Going from the Little Mermaid to Humanoids from the Deep here.

There was a stretch in Avengers when the Beast was a member, and he received significantly less hassle for being a mutant than some: seriously, I think he got less static than his teammate the Scarlet Witch. It may have been because he was approachable, cheery and likable. Not unlike Marrina in today's book, before she went completely monster: from 1986, Alpha Flight #40, "Love" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by David Ross, inks by Wilce (Whilce) Portacio.

Along with Puck, Marrina was introduced in Alpha Flight #1, and I wonder how much of this plotline was John Byrne's idea: although I had thought most people assumed she was a mutant, she was actually an alien, of a race called the Plodex. The Plodex's incubator ship should have left eggs enough to overwhelm earth's native life-forms with toothy monsters, except it landed during an ice age and most of the eggs were destroyed. Marrina's egg washed ashore centuries later, where it was found by a fisherman, and she hatched in an amphibious form. Later, the villain called the Master would reveal her origins: he had been a caveman, and not unlike DC's Vandal Savage, received immortality from the Plodex's ship. He also received the last Plodex egg, intended to be her mate.

Except her boyfriend might have something to say about that: none other than Namor, the Sub-Mariner! While Alpha Flight debates the morality of possibly having to kill Marrina, to keep the Plodex from reproducing and spreading monsters across the globe, Namor is willing to fight any and all comers for her. While he could sometimes--often--be a jerk, Namor is surprisingly noble here; especially since being drawn to her Plodex mate has cost Marrina her looks. Still, for Namor, and earth, Marrina renounces her Plodex heritage and genetics; and together with Alpha Flight they tear the mate apart. Finally, with Namor having renounced the throne of Atlantis, its former citizens still loyal accept him as their king, and Marrina as their queen, in their new undersea kingdom of Deluvia. Namor and Marrina are wed, and it's a happy ending...that would last maybe two years.

Marrina had been fortunate enough to be accepted by her adoptive parents, her team, Namor, and Canada at large if I'm not mistaken. If they had been jerks, earth would probably be up to its elbows in Plodex, and they looked pretty terrible. I couldn't say what happened to Deluvia, if it was just absorbed back into Atlantis, or something else; nor do I recall what happened with Namor and Marrina's marriage, since she's come back possibly more than once now. BTW, if you haven't seen Humanoids from the Deep; it's gross. From a sub-genre of rapey monsters...
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"Predestination."

I think it was still fairly new when Bishop did it, time-travelling on the old X-Men cartoon: Forge would send Bishop back in time, to stop domino 1 from falling and causing their nightmare future. Bishop would do so, come back, and the future would still be a nightmare, further aggravated by Forge now asking why he didn't stop domino 2 from falling. Bishop would go back, and sure enough, crappy future, way to drop the ball on domino 3, jerkhole. Short of removing a whole bunch of figurative dominoes at once, he's going to have a hard time changing anything.

That said, I have no idea what Marvel's rules on time-travel are now, post-Secret Wars. Perhaps rules should be in quotes there, I'm sure it's a crapshoot. Still, if a messenger from the future gave you detailed instructions on getting the future you wanted, as long as you didn't deviate from that plan in any way, no matter what; would anyone be able to do that? Few would be able to resist changing (or not changing, as needed) one little detail in there somewhere, and bam! Whole thing'd fall apart.
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Not pictured: tufts of grey fur sticking out of a latex mask.

There were a few go-to disguises in old Marvel comics, that in hindsight couldn't work. At all. Ever. Like Captain America wearing his shield on his back, under his shirt. Or Iron Man concealing his chestplate under his shirt. Or the Beast wearing a latex mask and wrapping himself in straps, under his shirt, like today's issue! From 1972, Amazing Adventures #14, "The Vampire Machine" Written by Steve Englehart, art by Tom Sutton.

