Want more alcoholism in your comics, but sick of Tony Stark?

Then have we got the comic for you!

Even though it seems like I read nothing but superhero comics, I do pick up other genres from time to time, when they show up on the shelves. That is to say, immediately after there's been a surprise breakout hit in said genre: in this case, Acclaim Comics line of Crime Fiction, coincidentally showing up right after the first couple Sin City mini-series came out.

Armed and Dangerous was very, very Sin City though. And I say it's not superheroes, but the main characters might as well be: the lead in Hell's Slaughterhouse, Charly, is drunk as a lemur through most of his series, yet still kicks a lot of ass. Still, Armed & Dangerous treats women better than Frank Miller's whores and strippers: they've got a junkie, too...well, if you can work through that, it's actually an entertaining little read, not reinventing the wheel or breaking new ground, but entertaining.

I think Acclaim and Hall did at least three mini-series and a special, so it must've done well enough at the time, but I don't see it mentioned anywhere. A quick search on Bob Hall brought up that he was co-creator of the West Coast Avengers, and I think he also did the old (good) Squadron Supreme, although those were in a much more traditional superhero style. These might be floating around the quarterbins, so if you like pulpy mob action, with booze, give 'em a spin. Also, the Bullet Points text pages in them, while having a pretty awful name, were good. Maybe better than the actual comics, sometimes.

Sorry for the short one today, I was trying to get something added to the blog, and it's not taking yet. Read more!

Jealousy:

One of the reasons I give Hawkman a bit of crap is that in most versions, whether he's a reincarnated Egyptian prince or an alien cop or an alien cop that's a reincarnated Egyptian prince; Hawkman's wings aren't real. The anti-gravity belt is what keeps him aloft, and the wings are for propulsion or steering. Except, that shouldn't work either, since they aren't mechanical, they're just feathered lumps.

The X-Men's Angel's wings, are real. Except for when they were impaled in the Mutant Massacre and had to be amputated. Suicidal, Warren took the offer of new, artificial wings from Apocalypse, and became the Horseman Death. Later, he would turn against Apocalypse and rejoin X-Factor as Archangel. (He also turned blue for some reason there.) Still later, his metal wings molted and he had fluffy white ones again. Eventually, the blue went away and I'm not positive on his current status: I think Warren can hulk out and turn into Archangel under certain conditions, which means he's way more effective than he used to be. (Convoluted as twenty-plus years of continuity might be, that's cake compared to Hawkman's multiple backstories, isn't it?)

I'm pretty sure I picked up the Angel primarily for the Sentinel Build-a-Figure piece he came with, but he's not a bad figure. The wings are heavy, though: his legs have taken a bit of a beating, and he's bent the tip of a Doop stand to hell.

Let's come back to Hawkman: in Justice League #109, Hawkman announces his resignation from the JLA. At the time in the continuity, he and his wife Shayera (then Hawkgirl) were police officers from the alien world Thanagar, pulling a tour as an exchange program on earth to study "various criminological techniques!" Like most exchange programs, it kinda seems like Katar and Shayera spent the whole time slacking off and partying; later, they would probably have to try to pass off their collection of medieval weapons as the crème de la crème of earth's crime fighting gear. I'm mincing words: that was a terrible exchange program. Did Hawkman share any crime-fighting tricks with earth cops? Aside from, "Most criminals are a cowardly lot, afraid of being hit by a mace or dropped from a great height."

Still, it doesn't look like earth's police taught the Hawks anything either, I think they usually just pointed them at bad guys and let them go. But doesn't an exchange program imply that either a new Hawkman would be sent to earth, or that a earth cop would be stationed on Thanagar for a while? (That would probably suck, since I bet the Thanagarians don't just hand out anti-grav belts and wings. It would be like living in Venice, except you don't get to use a boat. And can fall to your death super easily.)

Back to the issue at hand: Hawkman hangs out for one more case, a ludicrous one involving Eclipso split into three separate bodies, going to destroy the earth, blah, blah, blah. Even for comic book science it's pretty bad. Let's look at a Hawkman page instead:
Finished? I have questions: If Ralph punches out that guy with the jetpack, isn't he going to fall to his death? Is Green Arrow just floating there? Like a balloon? A balloon that will shoot a tear-gas arrow at your head, but still, floating there like a balloon? How would Hawkman's wings provide "propulsion"? They don't flap or have jets in them. We'll look at another Hawkman appearance another time, where I think it's established that he has to use "will" to fly, which maybe makes the wings...do stuff too.

And is Nth metal the same metal that Mon-El invented for his initiation into the Legion of Super-Heroes, that was later used in their flight rings? If that was the case, Mon-El would have merely rediscovered it, not invented, and his membership in the Legion may be in doubt, since they were sticklers on that kind of crap. Also, if the Legion flight rings are Nth metal, they could share the same anti-magic properties, which would mean Booster Gold could punch out the Gentleman Ghost, which would be pretty awesome. (Per wikipedia's Nth metal entry, the flight rings are an Nth Metal alloy called Valorium. I'm not sure if the anti-magic bit, which seems to be from the Justice League cartoon, has carried over into regular continuity.)

Speaking of Nth metal, I don't think it's mentioned this issue: the belts are a mechanical contrivance, and Ralph gets his broken and nearly falls to his death; Green Arrow thinks his "ran out of gas." Hawkman does use one of the tricks he picked up on earth: speaking the language of birds! Which I never got, at all. Did they just figure, well, if Ant-Man can talk to ants, and Aquaman can talk to fish, why can't Hawkman talk to birds? (Confession: even though I've never cared for that aspect of Hawkman, per the preview art at the Beat, Kyle Baker is drawing the hell out of it, so I'll give it to him. Baker is cool.)

