Dave's Capsules for October 2025

 

Archive of older reviews

Items of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Fantastic Four: First Steps

In this installment: Fantastic Four: First Steps, Please Don't Tell My Parents I Bought Superpowers, Terminal Engagement (Wearing the Cape 10), Touring After the Apocalypse vol 1, Infini-T Force vol 2-4, Chainsaw Man vol 19, Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 7, I'm In Love With The Villainess vol 9, The Complete Megaton Man Universe vol 1: the 1980s, X-Amount of Comics, Stick-Figure Storytelling by Matt Feazell, Not Available Comics #29.

A somewhat light month by count, but very very heavy by weight.

"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.

Maybe offer Galactus some Snapple?

Fantastic Four: First Steps: Marvel/Disney - Okay, this movie actually held my attention almost the entire way through, rather than being something I'd keep an eye on while doing something else as tends to happen with stuff I watch on disc or streaming.  Yes, I could see a lot of the seams and the places where they were checking off boxes on a plot template, but it was well-executed.  It definitely helped that they used a lot of practical effects and physical sets, so the retro-future-Googie style was physically grounded.  (Yeah, Ben and Johnny were CG-fests, but those were easier to accept in physical sets.)  This wasn't an origin movie, thankfully, although they did work a summary of the backstory into an in-story TV special at the start.  One weakness is that they did rely a little too much on summary and tell-don't-show, the deleted scene between Sue and Harvey "Mole Man" Elder really would've helped a lot there.  (I think it goes shortly after the "why aren't you building the crib?" scene, if you want to stop the main movie, go watch the scene, and come back.)  Anyway, it's not an origin story, but it is an ESTABLISHING story.  There's been a lot of versions of the FF, this movie sets up what it means to be the FF now.  What are their strengths and weaknesses, the places in which they can surprise the viewer and each other?  Despite being very visually grounded in the mid-1960s, no one questions that Sue is the face and voice of the team...Reed is the brains, but not the leader.  Reed is comfortable in the lab, and will set plans in motion without necessarily telling others, but he doesn't otherwise speak for the team unless Sue is absent or incapacitated.  Johnny is more of a nerd than even his family realizes.  And Ben is surprisingly comfortable with his situation...Reed feels guilt over it, as usual, but Ben doesn't agonize over his fate.  If he did at some point, he got past it in the four years the team has been around.  And so forth.  They are recognizably a version of the Fantastic Four, but they're not the version in any previous movie, or the version in the current comics.  In particular, this is a version that embraces the crazy energy of the Silver Age, they don't try to make things More Serious out of some sense of vague embarrassment at comics written for kids.  Galactus looks like Galactus.  Mole Man starts off with the boiler suit and cloak, only exchanging them for a (somewhat tacky) suit after being rehabilitated.  Sure, things are more detailed, and a handful of the really goofy elements get shunted off into the in-setting cartoon show (e.g. it's a running gag that "It's Clobberin' Time!" was invented for the cartoon and Ben would rather not say it).  Enough rambling, though.  I enjoyed this movie, and if the plot was a bit by the numbers it was well-executed.  Strongly recommended.  Price varies by store and format.

Please Don't Tell My Parents I Bought Superpowers: Mystique Press - While it was made clear way back in I Did Not Give That Spider Super-Intelligence that the setting for the Please Don't Tell My Parents books has had superpowers for a long time, this latest book in the series both fleshes out the pre-Evolution Event superhuman scene and makes it clear that things are accelerating a LOT.  Like, headed for a Levram or My Hero Academia sort of world where those with powers outnumber those without.  The almost casual way in which the protagonist manages to buy superpowers (well, she pays in a job to be named later rather than in cash, so this isn't a spoiled rich girl) is just one of the things that indicate how absolutely normal it is becoming to be...abnormal.  Set among the same student body as the other PDTMP books, Penny Akk (the protagonist of the first five books) does make a guest appearance, but crazy girl Marcia continues to be more of the connection point for the series.  Granted, as someone with impulse control and both the ability and desire to survive life-threatening situations, she makes sense as a character that would attach herself to the latest super-powered antics, regardless of who the protagonist happens to be.  As tends to be the case, the most dangerous and plot-driving thing in the world is the good intent of a teenaged girl, regardless of whether she wants to be a hero, a normal person, a villain, or just popular.  Stella, the protagonist this time, has realized that the key to popularity at her school is to have powers...or, at least, they're a necessary step.  The world to come belongs to the powered, and no matter how talented or motivated she and her friend Luna might be, without powers they'll only ever be also-rans.  So they get powers from Red Eye, one of the established mad scientists with something like professional ethics but a shocking lack of IRB oversight.  The "my powers control me" theme from previous volumes does return, along with an examination of how no power is absolute regardless of how it might seem (e.g. a Nemesis Kid sort of power doesn't guarantee victory or even survival, as NK himself discovered).  Several other previous protagonists do make appearances in supporting roles, notably Magenta and Deathette, but by continually introducing new schoolmates as protagonists Richard Roberts is able to re-introduce setting elements and characters smoothly through the eyes of a newbie.  We also get to see them from the outside, how others see them rather than how they see themselves, which is nice character triangulation.  Recommended.  Kindle edition $4.99, trade paperback $19.99.

