Urgh. I may be patient zero today: if you're seeing this, please assume I'm some kind of germ-riddled biohazard, and will be back Wednesday. ('Cause Wednesday's already done!)
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Backing out of today:

Got a mild back-ache going, so taking a day. Back Monday, with a look at the Big Bad box!

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Even though I had other posts scheduled, I still missed last Friday, since I was down with a pretty bad cold. But, one 2-liter bottle of generic Nyquil later, and we're back in business! Today, we've got a Batman comic overshadowed by it's back-up feature: Detective Comics #449, "Midnight Rustler of Gotham City!" Written by Elliot S! Maggin, pencils by Ernie Chan (spelled Chua here) and Jose Garcia-Lopez.


With Gotham City in the middle of a "meat shortage," Batman is investigating a string of cattle rustling, using a scuba-jet thing to swim out to a cattle boat. The rustler has the drop on Bats, but has a misfire, and Bats brings him in. The rustler's name is Tad Wolfe, and while being processed, his twin brother Zachary shows up to yell at him. Zachary was a trucking millionaire, and part of Bruce Wayne's social circle; but Wayne is having dreams about an old medicine chief he met in New Mexico and Tad's misfire.

Batman goes to Zachary's, and hears him on the radio giving instructions. Desperately, he tries to order his men to unload their cargo before Batman slugs him. The cargo, of course, is the stolen cattle; and Batman has to help out rounding them up.


And the rest of the story doesn't make a lot of sense: Tad had been in debt to the mob, and Zach called in the tip to get him put in jail for protection. Tad had faked the misfire, which doesn't seem like it helped him any. Maybe he wasn't a killer, but I'm pretty sure shooting Batman gets you a lot of credit in Gotham; and I don't know how much protection prison would get him, either. For some reason, I thought there would be a twin-swap in there, too.

OK, so not a Bat-classic. But the back-up's a bit stronger:

"The Mystery Man Who Walked on Air!" Story by Mary Skrenes, art by Dick Giordano. On a second honeymoon, Ralph and Sue encounter a funny old man, who flies with a bird, and swims with a fish. Three seconds on Google and you can find the answer to this one, but I think this might've been the first Elongated Man story based on his birthday mysteries, set up by his friends to challenge him.

I thought this one had been reprinted more than once, too: I had it in a DC Digest. By the way, Ralph solves it...but by misreading a clue!



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Under the weather:

Feeling a little run down today, but that's a good excuse to finally post this Earl Norem cover from the Rampaging Hulk #9. I've been working on a longer post for this one, but still have to dig up some issues that aren't jumping out for me. I first saw this issue on a newstand when I was seven, but it would be decades before I got to read it!

And, I did manage to finish something that'll be up later. A small-scale thing, really.
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Not quite that, but with at least that much swearing.

I helped my in-laws move...and I'm afraid that was about it for this weekend. Moving a couple little folding tables early on, I felt my lower back crimp or whatever the hell it does. It'll be OK in a couple of days, so hopefully by my birthday I won't be hunched over like a calcium-deficient 90-year-old, and I can go see the Simpsons.

I've had a couple of Tomine's minicomics for years--this one's from 1991--but don't recall how I got them. I think he had an ad in Spin or something, but I could be wrong. Optic Nerve is one of the few indie comics I still read, even though it's only about an issue a year or so. He has other irons in the fire besides comics, but Tomine's art is a lot more polished now. That said, I didn't care for the last three issues, since the main character was a bastard with problems; but you have to give Tomine credit for trying a longer storyline.

From Optic Nerve (minicomic) #2, by Adrian Tomine. Read more!

Earth's Greatest Heroes...and Green Arrow, for some reason...

My Wife, the Youngest, and for good measure my parent's dog, have all been sick the last couple of days. I've cleaned up more vomit this weekend than a roller coaster operator on St. Patrick's day...

So, of course I'm running late on what I laughingly call 'content,' but I did get to read all of Justice today. It's not bad by any means, but it's not as essential as Kingdom Come or even as out there as Krueger and Ross and Braithwaite's previous collaboration, Earth X and it's sequels.


