It's the end of the year and everyone likes "best of" and "top ten" lists, right? Well, Marvel has put up two articles, The Top Ten Villains of 2007 and The Best Moments of 2007. ::UPDATE:: They also added a Top Ten Heroes of 2007.
Thunderbolts One Shot: Breaking Point: I decided to give this one a spin because I want to start collecting The Thunderbolts series, starting with #118, which comes out on Friday. I was pretty impressed with this one-shot though, and I'm excited to start reading the series. This book was really well written, the art was great and it had the perfect balance of fighting, talking and character development. For a first-time reader, I was interested and was left wanting more. So it's a good thing the next issue comes out this week. I am totally psyched. Just about the only bad thing I have to say about this issue is that they used the font Crackhouse for the title of the one-shot. Seriously, Marvel? What is this, 1997? C'mon, either pick a different distressed font, or better yet, make your own. It's really not that hard.
House of M: Avengers #3 This series continues to get better and better with each issue. The Punisher really changed the whole series by switching sides. The story is great, the art is great, I love the cover art (by Mike Perkins) and I like the characters they chose for this version of the Avengers. I'm a Luke Cage fan, and he's front and center in this series.
You know this ad. It's a classic. This one I believe was updated for the '90s because I think I scanned it in when I was doing that X-Force comic review and forgot that I uploaded it. It even has a website address. Things I love about this ad: The Blue Ribbon for "World's Most Perfectly Developed Man", and the check boxes for how to develop different muscle groups, with "Success With Girls" and "Magnetic Personality" thrown in at the end. Does anyone know if Mr. Atlas is still alive?
UPDATE #2: I bought a random collection of 100 old comics on eBay for like twenty bucks and they came yesterday. So I was reading Marvel Super-Heroes #35 (which I think just reprinted old Hulk and Sub-Mariner comics, but they never list the original comics that they reprinted) and on the very last page, I came across this original Charles Atlas ad, so I thought I'd scan it in and post it. You can see that some of the illustrations were redone in the 90's ad, but overall, it's still the same ad. This ad was published in 1972, presumably right before the real Mr. Atlas died. I thought it was a strange occurrence, that I found this one after writing about it a couple of days ago, and that this one was published right before his death. Pretty trippy.
Mighty Avengers #6: This one finishes up the first story arc of the series. Tony Stark has been "killed", or more accurately, he is absorbed into his armor, which is then taken over by a female version of Ultron. Is it me, or is everyone else tired of Ultron stories? He should be totally unstoppable, yet every time he makes an appearance, he dominates for a comic or two, then is defeated, only to escape annihilation to return in a year or two to cause more havoc. He's basically a less annoying robot version of Arcade (obviously, in my book Ultron is infinitely better than Arcade because he is a super-intelligent robot). Anyways, I hope I'm not spoiling this for anyone, but the Avengers defeat Ultron and are somehow able to revive Tony Stark. Like you couldn't see that coming. I mean, if Stark were to die, it would basically wipe out the Initiative story line, as well as the whole Civil War crossover. So that would have been two years of work down the drain. I mean, you really didn't expect them to kill Iron Man right before the movie comes out, right? Basically, it was a story to showcase the other members of the team, and I actually enjoyed it. It has the right amount of words, comic relief and smashy-smashy that most people are looking for in a comic. I'm in for some more.
Exiles #100: This one was pretty disappointing. I've been out of the game for awhile and I have heard great things about The Exiles series. However, this was the last issue of the series, and it was basically wrapping everything up. So it was kind of a bad place for me to start. The story itself kind of seemed like a back-up story and there were a lot of flashbacks involved. Basically, some people left, the series is going to get rebooted and life goes on. I am interested in the new series and will probably try and pick it up. The other series that I have heard good things about is the Thunderbolts, and I am going to pick up the new issue (#118) next week. I've been looking for back-issues on eBay, but they're pretty expensive. Getting back to the Exiles, I am going to pick up the new series, but it will be on a pretty tight leash. If I'm not knocked-out within the first couple of issues, I'm going to pull the plug.