Terminal Engagement (Wearing the Cape book 10): (I think this is self-published?) - When the first book of the Capes series came out, the implication was that it was replacing Wearing the Cape, and Harmon was done with Astra, having given her a happy ending.  Yeah, and Doyle thought he'd killed off Sherlock Holmes.  The Capes cast does show up in this one in a significant if short role, but this is another Astra novel.  Like, the whole plot is that someone is trying to kill her, at the behest of a shadowy international criminal organization, so it's one of those "the hero makes their own problems" stories rather than one where the hero needs to deal with something that would've been a threat regardless of their presence.  While such stories make sense and are almost inevitable, I think they're harder to turn into strong pieces, because the "well, if the hero goes into hiding it'll blow over" solution is sitting right there making you wonder why the hero is continuing to put everyone around them in danger.  Yes, this solution is addressed and dismissed, but it still feels like the sort of thing that would be better served as backstory.  Like, skip this one entirely, refer back to it as Astra goes after a larger plot by the people who tried to kill her.  You know, whatever Real Plot they needed her out of the way of.  It was okay, but I actually had to wrack my brain to remember much of it a couple weeks later when writing this review, where the PDTMP book above remained vivid.  Mildly recommended.  Kindle edition $9.99, trade paperback (PoD I suspect) $19.99.

Expected next month: Dunno.

Digital Comics:

I will not be reviewing ongoing webcomics in this column, sticking with collections that I'll get in hardcopy form.  eBook novels and streaming TV/movies will go above in Other Media.  This is for full comics read in digital form, either because that's how they come out, or because I tried it out on the LibraryPass app but either didn't care for it or wasn't able to get a hardcopy before the end of the month.  The heyday of ComiXology Originals is long gone, though, so there's not a lot of regular books I get digitally.

 

Great rear shocks on that bike.

Touring After The Apocalypse vol 1: Yen Press - Just before the end of the month, LibraryPass got the first three volumes of this series.  James Nicoll has been reviewing it as it comes out (up to volume 6), so I was a little interested, but not interested enough to order online and it wasn't on the shelf locally.  The premise could be roughly outlined as "What if Fallout, but just a mostly peaceful travelogue?"  It is an unknown amount of time after a disaster that struck in the 2040s, and the two protagonists have spent a rather long time living in an underground bunker while waiting for it to be safe to go outside.  One (Airi) is a full body cyborg or android (but she still needs to eat, so there's some organic elements, but she's Touring-complete) and the other (Youko) might have some enhancements but is mostly human.  The latter survivor's "older sister" (there's hints that this is not how they're connected) left behind a phone full of travel pictures, so the duo sets out once it is safe-ish to visit all the places on the camera roll.  The world is largely empty.  They do meet a military "ghost in the shell" sort of cyborg briefly, and other definite AIs of varying levels of intelligence and sanity, but since they're kinda used to being just the two of them the absence of people is more wistful than shattering.  This feels like a VERY slow burn mystery.  What happened to all the people?  Why are structures still fairly intact (e.g. has less time passed than it seems, or perhaps the near future tech made everything more durable, even old buildings, etc)?  Why just humans gone, since plenty of animals are around?  The reader knows there was some military action and a the tourists run into some craters and a submarine blown onto the roadway, but too much is intact to be a full war of annihilation.  The disaster was quick but not instant, as there's signs that some people were aware it was coming and perhaps unavoidable (remnants of the last ComiKet...well, a parody of it...are found in an abandoned convention center with indication that it was put on by a handful of survivors determined to get in one last con before the end).  All in all, it gives the vibe of "people largely just vanished where they stood" for the most part.  A side message of the series is, "Maybe visit all these cool places before it's too late and the world has ended?"  The LibraryPass editions don't include the back page with price.  Interesting enough I'll probably read the other two volumes for next month, and might just go ahead and buy the hardcopies.  The rating is one of the things that goes on the back page, but there's a little violence and a few decaying human corpses, so probably Teen. 

