Who saw that coming...? OK, everybody.

I don't have a lot of these issues, but this is like the second I've seen where the pretty girl love interest for Korak ends up dead, which is kind of worrying. From 1976, the Tarzan Family (Featuring Korak) #63, featuring "Song of the Dolphin" Written by Robert Kanigher, art by Rudy Florese.

We saw a later issue with a giantess a while back; but this month Korak's raft gets swamped by a killer whale, and while the dolphins try to help, he gets sucked down to an underwater cave, where he's found by Andra. The meet-cute is immediately stepped on by the attack of a giant crab, but Korak manages to knock a stalactite loose and impale it. Andra was already pretty won over, since she was looking to leave her home in New Atlantis, because it was...I don't know, boring? Stifling? Oppressive? The locals mention putting up with her, like it was a recurring chore; and net Korak, since he was a violent, pollution-bringing surface-dweller, and as such had to die; but they weren't prepared for him to fight back. Andra leads Korak to an escape route to the surface, and they take it, which should probably lead to the bends (not like that!) but instead Andra shrivels up and dies. The story seems to think it's due to pollution, but I'd say the pressure change? It could've been sunlight, oxygen, the common cold, anything. Anyway, the friendly dolphins help Korak to safety, probably for something else terrible to happen to him.

Also this issue: John Carter of Mars, in "Death Has Three Heads!" This has an odd framing sequence, as an aquatic Myoposan has recovered the secret diaries of John Carter from the sea-bottom--what sea? Mars was dry as hell in those stories, wasn't it? John had rescued the Princess Tanna from inside an emerald, but they are then attacked by a three-headed pterodactyl thing, then sucked into a strange craft. Kinda all over the place, this one: Tanna looks more like a white girl, than the usual natives of Barsoom. (Written by Robert Kanigher, pencils by Noly Zamora, inks by Vic Catan.) Then, another Carson of Venus story from Len Wein and M.W. Kaluta; as Carson fights a giant spider, but loses a friend. Finally, get out your reading glasses, for two months worth of Hal Foster's Sunday Tarzan strips! I think the standard comic pages are way smaller than this would've originally appeared. Also, it's weird that Tarzan's two soldier friends this story are D'arnot and Carnot.

Maybe those are run-of-the-mill French Foreign Legion names, I don't know.

EDIT: I'm not sure how this scan got here! Hey, there's also a USPS statement of ownership: Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 129,054. Read more!

"Magnificent."

We're swiping pretty liberally from Doctor Who this time, with Death's Head regenerating, and having a "companion." Which we'll get more into next time! Since Marvel doesn't have those rights anymore, Death's Head probably wouldn't get to refer back to the Doctor by name: come to think of it, he probably wouldn't be able to refer to the Transformers as such, either. Weird to have two holes like that. From Death's Head #8, "Time Bomb!" Written by Steve Parkhouse, pencils by Art Wetherell, inks by Steve Parkhouse. Read more!

Invariably, the first guy Sunfire punches turns out to be a good guy; he's pretty used to that now.

Another Death's Head II appearance today! Almost like I planned it, but you all know better. From 1993, Black Axe #2, "The Immortality Gambit" Written by Simon Jowett, pencils by Edmund Perryman (Bagwell), inks by Rodney Ramos. Cover by John Romita Jr.

We saw the first issue some time back; as the immortal warrior Black Axe got beat first by Death's Head II, then by the Sisters of Grace. This issue finds him in Japan trying to get his mojo back, both by meditation and training, and by having his namesake weapon repaired by Kaori Tamayoshi, the latest in a long line of sword-makers. Unfortunately, the Hand also want Kaori, in a quest for a mythical "Great Sword." The Hand also tries their hand, as it were, at modernizing; bringing in Mandroids. Because when you think of stealth and success, you think Mandroids, sure.

The head Hand guy recognizes Black Axe from way back, then Sunfire shows up to try and fry him. Kaori stops him, and Sunfire admits he might have either jumped to conclusions, or not paid a lot of attention at his briefing. Sunfire and Black Axe make short work of the Mandroids, then Kaori and Sunfire see Black Axe off to the airport, where he's attacked by another couple Hand. But, he has a rematch coming with Death's Head II, which might be interrupted by Mephisto...! This issue went pretty quick, and the title only ran for like seven issues; but pretty sure the later ones are tougher to run across. Read more!

I was waiting for my Death's Head to show up from Fed Ex, so we dug this one up, which I think I picked up twice lately but wasn't sure I had read? From 1992, Death's Head II #4, "2020 Vision!" Written by Dan Abnett, pencils by Liam Sharp, inks by Andy Lanning and Liam Sharp.

