You may have noticed that for the past week or so, I haven’t said a damn word on this site. That’s because last Friday I went off to Philadelphia for the three day CHIKARA wrestling show known as King of Trios ’08. What a blast.

Me hanging out with Stupefied, El Generico and Player Uno. This should be the new Mount Rushmore.

King of Trios was the biggest tournament in wrestling history, featuring 28 sets of three-man tag teams. The first two days would feature 14 teams each, whittled down to four teams after ten matches and two byes. By the third night, they’re down to eight teams, with several non-tournament matches added on. Follow that? It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that there were 31 matches over the course of three days and it was rocktastical.

That’s not to say that there weren’t any disappointments in the roster. CHIKARA top guys Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli are in Japan, so they missed out. Plus some of the more memorable guest stars from last year like Yago, Dino and American Balloon weren’t returning. Despite that, we had some of the reliable mainstays, surprisingly entertaining new guys and some bizarre surprises.

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Getting love from the Scans_Daily crew, it’s the final installment of Ultimate Edit Week 3. Yesterday we saw Iron Man show off the magic Wanda-killing bullet to Wasp, right after everyone left for the Savage Land. So, what now?

(You really should read yesterday’s last page before continuing here.)

If you have any of those songs stuck in your head now, I consider this a job well done. ManiacClown will join me again the next time an issue drops, but in the meantime, I’ll still be around writing my usual brand of blogduggery. I have a handful of articles that are just sitting there, half done. I really should do something about that.

Thanks for reading.

Ultimate Edit Week 4!
Ultimate Edit Week 5

As we last left our heroes, Wolverine finally shut the hell up and Wasp came up with a plan. They would try to sneak into the Savage Land to surprise a bunch of villains who have every reason to expect them coming. Brilliant.

Admittedly, not too many jokes this time around. For once, we’re actually getting plot progression here. Shocking, I know.

If that first page offended you, send all your hatemail to ManiacClown. Not that I’m going to give you his email, since I’ve grown to like the guy.

Tomorrow is the last three pages with a yawn-inducing cliffhanger. See you then.

Day Seven!

Welcome back, friends. Last time we met, Wolverine talked about meeting Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, followed by his ordered attempt to kill the latter. Then dinosaurs happened. Thankfully, we’re about done with his endless flashback.

That line at the end of the second page? I think we have a new 4th Letter tagline.

This is the part of the article where I give a token mention to ManiacClown for the assist. More tomorrow, as Iron Man and Black Panther show up for a spell.

Day Six!
Day Seven!

Time once again for another three pages of Ultimate Edit. Last time we checked in, Wolverine bragged about getting some witch booty. Now let’s go forward one generation.

Sorry for the pun on page two. I had to get that joke out of my system.

Thanks to ManiacClown for the help and thanks to muscles like this? for getting this stuff linked on Something Awful. In the next installment, I promise we’ll actually have scenes dedicated to the Ultimates. You remember them? The guys this comic was named after?

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

And… we’re back. Lots of wacky stuff in the last installment. Wolverine fought Hawkeye for little reason and the team bickered for a while. Now Wolverine is about to explain his part in the whole Scarlet Witch conspiracy.

Why, oh why, did MAD! feel the need to leave space to show us Wolverine’s shadowy, hairy ass?

Me and ManiacClown will be back tomorrow with another three pages of flashback. On the upside, Wolverine will have pants on.

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

Nothing much happened yesterday. I mean, it was just a cover, a recap page and Wolverine talking. That’s how 40% of Marvel’s comics start out these days. Anywho, here’s some more of Wolverine talking.

Join us tomorrow, as me and ManiacClown cover more of Wolverine talking.

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

This is the Ultimate Edit, of Ultimates Volume 3. Good guys, bad guys and explosions as far as the eye can see. And it goes to issue 5. I wonder how it will be. This is the Ultimate Edit, of Ultimates Volume 3.

If you missed the first and second issues, then you should probably go read those. It’s okay. I’ll wait.

Scarlet Witch got shot, a bunch of mutant badguys popped into the mansion, fought the heroes and skipped town with the corpse. Now Wolverine’s there. Spider-Man is probably still unconscious but nobody cares about him.

One thing that doesn’t come up in these edits that really bugged the hell out of me is the narration. At the very end of the second issue, once Wolverine steps in, it makes a mention that this takes place, “one second ago”. Why the first two issues were counting down to Wolverine’s mid-sentence, I don’t know. But in the first page of the third issue, taking place immediately after Wolverine’s entrance speech, it explains the scene as taking place “last night”. WHAT?

That’s going to mess with somebody’s mind once the trade comes out.

As always, a thank you to partner ManiacClown.

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

Next Friday I’m going to be taking a 3-day trip to Philly for CHIKARA’s King of Trios tournament. This thing is going to be crazy epic as over these days they are going to hold a tournament of 28 teams of 3. That’s 84 guys in there!

Other than the CHIKARA mainstays, teams are coming in from other independent wrestling feds and several other countries. It even has some stranger attractions like a team of Kaiju Big Battel monsters and a team made up of 80’s legends Demolition Ax, Demolition Smash and the One Man Gang.

I figured this was as good an excuse as any to get another CHIKARA interview down. This time I chose to interview the Osirian Portal, a tag team made up of the insidious human cobra Ophidian and the cold dancing machine Amasis.

The Bangles used to have nightmares that looked like this.

Ophidian debuted back in July at Showdown in Crisisland. After a couple weeks of build-up, he made his first appearance by taking on fan-favorite Player Uno. Showing off his viperlicious attack style and slithering to and from the ring rather than actually walking, Ophidian got everyone’s attention by knocking out Player Uno with a Cobra Clutch combined with leg scissors.

In September, at the show called Cibernetico and Robin, he was joined by Amasis, the Funky Pharaoh. As the Osirian Portal, they won their initial match against veterans Jigsaw and Shane Storm. Despite Amasis’ mastery of mixing wrestling with dancing, he still comes off as annoyed and with little patience when it comes to the CHIKARA crowds.

As it turns out, these guys don’t actually read comics. Well, not anymore at least. When Amasis wasn’t looking, Ophidian slipped me a note talking about how “Sssssspawn” is still the greatest superhero ever. Man, these guys really are evil. Nonetheless, I couldn’t pass the chance of interviewing two grown men dressed as up like Egyptian supervillains.

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It’s been too long since I’ve done anything truly stupid. Wait, not true. The other day I bought that handheld Guitar Hero game out of morbid curiosity. Yeah. That was mildly amusing for about four minutes. But it has been too long since I’ve done anything truly stupid in relation to this site. I set out to fix that.

Everybody knows that Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon syncs up with the classic movie Wizard of Oz. I’ve tried it once and it really works. The whole concept made me realize how we don’t see any other movie/music pairings like this. That got me thinking…

If such a great movie syncs up so well with such a great album, then surely the best superhero movie would HAVE to sync up with the best album ever. That’s right. I decided to watch Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker while listening to Beck’s Odelay.

Keep in mind, this is the good version of the movie, with all the torture and violence.

Hey, worst case scenario: I waste 50 minutes of my time listening to good music while watching most of a kickass movie.

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