"Wings."

I think Elektra could take Gamora, but that might just be me. This is the What If? Gamora; I'm guessing I got a couple figures into the wave and wanted to build the Hydra Stomper.  Read more!

"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. (EDIT: I also forgot I had this Taskmaster, but obviously found him: I thought I was going to have to go with the old Toy Biz one!)   

 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.

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"Swallow."

OK, it feels like I haven't done one of this style strip in a while, although I probably have: where we visit a bunch of characters briefly and see if by random chance anybody moves the plot forward or if they're all part of the same problem. It's a good excuse to dig up a ton of figures, which I maybe have to organize now. 

Moon Knight's sword is from real current continuity in his book, and it's great! Well worth grabbing. Gwenpool has obviously seen the second season of X-Men '97: I have not yet! But I know what happens and am okay with it. I'm kind of hoping in a season or two they speed-run Amazing X-Men. Also, pink fills! Ah, I didn't miss those.

I feel like there's a better MCU Valkyrie figure, and I have the MCU Sif as well but really prefer this Simonson-style look. Although, I seem to associate it with just before Simonson's run, where Sif seems to slowly realize her extremely long-term boyfriend loves stupid Midgard and its stupid people, maybe more than he loves her.  Also, I like the Sylvie figure from the Loki show, except for her coat-cape thing: it makes her look hunched over, doesn't it? Sadly, I also think hers was not a well-selling figure; you might be able to find her on discount pegs still. 

Gorr's cloak maybe does him less favors than Sylvie's: her articulation was perhaps hindered a bit, but Gorr's is buried. But I like the idea of Gorr more than the execution: Thor: Love and Thunder is kind of a mess tonally? The scene of Gorr scaring children and seemingly having a ball doing it, kind of undermines any sympathy for the plight that drove him to kill gods. Anyway, finding Gorr was strictly an accident, but a good-enough excuse to use him, largely for ridicule. Couple weeks back, the great Poe Ghostal showed off a new Elric figure; that I completely missed the bus on; the aftermarket is not gonna be forgiving on that one. But it reminded me that Gorr, Knull, Dagon Gera from some Star Wars; there's a lot of Elric-lookalikes out there. (Generally they're pale with an evil sword: the bad guy in Hellboy II: the Golden Army is very based on him.)

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"Vague."

For some reason, whenever I glance at that Blade figure, the red markings on the chest armor seem like they should be a COBRA symbol. I lucked into him on sale last week, so here he is; following up on Kurt, who had been ducking him. Yeesh, we set that up like seven years back! 

And I don't think we've had this Man-Wolf in here yet! He's such a fun figure, of a look that has not really been in a ton of comics. Although, since he's part of Hasbro's Magic tie-in, the figure is more expensive because he comes with cards, which don't do much for you if you don't play. (Actually, I don't know enough to say if he comes with decently playable cards, either.) Man-Wolf is maybe a smidge cheaper now if you shop it around; but I'll get soaked again later for Doom 2099 and his cards.

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"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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