As we last left our heroes… Wait. Nobody really looks up to these jokers. As we last left our vigilante protagonists, Venom was kicking their asses. Then Valkyrie flew down from left field and tried chopping him up. It didn’t take. Venom has the sword and has a decent idea of how to use it.

In that first image, at the very bottom, am I the only one who thinks that Venom looks like he’s wearing a monocle? “We want to look rich!”

Once again, thanks to ManiacClown. That ham thing was his brainchild.

Tomorrow = more.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

The Venom Marathon continues! In yesterday’s episode, Venom effortlessly shrugged off several dozen bullets with little discomfort. The Ultimates decided that perhaps tiny lasers and brass knuckles could stop him. They thought wrong. Now let’s get back to the action.

Cutting room floor: collaborator ManiacClown really wanted me to have Valkyrie jump into action while yelling, “DA-DA-DA-DA-DA! Sweater Puppy Power!” but I vetoed it. I figured I’d mention in here to give it at least give his idea a little love.

Join us for more fun tomorrow. Santa Claus is coming to town.

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

Last time in Ultimates 3 #1, Vanessa from King of Fighters had sex with a dying man on video and then Venom showed up for no raisin. With the help of ManiacClown, join me in looking at the next three pages of this epic.

More tomorrow. See you then.

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

About a year or so ago, I recall explaining Jeph Loeb to somebody. The guy I was talking to only read Marvel, so he didn’t understand why I found Loeb’s writing so annoying. The only thing he knew of him was Loeb’s old Batman stuff, which of course, was very good. This was before Fallen Son, Wolverine and it’s not like he was going to read the then-new miniseries Onslaught Reborn anyway.

I explained it via Superman/Batman and how ridiculous it got after Jeph’s son tragically died of cancer. Loeb’s writing took a turn for the worse to the point that he only relies on his whole “Toss everyone into the mix and watch it sell despite quality” gimmick to get by. He still gets high profile comic jobs that will continue to do well based on both the topic and the great artists he’s usually paired with. No matter how bad his Hulk run is, it will capitalize on both the McGuinness art and the phenomenon of Greg Pak’s amazing Planet/World War Hulk epic. Wolverine was unreadable, but it’s Wolverine and the pages looked amazing.

My friend didn’t care much about Superman or Batman, so my explanation of why it was so bad towards the end of Loeb’s run didn’t work. To better explain, I jokingly came up with Jeph Loeb’s Spider-Man/Wolverine. A hypothetical comic where in one story they would face Doctor Octopus, who has for some reason taken over the Hand. Or a story where Ben Reilly returns with an adamantium skeleton. Or a story with Mary Jane becoming the new Phoenix. If anything else, I knew that there would be some kind of story arc where Venom and Magneto would team up. Such a concept makes no sense in any way, but that would never stop Loeb from shoehorning those two popular villains together for the sake of another epic crossover filled with random guest appearances.

I was only half joking when I suggested it, and yet here it is. Much has been said about Jeph Loeb and MAD!’s Ultimates 3 #1. Very few of it good. It’s nice of them to wait until December to release this, as we can be sure that this is really the worst comic of the year. In a year where Mary Marvel turned slutty and fought a demon made of dead babies who threatened to eat her poop, it was still toppled by this muddy comic that can only be considered the Ultimate line’s first great step into self-destruction.

This comic needs its own special take. Much like Christopher Bird‘s deservingly popular take on Civil War, I teamed up with Something Awful forum member ManiacClown to create Ultimate Edit. Speaking of Mr. Bird, he was gracious enough to help me find a font that doesn’t scrape the eyes. Nice guy.

That’s it for today. Join us tomorrow for the next three pages.

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

Spider-Man 3 on DVD came out recently. I think I’ll wait off on it for the eventual Spider-Man 3.1 release. In honor of this movie, let’s look at the two debuting villains: the Sandman and Venom.

