Bound to happen, yeah.

Do falcons growl? Well, Redwing does, anyway.

Even though the effects were a bit dated when it was first aired (by the standards of ILM) I love Blake's 7. The banner (and the 'fake' banner I did a while back) are pretty influenced by its last episode. If you've never seen the show, it's a British sci-fi adventure show with surprisingly grim overtones. The heroes are rebels fighting alone against a galactic empire, the evil Federation. (Making Star Trek fans go 'hey!') Well, the leader, Blake, is a rebel; the rest are mostly criminals fighting less for heroic idealism than their own goals or skins.

Blake's 7 may not be widely remembered here, but it may have been a little more influential than you think, in terms of casting: Blake, the leader of the rebels, disappears at the end of the second season, as the actor opted out of returning to the show. He would eventually return for what would be the final episode, "Blake," which ends with most of the cast gunned down, and the series lead, self-confessed psychopath Avon, surrounded by soldiers, and grinning. Fade to black, as guns fire.

Now, the producers had planned this ending out, so any of the actors who wanted out could be written off. Anyone who signed back on, their character would merely be wounded and would miraculously survive. Pretty clever, huh? Except the show wasn't renewed, making it a remarkably bleak series finale. Which may also have made the show more memorable, honestly...but try to imagine a show like say, Star Trek: The Next Generation continuing if Patrick Stewart quit after season two, or having everyone killed in the end.

There's a lot of remakes and "re-imagings" out there, and a lot of them are completely unneccessary, but Blake's 7? Ripe for it. A good producer could take it a long ways, and if the actors give you any guff? Shoot 'em.

In other news, I'm having computer trouble, so we're running this one early. I had to do a restore, and may have to reload some programs. My brother-in-law is making me a new computer out of some stuff he had lying around, and I'm looking forward to retiring my old one. If it behaves, it'll be retired to the old computer home, used as backup. If not, it'll be retired off a bridge... Read more!

A high point and a low, from the last half of Kurt Busiek's Avengers run:

Post George Perez, Kurt Busiek started plotlines in the $1.99 trial-priced Avengers #38 that would continue until his departure from the book, issue #56. (Hmm, Busiek may have actually started a couple of issues earlier, with the mystery of Goliath being kidnapped and replaced by Hank Pym's other identity, Yellowjacket. Spoiler warning: it wasn't a Skrull that time!) It's an epic that stays within the single title, with the exception of an annual and an Ultron side-story; and I think it's even stronger than the Perez issues. Besides, Busiek had some pretty good support from artists like Alan Davis and Kieron Dwyer.

Here's a low point, though: after being turned into a radioactive hivemind zombie in Siberia and nearly dying--you should be looking for the trades right now--Captain America is a bit banged up, but still goes with his Avengers co-leader the Wasp, to a briefing with the military on plans for a counterattack against Kang the Conqueror. Seriously, go to Amazon or something, I'll wait. I drag these issues out every so often, and read that whole stretch straight through.

Bandages over the costume: not a dignified look. And this scene was probably at least a day or so after his injuries; I hope Cap hadn't taped himself to his chainmail or something.

OK, now a higher point: Kang is all but defeated at this point, his armies routed, his massive starship base crash-landed, his personal weapons failing, and his son Marcus sent back to the future to carry on his legacy. But Kang isn't going out without a fight. He knows he's done, but this will cement his name and his honor.

Cap immediately steps up, but before the other Avengers take his back, Thor stops them:

One plot point that had been running for a while, was that when Thor believed Captain America had been killed, Thor was beside himself with rage. (Quicksilver and the Black Knight were also apparently dead, but Thor wasn't so broken up about that. It may have slipped Busiek's mind that Pietro and Dane hate each other, though...) Thor begins to worry that he's going to be too attached to Cap and the other Avengers, most of whom he'll probably see grow old and die. Cap is probably Thor's favorite mortal, though, and here we see why.