Fantastic Four #548-550: I went back and bought some back-issues to check the series out because I enjoyed the current story arc (#551-552). I was never a real big fan of the FF, but I'm giving them a chance now. This story arc, well, it's just ok. It features The Wizard as the main bad guy and Storm and The Black Panter as friends/ex-members of the FF (they stepped in after the Civil War crossover when Sue and Reed went on a second honeymoon to "work on their marriage"). The Wizard is kind of a lame villain in my opinion, so maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it as much as the current arc (which features time-travel and Dr. Doom, which are two of my favorite things). I'm still going to give them some more run though, it looks promising.
New X-Men #45: Messiah Complex Chapter 8: The reason I really hate crossovers is that now I have to figure out where to put a couple of issues of New X-Men and X-Factor in my collection. Where do I stash them? I guess with the rest of my X-Book collection. That aside, this was a pretty weird issue. X-Force tracked down Cable and the mutant baby, who was already getting ambushed by Lady Deathstrike and the Purifiers. X-23 and Deathstrike go at it (which was actually pretty cool), Caliban gets shot in the chest protecting Warpath and then Wolverine runs after Cable, who backtracks to steal their Blackbird and is able to escape. You'd think Logan would leave a rear guar. I was a little shocked when Caliban was shot, because he is a favorite of mine, however, Caliban is featured on the cover to the first issue of X-Force, which comes out in February, so you figure that somehow he survives. I would say that not a whole lot happened in this issue and beside the X-23/Deathstrike fight, they probably could have left this out of the Messiah Complex Series and no one would have minded. The part of the story that deals with people in the future is frustrating, because it is taking forever to find out what happened. Of course it's probably the key to the series, so they're going to milk it for all it's worth, but it is still frustratingly slow at this point. Throw us a bone. The good thing is, X-Men and Uncanny X-Men are next up and then there's only one more issue of X-Factor and New X-Men to go before the big finale in X-Men #207.
Apparently, Marvel moved their new releases to Friday this week. I was all excited because today was new-release Wednesday, but then I checked my list and new stuff comes out on Friday. Oh well.
Heroes wrapped up its first second season story arc "Generations" and here I am with a late review. Creator Tim Kring has noted some of the missteps made so far this year, which is good. Hopefully he recognized it on its own, rather than from constant complaints of the fans. The finale was rather satisfying, although it leaves me with a new complaint about Elle and Adam.
Fantastic Four #552: I bought this on a whim and was pleasantly surprised. I even went back and bought the issue before this one because it's a three-part story. The main reason I bought it was because the cover was awesome and it passed the flip test (i.e. - there was a lot of action). Who doesn't want to see a Doctor Doom from the future battle it out with the Thing for five pages? I know I do. It was fun to see them beating the crap out of each other. Overall, it was very entertaining and left on a cliffhanger, so I'm in at least for another issue. I'll probably even buy a couple of issues after that to see what the next story arc is like. This was a really fun issue, like I said, I enjoyed it a lot.
House of M: Avengers: I bought the first two issues and can't wait for the third. When I was buying it, one of the owners of the store said that he was surprised by it and that he liked it. He also said that it was very "wordy" which is unlike most Marvel books. He also said he was a big Luke Cage fan. Basically, all of those reasons were exactly why I wanted to check this book out. It's set in the House of M storyline, and Luke Cage puts together a team of "sapiens" to fight injustices set upon the humans by the mutant community, because the the House of M Universe, humans are the minority. It's a very interesting idea, and it's about to get even more interesting when the Punisher enters the story on the side of the mutants. Thumbs up, check it out.
Mighty Avengers: Awhile back, I bought a run of X-Men comics and the dude threw in the first two issues of this series. So a couple of weeks ago, I bought the three issues I was missing to get up to speed. I might review the first issue, because there is a funny part that involves Iron Man and Ms. Marvel trying to talk Ares (aka: The God of War) into quitting his construction job and joining their new Avengers team. Ares has a sun to support, he needs steady pay, health insurance and a 401k. The series is pretty interesting, it makes use of a lot of thought balloons, which I thought died in the mid-90s. If you like the Avengers, I think you'll like this new spin on the team.
