"Housesit."

I think it was established back in that kinda awful Legion of Monsters: Satana one-shot (where she was more villainous than we see around here) that Sat lived, at least on occasion, in a deconsecrated church. Which sounds evil and all, but also boring as hell. Would that even have plumbing? Or outlets? Kurt's ever-popular comfy chair has to be a much better deal.
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I know I have the original somewhere, but I happened to find the reprint with a not-as-good cover: 1994's Marvel Tales #289, reprinting 1986's Amazing Spider-Man #281, "When Warriors Clash--!" Written by Tom DeFalco, layouts by Ron Frenz, pencils and inks by Brett Breeding.

Spidey and Silver Sable were looking for Jack O'Lantern, but run afoul of the Sinister Syndicate--and both Speed Demon and Boomerang are a lot more vicious than they were in Superior Foes of Spider-Man. Luckily, Sandman pitches in against the bad guys, another step in his long redemption arc: he ends up working for Silver Sable, while Spidey ends up broke, with a wrecked arm and possibly a severe concussion. (Sable is unreasonably harsh with Spidey here, seemingly leaving him in the lurch; although Spidey doesn't necessarily obey her orders as readily as an employee might be expected to.)

But my favorite parts of this issue are Robbie Robertson figuring out Flash Thompson was framed and wasn't the Hobgoblin (because of a pretty obvious costume difference!) just as the mercenary Jack O'Lantern gets the bright idea to bust Flash out of jail! The real Hobgoblin had been laying low, and Jack was wrecking things...

I know Jack O'Lantern would eventually end up taking the Hobgoblin title, but I'm not sure if he was trying to ingratiate himself to Hobby and partner up, or trying to muscle in on the action as Hobby believed. Still, I do have to agree with Jack's "It was an honest mistake!" excuse.
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How does he know that's wine?

Maybe I should've saved this one until Valentine's Day, but from 1994, Warlock and the Infinity Watch #29, "Poison" Written by Jim Starlin, art by new series artist Pat Olliffe. (He did art for most of Untold Tales of Spider-Man.

This issue, Count Abyss continues his campaign against the Infinity Watch, through his lovely agent Maya. Maya claims to secretly be part of the resistance against the interdimensional tyrant, which may be a lie; but Abyss hasn't filled her in on all of the plan: although she had an antidote, Abyss says there is no cure for the contents of that bottle, which Maya and Adam Warlock share in a ceremonial "toast of agreement."

Maya and Warlock are immediately smitten, much to the surprise of the rest of the Watch; and the chagrin of Warlock's erstwhile girlfriend Gamora! I don't know if they were a couple at that time, since Warlock had lost both his good and bad halves--the Goddess and the Magus, respectively. Gamora seems plenty jealous, though.


Although it had been been sidetracked by the "Blood and Thunder" crossover and Infinity War, Abyss had been plotting since #16! I'm not sure what his endgame was, but I do still love that bottle of wine.

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So ready for the weekend...

...maybe not that ready. Sadly, I'll probably have to put on pants at some point this weekend: Toys R Us has a free Mega Bloks Spongebob Squarepants, and the Youngest and I might try to see the new movie! It'd have to be pretty good to beat the old one, though.

Maybe I'll luck out and TRU will have the new Marvel Legends. Have a good weekend!

From Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #39, "Silent, but Deadly" Written by Chris Eliopoulos, pencils by Ronan Cliquet, inks by Milton Santos. Reprinted in Spaced Crusaders, and well worth a read!
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Elmo got me this! Sort of.

February 3 was the birthday of Elmo from Sesame Street, and to celebrate Hastings had a "$5 off $25 purchase" coupon. Which, coupled with the review from OAFE.net, was enough to get me to buy the DC Collectibles Thrasher Suit Batman!

He's a great size, and you can either unmask him as Bruce Wayne in a big robot suit; or have him be a Bat-Robot. He's pretty great.

The above joke may be at least partially stolen from a Mike Baron/Ron Lim issue of Badger, which, incidentally, also included cross-dressing ex-Nazis turned nuns fighting to save the rain forest. Man, I need to find that issue again...

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"Beatdown."

...shoot, Crusher Creel wasn't a wrestler, was he? I think I confused the Absorbing Man and Crusher Hogan from Spider-Man. Well, we'll fix that in post never.

