Cobras I Wish Would Appear In The Movie

He's not in the movie, is he? If he is that would be so stupid cool.

The Marvel run of the Joe comic had all these crazy ass characters that appeared for only one or two issues. Maybe Hasbro had a new action figure out and wanted Larry Hama to promote it. Still, an accountant dressed up as a falcon would so make me want to watch the movie.

What, There's A Difference??

Yeah, Gung-Ho. At least get the species right. That's a croc, not a 'gator chewing on Stalker's thigh.

Anyone else think that Stalker is not a bad-ass?


From G.I. Joe #13 (Marvel, 1983), by Larry Hama, Mike Vosburg & Joe D'agostino

Phoning It In...

Wolverine and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, doing that Zen thing in a monastery somewhere in Madripoor. Yeah, I got nothing.

Tiny Titans Darkseid Is So Cute...

From tiny titans: Adventures in Awesomeness trade collection. A book that makes me squee with delight every time I read it. Which is often.

Hey, Look! A New Post!

Well, it's been like what, two weeks since I last updated this blog? Sometimes real world responsibilities set up an ambush for you and you have no choice but to take care of it and leave everything else (like a blog about comic books). Anyway, I'm back and let's hope I won't go away for long after this, huh?

So what's this? John Stewart and the Martian Manhunter arrive at the planet Xanshi. They were assigned to Xanshi by the Highfather and Darkseid to destroy the Anti-Life Aspect before it destroys the planet and put the Milky Way galaxy in peril.



So off the Lantern goes without his Martian partner because he's ring is all-powerful and all that...


Whoops...
The thing they were sent there to destroy is in freakin' yellow, the one colour a Green Lantern's ring cannot fight against (pre-Green Lantern: Rebirth) and John Stewart just left his all powerful Martian friend a few thousand kilometres behind him. This will not look good on his resume, that's for sure. But wait...


Who the heck is this guy? Seriously, who is he? Look at the first panel up there. The locals have a distinctive look. This guy looks like Jerry Garcia. Is that how writer Jim Starlin looks like? It just took me out of the story for a second. It's like seeing a Charlton Heston cameo in a silly comedy or something.

20 years ago, a Cosmic Odyssey threatened to destroy the galaxy. Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola were there to chronicle it. The collection is still available online or you can wait till September and get the new edition. Probably nothing new other than a new foreword maybe.

Shut Up, Paco!

Yeah, Vibe, because your shockwave abilities are oh, so cool.

I have an irrational dislike for Paco Ramone a.k.a Vibe, can you tell?

B'wana Beast: Alpha Male

There are two reasons why I love Grant Morrison. First, he brought back crazy stories into the pages of superhero comics when he took over Doom Patrol when everyone else was going for grim and gritty. The other is when he saved B'wana Beast from obscurity and reintroduced him to a new generation of comic fans in the pages of Animal Man. Because that made the writers of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon show remember B'wana Beast as well and that, in turn, prompted Adam Beechen to feature B'wana in an issue of the Justice League Unlimited comic.

That's why I love Grant Morrison.

Anyway, in issue #29 of the JLU comic, the League is up against mind controlled gorillas in Seattle and they're actually having trouble subduing the apes. Mainly because there's no help from B'wana Beast. He's off doing his "Lord of the Jungle" thing, much to Superman's chagrin.


B'wana's such a jerk...but I love him, the big lug.

Superman then asks Animal Man to go talk to B'wana Beast seeing as how they both have animal-related powers. B'wana ain't interested, baby.

B'wana Beast gives help to no one, whelp!

So then the League receives an emergency call from Mexico City. Queen Bee is holding the entire city ransom. Lots of money or she'll sic her mutated killer bees on the populace. Not nice. The League goes to work. Superman orders Animal Man and B'wana Beast to try and channel abilities of natural bee predators like wasps or bears but B'wana Beast ignores him because:

Yeah. He's off doing his own thing again until, that is, when Animal Man gets into trouble





So BB isn't such a jerk after all.

Awwww.....

I love the all-ages superhero comics. Justice League Unlimited, Tiny Titans, DC Superfriends, Batman: Brave and the Bold, Marvel Adventures. They're not pretentious and they tell their story in one issue. Plus, I can share them with my kids. This story is collected in Justice League Unlimited: Heroes and was written by Adam Beechen with art by Carlo Barberi and Tom Fowler.

Batman Has Eggnog With The Kents

Awkwaaaard. And does Clark have boobs in the background there?


