"Daycare."

A short one this week, since I'm playing catch-up: I actually do have a "fill-in" strip, that I keep kicking down the line. It may be dated as heck before it ever turns up, I haven't had any serious disasters yet. Also, I messed up a panel where Pavitr was maybe going to try and hit on Elektra; but then I decided even he wouldn't while she was holding a sword. Miles was also going to describe Elektra/Daredevil as "Un####withable. She's trying not to kill anybody, but with you she might not try real hard..."

Also, I'm pretty sure towards the end of the Krakoa era, the mutants, including Kurt, were on their war footing and fought to kill. I think they were actually less war-crimey than usual, but still killed a lot of goons. I also feel like Kitty--er, Katherine Pryde--might have been somewhat murder-y for that.

 Why would Frank have a sword? If you recall his recent continuity, you can probably guess; but why would he show up with it now? Does everyone have swords on their minds today?

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I might try to ballpark how many Humble Bundle comics I read last week: A Train Called Love was 10 issues, this one was 6. Although they went #0-5, for reasons? From 2017, Ash vs. the Army of Darkness #0-5, written by Chad Bowers and Chris Sims, art by Mauro Vargas and Sam Lotfi.

This series was also from Dynamite, but I think they've had enough Evil Dead/Ash/Army of Darkness issues to offer dedicated Humble Bundles of nothing but those. Sadly, their numbering/naming convention is usually to start a new miniseries, which makes sense when it's just going to a crossover; but perhaps less so when they try to set something up for Ash. Who doesn't go through a ton of growth in his comic, but honestly would you expect him to? The character's pretty established at this point. This run, after the fight at the end of the theatrical cut of Army of Darkness, Ash is canned from his beloved S-Mart; but one door opens as another closes: a local vice principal approaches him, since that Deadite had previously been her school's librarian. With few other options, Ash is forced to go back to high school as a substitute, to find out who had been reading from the Necronomicon; largely in order to get the auto shop kids to repair his beloved Delta 88.

Hijinks of course ensue, with Ash having to deal with high schoolers than are probably more studious than he remembers them being; and encounters with the anti-Deadite task force S.M.A.R.T. The latter had begun, if not with a clever acronym, but back in the 14th century; as Arthur and Sheila decided they needed to keep doing their part against the Necronomicon. The whole thing seems to be trying to set up a new, ongoing status quo for Ash that I'm not sure was revisited: partly because every writer seems to just want to do their own take, which is fine. To me though, the Ash books kind of feel like the tour the X-Men used to do every so often: the Savage Land, Japan, space! Maybe Canada if there's time. Ash tends to run in a set circle, usually with trips to the past, the future, back to the cabin again; and repeat.

We've mentioned these before, and they're usually pretty fun: they tend to stay in the slapstick horror/violence of the third movie; and haven't gone hard on the horror in a bit, unlike the last few movies in the franchise. (I haven't seen Evil Dead Burn yet!) If you check Dynamite's site, they've been cranking out Ash comics for some time, with about a bazillion variant covers. I thought Archie vs. the Army of Darkness was still running, but I guess that wrapped up a couple months ago. That will probably be in a Humble Bundle sometime as well, if you missed it too. Read more!

And we're back!

Yes, yes, I'm sure I'm about as thrilled about it as everyone else... This will probably be a bit of a catch-up week, since while I managed to scrape together enough posts to cover while I was gone, I did not put enough together to, um, cover today? Well, we'll still take a shot at it. Usually, when I'm on vacation, I do a ton of reading, but I didn't bring as many books with me this year. Instead, I went back through a bunch of Humble Bundles and read some that I'm not sure I had before. For instance, I would've thought I'd have flipped through this earlier, since it kind of answers the question, "What if Garth Ennis wrote a romantic comedy?" He would still be Garth Ennis, yeah. From 2015, A Train Called Love, written by Garth Ennis, art by Mark Dos Santos. Cover by Russ Braun.

What seems like it's going to be the main plot kind of isn't: Valerie, a headstrong young woman, realizes the obscene phone calls she keeps getting, are coming from across the street, so she stomps over there with a basebat bat to rectify the situation. A charming British hitman, Myles, had already taken care of that for her, and sparks fly; which leads to her being dragged into it when his employer's regular hitters show up, who are of course comic Nazis because again, Garth Ennis. It's only addressed in passing, but the big crime boss was a morbidly obese black man (think the Slug, not the Kingpin; there is a sex sequence involving scuba gear that will either be hilarious for you or miss completely) who seemingly didn't care as long as the hits got made. Again, Garth Ennis: rest assured the Nazis get theirs in amusingly gory fashion.