Moon Knight Annual #1: I was disappointed with this one, mainly because I've been reading the Moon Knight series and was really impressed by the early couple of issues, which were written by Charlie Huston and drawn by David Finch. They changed creative teams a couple of times, but I think Hudson is back to co-plot it, starting with issue #14. So I'm a little excited about that, because the first story arc was really, really good. This Annual, however, was pretty boring and didn't really add anything to the current storyline. The only thing it seemed to get across was that it reinforced Moon Knight's sole motivation: Vengeance. I was very disappointed.
Uncanny X-Men #493: I liked this issue a lot. I've been on the fence about this whole "Messiah Complex" crossover, but this is the issue that made me a fan. Especially the second to last page and the last page. I can't wait for that new X-Force series to begin in February. It's got some of my favorite characters involved. The other thing about this issue that won me over was Cyclops' character development as well as his relationship with Wolverine. I was never a big Cyclops fan, mainly because I thought he was an arrogant jerk and I thought the constant fighting between Cyke and Logan was annoying. Scott has finally settled into a major leadership role involving all of the X-Men teams, and Logan seems to be ok with his leadership, while Scott seems to listen to Wolvie's advice. It's a nice little departure from their previous long-standing relationship. More about Scott's leadership involving the X-Men in the next paragraph.X-Factor #26: I was excited about this because it was a continuation from the last Uncanny X-Men issue, and it basically is the first issue to feature the new X-Force. Basically the team is; lead by Wolverine, with Warpath, Wolfsbane, Hepzibah, Caliban and X-23 as team members. As I said in the last paragraph, I can't wait for their new series to launch in February, because I love the concept behind the team. So, back to Scott, one of the things I was reading about when the whole "Messiah Complex" was getting ready to launch was a quote from one of the editors that basically said that, "Cyclops will unify the X-Men in a way they haven’t been for years", and this was really evident in this issue of X-Factor. Scott and Professor X have an argument over Cyke's decision to form X-Force and to have them track down Cable. Scott ends up hinting at the fact that the Professor might have to leave if he doesn't stop questioning his decisions. He basically tells him to let him do what he trained him to do, which is lead. I really don't like the way Professor X has been treated/written in the last couple of years, but I do like the way Cyke has been handled. He has gone from one of the X-Men I hated the most, to one that I now at least can tolerate. Anyways, these two issues in a row (Uncanny X-Men #493 and X-Factor #26) were really, very good, and I hope the rest of the Messiah Complex lives up to the hype.
Wolverine #60: I wasn't overwhelmed by the story or the art, it seemed like a transition issue, it felt like it was setting things up for the next couple of issues. I'm intrigued, and I think I'll see where it goes. I bought the last ten issues on eBay because ::SPOILER ALERT:: Wolvie killed Sabertooth and I wanted to see how that was handled. Overall, it was just an ok issue, I'm interested to see where it goes. That's about it for now. Overall, I'm pretty excited to read comics again, there's a lot going on and there are some really great writers and artists working together right now. I don't think I've been this excited to go to a comic book store since the late 80s/early 90s.
And we're back. This was supposed to be the third part in my Arcade epic, but then I got busy with work and other stuff and didn't have any time to scan/write. Well, here it is in all it's glory.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers are trying to lure Lockheed away from his post of guarding the control board (see the panel to the right). Mr. Chambers gets burnt but Miss Locke turns on the charm and they escape off panel.
I have zero knowledge of the comic other than the basic premise, so I don't know how accurate this film is to the source. I still enjoyed it immensely. It's a dark and bloody movie - exactly what I'd expect out of vampires invading a town in Alaska where the sun doesn't shine for 30 days. Josh Hartnett and the always gorgeous Melissa George star as an estranged couple and leaders of the town's survivors. Most everyone bails on the town for the month, with only a handful of people sticking around.
One thing I loved is when they showed what day it is, so it's an establishing shot "Day 22 " and you see less and less people. You know they only have to hang on for 8 more days. Creepy. I wasn't sure about the ending right after I saw it, but given time, I think I like it. The end is a bit comic booky but it works. I highly recommend this flick.
