I've said here a few times I like the idea of the Outsiders way more than any comic I've actually read with them, but over the last couple of months I've picked up a pile of cheap issues. And we all know Alan Davis makes everything better, so why not start with this one? From 1985, Batman and the Outsiders #24, "I Went to the Animal Fair..." Written by Mike W. Barr, art by Alan Davis.

After learning her origin, the alien entity now called Halo has left the Outsiders, and decided to never become Halo again. Instead, since Gaby believes she stole the body of Violet Harper, she's going to live and die in it. Showing up at the Gotham Bus Terminal might be a good start towards the latter, since she's first approached by an obvious pimp, then saved by an obvious cultist, who picks her up for a commune upstate called 'Eden.' There's probably a real Manson-vibe there, but my first thought was that creep Brother Blood! Wrong title, I guess.

The rest of the Outsiders are enjoying a bright, sunny day at the zoo; even though Katana is gloomy as Batman with Halo gone. Rex and Sapphire are getting married soon, and they're meeting her dad Simon Stagg on neutral ground. Someone seems to be watching them, though; while Bruce Wayne is on the scene to give the zoo a komodo dragon. Sapphire is thrilled to see, and still loves, her horrible, horrible dad; she's had enough of Rex and Simon fighting over her.

The day is interrupted by terrorists...like a lot of Outsiders comics were, if I recall. Today, the 'Liberators' are protesting animals getting cushy zoo treatment while people live in poverty. Katana saves a child from being eaten by the komodo dragon, advising the grateful parents to tell them they love them before it's too late. Batman turns on the scare tactics in an aviary full of bats, and the Liberators sing like birds: they were really there to kill Simon, so his business manager could take over. Simon does seem legitimately grateful to Metamorpho for saving him, and the wedding was scheduled for the upcoming annual.

Lastly, the inquisitive Gaby arrives at Eden, and meets Sister Eve and Brother Abraham; and my first thought was wrong again: I was thinking of Mother Night and Minister Blood from Captain America! Wires crossed there.
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The cover of today's issue is currently on Her Wikipedia page, and I've always wanted a copy because of the cover blurb, which would've made a more concise title: from 1991, Alpha Flight #97, "The Final Option...Part 1: Decisions of Faith" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Michael Bair, inks by Chris Ivy.

Alpha Flight is getting set up in their keen new headquarters in Toronto, although I did raise an eyebrow at the notion that emergencies requiring superhuman help would be routed to the Avengers, Russia's People's Protectorate, or Excalibur? AF has a top-of-the-line set up and official status; I'm not sure Excalibur had phone service. Also, apparently if you're in the southern hemisphere, you're on your own.

Meanwhile, in deep space, Her is on, um, Her way to earth, being chased by an alien battle fleet. She's trying to get to New York and her "only Terran acquaintance--Ben Grimm" but lands in Canada instead. As you might've guessed, this being an Alpha Flight comic and all. She crash-lands in a mall--they used to be a thing, remember? Elsewhere in space, on the planet Quwrll, the locals witness the arrival of the herald of Galactus, Nova, and know they're hosed.

Vindicator, Guardian, Northstar, and Box greet the injured Her; without the traditional Marvel misunderstanding brawl. As the aliens pursuing Her arrive, she explains they are the Consortium, intergalactic capitalist bastards. She had helped a world return from industrial to agricultural, and wrecked one of their business interests. Since Alpha Flight refuses to give Her up, the Consortium ships do a lot of damage to the city, then a larger "home office vessel" arrives...

This was of course building up to Alpha Flight #100, and was also reprinted as a four-part Alpha Flight Special. That might've been for newsstand distribution? Or maybe crowding competition off of the racks; there's an ad for the reprint Deathlok Special here as well. Her was also using the name J'ridia here, but she would be Her again when she showed up in Quasar later that year; and she would be a supporting character there for most of the rest of that series.
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"Table."

I swear I remember a bar from my college days having a ball pit. Or I was in a ball pit somewhere...so unwholesome.
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I wasn't expecting some of the shots this book takes, but I wasn't expecting H.E.R.B.I.E. on the prowl, either.

I needed a light, cheery, fun book to read to get my mind clear; luckily I had just picked up a bunch that fit the bill! From 2008, Skrulls vs. Power Pack #2, "U.G. Universal Gangstaz" Written by Fred Van Lente, art by Cory Hamscher.