 

Expected next month: Who knows?  I might just remove this category, I don't use it as much as I used to.

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.

Infini-T Force vol 2-4: Nakama Press - Okay, so volume 2 ends with something that should've been in volume 1: a brief explanation of who the characters were.  Sure, Gatchaman didn't need it that badly, and both Casshan/Casshern and Tekkaman have gotten enough reboots and sequels and toy lines that it's not too big an assumption that someone drawn in by Gatchaman might have heard of them.  But Polimar was the odd man out in that era of anime.  As for the plot, volumes 2, 3, and the first half of four focus primarily on a new boss Para Bellum, who is much more of a planner than the brute who got defeated at the end of volume 1.  Really, the volume 1 end boss was more of a tutorial fight, to continue the game metaphor.  Para gets backstory and motivation, nested plans that build slowly and hide success within failure.  Of course, the quartet of heroes tend to make things easier for him along the way, and Emi doesn't always take things seriously.  The four heroes are either lone wolves or part of teams that aren't present (although Casshan gets his sidekick along the way), and even by volume 4 they're only just starting to behave like one team instead of four lone agents with similar goals.  Oh, and the high school student cheesecake does persist, plus Emi's classmates practically throwing themselves at the high school teacher cover identity Tekkaman has taken on.  His discomfort with this leads him to try to take a break, which sets up the main plot of the second half of volume 4.  There's some deep nostalgia stuff here, but the actual story is...okay.  The creepy elements aren't too severe, and the writer at least seems to somewhat recognize the creepiness.  Mildly recommended.  $10.99/$14.99Cn rated Teen 13+ (violence, occasional cheesecake)

Chainsaw Man vol 19: Viz - And now things get weird, even by the standards of this series.  The true villain of the series comes to the fore, and it is as usual "rich old guys who will sacrifice whatever it takes to get what they want."  In this case, using Chainsaw Man's ability to delete concepts to reshape the world to their preferences...to the point it looks like multiple seemingly separate factions are really just pawns of the rich old guys.  The literal Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse devils might be the good guys here, and not just because one of them is bonded to the secondary protagonist.  (At one point, War tries to be helpful in a characteristically violent way, but ends up being accidentally helpful in rather a different way, adding sex to violence as reasons for the reader rating.)  One impression I got from this volume is that the series is turning into a sort of ultraviolent Nobilis/Glitch campaign, where the Powers are simply called Devils and Chainsaw Man is an Excrucian who is Dying of Powers (but not of Power, she seems to be dead for good).  If you got any of those references, you might enjoy this comic.  If not, something of a crapshoot even if you're okay with occasional decapitations and limb/finger removal.  $11.99/$15.99Cn/#8.99UK rated Older Teen for a lot of violence and some sexual situations.

Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 7: Seven Seas Entertainment - The research center cliffhanger from volume 6 is resolved in the first chapter, otherwise there isn't a single thrust for this volume.  While past her initial "try all the jobs" rotation, Suzume is still a rookie and generally works wherever they need an extra hadn rather than having her own specialty yet, which is a good excuse to keep moving her around.  A TV program does a feature on the park, Suzume spends a few chapters learning to help a blind raptor on his own terms rather than trying to treat him as fragile and limited, and there's a pet-the-baby-dinos event.  Despite the lack of a through line, there is a cliffhanger...someone from Corporate is coming to visit, and as the research center arc demonstrated, Corporate is more dangerous to the dinosaurs than any pigeon (yes, they are a problem, as seen in the TV program episode).  Some of the science text pieces get a little salty this time, the research consultant apparently has beef with some in the community over certain theories.  Recommended.  $13.99/$17.99Cn rated Teen 13+ (this volume is pretty general readers, but the series does have some violent situations)