The only downside to Busiek's magnum opus? While it is kinda nice that it all takes place in Avengers proper, no spin-offs or one-shots or X-Men vs. Kang series...hell, that might've been fun. It would've at least been something to mention that Kang's invasion was happening on the same planet as the rest of Marvel's books; and there's no magic fix or convenient forgetting in the end. Still, it's a great run, and missed.

And unlike the Avengers books of the last few years, Busiek does it while still fitting in new characters like Silverclaw and Triathalon, not beating you over the head with them, but gradually getting you to like them more and more. (Is Ares the last addition to the Avengers roster? I sure as hell don't count Daken...) I have to wonder if they are remembered fondly, or at all; or if they are as forgotten and maligned as, say, Gypsy or Vibe?

First panel from Avengers #45, "Life During Wartime" Written by Kurt Busiek, "reserve artists" Manuel Garcia and Bob Layton. Kang's beatdown comes in Avengers #54, "A Good Day to Die" Written by Busiek, art by Kieron Dwyer and Rick Remender.

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Everyone needs a hobby: might I suggest getting the hell away from me?

Even though I'm not buying the others, I'd probably pay for Young Dark Pet Avengers.

Sam's using one of the McFarlane Toys Guitar Hero guitars, and I sure as hell hope you didn't pay full price for those. I still see them at Wal-Mart in the $5-7 range, but we got ours at a dollar store. MWC Toys had a review a while back, and I'm mildly surprised they weren't knocked down a point or two for not having straps. Seriously, Otto from the Playmates Simpsons line had a guitar with a strap, so it's not like that was rocket science there. (Here's a review from OAFE for Guitar Hero's Johnny Napalm, that also highlights some of the line's and McFarlane's problems.)

I have nothing against Lenny Kravitz, but I wouldn't shed a tear if I never heard his music again. Overplayed. It's not like he dropped off the face of the earth or anything, but I'd say his comeback is probably still a few years off...since I'm writing upstanding super-hero Falcon here, I'm guessing he probably has terrible taste in music; while bad-boy antihero Snap Wilson doubtless has way more street cred. Do people still have street cred? Arrgh, I'm old, and have none.

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Told today, Superman would probably have to kiss Hal's ring...

I'm in a staggeringly bad mood today, so let's take a brief look at some things I don't miss (and maybe a couple I do) from DC Comics, using Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #4, "Hero" Written by Louise Simonson, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Dennis Janke.

Whereas Marvel often went with crossovers in their annuals, DC would sometimes go with a theme for the year, that would go across multiple books without them necessarily tying into one another. In 1995, that theme was "Year One." This is ground that has long since been trod over again and again (and to continue the metaphor, burned down and on occasion salted over) but it wasn't a bad idea then. Simonson strings together multiple points from Superman's relatively new, post-Crisis continuity, like his first meetings with Batman (from Byrne's The Man of Steel #3) or Aquaman (also told in Aquaman's annual for 1995) or the Justice League of America.

Now, that last one was later retold and expanded a bit in Waid and Kitson's JLA, but I don't know if Simonson or some other story set the precedent: Supes helps the JLA out against the Lord of Time, then cops out of League membership, stating he didn't have the time to devote to the team. (I do prefer Waid's story, where after Supes leaves, Green Lantern launches the chair Flash made for Supes into space.) As I've said before, I don't miss that aspect of that era of Superman stories, not one little bit: at the very least, figure Supes would've taken a reserve spot and a communicator, and not left with a vague, I'll-be-there-if-you-really-REALLY-need-me promise.

So, some of this annual's scenes I've seen before, or since; but there is one that I'm not sure has remained canon: Superman's first meeting with Hal Jordan, Green Lantern:

As Clark tells his mom over the phone, that he's met a lot of heroes but none like himself; a news report breaks in about a twenty-ton Lexcorp satellite headed straight for Coast City. Since the thing is inexplicably not breaking up in the atmosphere, Superman streaks to the scene to avert disaster. A disaster currently not being stopped, by Coast's own Green Lantern. Tongs, Hal? You're going to stop a multi-ton, hurtling towards disaster satellite with tongs? It's not like the damn thing's even yellow...

