When Moon Knight's the voice of reason in your comic, you know there's problems.

Admittedly, Daken is having more problems than the last time we saw him, like having been shot in the head. From 2011, Daken: Dark Wolverine #15, "Moonwalk, part III" Written by Rob Williams, pencils by Michele Bertilorenzi and Riley Rossmo, inks by John Lucas and Riley Rossmo.

While Daken was fighting Moon Knight, an impostor attacked and convinced FBI agent Donna Kiel that Daken was the wanted "Claws Killer," and Kiel shot Daken in the head. Crammed full of drugs and short his healing factor, things look bad for Daken; and he spends most of the rest of the issue in a bizarre afterlife with the recently deceased Johnny Storm. (Was Johnny ever really dead? Well, that may all be in what's left of Daken's head.)

Kiel and Moon Knight continue to work the Claws Killer case, with MK discovering his true identity, actor and drug dealer (and former lover of Daken) Marcus Rosten. Who already has Kiel hopelessly addicted to the drug Heat...

I grabbed a few cheap issues of Daken, often thinking I'd get the last issue for "The End" week, still haven't. Still, I have kind of enjoyed how for having his own title, Daken is rarely portrayed especially sympathetically in it. The villain may be worse, but it's hard to say Daken doesn't have this coming to him.
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Storm swears to kill Doom later, good luck with that.

Continuing our longstanding tradition of missing one issue of a limited series, today we're checking out 2010's Doomwar, written by Jonathan Maberry, pencils by Scot Eaton, inks by Campanella, Mendoza, Meikis, and Lanning. I'm missing issue #2, have to keep an eye out for that.

Even though I read Priest's Black Panther, I fell off the book afterwards, so wasn't real up on the continuity here: in fact, T'Challa wasn't even the Black Panther here, his sister Shuri was. (I honestly don't know if she had been introduced prior to rather suddenly getting the title...) And the series starts in a dark place, with the revolutionary Desturi having overthrown T'Challa in a coup. Storm was a prisoner, facing trial for a variety of trumped-up charges, including witchcraft; T'Challa and Shuri had gone to Storm's former teammates, the X-Men, for help. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Cyclops declines to help. (For political reasons, not because he remembers Storm beating his ass.)

Luckily, Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler elect to help out; and somewhat surprisingly the first issue ends with Kurt teleporting T'Challa and Shuri in to murder the Desturi's leader. (I seem to recall some review site of the time wondering if that was in character for Kurt; but it may well have been to prevent further bloodshed in prolonged battle. Y'know, that isn't even my biggest problem with that, but we'll come back to that another time.) Still, the Desturi weren't the real threat, their secret backer was: Doctor Doom, who orchestrated this entire thing to get access to T'Challa's vault of vibranium. Which Doom does.

The cover for the third issue is Doom at a chessboard, and that's much of the rest of the series: Reed Richards and T'Challa trying to figure out Doom's endgame, which is largely stall the heroes until he's used the vibranium to take over the world. There is an interesting scene where T'Challa can't figure out how Doom got through his vault's final lock, which he describes as "a kind of psycho-spiritual polygraph." Doom is able to justify his end goals, if not his means, to the panther god Bast: Doom believes without his iron rule of law, mankind will always, in every timeline, destroy itself.

It's spoiled in several of the covers, and I believe the solicits for this series, but midway through T'Challa realizes Doom knows exactly how he and Richards think, and has already planned for exactly what they would do. Unless they do something crazy, like hire Deadpool to kill Doom and teleport him straight at him. (Reed seems to disapprove, in general principle.) Of course Pool doesn't make a ton of progress there, but he seems to have fun. The series ends with T'Challa neutralizing most of the world's vibranium, which wouldn't do wonders for Wakanda's economy or defense, and T'Challa's marriage to Storm may have been on the way out here as well.




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"Replaced."

Even though sci-fi TV and comics often have alternate universes like Earth-2 or the evil dimension or Counter-Earth, the philosophical ramifications of there being another you out there, that made different choices than you, are rarely delved into. Futurama did, and did it well, in "The Farnsworth Parabox"; and comics-wise...um...give me a minute, I'm sure I'll think of one...

Actually, I usually think of an old issue of Claremont's Uncanny X-Men (#246!) wherein Dazzler looks through the Mystic MacGuffin Siege Perilous, and sees alternate lives where she was a lawyer, a singer, a homeless person, and a housewife. Aaaaand then she sees each of her alt-selves die, usually horribly murdered. Maybe stick with the X-Men, then? (She wouldn't, Dazzler and most of the rest of the team was about to be written out of the book for some years!)