I collected Avengers kind of off and on but I think this may go on record as the worst Avengers line up ever. First off, it's only five people. The Avengers should have at least 6-7 people 'cause you know people get their regular days off, so you have to have some flexibility in there. Secondly, two of the five people are members of the Fantastic Four. I don't buy the idea that you can be in two superhero groups at the same time. Certainly not high profile groups like the FF and the Avengers. Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman were kind of weak characters back then anyway. Thor is there, he's good. Steve Rogers is going under his The Captain alias at this point and rounding out Earth's Mightiest Heroes is...Gilgamesh, the Forgotten One! He was forgotten before he showed up and I guarantee he's been long since forgotten. Apparently he hasn't been seen in recent years and is presumed dead. Oh, and this just in...no one gives a crap anyway. This issue deals with the Inferno crossover which kind of creeped me out as a 11-year old nice Catholic boy. I think they righted the line-up a few issues later but for a while, this team sucked. The only way this team could have been a worse line up is if Starfox and Dr. Druid were on it.
What the hell was Marvel thinking accepting this as a submission? Before that even, what was Michael Golden even thinking when he drew this? Sure, Shadowcat hasn't had the best costumes but this?!! This is a design from the 1980s...I can't quite put into words what's going on here and why it sucks so much, but it clearly does. She looks like a french fry with random ketchup patterns on her. She looks like she lost a bet and had to have her costume designed by a mentally challenged third grader. Thank goodness Marvel didn't roll with this one.
So judging by the cover, you're thinking that this book is totally gonna kick some ass, right? I mean, it's got Doctor Doom, he's just destroyed the entire X-Men crew and he's doing his best Captain Morgan impression while holding Storm and standing on top of a defeated Colussus. Totally awesome cover. So right about now, you're asking yourself, "Tyler, how does this comic not suck?" Well, slow your roll there, compadre, because while this one does feature the X-Men's first clash with Victor Von Doom, it also features an appearance by Arcade.
So back at the ranch and after a quick briefing so that everyone is on the same page, the X-Men hop in the Blackbird and head over to Arcade's Murderworld. We find out that the reason why Doom is pissed at Arcade is because Arcade turned one of his castles into an amusement park. Yeah. Anyways, so the first team infiltrates the castle and Angel, NIghtcrawler, Collosus and Wolverine take out the cronies, while Storm calmly negotiates with Doom.
I've been threatening to write this post for awhile now, so I guess now is as good of a time as any to talk about the crapfactory that is Arcade. My personal first-hand introduction to the character occurred in approximately 1988, when I finally tracked down a backissue of X-Men #204, which had been a giant hole in my X-Men collection for a long time. When I finally bought a copy, I was severely disappointed. Months later, Arcade was featured in a couple of the early issues of Excalibur and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. God, I hate Arcade. He serves no purpose, other than to fill a back up story, which is used when they change creative teams or if they're behind on the production schedule and need a filler issue. Every time I would crack open an issue and see his stupid face and his stupid red hair, I would become immediately depressed that I just blew a $1 to $1.50 on a crappy comic. What a waste of newsprint.
The only thing that is remotely redeeming about an Arcade story is that you're pretty much guaranteed an appearance by Miss Locke. Wow, she was smokin' hot. I had a huge crush on her and would flip through pages of annoying dialogue just to get to a panel that featured her. A very underrated and underused character, in my opinion.
So the big news that Marvel announced on Thursday was that Captain America is back. No, they're not bringing Steve Rodgers back from the dead, there's going to be a new Cap with a new uniform. And from the sketches, it looks like he's going to be packin' some heat. I don't really know where I stand on the new uni yet, but I do know that I don't like my Captain American using a gat. I know it's kind of a throwback to the WWII era Cap, but I mean, that's pretty much why you people buy Punisher (or Cable) comics. Am I right? Cap's got the shield, he doesn't need to blast on people. And supposedly, the new Cap is going to be more conservative than the old, more liberal Cap was. Wait, didn't they already do this storyline way back inthe eighties when they fired Steve and replaced him with The Super Patriot (now U.S. Agent)? Man, sometimes comic books frustrate me...