Sure enough, the tongs don't work, and as Hal kicks himself by remembering his dad saying he would be a failure; Superman slows down the satellite enough for Hal to get his head back on straight and net it. He and Supes chat a bit, as he puts it down on the beach.

Hmm. This would be foreshadowing, if Coast City hadn't been obliterated by then. Fauxshadowing. I'm going to assume this was inserted via editorial mandate and not by Simonson, but the trend at DC then, while Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern, was that Hal had always been unstable, which would be why he went bad and became Parallax. If Hal was seen in flashback, he was often either acting sketchy, foreboding, otherwise hinting towards future instability. This was done more than a couple of times, but that's still a fistful of retroactive blacklisting versus years of being the steadfast hero in his own book, the Justice League, and various other appearances. Put that way, "possessed by yellow evil entity" starts to look pretty reasonable.

This could be another of those things that happened in the DC Universe proper, and I might be thinking of the New Frontier again, but didn't Hal's dad die when he was pretty young? I thought Hal idolized his pilot father, and it's hard to believe someone that hung up on his dad calling him a failure, would have the confidence to become a test pilot, or Green Lantern, or even Hal Jordan.

As Hal talks to Superman, he thinks maybe he can thank Supes for the assist, by helping him learn about his past: Supes hadn't learned about Krypton just yet, placing this scene between The Man of Steel #3 and #6. Hal's ring tells him about Krypton, but Hal decides telling Supes the whole sole-survivor business would just be too harsh.

So, I'm torn: I liked this annual, and I enjoyed the highlight reel trip through Superman's past. I don't like the editorial fiat of the day coming into things: Superman's first visits with the Flash and Aquaman are also shown, and they manage without any heavy-handed foreboding of Barry's sacrifice or Arthur losing his hand. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these, especially since this one manages to avoid getting too mired in Superman's origin, which gets a new coat of paint and/or massive revisions every year or so now. (Which is it today: was Krypton a sterile, loveless society? Silver-age science action planet? Totalitarian war zone? Chock full of crystals? What?) But if I did, I'd want just a single issue trip, not six or twelve issues of revisions. And I'd want it straight, without dropping a bucketload of hints about current storylines: the Clark of ten years ago doesn't get to muse about maybe someday, a new Krypton will arise, and he'll leave the care of earth to other hands...

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Review, sort of: Marvel Legends Nova, Wal-Mart Exclusive:

When was this figure first announced? When was it supposed to come out? The January 2008 cover-dated issue of Toyfare refers to the wave as Marvel Legends Series 4, upcoming for January 2008, and a picture of Nova is shown...as part of series 3, the Brood Wave. Oops. But the bigger oops was the non-release of the figures, and to date no one seems positive who was to blame. Hasbro said for some time that Wal-Mart had the figures, and it was up to them to release them; and Wal-Mart said nothing.

Nova and the rest of this wave of figures (we'll call it the Nemesis wave, after the Build-a-figure, which we'll get into later) finally appeared at some online vendors a few months ago, and arrived in their intended home aisles at Wal-Mart the week of Comic-Con. So, after over a year and a half of waiting, haunting the toy aisles and website forums for a glimpse of the toys, how does Nova stack up?

Well...I don't want to call Nova an outright disappointment, since that wouldn't be fair for a couple of reasons; but I wanted to be more excited about the first Marvel Legend I've purchased in months. Since this is from a retailer-exclusive wave, typically some (if not all) the figures will be repaints or have more reuse of parts than a "regular" wave. (Not that I have a huge problem with that, although I never noticed Marvel Legend reuse to the extent of DC Universe Classic figures.)

Although on the package Nova is pictured in his current, pointier costume; this figure is more of a classic, 70's Carmine Infantino-style version. But not exactly: classic Nova had a yellow-stripe down the side of his pants, and slightly raised shoulder-points. His red helmet star was flat as well; and on the figure it's three-dimensional and seems huge. Like, it would be in his field of vision huge. Or, Nova's always looking down because that thing is heavy, huge.

On the other hand, huge or no, at least the star is a sculpted element; because his belt and everything else are only painted. The belt wasn't perfect, but the chest emblem looks nice.

