"Welcome."

I finished this strip, before I bought Giant-Size Age of Apocalypse #1, the third of five one-shots with the now-mutant Ms. Marvel travelling back in time to various big X-events to fight what's left of Legion. (The David Haller persona, that used to rein the others in, was gone; leaving a power-hungry monster.) Legion even mentions, this is one place he maybe never saw, because he caused it by killing his dad Xavier. Forced into a truce, Ms. Marvel and Legion eventually find the X-Men, the few that are left, preparing to die: this was the night before their final battle with Apocalypse, which of course turns out differently here. (And not in a good way!) I'm not sure how Legion would know this, but he mentions that world was about to "die in hellfire," which may or may not be overdramatic. 

If memory serves, since I don't have it next to me: in 1995's X-Men: Omega, the humans bomb Apocalypse and his forces, which maybe wasn't necessary, since Magneto tears him in half. Which also maybe wasn't necessary, since doesn't Bishop use the M'kraan Crystal to fix the timeline? I don't recall, exactly how big a nuke the humans were dropping, though: a good-sized one to get Apocalypse, or a planet-killer like the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes. We next see the Age in What If...? #81, which you could consider an alternate reality or just a continuation: Magneto saves his X-Men from the explosion, and his world goes on to face Galactus. (That one's interesting, but the AoA Night Thrasher and his brother get a lot of the page time!) Sometime also in '96, we get X-Man '96, where Nate returns to the AoA, but I don't think he sees any X-Men. There's a number of one-shots and such, then in 2005 for the tenth anniversary there's a 6-issue Age of Apocalypse mini-series. (The GCD says that's written by C. B. Cebulski, but it was under his pseudonym "Akira Yoshida.") Then, the AoA returns in 2011's Uncanny X-Force #11. 

Anyway, out of all of those, I'm not sure the continuity lines up smoothly anywhere.

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"Dungeon."

This was a ridiculously silly one to set up; and I think I went to the store and realized I had left it up at home. I was suddenly stricken with the idea of how weird it would look if anything happened to me and they found that in my house...

You may have seen this trap before: probably from the Chairface Chippendale episode of the Tick! The live action versions were fun, but tough to beat the original.

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"Baddest."

Satana has been a regular cast member in these strips pretty much since I got her, back in October 2013; although my version probably isn't strictly derived from comics. Then again, she appears every so often here or there and can vary wildly between appearances. I love her as a foil, a contrast: she works well as a "straight man" in the comedy sense of the term. Shiklah, though...I may be figuring this one out on the fly. I did flip through Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos, the Battleworlds series she led; but I don't know if it had a lot of great insight into the character. It did have a bit of foreshadowing for Deadpool, who was a ghost for most of that series; that he probably wasn't going to live happily ever after with his new bride.

EDIT: Blogger threw me into their new template/interface/whatever, and the pictures did not come out the way I wanted, so reloaded. That may well have been user error; I probably can't put that all on them.
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"Destroy."

The Badoon are awful lizardy things, worse than the skin-covered Nazi analogs from V or our pal the Gorn from Star Trek; but they did have a largish robot called "The Monster of Badoon!" that they trotted out every so often. I'm almost sure we see one in Silver Surfer #2, where their invisible invasion is thwarted by the Surfer while he pisses and moans about being stuck on earth. Hey, I'm none too keen on it either, but do you hear me complaining? ...you do? Constantly? All right, then.

The Badoon also appear in X-Men Annual #5, although I can't in good conscience recommend a book with a title like "Ou, La La--Badoon!" The Fantastic Four and Arkon guest star as well, but that issue may be best remembered for Nightcrawler trying to explain "Thou shalt not kill" to Wolverine. It's a little preachy and doesn't land and no one cares since the Badoon are mean, horrible monsters. Does that make it OK to wipe them out? When they're invading, maybe...


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I probably could've used Namor in this strip, too...

I know Aquaman was paired up with Mer-Man in the Masters of the Universe Classics/DC Universe Classics two-pack, but I could definitely see Clawful giving him the hassle.

Out today, so have a good weekend!
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"Slow week..."

