You know what’s cool? Wolverine, that’s what.

He was overexposed in the ’90s, and up til now, yes, but listen. Gavok put it best when he said that Wolverine’s problem was never overexposure, but overimportance. Wolverine was suddenly a Big Deal, and well, that kind of sucks. I like my Wolverine to be the guy whose idea of a disguise is putting on an eyepatch, a cowboy hat, and demanding that people to call him Patch. It worked.

Do you know why it worked? It worked because it was obviously Wolverine, and he was obviously insane if he thought that people were going to believe that stupid disguise. So they played along and pretended that an eyepatch was as good of a disguise as a pair of eyeglasses and a slouch. Wolverine is crazy. Do you know what crazy people do when you point out that they are, in fact, crazy? They cut you up with foot long adamantium claws, that’s what!

I didn’t mind the issue of Wolverine where Nitro blew up all his skin and they grew back in something like two minutes. It was goofy and stupid, but it was pure Wolverine and pure pop comics. It was that crazy action I want to see Wolverine get into.

I’ll be honest. I hated Mark Millar’s Enemy of the State. His dialogue and characterization were off and poorly done. But… Millar had good ideas. I’m not so fond of Wolverine Beats Up The Marvel Universe/The Hand/Everything/Superman, but having him fight hordes of ninja is what Wolverine is all about. Johnny Romita’s art was on point even when Millar’s story left me flat.

Wolverine is a guy whose gimmick is six sharp claws, a bad attitude, and a crazy healing factor. Instead of running down the stairs with Frank Castle and Danny Ketch like a normal person, he’s going to SLIDE DOWN THE BANNISTER screaming about how he’s the best he is at what he does, and what he does is bannister-sliding, bub, don’t you ferget it! When he gets down to the bottom, he’s going to oh, I dunno, punch Cyclops in the stomach a few times, call Jubilee “kiddo” or something, then go off and cut something with his claws, all the while screaming about how he is the best he is at what he does, and what he does isn’t pretty/is calling Jubilee kiddo/is punching out Cyclops/eating Wheaties.

You know, this may be the reason why Marvel Comics won’t return my calls. I’d write Wolverine so well that they’d have to go back and retroactively fire anyone else who ever worked on him.

Wolverine rocks, so give the poor guy a chance. There is a reason why he became so popular during the ’90s. He’s a good character with a neat hook. The ’90s were rough on him, but they were rough on everyone.

What characters do you folks inexplicably like? We got any Shatterstar, Boom Boom, or USAgent fans in the house?

Writing intros for so many installments is hard. Gives me more respect for the Watcher, who thought up over a hundred variations of, “I’m going to show you stuff that didn’t happen, based on stuff that didn’t actually happen anyway.”

75) WHAT IF THE AVENGERS LOST OPERATION: GALACTIC STORM?

Issue: Volume 2, #55-56
Writer: Len Kaminksi
Artist: Craig Brasfield
Spider-Man death: Yes
Background: Galactic Storm was based on the war that was brewing between the Kree and the Shi’ar. Earth was going to be their battleground and the Avengers made an attempt to stop it. Their plea for peace got them in trouble and the team split up based on different ideas of how to handle the Kree. Captain America and others were taken prisoner by Kree rulers Ael-Dan and Dar-Ben. In regular continuity, the Shi’ar killer Deathbird appeared and assassinated the Kree men, but here, Captain America senses her and prevents their deaths. He finds that this one heroic gesture leads to unfortunate consequences.

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Here’s a peek into my private life.

I don’t have many posters. In fact, I just bought my fourth poster the other day. It’s the cover to JLA Classified #1 by Ed McGuinness.

Here’s the wall that has all my posters. Spider-Man 2 movie poster, JLA Classified #1, Astonishing X-Men #1 (I would’ve preferred some Jim Lee, but you take what you can get), and a Fight Club poster/one-sheet (?) that I picked up somewhere.

We should be back in working order next week! Stay tuned, true believers!

That hiatus was long enough. Let’s get back to business.

80) WHAT IF DAZZLER HAD BECOME THE HERALD OF GALACTUS? /WHAT IF IRON MAN WAS TRAPPED IN THE TIME OF KING ARTHUR?

Issue: Volume 1, #33
Writer: Dan Fingeroth, Steven Grant
Artist: Mike Vosburg, Don Perlin
Spider-Man death: Yes
Background: Two stories here, neither have much to do with the other. First, there was a time when Terrax, Galactus’ then-herald, schemed behind his master’s back and ended up in a black hole for his troubles. Because Dazzler was a bit overpowered at the time, she was chosen to bring him out of the black hole to stand trial. Galactus decided that Terrax had learned his lesson from the black hole and reinstated him. So what if he wasn’t so forgiving? As for the other story, there was a storyline where Dr. Doom and Iron Man ended up in Camelot via time travel. After a little adventure, the two banded together to return themselves to the correct point in history. Here, Doom is more of a bastard and really isn’t bright if you think about it.