Nova has the typical Marvel Legend articulation, with one problem: he was known as "the human rocket," but he can't quite nail the flying pose since he can't look up!

In the comics, Iron Man was nicknamed 'Shellhead,' but Nova was 'Buckethead' long before the guitarist was. His trademark helmet doesn't come off, which you can't really expect from an exclusive wave, and in all likelihood would've been mighty hard to pull off without the helmet being flimsy or his unmasked head looking too small or his eyes not lining up right or any of a dozen other possible problems. Still...the effort would've been something. Nova's not big on weapons or anything, so without a helmet, he doesn't get an accessory other than the leg of "Nemesis." The character was "Holocaust" in the comics, but just like his first action figure, he gets renamed for sale in stores. I am planning on getting Black Bolt and Tigra for sure, if I find them, so maybe we can get a better look at Nemesis later.

At best, Nova's a C, B- of an action figure; the B- if you're a fan of the character that can live with the not-quite classic, not-quite new look of this toy. And he is a character I've personally never had an action figure of, so that does give him a few points from me. I can't help but think he might have been a better figure two years ago, though...

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Having a rough day? Yeah, Nick is too.

From Punisher Annual #4 (1991), "The Cutting Edge" Written by Greg Wright and Dan Chichester, pencils by John Hebert, inks by Palmiotti, Hudson, and Reddington. This was part two of "The Von Strucker Gambit," the other two parts in the Daredevil and Captain America Annuals. (Both of which got Mike Mignola covers, but not Frank. Huh.)

I'm out for the day with a mild emergency, maybe the rest of the week. Sorry!
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I hope Marvel doesn't adapt that one; I don't want to see those covers in the solicits for the next eight years...

Kurt actually is reading from War and Peace: I found a preview online and made way more notes than I could cram into this strip.


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While on vacation last week, I read through the tub of old comics I keep at my parents' house, as I probably do every time I'm on vacation. (There's also a bin of my old Fisher-Price toys, that the boys both loved: the airport and plane, main street, the Sesame Street characters...) And the last couple of times I've done that, I end up taking an issue or three home to blog about; but I'm worried about depleting my stock there. So this time, I tried taking a few pictures with the digital camera, instead of bringing them home to scan. Let's see how that works...

Meh...OK, not great. During Blacklash/Whiplash week before I left, I mentioned that Blacklash (or Whiplash, whatever) didn't make a lot of appearances outside of Iron Man. Calvin Pitt, from over at Reporting on Marvels and Legends, reminded me of his Amazing Spider-Man showing, which I had forgotten but the cover sounded familiar, no doubt because it was in the tub o'comics! In this issue from the Todd McFarlane days, Blackie gives another surprisingly competent go of things: the Scorpion gets an upgraded tail from Justin Hammer, in exchange for future services. Scorpy promptly backs out of the deal, and Hammer sends the Rhino and Blacklash over to do the job, and get his property back.

Blacklash keeps Spidey busy...somehow...while the Rhino pulls the Scorpion's new tail off his ass. Ow. I think Spidey was just trying to keep Blacklash away from civilians or something, but I don't know why he had to lure him rather than simply webbing him up. Blackie has to pole vault after him, for pete's sake. Regardless, he and Rhino succeed in at least part of their mission.

What else did we find? Well, check after the break!
I mentioned I wanted to find this one a while back as well:
Captain America #312 was the first appearance of Flag-Smasher, a pretty good villain for Cap: he was an anti-nationalist, his father killed in a protest that cemented his belief that the planet should be united as one and not divided into petty nations with petty rivalries. Not an ignoble goal, but I'm pretty sure it's not one you're going to achieve by dressing up and waving around a flamethrower. That and it's a tough one to put in a soundbite: stating his goal, Smasher is shouted down by the crowd and called a "commie," so he then tries to explain he's against communism too...

