Worlds Collide

I know we don't usually talk about DC stuff on here, but thought this was interesting - the next Mortal Kombat game will be Mortal Kombat vs. DC. I guess Midway wanted to try their hand at something new, in the vein of the Marvel vs. Capcom series. Early word is there will be no fatalities but they will push the Teen rating as close to Mature as they can. Also, Superman's powers will be affected by travelling to this dimension so he'll be on par with the MK characters. The only confirmed characters so far are Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Batman and Superman. You gotta figure the DC mainstays will be in it. Check out the trailer below.

April 2008 Reads Part III.

Incredible Hercules #116 Let me start out by saying that I love this series. It's got everything; action, drama, witty-dialogue, comedy; I can't say enough about it. And this is coming from arguably the world's biggest Hercules hater. Even the recap pages are super funny. Just go out and buy it, you can thank me later. This one has the added bonus of The Eternals and a Celestial in San Francisco, so it has awesomeness written all over it. Next month; Herc assembles "The God Squad" to go and fight the Skrull Gods. I didn't know the Skrull's had Gods, but I'm already way too excited for that one. I really wish this series was bi-monthly. That would be awesome. If anyone has Joe Quesada's work phone, I'd appreciate it if you could forward that to me. I promise I'll only call him 79 times a day.

Wolverine: Origins #24: Bizarre start to this one, but it was also pretty funny. Of course when Deadpool is involved in the story, you kind of expect that to happen. Really interesting ending though, I think this storyline wraps up next month, and I think they finally reveal who contracted Deadpool to take Logan down. There was a lot of interesting psychological breakdown of both characters that kind of gave a new insight to each character. The thing that sucks is that obviously both of them make it out ok, because this story was set back in Logan's past (he was wearing his old brown costume that I always preferred) so the "shocking ending" really isn't that shocking, because you know Logan is going to be ok.

X-Factor #30: This one was pretty good, and that was mainly because I think there was only three panels that actually showed Arcade, and I think he only spoke in one. So, that's actually a bonus whenever there's a story featuring Arcade as the villain; the less of him you see or hear, the better. Longshot still has yet to make an appearance, I'm thinking that Mojo is involved with Arcade somehow and that's how Longshot gets involved. Or I could be totally wrong. I guess we'll find out next month. In a twist ending, Mutant Town is probably not going to be the same ever again. Spoiler: it's gonna get blowed up. Since this series mainly revolves around Mutant Town, I'm curious to see where this series goes.

X-Men: Divided We Stand #1: This was an interesting book, it contained about four or five different stories about certain characters and what they are up to since the end of the of the Messiah Complex. It was interesting, but I don't know if it was necessary and I really don't think it was worth an extra dollar to buy it. Oh well.

Tomorrow my list looks like: Hulk #3 (seems like it's been awhile since the last issue came out for some reason), Mighty Avengers #12 (I think another Skrull is revealed in this issue), Ms. Marvel #26, Uncanny X-Men #497, Wolverine: First Class #2, and X-Force #3. Wow, that's a lot. I'm also thinking of buying; Hulk vs. Hercules: When Titans Clash, and New Exiles #5. I'm going to flip through both of them off the rack and make a decision.

Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Deadpool!

Marvel released an article about the new Deadpool series. I'm already adding it to my buy list. I found the part where he talks about Deadpool's role in the Secret Invasion to be very interesting. Very cryptic, but very interesting. Marvel is also releasing a Classic Deadpool Trade tomorrow. So it's good to see that they're not dumping the character and that they're actually backing him in another solo series.

Take 10: Rivalries.

Marvel has an article on their site called Take 10: Rivalries. So, Daredevil came in at #5 AND #6. Blasphemy. And the FF vs. Doctor Doom should have been higher.

Marvel also released an interview with Chris Weston about The Twelve. I love The Twelve and it's an interesting look at where the series is going.

Awful Comic O' The Week

Inter-company crossovers tend to suck for a number of reasons. Mostly, it's because the heroes never really fight each other. There's some misunderstanding, they scuffle for a few minutes and then team up against - who else - a pair of their arch-enemies that are also teaming up!

Luckily I picked this one up at the library for free because six bucks for this is about $7.00 too much. It had some real potential - Batman and Captain America are both strong characters, and while I'm not a huge fan, John Byrne knows his way around comics.

For starters, this book is incredibly campy and I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. It's set during the 1940s when Cap is fighting in WWII so that leads me to believe it's done in the style of comics when Batman and Cap first started showing up. Even then, it's a lame story. As mentioned, Bruce Wayne and Steve Rogers scuffle for a few panels, then figure out each other's secret identity and team up against The Joker who is also teaming up with - you guessed it - The Red Skull!