The 2020 of Earth-9939 is probably worse than that of either here or the traditional 616 Marvel universe, as Baron Strucker V has taken over the body of Death's Head and become Charnel. I may have forgotten how that boiled down, as Death's Head's personality ended up one of like 104 in the "Minion" and took it over to become Death's Head II; and his old sidekick Spratt might have been deceived and later killed by Strucker. Punisher leads a suicide run against Charnel; to steal his time-travel doohickey, so Captain America and the remaining heroes can try to go back to 1992 and stop Charnel. Meanwhile, in 1992, Death's Head II, Tuck, and Dr. Necker are at an abandoned mall purchased by A.I.M; awaiting the menace from the future. They have a brief scuffle with Wolverine--breaking one of his claws!--before Cap settles everyone down, since he knows DH II wasn't the big threat.

Charnel arrives, in a body still half-resembling the original Death's Head; and plans on setting up shop there to create the crap future the other heroes had just come from. DH II doesn't really understand why they'd commit suicide like that: either Charnel kills them, or they wipe out their timeline by killing him. Still, he admires Wolverine's fighting spirit; but things go south when Charnel drains the Scarlet Witch's power, and shreds Wolvie. DH II has a last-gasp plan: using two time-jumpers and a Scarlet Witch hex, he sends Charnel to the past and the future, splitting him in two. (He'd be back!) The heroes disappear, as their timeline ends; and Death's Head II gives Dr. Necker an earful: her actions had led to nothing but death, and he wasn't her "Minion" anymore. (As typical for a lot of these I've read, Tuck and Dr. Necker are drawn entirely too similar! Also, a coloring plate seems to have shifted on the second-to-last page, leaving everything in a magenta tone.)

DH II and Tuck split in a stolen semi, while a scowling Dr. Necker sees the Avengers from the present arrive, and leaves rather than talk to Cap. The Fantastic Four and Avengers both take off after Death's Head II and Tuck, as the miniseries ends. A regular series was forthcoming, but they would guest in Warheads first. Read more!

My love for you is like a truck...wait, I still know I've done that before.

Probably? Or close enough! Just enough time for another quick Aliens comic: from 1995, Aliens: Berserker #4, written by John Wagner, pencils by Paul Mendoza, inks by Andy Mushynsky.

This was the conclusion of a mini-series, and as was traditional, not everybody makes it out: with some of his friends captured, and the battlesuit's pilot used up, young Ellis is forced to get in his mech to save them. Or, at least one of them: still, good effort. The suit isn't strictly mechanical, though: there's a painful looking interface to his skull, and I think it's shooting him full of fake adrenaline and such. While Ellis seems to take to the job, he and the rest of his "Berserker" crew are betrayed by their C.O, "Pops," who takes the Company line, but does insist on saving the one girl, Lara, for himself. Lara doesn't want anything to do with Pops, even when he pops open a mini-fridge for champagne--and gets a facehugger launched at him! (A page I knew I had seen before, on Sleestak's Aliens vs. Archie!)

Jess, Lara, and Ellis manage to escape before Pops's "failsafe" goes off; although Ellis looks pretty fried. The trio would go on to another mini, Aliens vs. Predator: War, which featured some other returning characters as well. Ugh, I think I just remembered the battlesuit or whatever from 2018's the Predator, a movie like Aliens: Covenant, that was so bad it's almost completely fallen out of my head. (I found Prometheus for a couple bucks at the pawn shop, so I was able to watch that with the Youngest; I still think it's interesting but not great. Then we watched a bunch of bonus features/deleted scenes/really pretentious footage that just makes it seem like a monster movie with a swelled head.) Read more!

The overall effect is like the Tankies got a sponsor.

Actually, it's more like getting sponsored for something you were already doing! From 2018, World of Tanks: Citadel #5, written by Garth Ennis, art by P.J. Holden, colors by Michael Atiyeh.

I thought World of Tanks was a mobile game; and maybe it is, but there's an ad for PS4/Xbox One/Xbox 360 on the back of this issue. This was the second of two mini-series tying in for the game; but reads more like another of Ennis's Battlefields; and this issue was the conclusion of the Battle of Kursk. The Germans had overextended themselves, and their new Panther tank wasn't a success. Ennis probably does the best-researched war comics ever; I'm going to have to see if any of the other issues turn up.

Just a random issue here, but it shows how good strategy and planning can be completely undermined by shoddy equipment and bad luck. Read more!

"Tummy."

