I'm Sick, Y'All

So I'm sick.

As such, I can barely concentrate enough to write this, I don't know, apology for not being able to post anything for a few days. My head is swimming in pain and I need to lie down. Lay me down. Lye down? Argh!

I was all set to post about the Ultra-Humanite showing up in Justice League and Blue Beetle in two different bodies and Firestorm's cancellation, and maybe even when Crimson Avenger shot Ultra-Humanite in the brain. But alas, that has to wait for healthier days. Hope I'm better by Friday. Pray for me.

Anyway, I leave you with this:

Damn right he is.

And There Are Two Things Wrong With This Picture

I'll give you the first one. Batman is supposed to have a bat on his chest, not a stingray.

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I made this after reading Chris's Invincible Super-Blog. It's quite tasteless.

52:Week Fifty-One

I'm just going to go on the record saying I liked 52 as a experiment and an anthology of stories. It would have been better to not have been reminded that it was supposed to touch upon on the One Year Later changes, but World War III aside, it was worth the money. As far as Week Fifty-One is concerned,

It ruled.

Montoya's and Black Adam's stories pretty much concluded weeks past and now we get the end of the story for the space heroes. Adam Strange gets something he's been needing for about a year now, only the updated version. Lobo finally brings the Emerald Eye of Ekron to the Triple Fish whatever, and gets released from his nonviolence oath. And Buddy,

Well, let's say Morrison is good to his friends. I hope the guy in the robe lives there. If not, get some clothes on, old man! And Starfire keeps her word.

The main shock of this issue has to be the evil in Skeets and what 52 means for at least three of the characters in this series. Maybe even Ambush Bug, too.

My favorite part of this issue must have came from Geoff Johns, though.

Anyway, really great series and I'm on the edge of that thing you sit in for the finale, or the prologue of Countdown, however you want to see it. Countdown may top 52, if only for the fact it features one of the greatest comic creations ever:

Comic Geek Runs In The Blood

I'm not the only one in my family interested in comics. That trait is ingrained. Here's a picture my brother, Brian drew when I was five and he, seven.

Just as a breakdown, our favorite characters are as follows:

Ma:

Dad:

Clayton:

Brian:

The Nigh Invulnerable Jon Hex:

Discrepancies: My Continuing Battle With 52

So, I now find myself going through not only World War III, but 52 as well to find where the story pretty much goes round the bend. Which brings us to Nightwing.

Being caught up with the kinetic storytelling of 52, I didn't see the irregularities until I read WWIII and the reasoning behind it. The writers forgot to deal with the changes of One Year Later that 52 was supposed to address. But one of the things you'd think the writers would keep in mind was that at the end of Infinite Crisis, Batman, Robin and Nightwing went on a world tour to get back on track after Batman's meltdown. In Nightwing: OYL, Dick Grayson moves to New York to restart his Nightwing career after a long absence.

Now, I don't have the issue in front of me, because I buried it somewhere. It's godawful. But in continuity. Anyway, Grayson's kind of whiny about not being in the game for awhile and not being in prime shape.

But is a month really that long a time?

Unlike Bruce and Tim (Bruce Timm, weird), Nightwing almost immediately came back to Gotham and was in active duty up until Week Forty-Eight. So besides not having enough downtime as the headliners of the Bat-Family, what the hell could he complain about in Nightwing: OYL? He should have still been at the top of his game.

Hey, What Happened to Crazy Drugs?

Now I'm really confused.

Okay, so Batgirl takes down Shiva before the events of Infinite Crisis. With Shiva out of the way, the League of Assassins have no leader (what with Ra's and his oldest being dead, and Talia raising Damien and running LexCorp (wait, isn't Lex running LexCorp? When did he take it back?)), but that's not when Cassandra takes over because she's still out as Batgirl two weeks before the events in Robin: OYL.

In The Titans East storyline of Teen Titans, Deathstroke reveal(implie)s he has control over Batgirl, thanks to his specialty drugs like the kind he used on Rose and may have taken recreationally with Terra. She was quite the minx, for jailbait that is. Anyway, here's where WWIII screws up everything.

If Batgirl was talked into betraying the Batman Family, why did the Deathstroke drug antidote make her change back to the light side?

If Batgirl was drugged into betraying the Batman Family, why does Deathstroke do the whole devil-on-your-shoulder speech in WWIII?

How does Batgirl have to the time take total control over the League of Assassins and set up Robin in the two weeks before Robin returns to Gotham?

How can no one pick up on how this fucks up this whole character arc?

And wait, when the hell did Kid Devil and Ravager join the Titans when they weren't there two weeks before? Who was on the team when they got there, because this is what drives off Raven and Beast Boy apparently, yet no one else on the team that fought Black Adam stayed?