From Justice League Unlimited: Heroes by McAvennie, Greene & Massengill

Out Of Context Sunday...erm, no, Thursday.

There's a hot looking woman chained in this guy's bomb shelter, wearing high-heeled boots and practically nothing else and he wants to know if she's a vampire???

I think he's gay.

Yes, I went there.

From Vampirella: Crimson Chronicles Maximum collection from Harris Comics. Story by Archie Goodwin, artwork by Jose Gonzalez.

Great Moment In Comics History No. 8: Holy Crap, Kal-El!

Not really that far back to be considered 'history' but check this out:


Jay Garrick gets struck by lightning and what does Superman from Earth-22 do? He jumps in and punches away the lightning bolt!!

That is hardcore.

From Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, Part Three by Johns, Ross, Eaglesham and Pasarin (DC, 2009)

Before The Identity Crisis Retcon, Dr. Light...

...was kinda of a dweeb. He was a joke, a B-list villain who couldn't even win against a bunch of kids. So John Ostrander got permission to use him in Suicide Squad, the mid-1980s comic where obscure DC villains get a second chance or get killed. No one knew what Ostrander wanted to do with Dr. Light so in #36, we were surprised when the Doctor actually wanted to turn over a new leaf and be a hero (after getting some pep talk from the ghost of Jacob Smith Finlay, the first Dr. Light).


So the new 'heroic' Dr. Light gets to prove himself in everyone's favourite dystopia, Apokolips, but not after more morale boosting from the ghost of Jacob Finlay.




It was all a trick! Finlay wanted revenge! But wait...


Poor Finlay. First he gets murdered then he gets to spend all eternity with his murderer because causing someone's death won't get you into Heaven. We all know now that (the second) Dr. Light is back on Earth and is actually a rapist (gee, thanks a lot, Dan Didio). So when was he resurrected? And who is that ugly troll? That creature is one of Satan's minions and Light himsellf would be resurrected in another awesome issue* of Suicide Squad, a series that had pure awesomeness oozing out its pages in just about every issue even though it was saddled with less than stellar pencillers all throughout its run.

*yeah, I plan to blog about that particular issue soon. It's a hoot, I tell you.

Good Comics Not Many People Read: Green Manor vol. 1 (Cinebook, 2008)

I'm getting burned out by superhero comics lately but I still love to read books with pictures and word balloons so it was quite serendipitous that I found out about Cinebook, a British publisher that translates European comics into English, and a damn fine job they're doing too. Check out their site and see some stuff that may not have come to the attention of fans of mainstream comics (read: US superhero comics)

I particularly like Green Manor, a French comic. It is actually a series of short stories, none longer than 8 pages, framed at the beginning and at the end of the book by a mental patient who claims that he used to be an employee of Green Manor. The Green Manor is an exclusive gentleman's club in Victorian England which on the surface doesn't make it any special than the other clubs...except that the patient insists that most of the Manor's posh members are nothing more than thieves, conmen and murderers (mostly murderers). His years there have made him privy to a lot of stories and it is these stories that he tells.

The stories themselves are quite enjoyable. Seeing as how none of them exceed 8 pages, the stories have to move along at a brisk pace and writer Fabien Vehlmann succeeds. That doesn't mean the stories are simple though. The plots are intriguing and the mysteries always end in some kind of twist. My favourite story in this volume is Post-Scriptum where a club member challenges another member to stop him from killing a woman by midnight the next evening. He actually succeeds in killing both his intended target and the man he challenged to stop his murderous plan but did not realise that his victim had prepared something beforehand, just in case. Vengeance from the beyond the grave, so to speak.

There is no gore in any of the stories. The killings are almost always off camera and artist Denis Bodart's cartoony style presents a nice contrast to the dark mood of the stories. It is a pity that Green Manor, despite being translated into English, would probably fail to capture the attention of comic fans outside of Europe. It is time we realise that there are a lot of good stuff out there that is not necessarily from the US. They may not feature powerful people in spandex punching other powerful people in spandex but these books are no less well written and illustrated. If you like murder mysteries, check out Green Manor from Cinebook. I bought mine from Amazon UK. I wished the creators had written more but there are only three volumes of the Manor (Cinebook combined the second and third books together so the English version only has two volumes).

Friday Night Fights: OPP - round 12

You know what? Call it lazy, call it 'phoning it in'. I don't care. I've won TWO OPP fights, boyo! If I want to showcase something ho-hum like a middle aged Batman kicking Superman in the jaw, well then, by golly, I'll do it!

Spacebooger has more fights from the other guys...but none of them won twice!

