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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or maybe Aqualad? Nah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know I read the 1986 Blue Beetle series more often then not when it came out, but I don't remember having the three issue Question story. And today, I just have the first one: Blue Beetle #5, "Ask the Right Question!" Written by Len Wein, pencils by Paris Cullins, inks by Bruce D. Patterson.

Vic Sage is investigating the new hero in Chicago, the Blue Beetle, when he's given a new assignment: look into a new surge of youth gangs. (This being an eighties DC comic, the "youth gangs" dress, look like, and even call themselves the Wild Ones: DC was not all about relevance at the time...) The gangs have backup, though, that they call Big M; who plans the jobs and backs them up with a rocket launcher. He even manages to to cover a getaway from the cops and Blue Beetle and his Bug airship. Mob boss Vincent Perignon is furious that the Wild Ones would hit one of his operations; and puts his son Richie on the job of stopping them.


Separately, Beetle and the Question track the Wild Ones to a junkyard; which leads to a fight, but the Big M covers the gang's escape again. The heroes plan to team up on the case, unaware they're being observed by Big M, who actually goes by the far worse name of the Muse. Who I'm pretty sure was the son, Richie; which makes it look like a good chunk of this issue is swiped from old Spider-Man stories; and there's a lot of pages devoted to subplots as well. There's two with Ted's terrible girlfriend Melody Case, and one for the cop that suspected Ted Kord in the disappearance of Dan Garrett, the original Blue Beetle: that one would go on for about a year.

The Question barely resembles the version that would be seen in his own series, but the basics are there. I'll probably have to keep an eye out for the next two issues...

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80-Page Thursdays: Detective Comics #19!

A recent 80-pager, from DC's New 52: Detective Comics #19, featuring stories from John Layman and John Tynion IV, and art from Jason Fabok, Andy Clarke, Henrik Jonsson, Mikel Janin, Jason Masters, and more.

If Detective Comics had continued, uninterrupted by the New 52 reboot, this would've been the 900th issue. Cleverly, Layman's main story this issue is "The 900," named after a normally prosperous and safe neighborhood of Gotham City, tonight hit by a mysterious virus turning people into Man-Bats. As Batman tries to contain the outbreak, which he recognizes as similar to Talia al Ghul's soldiers; he's also dealing with the breakup of his family. Batgirl doesn't respond to Bats, but does help with the containment; while Nightwing just leaves town. Eventually, Batman discovers Patient Zero of the outbreak, the serial killer Zsasz, and stops him as Batwoman arrives with Drs. Kirk and Francine Langstrom. Kirk, of course, was the creator of the Man-Bat formula, which was stolen by Talia; but he still feels responsible. He injects himself with the serum, since by becoming a Man-Bat himself, he'll release a new pathogen that will cure the others. Francine is left alone as the Man-Bat flies off to parts unknown, and Zsasz is taken back to Arkham, but he admits he released the virus, on the behest of the Emperor Penguin. (The who? Having not read the book recently, I'm not familiar with "Ogilvy" at all.)

Also this issue: Francine plans to retrieve her husband, in a brief origin story for Man-Bat; the odd-looking Mr. Combustible leads a crime wave during the Man-Bat breakout for the Emperor Penguin; Bane plots against the Court of Owls and their Talons, since he sees them as an obstacle in taking Gotham; and some of the city's police discuss their positions on the Batman, some of which may have changed after the Man-Bat outbreak..

Not too bad of an issue, although I don't know if it's $7.99 worth: fortunately, I didn't pay anywhere near that! By that happenstance I hold so dear, found it for $1.99 at Hastings! For that price, pretty good!
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Constantine's looking for, um, "Holdin' Caulfield."

Keeping in mind I'm not a huge Swamp Thing or Hellblazer fan, I'm still 95% sure there's at least one story where Swamp Thing gives John marijuana. Something they probably couldn't get away with in the new 52 versions of the characters, yeah. Over at the Hurting, Tim O'Neil has a pretty good post about DC's current house style, where John Constantine and Captain Marvel can crossover, but the charm and innocence of "Shazam" and the dark humor and adult nature of Constantine have both been diluted. Which brings to mind the old saw about mixing ten gallons of ice cream and ten gallons of manure...well, not that either Captain Marvel or Hellblazer were manure by themselves, but maybe you get my point.