The Power Pack kids have been dragged off to space jail Hadith-VI, but luckily their pal Franklin Richards is following in their smartship Friday. I don't think he ever appeared in the original series, but accompanying Franklin is his robot sitter H.E.R.B.I.E, who is also a million times better comic relief now than he was on the old Fantastic Four cartoon. It's like it took a few versions...

Power Pack manages to free themselves and join Franklin, but feel they have to clear their names before they can return to earth, or more and more bounty hunters would just come after them. They haven't been missed at home yet, since they've been replaced by Skrulls! They plan on using their "dad" to gain access to SWORD, but the Skrull commander "Katie" is perturbed that private "Jack" is a little too into his role as a preteen layabout.

Back in space, the real Jack has a plan to lure out the fake Pack: pretend to be the fakes, do some crimes, and lure them out. He doesn't explain it well, but it's still a solid scheme, even if they have to dress 'gangsta' to sell the role. They build their rep by picking a fight with the Kree "crew of the Gestalt schooner the Marvel..." Hey, that sounds familiar.

Yeah, that's from Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy! I did not expect a shot at that here.

Also this issue: four Mini-Marvels pages from Chris Giarrusso! It's the Fantastic Four vs. Skrulls, and I had seen part of this before, but still a treasure.


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Things have not been great lately, to the point that it's tough to work up the gumption to pick up a comic, let alone make fun of one. Then a comic just irks you, and it all comes rushing back: from 1993, Marvel Comics Presents #126.

If this cover had been facing out, I would've bought this issue much more quickly than I did: Steve Lightle Ghost Rider and Typhoid Mary? I hadn't realized Typhoid had been in this title more, but this was midway through a Ghost Rider/Typhoid Mary serial, "Walking Wounded." We're coming in cold here, but an unhinged security guard appears to be lashing out at women in general and "tramps and harpies" specifically, because as a child his mommy told him "bad women took (his) daddy away." That probably wouldn't hold a lot of water with Typhoid even if she knew, and she lights him up like a family barbeque. Ghost Rider is in a bit of a bind, since Typhoid deserves punishment, but doing so spills the innocent blood of Mary, who may have been attracted to Dan. Wait, Dan Ketch? Come on. I'm going to be brutally honest here, his only character traits were he had a motorcycle and he disappeared a lot. You could do better, Mary. ("Jerk the Bait" Story and script by Ann Nocenti, story and art by Steve Lightle.)

Dave Hoover penciled two features this issue, and we'll start with Iron Fist, "The Book of Changes, part 2 of 6: A Mystery Wrapped in a Puzzle Inside an Enigma" Written by Joey Cavalieri, inks by Jeff Albrecht. Defending a mysterious pyramid Anomaly, Iron Fist has captured escape artist Skeleton Ki, but he's broken out by a pair of A.I.M. troops. Fist is uncharacteristically upset with longtime girlfriend Misty Knight for worrying about him instead of tracking A.I.M, but he suspects someone of betraying him and Rand Industries to Hydra and A.I.M. Not trusting anyone, he takes the Anomaly and stomps off. Man, Misty could do better, too.

I liked Hoover's art better in the She-Hulk feature, the conclusion to "Adrenazon's Revenge: To Thine Own Self Be True" Written by Kelly Corvese, inks by Robert Campanella. The titular Adrenazon wanted to take Jen's place, to get away from her own life as the widow of a drunk driver that committed suicide, presumably after Jen put him away. When Adrenazon tries to kill Jen with a bulldozer, she has a flashback to her husband running down some bystanders, and realizes she can't do it. With the problem largely solved, then the cops show up, after Jen for breaking jail, and Adrenazon gets shot. Still, she's okay in the end, if sadder and wiser and not green.

Finally, the main lead feature, Wolverine/Lynx "Passion Play, part 4 of 6, Widow's Sting" Written by Scott Lobdell, pencils by Dennis Jensen, inks by John Holdredge. Lynx? We don't really see much of her this issue, as Black Widow enters the quest to recover the mysterious girl who had been injected with a secret drug and then kidnapped by Imus Champion. Wolvie, French hero Le Peregrine, and German the Courier get into Champion's lab disguised as mad scientists-turned-mutated assassins the Fleshtones. I know I missed some chapters, but what? This feels like somebody at Marvel thought they should hop on the name Lynx before anyone else grabbed it.
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I remembered the cover, anyway.

It's a great cover! Easily my favorite part of this one. From 2016, Spider-Woman #8, written by Dennis Hopeless, pencils by Javier Rodriguez, inks by Alváro López.