Huh, I actually thought this was a reprint; but it's the original. This was the fourth issue of the Beast's new status after he accidentally mutated himself, although he wasn't quite the fuzzy, jovial blue Beast we'd see in Avengers: he was grey, hunched-over, and still trying to cover his appearance at his job at the Brand Corporation and with his girlfriend. Actually, Hank's girlfriend here may have been a spy or some kind of foreign agent; but I don't think he was the only one with relationship problems here. Patsy Walker appears here as Mrs. Buzz Baxter, her husband an air force major working security for Brand and trying to stop the mysterious Beast that kept showing up. "Military-man going totally Captain Ahab on the hero" was already a Marvel staple, but I don't think it took Buzz anywhere near as long to go bad (or wreck his marriage) as it did for Talbot or Ross over in Hulk.

Iron Man has a brief guest-spot; and the "vampire machine" of the title is the robot Quasimodo, the fugly computer. I think he had already rebuilt himself a couple of times at this point, and the sorry bastard may have gotten even uglier. Quasimodo had wanted to steal Beast's powers, which were gone, but weren't what you would think: Hank briefly had a healing factor. That's a silly power, it'd never catch on...
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I'm not even sure this was the first update to their origin...

...but it wasn't the last, either. From 1983, Adventure Comics #495, "Yesterday's Clues!" Written by Bob Rozakis, pencils by Alex Toth, inks by Frank Giacoia.

This was the third chapter in the "Secret Origin of the Challengers of the Unknown," and they weren't a team yet, just four guys that had miraculously survived a plane crash. But the plane crash had been the result of sabotage, which goes towards explaining how ace pilot Ace Morgan plowed into a mountain. Now the trouble was, they weren't exactly sure who the sabotage was meant for. Rocky Davis had been "cleared," the previous issue: the mobsters that had tried to fix his prizefight were mad, but that wasn't their hit. Ace had previously flown a load of explosives for gold miners in Alaska, and may have rubbed a tribe of Eskimos the wrong way. Ryan had recently crossed a South American wannabe dictator, and Professor Haley had an inheritance that a cousin was gunning for; but Ryan may have figured who the target was...

Tying their new origin to a "That's Incredible" style TV show dates it terribly; but along with the sabotage, there's also a bit of an update for Rocky: the boxer might play at being a palooka, but was actually reading War and Peace while waiting here.

The rest of this digest was reprints: two Legion of Super-Heroes stories, including 1962's "The Legion of Super-Traitors!", guest-starring the Legion of Super-Pets. From 1953, Captain Marvel Adventures #141, "The Man Without a World!" which is really, really close to the Justice League episode "In Blackest Night." From 1943's Adventure Comics #84 Sandman versus the "Crime Carnival!" Possibly one of the earliest of so many crime carnivals in comics...From 1968, the Spectre #2, "Die, Spectre, Again!" This was one of several Gardner Fox/Neal Adams stories I first read as tiny reprints. And from 1969, Aquaman #44, part of a pretty solid Steve Skeates/Jim Aparo serial.

For good measure, the GCD mentions: "This comic book appears in the movie "Dreamscape" (1984) starring Dennis Quaid and Kate Capshaw. The comic book (along with Arak, Son of Thunder #17) are lying on a coffee table about 11 minutes into the film." Man, I haven't seen that movie in years...
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Hey, it's not-Lego Nightcrawler, with his iconic...batwing death jetpack.

As seen in...something or other, I'd imagine.

If you search eBay for about ten seconds, you can find all kinds of faux-kinda-Lego minifigure superheroes, ranging from loose standards like Batman or Iron Man, to favorites that Lego hasn't gotten around to like Spawn or Hydra Captain America or the cast of X-Men: Apocalypse. (We saw the not-Lego Fantastic Four some years back, as well as a larger Thing figure.) I already had the Apocalypse Nightcrawler, but there was another set that came with the insane jetpack thing here. I think there were others from that movie, with equally ridiculous cobbled-together value adds; but a quick search just found the figures. Shipping may take a bit from overseas, but prices range from dirt cheap to cheap; although they may be non-non-toxic: probably not for littler little kids, I'd say.

