I suppose nobody wants a Super-Bros movie...

I'm not dead-set against a Superman/Batman movie, but I'm a little disappointed at the thought that a good chunk of it is probably going to be them fighting. I prefer them as friends, even if they both think they're humoring the other most of the time. And in today's comic, Bats probably figures Supes is just being polite letting him hang out, but we'll see: from 1981, World's Finest #273, "In the Citadel of the Weapon Master" Written by Cary Burkett, art by Adrian Gonzales and Bob Smith.

In the previous issue, Superman and Batman fought three Kryptonite-powered robots in the Fortress of Solitude, and barely beat them. Now, with a force-shield protecting the Fortress against immaterial foes, they try to find some clue of the robots' master. Batman notices a new addition to Superman's equipment: a power-charger, designed to return Superman's powers if he should lose them to gold Kryptonite. Supes explains the bugs aren't quite worked out, since using it would give someone powers, but burn out their body inside of four hours. No foreshadowing here. The robot was booby-trapped to explode, but not before Superman gets the location for the robot to return: less than a hundred miles away!

In the titular citadel, the alien Weapon Master rants about the cool stuff he jacked from the Fortress, including half of an alien weapon that he'd been searching for: the Dabalyan Will-Paralyzer. After Superman and Batman attack his base, Batman is nearly shot down in the Bat-Plane, while Supes is beaten with Kryptonite. The Weapon Master puts Superman into a crystal to use him to power the weapon, draining the will of everyone on earth. Everyone except Batman, protected in the Fortress. He knows he's alone, but thinks he might have an ace he can still play...no points for guessing.

That does kind of undermine the Batman-iness of Batman, but I do prefer this Batman that would sacrifice his life for his friend, to the mean-spirited crabass one that ends up punching it out with Superman.

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I probably could've used Namor in this strip, too...

I know Aquaman was paired up with Mer-Man in the Masters of the Universe Classics/DC Universe Classics two-pack, but I could definitely see Clawful giving him the hassle.

Out today, so have a good weekend!
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No funny suicide here, but Harley dies anyway.

Since the Internet was all aflutter last week about the Harley Quinn #0 contest (try Ty Templeton's take on it, "Some Comedy Writes Itself") let's look at a couple Harley Quinn comics that I just randomly stumbled back across the other day! From 2002, Harley Quinn #17, "#1 Am the Loneliest Number," #18, "The Bride of Bizarro!" and #19, "Going Out with a Bang!" All written by Karl Kesel, penciled by Terry Dodson, and inked by Rachel Dodson.

Harley Quinn and her, um, pal Poison Ivy have only been in Metropolis a short time, but so far Harley's got a job at the Daily Planet as lovelorn advice columnist Holly Chance and stolen a swanky personal jetpack; while Ivy has the city's street-level vigilante, Thorn, captured. Using her psychology expertise, Harl realizes there's something more to Thorn than meets the eye, namely multiple personality disorder; but she has a bigger fish to fry: Bizarro! He had been at the Daily Planet to see his "worst enemy," Jimmy Olsen; who had been hitting on "Holly." Following Holly, the imperfect duplicate sees her real identity, then enlists her help in finding a bride! Harley balks at first, but quickly realizes a big dumb lug with most of Superman's powers (and some oddballs like X-ray hearing and flame breath) could come in handy, and Bizarro wins Ivy over as well, with the gift of a stripped-bare tree.

Still, none of them were prepared for the sudden-yet-not-entirely-surprising arrival of Jimmy, who shows up thinking he might get lucky, then finds Harley's costume in Ivy's plants and realizes his mistake, but is stopped from escaping by Bizarro. Jimmy brings up Lexcorp's "Bizarrotron," and Harley decides maybe they should check it out, but Ivy misspeaks her "Bizarroese" and Bizarro frees Thorn before he leaves. At Lexcorp, after the usual beating of the guards, they meet a helpful scientist, who's thrilled to meet a Bizarro. While Bizarro "hates" Lois Lane so much he'd love to spend the rest of his life with her, well, Harley's already right there, right? As the scientist scans Harley, a locked-in-a-closet Jimmy builds a signal device to try and summon Superman, but the ultrasonic noise also hurts Bizarro.