Damn, DC, now that I think about it, 52 failed miserably.

Hey, DC, You Remember Tad Williams?

I don't know if I can do a whole week of how World War III misfired but I certainly know what I'll be talking about today.

When DC gave the reins of Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis to Tad Williams after Kurt Busiek's sword-&-water run, one of the first things Williams(from now on, I'm calling him Tad, because I don't get to say 'Tad' that often) did was starting reconnecting Aquaman to the rest of the DCU. Busiek kind of did in Action Comics when the aliens were selling our planet on eBay, but Tad had delegates from the most interesting new DC city come to Atlantis. Of course, I'm talking about Sub Diego.

But while reading World War III, I came across how Aquaman became the Dweller in Darkness. He had to barter with Neptune and Poseidon for the power to save a certain city from death. That city was Sub Diego.

So what happened? Did someone resink it during Busiek's run? Was Keith Champagne not the right person for this story? I liked his work on Green Lantern Corps and wish he would take over that series. But I would have preferred if a group of editors wrote this story, anyone who knew what was going on in the other series to not further complicate continuity. Which I will talk about tomorrow.

You Say You Want A War? Well, You Know...

World War III. I'm with Chris Sims on this one, Morrison's version was much better.

To start off, I know Black Adam is a badass, but to have one man against the entire world of superheroes is almost ludicrous. He has the same power as Captain Marvel, the same, and yet no one could stop him? Really? Even with "godlike rage", I still find the whole premise a little hard to believe. I thought when they first announced this story that he would have at least the Great Ten or some other collection of supers on his side.

And the narration by Martian Manhunter? I wanted to weep the writing was so bad. There was all this wild shit going on, but it was anchored with J'Onn's existential crap that made me want to put the book(s) down sometimes. How did Black Adam's mind make him emo?

As far as the Titans tragedy we were promised, Superboy Prime beat them much worse and no one cares about a reanimated corpse dying. Or Young Frankenstein. Though Beast Boy's minimal reaction to the death of a girl he supposed love with all his heart seems to be in line with the callous joking he did when he thought Everyman died.

I enjoyed 52 Week Fifty but, then, it didn't have Martian Monologue. I would have preferred Black Adam actually doing something in five issues besides causing random property damage and killing throwaway characters. Again, Superboy Prime already went there and set the bar pretty high.

Have A Coke And A Smile. Robbie

Even Norman Osborn knows

Hulk Casting

Edward Norton as Bruce Banner

We need more decisions like this. We need comic book movies that have not only have good actors in them but actors who are appropiate for the character. No offense to Eric Bana, but he's not Bruce Banner. Every offense to Ben Affleck, he's no Matt Murdock. I can't wait to see how this will turn out.

Cap's Dead

I know it's like a month late but something has been bothering me ever since Captain America died.

Everyone keeps saying Cap will be back(which I know) like he has before. As if Captain America (the Steve Rogers Cap) has died before. Which as far as I know, he hasn't. Ever.

So far when I ask people to verify this, they go to two examples. The first being when Red Skull died the first time, when he was an old man and fought Cap after exposing Cap to an aging gas that temporarily retarded his Super Soldier serum (which I'm know realizing could be called the SS serum and that makes me a little quesy). Anyway, Red Skull died then, not Cap, the gas wore off and he returned to normal. Anyone have definitive proof this was not the way it went down?

Secondly, they bring up the storyline where Captain America's Super Soldier serum became toxic or something, and Cap had to wear that hideous Cap Armor just to walk around. While I was aware of the storylines of that time, I couldn't bring myself to read Cap Wolf, or teen Cap or any of the other stupid transformations they put him through. So I don't know how that story ended, but I know the series went on with Captain America still around, and there weren't any crossovers or mentioning of Cap dying in any other books of that time. So did he? Does anyone have that storyline so we can see whether he really died and came back?

It bugs me a little, because while I know death is not a constant in comics, I can't stand when people kind of write off a story as though it's happened a hundred times to the character before.

Help me please.

Mindless: The End

Like Tyson Ritter said, it ends tonight.

As Noh-Varr and Oubliette take on the Mindless One, Midas, the man who unleashed to beast has emerged from The Marvel's cosmic engine a new man. Imbued with the combined powers of the Fantastic Four, with a little Cosmic Awareness thrown in, Midas has redubbed himself 'The Cosmic Man'. And now he wanted the secrets the Plex held.

Using his new abilities, he hacks into the Plex's brain and learns of the multiple universes the 18th Kree Diplomatic Gestalt have been to, which he sees as the profiteering opportunity of a lifetime. Of course, Noh-Varr takes exception to Mid-, uh, Cosmic Man's plans. Leaving the Mindless One to Oubliette's expertise, Noh rushed to save is ship from Mida-, Cosmic Man's clutches. But him being all Super Skrull and all, Noh has his work cut out for him. Good thing he's triple jointed.