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Slight interruption of service!

I just started back college, so I should probably, uh, focus for the first week of class before I start back goofing off. I’ll be back to posting regularly probably on Saturday, but until then, you’ll have to scope out some low-content/no-content from the David side of things. Gavok may have some good stuff for you soon, though.

Til then, have an image from Casanova #1.

You can find the list, plus covers, over at Newsarama.

My commentary on the interesting books lies after the jump, and I’ve included the solicit text for them, too!
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Here’s some trivia for you–

Apollo and Midnighter were not the first gay couple in comics.

That honor goes to Donner and Blitzen of the Shadow Cabinent, back from Milestone Comics. Nobody likes to talk about them much, though, huh?

For the past week, I’ve been on vacation in Phoenix (hey, it’s a nice place), which explains the lack of What If updates. Thankfully, hermanos is an update machine. I was lucky enough to find a comic shop, where I bought enough new stuff to keep me occupied. Green Lantern Corps ended with one of the most hilarious ownings in recent memory. Ultimate Fantastic Four included a jaw-dropping two-page splash that’s more than worthy of being a wallpaper.

52 Week 15, on the other hand… well, that just gave me a new reason to be annoyed at DC. Let’s not mince words: Booster Gold is dead. I don’t feel too bad about spoiling this, since DC already spoils the crap out of it with the issue’s cover. Booster, in an attempt to make himself look better than his mysterious rival Supernova, blew himself up from absorbing too much radiation and has been reduced to a skeleton in futuristic threads.

Hopefully, the writers of 52 won’t hold out on the aftermath for too long. For all we know, the next issue could be Black Adam dancing the Charleston for 20 pages, followed by a two-page bio of Mirror Master. Still, we know that Booster is gone. No matter the reaction by his peers and the public, it doesn’t change that he’s as dead as Ted.

But what of Supernova?

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This isn’t quite DVD-style commentary, but Mike Grell talks a bit about Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. He talks about the origin of the story, some of his ideas on how to do the solo series, and his stance on the scene with Dinah.

A paragraph back I used the phrase “could have been different”. Let me say, for the record, I never would have allowed such a thing. Dinah is one of my all-time favorite characters and she deserves better, but, frankly, she wasn’t the star of the show. Her motivations were never in question. So there was no need for a transforming incident in her life except as it related to her relationship with Ollie. I did what any decent soap opera writer would do — I started with a perfectly happy couple and then royally screwed up their lives.

The whole subject of Dinah losing her power came much later from another writer, because my mandate in the entire Green Arrow series was to place Ollie and Dinah firmly in the real world, where super powers do not exist. Someone felt it necessary to explain what I simply chose to ignore and things sort of went to hell in a handbasket from there.

There’s a copy of Longbow Hunters at my local shop. It’s a 13 dollar first edition TPB, I believe. I kind of want to buy it, as it’s been a good while since I first read the series.

He says that he’d write GA again in a minute. To that I say, bring it on. This may be damning with faint praise, but give me anyone but Winick.

Hey guys, quick note before I pop off to work.

I’ve mentioned that I do games journalism. The most regular work of mine appears monthly in Hardcore Gamer Magazine. It’s available at your local video game store, bookstore, and possibly even newstand. If not, ask for it by name. We offer subscriptions for 25 bucks a year, but you can also download each issue for free in PDF format from Luv2game’s download section. Give it a looksee, it’s a great mag. I’m pretty proud of it, at the very least. The new issue should go live on the site probably later this week. It’s already out on newstands. It’s got Disgaea 2 on the cover and the top-shelf previews and reviews you expect from us.

The name of the mag may or may not be ironic.

I’m going to be redoing my sidebar sometime soon (tonight, depending on how paying work goes) and I’ll be adding a gang of blogs and links to the site. I’d host the mag here, but that’d blow my bandwidth.

Speaking of bandwidth… since November 05, we’ve seen almost 11,500 people come through these doors. We’re averaging between 115-135 people a day now, which certainly sounds respectable to me. It’s enough to give me a happy feeling, anyway. Traffic has spiked over the last couple months, too.

So, guys, seriously. Thanks for coming to the site and keep coming back. I’ll try to keep feeding you content.We’ve got an RSS feed linked off the sidebar and a separate feed for comments as well. There’s also Livejournal syndication. There’s nowhere to go but up, hey? We can make 4l one of the big blogs if we keep at it.

Also, I’m always open to debate, comments, or even chatting. My AIM is ethiopiates, my e-mail is this website’s url (less the www and net) @gmail.com and it’s linked top right… if you don’t want to comment on the site, drop me a line. I’m very approachable and nice to a fault. Did I say something stupid/smart/awesome? Tell me!

That’s my bit of self-promotion for the day. Read 4l, read my mag, and keep on coming back. My promised posts are still in the works, though I may hit you with shorter ones (yeah, ’cause I totally write short posts…) in between.

Peace!