In the end, Eclipso's stupid plan is stupidly beaten, and Hawkman takes his leave of the Justice League, and earth:
This issue does further two other JLA staples: Green Arrow being a jerk yet crying in the end, and Red Tornado asskicked. (He takes a beating from Eclipso to start the plot, and Ollie cries for his friend, even though he could never express his feelings for Hawkman and may in fact have not liked him, at all, ever.) Pages from Justice League of America #109, "The Doom of the Divided Man!" Written by Len Wein, art by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano.

There'll probably be some more Hawkman nonsense later, since that DCUC figure is great. One more thing: in the Justice League cartoon, Hawkgirl and the Thanagarians' wings were real, but the Hawkman from the last season had fakes. And for a stretch in the 90's, post-Zero Hour, I think Hawkman had real wings for a couple years, before drowning in the continuity. I enjoy making a bit of fun, but if it's done well--like Baker's comic looks to be--it doesn't matter if the wings are real, fake, feathery or metal. Now, Hawkman's mask, that's another issue... Read more!

Timing, part twenty-four.

And yet, Cyclops receives better treatment from me, than he did in X3: The Last Stand. Just throwing that out there. Read more!

Your Happenstance panel for today:

From Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #5, "Broken!" Written by Eric Stephenson, pencils by Keith Giffen, inks by Smith, Palmiotti, Elmer and Ramos.

With Marvel consolidating the Spider-Man books into the three-times-a-month Amazing, it has to be a matter of time before they try another anthology, non-current continuity book. It's tough, though: anthologies can be easy to pick up, but just as easy to drop; and if you open with say, Garth Ennis and John McCrea, you have to keep raising the bar to keep readers onboard and fight that pesky standard attrition, until a beleaguered editor is replacing Joss Whedon and John Cassaday with, I don't know, J.K. Rowling and the ghost of Norman Rockwell maybe.

Of course, I'm pretending to care what other people think or might want to read, when this is clearly meant for me: Giffen art! Spider-Man vs. the Silver Surfer, when he was on his war on humanity kick! With Psycho-Man and Annihilus, and cameos from the Inhumans, Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan, Gwen Stacy, Dr. Strange, Daredevil, and the FF!

This was a three issue story, but Giffen only did art for the first two. I wonder why...I almost always think of him as a DC guy, even though he did Lunatik there. Read more!

Timing, part twenty-three.

When Hasbro took over the Marvel Legends line, it was probably a bad sign that in their first wave, I only wanted one figure, Hercules. And he wasn't an overly popular figure, either: I remember some didn't like his grin, or thought he looked too plasticy. The Ultimate Iron Man and Planet Hulk figures seemed to sell well enough, but the White Queen and Banshee were huge pegwarmers.

Later, Toys R' Us had this exclusive Diamond White Queen, representing her secondary mutation. She didn't come with an Annihilus part, but I did not do very well on building him anyway, and this one looked a little better than her regular version. (I think the same body was used for a Jean Grey as Black Queen exclusive that turned out pretty well, but the regular Emma Frost wasn't high on anyone's list of favorites.)

Somewhere, I have a pile of Emma Frost comics I haven't read yet, given to me by a friend clearing out his collection. I'm not a huge fan of the character, but I do like the fact that she's completely unapologetic for being the way she is, and wanting what she wants. Then again, at least some of that is a facade, covering her pain over the many, many people she's lost in her life. She's like Professor X, in that she's trying very hard to prepare the next generations of mutants, but with a huge fatality rate: she's lost Hellions, members of Generation X, Genoshan mutants...her presence in Norman Osborn's Dark Reign may be an indication of how far she's willing to go to keep the few remaining mutants safe.

In other news: I love the Ant-Man and Isis on that page. The Ant-Man is from the Avengers line a few years back, and to me, seems to look a lot like the current Irredeemable Ant-Man. (EDIT: No, Irredeemable really doesn't look like that, but the full facemask doesn't make me think of Hank or Scott Lang.) Haven't read that, so I might have to look it up to confirm. Isis will be back in this story later, and Ant-Man...maybe. Just had an idea for him, but I'm not sure I know the bad Ant-Man well enough to do it.

Of course, Cyclops was more-or-less only bought because he had a Build-a-Figure piece of the Sentinel; but more bagging on him next time.

I don't know if anyone enjoys these strips as much as I like doing them--it's just fan-entitlement nonsense, but I bought the damn toys, and if I can make a comic I'd want to read with 'em, so much the better. I'm up to part thirty-three scheduled for March, and it keeps going; although I swear I almost have an ending in mind. Really! Read more!

You'd enjoy this Atom issue more without the cover. Really!

We already looked at the Bonus Book, but now let's check out Power of the Atom #4's main story, "What are you doing with the rest of your life?" Written by Roger Stern, pencils by Dwayne Turner, inks by K.S. Wilson.

The Atom starts the issue facing some childhood fears, by doing a little cliff-jumping. In full costume. What would normally be terrifying (believe me, I know...) and possibly dangerous, is now a snap, as he shrinks to a safer height.