And that Oubliette's very good at what she does.

Yes, she's using the head of the Mindless One to shoot her father. And between Noh and Oub with her Mindless head, Cosmic Man is vaporized by the beams of the Mindless One. Well, not vaporized exactly. He gets pushed into the Mindless One's dimension.

Now that Mid-, uh, dammit, Cosmic Man is gone, Noh-Varr and Oubliette have a chance to process patricide and finally being free of the Midas touch. That is, until SHIELD shows up. Oubliette makes a slip and starts a revolution, while Noh-Varr is sent to The Cube, a prison designed to hold Doctor Doom. While we know what happens to Noh after this, look at that tag at the end. How cool would it have been to see Morrison take another crack at Marvel Boy, with a prison break and all kinds of anarchy? Fuckin' sweet, is what it would have been. Can't be too mad though.

Grant was too busy doing this.

Geo-Force?

Really?

Zero Zero:Year of Love

Got a little sidetracked yesterday, what with going to the comic store and falling asleep when I got home. As the old saying goes, "DON'T JUDGE ME!" Anyway, it's time for Marvel Boy #5, where Noh-Varr and Midas' daughter have a nice talk.

No, really. They talk. After Noh-Varr gets treatment for the beatdown Midas & Co. gave him last issue.

Noh-Varr goes first. Midas has been feeling his only offspring of Noh's people being intergalatic insectile mass murderers. Using Plex, Noh-Varr shows Midas' daughter that he is the last of the 18th Kree Diplomatic Gestalt, insect DNA enhanced heroes who travel the cosmos and dimensions in their dimension-schooner "The Marvel". The fought weird Galatus clones, evil versions of themselves and of course, The Authority. And it all ended when Midas shot down their ship on their way home.

Midas' daughter has a very different origin. Her mother was basically a vessel for her unique upbringing. She actually was conceived in a human woman, but Midas pumped the woman with "information-rich toxins" to accelerate her development. It succeeded, seeing as she remembered her birth, which was Midas digging her out of her mother's poisoned body. I would but up pictures but this is a really dialogue-y issue, and while still well drawn and engaging, no picture really stands out as "Hey, look at this!"

Midas raised his daughter as a killer of all manner of creatures, and she has hunted vampires, unicorns, Kibbler elves, and a bunch of different nasties. He named her "Oubliette" and he told her to never remove her mask (don't know whether he suggested the dominatrix outfit, rather leave that area untouched), but it was too scarred for anyone to accept her. He lied.

Having shared thier pain, Noh-Varr lets Oubliette onto his plan to terraform Earth into a new Hala, giving humans a paradise whether they want to or not. And Oubliette wants in. Just in time to have Midas invade The Marvel and destroy Plex. Midas is here not for his daughter, really, he wants The Marvel's cosmic engine, so he can bathe in the cosmic radiation and become empowered like the Fantastic Four. As he walks into the engine, he has his men send the "Un-entity" after the young rebels. Told you this issue had the coolest use of a thought balloon.

I would sing praise upon this issue, but I just remembered last Wednesday was Ennis Week. And I must say he has a romantic side most people don't see. It's heartwarming.

And This Is Even More Confusing

Your results:
You are Venom

Venom 69% The Joker 62% Magneto 61% Dark Phoenix 58% Apocalypse 54% Dr. Doom 54% Mr. Freeze 50% Juggernaut 47% Riddler 47% Lex Luthor 44% Two-Face 35% Kingpin 33% Mystique 31% Catwoman 28% Green Goblin 27% Poison Ivy 24%

Strength, disguise and adrenaline are your greatest weapons.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Not What I Was Expecting

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 85% Hulk 80% Superman 70% Catwoman 70% Robin 65% Batman 60% Green Lantern 60% Supergirl 53% The Flash 45% Wonder Woman 38% Iron Man 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Exterminatrix!

This is the chase issue. There are so many things going on I don't know where to start.
Take a look.

619!!

And you thought Power Girl was the first to have tread sole, heel boots

And just when you think it can't get worse...

It doesn't...

Seems Midas' daughter is taken with the boy marvel and is none too pleased with being her father's assassin, leading to the most romantic stroll I've ever seen.

Don't count Midas out yet. Remember:

With only two issues left, Morrison has only next issue's look into the life of Midas' daughter before the final battle between Noh-Varr and Midas himself. Really, if you take a long at this issue, in its entirety, you would crap yourself with joy. It's that good. And next issue has the most inventive use of a thought balloon ever.

Stay tuned.