But, despite being needed for the plot, Valerie and Myles don't feel like the main one: Valerie's sister, Penny, has just made a horrible discovery in her boyfriend Marv's tastes in pornography; while being completely clueless that her songwriter friend Marcy was in love with her. Marv and his friends had recently stumbled into possession of a large quantity of drugs, and were trying to talk their one black friend Mike into helping out since their street credibility was somewhat lacking. Mike was a bit distracted, since he had been tutoring a young woman in math but then discovered her family were full-on Klansmen. (They're suburban/upper middle-class Klan and even in a group don't seem threatening at all; it's played for laughs.) Later, Penny and Marv recognize their friend Jev's new fiance; and you can probably guess from where; while their actor friend Dave meets his idol, who lets him in on what it took to get ahead in Hollywood--OK, I feel like you can probably guess there, too. Ennis is not above taking shots at actors, except of course for Clint Eastwood, 'cause come on.

Is it any good? It's a minor work, it's not Ennis's best, but it feels like he was trying to step out of his wheelhouse at least a little. Maybe very little, honestly Preacher is kind of more romantic than this. But it reads well? I do wonder how it sold; the cover for the last issue isn't even on the GCD, which might be a bad sign. This was in a Dynamite Humble Bundle, and I do think Dynamite does a Bundle every so often, so if you get it in one it's worth a read.

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The title makes it seem like Cribs, but for the Hulk.

Also, this was an unexpected reprint, as the regular creative team apparently missed deadline, so I'm saving this post for the next time I miss deadline! From 1975, Iron Man #76, reprinting 1969's Iron Man #9, "...There Lives a Green Goliath" Written by Archie Goodwin, pencils by George Tuska, inks by Johnny Craig.

A mysterious delivery is made to an Asian woman and a hooded, angry-sounding character: from the color scheme I'm guessing the Mandarin, but we'll see. The box contains an antique armor, but what's inside the armor is the real prize: the Hulk? Shipped like he was from Temu, yet. Meanwhile, Tony Stark had repaired his armor, after a fight with the Gladiator; but not his reputation, as he had to duck out to change, and to current love interest Janice Cord it had looked like he deserted her. She still kinda likes Tony, as he was trying to buy her dad's company, but would like some explanation. Which she doesn't get, as the Hulk smashes in looking for Tony--wait, not for Tony, but for Janice! (Tony earlier uses his "fusion ray" to repair his armor, which is like using a taser to iron your pants. Still, good on Tony for repairing a suit, as nowadays it feels like armors are one-use only.)

Switching into his armor, Iron Man gives chase, but can't figure out why the Hulk would attack like that, or how the usually stupid (at the time) brute was more clever and more cruel now. He gets his answer later, when the fight rolls into an electrical plant's generators, and the Hulk is zapped and revealed as a robot. But who would build something like that, and why? Watching from afar, the bad guy unmasks, and it's the Mandarin, with a mask on underneath his hood. Literally feels like a hat on a hat there. Still, Mandy is pleased to learn more of Iron Man's vulnerabilities. 

Marvel would eventually stop doing reprints to cover books that missed deadline, and instead have editors commission and bank away "fill-in" issues as replacements. Tom Brevoort has a solid guide of them! But, this issue could've been the first time some readers saw Janice Cord, and they might have wondered what happened to her...nothing good, no. Tony isn't the kiss-of-death that dating Matt Murdock is, but he's in the running.

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This might have been from a stretch in the Spidey titles, where everything was a conspiracy. Symbiotes everywhere? Conspiracy. Clones? Conspiracy. Dead parents return? Do I need to say it? Honestly, I'm not sure the conspiracies against him ever ended, either. From 1994, What If? #61, "What If Spider-Man's 'parents' destroyed his family?" Written by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Jim Amash, Kirk Jarvinen, Andrew Wildman, and Derek Yaniger; inks by Sam de la Rosa, Bruce Patterson, and Jim Amash.

That's kind of a lot of artists for a single comic, and it's a bit jarring; especially since most take a rather light art style here. So, it looks like an episode or adaptation of the Spider-Man cartoon, even as Aunt May and Mary Jane are murdered...! "See something, say something" goes horribly awry in this universe, as Aunt May calls out the returned Richard and Mary Parker as fakes, since they had gotten some facts wrong. Peter hustles May away, thinking she might have just finally gone a bit senile, but did his Spider-sense twinge there? Their mission in jeopardy, they call their boss, who tells them take out anyone who knew the secret: if that meant killing Spidey, do it, even if the boss is disappointed he wouldn't be there to see it. The robo-parents do just that, first exposing Peter as Spider-Man to a confused Aunt May, then hammering May and MJ to death. (It's a bloodless death scene, possibly because this would've been a newsstand title.) Peter takes the fight to his robo-parents, who have weird half-crazed parent faces, half-robot. Unable to kill him quickly or quietly, they take on their parent forms again, duck out, and go to the cops to destroy Peter Parker's credibility, by exposing him as Spider-Man and blaming him for the deaths of May and MJ.