Still, I did enjoy it, even though not unlike Frank Miller, you can very clearly see the line where Alex Ross stopped reading new comics...tough break, Firestorm. Maybe some more on this later, but I gotta take care of the family, kay?

Panels today from Justice #8, Story by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, script by Jim Krueger, art by Doug Braitwaite and Alex Ross. Read more!

Per anecdotal evidence, comics blogging destroys your immune system.

This is the second time I've been sick since starting this stupid blog, and I rarely get sick. I can only assume the internet is dissolving my internal organs or giving me SARS or a rash or something. (Yeah, you laugh now, but SARS was like the bird flu of it's day.)

It does bring up a good excuse to post some Marshall Rogers art, though: from Silver Surfer #12 (volume 3, I think he's up to around 7 now) "Sick!" Written by Steve Englehart, pencils and colors by Marshall Rogers, inks by Joe Rubinstein. As most of you probably know, Rogers passed away recently: he may be more remembered for his Batman work, but his Surfer is a close second with me.

This was probably the second appearance of the human-eating space pirate Cap'n Reptyl, who would go on to give the Surfer more trouble, kill the Super-Skrull, and turn into a giant dragon-y thing. There's a character arc you don't see in comics anymore. (No points for 'killing' the Super-Skrull, I swear he dies at the end of every story he's in...) Also, Nova--the Frankie Raye Nova, not the Richard Ryder buckethead original--does most of the heavy lifting this issue. The Surfer spends this month either tied down or throwing up. But, I think he's got the right idea about sleep... Read more!

Sick day.


Um, actually I'm not that sick. Not even sick enough to not blog. I just wanted to be the first one to use that one for this, from Moon Knight #6, "The Bottom, Chapter 6" Written by Charlie Huston, pencilled by David Finch, inked by Danny Miki and Crimelab Studios. Y'know, I was thinking this was Moon Knight volume 4; but let's see: the original series, the Fist of Khonshu, the late 80's/early 90's version, this one...and then there's two limited series and at least one one-shot (with Shang-Chi!). So, volume 7?

I'm looking forward to putting all six chapters together and reading "The Bottom" straight through, although I just read and reread #6 because a couple parts were a little unclear, like the above vomiting. Also, Huston's Taskmaster isn't the same guy that was in Gail Simone's Deadpool/Agent X: that Taskmaster was hardcore, if a bit of a douchebag. Of course, Simone's Taskmaster was different than Christopher Priest's, which was different than Joe Kelly's...so you can't fault Huston for that: Taskmaster's that bad guy with the copycat reflexes, and anything else you need him to do to fit in the plot, whether it's self-esteem issues or a Spice Girls habit or a complete lack of identity.

That last one, which I recall from a Chichester issue of Daredevil back in the day, could explain all of that in continuity: Taskmaster could change personalities almost as quickly as he changes fighting styles...

Back to Huston's Moon Knight, the position on Khonshu--whether he is an actual deity or Spector's delusion--is made pretty clear. Maybe. In the original Doug Moench issues, it seems like Khonshu is no more or less real than anyone else's god, but Spector believes, and his faith gives him power. For someone who's just shy of being a godless heathen, that's an unusual concept, and would be difficult if not impossible to pull off if Spector had been Christian, or even Jewish. I'm not sure where they established he was Jewish, but that's in there somewhere; so one of the few Jewish characters in the Marvel U. gave up his faith to become a mercenary, then worship a statue he found in a desert. Huh.

For other writers, and I'm thinking of Steve Englehart on Moon Knight's tenure on West Coast Avengers, Khonshu was a very real deity, although not one that I recall as making on-panel appearances like Thor or Hercules. Of course, these stories also said Hawkeye travelled back in time and designed the crappy weapons Moon Knight used in the "Fist of Khonshu" issues, so I could take or leave that.

So, is Khonshu real or not? It absolutely depends on who's writing this month. I personally lean towards the not camp, but Spector believes, and for believers, that's what's important. And now the pills I took are starting to take effect, so I'm off to see if I have a vision or something... Read more!