The quality may vary: I've liked most of the ones I've bought, but I got the Wife not-Legos of the Scooby gang (from Scooby-Doo, not Buffy) and she hated them. She may yet be holding out for the licensed Lego versions, which may involve a couple of fair-sized sets. Search for a bit and see if you're not sucked in: I found a pretty decent looking classic red/halo costume Angel, Spider-Man Noir, Agent Venom and Spidey 2099! (EDIT: Original and new versions of Spidey 2099!) I think I might see another order in my future.
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So, the other day there was some internet scuffling over some comments made by some at Marvel that diversity had hurt sales. (To that effect, or the remarks were interpreted as such.) Which may not be strictly true: if a title like Red Wolf was a non-starter; well, so were Black Knight, Drax, and a bunch of others. And I actually read Drax: it wasn't bad. Maybe not four bucks an issue good, but not bad. Some like Tegan over at the Hurting think the perpetual crossover mill of Civil War II and X-Men vs. Inhumans are what killed sales; along with eroding sales of the Avengers and X-titles; but I think Marvel did something it did before in the 90's: flooded the market with so many titles, none of them could cut through the noise. But then, I'm just as eager to blame the Inhumans as anyone. I wish John Byrne had saved us from them when he had the chance, back in 1982's Fantastic Four #248, "Nightmare!" Story and art by John Byrne.(Good luck finding it in the GCD by title...)

I kid the Inhumans, a little; but I remember reading Fantastic Four #240 as a kid, and that was the issue where Black Bolt and the Inhumans moved their entire city, Attilan, from the Himalayas to the Blue Area of the Moon. The Majesty of Moving, in the Mighty Marvel Manner! It might've been the first comic I ever read without a villain getting punched in the face. This issue, while Triton explores the watery caverns deep within the moon, and finds a mysterious crystal; it's a celebration in Attilan. The FF had come, their first visit to the Inhumans' new home, for the naming ceremony of Crystal and Quicksilver's daughter, Luna. This would mercifully be interrupted by the moon getting yanked out of orbit, in fact, out of the solar system!

While Ben drops a Space: 1999 reference, Reed is already furrow-browed over the science of this. When a colossal spaceship then takes the moon, that's even harder for him to process: the ship would've taken "all the raw materials of a dozen stellar systems." Johnny recons, and finds the moon is starting to crumble like sand in the gravity of the ship, while Black Bolt leads the rest of the FF to a mothballed Kree spaceship, which they take to explore the mammoth vessel. Reed's initial analysis is that it must be an automated ship, since the surfaces were too smooth: giants would presumably require giant-sized buttons and knobs and such. Or maybe touchscreens, Reed.

The giant alien, estimated at five thousand miles tall, incidentally destroys Attilan in his examination of the moon. As the Torch arrives, the scientific inaccuracy continues to eat at Reed: not only could the Torch have never flown a hundred thousand miles himself, but the alien should be too heavy for his legs to support him, according to the square/cube law. The surviving Inhumans attack the giant in Kree ships, which Reed notes they shouldn't be able to see at this distance; and Black Bolt calls them off, even though his voice should've caused mass destruction. The alien gasses his tiny pests, and the Torch attacks but is quickly swatted to his death. As the Thing is dropped to a five-thousand-mile fall, the gas eats through the Invisible Woman's force field--and her, dissolving her before her husband's eyes! That last one may be scientifically accurate, but still gets a mighty "NO!" from Reed; momentarily breaking the effect and giving Triton the opportunity to smash the crystal that caused all their nightmares.

If the nightmare had been more accurate, it may have been more convincing for Reed. Now I'm wondering if most regular comics are accurate enough for him to believe it. This would've been Byrne's second visit to the Inhumans within a year, offhand I'm not sure he went back again.

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"Arrow."

I'm pretty sure Kurt pulls a DCUC Green Arrow arrow outta Pool's head there. Ah, close enough. In old Guardians of the Galaxy comics, Yondu had to shoot the arrows, then steer them by whistling, but I don't think we saw the level of carnage he gets up to in the movie.
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I have just enough of these that it's become an issue. So to speak.

Among the various sales and clearances I hit up, I've managed to get a few of the variant covers for Deadpool's Secret Comic Variant, which ran as you might have guessed, as variant covers over the course of 25 issues. And they weren't all on GCD, so I had to upload this one: from 2016, Deadpool #11, variant cover written by Gerry Duggan, art by Scott Koblish.