Dark Knight Returns by Miller, Janson and Varley

PROOF book 1: Goatsucker (Image, 2008)

Proof is John Prufrock. He's a talking Bigfoot, wears a suit and tie and works for The Lodge, a clandestine agency funded by both the US and Canadian governments to investigate reports of 'cryptids' or sightings of strange animals and if true, bring such animals back to The Lodge before anyone else sees them. It's for both the creature's and the human population's sake. Think X-Files but set in Washington state and Mulder is a 9-foot ape (or think Hellboy but without the Nazis).

Sure, it's hardly original but I love these kind of stories. In this first trade collection, Goatsucker, Proof gets a new human partner, Ginger Brown, who is transferred from the FBI to The Lodge when she is rescued in a hostage situation by a Golem in New York's Diamond District. Oh, it'll all make sense once you read the book! Trust me. In this first trade the principal players are introduced (other than Proof and Ginger, there's the Lodge's boss, Leander Wight) and then it's off to Minnesota to investigate an alleged sighting of the Chupacabra or 'Mexican Bigfoot'.

This Chupacabra doesn't suck goats, it sucks out the insides of humans and puts on their skin over its own, essentially passing itself off as human because it wants, for some reason, to kill Proof. We are not told why. Even the monster doesn't remember why. Being a first volume of an ongoing series, Proof naturally raises a lot of questions and hardly answering any of them but it is intriguing enough for me to go out and look for the second trade collection. I hope I'll get some answers then. I mean, Proof is an English speaking ape who works for the government. How the hell did that happen? Where's the backstory there? And who is Mi-Chen-Po? What's up with the Golem in New York? Answers, guys! Give me some! Yeah, I'm hooked, damn you.

DC Comics Library: The Batman Annuals volume one

I know what I will be reading at work tomorrow...during lunchtime, that is, 'cause reading when you should be working is wrong.

I'm not a huge fan of the Silver Age Batman, having grown up reading his grim and gritty adventures post-Dark Knight Returns of the 1980s. Still, this panel sold me on this book:


Jungle Batman clubbing a panther! How can anyone not like that?

Friday Night Fights: OPP - round 11

Sobek eats Osiris in the pages of 52 volume 4 by Johns, Morrison, Rucka, Waid & Giffen.

Spacebooger does the same to all the jerkwads he meets. That's just how he rolls.

How NOT To Insult A Priest

I don't know. Calling a priest "PIG-SUCK!" isn't really a zinger of an insult. That's like calling him a badger-molestor. It just lacks a certain oomph.

From Hellboy: Wake The Devil tpb by Mike Mignola.

Look, Kids! Comics!

Cover to Elephantmen #18.

Burnout

Damn, am I burned out already on superhero comics? It's only been 4 years since I came back to Marvel's and DC's respective universes and already I feel bored with their stuff. Not a good sign. I don't wanna leave but what's the point of throwing money into stuff you don't enjoy them?

Just finished reading the third collection of DC's The Brave and the Bold and I was less than impressed. It wasn't as bad the second collection but not as good as the first one either. As a fan of done-in-one, not necessarily in-continuity stories, I think BotB opened well with a huge bang and then whimpered pretty quickly soon after. I dropped Justice League when it became a pin-up gallery and I'll be dropping JSA with they finish collecting the 'Kingdom Come' storyline. This title, out of all of them that I buy, has been the most disappointing. The revival of the JSA early in the new century was a hoot. Great plots, great pencils...the later ones weren't so hot but overall the Justice Society was fun to read. Now not so much. If Marvel has Brian Bendis as their master of decompressed writing, DC has Geoff Johns.

And speaking of Marvel, it looks like I'll be dropping all three Avengers trades (Mighty, New & Initiative) with their Secret Invasion collection. "I'm not a Skrull! You're the Skrull!" was funny for about half a page, Bendis.

When reading Showcase Presents: Enemy Ace or Essential Defenders vol. 1 is more fun than reading the current stuff from the Big Two, maybe it's time to focus more attention and money on their old stuff. Of course, there's always the smaller publishers. It's not all a lost cause, I admit, but if you want to read about superhero adventures there's no place better than Marvel & DC and these days those companies aren't hitting many of my buttons.

Yeah, But She Took Care of 7 Single Men!

That's true. In fact, Ms. White was quite crap in all forms of combat. (click on image for monster size and to find out what the hell I'm talking about)

Wonder Woman backbites another fictional character in Wonder Woman: Ends of the Earth hardcover collection by Simone and Chang.