I don't 100% remember this, but I went through a stretch in first grade where I would eat a baloney sandwich for lunch, run around outside for the rest of the lunch hour, then come back to the classroom and puke my lungs out. Not just once, but like multiple times, before somebody figured out, maybe don't give that kid baloney? I don't care for it now, I haven't eaten it maybe since. I think I threw up a lot even for a little kid; then grew out of it a bit, in time for teenage drinking to bring it back. (Don't call it a comeback!) 

Hey, a new She-Hulk! Making her one of those characters that's a different figure every time she shows up here.

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I don't think I'm doing this bit all week. I probably could, sure, but...

This is another one I had at some point, and recently pulled from the dollar bins at least twice, so by rule...From 1989, Batman Annual #13, "Faces" Written by James (Priest) Owsley, pencils by Michael Bair, inks by Gray Morrow.

So over on Progressive Ruin, there was a recent discussion about whether or not Commissioner Gordon knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. The consensus is, probably? But he pretends not to know, out of respect for his friend, and doubtless for liability reasons, to protect the department. I'd like that more, if Jim still hung out with Bruce; especially after an issue like this one, where Alfred would be serving brandy and Bruce would have to sit there and nod politely while getting read the riot act secondhand: "Batman absolutely screwed the pooch on this one, Bruce. Completely dropped the ball. The nerve of that guy, who does he think he is...?" Probably a solid 45 minutes of that.

This issue begins with a prologue to (arguably) cheerier times, although it's maybe a brief window, when Jason Todd was Robin and Batgirl was still occasionally active. A cop is killed in a bombing, and Batman tells Gordon it was planted by Freddie Richards, an associate of Two-Face. Both Freddie and Two-Face are captured; and Gordon briefly confronts Batgirl, saying he thought Barbara had hung up the cape: I didn't think he knew that!

Years later, Freddie was going to get the chair for killing a cop, but Bruce watches a tape of a Jack Ryder news special, interviewing members of Two-Face's gang hiding out in Santa Prisca, and one admits he killed the cop Freddie was going to fry for. Batman goes to Gordon to request custody of Two-Face for 72 hours; but doesn't pick the best time: asking him at his wife's grave, with the now-wheelchair bound Barbara. Gordon flatly tells him no; Batman proceeds anyway, disguising himself as a doctor and busting Two-Face out of Gotham. (I wonder if Bats uses his Batman-voice so Harvey knows him, but Two-Face claims he knew immediately.) Batman feels like he helped finger Freddie--ugh, phrasing--and refuses to let him die for a crime he didn't commit, regardless of what he would have to do. Starting with, keeping Two-Face in a cage in the Batcave, while Bruce Wayne plays dumb with Gordon during a Wayne Mansion fundraiser.

Batman and Two-Face hitch a ride on a cargo transport dropping medical supplies for Santa Prisca, and Two-Face is more than a little irritated that his crew has forgotten their place. Batman is more mad, since in the background of the Ryder interview, was the cop that had allegedly been murdered in the first place! He'd been on the take; which doesn't quite line up: Barbara had been a friend of his, she probably would have recognized him and could've backed up Batman's side of this story. Batman suggests Two-Face let the coin decide, but his goons show up first, and his 'coin' is cracked open, revealing some kind of gyroscope: Batman had slipped him a fake! Two-Face is livid, sure, but also disappointed: Bats had cheated, which seemed unworthy of him. He leaves Batman in a death trap, that he of course escapes from; and Batman realizes a crooked cop might find work in a crooked country as a crooked cop again.

While he manages to get both the crooked cop and Two-Face to the airplane, they both take off running, leaving Batman with a perverse Sophie's Choice: he only has time to catch one of them. Batman chooses the cop, and manages to get a stay of execution for Freddie Richards, but Gordon gives him an earful. There had been a body in the bombing, who's to say Freddie didn't kill whoever that had been? He hadn't been an innocent by any account. And what crimes would Two-Face commit while on the loose? Batman knows, he kind of broke his trust with Two-Face, and he could be worse going forward. Let's see if we can run that down: this came out April 1989, and I think Two-Face would next appear shortly in "A Lonely Place of Dying," but that was a crossover with Titans and introduced Tim Drake, right? I don't know if this issue was mentioned. And Priest would get to write some Batman again, but it would be a while.

Also this issue: "Waiting in the Wings," by Kevin Dooley and Malcolm Jones III. Mid-Year One, Alfred tells Bruce he's quitting, to pursue his acting career. (Spoiler alert: he doesn't!) There's also several updated Who's Who style pages, including one for Vicki Vale, who had virtually been written out of the book by then. Read more!

Feel like he should jump to the right conclusion at least occasionally, by random chance.

