CBR posted a little announcement and interview today dealing with the next chapter in Thunderbolts. With Osborn on the outs, what’s going to happen to the team? Who’s going to be the leader and who will he be commanding?

Get a load of this:

I’m starting to believe that Jeff Parker is God’s gift to me. I’m especially pumped. As an aside, looking at that cover, whoever unloaded on Cage should be thankful that he didn’t hit a nipple. That’ll set him off.

In addition to Luke Cage, the initial line up of Thunderbolts has been revealed to include Juggernaut, Crossbones, Ghost, Moonstone, and Man-Thing. Is there anything you can say about these characters motivations for being on the Thunderbolts?

I think everyone’s prime motivation is: I do not want to rot in this cell. I would rather have Luke Cage screaming at me as I run into the probability of certain death than rot in this cell. Except for the Man-Thing, of course – no one can ever tell what he’s thinking. And no one asked him anyway.

How would you describe the initial dynamic between these characters? Is there anybody Luke can trust on this team?

That’s what Luke would like to know! Moonstone is in and out of the program. She shows promise and then, bam – she lets you down. Ghost also seems promising, but then there’s quirks, like him trying to kill Iron Man. Juggernaut, some people think he’s a hero too.

This shows a ton of promise. Let’s look at the line-up, one by one.

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Well, it’s Sunday night and we’re ready to strike!
Our special forces are in for a fight!
With heroes in the air and zombies on the ground!
This Week in Panels is takin’ over the town!
We gotta get ready! We gotta get right!
There’s gonna be some comic art at 4th Letter tonight!

So get ready…
I MEAN, get ready…
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PANELS?!
A COMIC BOOK INVASION!

This week I’m going against my rule of never using a final, or even last-page, panel for this. Why? Because that Deadpool Team-Up panel completely sums up the entirety of that issue and why Stuart Moore wrote it in the first place.

Batman Confidential #41
Sam Kieth

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3
Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott

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The other day my old Ultimate Edit writing buddy ManiacClown sent me these old superhero radio drama albums from decades ago, including a Justice League record from the 60’s where during roll call they break into a Rat Pack musical number.

One of the albums is from the 70’s, starring Spider-Man in what they call a “Rockomic”. It’s a story involving Peter Parker being blackmailed by the Kingpin into trying to kill Spider-Man, with Spider-Man talking like Jon Lovitz as Master Thespian. It also starts off with a completely trippy nightmare sequence that sounds like Peter’s having a bad acid trip. In-between the acts of the story they would toss in some musical tracks that are without a doubt from the 1970’s. Most of them are awful, but the main theme is a special kind of awful that keeps drawing me back in for repeated listens.

And now, little man, I give the watch to you…

He’s no one woman’s sex machine, you know. The Devil saw to that.

A fine set of comics this week. Ah, it’s good to have Batman & Robin and Frankencastle Punisher around.

Batman and Robin #7
Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart

Captain America Reborn #6
Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch

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Tonight is the WWE Royal Rumble. Here’s hoping someone other than Triple H or Cena wins this one. Come on, Kofi Kingston or CM Punk!

What better timing than for me to find this gem that I’ve been looking for for 13 years? In my Royal Rumble Week articles, I made mention of an ECW Rumble match I saw back in the mid-90’s. It was actually my very first ECW experience, so it stuck with me. Finally, I found it.

It’s called the King of the Hill Battle Royal, which is like a Royal Rumble, except for two differences. One, pinfalls and submissions count. Two, tag teams can enter together, as long as they’re willing to split the winner’s purse. The contestants:

Balls Mahoney
The Blue World Order (Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie and Nova)
Bubba Ray Dudley
Chris Candido
D-Von Dudley
The Eliminators (Perry Saturn and John Kronus)
“The Franchise” Shane Douglas
The Gangstas (New Jack and Mustafa)
Little Guido
Louie Spicolli
“Prime Time” Brian Lee
Rob Van Dam
Sabu
The Sandman
Spike Dudley
Tommy Dreamer

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Welcome to this week’s edition of This Week in Agents of Atlas. We have a lot of Agents of Atlas this time around, so let’s get to the Agents of Atlas!