Spidey had torn into a crowd, looking for not only his parents but for May and MJ, since he may have wanted to believe this was some sick scam of Mysterio's. Photos from that, somehow not taken by Peter, make the Bugle front page. While Flash (with an unidentified blonde, maybe Felicia miscolored?) still believes in Peter, J.Jonah Jameson is somewhat less enthusiastic than you might expect: how did he not see it, and were there any other menaces in the office? Spidey confronts JJJ, even swatting Robbie aside, to get the skinny on where his 'parents' were hiding: in protective custody, at Avengers' mansion. (Which should have scanners up the wazoo and recognize them as fakes, but let that go.) Captain America and the Human Torch try to stop Spidey, but he escapes; possibly because neither of them can believe Spidey was going vengeance-crazy like this.

Catching up with Scorpion and the Chameleon, Spidey breaks the Scorpion's arm and kills the Chameleon, after the latter confirms his parents had been robots throughout their 'return' then tries to weasel out by taking Mary Jane's face. Bad idea there. Later, Spidey catches up with the parents, but their fight is not seen by the Torch or any other witnesses; and the robots end it by letting Spidey 'kill' them--but in their human forms, so it looked like Spidey had murdered them as well. He's then confronted by eighteen super-heroes, and one cop, facing him like a jury. (No Torch on that page, he probably hadn't caught back up.) Spidey briefly wonders, could he explain, would the evidence exonerate him...but May and MJ would still be dead, and he can't see the point. And in the shadows, an unseen figure laughs...pretty sure that's Norman Osborn, but he hadn't yet returned in the main Spidey titles, and they weren't going to spoil that here!

On the final page, Spidey considers if Reed Richards could have figured out the parents were fakes, but on the confrontation page it's Sue in her cut-out '4' costume and Ben with a facemask, which maybe meant Reed was 'dead' at the time. Well, Spidey had a lot on his mind, and maybe didn't necessarily believe that, either. Feel like Daredevil could've figured it out, like immediately, though. It's not unlike the ending of the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in that sure, they're lugging the hero away to the nuthouse, but the truth might out later...if Spidey had anything left in the tank, which was doubtful. Read more!

"Swordplay."

I probably haven't said yet, but I'm on vacation this week! Which meant I was scrambling to get a week ahead. 

Illyana has known Kurt for years--she appears in his first mini-series, for that matter. She also had a Bamf doll, when she died as a kid. 

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I would've sworn I mentioned this one before, but I didn't buy it in singles, I got the trade later: it seems like it's going to mostly be a test of "how much of a hardass is Frank Castle?" but maybe goes more into "what kind of bastard is Nick Fury?" You may be surprised by both answers! From 2024, Get Fury #1, "1: Sweet Bird of Truth" Written by Garth Ennis, pencils by Jacen Burrows, inks by Guillermo Ortego.

The Dave Johnson cover is an homage to the Punisher's first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129, but you know Ennis doesn't care about that; this is a Vietnam story. (I know Frank's history has ostensibly been altered in Marvel's sliding timeline, but we all agree, Frank fought in Vietnam, whatever we might call it to hide the fact he'd be older than dirt now.) Aged Vietnamese general Letrong Giap tells this story, as a bit of "mischief." Frank and Nick had tried to kill him, more than once, but never got him.

Back in '71, Frank was a captain in charge of recon, and turns away two M.P.'s who had orders to bring in whatever dogs were out there, for fear of rabies. One of Frank's guys has a very small-looking pup, that he was not about to give up; and Frank wasn't about to make him. He's then called away, for a meeting with General Mackie and what are obviously a couple of spooks: Nick Fury's plane had gone down near the Cambodian border, and since his body wasn't found he was feared captured. Frank immediately understands: they want him to kill Fury, since losing him would be unimaginably bad for military intelligence. Mackie at least makes a nod, to giving Fury a better end than the torture he would receive. They couldn't get a rescue team in, but could maybe get a single shooter in place, to take Fury out when he gets to his destination. (There's also zero paper trail on this one; so even if Frank followed his orders he wouldn't be able to prove it.)

There had been two other survivors with Fury, but one had been too wounded to continue marching, so the Viet Cong bury him alive, and kill the other when he objects: Fury hadn't liked it, but knew there was nothing he could do right then, as his march continues...You're fairly sure from the start, that Frank isn't just going to blindly put one in Nick's dome, but let's just say those two aren't best friends by the end of it. (Frank gets some help from a woman who had been Fury's mistress decades before, and a daughter Fury didn't know about; and you can probably guess that it doesn't end with Nick warmly embracing his new family...) Darn, I'm trying to finish a couple weeks worth of posts at once, but I'm still getting the trade off the shelf! There feels like a lot of sidebar in it, as the spooks wonder if they made a mistake sending Frank, or if Fury was really a threat to their own heroin-trafficking scheme at all. Still, Giap's conclusion, despite what both Fury and Castle became, is that if a man is judged by the enemies he made in life, his was then full of riches. Read more!