I'm In Love With The Villainess vol 9: Seven Seas Entertainment - Given the success Rae has had altering personal-level stories, it's time to bring the simmering "eve of the Revolution" plot to the forefront again.  Now, instead of it being grist for romantic prospects (as the game seems to treat it), it is the real enemy.  Yes, while she doesn't say so in as many words, Rae has decided she needs to head off the fantasy version of the French Revolution or a lot of people she cares about will die on both sides of a bloody revolt...even if she can protect specific people from their gruesome fates, the only way to protect them all is the divert the great river of history entirely.  If she was in a "real world" that just happened to mirror her computer game this might be impossible, but this IS still a game, even if we rarely see game-etic stuff like drop-down menus and character sheets.  Creating a "no bloody revolution" option may be a lot harder than adding Claire's name to a drop-down menu, but it's probably easier than reversing centuries of social trends.  Especially with Rae's introduction of forensic accounting!  Prior to now, the modern day stuff Rae brought to the setting was more about attitudes and spoiler knowledge of the game, but it was only a matter of time before her day job became relevant.  Meanwhile, Cardinal Lilly remains almost too gay to function, and for all that Rae understands the game, she doesn't really understand the WORLD in a lot of ways.  Most of the time her modern attitudes aid her in the "treating the help like human beings can pay off" way that a lot of isekai protagonists benefit from, but despite this world being a dating sim it does not conform to modern views on love and marriage and how the two rarely intersect for nobility, even if they do for commoners (so her attitude isn't seen as incredibly suspicious, just mired in thinking like a commoner).  Rae has come a long way from the early volumes where I said she'd be a very unsympathetic male protagonist if she did the same things.  Not only have much bigger creeps shown up for contrast, but Rae has had a genuine change of heart, as she admits to Lilly...she just doesn't think she'll ever fully atone for being the creep she used to be.  Recommended.  $13.99/$17.99Cn rated Teen 13+ for some violence and a lot of romantic elements and some innuendo.

 

Expected next month: Shy vol 11, Isekai Samurai vol 2 (both of the preceding technically out in October but did not arrive in the mail in time for this post), Mecha-Ude vol 2, Cat + Crazy vol 2, Octo-Girl vol 3, After God vol 7, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc vol 10, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! vol 15, and maybe Easygoing Territory Defense vol 6 (due Nov 25).

Other Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.  

As long as it's temporary....

The Complete Megaton Man Universe Volume 1: the 1980s: Fantagraphics Underground - WARNING: do not attempt to hold this in one hand like a regular collection, injury may result.  This sucker is 2.5 kilograms.  I remember seeing Megaton Man #1 on the spinner rack at the magazine store where I got comics in high school, but I didn't actually buy any issues until college when I found several in the local record-and-magazine store's quarter bin.  I eventually started getting Megaton Man comics regularly (starting with Return of Megaton Man), but I don't know which issues of the original series I read, since all of my Don Simpson comics were victims of the Great Cull of 2000, when I got rid of about 2/3 of my comics (about 4000 comics) in preparation for moving out of my tiny graduate student dorm apartment.  I know I never read Megaton Man #10 or the Pterano-Man one-shot before, and probably a few others in this collection.  And I definitely didn't read the first story, which was a previously unpublished story where Simpson first created the idea.  This book was crowdfunded, and seems to have been successful enough that future volumes will be forthcoming.  608 pages of 8.5" by 11" paper, making it a bigger tome than most of my textbooks and slightly cheaper with a cover price of $85.  Other than the cover and endpapers, it's all in black and white, because it turned out that the 80s coloring work was not really scannable without looking like ass, and redoing the color from scratch would've made the project take years longer and probably cost twice as much if not more.  Simpson's style seems to work better in B&W anyway, and later books like Bizarre Heroes were done that way (IIRC, my Bizarre Heroes books were part of the Great Cull).  In addition to sixteen full issues, the "pilot" and two backup stories from other comics, there's several original text pages, a bunch of old ads and alternate covers, and a number of "deleted scenes" (pages and panels that got replaced in the published versions, but weren't thrown away), and a fairly dense history/autobiography.  Megaton Man #10 is even presented as full-bleed art, showing all the stuff around the edges that was originally cropped.  Did Megaton Man ever really become a big hit?  No.  Was it consistently brilliant?  Also no, or I wouldn't have dumped all my copies 25 years ago.  But it was an interesting piece of comics history and it wasn't just a parody of the industry, it helped shape the industry in some small ways (as the X-Amount of Comics notes point out, Watchmen has an homage to Megaton Man #4, as an example).  It's kinda like that quote about the Velvet Underground, how not many people bought the album, but everyone who bought it founded a band.  Not everyone who bought Megaton Man wrote their own comic, but an awful lot of us did go on to be big comics nerds even if we didn't make the fan to pro transition.  If you want a lens on the 1980s and early 90s in mainstream comics, this is a decent place to go.  Recommended but very expensive, $85.  A little nudity, some racist depictions (especially in the brief Doc Savage riff, shockingly), and a lot of implied sex.  No actual rating on the book, but the imprint is "FU" so they don't really expect minors to be picking this up, I expect.

