I did the 50 Things meme with a twist, so I figure I better give y’all the answers, right?

Here we go–
1-10 – Awesome comics chicks (on a story level, dorks)
11-18 – Characters from the ’70s who don’t get used often enough
19-23 – Avengers that I actually like (ayo!)
24-28 – The extended Marvel family – Billy Batson, Mar-vell, Genis-vell, Mary Marvel, Phyla-vell. I forgot to include Noh-varr, who should totally date Mary Marvel.
29-35 – X-Men Blue team, a.k.a. the team Jim Lee drew
36-39 – Rapper/comic characters. John Blaze/Method Man, X-Man/Xzibit, David Banner/David Banner, Tony Stark/Ghostface
40-41 – Real life comics characters
42-45 – The best Daredevil writers
46-50 – Awesome webcomics

Easy, right?

Solenna from Solarts (and unofficial member of the FBB4l axis) sent over her list. She went ahead and included categories for you, too. She’s got impeccable taste in artists.

Guys I <3 are:
1. Dick Grayson
2. Danny Rand
3. Bucky Barnes
4. Bobby Drake
5. Jaime Reyes
6. Ares (DC’s version)
Ladies who are awesome:
7. Elsa Bloodstone (mostly in NextWAVE)
8. Catwoman
9. Barbara Gordon
10. Wonder Woman
11. Shining Knight
12. Layla Miller
13.Misty Knight
14. Colleen Wing
Costumes/Character design I like:
15. Hepizbah (it’s the poofy pirate sleeves)
16. Nightwing
17. Blue Beetle III
18. DC’s Frankenstein
19. Thena (Eternals)
20. Abraham Sapien
21. Hellboy
22. We3 (all 3 of them)
23. The Hecatomb
24. All of the Immortal Weapons
Artists who kick ass:
25. Chris Bachalo
26. Humberto Ramos
27. David Aja
28. JRJr
29. Tony Daniel
30. Stuart Immonen
31. Frank Quitely
32. Adrian Alphona
33. Jo Chen
34. Adam Hughes
Writers who kick ass:
35. Matt Fraction
36. Grant Morrison
37. Mike Carey
38. Warren Ellis
39. Brian K. Vaughan
40. Greg Rucka
41. Zeb Wells
Things that have made me cry:
42. Percy Gloom
43. We3
44. Identity Crisis
45. Civil War: The Confession
46. Blue Beetle 28
47. Wonder Woman 217
48. Watchmen
49. Runaways V2 #18
50. Gunnerkrigg Court

My friend Andrew Bayer did his list of 50 comics here, old buddy Mark Poa did one, too, and Cheryl Lynn has some great stuff on her list, too.

Anybody else want to take part? If you don’t have a blog of your own, hit me with your list and how you want to be credited.

Yesterday, hermanos posted his take on the Hembeck Challenge. Sometime later today, he’s going to toss one up from a reader. Since my effort has been rather lacking lately, I decided to take up the same challenge, but go all out. So not only did I go a bit more specific in my picks (just putting “Batman” won’t cut it), but I have a visual for each choice.

Enjoy the shit out of it!

1) Captain America beating up Fake Captain America.
2) Just about anything Ares does.
3) Elseworlds: The Batman of Arkham, where Bruce Wayne is a psychiatrist, trying to cure the maniacs he puts away as Batman.
4) That Mother Box android duplicate thing of Ted Knight.
5) Dynamo 5, a comic about an adulterous superhero’s bastard children fighting crime in his absence.
6) Booster Gold humiliating Lex Luthor.
7) The Kingdom Come World’s Finest Hug.
8) The Batmen of All Nations.
9) Stan Lee beating up ninjas.
10) Molly punching Frank Castle in the breadbasket.
11) Luke Cage vs. Dr. Doom!
12) The death of Tomorrow Woman.
13) Venom hiding for God knows how long in a big shipment of heroin, just so he can catch a dealer by surprise before murdering him.
14) That What If issue where Galactus was transformed into Elvis. Always puts a smile on my face.
15) “Tell Tedstar that Good Grundy was good Grundy.”
16) The goddamn Midnighter.
17) That time Ted Kord was brainwashed into trying to kill the Justice League and they needed the Wall and Nabu to fix him.
18) Any time Lobo gets his ass kicked, no matter by who, because Lobo sucks.
19) Hal Jordan punching people.
20) The original Dr. Spectrum getting rid of the Parasite-based Lamprey.
21) The Eradicator, especially his latest redesign.
22) Pretty much any issue of The Goon.
23) Dr. Doom showing off his indestructable balls during Infinity Gauntlet.
24) Those two issues of Deadpool where Wade had a sidekick. I miss Kid Deadpool.
25) The awkward Nite Owl/Rorschach handshake.
26) Joe Kelly’s Space Ghost miniseries.
27) Section Eight
28) That Wolverine vs. Naked Mystique fight. Thematic cheesecake!
29) Galactiac!
30) The Starman staring contest.
31) The very existence of Reagan’s Raiders!
32) Conan the Barbarian coming to the present and dressing up like a pimp.
33) That two-page spread in Infinite Crisis where Zoom has that amazing smile on his face while appearing at various points.
34) All of Superman Prime’s lines in Countdown.
35) Transmetropolitan featured this random character who strongly resembled Charlie Brown for no real reason. Then, when they finally killed him off, everything suddenly made sense. I laughed at this for way too long.
36) That zombie guy that showed up briefly in Whedon’s Runaways.
37) The current version of the Kree Captain Marvel.
38) “Proud? Proud?! GOD DAMN YOU!!”
39) Hercules punching Galactus in the dick.
40) Jim Rhodes putting bros before hoes.
41) Juggernaut, no matter who’s writing him.
42) Layla Miller and her knowledge of stuff.
43) The Great Outdoor Fight. Buy the hardcover trade when it comes out. All of you.
44) An alternate universe where Yoda kills Emperor Palpatine by dropping the damned Death Star on him!
45) Slobo, especially during the final issues of Young Justice.
46) The Emoticon.
47) The ending of Joker’s Asylum: Two Face.
48) The entire three issues of Escape from Bizarro World.
49) Black Bolt vs. Apocalypse.
50) That time Wally West grew a pair and totally made a fool out of Vandal Savage.

