Let’s just say, hypothetically, that I were to start getting my own segment on the 4th Letter podcast. A segment where I talk about any given subject for several minutes before returning the show to David and Esther. Anyone have any suggestions on things you’d like to hear me go on and on about? Don’t overthink it. Hell, even saying something as simple as “Gambit” works.

Just no Venom, Deadpool or Jeph Loeb. They’ve all been covered to death.

Back before DC and Marvel were the two big forces in the world of comics, Dell Comics appeared to be the #1 team. It’s no wonder, considering they got to sell comics with such properties as the Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons characters. Preexisting properties seemed to be their forte, as in the 60’s, they released comic one-shots that retold the films of famous movie monsters, such as Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankenstein.

What’s notable is that those came out during the early days of the Comics Code Authority, which proceeded to lay down ground rules on the comic companies to pussify every one of their titles. This meant the lack of horror aspects, including how vampires and their like were not allowed to see print. Dell decided that they wanted no part of the CCA, even though lots of sellers refused to carry comics that weren’t approved.

Dell didn’t want the CCA regulating them and insisted to the public that they could damn well regulate themselves, so don’t worry about it. I think the pressure on the CCA mentality is one of the things that pushed them towards today’s topic. That, along with their need for original content and how the superhero comics were really taking over the market.

The company decided to take their monster properties and turn them into superheroes. It doesn’t sound too crazy. Morbius the Living Vampire has been a Marvel staple for years and enjoyed some time as the hero in his own series. Similarly, Marvel released comics for heroes Werewolf by Night and Monster of Frankenstein. More recently, DC introduced the Hellboy-esque Frankenstein, who shows that even in the present there’s still much you can do with the old Mary Shelly creation.

That’s… not exactly what Dell was going for here.

There was a castle on fire and a man jumping out of a test tube and I killed a man with a trident.

I’ll admit that this entire article is thanks to Brian Cronin, whose article on the CCA and their opinion on vampires led me to first seeing that cover. From there I knew that I had to own this, read this and tell you all about it. Blame him!

I mean, look at that cover! The ridiculous outfit! The off-center belt! The fact that Dracula is jumping out of a test tube held by Dracula! Sorry to say, despite the cover’s claim, there’s no point where they tell us the secret to his power of appearing in two places at the same time.

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Venom was certainly making himself known in late 2004. Not only did he have his ongoing series and his role in Marvel Knights Spider-Man, but Marvel decided to give him top billing in yet another miniseries! This time, we got Venom/Carnage, or Venom vs. Carnage. At least, the latter is how it appeared in the solicits, but the former is how it shows up in the book. I mean, I guess the slashed one makes it easier to type, but adding “versus” makes anything sound cool. Would people be that interested in “Freddy/Jason” or “Aliens/Predator”? No. Not at all.

Venom/Carnage came out in September, 2004, only weeks before the Venomous storyline, which would seemingly kill off Eddie Brock and make Mac Gargan the new Venom. A couple months later, Carnage would be flown into space and torn in half by the Sentry in the pages of New Avengers. So why would they be making a miniseries about these two characters who are about to be changed so radically? Why, it would be for an introduction!

The series is written by Peter Milligan with the art by Clayton Crain. Crain’s style is very unique, looking like an ultra-glossy wax museum made of CGI. His human characters can look very off at times, but when someone’s face is covered and they’re in costume, they look pretty rocking. This goes double for the symbiote characters, such as Venom and Carnage on that above cover. The symbiotes get by on being made to look cool and this guy makes them look cooler, so give them a minseries, why not.

From writing up these articles and having to reread these stories, I think I’ve noticed a hiccup in the storytelling process. In the Spider-Man story The Hunger, it ends with the Venom symbiote saying that it’s pregnant. Daniel Way’s Venom series ends with Venom becoming a huge monster that’s meant to unleash some kind of world-ending output that can’t be described. My own educated guess would be that Toxin, the character this installment is about, was meant to be that offspring. Only, Peter Milligan was plotting Venom/Carnage and thought, “Eh… fuck it, we’ll make it Carnage’s kid.”

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Now it’s time to say hello to corporation say…

E-D-W…
(When there’s trouble you call DW!)

B-R-O-C-K…!

Ah, fun. Check in tonight for a new installment of We Care a Lot. Ha ha!

Recently, I took a splendid little trip to Orlando to partake in Disney World and the Universal parks. How can I sum up my trip in one image?

Sheesh.

I guess I should go in this day-by-day.

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After sixteen issues, Luke Cage had come to realize that with a title like Hero for Hire, nobody would ever take him seriously. He was rarely mentioned in the press due to the feeling that he was just a mercenary. He took that to mean that he needed a new name and stat. He considered calling himself “Ace of Spades”, but decided it was too ethnic. During a team-up with Iron Man, a villain asked Cage, “But how? This ship’s construction makes what you’ve done impossible!”

“Just chalk it up to black power, man.”

Then he got distracted so much by how right on track he was with a new nickname that he got punched in the ribs by a villain in a robot suit.

