With a heavy heart, I have to announce that the next installment of Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings is on hiatus. Nobody is more shocked and outraged about this turn of events than former Intercontinental Champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.

I know, Nikita Koloff. I know. But I have a reason. A very good reason.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing too many updates lately. I’ve been using my free time to read through the latest Mick Foley autobiography, Hardcore Diaries. I loved his other two autobiographies, but this one left me sour. About as sour as Mick Foley comes across for most of this book. Interesting wrestling anecdotes take a backseat to stories of Mick meeting B-list celebrities, ragging on the President to the point that it gets real old, and telling countless stories about what a great humanitarian Foley is.

There’s something else I’ve been reading. Readers of the site might remember my acquisition of the first three issues of the Marvel WCW comic at the New York Comic Con. I decided that three issues wasn’t good enough. Not for me and not for you. Fortunately, I came across the entire run on eBay. Unfortunately, it means I own two copies of a comic issue featuring El Gigante. God help me.

I forced myself to read the series and it wasn’t easy. The Malibu Street Fighter comic wasn’t all that bad until the end. The Mortal Kombat comic was honestly pretty good in parts. Even Extreme Justice could keep my attention enough that I’d keep going on to see what could possibly be next. World Championship Wrestling, though, hurt. A lot. Once a friend got wind of what I was reading, he told me, “You could be doing literally anything else and it would be a better use of your time.”

But I can’t let you guys down. Deadshot’s Tophat can wait. I’m finishing up my last What If article (finally), but after that, it’s on. Me and the WCW comic. One-on-one. No holds barred. With hermanos barred from ringside.

Prepared to get Stingersized!

Ares, God of War, is a pretty awesome guy. At least, he was in the last year and a half. The dude lit himself on fire and had Hercules throw him into the middle of an army of Japanese zombie demons while firing a gun on the way down.

If that doesn’t get you membership into the Avengers, nothing will. So I was jazzed when I found out he’d be in Bendis’ Mighty Avengers. I also dug the scene that leads up to his membership, where Iron Man and Ms. Marvel discuss their need for a Thor-type and a Wolverine-type. Ms. Marvel takes a second away from being a lying bitch to suggest a guy who borrows a little from both guys.

I saw a lot of potential in this bit. Now you have to pay for it.

– Fun with Ares: Take One

– Fun with Ares: Take Two

– Fun with Ares: Take Three

– Fun with Ares: Take Four

– Fun with Ares: Take Five

– Fun with Ares: Take Six

– Fun with Ares: Take Seven

– Fun with Ares: Take Eight

I’m going to level with you. This is not going to be an impressive group of characters. Remember how the last article had Captain America and Captain Marvel and shit? The most famous character here is known for having a cameo in X-Men 2 and a damn near non-existant role in the third movie. But we are going to delve into some really weird stories. Oh, yes.

God, I hate you, Wonder Woman.

CELESTIALS

Eternals #2 (1976)

The Celestials are mentioned a few times in the first issue of Eternals, but we don’t get to actually see one until the next issue. Now, bear with me on this because I don’t know the slightest thing about the Eternals and I’ve never really paid attention to the Celestials. The story here has to do with Ikaris and his archeologist friends fighting some Deviants until Ajak comes in on a spaceship and saves the day. All of the sudden, this guy shows up.

Sorry. Too much trippy exposition for me to follow.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN

Showcase #6 (1957)

I would barely even know who these guys were if it wasn’t for New Frontier and that one Amalgam story where the Challengers of the Fantastic fought the mighty GALACTIAC. Looking at it from the beginning, these guys have one cool origin story.

Rocky Davis, Professor Haley, Red Ryan and Ace Morgan are four different guys announced to be guests on a radio show dedicated to heroes. As they ride the same plane, they run into turbulence and crash.

Read the rest of this entry �

^ This is BLASPHEMY!

^ This is MADNESS!

^ THIS! IS! BARDAAA!!

I was going to use Wednesday to finish up the latest installment of Deadshot’s Tophat — filled with nothing but B and C-listers this time — but the big Marvel newsworthy thing kind of distracted me. I myself couldn’t go more than two minutes online without being bombarded with the big spoiler. Another five minutes later, the Reign of Supermen reference jokes were beaten into the ground.

(Yes, yes. We get it. Visor Captain America and a black guy in Cap armor.)

Whatever. It was still a great issue and had more surprises than CNN and Yahoo let us know. I trust Brubaker as far as I can urinate, so I’m sure this arc will be just as fantastic as the past 24 issues.

Poor Jeph Loeb. He writes a silly reveal that Hawkeye from the Heroes Reborn world is really Logan, only to have it smacked down by Captain America #25.

Now that Civil War is over and Captain America did that thing that he did in that issue that got spoiled, I look back and notice the familiarity. Back when I did the What If Countdown, there was one issue that didn’t make the list, but I didn’t so much hate it. Looking through the story, I see several parallels with what Marvel’s been giving us lately. Let’s take a look.