Post-Secret Wars, I think both Planet Doom and the New Universe earth are gone; but they were floating around the 616-Marvel Universe for quite a while. The New Universe one was quarantined in a late issue of Quasar, and I recall seeing Planet Doom here and there, but I couldn't tell you what happened to it.

Picked up about twelve pounds of comics the other day, and might've even got one with Counter-Earth in it! Might get to it in the next year or so...

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It was a nice feeling, to be able to laugh at an election again...

I didn't get these at the time, which makes me feel bad since it wasn't a big seller. Is there a trade? Get that. Or scrounge together Prez #1-6, starting with "Corndog in Chief" Written by Mark Russell, pencils by Ben Caldwell, inks by Mark Morales.

In 2036, as a shadowy cabal of senators try to find a viable candidate for president who doesn't have too many skeletons in his closet; young Beth Ross is not having a great day: her dad was dying of cat flu, and an embarrassing video had gained her internet fame as "Corndog Girl." When election turnout hits a record low, Beth becomes a write-in vote of protest; although a commentator points out unless she got enough votes to win a state, she wouldn't get any electoral college votes anyway. She barely notices when she wins Ohio...

When no one receives enough electoral votes to win, per the Constitution the election moves to the House of Representatives, which throws America's real powers, the CEO's, into a panic. The first vote ends in a tie, with the party thinking the holdouts just want "some candy," like NASA, or a football stadium, cabinet position, naval base...a few holdouts turn into a feeding frenzy, with states voting Ross to extort more stuff. A good plan, until Delaware, which had quietly abstained before, votes Ross and gives her the winning 26th vote. The party realizes the danger in having a president who doesn't need to be loved, doesn't owe anyone anything, and doesn't fear humiliation...

As is often the case, I'm missing an issue here! Need to find #4, which I think addresses drone warfare--actually, the drones are called "sentries" here, since drones have been relegated to things like taco delivery. The more-than-slightly dystopian future of this series, particularly the tech, reminded me a lot of TV's Black Mirror; although Prez is a little more upbeat. I know a concluding special is due shortly, I'll be keeping an eye out for it.
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I mentioned my unread pile the other day; which has actually grown since then, even though I did find and manage to read the new Gerald Way Doom Patrol...which...ah...I'm gonna give it another issue, but I'm thinking it's not for me, and it's put me off trying Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye. Part of it is, I've only read a smidge of Grant Morrison's version, and prefer a slightly less...abstract version of the team. I feel like an old man who's not "hep" for wanting or preferring a stodgy old traditional superhero book heavily seasoned with body horror and maybe just slightly less magical realism. Case in point, in Way's first issue, the main character has a cranky roommate, who reminded me of Squidward from Spongebob--the foil/butt of jokes, that isn't won over by the lead's infectious charm and annoying positivity--and was there for no reason but to be outright murdered by a singing telegram...I may have just talked myself out of trying the next issue. (I don't want to leave my comic shop on the hook for it, so I think I'm locked in for at least one more.)

Maybe if the next issue actually has the Doom Patrol in it, maybe even doing something. I was thinking about cobbling together that arcade machine from the first cover, though: might not happen, but maybe. (Art by Nick Derington.)

Anyway, it's still weird for me to have an unread pile, since for so many years if I bought a comic, it was read before the day was done. Moreover, I have two unread digital piles! I hadn't worked through all of Dark Horse's Humble Bundle, when along comes maybe the third Transformers Humble Bundle! It is absolutely worth dropping at least a dollar for upwards of fifty books, including four trades (!) of the staggeringly good More Than Meets the Eye, but you might as well go all in and get all of Tom Scioli's Transformers vs. G.I. Joe. I do prefer HM's DRM-free digital reads to Marvel Unlimited, where you have to be online; but I have so many unread books there too! Those are all redeemed digital copies, and if it's a book I'm reading regularly, I probably read the physical version; but I did get a lot of random books lately. (It really sucks to check a book and find its digital code expired like last month, though.)

Weirdest of all? I actually have unopened figures right now. I picked up the new DC Icons Batman for half-price; partly because I thought he would disappear if I didn't. And yet, he seems just a hair short for me, so I was weighing if I wanted to open and keep him, or do something else with him: sell him, keep him in package, give him away...don't ask for it, I might keep it! The same goes for some Star Wars Black figures I got cheap, old Han Solo and Ahsoka Tano.