As of that issue, the title changed to reflect his newfound name. It also led to a fantastic issue where the villain named Power Man (currently Atlas) took exception to this infringement and fought Cage in a movie theater. This ranks up there with #9, the Cage vs. Dr. Doom issue, as one of the best pieces of the series.

STEEPLEJACK

First Appearance: Luke Cage, Power Man #18
Threat Level: 2
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 1

Jake Mallard and his two brothers were construction workers working for Maxwell Plumm. Plumm liked to cut corners whenever possible and the shoddy materials led to the deaths of Jake’s brothers. Jake swore vengeance and spent the next few years building some construction-based weaponry for his own construction-based villain gimmick of Steeplejack.

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Gavok note: I’ve been rather busy the last week and I have my Orlando report that nobody cares about nearly done, but in the meantime I thought I would break through the lack of articles with another old Pop Culture Shock thing I wrote. I guess I was inspired by hermanos posting that link the other day to the Thunderbolt profile.

Before I had really read all that much with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, I was always in love with the concept. You had these two very different characters based on the movie fads of the 70’s (blaxploitation and martial arts) and gave them solo series destined to fail because, well, fads die out. So to cut their losses, they just put the two guys together into a makeshift team that worked like no other and lasted for eight years as a series. You couldn’t do that with just any two ailing comics. You can’t just release something like Atom and Infinity Inc. and think it’ll last past issue 6. The ingredients with Luke and Danny are perfect. These days the characters are stronger individuals for it, but are quick at teaming up without a single fuss.

You can’t forget their beginnings, though. Before the days of Iron Fist taking a break from beating up ninjas because he just saw Cage kick an alien shape-shifter in the lady business, the two were loners trying to rise up the Marvel ranks. Iron Fist’s series, a spin-off of his debut storyline from Marvel Premiere, lasted a paltry fifteen issues. It was cancelled so abruptly that Claremont had to get an Iron Fist/Spider-Man storyline made for Marvel Team-Up just to tie up the loose ends. That said, Iron Fist was a really solid series and adds a little punch to the details of the modern series.

What it didn’t have was a good rogues gallery. Yes, Iron Fist was the first guy to be shown fighting Sabretooth, but other than that, his enemies were really generic and forgettable. Power Man didn’t have to worry about that.

Luke’s comic didn’t have as much of an involved storyline as Danny’s did, but there’s a reason his comic lasted nearly 50 issues. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire was a fun comic. Insanely fun. The guy’s average day involved hanging out with his janitor sidekick, walking down the street in his gaudy outfit, punching a random thug, getting shot at, making sure to note that bullets don’t work on him, fighting a ridiculous villain, then going back home.

And what a bunch of villains he had. You always knew you could read the next issue because whoever Cage was going to fight next was definitely going to make things worth it. Even his villains borrowed from others were pretty entertaining, like Dr. Doom and Zzzax.

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So, back from Orlando. I’ll write up the trip report on that in the next day or so.

As I returned to the land of Jersey, I was introduced to this cover image for Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live #3.

Yes. Many times, yes.

Comic books have been very, very good to me.

It’s a good thing Ultimatum #5 hadn’t been delayed another week because that would have cut into my current vacation. Right now I’m getting ready for a trip to Orlando, to experience Disney World and Universal. I’ll see about getting a picture with Dr. Doom. Hey, you know what they should do? They should have someone working at Universal Islands of Adventure dressed as Mace the cyber ninja. That would rule and be a waste of everybody’s time.

I’ll be back in a week, but stick around for the 50 articles hermanos is working on and whatever it is Esther is doing. I’m sure she’s up to something.

In the meantime, here’s something rather odd I discovered on YouTube when I typed “Herman Smirch” through Google. Herman, you might remember, is the main character and lowlife from the Game Boy comic. There isn’t much about him out there, other than an entry on a Mario Wiki site, but I did find… whatever this is.

Later.

It took about nine months, but the comic miniseries Ultimatum had finally finished, meaning that the 4th Letter fan-favorite Ultimatum Edit is kaput as well. As always, ManiacClown and I had a blast and we hope you enjoyed it as well.

Thing is, we make a lot of references to random things that I’m sure fly over the heads of many. To help in retrospect, here’s a little page-by-page guide to what was going on in our heads.

WEEK ONE

Page 1

– The narration box is quoting the horrible Fantastic Four cartoon theme from the mid-90’s.

– The events Reed and Sue discuss are based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four/X-Men Annual two-parter that acted as a prelude to Ultimatum. It involves a bunch of superheroes from the future coming to the present in an attempt to change their reality, as their status quo has Invisible Woman ruling the world alongside Namor with an iron fist. In one scene, the regular Sue got in Wolverine’s face by unsheathing claws just like his, but made of her invisible force fields. She didn’t slice him or anything. She just whipped them out to threaten him. THEY ARE INVISIBLE!

– Thing is bringing up how that robot looks an awful lot like the scanner droids from the beginning of Empire Strikes Back.

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