The issue is What If Steve Rogers Had Refused to Give Up Being Captain America (What If vol. 2, #3), written by Jim Valentino. And no, Spider-Man doesn’t die in it.

Read the rest of this entry �

Punisher War Journal #4 was a fun issue, with the goings on at Stiltman’s funeral. Looking at it a second time, I notice Matt Fraction tossed in one very subtle joke.

At first glance, it looks like they’re laughing about some time the Shocker got bested by Spider-Man.

Now, then…

Look at the hand gesture on the right.

“Aw, come on. I didn’t know what that name meant when I picked it. Can we just move on, already?”

Matt Fraction’s keen.

New York Comic Con has come and gone. Fuuuuun shit.

First, let me just go over last year’s show. I only showed up for Saturday. It was the first year of NYCC in the Jacob Javits Center, so they had no idea what they were doing. Me and my friend got there at about noon and already the place was pretty packed. You could barely move through the aisles and if you could, you couldn’t stop. We were packed like sardines.

Eventually, the fire marshal made a stink about the maximum occupancy on the floor. He was threatening to close the place down. Instead, they made a line into the convention floor that wouldn’t allow anyone – not even those with tickets – onto the convention floor unless someone in there exited first. For a few hours, this made things unbearable. Towards the latter hours, many of the people on line just plain left and things were a bit better.

The people behind the Comic Con insisted that they would fix the whole overpopulation problem. For one, they would limit the tickets. For two, they’d allow more room. Since I had a good time last year, I decided to go all three days. This time, I brought hermanos and Riskbreaker with me.

This is our story.

Read the rest of this entry �

I know very little about Ghost Rider. I’ve read only a few comics involving him (such as the New Fantastic Four arc, a cool Venom crossover and some What Ifs) and even less involving Johnny Blaze. All I know about him are the basics. I can’t remember his friends’ names. I don’t know if his love interest from the movie was ever in the comics. All I know is that Ghost Rider is fucking metal.

He’s metal and he’s a comic character with a movie. I had no choice but to see it.

Now, this may surprise you, but I’ve missed out on a lot of the more famous comic movie disasters. I haven’t seen Steel, Elektra or Captain America. While Superman 4 was the first movie I knew was bad (at age 6), it’s been years since I’ve seen it and I only recall certain details. I have that live action Hulk vs. Thor movie laying around, waiting to be watched. Ghost Rider, though, I knew I needed to see ASAP. I knew that while it was going to be bad, it was still going to be worth my money. I was totally right.

Read the rest of this entry �

Annihilation had just ended and the universe is saved. Mostly. What’s important is that Nova beat up Annihilus and for now, the Annihilation Wave is in repair. One of the more interesting subplots – as seen in one of the above site header images – is the teaming up between Super-Skrull and Ronan the Accuser. These two are more or less the #1 heroes of their respective planets. Two races that have hated each other for years have their top dogs fight side-by-side against a threat so great, they have no choice but to co-operate. Obviously, this won’t do all that much to stop the constant hatred between the Kree and the Skrulls. Super-Skrull and Ronan still pretty much hate each other’s guts. They just have a bit more respect for each other.

But it got me thinking. Marvel is doing a lot to change the status quo these days, in ways that make sense and can be used to tell new and interesting stories. What I’m wondering is, could humanity get along with the Skrulls? Could we form some kind of loose alliance?

The Skrulls were created for no reason other than to be the generic galactic invaders. The “little green men”. At first, they were just a race made entirely of insidious world conquerors who wanted nothing more than to take over Earth. A couple years later, the character of Princess Anelle was introduced, showing that despite what we’ve been fed, there are compassionate members of the Skrull people.

Time has changed the Skrulls. The 2000’s have changed the Skrulls more than anything else. While Earth continues to evolve, the Skrull Empire is being broken apart. Their worlds have been destroyed by wars, Galactus, botched weddings, crappy government and lots of cosmic bugs. They could use a helping hand.

As races, man and Skrull seems like easy opposition. With individuals, though, there’s more to be told. Let’s look at some of the more notable Skrulls of recent history.

Read the rest of this entry �

Ah, it’s Valentine’s Day. A day that honestly means nothing to me. But I can pretend. I did have a huge, ten-page article written up, but before posting, I remembered hermanos’ warning that he would bludgeon me to death with a life-sized bust of Ultra-Humanite if I were to ever write up Galactus/Giganta erotic fanfiction. So that’s out.

I swear, the scene with the Seattle Space Needle was one of my finest works.

Instead, I think I’ll show a bit of appreciation to our fans. No, not our regulars. You, who come to 4th Letter every couple of days to check for updates. This isn’t about you.

No, not the people who stumble upon 4th Letter by clicking on links in forums and other comic blogs. We appreciate you guys too, but this isn’t about you. Not today.

(Note: Article not totally work safe. You’ve been warned)

Read the rest of this entry �