The ventriloquist joke wasn't bad!

Cue up the Danny Elfman theme, and get your afternoon snacks! Although I might have the last issue floating around, I had slept on this one, and might need to rectify that: from 2023, Batman: the Adventues Continue Season Three #2, "Crack-Up! Part One" Written by Alan Burnett and Paul Dini, art by Ty Templeton.

I'm not real current on Batman continuity, although we might check a recent-ish issue later for comparison, but this of course was further adventures in the Batman: the Animated Series continuity. Today, the Joker is up to some new tricks, adding a new player to his act: Straightman. The thick blond seems to have about a foot of height and 100 pounds of muscle over his boss, which just adds to the comedy of using him as a dummy in a "ventriloquist act" in front of a literally captive audience. Although he doesn't seem to have any comedic timing, and keeps having nightmares about his military service and medical treatments thereafter, Straightman does bring super-strength and invulnerability: he no-sales several punches from Batman, before giving the Caped Crusader the bum's rush. Only the intervention of an unseen shooter with a tranq dart saves Bats, but even with the sudden arrival of Katana and new muscle...Muscle, the Joker is still able to grab Straightman and get away.

Batman notices a mysterious hooded woman watching him from a distance, and follows up at "the Institute," the local HQ for Amanda Waller and Task Force X! After a brief scuffle, Amanda tells him they were in Gotham to take care of the Joker once and for all; which Batman doesn't quite buy: they might not mind if they did kill him, but that can't be their only goal. But Amanda also lets on, whoever the hooded woman was, she wasn't Task Force X. Bats had Barbara on tech duty now, and she had most of the files for Captain Carl Finley, a former Army officer, "right up until he volunteered for one of those endless secret programs to create the ultimate soldier." Cutting away, we see another of Straightman's nightmares, which involves Dr. Hugo Strange, and possibly Clayface? The Joker was keeping him "medicated" with something, to keep him under control.

Later, tracking down the Joker's hideout, Batman runs into the hooded woman, who was seemingly trying to rescue Carl from the Joker, before Waller could get him. Bats is probably on the verge of figuring this out, but the woman shoots at him, forcing him out of a window! Which, like the rest of this comic, feels very B:TAS, like right before a commercial break. The only complaint I'd have, is that there were several variant covers for the series, and there's one the next issue in the style of the classic title cards: this issue's was close, but not quite there...! Read more!

I've mentioned, I miss the old Marvel Graphic Novel format, but I should go back and add it to the tags, since I don't think I realized Marvel put out 75 of 'em from 1982 to 1993, plus some more under the Epic label. (Which somehow, still included some Silver Surfer and Punisher ones!) I need to go back to my shelves and do a hard count: there are several like Killraven and the Sensational She-Hulk that I've read, or maybe have in other formats. But, here's one I didn't have before: from 1987, Marvel Graphic Novel #31: Wolfpack, written by Larry Hama, pencils by Ron Wilson, inks by Kyle Baker, Walt Simonson, and Whilce Portacio. 

This was the lead-in to their own series, although it may have been downgraded from a regular book to a 12-issue limited. If you enjoyed Hama's G.I. Joe it's worth a look: it's a New York gang with a heart of gold, and ninja training, versus a far-reaching conspiracy called the Nine. It's a little hokey in spots, but still a fun yarn; and I wish this had maybe got a little more traction. 

Man, there were like six Conan's in this format? And a Kull! I think I do have that Killraven, but it was also included in the Essential volume. The Avengers: the Vault GN was reprinted in the prestige format style, but some might be tough to find at all.

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Everyone had that one raft guide...

There's a fair bit of tourist rafting up around Glacier, and despite spending summers there for most of my life, I'm not 100% positive I've ever been? Yeah, I must have; I've been on the river a bit otherwise, but far prefer the lake. Also, I'm not positive I have all of any of these later Marvel Conan mini-series. Hell, I'm not even sure I have more than one issue of any of 'em! From 1998, Conan: River of Blood #1, written by Roland Green, art by Geof Isherwood.

In the jungles of the region known as the "Black Kingdoms," Conan and Valeria are rafting through it, with Valeria in a hurry to get back to the seas and out of the jungle. Not today, though! The rapids are a problem, as are the crocodiles; but the fight with the latter is called off by a scaly wizard, Enduin; who doesn't seem like a bad guy, just creeeeepy. He warns that the two local tribes, including his own, were particularly friendly; but offers the pair his guest place to stay in. What's he up to? If I ever find the next issue, I'll tell you! We covered an issue of Death Covered in Gold like six years back, and I still haven't found the rest of that one, either.

