Between enduring the holidays and following it up with Ultimatum Edit, I’ve been a bit exhausted. That’s why I haven’t been doing any updates. Luckily, hermanos has been doing well enough. Esther too, though hermanos has to overshadow her posts with comments that are twice as long. Jerk.

Oh, hey! The new What If issues came out over the past month. Not a great batch this year, but there were two really good issues in there. One is What If: Newer Fantastic Four, which is a sequel to the Mike Wieringo tribute, also featuring the Mini-Marvels conclusion to World War Hulk. Even better is the issue that came out last week, based on Doctor Doom holding onto the Beyonder’s power from Secret Wars. Beautiful art and a perfect ending.

When I finish the We Care a Lot series, I think I’m going to redo the Top 100 What If Countdown. Enough has come out since then to justify it.

We Care a Lot is on a slight hiatus. Nothing too drastic. After all, I need to get my installment about Hybrid up for Black History Month. It’s just that I’ve been spending the past week or so getting ready for another series of articles.

You see, hermanos just did his whole rap countdown. It wasn’t comic-related. So if he’s doing his series of non-comic countdown articles, then damn it, so will I!

It’s coming.

One last thing, I’m going to be checking out all three days of New York Comic Con. Which of yous guys can I expect to see there?

Yet another installment of Ultimatum Edit Week comes to a close today. Last time, we saw the infamous Blob sequence. That’s really all that needs to be said.

Let’s get this over with.

And that’s that. I’m wondering if that last page is an homage to the Xorn reveal from Morrison’s New X-Men.

ManiacClown and I will be around for the next round, I’m sure. In the meantime, please check out our Rifftrax of Frosty Returns. Sure, the holidays are over, but the thing is only 75 cents and the quality is a lot better than our previous project.

As for me, it’s time to get back to writing those wacky Venom articles. See you later, folks. Thanks for reading.

Week 3!

Yesterday’s installment was all about Thor going into the afterlife to go save Valkyrie. I don’t even know what she’s doing in Valhalla in the first place. She died by drowning. You don’t get into Valhalla for weak garbage like that.

No matter. We continue Thor’s quest and move onto that scene. God help us.

ManiacClown is entirely to blame for the second page. I’ve seen Rocky Horror Picture Show maybe once in my life and that was years ago. That was enough.

Tomorrow we finish the week off with a confrontation between Xavier and Magneto. Surely, it will fail to capture the greatness of their battle from the second Japanese X-Men cartoon intro, where they fight by blasting Xavier’s mind rays against Magneto’s magnetic rays.

Day Seven!

Greetings. Yesterday, we saw Reed Richards (the man with no brain), Dr. Doom (the tin man with no heart) and Zarda (the woman with no characterization) banding together to go find the eye-patch Wizard. Then we saw Thor fly around, looking for Valkyrie. Does he find her? We’ll find out in just a moment.

Hope you’re not too burned out by the holidays.

Those are some tiny, tiny panties.

ManiacClown is like the Babel Fish of Thor-speak, so God bless him. He’s also informed me that Hela isn’t connected to Valhalla at all.

We’ll be back tomorrow with the first Ultimatum Edit of the New Year. And there’s no better way to celebrate than with a page so awful that it dwarfs both that above Hela page AND that one Ultimates 3 Hank Pym page in pure badness.

Day Six!
Day Seven!

Previously, Hawkeye and Yellowjacket moved past their differences and saw common ground… I guess. Then Thing tried to comfort Sue, only to have her use her powers on him in her sleep.

Let’s continue with the Fantastic Four theme by checking in with Reed and Namor.

We’re not even really exaggerating on Reed’s behavior on those first two pages. The guy is really that dense within this story.

Thanks again to ManiacClown. I’m too tired to have anything witty to go with that.

Thor’s hilarious adventures continue tomorrow.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

After a little recap, yesterday saw Iron Man try to save Captain America’s life in the way you save a man on fire by stomping on them. Then we had Carol Danvers’ gigantic guns.

With the disaster still fresh, we now join Yellowjacket and Hawkeye, followed soon after with Thing and Invisible Woman.

Hey, by the way, if you’re reposting these images on another site, please be nice enough to at least post a link to us. That includes you, Banhammer.

ManiacClown insisted that Giant Man use the line “Olly, Olly, X-Men free!” but that’s so corny that even I feel like punching my monitor.

I’m also disappointed that at no point during the Thing segment did I have a chance to fit the line, “Oh, Aunt Petunia. Oh, forgive me. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me…”

Join us tomorrow as Zarda appears and reminds me of how horrendous Squadron Supreme has become in the last couple years. Have any of you been reading that junk?

