Friday Night Fights: Knockout Round 9

After a brief hiatus, I'm back in the fight. Can't stay away from Bahlactus for long. He'll hunt you down! First, a bit of backstory for tonight's contender: St. Augustine!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No way this man of the cloth is gonna last the round." Shows what you know, sucka!

See, he has the pointy hat and all. He's ready to rumble!

Just be patient. I'm going somewhere with this.....

See? Toldja! You don't mess with a man of God, you hear?

From Action Philosophers Giant Size Thing - vol. 1 by Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey

Garfield Minus Garfield

Check this out: Garfield minus Garfield. It is what it says it is, a Garfield comic strip without Garfield or that stupid dog. Just Jon seemingly talking to himself and that makes the strip even funnier. Or I should say, funny, since I never really found Garfield even slightly amusing (I preferred Bloom County myself). These are, as the site creator says at the top of the page, "even better comic[s] about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life," when Garfield is removed from the panels.

Now someone do the same with Beetle Bailey.

Hulk #2

So in this issue, the crimson-tinted Hulk has to....aww, who gives a damn? They lost me at Jeph Loeb.

Mini Review - Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock Knock Jokes HC

Aaaannnd I'm back. I told you I'll be back in February. I didn't say when in February, did I? Hah! Just had to sort out some personal stuff and then decided to take some time off from blogging. Because I can. But I'm back and there is much rejoicing across the land. What have I been reading this past few days? This:


It collects the first seven issues of Harley's own series, written by Karl "12 parsecs" Kesel and art by Terry and Rachel Dodson. In this collection, Harley decides to go solo after Joker tries to kill her, tangles with Two-Face, have a girls' night out with some of DC's femme fatales, recruits a Joker wannabe into her gang and tries to rob Wayne Manor. Fun!

I like Kesel's plots. And here I thought he was just a kick ass inker. Nothing ground breaking here, I admit, but writing an entertaining comic book story isn't as easy as you would think. If it was, I'd be doing it myself. The Dodson's art is solid. I've never seen their work before this and it reminds me a little of the late Mike Weiringo and that's no bad thing.

Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock Knock Jokes is a nice collection that a Bat-fan should own. A bit overpriced perhaps ($25 for seven issues) but who buys at retail price anyway? Or you could wait for the softcover version.

And that's my mini review. Yeah, it isn't much...I'm still rusty from taking a couple weeks off.

Steve Gerber Is Dead.

From Comic Book Resources.com:

"Legendary comics writer Steve Gerber passed away on Sunday, February 10, 2008, due to complications from pulmonary fibrosis. He was 60-years-old.

Best known for his creation Howard the Duck, Gerber was responsible for many of the memorable characters of the 1970s including Omega the Unknown, Man-Thing and Shanna the She-Devil. In the last two decades, Gerber authored celebrated Marvel Comics stories including runs on “Sub-Mariner,” “Daredevil” and “Defenders.” DC Comics published Gerber’s creator-owned works “Nevada” and “Hard Time,” both of which were met with considerable critical acclaim.

In television, Gerber was a writer and story editor on such lauded series as “The Transformers” and “G.I. Joe.” He created “Thundarr the Barbarian,” and in 1998 shared a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on “The New Batman/Superman Adventures.”

Prior to his death, Gerber was writing “Countdown to Mystery: Doctor Fate” for DC Comics."

Arrgh! Man-Boobs!

Y'know, I've never really hated Rob Liefeld's art back when I was collecting comics. He wasn't my favourite but he wasn't at the bottom of my list either. But Damn!, this pin-up of Captain America gave me nightmares when I first saw it. This should have a caption at the bottom, "Look, kids! Just say "NO" to drugs. I didn't and look what happened!"



(yeah, I haven't been updating this blog as often as I should. Sorry.)

With A Surname Like That, Of Course He Had To Be A Doctor

I bet none of his students dare to skip his classes. Homeland Security should keep an eye on this guy. Find out what he does in his spare time. I'm thinking "dabbling in the Dark Arts" is a favourite.

Reed Richards, Super-Genius...Terrible Memory

Okay, what is wrong with this panel from issue #20 of Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby? Give up?

By issue #20, the FF have met the Skrulls, Kurrgo, master of Planet X, Uatu the Watcher, the Impossible Man and a time-travelling Pharaoh....and Reed thinks a meteor that crash landed on a farm is proof that there is life in outer space???

Adlan Benan Omar (1973 - 2008)

No, I haven't abandoned this blog. I've just been taking some unscheduled time off from posting due to some real life stuff happening which requires my immediate attention. Plus, just found out over the weekend that an old friend from way back lost his battle with cancer. He was my age (34) and now he's dead. Cancer's a bitch, let me tell you. So you'll understand if I'm not in a blog-posting mood this week.

I'll start again in February...which is this Friday, isn't it? Cool.

Thanks for your patience. All five of you.

Oh and to Adlan Benan Omar? If you're watching me from up there...Rest In Peace, man! We'll meet again soon (erm, not too soon I hope).

Adlan Benan Omar (1973 - 2008). Why do the good die young?

Friday Night Fights: Knockout Round 3

(click to superduper size)

The classic Superduperman vs. Captain Marbles bout, by the Usual Gang of Idiots (The MAD Archives vol. 1)

But Bahlactus is nobody's idiot.

Monkey Pokes Hulk, Hulk Smash!

Still no reviews today, sorry. It's not that I don't have trades to write about. Far from it. It's just that stuff happens at work and life in general that by the end of the day, I couldn't be bothered to stare at the computer (again) and write about a comic trade I just read. Reviews soon, I promise.

