Time for another episode of Jonah Hex, Frontier Detective!

It's not quite a locked-room mystery, but it's close. From 2011, Jonah Hex #68, "Murder in Cottonwood" Written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, art by Rafa Garres.

When a murdered body is found in the town of Cottonwood, the townfolk decide if they don't want the town to get a bad reputation, maybe they oughta hang somebody for it. Even if no one saw the killing...maybe a stranger might foot the bill. Unluckily for them, the stranger in question is, of course, Jonah Hex. Who is remarkably nonchalant about being awakened by armed yokels.

Hex calmly asks if they had a sheriff that maybe should be taking care of that sort of thing; and is told they had never needed one before. Hex asks if they would pay for the killer, and when he's offered five hundred dollars, promptly shoots one of the yokels...hey, five hundred bucks is five hundred bucks. The answer may be a bit of a cheat, but makes sense. And five hundred bucks in 1841 would be worth about fourteen grand today: as sometimes happens, I wonder how the hell Hex blew through all that cash!
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I've probably seen the ad for this book dozens of times, but only stumbled across a copy recently: from 1988, Aquaman Special #1, "The Missing Peace" Written by Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin, with special thanks to Fred Little; pencils by George Freeman; inks by Mark Pacella.

This takes place shortly after the 1986 Aquaman limited, in which he had been forced to kill his brother, Ocean Master. (No idea how long that one stuck; maybe until Peter David's run.) While he seems confident, even attempting to retake the throne of Atlantis, he also has surprisingly severe mood swings. Which might have something to do with the psychic disturbance caused by a Russian scientist investigating Atlantean mystic artifacts. For some reason, I thought the scientist looked like Walt Simonson. Weird.

There's some business with part of Aquaman's soul or spirit missing, as shown by nightmare sequences of him on the moon, trying to swim home. Interesting, if a bit slight. Mera guest-stars, but is mostly just there to support her then-husband. I thought she was written out before the 1991 series: I remember buying that one, but don't recall her in it.
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You're an Avenger, Cap. It's right there in the name.

Although, he probably had to lug Iron Man's carcass a ways, and it's doubtless heavy as hell. From 1981, What If? #25, "What If Thor fought Odin over Jane Foster?" Written by Peter Gillis, pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Dave Simons.

The title makes it sound like Odin's after Jane, but that's not it: back in Thor #136, to marry Thor, Jane Foster was given powers and the chance to prove herself worthy of immortality, and she failed hard. In the regular continuity, Jane was given a new life, away from Dr. Donald Blake; and Sif was conveniently introduced here as a new love interest for Thor. In this issue, Thor protests that maybe throwing Jane at "the extra-dimensional monster called only the Unknown" wasn't exactly a fair test; and Odin exiles both Thor and Jane. Furious, Thor then goes to the Avengers for vengeance against Odin, who he claims is possessed or corrupted. (This feels like a lie, to get his team on his side.) With the exception of Quicksilver, who perhaps correctly feels like this wasn't their problem, the Avengers join Thor's fight. (A somewhat common problem for Quicksilver, I think: even when he's right, he can be such a dick you don't want to take his side...)

Battle lines are drawn quickly in Asgard: Odin's Vizier tries to talk him out of this, but then has to side with Thor. Odin, needing "a weapon against his son," summons Loki out of exile. Loki in turn calls in the Enchantress and Executioner; and still has Balder, who is too loyal to contest this. Meanwhile, since the Avengers would be at the forefront of Thor's forces, the Vizier cranks up their powers. Hawkeye in particular is grateful...

OK, maybe not. The Executioner delivers Odin's proclamation, and a bit of smack talk, to Hogun the Grim; which seems to be setting up a fight for later, but doesn't happen! Later we see Goliath beat the Executioner, and I'm not sure we see the Enchantress again the whole issue. Jane is flattered, but that's before the battle ensues; that turns to dismay over the carnage. Heimdall tells her this is what happens when dreams and plans conflict, as Thor's and Odin's have. Iron Man, seeing echoes of Vietnam in this fight, goes to Odin to call for a truce: Odin agrees, but Loki murders him before he can get back to Thor. Loki then has his henchman Igron use the "Glove of the Lamia" to surreptitiously steal the Odin-Power, but while he's able to beat Thor, he's then accidentally killed by the Wasp when she hits him with her amped-up sting at full power.

With his Odin-Power lost after Loki's death, Odin is down to one card: trying the Oversword and ending Asgard, which seems a bit much. The Vizier and Jane get Odin and Thor to talk it out, and while they understand each other in the end, they can't be around each other any more. Thor and the Avengers leave Asgard, never to return: Thor builds a new city for his followers, and pride would keep him and his father from ever reconciling. It's not shown here, but I always had the feeling Jane wouldn't stay with Thor either after this: the way she was written here, being a goddess might've been a bit much for her. It would take a while for her to toughen up!
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"White Hats, Red Gloves."