Still, nice art here! Isherwood was kind of the "new" Conan the Barbarian artist around 1987, and he looked even better on this one. Read more!

"Serious."

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I had to phase Black Cat out of the strips because her figure was falling apart: her hair had come loose! I did get a new one of her classic look, but I also think there's a version with flats instead of heels? I might need to see if I can find another of this video game Black Cat figure later, since while she's great, she has wee little feet! She's already dove off the shelf between shots more than once. 

In my stupid continuity, Deadpool has been wearing a symbiote, that he calls 'Venom' but that might not be the original one, but we haven't seen him since late 2023. It might be the longest and most successful relationship Pool's ever had! 

And, back in the old Black Cat strips, we established Felicia does "security consulting" for the Fantastic Four, and knew how to use the time machine, as she did on an errand for the Thing. This figure came with the Wand of Watoomb she's holding, which I think is a mission objective in the game; but we had her with one back in 2019!

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I can't tell if this is a failing of current comic book media and hype and so forth, or if I was asleep at the wheel, or if Marvel just shoved this out the door; but tomorrow, new Frank Castle Punisher book! I'm sure I'll give Punisher: Red Band #1 a go, although I'm not entirely sure how "mature" those Red Band books are compared to, say, PunisherMAX. I'm thinking more blood, in a splattery way, but that could be because the only other Red Band book I think I've read so far was Blood Hunt, and I wasn't super-impressed with that one. This also probably means the Joe Garrison/new Punisher from last year is getting memory-holed, unless he's immediately gunned down in the first few pages of Punisher: Red Band #1, which feels like a dick move but I wouldn't put it past 'em. Anyway, I know I read the first issue of Joe's book, and got the next three from the cheap bins but I'm not sure I've sat down and read them yet. I remember thinking creating a new Punisher would be a thankless job, where you'd have to answer a multitude of masters and none of them would be happy with the end result; but we do have one of Joe's few guest-spots handy: from 2024, Daredevil: Woman Without Fear #2, written by Erica Schultz, art by Michael Dowling.

I've been onboard with Elektra as DD since she started that back in 2021, and stuck with her series even as I fell off of the regular Daredevil book again: I don't think Zdarsky stuck the landing there, and the inevitable relaunch seemed like rehashing plot points we've seen multiple times, not just in other comics, but in Daredevil! (Matt had lost his memory and come back...somehow...as a priest; so he had to get his DD-groove back, Bullseye was back, Matt drives multiple relationships into the ground, etc.) I just love that Elektra took that outfit, mostly with the intent of showing Matt something, but it ultimately became something redemptive for her. And also harder than she had thought: there's an issue where she has a fight with a big burly bouncer type, and is frustrated when it lasts more than three seconds. It was tougher when she couldn't just stab them in the lungs! This issue, Elektra was trying to find her missing...ward? Student? Sidekick? It's hard for me to imagine her having really strong maternal instincts, but she had been taking care of this girl Alice since the King in Black crossover: I think Alice was just taken somewhat forcibly by a concerned relative, and Elektra thought the Mafia Maggia got her, which leads to trailing Crossbones to Madripoor, fighting him on a train, and then the new Punisher showing up. He's there to kill Crossbones, but doesn't seem like killing Elektra would really break him up, either.

Elektra doesn't go into detail about her history with Frank, instead describing that as a point in her life where "killing was a pastime...something I did out of boredom." She can't give up Crossbones, since he might be the Maggia contact she was supposed to meet, so she's forced to fight the new Punisher. In a nine-panel grid, she hits him multiple times, seemingly ineffectively against his armor; but then a final shot with her trick sai pops his chest piece right off! Then the Maggia contact shows, and not unlike Frank, Joe has a remarkable ability to pull a gun seemingly out of nowhere. After a standoff, where Joe seems to think she was willingly working for the Maggia, he takes a shot at Elektra, but she dodges it easily and knocks him out. The Maggia contact was not as agile, and takes it in the neck! He dies gurgling blood, unable to tell Elektra anything; and the Punisher escapes. Elektra was now forced to find the Maggia in Madripoor, but plans to kill the new Punisher later...

It's not as readily apparent here, but I think in his own series Joe was a bit more sci-fi; his guns not as military-issue or store-bought as Frank's. The better to differentiate him from Frank, or from wanna-bes; there's maybe something to that idea. They are still guns, though: I'm not sure he ever got a Spider-Man crossover, and I could see that going badly. "So, you've got all this high-tech stuff, does that mean you're more nonlethal than Fr--nope, blew that guy's brains out. Never mind."  Also, if you remember Jason Aaron's Punisher series, which ended with Frank apparently "...no more" but really on Weirdworld; well, Frank won't, since he'll be back with no memory for like the sixth time. (And I was harshing on Daredevil for reusing plots!) I wonder if anything will come up from it later, or if the new book is just going to snowplow forward and call it good.