Then there's a keeper that I need to find a spot for: DC Collectibles New Batman Adventures Roxy Rocket deluxe figure! Still, the MWC Toys review mentioned her rocket needs batteries, and I haven't grabbed those yet. Still, she was a steal; and having to clear a place for her isn't exactly the worst problem in the world. Read more!

Yesterday, we mentioned the Micronauts' ship, the HMS Endeavor: it had a funky design that I suspect was at least partially influenced by the Millennium Falcon, and was destroyed in issue #39. Their next ship was the Bioship, a colossal version of their roboid Biotron, and super-cool; but destroyed in X-Men/Micronauts #4. Next came the Endeavor II, which was alright, a bit nondescript. When the remaining, Marvel-owned Micronauts returned, first as the Microns, then as the Enigma Force; Commander Arcturus Rann and Marionette had a new ship, the Endeavor III. It...

Not my favorite, honestly. From 2010, Realm of Kings: Son of Hulk #4, "The End: Conquest of Jarella's World" Written by Scott Reed, pencils by Miguel Munera, inks by Terry Pallot.

This was the fourth issue of the mini-series, and would lead into another I have read, Incredible Hulks: Enigma Force; so I wasn't up to speed what was happening here. There's Hiro-Kala, one of the sons of the Hulk from Planet Hulk, whose "Old Power" seems to be driving him towards disaster. Arcturus was dying of radiation poisoning (something that may have happened to him before, in New Voyages) and his judgment seemed a bit erratic to his team; which was down to Mari and a robot named Carl. The Enigma Force, the mysterious power that also created Captain Universe, seems to have a plan for Rann, Hiro-Kala, and the Microverse, that may involve changing the history of the Microverse, but instead ends up throwing Jarella's world K'ai out into the larger universe...

I want to re-read the next mini now, since it features the return of Bug and a Psyklop; but I was a little lost on this issue. Still, I liked the Alex Garner cover, and I always like seeing the characters. (Even if Mari's new outfit, while probably 100% more appropriate, is nowhere near as good as her old bathing suit look!) Besides, I'm pretty sure I got this comic for like eight cents the other day, so can hardly complain.
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Bring back the Bamf!

Every year someone doesn't make me one of these is a crap year, and this year may have been a bit crap already.

My unread pile has gotten dangerously high--I know I bought the new Doom Patrol #1 and still haven't got to it yet. I'm only a couple weeks ahead on homemade posts, I've got a couple backgrounds in various stages of being cobbled together, yet sometimes I still get a harebrained idea for another project. Even if I have no time, no training, and no resources...like that should ever stop anyone. But I had an idea, to bring back the Bamf. The doll, that is.

I have that Nightcrawler panel on a t-shirt (I had thought it was WeLoveFine, but I could be wrong, or it may have sold out.) but it kills me that I can't go to Build-a-Bamf workshop and get my own stuffed version. You can occasionally find one on Etsy, but I haven't sprung for one yet. But I'm mainly about the six-inch scale figures lately, and would love one in that scale. It would ideally be about the same size as some of these little vending machine Care Bears that I've inexplicably had for years.

I did a bit of searching for a 3-D printed version, but came up short. Incidentally, I also did a bunch of searching for a 3-D printed ROM: Spaceknight or a six-inch scale of the Micronauts' ship, the HMS Endeavor. Because the Micros were tiny on earth in the Marvel U, their ship would be as well; and I actually did find a really nice one, but haven't found it for sale anywhere on the sites that print stuff for you. (Earlier this week, I got a fridge magnet of the cover of Micronauts #37, which we blogged about here, sort of, years back. That really made me want the Endeavor, if not tiny Micronauts!)

Doing some more searching, I found the Instructable for "How to make a 3D model from pictures." So, all I'd have to do, is sculpt a Bamf, build a little turntable, take a ton of photos of it, and run it through Visual SFM or something, and hopefully end up with a 3-D model I could send to a service like Shapeways to have made. Then it would just be a matter of finishing it, painting and so forth. Easy peasy...Okay, this may be a project I don't get to for some time. Still, the more I plan out the steps, the easier it would be to actually do, and over time I think it's going to become simpler as the tech improves--it would've seemed like science-fiction ten years ago, now it's merely a question of work. Which I don't have time for, yet, but one can dream.

