Random Happenstance

Is that...sumo taint?

Boy, Marvel probably had to get rid of the comic code specifically for action like this! I'm almost positive there was something in the code like, "Thou shalt not show 98% of a guy's ass." Unless they're a Green Lantern, apparently. Wow, if the last paragraph doesn't pull in some traffic, the internet must be on strike this week.

Anyway, more Superman related tomfoolery coming after the fourth. Today's post is from Captain America#49/516--Thanks, Marvel numbering! Dan Jurgens writes, art by Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa. Agent 13, Sharon Carter, apparently punches a sumo so hard as to launch him through the air. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s kung-fu is strong. Cap tries hard not to look impressed.

The last few days I've read a lot of Captain America: volume three, which started with Mark Waid, then the interim "Dead Man Walking" limited, and then I read most of the Marvel Knights run. Hit and miss, especially the Marvel Knights stuff. Some was good, a lot was bad, and most was forgettable.

This particular issue was in stores after 09-11-01, but appears to have been made before then. The next issue would be the last for the series, and Cap would be presumed dead at the end. Marvel Knights picked up Cap, but didn't seem to know what to do with him. Short opinions go! Chuck Austen turned in an almost-impenetrable story about the secret's of Cap's revival post WW II, Atlanteans, and a weird controlling hand: Jae Lee's art usually works for me, but it left me cold on that one. Dave Gibbons had a four issue What If? story, then Robert Morales started strong and lost it before Disassembled.

There was also a four issue limited, "What Price Glory?" Bruce Jones wasting Steve Rude art. Terrible. It reads like a Magnum P.I. script, over Rude's Kirby-style work. (And I was mad at Jones before for the last issue of Warlord. After re-reading this one, I'm even madder.)

I have to re-read Robert Kirkman's issues, I remember liking them. (Edit: ahh, maybe not.)

The good news is, Ed Brubaker's run is going along pretty strongly. Tomorrow, join the Happenstance and Captain America for the Fourth of July, and until then be safe!