Harley tries to make a break from the berserk Bizarro, but flies straight into the real Man of Steel. Stopping Jimmy's signal, Harley tells Bizarro that Superman isn't going to let her help him, and Bizarro fights Supes, but Harley also realizes he let Thorn loose, and she and Ivy are throwing down as well. Still, Harley had one ace up her sleeve: "The Kryptonite Kiss-Off!"...which was actually glitter and dried parsley. It's psychological, see? No? Well, all right.

I like Thorn, since every time I see her it's fun.

Bizarro is less than smitten with his prospective bride, Bizarro-Harley, a grey, dour, no-fun shrew. BH does zing the real deal, pointing out at least she's not in love with the Joker--since "Joker am never in love with you." The imperfect duplicate explodes shortly thereafter, and Harley manages to wheedle Superman into letting her fly the jetpack back to jail, but instead pushes Jimmy off a ledge and makes a break for it. Unfortunately, that jetpack was experimental, and not meant for the abuse Harley was giving it: it explodes, atomizing Harley Quinn. She makes the front page of the Daily Planet (as does Ivy, brought in by Thorn) and while Superman notes Harley could've been thrown into another dimension or back in time or something; Jimmy says whatever Harley's faults, she always followed her heart, and had good intentions. Maybe.

Although there's more than a fair amount of cheesecake, the Dodsons draw the heck out of everything here. In #17, Harley's inner monologue is manifested by a little Harley-doppelgänger, doubling the amount of Harley per page! (Picture if Deadpool's little caption boxes were each a little Deadpool yelling at him...) #18's recap pages are Harley's subconscious interviewing Jimmy Olsen's brain, which he probably wasn't thinking with at the time...Although they would do covers for a while longer, these were the Dodsons last issues of interior art, while Kesel would stay with the book to #25. Far more issues than her "Puddin'" ever got...
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"Rage of Ultron."

This may not be 100% consistent, but Ultron usually doesn't make exact copies of himself, although he totally could. There are exceptions to that, like Marvel Two-in-One #93 or as Bully mentions, Ultron Quest; but more often than not Ultron seems to want other robots with their own personalities copied from other Avengers like Jocasta or War Toy. I can kind of understand why, because Ultron's rather grating, and probably doesn't want to have to put up with himself. Furthermore, even though he totally could go all Skynet and live on the Internet, Ultron seems to prefer having a sweet adamantium bod.

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Still Defending that copyright:

Another recent pick-up, that doesn't fit in the scanner; from 2008, The Last Defenders, written by Joe Casey, art by Jim Muniz, with co-plotting by Keith Giffen. It's good, but not quite great; set during the Initiative and featuring Tony Stark at his absolute doucheiest, a somewhat left-field use of longtime Defenders villain Yandroth and some revisionist history with the team, and a surprising array of line-up changes.

It's mildly disappointing that it sticks true to a lot of Defenders continuity, but maybe not all of it. There's a few flashbacks with Damian Hellstrom, who gets passed up for the choice gig of Sorcerer Supreme and visits his ex-wife Patsy (Hellcat) Walker; there's Nighthawk trying to make a go with any super-hero roster he can hold together, and there's She-Hulk, not looking to be part of a team and rather getting roped in anyway. The She-Hulk plotline in particular seems to be going in a direction that isn't picked up the next time she's seen, which seems to happen to her every so often.

Still killing me there isn't a Marvel Legends Nighthawk; although I'd also love a Blazing Skull, who guests here as part of Nighthawk's New Jersey based team.
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Hammers, nails, zombies, handguns. Seems simple enough...

I missed the new reboot of pulp hero The Spider when it first came out, but got #2 the other day. I always could've sworn that Chuck Dixon wrote the character at some point (possibly here?) and described him as being more into it than the Shadow: when the Shadow does his evil laugh, it's calculated, a show, he knows it gets to the hearts of men. The Spider laughs because goddamn, he loves his work...