In his next appearance, Flag-Smasher would be backed by his own terrorist group ULTIMATUM, the Ultimate Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army To Unite Mankind. Good lord, I would dearly love to know how writer Mark Gruenwald came up with that acronym. Some other time for that. But, in the letters' page for #312, there was the "Mighty Marvel Correction Kit," for a printing error in #309:


I mentioned those Correction Kits before, and I miss that kind of thing. Not the mistakes so much, but the fun little shrugs and fixes of same.

Thursday, another comic from the reserves, that I was breaking my legs looking for here...

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"G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra" opens August 7, but let's do this now, before the probable disappointment sets in...

Click to enlarge!


You know how every time I do a Deadpool-centric strip, I moan and groan about having to fill in all his word balloons with yellow? Yeah, this one is my penance for that...

The Snake-Eyes figure is a few years old--2001? Really? I wanted to say it's from the Valor vs. Venom line, but I don't think that's right either. He does have the molded lips, though; that some people don't seem to like on the movie Snake-Eyes.

I figure I'll probably see G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra at some point, but I'm not enough of a fan to run out and see it opening night, even if the advance word said it was great. I would guess it would be a passable enough summer movie, with probably more than a couple groan-worthy sequences. I also think any screen time devoted to the tragic backstories of the bad guys; like Cobra Commander's tragic childhood, Destro's devotion to his heritage, or the Baroness's Stockholm Syndrome; is wasted. While the characters can be fleshed out, the villains here don't really need to be humanized or made sympathetic: they're bad guys in a kids' toy line, and it should be acceptable for them to merely be evil bastards.

I Googled it for a bit, but didn't find what I was looking for: I'm 90% sure it was a Toyfare interview, but not quite positive. Larry Hama, the man behind Marvel's G.I. Joe comic and the Hasbro filecards; referred to a movie with a leper (or severely burnt?) ninja as an inspiration for Storm Shadow and his white gi uniform. For some reason, I want to say it was Lady Snowblood, but that was Kill Bill, right?

Another silly thought: Deadpool is one of the Marvel Universe's premier martial artists, but where did he train? I don't recall him ever having a master or being part of a school like Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow's Arashikage Clan or anything. Granted, a lot of Pool's skill seems to be natural, due to his unpredictable and erratic mindset, but I'm still curious if anyone has touched on that.

Would Deadpool take a job from an upfront terrorist organization like Cobra? Well, in the pages of Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, he takes a couple million for a job from Advanced Idea Mechanics. A.I.M. always seemed more horrible than a lot of the other fictional bad guy organizations like HYDRA or Cobra; after all, A.I.M. made MODOK, among other things. They were an evil that could very probably experiment on you, and I'm pretty sure Pool's going to realize before long that anything A.I.M. has it's paws on can't be good.

This strip takes place out of our regular "continuity," the current story with the Falcon. And I'm still on vacation: I'm home after a great week in Montana (a sentence that as a kid, I would've never thought would come out of me) and seeing my family and an old friend from high school! I met his family, and forgot to take any pictures even though I had my camera in my damn pocket. But, I'm still off work, so I'd better find something to do...

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Possibly the last deleted scene from "Timing"?

Hoo, boy. Way back in Timing, part 23; Deadpool had brought several dozen characters out of their proper places in time, by dicking around with the temporal distorter he got from MODOK. This was pretty much an excuse to throw a bunch of toys into a crowd scene, yeah. Hellraiser's Pinhead and Sulley from Monsters, Inc. were there, since I had initially planned a lot more interaction among the displaced refugees: there was going to be an Old Admiral Kirk vs. young Captain Kirk bit as well, but that one dragged on and I couldn't wrap it up. (I also needed McCoy there for one of the jokes, where the Admiral tries to get the doctor to give his younger self a vasectomy right on the spot.)

I bagged those ideas, justifying the cut by figuring that they would kill any forward momentum the narrative had, which wasn't a helluva lot in the first place. Timing had a set ending vaguely in mind when I started, but a lot of those figures were bought after I started, so it definitely wasn't planned out. But Sulley and Pinhead, I wanted them together since I figured they'd have tons in common! Both's raison d'etre is to cause great fear (meaning their Sinestro Corps t-shirts and probably in the mail), both live in shadowy realms connected to ours by mysterious artifacts (the Lament Configuration is a little more dramatic than the bedroom closet, unless you're four), um...both are blue. Ish.