Safer for diving, but not for other things: as he surfaces, Ray sees the shadow of wings. Remembering his Sword of the Atom days again, he dives, momentarily thinking it to be a Skul-bird. Deciding instead to teach the falcon a lesson, the Atom launches himself out of the water and on to the bird's back--since he can change his size and weight so quickly, Ray can jump with the normal strength of a six-foot-tall man, while changing to a much smaller and lighter mass.

Ray decides to see if the bird can be ridden, broken like a wild bronco. Not so much.

This whole sequence is a bit of a cheat--it's hard to believe Ray could mistake Carter's head for the back of a bird--but worth it for the joke. The whole issue, Stern seems to be running with the recent notion that Hawkman was a humorless stiff, his wife Shiera a good-natured sweetheart who loved her dour hubby; and neither they nor the Atom were thrilled with their recent lot in life. (As opposed to now, I guess.)

Ray is considering an offer to work for the CIA; and Hawkman is gloomy and ashamed of his homeworld Thanagar. It probably says something about there that Carter is like the friendliest guy from the whole planet. (OK, there's Shiera too.) Ray suggests maybe they all need new identities, and Shiera balks at that, liking who she was. She suggests Ray join them on vacation, to regroup.

Now, a comic about the Hawks and the Atom sitting around, catching up on their reading, maybe enjoying a pleasant evening in playing Scrabble...yeah, that's not gonna happen. Upon returning to the apartment they were subletting from a friend, the Hawks discover the place has been robbed. So, their friend's place is messed up, but the Hawks are worried about their missing trunk of replica earth-weapons. Yeah, if you ever read the back of Previews or Progressive Ruin's ...the End of Civilization and wondered who is ordering replicas of Klingon bat'leths or Frodo's sword or the Glaive; it's Carter and Shiera. To be fair, they are stabbing people with them, so they aren't just knickknacks...

The trunk also had a couple of spare anti-gravity belts--the belts are how the Hawks actually fly, the wings are just for show steering. And since the belts "emit a subtle energy," that is, radiation; they can track whoever took it. The Hawks and Atom find a warehouse full of hired thugs, and rapidly beat the hell out of them.

However, on examining their belts, Hawkwoman realizes they're fakes. Too late, the Hawks are trapped by their old foe, Ira Quimby, I.Q. He's a super-genius supervillain, kind of like Marvel's Wingless Wizard, only with even worse fashion sense. What are those, blue jodhpurs? Or did he get misshapen thighs with his super-smarts? At any rate, I.Q. has reverse-engineered the anti-grav belts, in order to trap the Hawks in a gravity field. Which the Atom can blithely stroll out of, turning his own mass down to 0.

The Atom rides the photon stream of I.Q.'s transmission, back to his headquarters, and gets him to blow up his own power supply. The Hawks get free, and get to work putting out the fire I.Q. caused.

The next day, in San Clemente, a mysterious bathrobed figure, that's been sitting around reading about the Atom the last few issues, sits around reading about the Atom. (I probably didn't think this at the time, but was Stern trying to draw a parallel to Richard Nixon here? Who else would be in San Clemente, with a suited bodyguard, kinda portly and balding? You can ask in the comments, if you really need to know, but if you're familiar with the Atom you could probably make a wild stab and guess it. Although, I could not say if this mystery character ever appeared unmasked before...) I may have to ask CBR's Comic Book Legends Revealed.

In the end, Ray decides against the CIA offer, and to give his life as Ray Palmer another shot. Not a great comic, but it was trying: the art's a little rushed in places, but Stern at least acknowledges the cardboard characterization the Hawks and Ray used to have, and tries to move them forward a bit. I know I had a run of this series as a kid, but I've long since lost most of them, and I wish I had the last couple; since Ray ends up in Suicide Squad some time later.

One of the changes that Stern made that I really liked, was that the Atom could appear in costume at his normal size: previously, he had to be tiny for his costume to appear, so often in JLA or team-up events, he either had to stay small or sit in his tiny little chair at the JLA meeting table, or appear plainclothes. True, he's more distinctive tiny, but Ray shouldn't have to be small all the time. Read more!

So, I had a horrible thought that Frank Miller's Buck Rogers would feature a Twiki that's just the it girl of the moment, wrapped in tinfoil. OK, maybe not a horrible thought...

And then I was thinking about Howard Chaykin again: I had mentioned I thought his Marvel work lately seemed like slumming it, but I was thinking mainly of Punisher War Journal, which I saw a couple times but wasn't loving. Partly, that's because it's gonna be a while before anyone beats Garth Ennis on that one. And, of course, then I had forgotten Chaykin did a MAX issue with Ennis. From Punisher MAX #50:

And I forgot completely about War is Hell: the First Flight of the Phantom Eagle, the miniseries they did together, about Marvel's World War I flying ace. Well, I didn't so much as forget about it, as balk at paying twenty bucks for the series. (Give or take.) Especially since while I loved Ennis' Enemy Ace, Phantom Eagle doesn't sound as interesting--I think he starts the series as an idealistic but clueless dolt, then slowly has his eyes opened to the terrible nature of the war. With swears! It may or may not load, but I don't like the John Cassaday cover for #3, to me it looks like the Eagle was hit on the head, or like a Lucky Charms ad...

Anyway, so Chaykin can still bring it when he needs to. Still think he could direct the hell out of a movie if he wanted, though... Read more!

A "safe for work" post featuring Jim Balent art? That's like finding a unicorn or something...

Before he did more issues of Catwoman than just about anybody, and definitely waaaaaaay before he made "haunted vagina" a household term, Jim Balent got a leg up from appearing in DC's Bonus Book program. A "16 Page Second Feature," these appeared in several DC books in late 1988; and in Power of the Atom #4, Balent does the art for "Skulduggery" Written by Joe Calchi, inks by Dan Schaefer.