Oddly enough, as Tim also pointed out, the Masters of the Universe are going to be crossing over with the Justice League and Justice League Dark; and dear lord, they don't call themselves 'Justice League Dark' in-story, do they? Sounds like a bad M&M flavor. I usually give Keith Giffen a lot of rope, but the new 52 designs and unnecessary and terrible redesigns in the same vein for the He-Man characters...I don't know.

In other news, Masters of the Universe Classics Moss Man was a 2010 figure, that I just picked up at Big Lots recently; and he still has his pine-scent. Like, a lot. Super-piney.

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Cashing in on Tolkien...in 1977.

Although I'd known of it for years, I never read Weirdworld until just recently. It's...passing strange, alright. From Marvel Premiere #38, "The Lord of Tyndall's Quest" Written by Doug Moench, art by Mike Ploog and Alex Nino.

It reads like you're coming in mid-quest, and yeah, after a little research, you are: this was the second published Weirdworld story. I had to look a little, the first was in Marvel Super Action #1, a black-and-white magazine with a Punisher cover--his fifth full appearance. And the first appearance of the Huntress Bobbi Morse, who would become Mockingbird; and a Howard Chaykin Dominic Fortune story! That sounds great, although Weirdworld seems an odd fit there. (This took me a while to search, since I thought there was a mistake somewhere: I have a pretty full collection of Marvel Super Action the regular comic, which was mostly classic Captain America and Avengers reprints, from back before they were easily available in trades!)

The elf Tyndall of Klarn is sent on a quest by the Dwarf-Elders of Weirdworld (because he's expendable and they don't like him) to rid the land of monsters by destroying the Heart of Evil. Instead of the Heart, though; Tyndall finds a mysterious egg, out of which hatches Velanna, an elf girl also of Klarn. Why and how she was in the egg is unrevealed: as far as she knows, she went to sleep and woke up in it. But Tyndall realizes the dwarves were trying to get rid of him, and joins Velanna on a journey to somewhere they wouldn't be hated.

While the pair are attacked by a swamp-serpent, the wizard Grithstane observes them with his magic mirror; and creates wax monsters to capture them, as he has another quest in mind for Tyndall. That's kind of a neat scene, actually. He wants Tyndall to slay a dragon and bring back the blood, which will restore Grithstane's youth: he had a captured elf girl of his own, but she couldn't stand the sight of him. Grithstane then tells Tyndall he'll send him to Klarn, which is a floating ring-shaped island in the sky--wait, if Tyndall and Velanna were from Klarn, shouldn't they have had maybe a vague idea where it was? And how did they get down from there? Grithstane magically launches Tyndall there on a small lump of ground, smashing him into the bottom of the floating island, and Tyndall has to dig his way to the top.

In short order, Tyndall finds a group of dwarves, who plan to sacrifice a "changer," another elf girl, to the dragon god. Tyndall is confused: is this is Klarn, and he's from Klarn, why don't they have pointed ears? Why are they sacrificing the girl who does? Tyndall fights them to save the girl, but the girl turns into a swamp-serpent! He's only saved by the arrival of the dragon, which kills the serpent; and Tyndall repays the dragon by killing it. "...can't just go around eating people," he supposes. The magic mirror returns Tyndall when he gets the blood, but he finds Grithstane's elf-girl was another swamp-serpent, that ate the unfortunate wizard.

Tyndall realizes his quest was for nothing, but Velanna takes it as a sign: there's no easy way to acceptance, and you can't stop hate by buying favors. And they're together, which is good enough for them.

Strange issue: since at first glance I thought this was the start of the story, it really reminded me of Wally Wood's "The King of the Ring" more than anything. And while I don't know if that was Moench and Ploog's intent, all the ads and blurbs I've seen for Weirdworld really hype it as in the same vein as Lord of the Rings; which makes me wonder why it was never collected and on the shelves to ride the coattails of the movies. May be a rights problem with the creators and Marvel, I don't know.
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Today, Black Canary works up a sweat...

