'Tis the season, for reruns!

Man, I didn't even get my Christmas figures out this year! But, there weren't new Star Wars Black Holiday figures this year, either. (Well, I think there was an ugly Halloween two-pack?) That did free up like a hundred and some bucks that I probably squandered on something else.

I mentioned McFarlane's assorted Bat-Santas last year, but I don't recall seeing them in stores: there might be more kid-friendly 12 inch ones as well. Maybe they'll turn up on Boxing Day.

And, like I keep grousing every year, Hasbro continues to leave money on the table, by not putting out a Santa Punisher figure! Oh, man, I'd be so mad if they did but it was the new Punisher...

Old Christmas re-runs after the break, and tomorrow, "The End" Week starts: another pile of last issues; although just about everything gets relaunched at some point. And the year-ender is coming! My totals...yow. It's always super-fun, except for the math part! Merry Christmas, everyone! All the best.

It's not a perennial holiday classic...yet; but I rerun this one every Christmas: "How Deadpool saved assisted didn't wreck had Christmas." See how our production standards have barely incrementally changed in like eleven years! Although, Die Hard wasn't universally accepted as a Christmas movie back then, as it is today.

As usual, click to unwrap, er, enlarge. Not sure of the setup? The first strip's waaaay back here.





What the heck, you've been good this year...he says, based on nothing; so let's have another holiday re-run: "Jingle Bells, Blame Mattel..."

And for good measure, here's the 2015 Christmas strip, "Do They Know It's X-Mas Time at All?" Pool and Kurt had been in space for about 21 months at that point, so yeah, that plotline went on.

"Bleach."

The annual Christmas reruns are tomorrow, so "Seasonal Affective D'spayre" continues today! 

Oh, and we've got the new Ikaris figure for a bit! He's like 70% more likeable than the gloomy movie one; he's got colors! But, he might be alluding to a problem that we might see more of next time.

Christmas on a Wednesday? Who voted for this?

Cover from 1989's Alf #13 by Dave Manak. 

I'm writing this post before I leave, but hopefully when this posts I'm just back from Montana: there's statistically a not-zero chance that I get stuck or held up, but I'm sure I'm fine. I swear I used to make that drive and the snow would be up to my armpits, and now it's not surprising if the roads aren't even wet. Global warming is real, yo. This is a short week that will manage to still feel long, since my work is once again demanding overtime. Sure, it's dark as hell out when I start and when I'm done, and there wasn't much else to do, and the overtime'll pay down my card, but I'm already a bit fried. I had a day--okay, today, as I write this--where I got up, went to work, then immediately went back to bed when my shift was over. Maybe spent an hour awake that wasn't working? That's no way to live, but I won't have to do that forever, so...we shove on.

It'll be an Alf-centric week, though: tomorrow, we'll have this week's strip, again guesting Alf; and I know I have the last issue of his series next to me, so I should read that for "The End" week. Well, if that ain't a reason to keep on keeping on, I don't know what to tell you! Anyhow, if you're curious, there's two stories and a Christmas card this issue; where Alf is somehow supposed to be endearing, while doing more property damage than a full Avengers roster and trying to eat cats. The property damage does explain why he was a good fit at Marvel, I guess.

Admittedly, you may get the creeps the next time you drive past some now...

Hoo, boy, we're maybe at the end of the Twilight Zone comics I had handy; and I seem to recall the cover story here being the dumbest I'd read in all the ones I've posted--you know, I'm going to take that back, that's exactly the sort of thing somebody says in a TZ story immediately before being messily killed by whatever they were badmouthing. From 1973, the Twilight Zone #47, cover by George Wilson.

"And Where it Stops, Nobody Knows..." is a fun title at least: a second-story man accidentally kills a night watchman, then gets trapped in an elevator. He gets out, only to have cheap special effects a magical journey to the past, courtesy of the wizard Zorak. Zorak explains, he had created a temporal portal, but balance had to be maintained: for him to go to the future, someone had to take his place in the past. The second-story man figures, it's better than being on the run from the cops, and helps himself to Zorak's ring before he goes. But while Zorak was in for a surprise, the second-story man is left to find Zorak may have had reasons to leave himself...(Written by Len Wein, pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Sal Trapani.)

"The Man Who Hated Mankind"...you're going to have to narrow it down, there. And hey, no Rod Serling intro! This was only a four pager, and while I like the set-up, it has a limp twist of an ending. (Art by Jack Sparling.)

The cover story, "Something New in Town" is yeah, still pretty dumb. Like someone had a gripe with urban planning. A salesman finds a small town with new, modern streetlights...but not a lot of people. And the cover spoiled it for you, but again, not much there. The GCD does consider this one "unusually horrific" for a Gold Key story, and suggests the characters in it might have been 'cast' from classic TV. (Art by Jack Sparling again!)

Finally, "The Space Prize" finds two cosmonauts, about to launch to be the first men on Mars. Andrei is idealistic and excited, while Serge is a cynical downer: assuming they even make it, politicians and such would steal the credit. Serge considers his own theft, since he knows the Americans would shell out for their new propulsion system: he maybe thinks about it too hard, since Andrei can see it written all over his face, and a fight ensues. Serge kills Andrei with a flare gun--a lucky shot that could've gone either way, but he seems excited to have "the first murder in space!" He ditches Andrei's body, and cuts the remote controls, then fires that new propulsion system, which doesn't go as planned, even as Soviet mission control is furious over his defection. The ending vaguely resembles maybe a couple classic episodes, but isn't really a twist or ironic. (Art by John Celardo.)