A story can’t just maintain one tone and expect that to be fulfilling. Switching things up, introducing conflict, telling jokes… good stories are versatile. I like that Graham can drop a quick little punch of sadness into a book like this, which isn’t necessarily a mopey work. It adds to the overall realism of the work, where the characters all have traits that we recognize in ourselves or our friends. Everybody knows what a big dollop of despair dropped into the middle of your day feels like, right?

Yesterday showed that Enchantress is not quite dead after all, but she’s been written out of the story anyway. Loki’s master plan is still cruising along, Thor is slaughtering trolls by the score and Frank Cho was nice enough to sneak in my beloved Sagat Troll yet again. Now it’s time for everyone to remember that Zarda exists.

Thorchantress got some impressive hang time on that decapitation. Check it out, the rain moves but the head and blood don’t.

Thanks again to ManiacClown, who wanted to make Chyna jokes in terms of Zarda. Yeah, I… I don’t want to think about that woman in any capacity if that’s okay with you…

So anyway, we’ll be back next time with Thor’s rampage and surprisingly a scene that does NOT have Thor in it.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

When you pick up King City, you’re getting a comic that’s been stuffed with content. Every single page features some fresh joke or great action. And the back cover? Same thing.

In our last installment, Thor knocked Captain America into the distance and got all solemn around Valkyrie’s corpse. Let’s see what Loki’s up to during all this.

Me and ManiacClown will continue to join forces tomorrow as Thor continues to be pissed off.

Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

I have no idea whether it’s true, but a lot of stuff in King City feels like something that was included because it made Brandon Graham or someone he knows laugh. Maybe it’s the strain of puns and dumb jokes that litter the series, or absurdities like this one, but that’s just the feeling I get.

-It’s Christmastime! So what better things do we have to talk about beyond:
-Superheroes!
-and!
-Religion!
-We dig into adherents.com for a free-ranging conversation about superheroes, religion, realism, yadda yadda.
-But first, Gavin got Esther a present.
-Later, we mention this cover:

-Shortly after that, I mix up Naif al-Sheikh, the awesome no-nonsense political dude from Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s excellent Justice League Elite and Talib Beni Khalid from Greg Rucka’s pretty good Checkmate.
-I remember wondering why Rucka didn’t just use al-Sheik when Checkmate started, but I guess they ended up being pretty distinct characters.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

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The holiday special continues off of yesterday’s intro, where Thor returns from the dead to find Captain America dealing with the dead body of Valkyrie. The last line was, “I care not what Captain America says –” and I hope there’s at least one SNL fan out there who knows where this is going…

Thanks to ManiacClown for his help. Join us tomorrow as Thor is STILL pissed. I’m pretty much going to be saying that for the rest of the week, aren’t I? The issue is 90% “Thor is pissed off.”

Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

This week I’m joined by Was Taters and Luis. Luis insists on sharing a panel of Amazing Spider-Man, which he most certainly hated.

As for that Avengers Academy panel, I can assure you that that is not Metamorpho.

Amazing Spider-Man #650
Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos and Neil Edwards

Avengers Academy #7
Christos Gage and Tom Raney

Read the rest of this entry �

What I like about Joe is that he’s not some super heroic guy out to do what’s right. He’s not Captain America. He’s a regular fella who has a good idea of right and wrong, and works toward that, but he’s also a guy who can’t resist a big butt and a smile, for better or for worse. He gets distracted and thinks about sex in a way a lot of comic characters don’t.

Welcome to a special holiday edition of New Ultimate Edit. Those of you paying attention may have noticed that Ultimate New Ultimates #4 came out two months ago. Due to scheduling conflicts, ManiacClown and I couldn’t get on it immediately like we’ve done with all the other Loeb/Ultimate stuff. As it took longer for us to get to it, we found that it brought sadness and annoyance to… well, nobody really. Not a single person noticed. Nobody cried foul or asked, “Hey, whatever happened to that thing you guys used to do?”

Not that I blame them. The whole thing has become moot. New Ultimates isn’t even that bad. I wouldn’t exactly call it good, but it lacks the apocalyptic, “How did this get made?!” horror that came from Ultimates 3 and especially Ultimatum. Plus Jeph Loeb has left comic writing behind, at least for the time being. Now he’s hanging out in Marvel’s animation division, meaning that the next issue of New Ultimates is his last.

Still, ManiacClown and I felt compelled to at least finish what we started. There are only two more issues left to cover, then we can lay the Ultimate Edit Trilogy to rest. Considering the holiday season kills my productivity due to having a retail job, this issue being a Thor-centric entry and our habit of writing Thor as Santa Claus, it came natural to save it for the week of Christmas. So here we are.

Let’s review, since it’s been a while. Issue one had the Defenders appear with superpowers. They proceeded to steal Mjolnir from Valkyrie and gave it to Loki. In the second issue, the Enchantress mind-controlled most of the women and had them beat up the more high-profile Ultimates as part of Loki’s master plan to conquer Earth. Then in the third issue, the low-profile Ultimates saved the day, Loki’s forces were shot an awful lot and Valkyrie’s death brought the return of a really pissed off Thor.

In tomorrow’s update: Thor is still pissed.

Day Two!
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!