"I bring you--the Gift!" was Hercules' catch-phrase, which may or may not have originated in the Bob Layton 1982 mini-series. "The Gift--of Combat!" Herc was a little punchy in those.
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Get your thumb outta the scan!

Catman should be eternally grateful to one Gail Simone, since I keep finding old comics where he was an incompetent punching-bag; and today's book continues that trend: from 1977, Freedom Fighters #10, "Murder in Miniature" Written by Bob Rozakis, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by Jack Abel.

I guess this is set on Earth-1? Maybe? And Catman may just get the short end of the stick as multiple other plots were already going full steam here: the Ray battles the Americommando, who was actually the Silver Ghost, the big-bad of this series. Black Condor goes in search of the Ray, who is shot in the back because no one knows how his powers work. Doll Man was arrested, framed for the murder of a district attorney; and recaps his origin here. And Uncle Sam takes the rest of the Freedom Fighters...to bail out a company. Seriously!

Instead of turning to the law or insurance when their holdings were stolen, a Minneapolis company wants to cash in their billion dollar loan to New York City: Sam jumps to the conclusion that this would bankrupt the city, and must be part of the Silver Ghost's plot to take Manhattan...so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start. I don't think Silver Ghost was behind the theft, but he's such a minor villain Wikipedia doesn't cover his master plan!


Anyway, although he's blazing away with twin .45's on the cover, and has a little gang of "Tom-Cats" in purple outfits, Catman is jobbed out here; beat by a flip from Phantom Lady. Who seems to have picked up Phantom Girl's powers, to go with her black-light ray. Not a great showing for Catman, or anyone else involved, then.

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"Undrafted."

I know I have a Thunderbolts annual, special, negative-one issue; where the machinations of Zemo setting up the subterfuge of the team was explained: how he decided on the members, their disguises, and so on. I don't think the Radioactive Man was on Zemo's shortlist of potential members, partly because he wouldn't be as easily controlled as some of the other members; and partly because as he mentions, a big green radioactive man is tough to disguise.
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That's known as "burying the lede," Canary.

We mentioned this one yesterday, but here goes: making an exhibition at a track meet in Star City, Black Canary saves a pole vaulter from a sabotaged pole, but the spotter who cut said pole is killed by an arrow to the back. An arrow with multicolored fletching, that emitted a bright flash of color when it hit. Canary asks Green Arrow who could've made a shot like that, and Ollie starts by denying it was him. Well, yeah, Ollie.

Ollie then runs down a couple of other archers who maybe could've done it, in terms of pure archery--Speedy, the late Blue Bowman--before the rainbow flash comes up again. Oh, yeah: maybe the Rainbow Archer, then.

Man, those Robin-booties are not helping. Looking him up, he was a former counterfeiter who turned to archery to try and get revenge on Green Arrow; and now he's color-coordinating his murder weapons. That seems like a bad idea from a legal standpoint...From World's Finest #244, "Rainbows of Doom" Written by Jack C. Harris, art by Mike Nasser and Terry Austin.
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80-Page Thursdays: World's Finest #244!

From 1977, World's Finest #244, featuring stories by Bob Haney, Dennis O'Neil, Tony Isabella, Jack C. Harris, and more; with art by Mike Nasser, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, John Calnan, and more. With a Neal Adams cover!

The cover is suitably dramatic, although it leads into a typically oddball Haney story: three mobsters across the county are murdered, by bullets that came out of nowhere, one of which went through the mobster's dog without hurting it! Working the case, Batman and Superman check out surveillance film of the mobsters, looking for someone tailing them, and find...Superman? Supes denies having been anywhere near the mobsters, but he could've done it...when word is leaked that Supes is under suspicion, Commissioner Gordon has no choice but to put Supes "in honor custody until Batman can clear you!" Batman works the case for 24 hours, but gets nowhere; so he decides to take a break and put in an hour at Wayne Enterprises. Ooh, a whole hour!