In regular Marvel continuity, the Bamf doll makes an appearance in Claremont and Nauck's Nightcrawler #1, a direct callback to the panel from Claremont and Smith's Uncanny X-Men #168. Kurt's girlfriend Amanda has one, and so do several of the younger X-characters like Kitty, Illyana, and Jubilee. I always feel like every kid in the Marvel U should have one...
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"Overexamined Hamsterball."

So, we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Kurt Busiek's thought that Jack Kirby's Eternals would probably have been better off in their own earth, rather than folded into the Marvel Universe. And maybe, since the 616-earth already had superheroes, mutants, Inhumans, and more; which didn't give the Eternals a lot of ground to get traction. And I wondered: maybe all of Kirby's Marvel creations should've been on the same earth. The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man...I don't know, some of his stuff from Black Panther or Captain America.

But then, Kirby-Earth wouldn't have been Counter-Earth, as it wasn't messed with by the Celestials, and wouldn't have Eternals. (Or Deviants and whatnot.) C-E didn't have Inhumans, since the Kree didn't experiment on it either. I'm not positive, in proper continuity, that it even had mutants; if it didn't, it would be a better 'control' than regular Marvel earth, which had tons of variables added. (Of course other variables like the New Men and Warlock were added later.) And I had thought Marvel felt multiple earths was more of a DC thing, and even Counter-Earth was one too many...

And I just had to re-do a panel, where I tried to use the word "upducted." May need to take a nap...
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He's been around since the Golden Age, appeared in multiple animated and even live-action incarnations (coming soon to Gotham!) and even had a long stretch as a sympathetic character in Starman. But I think he's a horror franchise waiting to happen, based on today's book: from 1995, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #39, "Solomon Grundy: One Night in Slaughter Swamp" Written by Alan Grant, pencils by Kevin Walker, inks by Curt Shoultz and Frank McLaughlin.

I was slightly surprised by the body count this issue. There's a brief recap of Cyrus Gold's origin--or rather, his murder: lured out to Slaughter Swamp by a blackmailer, then murdered and dumped into the bayou, where he would return as (usually) murderous zombie Solomon Grundy. Recently in DC continuity, Grundy had been reduced to petrified wood by Green Lantern Alan Scott and his daughter Jade, which admittedly does seem like a solution that would take care of most problems; but Grundy had made surprising returns before. (It's pre-Crisis, but I'm pretty sure Superman left him on another planet, and Grundy had been stuck on the moon at another point in his history.) Somewhat unsurprisingly, Grundy returns, screaming "What's my name?" as he vents his fury on a passing tour group, killing several, including a young boy's parents. The boy escapes with a park ranger, but they run into Grundy again later and help him remember his name; not that it makes him any more amenable.

Batman tracks Grundy down, albeit too late to save the ranger; who we learn in the conclusion was a descendant of the blackmailer that helped murder Cyrus Gold. Bats is at a double handicap here: the swamp is Grundy's home field, and Batman is unwilling to let even a murderous zombie die if he can help it. (I picked up this and Shadow of the Bat #0 from the dollar bin; and both made a strong point of Batman protecting all life.) The young boy, now orphaned, is at least saved; but I wondered if he swore to devote his life to vengeance against Solomon Grundy...

This could work as a movie (hopefully better than the similarly swamp-set pre-MCU Man-Thing) or short series: an environmentalist group protests to protect Slaughter Swamp; counter-protesting is a growing group of aggrieved friends and family members of Grundy's victims. Throw in some industrial types who want to drill for oil or drain the swamp to build a golf course or something; and maybe some criminals using the swamp to hide out or for smuggling; and season with a murderous albino swamp zombie. Some believe in Grundy, others don't: the industrialists may think it's a boogieman, or a smokescreen from the environmentalists, who may think Grundy is an avenging spirit of the swamp--and he's not. The families of Grundy's victims may just be waiting around the swamp with high-powered rifles and flamethrowers...I'd even play with the idea that you can kill Grundy, but he'll return with a different personality: if you're able to kill the Jason Voorhees-style Grundy, he might be back as a Hannibal Lecter-type later; and he might return in six months, or almost immediately. And don't kill a harmless Grundy for revenge, and have him return as a cannibal! Potential, although it'll never happen.


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(Sort of) a Review: Diamond Select X-Men, Cyclops, Colossus, Gambit, and Storm!

It's not something I do very often anymore, but sometimes I might buy--or be tempted to buy--a figure just for the accessories. I don't think there's as many really great accessories of late, or I may just be telling myself that because of price: the figures look great, but I would take just the weapons from Mezco's Star Trek One:12 Collective Kirk and Cage Spock, if I could get them. But sometimes, there's the opportunity to get something at a deal--like this lot! Diamond Select's X-Men, Storm, Cyclops, Gambit, and Colossus!