The Hembeck Challenge, which I found via blake-reitz.livejournal.com. I think that ADD and some others did this a few years back, too, only those had panels. Here’s mine. Just for fun, each group has a theme. Some are obvious, others are not. Guess them and win a no-prize.

1.) Harley Quinn
2.) Isabel “Dizzy” Cordova
3.) Brubaker/Stewart/Cooke-era Catwoman
4.) 355
5.) Mary Jane Watson
6.) Misty Knight
7.) Colleen Wing
8.) JLA/Superman-era Natasha Irons
9.) Aunt May
10.) Cassandra Cain/Batgirl

11.) Moses Magnum
12.) Brother Voodoo
13.) Princess Zanda
14.) Blade
15.) Glory Grant
16.) Shades & Comanche
17.) Hannibal King
18.) DW Griffifth

19.) Luke Cage
20.) Spider-Man
21.) Black Panther
22.) Hawkeye
23.) Captain America

24.) Captain Marvel
25.) Captan Marvel
26.) Captan Marvel
27.) Mary Marvel
28.) Quasar

29.) Jubilee
30.) Cyclops
31.) Wolverine
32.) Beast
33.) Rogue
34.) Gambit
35.) Psylocke

36.) John Blaze
37.) X-Man
38.) David Banner
39.) Tony Stark

40.) Nat Turner
41.) Percy Carey

42.) Ed Brubaker
43.) Brian Michael Bendis
44.) Frank Miller
45.) Ann Nocenti

46.) Thinkin’ Lincoln
47.) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
48.) Dr. McNinja
49.) Dinosaur Comics
50.) Kate Beaton

Caught the midnight showing of Incredible Hulk tonight. Very fun movie that’s definitely better than the Ang Lee non-prequel. It flows nicely and the action wasn’t too brief, as it sometimes felt in Iron Man. Not to say it’s better than Iron Man, because it isn’t, but there’s no shame in that. Besides, this is the second episode of the Avengers Movie Saga and it does feel right in that respect.

Several weeks back I read the Peter David novelization, as I’m wont to do, so I already had been spoiled in terms of the plot. While there are few surprises, there’s still the interesting experience of seeing stuff that was in the original version of the story that got cut out. I’ve done this before, of course, with Spider-Man 3 and Iron Man. The former was originally a solid story until important chunks of it got cut out. The latter remained good, despite a subplot cut out because of the Air Force’s say so.

With Incredible Hulk, the good outweighed the bad in terms of cuts. God, did it ever. Yes, there was definitely some stuff that should have stayed in there. No doubt. It’s just that a lot of scenes that got ousted had the potential to be really bad. Really bad. I’m talking Superman’s cellophane S projectile bad. I’m talking Matt Murdock fighting Elektra at the playground bad. I’m talking the entirety of Rise of the Silver Surfer bad. It’s cool that I count that movie as one long, horrible scene, right?

Word on the street is that there are 70 minutes of stuff cut. It’ll probably be seen in DVD form. Whether or not that makes for a better movie remains to be seen. The deleted scenes below, filled with spoilers, don’t seem to sum up to 70 minutes, but when it comes to cutting them being a good or bad idea, I’ll let you be the judge.

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I’ve joked about the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game a lot and I don’t expect it to be an especially good game, but at the same time, I’m drawn to the lead-up. As a crossover, it’s such a unique concept that I can’t help but wonder about the final product. In other words, at the moment, I’m enthralled by the speculation.