The next three issues were Civil War II tie-ins, so this may have been intended as a last bit of fun before the grimdark crossover machine started up. Jessica throws down with the "kingpin of Staten Island," Tiger Shark--who doesn't get a single line of dialog all issue, which makes me wonder how effective a crime boss he was. Well, he's intimidating, anyway. After a fight in TS's swanky apartment smashes open his giant fishtank and releases a worryingly large squid, Jessica gets a couple lucky breaks: a texting ambulance driver hits Tiger Shark, knocking him into the sewers. She's not about to follow, but gets dragged down, and it looks pretty bad until the squid wrecks the Shark. Jessica still takes the win--and the credit.

Meanwhile, at home is pretty domestic-blissy for her, with her new son and new love interest-slash-manny, the Porcupine. I had to look up that he wasn't the original, since I know he died in an issue of Captain America, but...why would you take that identity? Even if it was just yours for the grabbing. Anyway, Jessica had a new costume and new motorcycle in this series as well, and I wonder if all of them haven't been rolled back for her newest series. It happens. Aside from the cover, I didn't love this one? Maybe because I feel like Namor, Tiger Shark should be pretty unbeatable if he manages to get the fight into his element. Maybe the previous issue established his grudge with the squid and I missed it...
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To her credit, I don't think Mary Jane asked Peter to bust guys up as often as she could've.

Somehow, I've read a bunch of Peter David books lately, and more Web of Spider-Man than ever before. I usually enjoy the former but they occasionally land flat, and the opposite for the latter. Let's see how today's book does! From 1989, Web of Spider-Man #49, "Corner Business!" Written by Peter David, art by Val Mayerik, with a nice cover by Charles Vess.

David opens with a bit of narration suggesting that small business by-and-large was going the way of the dinosaur; except for one lone holdout of entrepreneurial individualism: the corner drug dealer. David doesn't seem thrilled about it either, but it's a weird pitch. This issue we follow one such small businessman/sleazy dirtbag as Spider-Man harasses him repeatedly, at the behest of his wife, and for profit! After a friend and fellow model nearly overdoses, Mary Jane asks Peter to put her friend's dealer out of business; and while repeatedly embarrassing him and throwing away his drugs, Peter takes pictures to sell to the Bugle. Spidey plants a tracer--in the greasy weasel's hair, so it's tough to feel any sympathy--and hounds him; while MJ tries to find a rehab clinic for her friend. This was before rehab had also become big business, so she's having a hard time finding an opening. Is that still the case? I feel like today, there'd be a surplus of places for treatment. Maybe not great treatment, true, but...

Mary Jane is forced to go to her more upscale friends ("the ones that always give Peter a rash") for cash to cover her friend's rehab, even getting her a job; but she's already cut out to look for a score. Meanwhile, Spidey has driven the pusher back to his source, who had told him in no uncertain terms, don't come by if Spider-Man's following you. Seems reasonable enough, right? The pusher gets shot, as Spidey arrives too late, then has to beat and web up the source and his goons. (Pre-Breaking Bad, they still mention cooking!) Spidey feels a little bad over the pusher's death, even though he didn't even know the name of MJ's model friend...which I haven't mentioned here either, but I don't think she appears again: she has a another overdose, and the story leaves it open if she would survive. And another dealer takes up on the corner...

On the plus side, Peter's boss Kate Cushing is really happy with pictures of a dead dealer. Like scary happy.
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"Cop."

Is it weird that GCPD Blake there is like the only proper cop I can think of in my entire collection? Also, the photo on the Amazon link makes him look way more like Joseph Gordon-Levitt than any of my pictures are going to. And his hands did not want to hold a gun, and I don't believe he came with one, either. (Checking OAFE's review of Blake, he did not; they were able to get a gun in his left, but I was trying right.) That could have been a likeness issue; some actors don't want their figures to come with guns, like Steve Buscemi. Anyway, all cops are bastards, so who cares? Still, you could have pulled a bit of return if you had bought a case of those DKR Movie Masters and sat on them the last...eight years or so? It looks like they may go for at least two or three times the twenty bucks or so they cost when new.

Also weird: I know I have three Mary Jane figures now; since I didn't buy the most recent Homecoming 2-pack. It just feels like a proper Lois Lane figure should be out there, but DC seems like they just can't be bothered to get that going. This MJ is from Spider-Man 3; I bought her for dirt-cheap the tailend of 2009. She's always seemed appropriately sized for a Marvel Legends civilian, but with horrible posture. But she isn't Mary Jane in this one, since we saw the current ML version some time back (and she is also spendy now!) so she's just our waitress. Our weird, weird waitress...next time!
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Just throwing this out there today.

