"Sickest."

Black Ant may be the first person to show up lately without a sword, but he's there in his role as Taskmaster's husband--if you don't follow Kim Hu on BlueSky, you probably should! Actually, I treat Black Ant as Tasky's hypeman, and for some reason they come across to me as the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: they're annoying, they insist they're better than you, and one or both is probably super-wasted.  

 I feel like I have seen, somewhere in Marvel continuity, where Hercules had to defend himself against a former student--or, I might be thinking of Marvel Super-Heroes #1, where Herc has to push through the bad memories and defeat a foe with archery, which he had kind of sworn off. That and I was watching Jason and the Argonauts again the other day, and spoiler alert: Herc's pal Hylas, gets himself squashed by Talos, and Herc leaves the Argonauts and their quest to find him, or really more in shame. Despite usually being portrayed as a partyboy lout, Hercules has a more tragic history than Thor, because he spent more time with mortals: I feel like most of his Marvel history was like Herc losing a spouse, moping for several years, finding love again, damn, losing that one too, and so on. Throw on top of that all the friends and foes he saw grow old and die; and you maybe see why Herc spends as little time thinking as he can get away with.

As usual in what passes for continuity around here, Deadpool is still Venompool! Partly because I love the figure, but also Pool and the symbiote might be good for each other? Now Pool's fourth-wall breaking non-sequiturs would seem like he's just talking to his 'Other.' If that doesn't just reek of sanity! Although, also in continuity here, Lady Deadpool knows Gwenpool, although this may or may not be the same Lady Deadpool: it's not the same figure, she got a new one in the recent Box wave. (A wave I didn't love, although I did want Marina and Box to shore up Alpha Flight!) I suspect Lady Deadpool got remade, to get her on the shelves the same time as some movie Deadpool figures, without having to go all-in on a movie styled version. 

And we again see Red She-Hulk, at least in the background: she has a big friggin' sword, I think from...Fear Itself? The event with all the hammers--wait, how'd she get a sword, then? Man, I wish Betty was still Red and not the Harpy or whatever now; she deserves better.