As of now, only four characters have been revealed: Superman, Batman, Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Series bigwig Ed Boon said that there will be 20-22 characters on the game’s roster. On one hand, I get that this is because the game has a brand new engine working for it. On the other hand, it doesn’t bring in the fun factor that comes with the obscure characters.

Capcom’s crossover games initially had the same problem, which is why the sequels had more going for them. With the foundation in place, the creators got to move outward and be more creative with the character spots. That’s when we got guys like Marrow, Tron Bonne and Chang Koehan. So if there is a sequel to this game, only then will we get Noob Saibot vs. The Shade or Moloch vs. The Shaggy Man. Myself, I’m all for Stryker vs. Azrael in the battle of who fanboys hate the most.

For the fun of speculation, I’m trying to make some educated guesses on who will be in the game. The low character count helps. The need to include the more marquee characters from both sides helps too. Boon also mentioned that each character pairs into a rivalry with the crossover counterpart.

That means you have to figure out first who Midway wants to put in the forefront. That means most of the MK1 cast and a handful of the other more memorable fighters. Then you mix and match while making sure to stick in all the well-known DC heroes. To be optimistic, let’s say that there are 11 characters on each side.

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So 27 years ago, back on May 30, 1981, I showed up and started doing my thing. To copy from hermanos, I decided to look up some old covers for comics that came out during the month of May, 1981. Sadly, What If skipped that month. Bastards.

Notes:

– The best covers are definitely the Justice League of America Starro fiasco and Dr. Doom acting like a complete pimp. You know he’s saying, “Suck it, T’Challa!” in that image.

– Ow! Look at Hal Jordan there. I thought John Stewart was the one who injured his spine.

– I need to get back into reading Essential Power Man/Iron Fist. What the hell is going on in that comic?!

– Good to see that Batman’s been an asshole since way before the 90’s.

– I don’t know what’s going on in that Superfriends comic, but I aim to find out and review it.

– Did I mention how fucking awesome that Dr. Doom cover is?

Last night I checked out the Iron Man movie. It is just as fantastic as it was meant to be, but that’s just my initial reaction. We’ll see how I feel in a couple days. Ah, hell. I’ll still probably love it.

About a month back, I read through Peter David’s novelization, so I got the gist of how good this would be. Like Spider-Man 3, it was based on an earlier or fuller version of the movie before scenes got cut or, in the case of this movie, replaced. Spider-Man 3 was about character-building scenes getting cut for the sake of time and allowing more focus on Mary Jane’s constant whining. With Iron Man, most of the scenes were cut for time, or in other cases, to totally fuck over Terrance Howard as Jim Rhodes. The poor guy gets devoured by editing. According to interviews, in return for their involvement in the film, the Air Force insisted on having control of the character and refused some of his character actions. That explains that.

It’s also worth noting that director Favreau was into improvisation, which does alter a couple scenes here and there on the dialogue side of things..

This is going to be filled with spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know about the scene where Titanium Man beats up an army of ballerinas, go make yourself a sandwich. Or go see the movie. You’d be glad you did.

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I’ve been rereading Silver Surfer this weekend. I started with the Englehart/Rogers stuff, which was really very pretty, but kind of boring so I skipped up to Jim Starlin & Ron Marz scripting over Ron Lim.

And wow. What an underappreciated bunch of comics these are! I’m not sure if they are actually good or not, but I’m enjoying the crap out of them. I’d read half a dozen of these as a kid, so I figured I’d see if they held up. I’ve taken some notes which I hope you’ll enjoy and possibly be able to answer!

• Silver Surfer is a gigantic whining wimp. Honestly man, he spends entire issues at a time either a) fighting his own psyche or b) moping around space or c) moping around a planet in space.
• Black Panther punking Surfer in Fantastic Four was way more of a big deal than it should have been. Surfer spends half the series getting punked by dudes with no powers, dudes with guns, dudes with sharp teeth, and a girl with big fat angel wings who is upset that he doesn’t love her back. Even people whose powers are “sharp teeth” and “big muscles” rough him up.

• There are ray guns in outer space, but a shocking amount of people still prefer to use good ol’ fashioned axes, spears, and swords. Not even ones made out of lasers or some kind of made-up science word– just straight up hunks of metal with pointy bits on the end.
• Frankie Raye, Nova, is dead. I didn’t remember this coming into the series. I’d kind of noticed her absence in the current Marvel Universe with an unspoken “Wasupwitdat?”, but hadn’t thought much about her. I mean, all I know is that Frankie Raye is an awesome name and fire hair is cool. Anyway, she told Galactus “No,” he told her to get gone, she literally had some kind of nervous breakdown, psychotic break, or amnesiac whatever and became a space stripper.
• Yeah, space stripper, not even joking. She was working at a bar aimed towards aliens with a flame-girl fetish, too.
• Luckily, she didn’t live to wrestle with the indignity of the situation, since she was killed two issues later by Morg, Galactus’s new herald.
• But seriously ladies, space amnesia turns you into a stripper. Be careful out there.
  
