The Holiday Wars Continue! Yesterday, Thor went through Zarda like a hot knife through butter and now it’s Iron Man’s turn. Join us as we take a quick trip to Hela’s place where pants appear to be completely optional for all women.
Man, that “Mila Kunis” running gag really doesn’t have legs past the initial gag. Oh, well. By tomorrow’s installment, Loeb will realize that he really needs to move the story forward and we’ll finally get some Thor vs. Loki action.
Thanks to ManiacClown, who has a better idea than I do about whatever Hela is talking about.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Every year, my best friend Sean and I have a habit of giving each other horrible Christmas gifts. From memory, he’s gotten me a “three wolf moon” t-shirt, Suburban Commando, Jingle All the Way and the Country Bear Jamboree. With the movies, it means that I have to watch them and he has to be there to endure it next to me to make sure. Well, the joke’s on him that one time because I genuinely enjoyed Suburban Commando!
Sean gave me an early Christmas gift recently and the other night we had the privilege of watching WWE Films’ Knucklehead, starring the Big Show.
Do you want your movie poster with or without toppings?
WWE Films have released a lot of wrestler-starred movies over the years, usually in the form of cheesy action movies with the likes of Steve Austin, John Cena and for some reason Ted Dibiase Jr. They also did a horror movie with Kane and a serious family drama with Cena. When I heard about Knucklehead, I was initially interested. Big Show has always made me laugh and the idea of putting him in a comedy as a big doofus only seemed natural. I was totally onboard. Then I saw the trailer.
Wow. Okay, um, so you know that saying about how a movie trailer is the studio trying to dress up the movie to make it look like how they wish it was? That’s what we have here. As far as I can tell, this is as entertaining as you can possibly make the movie look with the hour and a half of footage at your disposal. Yes, the best selling point they had in their repertoire was, “Big Show takes a monster shit on a bus.” Personally, I might have played up that the climax of the movie is Big Show vs. Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, but I don’t know if that million dollar idea carries over to other potential viewers.
I’m going to go full spoilers on this baby, so consider yourself warned. Not that it matters, since if you’re reading this, you’ve either seen it already and want an echo chamber on how bad it is or you’re morbidly curious on how terrible it can possibly be.
Fairly small week, though thankfully with help from Was Taters to bulk it up slightly. It’s definitely a good thing as it introduces me to Thor’s amazing facial expression.
The Wolverine story in this week’s What If is pretty dire. Just saying.
Batgirl 16
Bryan Q. Miller and Dustin Nguyen
Booster Gold #39
Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Chris Batista
It’s been announced today that Rick Remender and Tony Moore — the guys who game us Fear Agent and Frankencastle — are joining forces once again for another ongoing.
Yes, Venom #1 will be released this coming March. Although the host is a secret (from what I hear, it’s totally John Jameson), the alien/human hybrid will be off trying to save the world under the government’s watch. Sure, this is the third time Venom’s worked as a government lackey, but I don’t stop eating pizza because I’ve had it twice before. Here’s a look at Venom-Wolf’s not-slobbering-and-crazy-for-human-flesh appearance.
So, yeah. I’m completely on board.
The real question is what do I have to do to become the guy who writes the “Venom Saga” backup in the first issue?
We got a lot of good panels from me and David and Was Taters and Space Jawa. Shockingly, not one of us included a single panel from Shadowland/Daredevil. That’s too bad.
Great week for me, though. For one, there’s more WWE Heroes insanity. Taskmaster has concluded, finalizing that it’s a depressingly great miniseries. Then there’s a mundane What If issue featuring an amazing backup story that I’ve included for its own panel. Even still, there are three more parts to it!
Oh, and Taters was late in reading last week’s pile, so there’s a Thor: The Mighty Avenger in there.
Action Comics Annual #13
Paul Cornell, Marco Rudy and Ed Benes