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As usual, when I find a full mini-series in the cheap bins, I'm mandated by law to pick them all up; also as usual, here's a book I probably should save until October that we're going to check out now. From 2004, (The) Tomb of Dracula #1, written by Robert Rodi and Bruce Jones, pencils by Jamie Tolagson, inks by Tom Palmer and Jay Leisten. Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!

This was, let's see, the second mini-series to reuse the name from Marvel's classic horror series: we flipped through a cursed image from the prior revival last year. The previous volume had Wolfman and Colan, but this one does have one link back to the original, with the return of inker Tom Palmer. Blade follows a striking--and suspicious--blonde to a club, shades of his first movie; but this one is almost all vampire wannabes. After killing maybe the one real vamp in the club, Blade still can't figure her out: she still had a reflection, but felt like death somehow. They have a little swordplay/foreplay at her place, where she cops to being a "halfbreed" like him, but they're interrupted by a video call from her boss, who turns out to be Noah Van Helsing.

Through dossier pages and narration, we're introduced to Noah's crew: yeah, don't get too attached. Their upcoming mission was a big one: the vampires were in a frenzy, since a once a millennium event was coming. The lord of the vampires was about to undergo a transformation, ridding himself of any humanity and ascending (descending?) to full demon status, cue apocalypse. But, said transformation had to happen on the vampire's home turf: a later issue notes, the wizard that had been forced to set that up had added that bit to block the then-current vampire lord Varnae, since his home Atlantis had sunk! Blade cuts in and joins them, even though he doesn't think they're up to it, that the vampires would be ready for a siege, and that the blonde, Divinity Drake, can't be trusted, as she was a descendent of none other than...Dracula! Who doesn't appear until the last page here, with rocker long hair and jeans? Urg, that's almost enough to make me reconsider the red-armor look for him.

We actually don't see a ton of Drac in this series, to be honest; since he spends most of it almost cocooned up and ordering his troops around. There is a bit more variety of vampires here too, tapping into other cultures' vampire mythos; as well as the "Mortuus Invictus," or the unwilling dead. I don't think this one quite stuck the landing, though: this maybe needed to be an ongoing, to give it enough room for the other vampire-slayers to be more fully fleshed-out. (The ticking-clock would have to be extended, then; this series takes place over maybe a few days.) That and there are not one but two twist reveals...one I liked, the other felt like a cheat. Read more!

I'd probably give "Logjam of Super-Heroes" a try!

It doesn't feel like the worst reboot they ever got! Maybe the shortest, though. From 1998, Mr. Mxyzptlk (Villains) #1, "Invaders from the 10th Dimension!" Written by Alan Grant, pencils by Tom Morgan, inks by Scott Koblish.

This was part of a fifth-week DC event, "New Year's Evil," which also featured one-shots for Body Doubles, Dark Nemesis, Darkseid, Gog, Prometheus, The Rogues and Scarecrow. Crumbs, we blogged a funny bit from that last one like 19 years back! Was this the first time Mxyzptlk got his own comic? I guess he didn't get billing for World's Funnest, and this doesn't hit those heights, but what does?

Facing the invading "Ultimator" from the 10th Dimension, Mr. Mxyzptlk tries to defend his world; taking refuge in his "magical comic collection!" Thrill to titles like Logjam of Super-Heroes, Just-Us League of America, Young Heroes Unloved (timely!) and more! Grant can dish it out, but also takes it, with Lobo's Nephews, who are giving the business to Ziggy Starman. Ultimately, Mxy is able to knock out the Ultimator with "the Zzzzandman! Mopius--the Lord of ZZZ's!" Which is also how Superman and Lois get rid of Mxy: by pretending to be asleep during his story. (It's the blue, electric Superman; looping back to the cover gag!)

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I'd buy his figure over Knull's.

I see him every once in a while in the Contest of Champions game, but I haven't read a ton of books with symbiote god Knull: I do know he's coming back in the next Venom anniversary issue, which feels like a misstep, since Knull is nowhere near as loathed as Paul. Good lord...I know there's a Marvel Legends Knull, but I may have shrieked in terror at the notion of getting roped into getting a Paul figure. (Shudder!) Anyway, today we've got Venom vs. another eldritch terror, not those two: from 1995, Rune vs. Venom #1, "Rune-Venom" Written by Chris Ulm, pencils by Greg Luzniak, Mark Pacella, and Gabriel (Gecko) Hardman; inks by Bruce McCorkindale and Art Thibert.