Mavel released the first one sheet for the Iron Man movie. It's a teaser of Shellhead's helmet. Click on the picture off to the left to enlarge it. Again, I cannot wait for this movie to come out.
Marvel has announced casting for the Punisher sequel. It will be called, "Punisher: War Zone". Dominic West (from "The Wire") is set to play Jigsaw, T.J. Storm will portray Maginty, and Wayne Knight will serve as the Pun's sidekick, Microchip.
Ah, UXM issue 311. At one point, this issue held a special place in my heart. I just read it again ten minutes ago and I don't know why I always thought it was so badass, but let's take another look at it. This story takes place after the wedding of Cyclops and Jean Grey over in X-Men #25 and they have a little bit of downtime. The ever-annoying Jubliee is dying to go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show but Beast is busy fixing the X-Mansion's power core and Iceman is busy watching over Emma Frost. Meanwhile, Bishop is outside in the snow having some fond memories, talks to Storm and then throws a snowball at her as she flies away.
For some reason, Bishop decides to save the day. Dammit, Bishop. He comes in from the cold, uses what little bio-energy he has to blast Sabretooth through a wall which is pretty cool. He blasts him again in a page pretty much the same as the cover, then Sabretooth gets the advantage. Jubliee saves the day by finding a taser gun in the emergency locker. Damn you, emergency locker!!
Wow. It's been awhile since someone's updated this thing. Chris and I went to the L.A. Comic Con last Sunday and I came home with some loot. This is what I scored:
I understand first issues of a comic series are awkward. You have to introduce characters, an origin, some kind of conflict...but first issues from Image Comics were really awkward, like this one. Stryke Force was a spin-off of Marc Silvestri's Cyberforce. I believe the character Stryker was leader of both teams with Stryke Force designated for more dangerous, covert missions.
The mysterious and menacing villain is introduced with the notion that he "is a being comprised of pure evil." See, this is the vagueness because they haven't plotted. Here's the villain - we won't tell you anything about him, not even his name - all you need to know right now is he is pure evil. Wow, I didn't know they still made villains like that. Tremble now, puny human! I didn't scan this page in, but one of the villian's henchmen has to report some bad news and comments that the boss doesn't like bad news. And when he hears it, he offers the henchman a severance package - by severing his head! Bwahahahaha! Get it - "severance" package, "severing" heads! He really is pure evil.
The battle I never expected to see...Domino™! Vs. Shatterstar™! To tha def! Nineties comic awesomeness! A dead giveaway that this issue was produced in the Nineties book are all of the Trademarks on the cover. Marvel was really protective of their trademarks in the Nineties. To the point of obsession.
The scene then switches to an oil tanker floating off the coast of Mexico, where Domino is beating the crap of out some dude for no real reason. We then find out she's on a freelance mission. Her assignment is get next to a reclusive european crimelord, who just happens to be holding a cage-match style tournament to determine his new bodyguard. I am not making any of this up. I'm also not making up the fact that Arcade is the special guest MC/matchmaker. God I hate Arcade. I'll probably devote an entire post to my hatred of that character at some point.
So at the end of the story, we get to the dramatic, shocking, twist ending. Sam walks in on Boomer in a full on makeout session with his best friend, Sunspot! Dude, that is not cool! It turns out that they been seeing each other for awhile and Sam's not too happy about it. Tabitha decides to break up with him right there. Classy move right there. What a bitch. Sam is pissed and flies off and almost flies through Bobby when he tries to get in his way. I don't blame him, Bobby would have totally deserved it.
Image Comics: The Road to Independence by George Khoury
So I've been reading X-Force for the last couple of weeks (I think I'm currently on issue #50) and after reading the entire New Mutants run and I've gotta say, it's one of the most scattered books I've ever read.