Even though this is only the fourth issue of the Atom's new book, the Bonus Book story fits right in with the current status quo: Ray Palmer has returned from his barbarian days with a miniature alien race living in the Amazon--I love you, comics--and is having a hard time getting reassimilated to society. Not only is he having post-traumatic stress nightmares, and rage issues; but his friend Norman Brawler wrote a best-selling biography of the Atom that spilled his secret identity, since it didn't look like Ray was ever coming back.

So, not only is it common knowledge that his wife cheated on him, but Ray's face and address are as well. And this time, a Skul-Rider from Sword of the Atom, only full-sized, crashes his house and attacks Brawler.

Later, a bar hook-up goes suddenly awry, when a tall, confident man shrinks a good foot and change in height. When his date makes a shrimp crack, he kills her and leaves the body for maid cleanup. The man goes to a lab and berates a scientist employee, who tries to explain there is no permanent way to raise his height. Which gets him shot.

The killer, Cal Thornton, has a little (please, no jokes) flashback as he uses the equipment to grow again: a spoiled but short rich kid, in college he was dumped by Jean Loring for being ambitious and cruel. Hmm. Too crazy for Jean Loring. That's pretty crazy...anyway, still holding a grudge from getting decked by Ray, Cal enlarges his pet falcon, then goes and kills his father and his pickup, apparently with his bare hands. (Four deaths in sixteen pages! And they say comics are violent now!)

Grease-painting himself yellow, Cal then attacks Ray, who foolishly tried to teach archeology at Ivy University under the alias Jones. Great plan, Ray: I'm sure no one will recognize you there. Since Cal can also change size now (somehow...) he and Ray duke it out in a miniature Mayan city display. The fight goes on longer than it needs to: Ray's way smarter than this, usually, and could switch size and weight much faster. Instead, Cal challenges him to a duel; perhaps not realizing Ray had got really good at swordfighting. Maybe not technically proficient, but good in a kill-or-be-killed sense. The Atom breaks Cal's arm, but stops short of disemboweling him, and is proud to see he's still a "civilized" man. Turning in him to the cops, Ray leaves to visit Brawler in the hospital, noting he'll deal with Cal's "four inch hawk with a bad temper" later. Too bad, that might have been fun.

This wasn't a bad little story, and I always liked the barbarian angle that had been added to the Atom: a college professor turned super-hero that went all Conan in the wild. (I have most of the Sword of the Atom issues, and I'm trying to remember if Ray dropped the Wolverine-style berserker barrage there, as I thought they were a little more swashbuckling than that.) That is a helluva story arc. Of course, the arc spirals downward with "turned into a teen in Zero Hour" and "wife went crazy, killed Sue Dibney in Identity Crisis."

On the art front, this is pretty early work from Balent, and this story doesn't spotlight any of the attributes he would later become known for, i.e. boobs. And even though Tarot may not be to your personal taste, you do have to give Balent credit for his success with it in a tough marketplace.

Personally on the Bonus Book front, I remember a Batman one from Detective Comics, but that one was more memorable to me for being included in the first Grant/Breyfogle Batman story I read. There's a fairly amusing JLA one where Max Lord is kidnapped and Booster Gold and Blue Beetle...really don't help him out. Like, to the point of this is where Max goes bad, right there. And Rob Liefeld did the art for a Jennifer Morgan story in Warlord. It's not bad--I don't think Rob's flaws had hardened into "style," and it doesn't have the lazy, halfassed feel of some of his later work. Plus, I love Jennifer, so...

That was a lot of write-up for a 16-pager, but later we'll take a look at the main story in this one, guest-starring...some guest-stars that are on the cover but spoil a surprise on the inside, so I'm not going to say until tomorrow!

EDIT: Newsarama had a piece today on Balent's Broadsword Comics. They've had a pretty good track record, so check it out if you're so inclined. Read more!

Timing, part twenty-two.

I think I have maybe one of the two comics Marvel's White Rabbit appeared in: her first appearance was Marvel Team-Up #131 but she also made a fun showing in Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #35. I thought of her because she was mentioned in passing as she received a beating, in an X-Men novel, as one of Doctor Doom's lackeys in a Cosmic Cube-created reality. (That was X-Men: Doctor Doom: The Chaos Engine Trilogy, Book One written by Steven A. Roman. A fun read, but make sure you get all three books before you start, 'cause I had to wait forever between books...) Needless to say, a leggy redhead with bunny ears and one of the Penguin's umbrellas, is not one of Spidey's deadliest foes.

And I'm pretty ok with that, to be frank. There's no reason every bad guy has to have a body count in the high triple digits. And somewhere like the Marvel Universe has got to be crammed full of wannabes who think they could be the next Spider-Man or Doc Ock, depending on which way they want to go. In a world with winged millionaires and socialite Avengers, being rich or smart or pretty might not be enough for some people... Read more!

It's all fun and games, until I run someone over.

From a link at CNN, Road Signs Warn of Zombies: "cameras caught many drivers slowing down to read the signs as they approached. Some read, 'Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!'"

Funny, but if I had been driving through there, I guarantee you I would have completely freaked out, and quite probably run someone down while screaming "Die, you inhuman monster!"

Little known fact about me: I love zombie movies, and am at a constant level of cat-like alertness for zombie attack. (And only zombie attack, sadly, any other crisis I'm as unprepared as anyone else. Zombies I've got, though.)

