Friday Night Fights: O.P.P. (round 6)

Hulk, Ben Grimm. Seriously, what more do you need Spacebooger?

World War Hulk by Pak & Romita Jr.

Remember That One Time When Batman Had A Free For All In A Ring Of Fire?

Silly super villain.

See, Batman figured out you are all Martians and in the DC Universe Martians fear only fire.

Batman is awesome and scary.

From JLA: The Deluxe Edition, vol. 1 by Morrison, Porter & Dell (DC, 2008)

My Love Is Poison

In the latest Lying in the Gutters column, Rich Johnston wrote that Marvel's Immortal Iron Fist has been cancelled with issue #27 and there's a green light attached to that report so it's true with a +/- 5% chance of being false.

Aw, maaaannn. The Khairul H. curse is potent and is without mercy. Most books that I really, really love get the axe (Manhunter, Blue Beetle) while others like Tarot go on forever.

I fear for Fables, Jonah Hex and Incredible Hercules.

Edited to add: Apparently Iron Fist isn't getting cancelled. It was a misprint. Don't toy with my emotions, Marvel!

"Give Him A Body Bag! Nyahh-hahahahaha!"

This is it. Danny is about to win the tournament with a totally bullshit move (hey, it's Hollywood, whatchoo expect?) But the part I remember besides the 'Crane Kick'? The other bully on the sideline giving his buddy words of encouragement: "Give him a body bag!!" and then laughing like a hyena on drugs. Classic!

Snake-Eyes...

...wants you to play that funky music, white boy!

Friday Night Fights: O.P.P (round 5)

The Wu-Han Thumb of Death. Looks painful to me.

From The Middleman: The Collected Series Indispensability by Grillo-Marxuach & McLaine (Viper Comics, 2008)

More pain here.

All-Star Superman vol. 2 (DC, 2009)

I've said all I can say about Morrison's and Quitely's take on Superman over here. So I'm not going to say anything else for the second volume except: It is frickin' awesome. That is all.



Lois' eye-roll is just perfect.

Yay! My Bitchslap Panel of Pain Wins!

Spacebooger has seen it fit to proclaim my entry as the winner of Round 4 of O.P.P (One Panel of Pain). My parents would be so proud!

Thanks to Messner-Loeb and LaRoque for writing/pencilling that scene. A crying Flash laying down the law on another vigilante's cheeks. Fabulous!

Captain Britain and MI13, Vol. 1: Secret Invasion (Marvel, 2009)

Okay, you know what I really like about this book? There is a Muslim character in it who doesn't spout off stereotypical gems like "By the beard of the Prophet!" that comic writers used to do whenever they have to give lines to a Muslim character. Okay the last time I picked up a floppy was in the mid-90s so maybe I'm out of touch but not by much, I don't think. Her name is Dr. Faiza Hussain and writer Paul Cornell has given her superpowers and she seems to be part of the MI13 team by the end of this 4-issue collection so she'll probably be featured regularly and not just a throwaway character. So, YAY!

Other members of MI13 along with Captain Britain and Dr. Faiza are the Black Knight, super speedster Spitfire, Pete Wisdom who is a mutant who can fire bolts of energy from his fingers and John the Skrull who looks like John Lennon (but he dies in this book. Booo.) Since this collection is called "Secret Invasion" it's obvious what it's all about: it's a tie-in to the Secret Invasion mega event (which I have no interest in following so you probably know better about it than I). In Captain Britain and MI13, the Skrulls attempt to conquer Britain by controlling the very essence of magic itself. They have a Super Skrull with magical powers who looks like a four armed hybrid of Dormammu and Dr. Strange. He doesn't last long anyway because this creep gets his head chopped off by Captain Britain and all's well that ends well.

And that brings me to the thing that bothered me when I was reading this book: the decapitation of Skrulls. Is this a new thing with Marvel? I know DC is all blood and gore ever since they gave Geoff Johns a free rein with their books but Marvel has been pretty conservative with depictions of gore in their mainstream comics (Marvel Zombies notwithstanding, but when you're reading a comic about zombies you expect gore). Yet in CBnMI13, Skrull heads are being separated like it was going out of fashion and it doesn't happen far in the background either. No, the reader gets a ringside seat. Except for when Spitfire does it. She bites off the heads of two Skrulls although one is only implied while the other is in silhouette. Wait, she's a biter now? When did this happen??