The series was heavily criticized for it's violent content and it's overuse of firearms. For an example, see the picture to the right. I mean, there's just no way Cable can use all of that ammo and all of those guns. Ridiculous. Even though I swear they never really didn't do any damage with any of their guns. It was almost as bad as the A-Team. Cable and Domino would fire away endlessly and they would either miss, or whoever they hit would be powerful enough to absorb the shots without a problem. Also, I don't think they shot bullets, they were plasma guns, which I guess are better, but to be honest, I really don't know if they are or not.
Chris ran that post the other day about Shatterstar, so I thought I'd get some posts together about X-Force because I'm currently reading the title right now. I'll write a post with my first impressions in a few days, I"ve got a few observations, but they're probably observations that others have already brought up about the series.
*sigh* Oh, Shatterstar, Shatterstar. Why have they forsaken you? Here's a case of when good(ish) characters go wrong - Shatterstar. He started off with a gay white costume but was cool, then he got a badass costume and became gay. I mean gay as in lame, but also perhaps literally because we're still not sure about his orientation. He allegedly had had a fling with Rictor in the mountains. If he would have said, "I can't quit you, Rictor" that would have been awesome, but alas, the whole thing has never been confirmed. OR denied!
Here's a really cool link on Marvel's site about Jack Kirby. He would have been 90 years old yesterday.
So for the last couple of months, I've been watching Justice League Unlimited at 8pm on the Boom! Network. I think I've watched all of them and I think they're starting to replay the series again. It's pretty good, you should check it out if you get the chance. For example, check out the intro to the show, it's pretty rockin':
In another episode, Superman and Captain Marvel (aka: Shazam!) have a no holds bared brawl in the city and for about five minutes they trash entire city blocks. Superman would hit Captain Marvel and he'd go flying into a building and then the building would collapse on top of him. Then Captain Marvel would get up and punch Superman and he'd go flying into another building and it would collapse on top of him. They did this for about five minutes, I swear to God. It was getting ridiculous after awhile. Later, the rest of the founding members of the JLU were taking Superman to task and were scolding him for getting in such a destructive fight, and then one of them said something like, "You're lucky no one was hurt". What? They showed ENTIRE buildings getting destroyed, where were all of the people in those buildings? They're all out getting dinner? ALL of them? I don't think so. Personally, I don't think there's enough concrete and construction workers to keep up with the amount of rebuilding that has to take place on a daily basis. Metropolis has to have like .0000001% unemployment. Lose your job? Just go get a construction job. It's a union gig which means good pay and great benefits. I guess the Super Heroes help out with some of that, but they never show any of that. And they never show things like the Martian Manhunter writing checks to the city to pay for damages or talking to their lawyer or even filling out a duty roster. That's kind of boring stuff, but at least they could have made an effort there. They don't just beat the crap out of bad guys and robots all day. I'm just sayin'.
I watched this movie over the weekend for free thanks to my local library. Good thing, too, 'cause I would've been bummed if I actually bought it. I got the two Ultimate Avengers animated movies and those are decent but I didn't really care for this one. The animation is good, but I think they messed with Iron Man's origin a little too much.
Beware! It's Assistant Editor's Month. I guess that basically meant you weren't going to get your typical story and they were just going to do whatever the hell they felt like. This particular issue of Avengers features the first appearance of David Letterman. They could have just stopped right there, but they actually paid someone to come up with a script and do the art, so here's a recap:
Good ol' Fabian "Mechano Maruader" Stankowicz is out to start some shit, though. (No one was more surprised than me that he has his own Wikipedia entry.) First he sneaks into the building with the oh-so clever repairman / fake mustache disguise, then gets himself a seat in the audience.
In the end, it's Letterman himself that comes to the rescue of the Avengers and the studio audience. Stankowicz has clearly underestimated Letterman's ass-kicking ablities - while he and Dave are safe under his force field, he never suspects that Dave will knock him out cold - with a huge doorknob! I don't remember a giant doorknob being part of Dave's set but it serves its purpose. Dave swings at him and yells out, "It's clobberin' time!" Okay, not really, but that would have been dope. He gives him a ringer, then takes the battery pack and releases the force field. The Avengers have their shit together by this point and the crowd erupts for Dave's heroics. I'm kind of sad Paul Shaffer didn't get his ass kicked because if anyone deserves it, it's him.
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