So please, think twice before panicking extreme zombie-phobes like myself, won't you? And, it probably says something about our times that "zombies" are the boogieman du jour; considering we used to be afraid of alien or communist invasion... Read more!

In my head, Starro sounds like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants. Unfortunate.

Sorry, tiny today, so click to enlarge!

Look, if you walk around with a mace all day long, and work with Hal Jordan, I don't see how you could avoid hitting him the head at some point. Thanks again to Hoosier Journal of Inanity's Sea of Green, whose "My Pal Itty" strips gave me the Starro idea.

Under Grant Morrison, Starro became less of a crazy alien menace-of-the-month; and more a creeping, almost Lovecraftian dread. Not a bad angle, Starro as a vast, tidal intelligence, revolting and terrible. But my favorite Starro appearance (except maybe in the O-Squad, if he made that...) was in Justice League Europe. Starro passes himself off to "fellow alien" Kilowog as not a universe-despoiling conqueror, but as a creature that has been humbled and learned compassion, in the multiple sphincter-kickings he's received on earth. I won't go on now, except to say Starro takes over J'onn J'onzz before being defeated by the last Leaguer you'd expect.

And the DCUC "Shazam!" figure? Nice. I had no problems at all with Captain Marvel, and am thrilled. I'm not a huge Marvel Family fan, and never had a proper CM figure until now, but he's worth having. He'll be turning up again...

It is a little off-putting, though, to consider that these really sharp figures are be released at a time when these characters have either no, or vastly changed, appearances in current comic continuity. Isn't Billy Batson the wizard Marvel now, or some such? And Hawkman was killed, and Mr. Miracle isn't Scott Free and has a new costume. Even the Superman figure doesn't line up with the comics, unless you travel back to the 90's mullet days. Not sure about Kalibak (and haven't built him yet) but so far the closest figure to the character's current appearance, just might be Killer Moth, if he's not still a soulless moth-monster-man.

Maybe the DCUC are only being bought by collectors and fans who already know about the characters; or maybe Mattel is leaving it to the buyer's imagination. If little Timmy gets a Batgirl/Azreal two-pack, they can be heroes or villains, friends or enemies, noble or evil; whatever he wants. Of course, if Timmy likes the figures enough to check out some comics with those characters, he's in for a rude awakening when he finds that particular Batgirl's been paralyzed for years and Azreal is dead and forgotten. Yay, comics?

Well, Captain Marvel still has an all-ages book, so that's something. Which reminds me: how old is Billy Batson supposed to be now? Certainly not a teenager, right? I'm thinking ten, maybe; but went with eight since it's funnier there. I understand in JSA he was understandably attracted to Stargirl, since they're close to the same age; except it's really creepy to watch the fully-grown Captain hitting on the fourteen-year-old Courtney. Tough explaining that one to the casual onlooker. Or the rest of the Society. Read more!

Post #771: In which I have nothing to complain about...

Quite the opposite, in fact! In December, you may recall I donated some figures for Toys for Tots at the Comic Book Shop for Paul's contest over at Toy Bender! And, with the links, I just wrote this sentence like the end of a game of Clue for some reason...

And, I won second place! I got some Star Wars Order 66 two-packs, a Sideshow Bespin Luke Skywalker figure (here's a review from MWC Toys) and a $50 gift certificate to Big Bad Toy Store!

I attached the review because I'm not a 12-inch collector, and as such don't know much in that area, but that Bespin Luke is probably the nicest toy I've had...ever.

My BBTS order arrived Thursday: a Battlestar Galactica Helo (possibly still on sale in their Winter Clearance!) and DCUC Hawkman and Mr. Miracle! Now, Helo was just because he was on sale, I didn't have any BG figures and wanted to check one out, and I like that he was initially a character that was intended to be written off, and instead has managed to make it to the current episodes. Now that I have his figure, you can rest assured Helo is completely doomed.

But Hawkman and Mr. Miracle I was totally looking forward to. I already had homemade strips written for them, something I almost never do until I have the toys in hand. On the other hand, I was also sweating as their arrival date needed, since reports of Mattel's quality control problems have been making the rounds. Happy to say, both of them came out just fine.

It is only slightly ironic that I received Hawkman, the day after he (and Hawkgirl) were apparently killed, again, in Final Crisis. Why the Hawks? Couldn't kill a Flash again or something?

No, none of that today: today, let's have a big ol' thanks for Paul of Toy Bender and Big Bad Toy Store, and I of course encourage you to check them both out, they're awesome. Thanks again!

Read more!

An afternoon thought:

Even though I'm not really reading the books, I am keeping up on Green Lantern and the amazing technicolor Lantern Corps at Hoosier Journal of Inanity and Green Lantern Butts Forever! This particular post got me thinking on it, though: they haven't made a big splash yet, the Orange Lanterns aren't going to be Halloween themed. I know, I'm a little disappointed too. Instead, orange is apparently the color of Avarice, or greed.

Now, I was out for a walk and thinking about toys and how much fun it would be to have a shiny, awesome power ring; without any of the hassle of Guardians of the Universe telling you sexing up your fellow ring-wielders is bad, or having to obey Sinestro's insane commands, or vomiting up rage...well, maybe on that last one. No, maybe not. I want a ring, and all the powers, without any rules or commandments or puke. Orange seems like the way to go, since I don't even know what the organization for that one is. (Over at Marvel, the Elder of the Universe the Collector would be a natural for this, but I can not think of a DC character that would be spear-heading a bunch of greedy ring bastards.) Plus, they would be cool with my action-figure hording ways...