James P. Sullivan, as his little voice chip introduces himself, was initially the Oldest's figure, back when he was an only child. It has long since passed on to the Youngest, who has a pretty good haul of Pixar figures, now that I think about it. (Are there Up figures? Seems unlikely, but...) I know I had to change Sulley's batteries when the Youngest was younger, and seriously bent out of shape when the figure stopped talking.

I was working in a mall when NECA's Pinhead came out--check out Shocka's review from OAFE.net here! I seem to recall there were six figures in the case, the full wave; and get them all and you could make your own Lament Configuration ("evil puzzley box" for non-fans) out of their bases. I bought Pinhead straightaway, which left the rest of the Cenobites lingering on the racks. I bought CD much, much later, marked down to like $2.50. Good idea on the box-building, bad idea on not packing Pinhead maybe a bit heavier.

And this one's way late posting, too: I know full well July has thirty-one days, since my birthday's August 1! Still on vacation, though, so I hope you're having fun as well!
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Your Happenstance page for today:

I mentioned getting this one a while back: Sword of Sorcery #5, "The Sunken Land" Story by Dennis O'Neil and Fritz Leiber, art by Walt Simonson and Al Milgrom. A fun little Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story, with what has to be early Simonson art, but you can still catch glimpses of where he's going! Ditto the second feature with Jim Starlin.

Still out, but we'll probably still have more random stuff this week!
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Your Happenstance page for today:

From Excalibur #15, "Technet: Impossible Missions!" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Paul Neary. Not even midway through the Cross-Time Caper (which was not really a caper, they were lost!) and most of this issue goes to Gatecrasher, her Technet, and Captain Britain's crazy and super-powerful brother Jamie. Long before Exiles or even Sliders, Excalibur keeps going from one bizarre themed alternate world to another, with a brief stopover on their home earth that they accidentally leave and get lost again. Oops.

The Caper had it's moments, but was hindered by issues not pencilled by Davis, and went too long anyway. Davis would return to Excalibur years later as writer and artist, and those issues were even better. Read more!

Well, it's a variant I'd buy.

I don't know if Star Wars: The Clone Wars has reached that point in the storyline yet--in fact, I'm pretty sure it hasn't--but there may be some good stories in the Clone Troopers during the switch from Republic to Empire. During the war, the Clones seemed to enjoy both camaraderie with the Jedis and their clone-brothers, and a bit of self-expression in their helmet and uniform markings. (Which coincidentally would translate into more action figures than just a basic trooper.)

Maybe Order 66 turned that off, and when the Clones killed the Jedi, they also killed their own free will and individuality. Perhaps that turned them into drones as they became the Stormtroopers. Maybe not, though: most of the Stormtroopers didn't seem as...capable, let's say, as the average Clone. I'd guess the Empire eventually ran out of Clones, and started using recruits.

I haven't bought a new Stormtrooper in ages, since it's been a couple of years since I've bought a Star Wars figure. Two of those are Han and Luke in disguise, and one has a plug in his back since he was the "Crowd Control Stormtrooper" and came with a giant leaf-blower looking thing.

I don't know what Moon Knight's clone tag would be. Punchy? I may have a longer strip planned for MK, if I come up with an ending for it, but that's a ways off.
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By 'patrol' I mean, kill time until a fight scene.

Do superheroes still go on patrol? I don't seem to see that very often anymore, but I may not be reading the books where the hero would--Spider-Man probably still does, sure; but I'm momentarily stumped as to who else would. Daredevil, maybe?

Since as a little kid, I listened to the Power Records record of "And a Phoenix shall arise" like a bazillion times (check it here and here; it's split into two posts, but I believe there's a link to the MP3 there as well.) in my head Cap and the Falcon went on rooftop patrol a bazillion times. How much crime did they see that wasn't someone with a grudge against Cap coming to pick a fight? I'm guessing not a ton, and they probably couldn't do that today anyway without being followed by a news helicopter and photographers and gawkers.