...and the Atom leaves tiny footprints all over the Calculator, in two back-up stories from Detective Comics #463, "Crimes by Calculation." Written by Bob Rozakis, with art by Mike Grell and Terry Austin; and #464, "A Hot Time in Star City Tonight." Written by Bob and Laurie Rozakis, and art by Mike Grell and Terry Austin.

These two stories were the first in a serial with new villain the Calculator, who starts by fighting the Atom and killing a college professor who had developed an anti-earthquake device. Defeated by the Atom, the Calculator presses the star button on his chest keypad, which is teased as being important in future stories. The next issue, an escaped Calculator tries to use Black Canary's sonic scream to drive the temperature up to unbearable levels and drive the citizenry out. Canary beats him as well (apparently driving the local temperature to a balmy 526 degrees, according to a nearby bank thermometer) but the Calculator pushes star again, which he counts as a win while he's back in jail.

I don't have the next issues yet, but I guess the Calculator's plan somehow involved every time a hero beat him, he wouldn't be able to be beaten the same way again, or some such. Sadly, even though I think Gail Simone revamped him as an evil counterpart to Oracle, I don't think he's ever been popular enough to reprint anything of his.
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"Super Vader."

I found my old Star Wars Force Battlers Darth Vader figure (Amazon here.) although I must have put his lightsaber and kickass Imperial symbol shield somewhere to keep them from getting squashed. Since I don't think they've even announced Vader in the Star Wars Black six-inch line, I wanted to see if how this Vader would look with the Luke figure. And he just towers over him.

I thought the neck seemed a little long as well, but I don't know. Still, the Force Battlers weren't realistic or super-articulated, they had a bit of an animated, almost anime style. I thought they were in the same spirit as the old Marvel comics: not screen-accurate necessarily, but dramatic.

OK, maybe a couple of feet in-scale of dramatic license, for these two figures to work together, but still fun. Now, if I could figure out where I put that Force Battler Chewbacca...

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Crab legs--ah! Or ew.

This is the second-to-last issue of Conan the Barbarian's surprisingly long stint as a pirate with Bêlit, the pirate queen. No spoiler, but it doesn't end well for her. Today, they fight crab-men, in Conan the Barbarian #99, "Devil-Crabs of the Dark Cliffs!" Written and edited by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema and Ernie Chan, and adapted sorta from Robert E. Howard's non-Conan story "The People of the Black Coast."

Having recently lost a royal treasure, Bêlit is working her crew hard to make back that money. Conan realizes the men are on the verge of either exhaustion or mutiny, but he's been around long enough to know fortunes are to be won and lost: Bêlit just seems like she's being controlled by greed, and she's the captain. (I don't know if that was normal for her, or if they were just trying to foreshadow her fate.) When they come across a deserted Argossean ship, moored by a dark cliff, and find shredded bodies of sailors and mysterious Eastern treasure, Bêlit doesn't care about the mystery or the danger, only the possibility of more treasure, and they investigate. Which leads them to the crab-men.

A captured sailor fills them in: the crab-men seem to be telepathic, and lured the sailors there for some kind of lethal experiments. Oh, and the treasure, just because. Conan would not leave men to die that way, and Bêlit agrees to save them...and their treasure. The freed sailors don't make great time lugging treasure chests, and the crab-men give chase. Conan first has the idea to roll rocks down on them from the high ground in the cliffs, but then sees an opportunity: steam vents, heated from underground. To a crab-man, they're cooked.

Bêlit nearly keeps all the treasure, but seemingly on a whim elects to split it with the Argosseans. It may be far from a generous impulse, though: she knows if those sailors make it home, others will try their newly-discovered passage to the Eastern lands; which means more ships for her to loot...and mysteriously, Conan has a momentary weakness in the end, probably more foreshadowing.

I know I have Conan #100 somewhere...but without crab-men, perhaps it's not as memorable.

Fun fact: since I grew up in Montana, I've for years had a distrust of seafood; since it probably would've had to take a plane, a bus, and a cab to get to my plate.
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80-Page Thursday: Countdown Special: Kamandi #1!

Today, another reprint tie-in to Countdown, but this time one I hadn't read at all, unlike the OMAC one we saw a while back: Countdown Special: Kamandi #1, reprinting three Jack Kirby classics. (With inks from Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry.)