Nextwave is love, kids; and the world could use a helluva lot more of that today. From 2006, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #4, written by Warren Ellis, pencils by Stuart Immonen, inks by Wade von Grawbadger.
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In the mountain of comics I picked up recently, there were at least two with Doctor Doom. Actually, three: I mistakenly thought Doom was on the cover of the Mighty Avengers #10, but it was the Sentry; but Doom was inside! Well, some other time for that one; we've got one I liked and one I didn't: from 2014, Original Sins #4, "Checkmate" Written by James Robinson, art by Alex Maleev. And from 2020, Doctor Doom #3, "Death in the Afternoon" Written by Christopher Cantwell, pencils by Salvador Larroca.

"Checkmate" is a sidebar from the Original Sin event, as a Wall Street douchebro caught in the explosion of one of Uatu's eyes finds himself privy to all of Doctor Doom's secrets. Or at least something--"a memory. A secret. A sin."--bad enough he can blackmail Doom with it. Although the friend he's bragging to (who specifically asks not to be told what it was) tells douchebro he's biting off way more than he can chew, d-bro isn't worried at all. He's left copies with his lawyer, his wife, his mistress, and his bank manager. Yeah, all those people, including the friend, are dead as hell before he gets to Doom. That's amateur hour to him, suckers got to know. I hadn't read a non-Bendis book with Maleev for some time, he nails 'sleazy bastard realizing their mistake' like rolling out of bed.

"Death in the Afternoon" is from the current Doom ongoing--I think it's an ongoing? As much as anything is these days. There were a couple things I liked, but more I didn't: this was a couple issues into a storyline where Doom was attempting to clear his name after a mass murder. He had surrendered, to try and prove his innocence--like Doom cares--but was having mysterious visions of a possible future. Kang confirms that could be the case, but in the previous issue, Doom is shot dead by a sniper. The end! No, this issue opens with another vision of the possible future, as a benevolent-seeming unmasked future Doom makes an eloquent plea for his weather control system to fight climate change. Meanwhile, present Doom finds himself in hell, which seems about as bothersome to him as getting a piece bumped back to the start in a rowdy game of Sorry. Mephisto greets him, and gets manhandled a bit, but has a little challenge for Doom: convince his first love Valeria he deserves to live, and he will.

Now, that is a bit of continuity I liked, although it is probably Doom's most unforgivable crime ever: he sacrificed her for more power, and wore her skin as armor for a few. I hate to see something glossed over, especially as fast as that was; but it was probably too creepy to keep. Unfortunately, a sequence with Doom's regent Victorious takes up several pages, so we don't see much of Valeria: Mephisto, in his more demonic appearance, claims to have seen Doom's visions, and refuses to let him reduce mankind's suffering--"the food of the damned." His armor disappearing, Doom is still willing to take it to Mephisto, but the fight is broken up by Death herself, because she tells Doom he will be her greatest servant.

Returning to the land of the living, Doom knocks out Blue Marvel and H.E.R.B.I.E--yeah, Reed sent a robot, to ask Blue Marvel to field this one, because he just can't with Victor, apparently--with a spell. Kang then appears, like a helpful sidekick, which does not seem like him; Doom asks if he had seen futures where he died. Sure, tons, several where I did it, why? Oh, but this one was probably Taskmaster, hired by A.I.M.! Which may have caused the collapse of civilization. Great, Kang, Doom's ego needed that. Man, I know I'm an old, but I remember when Taskmaster had like three appearances and a Marvel Universe entry; now he's in a movie and every third goddamn comic.

The mystery of whatever's happening is intriguing, but Doom makes a snarky crack, which absolutely seems out of character. And Morgan le Fey appears as well, and I'm not sure what she's up to, but it's weird to see her in normal clothes with an apartment. Where is this going, though? Doom isn't going to be able to fix climate change, nor is he going to pay for any of the terrible crap he's done. The opening says "Over the years, Doom has wielded his power for great good and great evil," but I honestly can not think of a single good thing he's ever done, that wasn't in service of Doom in some way. I wish this issue had been 20 pages of Valeria and Mephisto roasting Doom, figuratively and literally: Mephisto is usually snarkier, I honestly thought he was going to blurt out "choke me, daddy!" when Doom had him by the neck.
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