Venom made complete sense. I think most everyone with a brain knew how this was going to play out from the beginning. First movie would have to be Spider-Man’s top nemesis the Green Goblin. Second movie would have to be Doctor Octopus, who, while doesn’t have all that much of a personal connection to Spider-Man, is such a persistent villain that the public equates him as one of the other top bad guys. The third movie had to have Venom. Who else?

Yes, there are a ton of unused Spider-Man villains out there, but does Mysterio really have the star power of Venom? Do you really see 14-year-olds getting all giddy because they heard the next Spider-Man movie will have the Vulture? No. He may not be the most popular villain among the comic writers and especially Sam Raimi, but he certainly plays the third corner in the Big Three for Spider-Man’s rogues gallery.

The Sandman is a sensible addition because of his classic nature, trademark street clothes appearance and the potential of how his powers would look on the big screen. That and Thomas Hayden Church looked so perfect for the role it was impossible to say no to.

They are two very different villains. One is one of the originals, the other is a product of the late 80’s. One is a team player, the other is a loner. One is an overly-milked cash cow, the other isn’t known for starring in any major storyline. But they are mainstays in the comics and will remain so for some time. That begs the question, how often do Venom and the Sandman meet up in the comics?

As far as I can tell, there are three stories about the two of them butting heads. I won’t count minor appearances, like Mark Millar’s Marvel Knights Spider-Man run. Sure, Venom and the Sandman were both in it, but they had no real interaction. This also goes for any illusion or dream sequence or what-have-you for Spider-Man seeing an army of villains running towards him.

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Wednesday’s Illuminati #5 revealed something huge about the Marvel universe. Like always, I felt the need to take this big revelation and mess around with it for the sake of dumb comedy. Now, due to the revelation, I can’t even make a preview picture or else I might risk spoiling it for you. So if you haven’t read Illuminati #5 yet, don’t click on these links unless you’re sure you want me to spill the beans about how Doctor Strange is actually a figment of Gorilla Man’s imagination.

Ruin the Moment #1

Ruin the Moment #2

Ruin the Moment #3

Ruin the Moment #4

I may post some thoughts on the issue later, but I’m sure 98% of the internet has beaten me to it.

With the first Essential Luke Cage collection so fresh in my mind, it didn’t take me too long to finish off his solo series. Essential Luke Cage, Power Man Volume 2 covers from issue #28 to #49, plus an annual that Chris Claremont wrote. That’s good, since we’re cheated out of an issue. Power Man #36, which claims that “Chemistro is back! And deadlier than ever!” is really just a reprint of #12, the only Chemistro appearance up to that point. The nerve.

On the subject of them messing with us, the back cover of this book promises a guest-starring role by the X-Men. Bullshit. The closest we get is one panel of Iron Fist saying, “I just met the X-Men the other day.”

Except I didn’t read this for the X-Men cameos. I read this because back in the 70’s, the blaxploitation man-tank named Luke Cage was a ridiculously fun protagonist who beat up any jive sucka that looked at his metal tiara the wrong way. The last trade ended with a wacky, but somewhat heartfelt story about a dumb wrestler with a terminal blood clot who finds and drinks a random can of Super Soldier Serum and temporarily reaches his peak physical condition. It’s weird, but it has it’s right at home with the rest of the series and keeps the momentum going into issue #28.

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I honestly hadn’t heard of this comic until I was futzing around with the graphic novel display at work. Glancing at it, I figured it was probably just some crap comic about Tony Montana prior to the movie’s story. Then I saw that John Layman wrote it. I haven’t read much of the man’s work, but House of M: Fantastic Four was the best side-story to the House of M event and Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness is the highlight of the entire Marvel Zombie experiment. That got me interested enough to read the back cover, where I discovered it was a sequel. Hey, why the hell not.