After a meeting with Odin goes badly, Deadpool gets banished into the Coververse, where he meets...ugh...UPC-PO. In their attempt to escape, they travel through time and end up on some of Marvel's most iconic covers. And Thor #372. Luckily, you can read the whole silly story over at ComicBooked.com, and a second "issue" has started. Still, I think I have the Nick Fury/Scorpio variant, where they declare "truce" to shoot at Deadpool; the version from ComicBooked.com didn't have the dialog! Oh, here it is:

So, I have at least #10, #11, and #14. Meanwhile, on the insides of those books, Deadpool goes after Sabretooth for killing his parents, even though Sabretooth is now a "good" guy thanks to Axis, and he didn't do it, Deadpool did. And in #14, the Mercs for Money get fed up with Deadpool's glory-hogging and paycheck-bouncing, and opt to go into business for themselves. Or Cable, either or. Cable is surprisingly funny here, as he asks the Mercs if they've never seen cash before, and explains his financial planning: go back in time and open an account, let the interest pile up, repeat as necessary.
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That seems slightly more suggestive than I'd realized.

I've never been big on "decompression" in comics: the trend of basically taking maybe two good issues worth of plot and stretching them into six issues for the trade. But today's book feels like six issues crammed into one! From 1990, Uncanny X-Men #269, "Rogue Redux" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Jim Lee, inks by Art Thibert.

Rogue had been missing in action for about a year, sucked into the deus ex machina er, Siege Perilous, with the Master Mold in Uncanny X-Men #247. (Most of the rest of the team would willingly enter the Siege later, in an attempt to move on to new lives, or some damn thing that didn't work at all; but basically wrote the characters out until Claremont wanted to come back to them!) Even though her body is seemingly torn apart and reassembled, she comes back...in her room, in Australia. Even Rogue finds that anti-climatic, but she may have jumped the gun. Somebody's using her room, the TV news announces the deaths of Mystique and Destiny (one would stick, the other wouldn't!) and oh yeah, her flight and invulnerability powers are gone, the X-Men are also gone, and the mutant-hating cyborg Reavers have retaken their town!

Reaver Bonebreaker must've had some kind of cyborg exposition pack installed there. Rogue is saved by the surprising return of Ms. Marvel--sort of. Years ago, when Rogue fought her, she stole her powers and memories; this was the Ms. Marvel that lived in her head given form. Wanting to be quits with that, Rogue runs to the mutant teleporter Gateway, borrows his powers, and bails. This time, Rogue ends up in the Savage Land, and not only manages to go the whole issue without seeing Ka-Zar, but she seems to have possibly the most pleasant stay there of anyone ever. It's a journey of adventure and self-discovery; although Claremont does mention "the sun doesn't rise for half the year, doesn't set for the other" and I don't think that would work. The jungle plants couldn't survive six months of darkness. Right, that's the unrealistic thing about a jungle full of dinosaurs in Antarctica. Anyway, Rogue got the better end of that deal: faux-Ms. Marvel lands on Muir Island, where the Shadow King takes her over.

Rogue finds the village of the X-Men's Savage Land friends destroyed, and has about a 30-second pity party over that and the deaths of everyone else; but has just about bucked back up when Ms. Marvel sucker punches her. (She's also being monitored by someone high-tech, but we don't see who here.) Appearing as a rotting corspe, Marvel tells Rogue they don't have enough life force for the two of them; but Rogue is unwilling to kill her. Still, the Shadow King's control plus her already-pretty-strong dislike of Rogue, gives Ms. Marvel the edge, and she nearly drains Rogue dry before being struck down from behind...by Magneto! Who uses some lab stuff to fix Rogue, and make a dramatic appearance that was totally spoiled on the cover.

This is peak Claremont, Lee just hitting his stride as a penciller, and yay, Art Thibert! (He had done some Warlord art before, so I recognized his name!) It's an issue jam-fatty-packed full; if slightly derailed since the next issue wouldn't follow up on Rogue or Magneto, but would be the first part of the X-Tinction Agenda crossover, which I surprisingly don't think I ever read. Still, I think Claremont wanted to return to Rogue after her being out for a bit, and had so much stuff he wanted to do. The bit about Rogue's walkabout-quest I felt he had used before though, for Karma in New Mutants Special Edition. And Storm may have done a bit of that in Lifedeath 2 maybe. It was a theme, we'll say.
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If you have to move the entire moon to beat Mirror Master, I don't know what you'll do against Darkseid.