But this Spider is set during the present, and has modern problems: his best pal Kirkpatrick is his Commissioner Gordon-figure and suspects him of being the Spider. His love interest Nita Van Sloan is a Lois Lane type, but also knows his identity, and is married to Kirkpatrick. And the Spider's villains this issue are Egyptian god-masked terrorists with a surprisingly sympathetic back story and a weaponized zombie formula. The Spider is in a bit of a pickle, since he doesn't want to just gun down innocent infected citizens if they can be saved...you know, I'm 90% sure the Shadow would've shot the lot of them. Omelets and eggs, right?

From Dynamite's The Spider #2, written by David Liss, art by Colton Worley. I may have to keep an eye out for that, the art is great. And I'm almost positive it has nothing to do with this:

Maybe.
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Five, ten years ago, this would've been a Vertigo book...

...except that DC Comics seems willfully determined to crawl up its own ass and take Vertigo with it, so Adam Egypt Mortimer and Darick Robertson take it to newbie indie Black Mask Studios for Ballistic. Going indie possibly means less sales, but more of a cut, and they own the book if it gets made into a movie or cartoon...

Because Robertson was the artist for the classic Transmetropolitan, Ballistic is going to be compared to that, and there is a bit of overlap. But where Transmetropolitan was about truth and lies and media over-saturation, among other things; Ballistic so far is a little simpler tale of a wannabe gangster air-conditioner repairman and his partner-slash-parasite, a talking gun. Instead of the media blitz of news and entertainment and noise, Ballistic goes with a gene-splicing gone gonzo theme. (Yeah, Transmetro probably touched on that once or twice.) It does have an interesting setting slightly to the left of the nameless City; the island of Repo City, built on a plastic garbage patch and owing at least some of its DNA to a penal colony, which explains all the gangsters.

Two issues in, and it remains to be seen if the heroes of the book are going to get it together at all; but so far the villains aren't all that either. Twice mob figures have been introduced like bosses on a video game, but not done much. Still, the setting is engulfing, and Robertson is on fire: I've liked his work in other books like Nightcrawler (duh!) or Fury, but he had been let down on occasion by either bad inks or rush jobs. So far, this is a great looking book.

This is another book I'm probably going to add to my pull list, even like other recent addition Red Team, I'm not sure if this is planned to be a limited series, or if they're hoping to get a hundred issues out of it. I'm in for the time being, we'll leave it at that. I should ask the Comic Book Shop for a new copy of my pull list--so many cancelled books. And currently no DC or Marvel, although I might add Astro City, Batman Black and White, and Amazing X-Men...


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Winner Take Metropolis! ...perhaps 'Winner' should be in quotes.

Oddly, I think the last time I looked at a Mister Miracle comic, it had Superman in it too. But Miracle shows a bit more attitude than usual this time around, in 1979's DC Comics Presents #12, "Winner Take Metropolis" Written by Steve Englehart, pencils by Richard Buckler, inks by Dick Giordano.

After a dramatic televised escape in the Nevada desert, Scott Free is more than a little pissed to hear Galaxy Broadcasting was airing a Superman documentary at the same time, and he'd be lucky to get a 15 rating. (Which, if the ratings are the same today, would be more than twice last week's highest rated show?) Which also makes him wonder why he went through all the trouble of escaping from Apokolips, to what, do three shows a day at the Flamingo in Vegas? But his complaints are interrupted when he sees recent prison escapee/Intergang boss/hot pants enthusiast Carolyn Doyle, and follows her.

Doyle is checking out Intergang's newest invention, the Mentropy Machine, which can completely control minds in a fifty-foot radius, and should take care of Superman but good. As Mr. Miracle watches, they test the machine on an FBI snitch, leaving him unable to testify--he can't make himself say the words. Doyle suspects they're being watched, and they teleport out with the machine before Miracle can stop them. Even though he's jealous of Supes, he can't let Intergang kill him; but Miracle finds he was within range of the machine's effect and can't warn Superman! Scott is stuck, until he realizes he can't tell Superman, but he can challenge him, and begins a campaign to replace the Man of Steel in Metropolis!