While I know I have a couple of his appearances, including Tales of the Green Lantern Corps (starring Hal MFing Jordan) #3, I had no particular love for Nekron. Until I got his figure for cheap, like about five bucks. He's a creepy death guy, and I have some plans for him later...that I have yet to get around to, since I actually bought Nekron in July.

Anyway, while I'll be out for Thanksgiving, we still have an 80-pager tomorrow; and probably something on Friday that I should maybe look into doing now. Have a good holiday!

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"My Lunch with Stel."

Where did this one come from? I have no idea where the milk came from, but the lemon is from a Stargate: Atlantis figure; and the idea for this strip is probably that old episode of Gilligan's Island where the castaways think they're going to get scurvy. It makes scurvy out to be a total death sentence, like you were more apt to die of scurvy than cancer, if you didn't eat some freaking oranges like right now. I just had a big glass of...orange something, and some pills that hopefully were vitamins.

I was going to say I was pretty sure Kyle would've watched Gilligan's Island, except post-reboot he's probably too young. Unless kids still watch it, but with so many channels there should be something better to watch...for the fifth time. And between scurvy and that one with the giant spider, I'm pretty sure that show scarred me emotionally on more than one occasion. Super.

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"Hug your kids today...or your robots, or whatever."

Stel's boy there is an Iron Man Titanium Man figure--not a bad one, but not nearly as bulky as I usually expect TM to be. In fact, I think the packaging even refers to the heavier nature of the Titanium Man; although of course I don't have it next to me. And for some reason, I had it in my head that the original TM's real name was Ivan Danko, and no.
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"Global Storm Secret Next Authority Wave Avengers-politan."

Today, instead of buying a new number one or some nonsense, why not pick up an issue #17? Yeah, that's going to be a tough sell; but as long as you're in the shop, how about the new issue of Secret Avengers from Warren Ellis and Kev Walker! I'm looking forward to it, although I'm a little disappointed after their banter in the prior issue, Moon Knight and Beast don't appear to be in this one.

I will confess, though, I hate that Beast figure there. He was, well, a Beast to stand, and he's more than a bit undersized to boot. And the Beast is giving Moon Knight the over-harsh hassle about what may or may not be MK's status quo in his new Bendis/Maleev series, where he may or may not be hallucinating conversations and advice with the Avengers, who he may or may not be a teammate of. I know I picked up a copy of the first issue out of the quarter bin, but I might have to read it again.

While Moon Knight may or may not have multiple personality disorder and other psychological problems, his insanity is more rarely played for laughs; especially compared to Deadpool or other lunatics. On the other hand, the severity of his condition varies by writer just as much as Pool; from mostly functional to eccentric to raving and drooling. I do prefer MK closer to the functional end, with maybe a few tics that are noticeable but possibly not insane. After all, the Avengers thought Thor was a little crazy for some time since they didn't really believe he was from Asgard...

If nothing else, Ellis has probably, completely unintentionally, sold me on that upcoming Marvel Legends Commander Rogers figure. Today's issue also has War Machine and Valkyrie, and I'm curious to see if their sarcasm levels are amped up as well.

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"Last Call."

Click to enlarge!


Tomorrow, the new DC continuity gets rolling with Justice League #1. I haven't decided if I'll pick it up or not--I kinda figure it'll be available, and will probably be reprinted here, there, and everywhere, like Ultimate Spider-Man #1 was. Which makes me wonder if Ultimate Spider-Man brought in a lot of new readers, since that's what DC's hoping to do here.

I think that may be the thing for me: DC wants to bring in new readers, ones that haven't read a ton of comics already. Warren Ellis said, "The New DC comics stuff looks so much like stuff I would never read that it oddly fills me with hope that they are targeting the core audience they want." And that's OK, and even if most of it isn't to my taste, I hope it does well for DC; because if they can create new comics readers, that should help make new comics creators in the future. (That said, I can't remember ever reading an interview with an artist that said they were inspired to draw comics by New Mutants #87.)

I will confess to being curious how this League gets together, since I don't think Geoff Johns and Jim Lee are going to use the Appellaxian invasion again--the team turning into trees, while a charming image, is probably a little dated for what they're hoping to do with the relaunch. And it would be just as well if they did something different, since I've seen that invasion three or four times already.

And with that...I think I'll take tomorrow off, here!
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