And it struck me: if the Orange Lanterns are all about avarice and greed, then who gives out the rings? Something tells me some recruiter is wearing like a dozen of those rings (don't ask where...) and has crates more at home, but still isn't giving them out. The expansion plan has hit a snag, I think. Read more!

Timing, part twenty-one.

I used to babysit a lot when I was a kid, and it's fun for a while, but eventually you've eaten all the host's food that you can find, been through the channels, and played with all the kids' toys; yet there's still the indeterminable wait for the parents to come home. (I was too young a babysitter and too goody-goody for advanced activities like Raid the Liquor Cabinet or Quest for Porn.) Where is Cable? Your guess is as good as mine! I was going to check on him, but that fell through, sorry.

Mailing away Deathstroke, Crossbones, and the corpse formerly known as Bullseye seems like an appropriate punishment, and something that'll shut them up: no way badasses like that are going to willingly admit getting beatdown and mailed away...

I haven't posted them all, but so far I've done forty-nine pages for "Timing." And it's still not done, so Nightcrawler and Deadpool are going to be babysitting for a good while longer. Eventually, I'll have a post with all the pages together...that oughta grind your computer to a halt. Once "Timing" wraps, my goal was to do a strip without Kurt and Pool, and instead with some figures I haven't used before. Which means, I had probably better just buy some new toys, since it would be too much work to see who hasn't shown up in the backgrounds somewhere already. Read more!

On Memory, and Mistakes!

It's funny, the tricks your memory can play on you, even on such a little thing as an old comic panel. For example, I knew Deadpool kicks Captain America in the crotch, but I pictured this:

In actual fact, the panel looked like this:

I had completely forgotten that Pool was wearing some kind of living lizard armor. ("I think I'm going to scream like a little fairy," he says after it crawls onto him.) And you don't get to see Deadpool's face or eyes, so his expression could be open to interpretation: is he overjoyed at taking down Cap? Amused at his dirty trick? Ashamed for stooping so low? Or does bringing free will back to the universe weigh a little more heavily on Pool's shoulders? Well, I'm afraid working with expressionless action figures, your guess is (at least) as good as mine.

This isn't the first time I've done this, either: my mental picture of a certain panel turns out to be completely wrong. Or, I remember what happened, but the details are wrong; and I usually remember the panel in question as larger, and probably cooler, than they turned out to be on the actual page. Remember that panel way back in Claremont and Byrne's Uncanny X-Men, where Wolverine rises from the sewage, claws bared, ready for payback? If you've read comics for a long time, probably. But go back and look at it: I bet it's not as big a panel as you remember, and while it's still a dramatic moment and went a long way to turning Wolverine into the hit he would become; is it as dramatic as you remember? Or did you think he was more torn up, bloodier? In the version in your head, did Wolvie emerge from the sewers, bodies of sliced Hellfire Club guards floating around him? Was he masked? Is he even wearing the costume you thought he was?

Well, even if your memory is going to hell and/or romanticizing the hell out of old comics, there's not much you can do about it, right? I mean, once the comic is printed, it's not like you could go back and correct it, is it? Hmm. Maybe.

Back when Marvel was ramping up to the first Secret Wars, most of the participating heroes were taken by an alien device, usually at the end the April 1984 dated issue. But the Mighty Thor appeared to be plotted ahead of that, so in the March issue...something happens. Something so big Walt Simonson couldn't even tell you about it yet! It happens early on, though: the blank spot is page two, and by page five, "A couple of weeks later," Thor is back and visiting Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan. (Yeah, Thor made it through Secret Wars without any big changes, except maybe the little seed of trying to make the Enchantress a more sympathetic character. I also thought a lot of books took a month without the heroes that had disappeared, but I might be off there.)


In the next month's issue, #342, across from a full page ad for Secret Wars, the mystery panels were "revealed." And by the way, I love the way Thor's flying in that panel. Aerodynamics are for lesser beings. But it's all in fun, and that and the chatty, friendly-written letters page work to bring readers into the fold. It's not the bombastic Stan Lee hype Marvel had usually used, it's more like, hey, here's a little secret, come in close.

Of course, not too long after these issues, began the idea of comics as investments that needed to be bagged and boarded and in pristine unread condition. The very notion of hacking up a comic? Unheard of! Even as a nod and a wink to the reader. And now with letter pages gone the way of the Hostess ads, where would these corrections come from? Unless...

Let's make up an example: suppose during a big event like Secret Invasion; a character in a mid-level book, like She-Hulk or the Initiative, stumbles across something that would be a big reveal in the main book. Say, Triathlon accidentally discovers the Skrull Queen. It would be in character, since he had the Skrull-spotting goggles. Plus, that way when the Queen's revealed in SI two months later, Triathlon wouldn't look like an ass for missing it. But, understandably, the writers might not want to tip their hand yet, or waste a big reveal in a secondary book. What to do, what to do...

Panel one: Triathlon recaps his powers, where he's at in the story, and what his goggles can do.

Panel two: He sees a number of other characters, including the hidden Queen.

Panel three: "Gasp! Choke! The Skrull Queen! It's--"

Panel four: "Find out who is the Skrull Queen, in Secret Invasion #1, or print the panels online at Marvel.com some date after SI's sale date!"