Since this is a short one, we'll have another one-panel bit later today.
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Your Happenstance page for today:

Entirely too much mustache coming at you from Astonishing Tales #34, featuring Deathlok the Demolisher; "And all the King's Madmen..." Produced, concept, plot and art by Rich Buckler; script by Bill Mantlo and inks by Klaus Janson. The "produced" tag never really caught on for comics, did it? Although, when I think of producers in terms of movies, I usually think "the guy that fronted the money."

I swear, I thought I saw Essential Deathlok in the Marvel solicits, but after a quick search, I either imagined it or saner heads prevailed. The collected Deathlok might not be a modern classic, but hey, it's not like Essential Werewolf by Night or Essential Godzilla are bloody Shakespeare, and I'm sure as hell glad I've got those. A collected Deathlok would be so much easier than trying to track all his appearances down; since I know he also showed up in Marvel Two-In-One and possibly Marvel Team-Up before his showing in Captain America in the eighties.
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They say there's someone out there for everyone, but...

With Grimlock there, that's the Daikū Maryū, or Space Dragon, from Gaiking. Pretty sure it was way bigger, so we're not to scale here. I have an old videotape with the first two episodes of the old Force Five dubs--from a box set of four of said five, omitting Spaceketeers; no great loss. I didn't remember Gaiking as clearly as the others. Grandizer is still my favorite, and Danguard Ace was a bit better than I remembered.

What were these figures called? Heroes of Cybertron, wasn't it? I still have a packaged Megatron one, since I got a silver-finished one off eBay or somewhere. I got the Daikū Maryū as part of a loose set from a local store, with Grandizer, Mazinger, Combattler, and the three versions of Getter Robo. I was completely blanking on the names until I looked it up: it was called Starvengers in America, and there were three jets that combined into a giant robot. Depending on the order they combined, they could form three different robots: Star Dragon, Star Arrow, and Star Poseidon. Even though I don't think they ever even went into space...I still have the VHS for the Getter Robo OVA's from years back. Combattler's the only one I've never seen at all.

Every few years, I go on a giant robot kick. Could be coming back around again.
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Play the Hulk game!

I'm on vacation, so entertain yourselves, damnit! From Super Heroes Puzzles and Games from 1979, a General Mills giveaway. Huh, I totally remember eating cereal to get Marvel stickers, but never saw this thing. And Dr. Doom screams go back 3 spaces!

This also features two-page origins for Spider-Man (minus the death of Uncle Ben), the Hulk, Captain America, and Spider-Woman.
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An empty desk, to match my empty head...

...and with that, I'm out for the next week or so! There will still be posts up, I'll just be nowhere near them. And I'm not 100% sure what I set up, either; but we'll have another new strip on Wednesday, anyway.

How many figures and toys are in my happy little cube? Good question! I haven't done a headcount in a while; even though I'm positive I'd notice if something was missing. There are twenty-two Nightcrawler figures, at last count; ranging from action figures and Heroclix to lead figures to kids' meal toys from around the world. (I wish I was hardcore enough to be able to say, yeah, that Jolibee Nightcrawler toy from the Philippines? Bought it when I was there last week...no, it's all eBay for the imports.)

The Thing, Spider-Man, Dr. Doom and Optimus Prime are all well represented as well. Not shown above, but just to the left of my phone, is the Masterpiece Optimus. Usually, he's giving me the thumbs up I so desperately need at work; but today he's holding Megatron on a minidisc. I don't know why either. At any rate, have a good weekend, and a good next week, and I'll be back soon enough!

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The sudden and violent end of Whiplash's winning streak:

In Iron Man #26, as Tony goes down in flames after fighting Whiplash (on New Year's Eve, 1999!) he thinks he hears a voice say, "Help me, Tony--I'm dying." It's not from a blow to the head, or a relapse: the combination of Whiplash's directed lightning strike, Y2K, and wishing really hard, the armor he was wearing has become sentient.