I should get this out of the way first: I’m not the biggest fan of the movie Scarface. It’s been years since I’ve last seen it, but the problem for me that it was too long a movie to be carried by only one likeable character. Tony Montana is an awesome character, but he’s the only thing the movie had going for it. None of the other characters did anything for me. I still respect the movie and wouldn’t mind giving it another go one of these days.

But wait… Isn’t Tony Montana dead? Didn’t the movie end with the crazy gunfight where a coke-filled Tony got riddled with 500 bullets before being shot in the back by that Terminator-looking guy? Now, around the same time, a Scarface videogame called the World is Yours was released and dealt with this by going the What If route. Before he can get killed, Tony finds a passage to escape through, recuperates and plans his comeback. Scarface: Scarred for Life, on the other hand, is a comic book. Like Wilson Fisk and Barracuda, charismatic comic book mobsters have a talent for surviving the most insane maimings.

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There are so many reasons people wished they could have Superman’s powers. The strength, the flying, the speed, the eye-lasers, the x-ray vision… er… Pretend I put “x-ray vision” in there a couple more times. It’s always funnier that way. Anyway, one of the cooler things about Superman’s powers is his ability to slowly storm forward as criminals empty clips into his chest and continue firing in horror and futility as the bullets keep bouncing off his body. I’m sure Batman wishes he was from Krypton just so he could do that every other hour. Superman doesn’t even need to do it! He could zip over and steal the guns if he truly wanted. He only does it for the kicks. That has to be the most gratifying thing you can do as a crime fighter.

Luke Cage exists for the sake of doing this bit whenever he’s in a bad mood. He also exists to show that black people can have bad fashion sense too, but that’s beside the point. Luke Cage’s main superpower is walking forward while armed bad guys shit themselves. The difference is that he loses a lot of shirts. Really. Luke Cage goes through more shirts than Bruce Banner.

Heheh. I wonder if he knows that in 30 years, that’s going to be a stinging insult.

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It still surprises me that Double Dragon died out completely. You’d think we’d see a remake or sequel for the Wii or PS3 around this time, but nothing. No flashy resurrections like Ninja Turtles or Transformers. It just died, unless you count the re-release on the Gameboy Advance.

The game’s story was pretty basic. Billy and Jimmy Lee are two brothers with identical fighting skills. In a slightly decrepit future, their mutual girlfriend Marian is shot by a machine gun-toting cyberpunk and taken away. The brothers have to fight through legions of punks before saving Marian. In the NES version of the game, they couldn’t get the 2-player co-op to work, so they just made Jimmy Lee evil. Ignore that.

Several sequels were made, each playing up the same formula. Marian gets kidnapped and the brothers beat up street gangs in retaliation. Some of these games added weird mystical stuff to the series, like demonic gymnast crime bosses and evil mummies. There was a fighting game made for the Neo-Geo, but I never played it. Around then, the series took a turn for the worse.

A cartoon series was released and it was pretty bad. Instead of plainclothes martial arts vigilantes, the Lee brothers were full-blown superheroes. This led to a movie with a similar plot that was atrocious. In the videogames, the brothers teamed up with the Battletoads in a completely random crossover. Double Dragon 5 was released, but in actuality, it was a lame one-on-one fighter tie-in to the cartoon.

Back in 2002, SNK Playmore was set to release a follow-up fighting game called Rage of the Dragons, but the licensing fell through. Hence, the characters became Billy Lewis, Jimmy Lewis, Mariah and Abubo (rather than Abobo).

This comic, released by Marvel, came out in 1991. This is several years before the cartoon and the movie and the game where they fight a giant space rat named Big Blag. Instead, this is right around the time when Double Dragon 3 was released on the NES. Despite that, the series strays from loyalty to the games. Yes, Billy and Jimmy beat up punks and Marian is there, but besides that, the comic goes out into left field to add color. It’s more similar to the cartoon in ways, with the mystical superpowers and off-the-wall villains. The comic doesn’t even have Abobo in it!

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