In "The Last Boy on Earth" the series is set up: named after the bunker complex 'Command D,' the young boy finds himself alone in a terrible world after his grandfather (retroactively revealed to be OMAC, which may or may not make a damn bit of sense...) is killed by a pack of scavenger wolf-men. With the exception of Kamandi, mankind appears to have fallen even below savagery, to the level of dumb animals; while animal-men talk, think, and fight in the ruins of man's world. (Not unlike Planet of the Apes, except other animals get in on the action.) Captured by tiger-men, Kamandi is about to detonate the nuclear warhead they worship when he's stopped by the kindly Dr. Canus, who introduces him to Ben Boxer, an intelligent human.

Some of Boxer's history is revealed in the next story, "Killer Germ." Boxer (and his friends Renzi and Steve) were mutated to survive the Great Disaster, gaining atomic powers, but strictly speaking weren't human anymore. Their NASA complex is destroyed this issue in an attack by bat-men and the deadly giant germ Morticoccus.

Next, in "The Legend!" after spying a flying figure, Kamandi and Ben meet a tribe of apes who worship an ancient artifact and have a series of tests to rediscover the 'Mighty One.' The tests are more like a competition, and Kamandi pushes Ben into trying out; even though one of the tests is to be launched by a catapult. The apes had not had a lot of luck yet with that one, but kept trying. They still had the Mighty One's uniform, and after winning it (after a fashion...) Ben decrees it should be held until that hero's return. (This story puts Kamandi in DC continuity, unless you argue the apes were worshiping a movie prop.)

Fun and fast moving, these are great stories. I'm mildly surprised DC hasn't tried for a stand-alone Kamandi movie. Step one: hire some Twilight-style teenage hunk that's willing to go shirtless the whole movie. Step two: Uh, special effects, or something. Step three: Profit! Seriously, it's like Kamandi was allergic to shirts or something.
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Luke and Icarius, BFF's.

Sometimes, the simple act of buying two figures on the same day is enough to link them in my mind. Like these two! The new Star Wars Black series Luke Skywalker and the 2011 Masters of the Universe Classics Icarius, or Flipshot.

Luke is in six-inch scale, but more normally proportioned than a super-hero action figure, so he seems more slight. And then compared to Icarius, who's on a He-Man style body, well...

I think Luke will probably be OK, though.

I'm pretty definitely going to cherry-pick on the Star Wars Black figures, but so far? Great! He's going to be a strong contender for figure of the year on a lot of people's lists, and while I don't know if Hasbro is going to get deep into the roster--like every creature in the cantina or anything--I think the 6-inch line is going to do well. I really want to dig up those old Force Battler figures I have, but I suspect the Chewbacca and the Darth Vader will just tower over this Luke. (I really like those figures, too.)

Bonus: that last picture, so Luke could be reasonably close to Adora's height: he's standing on my DVD remote.

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That Batman '66 figure set may not be worth it...

...without an Ambush Bug figure to go in the window. (Cover from 1990's Secret Origins #48 by Kevin Maguire and Al Gordon.)

I haven't seen the Batman '66 Batman and Robin wall climb set, or the Batmobile; but I did watch the video reviews over at Pixel Dan's. (I don't usually watch video reviews, but saw these over at It's All True and had a minute at home.) Best guess: the set and the Batmobile are OK, if not pretty good figures, perhaps a bit overpriced since Mattel knows they can get a bit more for this license; but a lot of fans are still going to be disappointed because they've been waiting decades for toys of this Batman, and they're mass-market good, not like Hot Toys good. I'm still looking forward to them, though; but I don't think Batman and Robin will be as good as another highly anticipated figure I got last week, that we'll see tomorrow...

Oh, and if you see Secret Origins #48, grab it. Keith Giffen and Robert Fleming's Ambush Bug 'origin' would be worth it alone, but there's also Stanley and His Monster, Rex the Wonder Dog, and the Trigger Twins! The series was winding down at this point--can't have Batman's origin every month--so they seemed to take the opportunity to use characters that were a little less mainstream.


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Aliens vs. Ninjas vs. Sound Engineers. Wait a second...

I picked this series up for a buck an issue, but I may have been thinking of another one when I did: from 1994, Aliens: Music of the Spears, written by Chet Williamson, pencils by Tim Hamilton, inks by Timothy Bradstreet.

