Not that Carnage.

Before I get into it, though, I’ve got half of an idea in my head. Boxing, the NBA, and the NFL are mostly black (except for quarterbacks :doom:). What if you had a series of superteams, like say one in each of the 50 states, that were run like a sports team? Try outs, scandals, all stars, cocky all-stars fresh out of high school… There’s something there, but I can’t quite grab it yet. Any Given Sunday in a comic book universe.

First is Tom Foss‘s five questions:
1. You’re given the keys to the Marvel Universe, and your only order is to take one “What If” storyline from the entirety of the series and make it canon, along with whatever alterations occur to the universe as a result. Which story do you choose?

Geez. I’d probably pick Gavok’s #1, What If Iron Man Sold Out. It was an awesome story, one of the few What Ifs I owned as a kid, and had great art. It hit all my buttons– it was set just pre-apocalypse, semi-fascist, and had heroes coming back to be true heroes.

Actually, yeah, that’s it for sure. What If Spider-Man Kept the Power Cosmic was another great one, but it kind of takes my favorite superhero out of the runnings for further stories, so no dice. What If the Avengers Lost Operation Galactic Storm was great and I’d like to see that one. It was practically Annihilation III in terms of scope.

2. Who watches the Watchers?

The police. Peeping tom perverts always get theirs.

3. What five Marvel characters do you think are most likely to actually be Skrulls?

Sentry’s wife, the secret masters behind SHIELD, the secret masters behind HYDRA, and I don’t know. I haven’t really given specific Skrulls much thought. I’ll have to post my theory on why Nick Fury went underground, though.

4. Who are your top three, back-of-the-OHOTMU, favorite guilty pleasure Marvel characters?
1. Jubilee (who remains the only character I have a continuity nerd story pitch for)
2. Darkhawk
3. Terror, Inc.

Ugh, I was so impressionable as a kid.

5. Which Avengers base is/was the best?

I couldn’t pick if I tried! I only recently became an Avengers fan. So… I figure Stark/Sentry Tower? I don’t know. The mansion is just kinda blah.

Spencer Carnage is up next.
– I have to post these rules before I start.
– I have to tell you eight facts about myself.
– I have to tag eight people to participate.
– I’m supposed to leave a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read my blog.
– And the tagees need to write their own blog post, telling us eight things and posting the rules.

Ugh, eight things. Okay. Deep breath and

“Y’all know the name”– Pharaohe Monch (Simon Says)
1. I’ve got a few different names, all of which depend on when you met me. Not just internet names, these are things that people call me in real life.

There’s my government name, of course, but to a lot of people, I’m dub. This is what you probably know me as if you met me online between 2001(ish)-2005. In fact, a girl, the sister of someone I met 2003ish, came up to SF the other week and introduced me to a girl she knows as dub. It was a little surreal when I thought about it.

There’s also hermanos, which I guess is the oldest and simultaneously the newest. My last name is Brothers, obviously, and hermanos means “brothers” in Spanish. My last two years of high school were in Madrid. Like, Madrid Spain. So, the class was pretty intensive, and it kinda bled over. Hermanos and Brothers? Interchangeable. Brothers was a nickname in middle school, too.

Two-hit combo: I’m not 100%, but I think that I came up with dub during middle school, and brought it back in high school as “black dub,” a nom de guerre used for writing and rapping in a group with two friends.

“I read Grrl Scouts, Transmetro, and Invisibles” — Murs (All Day)
2. Comics and rap, man, that’s all there is.

My first comic would’ve been in 89 or 90, probably 90ish? Amazing Spidey 316 and 317, and then 321 and 322. Then I got caught up in the X-Men craze in real time.

First CD I ever heard was Method Man’s Tical. I remember being surprised that there was cussing on it, because I’d only seen the video for All I Need. I was too poor to afford CDs and a CD player until Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life came out in 1997 or so. First cassette I ever owned was probably DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s joint with Nightmare on My Street and Human Video Game, both of which are modern day classics.

And now? I’ve got 5900 songs on iTunes, probably 5400 of which are straight up rap, and a sick trade paperback collection. I don’t have the trades with me right now, because shipping 14 boxes that vary in weight from 30-50 pounds costs major cash. Actually, I should do it soon, because the tape on those boxes has been on there since just before I moved in May.

“Now, I’m from dirty… filthy nasty Dirty South” — Cee-lo Goodie (Fly Away)
3. I’m from Georgia. That’s what I claim and/or rep, anyway. I lived in Georgia for four years, Texas for a couple years, Georgia for another four or five, Virginia for five or six, Georgia for one, Spain for two, Georgia for five, and now I’m in San Francisco for what should hopefully be a good long while.

I love the South, but it’s stifling and if I saw another Confederate flag on a truck I would’ve done something rash and gone to prison.

If you’re local, holler at me, man, I don’t know many people in this town just yet.