So, I mentioned going through my recent-purchase long boxes the other day, and I found two of this issue...and I'm fairly sure I might have another somewhere! And the rule is, if I buy the same damn comic three times, I have to blog it. Which means this might be nothing but Groo the Wanderer posts for a couple weeks, but today we've got from 1996, Impulse Annual #1, "Speed Force!" Written by Steve Vance, pencils by Mike Parobeck, inks by John Nyberg. 

It's another of the Legends of the Dead Earth annuals, opening on the alien world M'toncanf--Milton Caniff? It's not a great world, but humans had crashed there yet managed to survive; then the whole place was occupied by the Dargonian Empire. Which doesn't seem to bother a headstrong young man, Trace Wyndham, who's looking for a ship out, to anywhere; despite not having any documentation, orders, or plans, and that ships currently weren't going out anyway. Running about the spaceport, he encounters a saboteur, who has super-speed.

The saboteur, Kinnock, is obviously the Max Mercury-type; and had a school full of young students he was training to fight the Dargonians. Trace wonders why he doesn't just take the Dargonians down himself; and Kinnock explains that would just escalate matters. Instead, he was using "invisible resistance," and through sabotage and theft was making them miserable, in the hopes they'd eventually decide the place wasn't worth the effort and leave. Trace thinks the Dargonians hadn't exactly been packing their bags, but Kinnock says they've only been at it for four years...

Kinnock also knows something about Trace: while he thinks he's been to other planets, he really hasn't. Instead, he was the sole survivor of a colony ship disaster, raised in virtual reality; which should sound familiar. Trace doesn't believe it, because if so, how would he know if any of that was real either? Kinnock won't let him go, under the excuse that the Dargonians were already stirred up enough; so Trace agrees to join their "resistance," if he'll help him leave later. Trace feels like Kinnock's manipulated him, but settles in to a dreary month two whole days of chores, then meditation; which leads to super-speed, and a new codename: Impulse. While his speed is impressive, it's probably not surprising that Trace has zero patience or impulse control; and a stealth mission to sabotage the Dargonians' water purifier goes loud instead: the whole place is blown up, and the locals rally around their new heroes, against the alien occupiers. But are they going too big? 

If you read any regular Impulse comics, you can pretty much see where that's headed: Max/Kinnock is always right, Impulse/Trace almost always wrong. I don't know if I agree with Kinnock, though: how long do you let people suffer under an occupation? Then again, fitting the tone of the story, the occupation seems oppressive but not unbearable; like the locals were being taxed but the Dargonians weren't starving them, teasing them, singing off-key...  

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This new film probably won't have an Alien smoking a stogie, but I can't write it off completely.

(sigh) I'll be honest, this week has kind of gotten away from me; but I maybe might go see Alien: Romulus, despite the fact that Alien: Covenant a few years back burned me like an acid facial. (The only positive thing I remember about Covenant is that it continues a franchise tradition: namely, killing off characters off-screen between movies.)

Romulus is from the director of the 2013 Evil Dead, and is supposed to be practical effects, or at least not all CGI? That raises my expectations a bit, and I was interested in seeing it in a full theatre, with a jumpy crowd, to goose things a bit more. I may or may not--my Oldest son and my dad both had COVID recently, so maybe now's not the time. Also, I realized I had three of the Alien movies on Blu-Ray, because there used to be more promos for, like, buy this disc, and get a movie ticket to something. My Youngest pointed out, COVID might have killed that, though. He's just watched Alien and Aliens, and I think he enjoyed the copious behind-the-scenes footage in the latter as much as the films themselves. (Aliens I did not have on Blu-Ray, but a relatively recent DVD, that was bought used from Blockbuster or somewhere; and had a ton of deleted/unused scenes folded back in. I swear that movie gets longer every couple of years; like they were still filming for it.)

Anyway, since this is a blog about comics, right? From 1994, Aliens: Stronghold #3, written by John Arcudi, pencils by Doug Mahnke, inks by Jimmy Palmiotti. As often the case around here, we're coming in at the middle, as Dr. Strunk and Phil are saved from facehuggers by the synthetic-xenomorph Jeri. Strunk seemed to doubt Jeri's good nature, but while other synthetics might have been reprogrammed by the scheming Dr. Nordling, Jeri was incapable of allowing a human to be harmed. For his part, Nordling double-crosses his buyers with poisoned cigars, although Jeri ends up with one of them, since seeing him smoking was always good for a laugh. Nordling also sics the golden mechlike synth Dean on Jeri, although Dean lets him up when it realizes Jeri wasn't a real alien. But the heroes weren't out of the woods yet...

Darn it, I think I spent a solid five minutes rifling through the longboxes of recently purchased stuff, looking for a random Alien book; but I think I also had a beat-up copy of Aliens: Sacrifice right handy, too. Eh, this one's more fun. Read more!