Wayne sees L.C. Barton of Red Star Ventures, who needs a certain alloy for construction of a giant solar power grid in Arizona. Needing the alloy in two days, Barton dumps a suitcase full of money on Wayne's desk to have the alloy shipped by air. Superman then arrives, having left a robot to cover for him in jail, and points out some clues "the world's greatest detective" may have missed: Barton's pulse was very slow, 20 beats per minute, and synced with his watch. The cash he paid with was from 1974, yet felt unusually old. And Barton passes out in the street, but then recovers quickly when Superman replaces the watch. Batman sneaks into the trunk of Barton's limo, and Superman follows invisibly at super-speed, as the limo drives into another dimension, to arrive in Arizona under an hour from Gotham City! (This would mean more if we knew how far away Gotham was from Arizona...)

Supes and Bats check out Barton's set-up, before he confronts them, revealing his real name as "Robespierre 2," and that he knows their secret identities, since he's from the future. Robespierre used the model of his solar station to test his invisible death ray on the mobsters, healing the dog since he loved animals. But the model was just a test, since he was going to use the completed station to kill everyone on earth. From a future filled with war and death, the scientists of the orbital settlement he was raised on sent Robespierre back in time to destroy humanity, a preemptive mercy killing. Framing Superman and getting Bruce Wayne to supply a needed component were just to keep the heroes occupied--wow, that seems convoluted, even for a Haney story! Superman tries to explain that merely by coming back in time, he's changed his future; but Robespierre doesn't buy it, and zaps Supes with red sun energy, then sets his hired hands on Batman. (They're just workers hired for construction, and Robespierre tells them Bats is an industrial spy in disguise; which is such a dumb excuse Batman may be holding back out of pity.)

Recovering, Superman uses a quartz asteroid to block red sun energy from the star Betelgeuse--reasoning the converter must've been getting red sun power to affect him--and stops Robespierre's weapon from getting enough power to destroy humanity. (Or do anything, it didn't even blow up Arizona.) Robespierre is then zapped back to his time, which may or may not even happen now; but again, DC seemed to assume there would be a nuclear war or biological disaster or some other terrible thing between the present and the pretty utopian future of the Legion of Super-Heroes...

Also this issue: Black Canary versus the Rainbow Archer! (Hey, no laughing! Actually, we're going to come back to that one tomorrow, since it features one of the dumbest exchanges I've ever seen in comics.) Green Arrow versus Slingshot! And Vigilante and Wonder Woman stories, both involving a crap-ton of dynamite.
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"Sickbay."

As per usual, our heroes have made absolutely no forward progress. This is somewhat intentional, since there are tons of games where you have to keep going back to a central location like the Meegan station.

And the sickbay is a pretty traditional set in sci-fi TV; unfortunately here it's one Deadpool has devoted absolutely no thought to.
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Ten million in 1974 dollars, roughly like demanding the entire state of Wisconsin...

Is there anything better than finding an old comic from your childhood? How about a dollar-bin copy! From 1974, Action Comics #442, "The Midnight Murder Show!" 'Teleplay' by Cary Bates, 'art design' by Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger, 'directed' by Julius Schwartz.

Thirty million people tune in every night for the Midnight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson, Johnny Nevada. Except tonight's show has a special guest host, Steve Lombard. His guests assume Nevada is merely on vacation again, but Clark Kent knows better: Nevada has been kidnapped by gangster Touch McCoy! Superman heard the gunshot fired as a warning, but only caught McCoy's men. Now, Lombard hosts the show live as part of McCoy's ransom demands, airing a specified cereal commercial at 12:31 AM to show that the network, GBS, would pay the ransom. McCoy has no intention of letting Nevada live, and Superman is stymied with false leads and red herrings.

Lombard bumps Clark Kent as a guest, when a better one arrives: Superman himself! Who's there to reveal his secret identity, live on the air...Johnny Nevada? Actually, Nevada explains, at Superman's behest, he traded identities with the Man of Steel for a day; meaning McCoy's 'victim' is really Superman! An elaborate ruse, that McCoy doesn't buy, and he shoots Nevada--which was precisely Superman's plan, as he used his super-hearing to find them! And of course, Superman is faster than a speeding bullet!

Meanwhile, back on the Midnight Show, Superman has just disappeared...and so has Clark Kent, leaving Lombard scrambling to fill eight minutes of air-time.

It may have been almost forty years since I've read this issue, so I was thrilled to find it.
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