“I speak with criminal slang and I’ma never stop speaking it”–Big L (Ebonics)
4. I’m from the South, but lack the accent. Growing up in a handful of places, including overseas, and around people who were born and raised in Ohio tends to kill that accent, you know? But– the slang is ridiculous. It’s Georgia tinted, but NYC slang and Spanish curses tend to creep in around the edges. I still call cell phones “mobiles.” I can’t break that habit, and I’ve tried.

Some slang bothers the crap out of me, though. I hate “hyphy” and “hella/hell of” sounds weird to me, so of course I move to the bay area–my bad, yay area–where it flows like fine wine.

Crunk, fire, dope, hot, sick, nuts, nasty– all of ’em are synonyms for cool/awesome/whatever.

“I’m in the Regals ‘n Cutlass, Impalas…”– Jim Crow (Hot Wheels)
5. A lot of people want sports and luxury cars. Maseratis, Porsches, whatever. Get rich, get you a tricked out whip.

I want wide body Cadillacs, Impalas, all that. Hit it big, get a late ’80s Caddy and hook it up. Something that gets one mile to the gallon, big wheels, heavy doors, and wide enough to make a tree hugger cry. Tint it nigh-black, white walls, fat speakers in the back with a sick amp…

I want that bass that rattles the windows up and down the block. The one that makes your heart feel like it’s fluttering to the beat.

Yeah, I’m that guy.

“For every rhyme I write, it’s 25 to life”– Mobb Deep (Survival of the Fittest)
6. I think I liked telling stories as a kid, but left it by the wayside. I also liked drawing cartoony pictures of like Ninja Turtles and Gambit and the other X-Men. Battletoads, too.

Anyway, in high school, I was on track to apply to Savannah College of Art and Design and RISD. I was decent with a paintbrush, okay with a pencil (I think I was particularly good at shading, but that’s probably wishful thinking). Then the summer hit after 11th grade and I came back like “Pssht, art, I suck” and focused on writing and english lit instead. I don’t know where all the stuff I drew/painted went, except that it isn’t here any more. I haven’t seen it in years.

I almost wish I’d kept up with it, because it’d certainly make making comics easier. Shoot, this could be an art blog.

“Myspace, to my place, don’t ask why you not in my top 8– it’s no surprise, dudes with no shirts on sending friend requests get denied“– Ras Kass (My Blog)
7. I’ve had a lot of blogs, now that I think about it. Diaryland (ugh), a site I hand-coded on galeon.com (now deleted, ugh), MySpace, a proto 4l on livejournal called Guerilla Grodd where I catalogued all the good comics news and did reviews pretty much daily, and two different 4thletter.nets. The first one was powered by Blogger, the second (this) one is hosted by Dreamhost and powered by WordPress.

WordPress is so much better than Blogger it ain’t even funny.

Anyway, the first post on 4l.net 1.0 is dated 03/24/05. First post on GG (in grodd we trust) is dated 01/19/05. I’ve been comics blogging for two and a half years, and 4thletter.net is technically 2 years and 3 months old. Goodness. I might have to re-run some of that old GG stuff if it’s still any good.

(I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of accidentally seeing myself quoted somewhere on Google. Kalinara’s post from last October bled over into Adherents’ website on Daredevil’s religion, who is my second (or maybe third after Flash) favorite hero. Man, it’s like a small slice of immortality, there.)

“I hate nerds… I hate all you fucking nerds”– Y@k Ballz (Nerd Wars)
8. I hate nerds, man. Seriously. Nerds are a tremendous pet peeve.

Before you accuse me of hypocrisy, listen to what I’m saying, because there are nerds and then there are nerds.

Nerds are the mealy-mouthed ladies and gentlemen who are ashamed of liking comics, or books, or games, or whatever. They pull that Go Team Comics! thing and applaud whenever some comic seems to get some kind of crossover appeal because that means that comics aren’t for kids any more, really! They get butthurt when someone disses comics. Ugh.

Nerds are victims by choice and they are making the rest of us look bad.

Comics are cool. They have been cool for years. Nerds who read comics and feel guilty about it are what make comics uncool. If you’re ashamed to read them, stop reading. We don’t need you.

If you’re talking to a girl and getting along, and you guys get onto the subject of favorite books you’re too ashamed to tell her your favorite book is an Avengers book or whatever when she gets done talking about how much she loves Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or whatever– you’re an idiot. The Avengers are just as nerdy as Harry Potter and Tolkein.

Nerds feel like victims and think that comics are still superstigmatized amongst the general populace and comics fans are ugly and dumb and perma-virgins and ugh.

I got my grandfather to read a few comics. His only complaint was that the book was too short but pretty interesting, not “That was childish and only immature idiots read this stuff.” It was Hudlin’s Black Panther, by the way.

I know a lot of comics reading folks and I can’t think of one of them that fits the stereotype. We’re not all supermodels, but I know more than a few who are married to real live girls, and a few of them are actually women with dresses and skirts and everything! And I don’t know about you, but I’m quite the looker.

Comics fans, we should strive to never, ever be nerds.

Sorry. Pet peeve.

Yo, Gavok! You do this eight random things meme.

To everyone else: I don’t know enough people to tag, so if you see this, do it and shoot me a link.

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