Superman confronts Mr. Miracle on the issue, and Scott challenges him to a duel in the Nevada desert, loser leaves town. Lois asks Superman why he's bothering: "If you win, people will only say 'of course,' and if you lose, you lose everything you've devoted your life to!" Geez, don't oversell it, Lois. Still, Superman decides that beating Miracle would be both the fastest way to get rid of him, and send a clear message to anyone else who might coming gunning for his spot. Miracle seems to have more than got Superman's goat, but after the fight turns to fisticuffs, Miracle is eventually outmatched. After Superman starts to fly back to Vegas, the Intergang thugs are in position with the Mentropy Machine, but they weren't expecting the sudden appearance of Mr. Miracle, who smashed the machine. Scott is finally able to explain his game, and why he threw his match with Superman; although he's in no hurry for a rematch.

I'm more used to JLI-era, easy-going, cheerful, occasional house-husband Scott Free; but this one's a little more hungry for the big time.
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"Caps Lock."

Every time I do one of these Avengers strips, I feel like a big hypocrite; because I usually hate it when Brian Bendis would do this kind of snarky back-and-forth dialog. On the other hand, it was three or four bucks an issue for those. And his big crossover plots were pretty much terrible: I got the last issue of Age of Ultron out of the quarter bin, and it was terrible. (Usually, I'd say it's not fair to judge a book by it's last issue, but I maintain, terrible.)

Dale did an Ultron strip the other day, beating me to the punch, since I'm lazy as all hell lately. But we'll have three weeks or so of Ultron, so I'd better finish the last one soon!

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I haven't had cable for a bit, so I had to look up if Ghost Hunters was still a thing. Sadly, yes. A thing I hate slightly more than today's issue! From 1977, Tomb of Dracula #56, "The Vampire Conspiracy!" Written and edited by Marv Wolfman, art by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. Tomb of Dracula is pretty great, but good lord, I hate the character of hack writer and professional sad sack Harold H. Harold, a minor recurring character in the book. This issue is an imaginary story, Harold's novel, and it sucks so much. It's supposed to, yeah, but still.

Anyway, while badmouthing this issue, it occurred to me Harold would have a point about rationality, except he lives in the Marvel Universe, which is chock full of vampires, werewolves, Kirby monsters in giant color-coordinated underpants...

Working on a longer strip, so short one today! That or I'm watching old Robot Chicken clips on YouTube. Either or.
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Which Starfire had the skimpier costume? That's open to debate.

A couple days ago, Bully had a pic up of Lois Lane reading an issue of Starfire; the Starfire in question being the short-lived DC sword-and-sorcery book from the seventies. I found a few issues from that ill-fated series back at the Spokane Comicon, and was saving the last issue for "The End" week; but was having a hard time writing about this book.

Partly because it's not great, but maybe it could've been. The same could be said for the other books in the same sword-and-sorcery push from DC, like Stalker and Beowulf. Mike Grell's Warlord turned out to be the breakout book of that lot, and went on for 133 issues; while most of the rest of the characters in that launch have barely a dozen appearances to date. Starfire's name would be appropriated by Marv Wolfman and George Perez for the Teen Titans character; but classic Starfire did appear recently in Time Masters: Vanishing Point.

Like most of the books in that push, though, Starfire was a sword and sorcery and sci-fi book; and kind of reminds me of Marvel's Killraven. On an alien world, where humanity is enslaved by the brutish Mygorg; Starfire was raised to be a concubine, but fled with a warrior-priest named Dagan. He trained her as a warrior, before being captured and killed, and Starfire began a revolution against the Mygorg. At first, it was seemingly only for revenge for the death of her lover, but Starfire found herself trying to teach freedom to people who never knew how. So it's a pretty standard, Robin Hood-style, rebels against the evil empire set-up, perfectly sound for a book like this. Except Starfire was a pretty, vaguely Asian young woman; which had to be unusual for a seventies comic; and because she was a pretty girl there's an ugly recurrent sexism in the book: even among her followers, many thought if they gave her the high hard one, she'd give up this revolution nonsense and get back in the kitchen and make them a sandwich. It's a short series, only eight issues, but that still seems to occur a lot.

