears stuff (rather than this new guy). There's a lot of good stuff in there but it's another slap in the face for people who bought the earlier books. If you're going to put out multiple volumes at least have them contain different stuff.

And for the dental enthusiasts out there. After avoiding the dentist for 18 months (so yeah, what I'm about to say is for the most part my own fault) after going throught he usual routine and being complimented on just how good everything seems to be considering it's been 18 months I get hit with a whopper. When looking at the X-rays they see a doozy of a cavity in one of my molars. We're talking a root canal most likely. The two that were looking were surprised by just how fast it progressed, from nothing 18 months ago to this (and yet everything else seemed ok other than one minor cavity). Needless to say I'm not too happy with this turn of events.

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