In New York City, as three thugs assault a young woman, she thinks she's saved when a familiar toothy monster appears, but it isn't Venom: it's Rune, in a symbiote! As he sucks the juices out of the woman (in a relatively PG fashion, his teeth and jaw could have decapitated her) Rune announces himself as "the Dark God," with wings and an extra set of arms. With "Venom" left scrawled in blood at assorted crime scenes; the press, public opinion, and S.H.I.E.L.D. turn on the original Venom pretty quickly, believing him to have gone bad again--or worse--after the "Planet of the Symbiotes" event. A squad of Mandroids attack Eddie in the sewer, which is the first he--they!--hear of the accusations against them. (Venom does still kill at least some of the Mandroid pilots, though!) Meanwhile, Ann is worried about her ex, but also having nightmares about him. She gets kidnapped by Rune, but it scarcely looks like he needed to, as Rune later jumps Venom and puts the bite on him--maybe? The storytelling is a little murky here: either the biter reveals herself as a symbiote-covered Ann controlled by Rune, or Venom is tripping balls from the poison in the bite. Maybe it's the latter, since we see Ann as a more traditional damsel in distress later. (I do kinda like the "KRUNCH!" as Rune spikes Venom like a volleyball; Venom should maybe always have old-school SFX! It reminds me of his "Owtch!" from his Darkhawk guest-spot.)

Rune tells Ann, he had been pulled through a stargate (not that one, this looks like a Temu copy) by a symbiote prior to their invasion, which did free him from the prison Annihilus had put him in. Grateful, Rune kills the symbiote's xenomorph-looking host, and becomes the new host: this saved the symbiote from dying with the rest of his race at "Venom's betrayal," and they wanted revenge. With S.H.I.E.L.D. after him, Venom tracks Rune through the DNA in the poison, and the ensuing fight shows there were two of them. A S.H.I.E.L.D. sonic blast removes the symbiote from Rune, and the vampire turns on it, feeding on it and taking a new, bald form. (He seems to feel like it's an improvement, but...?) The fight with Venom goes on, since now Rune "has a taste for your skin," just like KFC! But it's a short one, as Ann tries to help, and distracts Rune just enough for Venom to throw him back through the Temugate, then break it.

With Dum Dum Dugan there to call Rune the real killer, S.H.I.E.L.D. stands down: Dum Dum is, as usual, sort of the friendlier face of the agency. G.W. Bridge or Maria Hill would've been yay, we get to kill two monsters today; Nick Fury could go either way. Ann wonders about Eddie, who assures her he would always be there to protect her from "monsters." And Rune is returned, seemingly in Egypt through another stargate, to the Ultraverse. The toys back in their boxes, although that Rune-Venom might have made a good one. Read more!

"Behest."

If you've ever been curious, "how much do I plan these?" the short answer is, not very? But we happened to see in-store the new, videogame-based Black Cat a bit ago; and I like this figure a ton more than the Marvel Now! costume, so here we are. But what has she been up to since her last appearance here...? C'hod's reaction may be telling.

Kurt takes only a moment to be sad and/or freaked out, before starting to work through what he was going to need to do to rescue Sat; because you get to do stuff like that in a superhero universe. I wish to whatever gods there are it worked more like that here, because there's a lotta people in this country missing loved ones that don't even know where they are.

In regular Marvel continuity, do we see a lot of time-travelling aliens, or is that nonsense largely an earth thing? And can Zero Units travel through time? This one can't, but again, so far he doesn't seem to be sentient, either. 

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I had to look up if it was still a thing, but remember Internet Arcade? They had a veritable ton of games, many from the classic coin-op era, but I thought the vast majority of them had since been copyright-struck, even if the companies that owned them probably didn't remember owning them or have any plans to put them into a format anyone could play anyway. I thought I might see this one in there, but didn't as of now: from 1996, X-O Manowar/Iron Man: In Heavy Metal #1, "The Reality Alchemists" Written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Andy Smith.

This was based on a videogame from Acclaim, but not a particularly well-received one. That said, back in '96 they had to make a game for like five different systems: Playstation (1!), Sega Saturn, Game Boy, Game Gear, and MS-DOS. Perhaps not surprisingly for a game tie-in, this features a ton of villains: Baron Zemo and a solid Masters of Evil roster from the Marvel U, and Augur, the Spider-Aliens, and Crescendo from the Valiant universe. There's also fake versions of Iron Man and X-O, to confuse the issue and probably set up a fight between the two.

