Superman & Batman vs Vampires

So there's gonna be a mini series featuring Batman & Superman fighting werewolves and vampires. John Byrne already did that in 1987. Well okay, it was just Superman and Batman versus one vampire and no werewolves but it only took him 38 pages to do it which is just about the right number of pages for a vampire story.

Batman is referring to his apparent death few pages earlier when he dives into quicksand and sinks. Sinking into quicksand equals death, right? Makes sense. Not necessarily, says Batman:


No you can't swim in quicksand like you do in water! The hell, Bruce? Or is he so well prepared and such a badass that he can bend the law of physics to his will? In which case...cool!

From Action Comics Annual #1 collected in Superman: The Man of Steel 6 by Byrne, Adams & Giordano

Great Moments In Comics History No. 5: Snowblind

In issue #6 of Alpha Flight entitled, "Snowblind", there is a fight scene between Alpha Flight's Snowbird and Kolomaq, an embodiment of winter. So what follows are 5-pages of absolute white except for captions and word and thought balloons. At first, I thought John Byrne was taking the piss but upon reflection it was quite clever. They are fighting in a blizzard after all. Click to enlarge.










From Alpha Flight Classic trade paperback.

The First Secret Invasion: Legacy

So who the heck water their crops with milk?

The Srull-Cows! The Skrull-Cows from Fantastic Four #2. It was their milk that the farmers of King's Crossing were using to water their crops. But why use milk?

So there you have it. The people of King's Crossing have been drinking "Skrull milk" and unknowingly swallowing Skrull DNA, turning themselves into shape-changing zombies. And now they want everyone to drink, eat and breathe good ol' Skrull DNA and be "One of Us. One of Us. One of Us." But they didn't count on the Fantastic Four foiling their plans like FF always do.

Legacy from Fantastic Four Annual #17 (also collected in Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne vol. 3) is a nice coda to what happened to the first Skrull invasion of the Marvel Universe. Stan and Jack were still experimenting with writing superheroic sci-fi adventures when they wrote that issue of Fantastic Four in 1962 and it showed. Turn the bad guys into cows and never revisit that loose end again? Thankfully, a talented writer like John Byrne remembered that detail and wrote a fitting epilogue to that early adventure of the Fantastic Four.

Aquaman DOES SO Matter! or John Byrne Hurts A Child's Feelings

From Byrne Robotics Forum:

"In my first studio in my former house, there was a fireplace with a wide mantle. I set my Super Powers action figures in a line along this shelf (in alphabetical order, which hardly anyone ever seemed to pick up on!) One afternoon, during one of my summer parties, I wandered into the studio to find a small clutch of my fellow professionals had gathered in there. One of these was a good friend, who had brought with him his wife and small daughter (maybe three years old). I walked in to find her sitting on the floor playing with my Aquaman figure. "She was bored," said my friend, "so I gave her Aquaman to play with. He doesn't matter." His exact words, burned into my brain. I took the toy from the child* and replaced it on the shelf. "Does to me," I said."

*Don't swing at the easy ones


On the one hand, you could say, "Gee, what a dick!" But on the other hand, they were his toys and saying Aquaman doesn't matter? Dude, dem's fightin' words in the Byrne homestead.

In case you are dangling upside down...

What I want to know is...what kind of super-starch does Alicia use on her skirt?

Panel from Fantastic Four #255. Scan from Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne vol. 3