Coveting Starfire as an object is doubtless kind of creepy in itself, but the men that want her don't really seem to care that she's about the only thing keeping the revolution going: if they got to sleep with her, they act like it's cool with them if they'll have to live as slaves, and don't seem particularly invested in the revolution either. And then the Mygorg, and most of the bad guys in the book, well, they probably want her too. Robin Hood never had to worry about being raped by the Sheriff of Nottingham. (Did he? To the best of my knowledge...) The art doesn't seem to be especially cheesecake or anything, but there does seem to be an awful lot of leering.

Sadly, Starfire didn't catch on, and was cancelled with #8. I do hope it isn't sexist of me to say, I love her early green costume, which with the bare and covered areas, reminds me of classic Star Trek outfits; and it's hot. Hope that isn't covetous...Scans from Starfire #5, "Here There Be Monsters!" Written by Elliot S! Maggin, art by Mike Vosburg and Vince Colletta.
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Sight unseen, I'm gonna guess...Gnarrk?

Or maybe Aqualad? Nah.

Cover to a dollar-bin copy of 1966's Teen Titans #40, "The Spawn of the Sinister Sea" Written by Bob Haney, pencils by Art Saaf, inks by Nick Cardy.

The Titans search for the Loch Ness Monster, which in this case turns out to be a fake created by salmon poachers...wait, are there salmon in Loch Ness? Apparently. Huh. But Robin and Mal are nearly drowned by a pair of mysterious swimmers, one of whom Robin recognizes at their next encounter as Aqualad. Then there's the Black Earl of Moray, a sunken island castle, Aqualad dating a hot blonde, and more; but frankly I was roasting when I read this and may have hallucinated parts of it.

Actually, this issue reminded me that Mattel didn't even attempt to give the classic Aqualad a DC Universe Classics figure; but I don't think there was a lot of uproar and outcry on that one. Have a good weekend!

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It feels like forever since I read a book the opposite of "decompressed."

Even though I'm a big Star Trek fan, and have read a metric ton of Star Trek comics, Comics Alliance's recent post on the various companies runs with the title reminded me there's still more than a few I haven't read. Specifically, the early DC Comics series; which I didn't really hop onto until Peter David took over. There's a good forty, fifty issues there I hadn't read, so when I saw the "Mirror Universe" issues for a dollar a pop, I grabbed them. Written by Mike W. Barr with art by Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran, it runs for the better part of six or seven issues: without having #9 next to me, I think the Mirror-Kirk and crew return at the end of that one. But it probably could've stretched for twice that many issues; as these seem to cram in everything they can get in there!

There's regular-universe Kirk and crew, immediately after rescuing Spock from the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III--yeah, the continuity loses containment when Star Trek IV seemingly takes place maybe a week after III, not a couple years. They're about to be hauled back to earth for court-martial, with the recurring braggart Captain Styles bringing them back in the Excelsior, along with Kirk's stolen Klingon Bird of Prey. Mirror-Kirk and his Enterprise recreate the transport accident that brought Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura to their universe fifteen (or so) years ago, and attack a Federation ship; but seem outmatched by Excelsior. Only Jim Kirk's a crafty bastard, in any universe...

The Mirror bridge crew meets at least some of their counterparts, although only the McCoys seem to have time to get any words in, and a slightly disappointing Kirk vs. Kirk punch-up. Later in the series there would be a Mirror Spock vs. Comatose Spock (more exciting than it sounds!) and the return of Marlena Moreau, Captain's Woman; multiple swapped ships, a destruct sequence gambit, a visit to the Mirror Universe; the return of crewmen Bearclaw, Konom, and Bryce (characters created for the comic) and much, much more. Too much more: maybe this could have been given twelve issues, give it room to breathe. (And at seventy-five cents an issue, why not?) It's interesting how DC seemed to go, at least here, as far in the opposite direction from Marvel's first Star Trek run as they could: Marvel's was almost exclusively single-issue stories, with no new recurring characters. Not stellar, but certainly not unreadable.
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"They Were Giants in Those Days..."