I think Smith had done more art for X-O Manowar than Iron Man, and I don't know if he did the armor design in this one, but Tony's armor, with "Stark" on both shoulders, isn't a great one. I wonder if it was needed for the game, to help differentiate the two player characters? Iron Man does tell the Melter that he's "a happy employee cog in the wheel of mighty Stark," because this was waaaaaaaay back when Tony's identity was a secret. Then again, this would have been a more traditional Iron Man than had been or would be on the rack for a while: per Mike's, this was out the same month as Heroes Reborn #1/2! So, coming off of "Teen Tony" and into another, another universe. 

I had this series closer to when it originally it came out, and just recently grabbed it from the quarter (dollar!) bin again; but in all those years this is still about the only X-O Manowar I've read! Still, he has fans; I know he still gets a new series every few years.

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Someday I want to sit down and read all of ROM, straight through; not just because it's a cool book and I'll enjoy it; but I've been trying to recall if this was ever specifically established or was just subtext: the notion that Galador's Spaceknights got powers related to their personalities, self-image, and/or tendencies. Rom himself, a pacifist, gets the neutralizer to banish Dire Wraiths to Limbo; but it might be a worse punishment than death and that too might say something about the character, whether that was intentional or not. Unam, who had zero self-esteem and felt invisible, got invisibility powers; which Marvel seemed to downplay as useless since Fantastic Four #1. If Unam had been given an invisible shank too, he probably would've been a killcount leader...If you're a punchy hothead, you might become Firefist. If you're that girl, the one ray of sunshine in someone's life, maybe you become Starshine. If you're a basic thug, or the ghost of same, maybe you're Terminator. Let's see some of those, in today's book: from 1981, ROM #20, featuring "Mindgames" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Joe Sinnott.

By this point in the series, the locals in Clairton, WV were on Team Rom, and after Rom had been sucked into Limbo, Steve Jackson built a homemade "energy analyzer" to try and find a trace of the Spaceknight. The analyzer immediately catches fire, but Rom had already freed himself and had just arrived back, kind of stepping on Steve's try there. In Limbo, the Wraiths had shown Rom a destroyed Galador, but he had no way of knowing if that was true, something that would happen later, or an outright lie. Although she wants him to stay, Brandy has to admit he needs to try to get home, but it had taken him almost 200 years to get to earth. Steve suggests some options that sound like sci-fi, but he did live in the Marvel U. Brandy seems to doubt stories about the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, or at least ones involving aliens, as "invented by the New York news media!" Wow, small town much, Brandy?

Meanwhile, the Wraiths on earth continue plotting against Rom, but the witches' ideas like the "murder mole" aren't great. (I think the murder mole would turn up in a later issue, though!) The head guy is then approached by Mentus, who seems to be wearing Galadorian armor, only evil. For reasons of his own, Mentus wants Galador, and Rom, destroyed; and changes two Wraith witches for his plan. That night, as Brandy goes to bed thinking about Rom, Rom is visited by two Spaceknights, or their ghosts: Starshine and Terminator! And Terminator had died, centuries ago, as we'll see in the back-up feature. They show him the image of destroyed Galador again, then attack, accusing him of abandoning them: Rom's Kryptonite was his feels, as the guilt renders him unable to fight back.

Brandy urges Rom to fight, and Starshine turns on her; making Rom start to question. Then, two pages of subplot, as Mack Killburn follows up on fellow reporter Ace O'Connor's Rom story: Ace and her editor claim it had been a hoax, but Mack had seen Rom himself. Ace and her editor, of course, were Dire Wraiths...as too, were the fake Starshine and Terminator. Rom banishes them, in a cool shot that I'm pretty sure was used elsewhere, like the Marvel Handbooks maybe. Picking up Brandy in her nightdress, Rom still wants to check on Galador, but refuses to leave Clairton undefended...it's not spelled out here, but next month would feature a new hero in town, the Torpedo! I'm sure everything would work out fine for him.

Also this issue: "The Trial of the Terminator!" 200 years ago, searching for the Wraiths that had spread out into the universe, the Terminator had killed an alien king, for "harboring" the Wraiths. It had been excessive, but Rom still defends him: unlike most Spaceknights, who hoped they could be restored to human after the war, Terminator didn't have a human body to return to: his colony had been destroyed by a Wraith virus, and his mental patterns put into a Spaceknight shell. Terminator doesn't want Rom's defense, since he felt he might kill again; but the Prime Director offers him the choice of death or banishment. He chooses death without hesitation, and is seemingly destroyed by fire. Instead, Terminator was taken, by Mentus, as part of his future plans. Unknowing, after the trial, Rom chooses to leave Galador, alone; beginning his long journey that would eventually lead to earth. Read more!