• Rereading the Infinity Gauntlet issues was a long and drawn-out process, to the point where I feel like I’ve read Silver Surfer continuously for the past eighty years. It’s not that they were bad– okay, they were pretty bad.
• Ron Lim is kind of awesome. You could make the case that his facial features are a little too similar, but that’s every artist ever. However, he draws awesome space battles, great aliens, and I think I like his version of the Surfer more than Kirby, Buscema, or Rogers.
• There are a lot of weirdly shaped word bubbles in this series. Terrax, Morg, Tyrant, Adam Warlock, Airmaster, Firelord, Nova, Drax, and Thanos all get custom balloons.
• Tyrant is a terrible name for a villain.
• Galactus talks a lot, but rarely backs up his threats. However, when he does, it’s almost always worth it. “I will have words with you” is an awesome entrance line.
• Surf really doesn’t have a supporting cast to speak of. They’re all either dead or too aloof to be interesting. Impossible Man should show up more often, too.
• The book got a lot less weird when Starlin left, though it was still pretty weird.
• Tyrant effortlessly punks Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill, and three heralds of Galactus in one issue.
• Surfer is guilty because his mother slit her wrists in the bath? And years later, his father put a bullet in his brain? Aw, c’mon. That feels like unneeded depth.
• Galactus should never, ever take his hat off. He looks ridiculous.
  
• The Spinsterhood is an incredible idea and one that should be relaunched and revamped in a prestige-format 12 issue maxi-series asap. We can draft a few established characters, hook up a new costume, give them a new enemy. It’ll be golden. From the comic: “We took our sacred vows, forsaking the pleasures of the flesh for training in the ways of war. We marked ourselves with the symbol of our ceremonial daggers.”
  

Happy 500 posts to us.

Marvel’s panel on the X-Books at Wizard World Los Angeles just ended. Check here for Newsarama’s coverage, here for CBR’s. The most interesting news? Matt Fraction is joining Ed Brubaker on Uncanny X-Men as co-writer starting with issue 500, with rotating art duties by the Dodsons and Greg Land.

Wow. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Fraction and Brubaker are two great tastes that taste great together, and the Dodsons are fine artists, but Greg Land? Seriously? Haven’t people caught on to his plagiarizing ways yet? Why is he on a comic that matters? He’s going to make that book annoying to read at best, unreadable at worst. Just look at the cover for issue 500 alone:

Let’s play “Spot the Ripoffs”!

– Warpath, Cyclops and the guy behind Cyclops have exactly the same body. Land has used it at least once before.
– Tattooed guy on the left and Colossus have exactly the same body.
– Wolverine and long-haired shouting man in the background on the right have exactly the same body, only Wolverine’s head is different. Land has used it at least once before. I distinctly recall Ultimate Namor in this pose as well, but I don’t have the relevant issue at hand.
– Land has used Cannonball’s body at least once before.
– Land has used Rogue (is that Rogue?)’s body at least once before.
– Land has used Storm’s body at least once before.
– Land has used Pixie’s body at least once before. It also happens to be the one with that ridiculous porn face made immortal by Ultimate Scarlet Witch. Very appropriate for a sixteen year old girl!

This is from spending maybe five minutes looking at this image and skimming through four issues of Ultimate Power. I could probably find a lot more if I spent effort on this. Maybe I’d even find the photographs he traced these from. Come on now. This is absolutely ridiculous. Why can’t we have an artist that actually draws?

IGN: From Comics to Screen: Marvel’s Babes

(Nevermind the fact that most of these fictional ladies were created by sex-starved geeks, who imagined such busty and scantily clad female characters from either their mother’s basement, or a studio filled with other similarly sexually deprived male artists.)

Sue Storm: created by Stan Lee (married since 1947) and Jack Kirby (married since 1942)
Mystique: created by Dave Cockrum (married)
Jean Grey: created by Stan Lee (married since 1947) and Jack Kirby (married since 1942)
Mary Jane: created by Stan Lee (married since 1947) and John Romita Sr (his son JRjr was born 08/1956)
Elektra: created by Frank Miller (married to Lynn Varley in the ’80s, divorced now)
Rogue: created by Chris Claremont (has a wife and kids) and Michael Golden (can’t find any info on him)
Storm: created by Len Wein (married twice) and Dave Cockrum (married)

Sex-starved geeks? Sexually deprived?

Characters that were “busty and scantily clad” upon creation: 1 (and that’s Elektra, which is being a little generous.)
Characters created in someone’s mother’s basement: 0
Number of worthwhile articles on IGN.com, period: 0