My Wife keeps what she calls the "apocalypse closet," where she stocks emergency food like those freeze-dried bucket things. She also keeps regular food in there, but it set a good example for me, since I used to keep maybe a day's worth of food in the house at any given time. I don't have the full-on closet she does, but my pantry does have some back-up to it now. Like a ton of cereal, mostly bought for the prizes. Like today's book! From a box of Lucky Charms, General Mills Presents Justice League #2, "Dark Reflections" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Bob Wiacek and Scott Hanna.

If you eat a bit of cereal, you might've seen these little giveaway comics; which probably had a better print run than anything you'll find in the comic shop on Wednesday. This was the second of four, but the last one I found, and yeah, I probably have at least two each of the rest. Although they featured a large JL roster (including two Green Lanterns, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz) each issue focused on one of the big names: Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and this issue was Batman. And despite a pretty solid creative team, there's a couple of missteps: one is an extended flashback to Bruce Wayne's childhood, when he has to confess to his mom that he got in a fight at school. (They called him "Richie Rich"!) That wouldn't be so bad, except young Bruce, despite still having parents, pulls a very Batman move by luring his bullies into a trap, then apparently walloping them in the dark. (I'd argue that Bruce was utterly normal before his parents' death; that seemed too competent and too dark there.)

Then, the villain of the piece is Mirror Master. Flash calls him a metahuman, rather than a crook with a gimmick, although Batman refers to him as such. I don't know if that was a New 52 change. MM maneuvers Flash into super-charging his "mirror matrix," and now alternate earth villains are pouring out of reflective surfaces all over the place. Batman, thinking back to his mom's advice, jumps to the solution of removing the mirror villains' need to fight, by removing their reflections, by forcing a solar eclipse to eliminate the daylight? Supes and the GL's move the moon, the reflections disappear, and Flash dismantles the Mirror Master's machine. I can't help but think moving the moon around all willy-nilly probably wasn't a good idea: couldn't the GL's have just blocked the sunlight with their rings? Not as dramatic, I admit.

So much cereal...and I was supposed to be going lower-carb, too. (EDIT: Per the Wife, it's the "'pocalypse closet." She was very insistent I let you know!)


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Wow, automation does cost jobs.

One Replicus takes the job of two mobsters, in today's book: from 1974, Marvel Spectacular #12, reprinting Thor #141, "The Wrath of Replicus!" Written by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Vince Colletta.

This issue, mobster Slugger Sykes uses the robot Replicus of mad scientist Chuda (no title, only one name, like Cher) for a crime spree so bad it attracts the attention of Thor. Actually, Dr. Donald Blake had been treating the elderly flower merchant Granny Gardenia, who was Sykes' mother, in a plot that was pretty hackneyed well before this story. Thor has a pretty good slugfest going with Replicus, when Sykes realizes Chuda was actually an alien intent on using an army of Replicuses to take over, and Sykes blows them both up.

Not a great lead story, but the back-up this issue is "The Meaning of Ragnarok!" (Lee/Kirby/Colletta, from Thor #127.) It's only five pages of Ragnaroking goodness, but well worth the price of admission. Now, do I have the conclusion anywhere...yes, in the 2001 Thor #32 100-Page Monster!

Was this the first Ragnarok in Thor? As a back-up? Well, it wouldn't be the last time, anyway.

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"Spindle."

For the time being anyway, this is the last strip with Misty Knight; partly because her wobbly knee made her a bit of trouble to shoot, partly because it was too crowded. Valkyrie and Thundra are probably around somewhere...

I don't know if Spidey 2099 has run into the Black Cat yet: it's mildly surprising there wasn't a Black Cat 2099, for that matter. Well, Peter David only had a few of those: I remember Vulture and Venom and Green Goblin 2099 from the first series; there may have been some more since then. Anyway, Marvel does seem to be big on punishing for future crimes, if Civil War II is any indication...
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