The series opens with a team of ninjas attacking a secure corporate facility, in a curious act of industrial espionage, to harvest an Alien facehugger egg. It's part of a convoluted plan that leads back to frustrated musician Damon Eddington, who wants the sound of an Alien for his compositions. His employer at Synsound backs Damon's request for his own ulterior motives, namely getting back at a rival corporation's executive that stole his boss's mistress. Damon records every note he can, from the Alien embryo bursting from the chest of a deluded cultist, to the Alien stalking and killing the homeless victims fed to it; but he hasn't quite found the perfect sound yet, nor are the egg's former owners finished looking for it...

As mentioned on previous Aliens posts, this story is set further on in timeline than seen in the movies: by this point, while the Aliens (or Xenomorphs or whatever) are by no means domesticated, they are on occasion harvested for the Alien Queen's royal jelly, which has different effects depending on how it's processed, or the whims of the writer. This time, it's the people's drug of choice, apparently more common and easier to get than any other. The humans have also figured out that the Aliens aren't all one big happy hive, either: a harnessed warrior called "Ol' Blue" is pressed into service as a bloodhound, but hates any hive not his own.

Not my favorite Aliens story, but certainly not unreadable either, if you're a fan who's read a few. This series is very much about sound, though; and that may or may not work for you: I often think comics about music work about as well as, I don't know, songs about fuzziness or something. But again, if you've followed Aliens for a while...you probably can hear it, can't you?
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"Just add aliens" isn't the worst plotting advice ever, I guess...

My girlfriend and I watch Falling Skies together--in fact, it's one of the few shows we do watch together. But as of yet, we haven't watched the third season finale that aired a week or two back, for reasons that are somewhat unclear to me. "Once we watch it, it's over!" was one answer. The other being, she may be worried that Falling Skies season finales have traditionally been a little weak. The first year ends with the new alien overlords revealed, and Noah Wyle's character surrenders to them...the why of the latter I don't recall, except that they needed a cliffhanger to go out on. Year two, new aliens show up, and they turn out to be fighting the earlier alien overlords. Her money seems to be on more aliens showing up, quite possibly out of nowhere in particular. Just like in today's book!

From 1992, Excalibur #47, "Come One and All to the Ugly Bug-Eyed Monster Ball" Story and art by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer. Davis is more well known as an artist, but is not too shabby a writer, either: his first eight issues writing and drawing Excalibur wrapped a ton of loose ends and red herrings (his own and other writers) from the entire run of the book to date.

More and more mysterious occurrences and alien arrivals keep piling up in the basement of the team's lighthouse, opening this issue with the newly arrived Cerise fighting Nightcrawler's N-Men. (The N-Men are the aliens formerly known as the Technet, an amusingly slapstick batch of mercenaries currently exiled on earth and trained by Nightcrawler to keep them out of trouble.) After their Marvel-misunderstanding rumble wraps up, yet another team of aliens arrive, to offer the N-Men a contract, and after some negotiation they accept. A selling point in that negotiation may have been that the aliens' psychic member has an alarming prediction:

Also this issue: on Otherworld, Captain Britain gets a recap of most of the series to date, along with the Excalibur special that didn't really add up in continuity. Love this run: just read the first eight again the other day, and wish I'd the time for the rest.

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"Lost Face."

The other day, my girlfriend got me the Masters of the Universe Classics Faceless One figure. (She wanted to get me a figure for my birthday, so I said "that one!" Thanks sweetie!) And I picked up two others (that I won't name here yet...) at Big Lots, a discount chain that picked up some of Mattel's unsold backstock in that line. Which is either just Mattel clearing out some stuff, or a slap in the face to customers asked to subscribe to the line at $24 or so, plus shipping, a figure. Depending on who you ask...

It's probably not a big conspiracy on Mattel's part or anything, but they made a bit of a choice, to ask customers to front the money via subscriptions, to continue the line. They've done the same with their DC Universe Signature Collection or however they bill it now, and their Watchmen line. Even though I pick up a figure here or there (mostly through eBay...) I do not subscribe, mostly because I just want the figures I want, not necessarily all of them. Of course I say that, then grab every ten dollar figure I can lay hands on...

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