The storyline is so simple and so uninspired, it seems like Byrne just half assed his way through this whole thing. There are even a surprising number of panels with no backgrounds whatsoever. *sigh* I certainly don't expect much from intercompany crossovers, but this one has got to be at the top of the suck pile.

Update 4/16/08.

Marvel published an interesting interview with Marc Guggenheim about the new Young X-Men series. I thought it was pretty interesting because I really liked the first issue I'm liking what I'm hearing in this interview. He introduced a new character called "Ink" who's mutant power is that he can turn anything that he gets tattooed on his body into reality. I think it's a take-off on one of villains from that Elektra movie a few years ago. I never saw the movie, but I thought it was a pretty cool idea when I saw the trailer. Apparently, Ink is supposed to have a major role in the series, and I'm looking forward to see how they use him.

Another cool article is Galactus' Greatest Hits. We covered the What If version of the Trial of Reed Richards awhile back, and in hindsight, that didn't feature a whole lot of the world-eater, but I think that's the closest thing we've got to related content.

There was also a lot of Iron Man news (man, it's getting really tough to avoid Iron Man these days) and the Hulk's new movie poster. I wasn't too impressed with the Hulk poster, I thought they could have done a better job with it. It's kind of boring.

April 2008 Reads Part II.

Fantastic Four #556: I like this series, not a lot of people are saying nice things about this run, but I enjoy this book every month. It's not perfect, but then again, not a whole lot of comics are. The one kind of cheesy thing was that they teleported like half of the Marvel Universe to this new world they're building to deal with the security system (code named "Cap" and it's a huge Captain America robot). I thought that was a little gratuitous. I mean, I buy the book because it's about the Fantastic Four, not as reason to stick Wolverine and Iron Man in yet another comic. But besides that, I thought it was actually a pretty good book. Can't wait for next month's installment.

Kick-Ass #2: This one was surprisingly good. It came out a week or so ago, I just didn't pick it up until last week because I finally found where my comic shop keeps it (with the indie books). I flipped through it at the store and it looked interesting so I rolled the dice. It was pretty entertaining and it took significant steps from the first issue. I think I'm going to keep buying it. Does anyone know if this is a limited series or a regular series. I can't find any info about that on Marvel's site. They've had a lot of success lately with their one-off limited series (like The Twelve) so I hope this has an ending and won't get canceled out of the blue and we're left with a hanging storyline. Because Marvel would never do that, right?

New Avengers #38-39: I decided to take the plunge and bought the last issue that came out as well as the issue before it. These two were interesting, the first one has to do with Luke Cage and his baby-mamma drama, and the second one focuses on Echo. It also introduces the new Condo that they're going to be living in because they're still on the run. I actually liked the two issues I read, so I've got high hopes for this one and I will keep buying it. It seems like it's got a lot going on though, so I'm going to try and find some back-issues on eBay. I've had some pretty bad luck with eBay lately, so hopefully I can find a reputable seller.

I do have one interesting observation, and that is; what the hell is Wolverine's costume budget? He fought against the X-Men Skrull in the last issue (who was posing as Daredevil) and within five seconds of fighting him, Wolvie's costume got shredded. This reminds me of Uncanny X-men #200-220 run, where he pretty much had a brand-new costume every issue because he was tearing through them at an alarming rate. I mean, over time, that's gotta add up, right? Cuz that's a lot of spandex. Has it ever been explained where he gets money for costumes and other expenses? And he's all over the world too, those flights have to be expensive. I'm just sayin'; it's never explained how he pays for all of this stuff. Does he have a bank account from like the 1890's and he just lives off of the compound interest? What's the deal? And Professor X; was it ever explained how he got his money and how much he has? Because if you think back to how many times the Mansion has been blown up and rebuilt, that's a lot of money right there. And av-gas/maintenance for the Blackbird can't be cheap either. I know I'm talking about comic book characters, but seriously, someone has some 'splainin to do.

Wolverine #64: This one was good, but it seemed like a filler issue. In fact, after I finished reading it, I was starting to think that this whole storyline is filler. The flashbacks are cool and all, but they don't really relate to the real-time story. I guess we're finally going to see Wolvie and Mystique go toe-to-toe in the next issue, and my question is; why couldn't we have seen that in the first issue of this story-arc? The last three issues have been a giant chase with Mystique escaping each time. It feels like I've read the same story three times in a row. This one had an interesting Logan using an interesting infiltration technique to get into the Army base where Mystique was posing as General or Senator or something, but that was about it. This next issue has a lot to make up for in my opinion.


Tomorrow, I plan on buying Incredible Hercules #116 (can't wait to read that one), Wolverine Origins #24, X-Factor #30 (Featuring...Arcade. Good God.) and X-Men: Divided We Stand #1.