I'm pretty sure I mentioned some time back--probably back when we looked at the Diamond Select Nightcrawler--that I had passed on getting Cyclops before. (I want to say Nightcrawler was the last of the X-Men to be released, and did not appear to be as widely available, but we'll come back to that.) Still, Hastings was up to 60% off action figures a bit ago, and I picked up all four of these, and a couple other Diamond Select figures that we'll look at some other time.

As I mentioned with Nightcrawler, these figures do not have the same level of articulation as their slightly-smaller Marvel Legends counterparts. In the picture above, it may look like Cyclops has his right hand raised to his visor: he does not. This is about as far as he can reach:

Let's take a moment to look at each of them.

Cyclops, here in a classic look: this pretty much covers him from 1975's Giant-Size X-Men #1 to 1986's X-Factor #1. He also comes with an unmasked head that seems to have the same expression.

Colossus is also rocking his Giant-Size X-Men #1 outfit, one he would return to on occasion over the years. Unlike Cyclops, Colossus gets a bit of chest articulation, but that has the unfortunate effect of breaking up his top, which is a loose separate plastic piece, like he's wearing a bib or a dickey. Still, the sculpt is nice, and if you buy Marvel Select figures to integrate with Marvel Legends, strictly speaking I think he's well too big to squeeze into a six-inch scale, but would look good anyway. No accessories, save one we'll get to at the end.

Gambit was not in Giant-Size X-Men #1: although I think there's been some retcons, he wouldn't appear until 1990's Uncanny X-Men #266. His look changed slightly since that first appearance; but this is a pretty traditional one. The soft rubber trenchcoat is not especially movable, but he wins the accessory count: a throwing card, two thrown-cards-in-motion purple effects, two extra hands, and a staff that I couldn't get him to hold that well.

Storm brings us back to Giant-Size X-Men #1; she'd keep this look until 1983's Uncanny X-Men #173 and her mohawk days. Some fans have been clamoring for years for this version of Storm in Marvel Legends, but this figure may show why they shouldn't: her plastic cape, which is less soft than Gambit's coat, is pretty heavy and hinders her articulation a lot. Same for her hair, actually. Because of that weight and since Storm wore thigh-high leather high-heel boots, she also comes with a simple raised black base to keep her standing.

Like...every single Diamond Select figure I've purchased, these aren't the most dynamic toys in terms of articulation. (They aren't the worst offenders in that area though, we'll see later.) The sculpt and the paint are nice, although I'd have to say Marvel Legends has been closing that gap--if there's even a gap. I've never been a fan of Diamond Select's huge "bookshelf" packaging, either. I've always preferred when Marvel Select did characters that were either too big, too obscure, or too weird for Hasbro or Toy Biz to get them onto a toy aisle; like Mephisto or Cloak & Dagger. (I wish I had their Watcher figure, and the Select Thanos was many ML collectors' version for years!) But Diamond Select does do one thing particularly well: bases. Not the little one Storm has, although it is weird that she needs a base for her base...

Cyclops, Gambit, and Storm each come with a three-piece assembly that makes a corner of the Danger Room. They are identical, except Storm's comes with a couple holes to attach the included buzz-saw arm and open flame. Colossus comes with a colossal spiked metal...deadfall? It looks like the sort of thing that was always trying to crush him in the Danger Room. There are four large metal-press like legs on the deadfall (unarticulated) but I didn't find a clear way to attach it to anything...ooh, unless you kind of overhang those legs on the other bases. That's not bad!

I didn't have Nightcrawler's base handy, but it was just a little teleport-smoke piece and pales in comparison to the Danger Room parts. Early solicits seemed to indicate he was going to have some Danger Room piece, but that didn't happen in the end. There's also a DS classic Wolverine, but he comes with a little Weapon X piece instead. I'm guessing Diamond isn't planning on Sunfire, Thunderbird, or Kitty Pryde; so this may be as much Danger Room as there's going to be. (Diamond did make a couple Phoenixes and Jean Grey, the Phoenix more modern and the Jean more classic than this lot.)

I haven't tried it with Legends figures yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're going to look pretty good there. I can't say I'd recommend these all at full price, but I really do like the Danger Room, and they do look good as a group. I've said before, if you find Marvel Legends figures fiddly or loose; Diamond Select has you covered.


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