I really had to look, and suspect I read these on Marvel Unlimited, but Deadpool and Moon Knight met in Vengeance of the Moon Knight #7 and #8. I think they were on opposite ends of a job, but I thought they would probably always be at cross purposes. I wonder, if he knew: it would drive Pool nuts that Spector had a gorgeous girlfriend, a French assistant, a helicopter shaped like his logo...

The Moon Knight ship was swiped, from a fairly recent issue; maybe Moon Knight #7 or so. I didn't love Lemire's run, since this was seven issues in and I'm not sure he had made the slightest bit of forward plot motion. (Yeah, like I should be throwing any stones on that front...) The first nine issues might have been hallucinations, I don't know.
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I wonder if he widened the concourses and opened another runway; or if he rebuilt it as crappy as before...

This issue is more about the aftermath of the fight, along with a bit of introspection about what it means. Not what I expected from a 1975 comic! Superman #292, "The Luthor Nobody Knows!" Written by Elliot S! Maggin, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Bob Oksner.

Lex is already back in custody at the start of the story, but he did a number on Metropolis National Airport, nearly downing a jetliner to draw out Superman. Then, Lex hits Superman with a ray that affects his coordination. Superman may actually do most of the damage here, first out of control, then shaking to cause an earthquake to knock a chunk of building on Lex. Repairing the airport with its chief of operations, their conversation prompts Supes to recall his history with Lex, less with anger than with "resignation."

Superman (and Maggin) take a more charitable look at Lex than he sometimes received; I was thinking of Cary Bate's "Luthor's Day of Reckoning," where Supes is visibly fed up with Lex. He sees Lex as lonely, perhaps a reflection of the loneliness he sometimes felt himself. Yeah, or maybe Lex is just a dick. He did literally just try to murder a planeload of people, in passing, just to draw Superman out.

In fact, Supes recalls an early fight with Luthor, back when he was Superboy, where Luthor stole a nuke and tried to use that to keep Superboy away. Superboy presses too much and the bomb goes off, but while inexperienced, he had the powers, and rescues Lex at super-speed, then stops the shockwave with a super-shout, and funnels the radioactive fallout into space with a super-speed funnel. Easy, or at least easier than getting through to Luthor. At some point, most people would have to give up on him; but Superman can't or won't. That's either proof of his super-ness, or of a narrative problem wherein they're locked into episodic conflicts, your choice...
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You'd assume the two undersea guys would at least be acquainted, but nope!

For some reason--I'm guessing the Paul Jenkins/Jae Lee Marvel Knights Inhumans--I thought Triton had known Namor since he was a baby. Maybe not, since we're looking at their first meeting today! From 1968, Sub-Mariner #2, "Cry...Triton!" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Frank Giacoia. (Reprinted in 1980's Tales to Astonish #2, albeit minus several pages!)

Defeated by the man named Destiny (not to be confused with the woman named Destiny, from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) a furious Namor is now wrecking up Destiny's equipment so hard he nearly kills himself in the ensuing explosion. Now Namor finds himself at a loss: how to find Destiny, on the surface world? Where would he even start looking?

Not being any moron, Namor opts to go to the Fantastic Four, since they're always ever so glad to see him...Meanwhile, far away yet conveniently in Namor's path to New York, on a tiny island, the Inhumans investigate a mysterious sub. Or rather, they have Triton do it. He's a good guy, even willing to give the sub the benefit of the doubt: maybe it's a friend. Nope! It's Plantman. Is that the standard, no space, no hyphen? Well, we're going with that. And I'm sure later writers tried to upsell him, maybe give him powers or motivation or something, but here he's very much a nut in a costume. Still, he's savvy enough to realize, when Namor approaches from the other direction, maybe those two didn't know they were on the same side: Plantman makes a radio call...that both Triton and Namor can hear, somehow...telling Namor to attack Triton. Figuring Namor to be a bad guy, Triton attacks, and five pages of fighting fill up like magic!

Eventually, Triton and Namor are caught in a plant trap, then magnetized to a pole; and the guys start to realize what's going on maybe. (Triton mentions hearing about Plantman from the Human Torch. Um, okay. Weird conversation to have.) The other Inhumans come to help Triton, but are too late, as Plantman launches his rocket-sub towards his target: London!

I like how Gorgon appears to be pretending to think in that panel there. Pulverizer panel from What The--?! #1, "Accounts Overdrawn--Checks Returned for Lack of Funds" Written and plotted by Peter B. Gillis, pencils and plots by Hilary Barta, inks by John Severin; and it was sheer happenstance that panel had Namor in it, I was thinking of the "any moron" line!
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Who had to come up with a one-shot logo for Dr. Light?

Aside from the cover, what I recalled most about this issue was a crack from Mark Waid in the letter column of Secret Origins #37: "I could beat Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys." A weird quote out of context, so here goes! From 1988, Flash #12, "Light at the End of the Tunnel" Written by George Broderick Jr, pencils by Gordon Purcell, inks by Timothy Dzon.