Show of hands: who thinks that's going to end well? Come to think of it, when was the last time the newborn A.I. was greeted with open arms? These stories always go one of two ways: Artificial intelligence is created, goes evil in about 20 minutes; or A.I. created, is innocent and peaceful and gets burned at the stake by fearful, stupid man.

By this point, the armor has as much as declared his love for Tony; and convinced him to suit up for a test. The armor has seemingly proven trustworthy, since it could've bypassed Jocasta (the robot Avenger, she was currently without a body but had recently been rescued by Stark) and taken off; and Tony figures he can handle it. Either he can override the armor, or he's the only one that would get hurt. Yeah, about that...

As Tony and the armor warm up, Whiplash has already entered Stark airspace. Whiplash has geared up with multiple whip-slinging robotic arms, and is confident as hell. Like we saw, he's had a pretty good showing against Iron Man lately.

But the armor not only predicts all of Whiplash's moves, it remembers Whiplash was the one that hurt it before. It not only takes Whiplash's arms and jets apart, it pummels him for information.

Since the armor is both super-strong, and metal, this is a pretty brutal beating; but my sympathy for Whiplash is diminished a little by the fact that he had picked dozens of fights with Iron Man, and it never occurred to him that something like that could happen? Did he always just count on Iron Man being the good guy that wouldn't really hurt him, no matter what he did? Well, he's right on that count regarding Tony, but the armor was a wild card.

I had to go back and look, since I didn't scan it: I thought there would be a panel of Tony's eyes, trapped behind the Iron Man mask. The armor is more than capable of moving, and at this point, Tony is no more than ballast. As Whiplash says he's only doing this to get his son back, Tony can only watch as the armor murders Whiplash. And not with a dainty, neck-snapping "KR-RRAK!" but with a horrible "SPLURGCH" that implies a squishy brokenness.

Like a child, the armor shakes Whiplash, who won't wake up. Then it more or less shrugs, and drops the body into the ocean. "Oh, well." I do believe that was the last we saw, of Mark Scarlotti.

From Iron Man #28, (2000) "The Mask in the Iron Man, part three" Written by Joe Quesada, art by Sean Chen and Rob Hunter and (in these scans) Alitha Martinez and Rodney Ramos. I think Quesada was doing a pretty solid job of following Kurt Busiek; and I guess his run was only cut short by taking the editor-in-chief position. He did have a tendency to have to keep ramping up the cliffhanger endings: "Tony, your secret identity has been revealed!" "Tony, that was a dream, you've had a heart attack!" "Tony, your armor is alive!" "Tony, your armor is evil!" Quesada wasn't done yet, but I have to wonder how far he would've taken that...

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Iron Man may have underestimated Whiplash a bit:

I hadn't planned on turning this into Whiplash Week, but I ended up with a highlight reel of his gimp mask appearances. He doesn't make too bad of a showing for himself.

Sometimes, if you face the same opponent over and over, whether in basketball or chess or fighting, you can feel pretty strongly that you have their number. That you know every move they've got, and that you've got it over them. Until they step it up. Maybe they pick up a weak spot in their game--like mobility, which Whiplash improves with a flying disc and later boot-jet things--or pick up some new technique--like Whiplash's new arsenal of whips, with varied effects. Or maybe, they just really want to beat you now.

Although one of these was a dream sequence, Iron Man doesn't beat Whiplash in any of these issues. Closest he comes is a draw, and he came out the worse in that one even. Of course, there's still the matter of Whiplash's death, which hopefully I'll get to before I go on vacation.

Panels from Iron Man #11, "Schedule Conflicts" Written by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Sean Chen, inks by Larry Strucker and Eric Cannon; Iron Man #8, "The Hunt" by Busiek, Chen, Cannon and Sean Parsons; Iron Man '99 Annual, "Power Tools" Co-plotted by Busiek, plot and script by Joe Casey, pencils by Terry Shoemaker, inks by Bud LaRosa and Shoemaker; and Iron Man #26, "The Mask in the Iron Man, part one" Written by Joe Quesada, pencils by Chen, inks by Rob Hunter.
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