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

Yesterday’s venture showed us Spider-Man and Hulk creating a bond of pure friendship.

Speaking of friendship, let’s give a look at what’s going on with Iron Man and Captain America.

While thanking co-writer ManiacClown goes without saying, a special thanks to Syrg and Gorilla Salad for their assistance.

Join us tomorrow to see Yellowjacket and Hawkeye play everyone’s favorite game: Where In the World Is Janet Van Dyne?

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

And we’re back. Ultimatum #2 came out this week in a one-two punch of grief alongside its brother in arms Hulk #9. Both very bad. Really, you’re better off reading the new Batman because it’s freaking awesome. I know most of you were disappointed in RIP, but it’s a cool follow-up. For reals.

In the first week of Ultimatum Edit, several characters (and countless civilians that we don’t hear much about) are killed as New York City is covered in a big tidal wave. Then Latveria is frozen. Xavier creates a mental chatroom and tells everyone that Magneto’s behind everything.

So far this has nothing to do with the word “ultimatum” other than it’s based on “ultimate” and sounds cool. As far as I know, Magneto isn’t negotiating anything.

Just to point out to those who haven’t read this issue, this is the entirety of Spider-Man and Hulk’s appearance for the comic. So to review, Spider-Man’s actions in Ultimatum #2 are as follows:

1) Have trouble lifting a car.
2) Have Hulk lift car.

Thanks to ManiacClown, who vehemently disagreed with my shilling on the splash page.

Tomorrow, jokes about Iron Man being drunk. Those never get old!

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

I love Christmas. Talk about commercialism or Jesus or what have you, I still enjoy this time of year. Hell, even working a job in retail, I can take it. Besides, we’re actually making money for once! Whoo!

It’s a mixture of a lot of things. I’ve reached the point in my life where I don’t base my enjoyment of the season on getting gifts. I’m more interested in giving gifts to friends and family. Giving to charity. That kind of sissy shit.

Plus I just love the Christmas culture. Santa Claus, talking snowmen, elf dentists, jokes about Kwanzaa, festive music that I enjoy but can only stand for about a month anyway and happy endings. A good Christmas classic is the kind of thing that can put a guy in a good mood. George Baily realizing how important he is in the grand scheme of things or Bill Murray making amends with a psychotic Bobcat Goldthwait.

Or, in the case of The Last Christmas, watching Santa Claus kick a ton of ass in a post-apocalyptic setting.

When you think about Christmas and comics, I hope that some of you are reminded of Ultimate Edit Thor. If so, good news. Tomorrow night, expect the next installment of Ultimatum Edit Week. And what an issue. Sorry, sorry, I said that wrong. What I meant to say was, what a piece of shit. If you thought Ultimates 3 #4 was awful, wait until you get a load of this.

We usually never touch the variant covers in the Edits, but since it’s Christmas and it’s such a goofy image of Xavier (no, that isn’t Wong in a wheelchair), here’s a little something for yourself.

While I’m at it, enjoy some random YouTube holiday videos.

Happy Wookie Life Day, everybody!

We’ve seen about three years worth of Venom’s hero exploits. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, he sure gets a lot of guest heroes and villains from other comics. It would only be fair to see the other side of this. After all, Venom wasn’t exclusive to just Spider-Man comics. He had other places to be.

I’m focusing more on the issues that took place during the extent of Venom’s hero run. I mean, there was an issue of Quasar that hyped up Venom on the cover, only to have Quasar toss him back into the Vault by the second page. And there was a crossover between Web of Spider-Man and Spirits of Vengeance by Howard Mackie that featured Venom, along with Hobgoblin, Demogoblin, Doppelganger and a crapload of demons, but it’s such a gigantic, pointless clusterfuck that I just can’t bring myself to care about it. A lot like Maximum Carnage, now that I think about it.

Already, I’m breaking my rule, as this is before his hero run, but I have a good reason for it. I’m starting off with Darkhawk #13-14 from early 1992. This story, by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley, takes place at a point in Venom’s history when Spider-Man had him fooled into thinking that Venom had killed him on a deserted island. Venom spent a long while on that island, free from his vendetta, but eventually Spider-Man had to track him down and reveal he was still alive in order to get help against Carnage.

Darkhawk’s got a lot of problems going on. His father’s in huge trouble with some stuff and Tombstone had recently torn the special amulet from Darkhawk’s chest, causing him to weaken, lash out and get ill. As part of his plan to help his father, he sneaks aboard a crime boss’ cargo plane in one of the crates. Halfway into the trip, the goons on the plane discover him and a fight breaks out. The pilot gets knocked out and the whole plane takes a nosedive into parts unknown.

*snarl*

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