When prison officials decide Dr. Light isn't dangerous enough for maximum security, the super-villain is being moved to another prison. Hopefully not into gen pop, since they would eat his Colonel Sanders-looking ass alive...Through a combination of hidden tech, luck, and incompetence; Light escapes to the small town of Radiance, PA: once out of the prison bus, he conks a townsman on the noggin and swipes his clothes; and the prison guards take the townsman, thinking him to be Dr. Light under a hologram! Emboldened, Light decides to make the most of his newfound freedom, and after a few small heists for equipment and a new costume, he takes over the entire town!

Light then makes the town's undesirables his personal police force; but didn't plan for the appearance of the town's own legacy heroes: Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys! That might be over-hyping things a bit: three kids realize not only were their parents (more likely grandparents, since they were active in the 40's and this was 1988) costumed heroes as kids, but that maybe Dr. Light was a strawman: no way he could've built any sort of laser weapon with the equipment he could get in town. Jamming the radio signal Light used to set off explosives, the kids trip him up, and that's that. The story ends with Light typing a letter to Amanda Waller; I have a good feeling about that.

Also this issue, the main story, "Velocity 9" Written by Mike Baron, pencils by Mike Collins, inks by Larry Mahlstedt. This was early in Wally's run on the book, and he was rich, was involved with a married (separated) woman, and had his terrible, terrible mother living with him. Seriously, she's awful. She might've been fleshed out or less shrill later, but here, man.

Sooner or later we're probably going to get to the Bonus Book from Warlord #131, featuring very early Rob Liefeld art! And we saw the Jim Balent drawn one from Power of the Atom #4. Looking up the other Bonus Books, I know I had both pairs from Detective Comics and Justice League International, so I've read maybe seven out of thirteen? Something to keep an eye out for, then. The artist on this one, Gordon Purcell, would go on to do about a million Star Trek comics, various incarnations for various companies!
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I'm not positive DD's armor is flexible enough to sit like that...

Sal Buscema drew one of, if not the first, Avengers comic I ever read; but it took me a while to warm up to him when he took over art on Thor after Walt Simonson. Still, he does a pretty good job with a tough one today: Daredevil's armor! From 1994, Spectacular Spider-Man #219, "Two of a Kind" Plot by Tom DeFalco, script by Todd DeZago, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Scott Hanna.

Daredevil was supposedly a new guy at this point, not Matt Murdock; yet he calls Spidey Peter more than once, and later Spidey shows DD his home and his face. Admittedly, Spidey has bigger things on his mind, since he's been poisoned by the Owl and the Vulture! Even though the Owl was trying to pull a Daredevil and erase his old identity, he still seems halfway reasonable compared to the inexplicably much younger Vulture. Vulture poisons one of Owl's old business rivals, just to show him "the folly in doing battle with your own dark nature." Owl lets the rival die, but later during the obligatory fight, acknowledges Spidey as a worthy opponent, and gives him the antidote...which turns out to be fake, leaving Spidey still poisoned and facing certain death!

While things aren't looking good for Peter, Mary Jane has a better time of this one, reuniting with her long-estranged father. It's melodramatic as all get out, but Buscema's art does a lot of the heavy lifting. I hate the cursive font, though.
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"Insipid."

I got Nakia and Okoye's figures before seeing Black Panther, so they aren't quite the same here as in the movie, sorry. They do have remarkably little patience for everyone's crap, though...

And I complained about rolling back the odometer on Peter Parker two weeks back, but I still can't believe the evil Black Cat story is still going: I saw her on a recent Deadpool cover. Oddly, I loved the Mark Millar Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, which revealed Felicia was still "smitten as a kitten," with Peter; but after recent years I'd think she'd be more annoyed with him than anything, for being well-off and then blowing it. (About that Millar run again: I'm surprised I liked it so much, actually; and I know it broke Venom...like about every other writer seems to now, come to think of it.)
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Sometimes, I seem to find comics in waves; or like hitting a vein of gold or platinum. Maybe chromium in this case. Anyway, I keep running across Marvel UK books of late: we saw Battletide a bit ago, and Death's Head II #1, Dark Guard #1, and Death3 earlier. Those books ranged from "meh" to "okay," but today's book is the best, yes? From 1988, Death's Head #1, "Death's Head Revisited" Writen by Simon Furman, pencils by Bryan Hitch, inks by Mark Farmer.

In 8162, the repaired Death's Head android remains inert; seemingly refusing to reactivate. In DH's head, we see three short stories about his bounty hunter code; as he "orders his thoughts," before declaring himself open for business again. It's not the deepest story ever, but enough to get the series started. This was after his appearances in Transformers UK, Doctor Who, and Dragon's Claws; but the fact that he had been much, much larger at one point is glossed over here.

For good measure, here are the house ads from that issue for Dragon's Claws and Transformers.


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