In an ensemble book like the Initiative, this could work a little better, since the writer could then cut away from Triathlon (or 3-D Man, if he's calling himself that now...) and see what Ant-Man or Taskmaster or someone else is up to. It might be nice if they also reprinted the mystery panel in a later issue, but that seems like a fun way to have your cake and eat it too, and hype up your web traffic. On the other hand, there would be work involved; co-ordinating the continuity, setting up the website, and then the readers have to get involved as well. And then, would the online panel be something that's going to be available to everyone, or does the reader have to put in a code from the Initiative issue? (Like that wouldn't get posted somewhere...)

It's an idea with pros and cons, and there very likely are just as many valid reasons not to do it. That said, I don't think Marvel would, anyway. Even with blogs and Q & A's at Newsarama or Comic Book Resources; Marvel as a whole seems more...stand-offish in recent years. I don't know. Marvel seems to want their comics to be like little movies, and anything like editorial caption boxes or cut-and-paste corrections that reminds the reader yes, you are reading a comic; are not particularly welcome.

Before I wrap this up, here's another "Mighty Marvel Correction Kit!" from the letter's page for Thor #354. I'm going to run it in it's entirety, since the letter writer explains the reason for a fix in #351. That's been reprinted, hasn't it? It wasn't corrected in the trade, was it? That would be pretty damn impressive...

And there's a statement of ownership for good measure! Let's see...under E. "Total distribution: (Sum of C and D) Average no. of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 171,480. Single issue nearest to filing date: 241,355." Based on the November 2008 Marvel Month-to-Month sales from the Beat, there wasn't a new issue of Thor that month, but the number one book was Ultimatum #1 with 114,230. Way to go, direct market! Thanks for nothing, you...Am I reading this wrong? Maybe the Thor statement counts international sales or something else not counted in Ultimatum's total. Or maybe sales were driven up back in the day by kids cutting up their comics and cutting and pasting corrections...

Panels and pages from Thor #341, "The Past is a Bucket of Ashes" #342 "The Last Viking" (per the last issue blurb!) and #354 "Pickin' Up the Pieces" All written and drawn by Walter Simonson, letters by John Workman Jr, colors by Christie Scheele, edited by Mark Gruenwald.

Deadpool gives Cap the business in Deadpool #25, "Dead Reckoning, part 3: What the World Needs Now..." Written by Joe Kelly, pencils by Walter McDaniel, inks by Whitney McFarland, Rodney Ramos, Walden Wong, Scott Elmer, and Scott Koblish.

I was going to post a similar correction from Captain America, but I found the one with the error and not the correction. Ironically, I had the one with the correction and not the error as a kid. OK, maybe not so ironically. Some other time, maybe we'll see if I can find #312, which was also the first appearance of Flag-Smasher. Read more!

Why is Cap so glum?

A. Um, because he's dead?

B. Someone stole his rug, and it really brought the whole room together.

C. All the other Avengers are big stinky jerk-heads.

D. BECAUSE BLOGGING IS HARD.

I swear, I thought I had more time today. Even though large portions of my day were spent either staring into space, or looking for toys (short answer: no) I still figured I was going to be able to get a longer post done. Not so much, sorry.

From Captain America #401, "After the Storm" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Rik Levins, and inks by Danny Bulanadi. After a contingent of Avengers under Iron Man break from Cap's orders and kill the Kree Supreme Intelligence (yeah, didn't take) then a majority of Avengers vote against disciplinary action or censure against the killers; Cap is ready to step down as commanding officer. (Commanding officer? I thought they had a chairman, but maybe in times of war.) None of the Avengers really want Cap to quit, but they went to war prepared to maybe have to kill somebody, and Cap didn't. Weird.

Recent continuity has reverted to the position that while he wasn't bloodthirsty or a wetworks specialist, Cap certainly killed during the war and since. In Gruenwald's run, Cap killed maybe once, a last resort action to save innocent hostages. (Around Cap #321, off the top of my head.) Read today, Cap seems more than a bit on the whiny side this issue.

I may have to take some time later to write up a little more on Quasar, who guests briefly, as he tells Cap he's going on a leave of absence from the team. Even though he loves being an Avenger and Cap's his hero, Wendell has to get back to protecting the universe and such. I wish there had been a Quasar action figure, man: I would love to have him interact with Hal Jordan. Quasar was like the anti-Hal: laid back, polite, a team-player. Some other time...

EDIT: OK, I did get some of what I was looking for, so new post around noon PST, all right? Read more!

For comparison purposes: The same guy, only not (but he kinda is)

Here's an interesting one to compare: two different figures, two different companies, two different characters, but the same guy. Huh? Well, the same actor, anyway. Ben Browder has a batch of credits on IMDB, but the one we're interested in to start with is Farscape. You know, I think I got this figure, astronaut John Crichton, marked down perhaps, before I ever got to watch the show. It was a program I knew I'd like, but I didn't have cable at the time. Space adventure with Jim Henson studio puppets? Oh, that doesn't push any of my buttons...Eventually I got to watch the show, and loved it, just in time for it's horrible cliffhanger ending. Eventually, Farscape got a miniseries that wrapped up all the loose ends, and that was pretty much that.



Almost immediately, (or so it seemed) Farscape's leads Browder and Claudia Black were rotated into the cast of Stargate: SG-1. Although many wits (including Warren Ellis, I believe) suggested Browder needed to fire his agent, he (and Black) did get another action figure out of the deal--two in two different lines from two different properties. (Hell, Black got a variant in there as well...) Browder took the role of Lt. Colonel Cam Mitchell. (Cam probably gets a promotion at some point during the series.)

