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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This is several days late, but like I’ve said, computer troubles. Read it anyway.

Secret Invasion has come and gone. Skrulls are old news and now the more beloved villains are beginning to step forward, forming their own little Evil Illuminati. Fittingly, they all counter the original Marvel faction in their own way.

– Tony Stark is replaced by a more ruthless businessman/inventor in Norman Osborn, who shares similar ideals on unity among the powerful.
– Reed Richards is replaced by Victor Von Doom, his eternal rival when it comes to his intelligence.
– Charles Xavier is replaced by Emma Frost, who, while heroic, could potentially do some more underhanded things to help her race. Then again, look at who I’m talking about. Xavier’s done some shady stuff already. Bendis originally wanted Magneto for the role, but you know how it is for that guy.
– Doctor Strange is replaced by the Hood, the magical avatar of the Dread Dormammu himself.
– The enigmatic and overly powerful Black Bolt is replaced by the more enigmatic and more powerful Loki, now in a female form.
– Namor, once a proud king able to own the room with his regal presence, is replaced by a meeker, disheveled and more desperate shell of himself.

Norman puts together his own Secret Society concept and tries to sell it onto the others. The two main points of interest are the mystery man – which I will get to in a second – and the suggestion by Doom to Namor that this will all lead into some kind of massive supervillain Civil War in the future.

That discussion is for another time. Let’s discuss the mystery man.

“If you so choose as to even lift a suspicious eyebrow towards me and mine… you and my friend here will have some words. Emma, you’re a psychic, I can feel you poking around in my head now… You read minds… Tell me… Am I lying?”

“No.”

“Something for even a goddess of mischief to think about.”

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Last time on the Venom Marathon, we discovered that the symbiote is an entity that can extrude itself as a molecular filament and travel along communication cables. In other words, Carnage Unleashed is the greatest awful comic of all time. Yet somehow, Marvel brass decided that Larry Hama should continue writing the series.

Continue he did, with Sinner Takes All. Had they gone with a real numbering system, this would be Venom #31-35, meaning that we’re halfway into his series. I have fonder memories of this one merely because as a kid, I had the entire five issues. Boy were they big issues. The first four came with a Jury back-up story that I’ve never cared about enough to actually read. The fifth issue came with a quick Venom story that I’ll get to after this Sin-Eater business.

The artist here is Greg Luzniak (Ted Halsted takes over for the last issue), who had a really nice art style for the most part. The catch was that his Venom, as you can see, is a little bit overboard.

Yikes. From what I understand, Hama is less into the superhuman and more into badasses armed to the teeth, so this storyline comes more natural to him.

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Um… let’s not make eye-contact. Just move on.

To bring us up to speed, Venom left his life in San Francisco as a Lethal Protector to the secret underground city behind so he could visit New York City and throw down with Carnage. Carnage was already taken care of, so Venom fought the newly-christened Scarlet Spider, who knocked him out and led to his apprehension. Now Eddie Brock and the symbiote are separated and incarcerated by the government.

This brings us to Separation Anxiety (Venom #23-26) written by Howard Mackie and drawn by Ron Randall.

In a bout with splitting hairs, I always found it interesting that they named a videogame after this story. For one, the game’s story isn’t based on Separation Anxiety, but Lethal Protector. Second, the game is meant to be a sequel to Maximum Carnage, even though that story came after Lethal Protector. Third, even though Carnage had nothing to do with Lethal Protector, they toss him in as the final boss for the hell of it. Hey, they did have those sprites lying around from the last game.

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