(Not shown: the Agents of Atlas backup story in Incredible Hercules)

Amazing Spider-Man #618
Dan Slott and Marcos Martin

Authority: The Lost Year #5
Grant Morrison, Keith Giffen and Jonathan Wayshak

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Originally, I was going to write up a silly post comparing Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno to the Thor vs. Superman fight from JLA/Avengers, but halfway into that write-up it hit me how it was too stupid, even for me. With that botched, I feel the need to post something.

Many of you know of Something Awful and their Photoshop Phridays. Recently, they did a two-parter with the theme being “Movies + Video Game Names”. The concept is taking a movie poster/DVD cover/whatever and altering it so that the title is that of an existing videogame. For instance, changing the title of Footloose to Dance Dance Revolution or changing Hell Comes to Frogtown to Battletoads. It’s simple and lacks excessive Photoshop skill (or Paint Shop Pro skill in my case), but leads to some very funny and creative images. Here’s part one and part two.

A couple of my entries made it in, which rocks, but in the end I had way too much fun making these and couldn’t stop myself. Here’s a gallery of what I’ve done to waste my time.

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Two Secret Six comics by Simone/Ostrander in a row?! I must have good karma.

Adventure Comics #6
Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul

Amazing Spider-Man #617
Joe Kelly, Max Fiumara and Javier Pulido

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The WWE Royal Rumble is on its way later this month. If you recall, last year I wrote up a seven day long review and ranking of all the Royal Rumbles from worst to best. Currently, I’m fresh into working on my Wrestlemania Countdown, which I can hopefully get done by mid-March, what with having to rewatch 25 3-4 hour shows. Right now, that’s not important.

Neither is this 108-Man Royal Rumble from Japan, but it’s a fun waste of time. It’s a big New Years get together between Big Japan Pro Wrestling, Dramatic Dream Team and Kaientai Dojo and you can tell that it’s New Years because when there’s one minute left in 2009, things get interesting.

I know only a handful of these guys from watching CHIKARA, but that doesn’t prevent it from being entertaining. Enjoy a man who can eliminate people from the ring with his mind, a guy who’d rather sit in the corner and snack than wrestle, the Japanese Shawn Michaels, a Hulk Hogan blow-up doll, a man with a giant turnip head and a gay rapist.

You may have noticed that whenever hermanos goes on about how great a certain comic is, he has an Amazon link. That’s great in that it takes care of the cost of this site and all, but part of me resents it. You see, as I’ve mentioned time and time again, I work at Barnes & Noble. I know what Lex Luthor feels like every time he’s forced to work with Superman. At least he isn’t shilling Kindles or any of that bullshit. nook is the way to be.

What I’m getting to is that recently the stores have started to sell Marvel hardcover trades for excessively cheap prices. I’m talking $7. It started with the first Dark Tower trade, which made sense because they marketed the hell out of that comic to the public, all things considered. Then I found out that a nearby store had a bargain hardcover of Death of the Stacys. Just the other day, we got the first hardcover of Supreme Power, which has the first 12 issues plus the first regular appearance by the Squadron Supreme. All for a little over a fifth of the original price. That’s pretty nifty, so I investigated further.

Here is a list of the bargain hardcovers you can find. You can either find them at BN.com (mostly $3.99 each, plus shipping) or just go into your local B&N and ask for them to order it for you. The quantities are very much limited, so if anything catches your eye, go for it immediately. They’re in order from biggest quantity to lowest.

Killraven
New Avengers v.6: Revolution
Silver Surfer: Requiem
Supreme Power v.2
Spider-Man: One More Day
Spider-Man: Reign
Punisher War Journal v.2: Goin’ Out West
New Fantastic Four
Red Prophet v.1
Defenders: Indefensible
Mighty Avengers v.1: The Ultron Initiative
Wolverine: Evolution (Black & White)
Marvel Zombies: The Covers