Maybe it's okay with Marvel since they're Skrulls and therefore not real. Two British mystical characters also meet a painful end. Lady in the Lake: vaporised. Green Knight: decapitated. Still, I'm not comfortable enough to hand this book to a young reader. I'm prudish like that (yeah, I know this book is rated T+ but I'm an old fogey). Also, Cornell uses the ampersand-dollar sign-exclamation point-hash sign-percentage sign to substitute for actual swear words which also bothers me a bit. C'mon Marvel, either you make your heroes and villains swear or you don't. This - @$%#!& - reminds me of the censors bleeping out swear words on TV...and just as annoying. You allow decapitations but you draw a line on actual swearing?

Those complaints aside, CBnMI13 is actually a fun book to read. Pencils by Leonard Kirk is pretty (I enjoyed his work on the Agents of Atlas mini series last year) and it's obvious Paul Cornell has big plans for these characters. He may have been stifled plot-wise because he has to tie in to the Secret Invasion event but I have heard that in subsequent issues he has Captain Britain fighting Dracula on the Moon or something. Now that is the kind of stupid awesome that I look forward to in my superhero comics. Can't wait to read that in the next Captain Britain trade.

4 Minutes And 12 Seconds Of Movie Awesomeness

The movie Desperado (which I'm still not sure whether is a sequel or a remake of El Mariachi) is chock full of awesome scenes but the firefight towards the end when El Mariachi is joined by his two buddies armed with machine guns and a rocket launcher disguised as acoustic guitar cases was where my mind exploded and I decided that Robert Rodriguez is my new favourite stupid-crazy-awesome-action-flick director.



Guitar case rocket launcher. I want one.

Snake-Eyes...

...says, "This is me. Love me, don't judge me."

Friday Night Fights: O.P.P. (round 4)

That's actually Wally West in super-speed mode bitchslapping Mark Shaw a.k.a Manhunter in Flash #22, DC, 1989. By Messner-Loebs, LaRoque & Mahlstedt.

More one panel slaps, punches and kicks over at Spacebooger

Remember The Time Daredevil Dressed Up As The Kingpin In Order To Fool Spider-Man?

This WTF?! moment appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #287 by Jim Owsley, Erik Larsen and Art Nichols. It was the penultimate issue of the 5-issue 'Gang War' storyline in which the NY-based mobs rushed to stake a claim in Manhattan with the absence of Wilson Fisk a.k.a The Kingpin. DD in a fat suit is the most memorable part of that story.

Classic G.I. Joe, volume 1 (IDW, 2009)

Go on and buy it. You know you want to. It reprints the Marvel run of G.I. Joe, it's printed on glossy paper, it's over 200 pages (10 issues worth) and it's in colour. IDW doesn't play around with that Essential or Showcase or Archive black and white reproduction crap. The give it to you in glorious colour.

It's old school G.I. Joe adventures, long before it turned into an "It was all Snake-Eyes' fault" book*. You also get to see Kwinn, comic book's first and only Eskimo Mercenary, in his first appearance ever. An Eskimo** freelance agent! You don't get that in X-Men.


*Seriously, everything revolved around Snake Eyes. Cobra Commander, Zartan, Storm Shadow and I think the Baroness as well, all blamed their fates on him.

**Yes, I know. Inuit.

I Needed A Reason To Drop Some Books Anyway...

There are a few names today that will make me drop a title from my 'must-buy' list if those names appear in the credit box:

Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld, Ed Benes, Judd Winick, Brad Meltzer, Mark Millar and a couple of others.

Hey, if you like their work then more power to you. I don't. Different strokes and all that. Well, here's a piece of news that has just come to my attention: Judd Winick will be writing "Batman".

Oh, SNAP!

A part of me hopes that they were joking but since it was announced on a frikkin' WonderCon DC Panel, it's safe to say they were serious. Oh well, I was looking for a trade or two to drop. Looks like Batman will be the one.