Over at OAFE there is a helpful review (and recap of the show and it's tribulations) of the Farscape box set from Toy Vault. I got John as a single, although he did come with his helmet, jacket, a rifle and a couple DRD's. (Little robot helpers, if you didn't watch the show!) As usual for this scale, the jacket seems overly thick--less a regular jacket than an arctic one, and the collar is going to stay up. Still, the jacket covers the lack of elbow joints. Quickly: John has cut joints at the neck, waist, shoulders, and wrists. Six points. Also, being the token human character, John is probably not going to run you on eBay like D'Argo or Rygel will.









Diamond Select/Art Asylum's SG-1 Col. Mitchell has the benefit of several years of improvements in sculpting and articulation, and has a ball-jointed neck and shoulders, cut joints for the biceps, waist, knees, and wrists; and both elbows and hips. Say fourteen points of articulation. Cam doesn't do too badly in terms of accessories, either: machine gun (that's tough for him to hold!), a zzaat pistol, a removable vest, a build-an-accessory piece (for the DHD or the mount, I guess: other waves had Stargate pieces), a radio, another accessory I can't name, and a sword that I guarantee you is probably bent to hell when you buy this figure. Still, a nice haul. I liked Stargate, but I didn't watch it religiously, so some of those accessories I'm fuzzy on.

It's doubtful Browder's picking his next role with action figures in mind, but that's for the best: I'm hard pressed to think of another series that could slot him in, and new properties don't seem to get new figures as a given anymore. Read more!

Timing, part twenty.

Now, I think Deadpool could beat Crossbones, but it would take him a while, and there would be some stabbing involved. And now I'm not positive, but I think CB's been enhanced somehow, so he might even be stronger than he looks, and he looks pretty strong. Still, in case I haven't mentioned it, Crossbones is my favorite villain of Mark Gruenwald's long run on Captain America, just beating out Flag-Smasher. (The original, caped one, with ULTIMATUM and all that.) I also really wanted to get across that Cross is slumming it here: to him, working for MODOK would be the equivalent of a Mcjob. Maybe if I did more than one draft of these things...

Of course, I say that, but then had to redo the first page today, since I forgot a word balloon. In ye olden times, a correction for something like that might turn up on the letter pages a couple issues later--I remember Thor doing that once or twice, like the Secret Wars panel. Captain America had an issue where in a close-up panel of Cap, he had no nose! The editor said it was a problem with the then-new flexographic (I think) printing, and they had a cut-and-paste stat of Cap's nose for readers to do themselves. I might have to dig those up...

Still, I thought Pool deserved to get one in, since Crossbones is successful and has a great rep; while the last issue I read as of writing this, poor Deadpool didn't even have a chair anymore...Which brings up another point, that probably on the stands by the time I post this: Deadpool fights old Sub-Mariner villain Tiger Shark in his next issue (#6), and Tiger Shark's another favorite of mine. I didn't like the overly shark-like version Mark Bagley drew in Thunderbolts, I like the old school version. And it is a crime Tiger Shark doesn't have an action figure yet.

For newer readers of Deadpool, a tip: he's not lying. Pool beat an alien-controlled Captain America, and I might see if I can dig up the panel. Possibly Wade's finest hour. Not Cap's, though. Read more!

(Mostly) Off-Topic: Further proof of the Happenstance method:

Per my Statcounter info, someone stumbled across my blog while searching "rhino bar and howard apartments building history missoula." Now, of course, I have no helpful information in that regard, and my blog only came up because the keywords Rhino (Scarface's henchman), Howard (for Howard Chaykin) and Missoula since I used to live there. In fact, the weird thing is, I briefly lived in those apartments! Random Happenstance indeed. I probably drank at least occasionally at the Rhino Bar, but I don't recall it as a favorite, but I drank too goddamn much back then...

Out for the weekend, though, so have fun, and be back Monday! Read more!

Your Happenstance panel for today:

From Unlimited Access #1, "No Time Like the Present!" Written by Karl Kesel, pencils by Pat Oliffe, inks by Al Williamson. It's a fun enough little series, although you kind of wish they'd drop the Access character and the Amalgamations like Redwing, Thor-El, and Captain America Jr; to focus on the weird face-offs. Why hasn't there been a Challengers of the Unknown/Fin Fang Foom prestige format book? Because Marvel and DC hate the laughter of children, that's why.

Admittedly, some of those fights are based more on temporal convenience, than weight class: Enemy Ace against Phantom Eagle would be a quick one, with the rest of the issue given to the Ace hanging out with the wolves. I'd have to say the odds are strongly against Anthro, facing Devil Dinosaur; and Atlas versus Hercules shouldn't be much of a battle: Marvel Herc over DC Atlas in a walk. And the Two-Gun Kid would be well advised to ride clear of Jonah Hex.

A heads-up for Brandon Dwayne, "the canoe guy" (EDIT: Son of a bitch! Sorry about that!) over at Matching Dragoons: Jonah adds one to his lifetime body count this issue. Of course, then Access tries to save him from being shot in the back and loses Jonah in time, and possibly out of his own universe. (Wait, was the DC Universe the red giant or the blue one? Ah, well.) Even with a lot of time-travel and accidental crossovers the rest of this limited, they never come back to Jonah, nor it is specifically noted that he was put back where he belongs either. Then again, since Marvel and DC are currently not best buds, it's doubtful this one'll ever come up again. Read more!