In the meantime, here's a page from Marvel Adventures Hulk #7 by Paul Benjamin and David Nakayama. I've mentioned before why I like the Marvel Adventures line and this issue doesn't disappoint. The MA comics are the only Marvel comics worth reading nowadays...oh, except for Immortal Iron Fist and Runaways and uhm...X-Men First Class.



The monkey! The monkey did it! Hurt the monkey!

To The Guy Who Googled "Superheroine Catfights"...

In my final blog entry of last year's, I wrote about the search words people have used in Google which brought them to this blog. One of them was "Superheroine catfights". I've never done that before so the guy who typed those words? Pissed off, I'm sure. But not anymore. Here are a couple of pages from that cheesecake-heavy comic, Birds of Prey, featuring Black Canary fighting a nightie-clad bad-girl Cheshire. In a swimming pool. Pencilled by Ed "tits and ass are my specialty" Benes. Enjoy, kids.






Wanna see more? Go get the trade, Birds of Prey: Sensei and Student. Yes, I occasionally shill for DC. Why do you ask?

Friday Night Fights: Knockout Round 2

Iron Man pisses off Ms. Marvel after he told her that any episode of MacGyver was more entertaining than an entire season of Grey's Anatomy

But no one is more interesting than Bahlactus

(panel from Ms. Marvel vol. 3: Operation Lightning Storm)

Legion Of Super-Heroes: An Eye For An Eye

There are three criterions I use when deciding which comic trade I should pick up the next time I go comic book shopping. One, the creative team. A book that has a talent whose work I'm familiar with stands a good chance of getting picked up. Second, the character(s) featured in the book. There is a better chance of me picking up a Batman collection than say, a Ghost Rider, since I prefer the former over the latter. And third, I would pick up a book due to nothing more than plain old curiosity.

Legion of Super-Heroes: An Eye For An Eye is a book I bought based on curiosity and nothing else. I have never read a LOSH comic prior to this though I was not ignorant of the group. There are two reasons why I never bothered with them. Firstly, as their name suggests, they are legion. Way, way, waaay too many members, I thought. How can I keep up? Secondly, I found their superhero names ridiculous. Bouncing Boy? Matter-Eater Lad? Cosmic Boy? Dream Girl? Star Boy? I just could not take them seriously....says the person who grew up reading Spider-Man. Yes, I'm quite aware of my hypocrisy, thankyouverymuch (in my defence, he was called Spider-MAN and there was only one of him).

I decided to jump onto the LOSH bandwagon with this collection because this was what is known as the "version 3" Legion. It seemed like the good place to start since I was not really interested in the prior adventures of the LOSH when they had Superboy as a fellow member. Also, Paul Levitz was the writer and his run on the title is still regarded highly today.

An Eye For An Eye collects the first six issues of the "v3" Legion and it revolves around the plans of their evil counterpart, the Legion of Super-Villains, who want to, what else?, destroy them. This book doesn't disappoint in the action department. In the typical style of an early '80s comic book, everybody in this book prefers to war-war instead of jaw-jaw. The villains kidnap some of the Legionnaires, the remaining good guys fight the bad guys, the bad guys fight amongst themselves and even the heroes bicker with each other. That was something that I did not expect to see. It reminded me more of a Marvel team like the Avengers or the X-Men. If my memory is correct, members of superhero teams in the DC universe always get along with each other. So to see Brainiac arguing with his fellow team-members was, to me, quite a surprise (but after reading the Brave and the Bold: Lords of Luck collection, I have learnt that Brainiac is a bit of a superdick and I shouldn't really be surprised that he argues).

Anyway, Legion of Super-Heroes: An Eye For An Eye is just what it says it is: a book about a futuristic super team going toe to toe with a team of super villains in space. The title hints at losses suffered by both sides but since the Legion's history has been rebooted a couple of times in the last twenty years, the deaths (especially the hero's death) wasn't such a big deal to me. That's the problem with reboots and retcons in comics. After a while, you just don't care what shocking developments occured to shake up the status quo. They brought back Jason Todd, fer goodness' sakes! Peter made a deal with the devil and now he's not married anymore! But I digress.....

I found this "version 3" Legion interesting enough that I would pick up the as yet unsolicited second trade, if only to find out what happened to the five Legionnaires who were trapped in limbo on their way back home after defeating their enemies. Looks like my curiosity wins again.

A couple of things more...even though I thought the good guys had ridiculous names, they at least, well, looked heroic enough. The Legion of Super-Villains had a member called Hunter and he looked less than menacing to me:

Yyyeeeaahh...those tails? They make him so not scary.

And I found this in-joke mildly amusing but then again I'm not Christian. What do you think?

Super villains at the Last Supper? With Lightning Lord as the Christ figure? Did the Pope sent off a strongly worded letter to the DC offices?

Edited to add: Michael from The Legion Omnicom (check it out if you wanna know more about the Legionnaires, by the way) dropped me a line to explain that "v3" is not version 3 but rather volume 3. That is, this 1984 incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes is the third series to have the title of "Legion of Super-Heroes". Thanks, Michael! Consider my ignorance fought.

One Guy's Swipe Is Another Guy's Homage

Marvel's legal beagles forgot to renew the company's rights to Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet and now DC owns them both:



Yeah, I know it's Mongul and the Lantern rings but when I first saw that ad in the blogosphere I had to do a double take. I knew I've seen a similiar image before. Oh yeah:



(Thanks to J. Caleb Mozzocco for the Mongul pic)