X-Amount of Comics: Fantagraphics Underground - I stumbled across this on the LibraryPass site (which the next week got the Megaton Man Universe), and went ahead and ordered a hardcopy.  This is not the long-awaited 1963 Annual, but it is a sort of response to the lack of same.  It meanders about, having been plotted roughly at the rate the pages were drawn and posted online (not that I was aware of this happening at the time), and is unapologetic about it.  For those who don't know what the "1963 Annual" was (not), in 1993 the Image Founders got Alan Moore to write an homage to 1963-era comics in the form of six "one shot" issues that formed a single arc and was to have been resolved in a giant sized Annual with Jim Lee art that...never materialized.  The stated goal was to create a coherent Image Universe rather than the loose collection of crossovers that they had at the time, but not only did 1963 Annual never happen, Image never really developed its own version of a Marvel Universe or DC Universe.  Simpson was somewhat involved in the process, and was the letterer for several issues before getting scapegoated for scheduling problems (the end notes go into detail), but he disclaims any knowledge of what was actually planned.  Instead, parodies of the homages wander through realities, briefly fight the Splitting Image parodies, and then mostly ask The Effable One (aka "Affable Al Moore") as played by Paul Nabisco, the tortured auteur character first seen working the Gamble Comics bullpen in the original Megaton Man series (based on Steve Gerber at the time, based on the last name and the presence of Gower Goose as Nabisco's signature character, but he has since taken on qualities of other writers, including Moore).  There are endnotes explaining some of the characters, including a few appearing here for the first time for later use in an upcoming Megaton Man series.  Is it a good story?  Dude, it's barely a story.  It's a meta-parody of the very idea of going back to wrap up an old arc (as the "WhenElse" subtitle plays at, referring to John Byrne's ElseWhen) while also cleaning house on leftover ideas like Pictopia (another thing Moore abandoned but Simpson worked on at the time), some old Anything Goes characters...really, about the only leftover Simpson-attached stuff not tied in at some point would be Border Worlds.  If you remember the 1963 series, you might find this interesting.  (My own copies of 1963 were also victims of the Great Cull of 2000.)  $20, a little nudity (like, one panel).  Not for kids because none of them are old enough to get any of the jokes.

Expected next month: Nothing, although Cursed Princess Club vol 5 is coming out at the end of November and I MIGHT have it in time to review.  Jacked Tracts (a Jack Chick thing from Zoop) is "starting fulfillment soon," so I might have it next month too.

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.)

Stick Figure Storytelling by Matt Feazell: Not Available Comics - It doesn't get a lot floppier than a minicomic, eh?  Well, this is a bit bigger than the usual 8-pager, but it's still sheets of paper folded over and stapled in the middle.  The structure is nested and treats the fourth wall as a minor inconvenience.  It also recapitulates some of the advice in a previous "how to make a mini-comic" that Feazell did, and even has a tiny mini-er mini-comic stuck in the center, the comic that characters Spud and Ernie (Cynicalman's fan club) make in the main story.  As indicated by the name, artistic technique is not a priority here, instead the focus is on story structure, layout, and simply having the right mindset...which is, if you want to make a comic, then make a comic!  Don't let things like lack of talent, experience, or equipment stop you.  Recommended.  $3.50 plus $1 shipping (within the US) from www.cynicalman.com 

Not Available Comics #29: Not Available Comics - Stick Figure Fantastic Four "true" minicomic.  This doesn't do a lot with the FF that hasn't been done before a lot (including in Megaton Man), but the twist ending is new.  The strip itself was up on mattfeazell.net earlier this year, but the site doesn't do archives (unless you count "buy hardcopies" of course).  The back cover is a parody of those old "100 Army Men Playset" ads, but with ICE Agents ("Epstein Files not included").  If you're already doing an order, it's worth tacking this on, although I got it free with my order of the above.  50 cents normally, and if ordered on its own shipping is 78 cents within the US.

 

Expected next time: Fantastic Four #3-4, Gatchaman #12-13, Marvel Knights: the World To Come #3 (of 6), Moon Knight Fist of Khonshu #12-13, Sonja Reborn #2-3, Star Trek Lower Decks #11-12, Vampirella #5.

Dvandom, aka Dave Van Domelen, is an Associate Professor of Physical Science at Amarillo College, maintainer of one of the two longest-running Transformers fansites in existence (neither he nor Ben Yee is entirely sure who was first), voted early as usual, is an occasional science advisor in fiction, and part of the development team for the upcoming City of Titans MMO.

 

"W-WAIT A SECOND HERE!  ARE YOU TWO DATING?" - Prince Rod, a few volumes late on the uptake, I'm In Love With The Villainess vol 9