Sigh. I thought I was oh so clever with that title...and Walt Simonson used it in Thor already! Which is probably where I got it, I'm not sure I knew it was a biblical reference, but oh well.

Anyway, my girlfriend found Megator at a Big Lots a couple of weeks back, and was kind enough to suffer the shame of buying action figures for her shifty layabout boyfriend! (Actually, she's game to pick them up herself, since she claims that's faster than me doing it...) For ten bucks, he is a goodly lump of plastic, if slightly limited on the articulation front. Then again, our old friend Frostilicus, the Hasbro Marvel Universe Savage Frost Giant, has a couple of articulation hang-ups--his hips are blocked by his loincloth-thing, so mine stands a bit wide-legged.

The alternate heads for Megator are kind of nice, though. I know there were Masters fans who bought more than one to display both; or to army build. One giant, good. Two giants, better. Two giants at $10 a piece rather than $40 or whatever he cost originally, great! (I only have the one, right this moment, but he would be tempting if I saw another!)
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Don't break your toys, Hawkman! Ugh, this is why we can't have nice things...

From the 1986 Hawkman Special #1, "Last Rights" Co-plotted by Tony Isabella (script) and Richard Howell (art) with Ron Randall on inks. (Ron Randall did a ton of later-run Warlord issues, so I didn't mind seeing him here!) Following the events of the Shadow War of Hawkman limited series, Katar Hol is a bit depressed: his homeworld Thanagar has invaded Earth and other worlds, his old co-worker/stalker Mavis Trent was recently murdered, and Hawkman had to destroy a Thanagarian ship before it took out an entire city (Detroit, I think) and killed its crew. Shiera, my favorite Hawkwoman, knows something is more wrong with her husband than he's letting on: he needs to make peace with the spirits of the dead Thanagarians. Although this is a little too metaphysical for a scientist-cop like Katar, he still mans up and pulls it together.

The Gentleman Ghost also appears, as the Hawks' guide to the afterlife, but he of course has an ulterior motive. Maybe not what you would expect, though. It's an interesting issue, although the usual Thanagarian comic-book science like the Absorbascon and the spiritual repercussions of death and forgiveness are an odd fit.

This is also kinda-sorta a Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, albeit just a "red skies" one: as the Hawks fly off into the sunset at the end, they eventually notice the sky is staying red. Hawkman also has the good grace to feel like a jackass for voting to expel the Flash from the Justice League, for killing the Reverse-Flash. Sadly, I don't think he would ever get the chance to apologize to Barry. I often give Hawkman a hard time, but this one, who knows when he did wrong and tries to make amends, is all right.

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Longtime readers may have noticed the tag "quarterbooks" more than usual lately. Partly because I do pick up a lot of them, but most of my collection is still good and boxed up from the move. Which is mildly inconvenient when I have an actual issue in mind (This one!) but we'll just push on with this one.

A couple weeks ago, I eBay-bought the Judith Chambers figure from the SDCC exclusive Thunderbolts set--aka Satana. Haven't used her in a strip here yet, but I was looking for any comics I had with her. Not too many, as it turns out.

From 2004, Witches #4, written by Brian Walsh, art by Will Conrad. Along with Satana, the titular witches were Jennifer Kale, from old Steve Gerber issues of Man-Thing; and Topaz, from Werewolf by Night. Topaz may have been a blonde there, here she looks more Indian; but I wouldn't have recognized Satana's redesign either. Are those horns on top of her head, or her hair? It doesn't help that the cover artist appeared to draw hair while the interior artist went with horns...

Also this issue: Doctor Strange fights "Lillith." No, Lilith. Not the one that was Dracula's daughter, the "Mother of All Demons" version. Her face is shaped like Wolverine's mask. So creepy...Lilith talks a lot of smack as she wallops Strange--at one point, she hits him with a parking meter. But Strange comes off worse, since it looks like he manipulated the Witches for his own reasons. I don't think this series was well-received, or well-remembered, but here we are until I find another issue with hopefully a better Satana design.
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