Superman/Batman is a spotty book.  It veers in and out of continuity in the most over-the-top ways possible.  It pairs up two characters based pretty much entirely on their selling power.  It incorporates elseworlds, dreams, hallucinations, and retcons.  It hasn’t had a steady creative team in years.

I still love it, and issue #78 is the exact reason why I love it.  It’s written by Joe and Jack Kelly, and it’s about two little boys spinning out that old chestnut, “Who would win in a fight?”  That hasn’t been original in decades.  And the execution?  Deliberately juvenile, with Batman and Superman spouting words that only kids would say.

I love that, too.  The comic is just plain fun.  It’s entertaining.  It doesn’t throw in any misery.  And there’s a Kirby-writing-the-hairies feel to the way the Kellys write the kid’s dialog.  The comic is more fun than Batman Inc.  It’s much more fun than Batman: The Return.  It’s more fun than Power Girl.  And in the end, when the kids go home and it pans up to show the heroes listening in on them, you get the feeling that the heroes were having fun, too. 

And Superman would totally win.  Come on, people.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing too much in the past week or so. After Ultimatum Edit, I needed to take a little breather, which I’ve been using to play the hell out of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and lay down my lines for my next iRiffs project. My iRiff for Japoteurs isn’t doing too bad and was at a point listed as the top short on the site. For those of you who bought it, I thank you. For those of you who don’t, c’moooooon!

(vote 5 too)

So, earlier today Esther Inglis-Arkell-Contessa-Louisa-Francesca-Banana-Fanna-Bo-Besca-the-Third posted some nonsense about how badly Bucky Barnes would murder Nightwing. God, this again? It doesn’t really matter. It’s whoever the writer feels would win. Hell, I could write a story about D-Man defeating Galactus if Marvel asked me to do it.

Eh? Hello, Marvel? Anything? No? …Fine.

She even made a post a while back about Superman vs. Batman in a fight. Really? In latter 2008? People are still talking about that?

Come on, people! Superman fighting Batman has been done to death. Goreless, underwhelming and disappointing death that isn’t worth looking up movelists on the internet and… sorry. MKvDC “Heroic Brutality” flashbacks.

We need to move on. The Superman vs. Batman slugfest is old hat. You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking Superman vs. Batman…

DANCE OFF!

Yeah! Now, this is like the opposite of the fighting. When it comes to duking it out, Superman has the advantage and Batman is the underdog. At first glance, Batman should have this in the bag. Not only does the cast of Shortpacked think he’s the Dark Knight of the Dance, but Prince wrote a cheesy song about it.

That’s just conjecture. I’m dealing with cold, hard facts.

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We’ve all done Batman vs Superman, and Batman vs Captain America.

How about Original Bucky vs Original Dick Grayson?

It seems like an uneven fight, since Original Bucky fought Nazis while Original Dick Grayson just ran around in a futile effort to make Batman seem less gay, but I’ll be buried deep in the cold, cold ground before I admit a Marvel anything trumps a DC anything, so I’m going to call it for Dick Grayson.

It’s unfortunate when someone has to accept their limits. Today, I’m accepting my limits as a writer. You see, back in the day, I used to write for a site that reviewed fighting games. There was one game that I intended to review, but I just couldn’t get it done. Then I started writing here and decided that the same game would make for a good 4L article. After playing the game for a few minutes, I decided to put it off for a while.

Maybe it’s a mix between the game being so unplayable and the belief that I could never do it justice. Luckily, the internet’s in its YouTube phase and I don’t have to explain. I can show you the horrors and let you judge for yourself.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the arcade game Avengers in Galactic Storm!

It should be a rule that every time Thor enters a room, there’s an announcer yelling, “THE MIGHTY THOR!”

To give you an idea of how ridiculous this game was, here’s a list of the playable characters: Captain America, Black Knight, Thunderstrike, Crystal, Dr. Minerva, Shatterax, Korath and Supremor. Cap is the only one on there I’d have any interest in playing as. Others like Iron Man and Thor are only assist characters, including Clint Barton Goliath, who is portrayed as a laughable, giant fist stretching across the screen.

Finally, here are the amazing endings. Beautiful.

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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I like the Sentry. I think he’s a righteous dude. The thing about him is that he’s all about history. We know who he is and what he used to be. We know the legacy. Now his role in Marvel’s world is stagnant. He’s either there to show how powerful an opposing threat is, stepping out of sight to give the Avengers more of a challenge (“Oh, Patriot’s hurt? I’ll be back in a bit.”), or he’s yakking about the Void and their inner war. He’s currently taking his time to enter the fray in World War Hulk, but after that’s over and done with, who is he going to fight? The Void is the only part of his past that’s here to stay and we need some variety. His other villains were mostly Silver Age jokes that don’t deserve a push to the forefront.

The Sentry needs a real arch-nemesis.

Over the past couple of days, I had finally read through both Deadly Genesis and the Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire. I recall hearing bad things about both of them as they were coming out, with the addendum that they make great reads in trades. Plus Brubaker is Brubaker and I really liked that What If from last year based on the big Deadly Genesis retcon.

As I read through Deadly Genesis, I grew to love Vulcan as a villain. Good, new comic characters – especially villains – are a hard find these days. I was happy to finally have somebody new who I could buy as a major threat. The more I read of him, the more I realized that he would make a fantastic enemy for the Sentry. While the Void is the Sentry’s anti-conscience and acts as his sinister shadow, Vulcan really comes off as the true Anti-Sentry.

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The Contest of Champions paved the way for the event miniseries that Marvel and DC have become dependant on. The star-studded scavenger hunt wasn’t the greatest story in the world, but it was still memorable and classic for being the first step. Naturally, there would one day be a sequel.

If you can call it that.

When I think of Contest of Champions II, I think of the Infinity Gauntlet. Bear with me on this. Infinity Gauntlet was a popular Marvel miniseries starring a bunch of heroes that was eventually used as the basis for Marvel Superheroes, a very good arcade fighting game. While the game did include characters like Psylocke, Magneto, Juggernaut, Blackheart and Shuma Gorath (that still boggles my mind), the gist of the story was that it was supposed to be a retelling of Infinity Gauntlet, only the heroes aren’t useless.

What does this have to do with Contest of Champions II? Marvel Superheroes was a fighting game based on a Marvel miniseries. Contest of Champions II is the opposite. It’s a Marvel miniseries based on fighting games.

Funny thing about fighting games is that there aren’t many variations of the story out there. For the most part, every fighting game’s story is based on one of two concepts. Sometimes it’s just about a quest where different characters run around with a goal, meet each other and fight. Marvel Superheroes was basically this. The other, more popular one, is the tournament. It’s the easiest reason to have different warriors from different walks of life battle each other, especially when there’s no animosity between some.

The tournament stories are occasionally straight-laced and legit. That’s boring. Many others would have the tournament just be a front. In actuality, the host of the tournament is trying to use this as a way to kill off all threats to his or her plans for world domination. Maybe the host plans on using the beaten warriors as zombie cyborg soldiers. A lot of the time, all the fighting is just a way to unleash some long-imprisoned monster god thing to wreak terror on the lands.

This is pretty much what Contest of Champions II is.

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A penny saved is a beating earned, chump!

Friday Night Fights is back, baby. FnF up!

As you may have noticed, David “hermanos” Brothers is off finding a place to live in San Francisco. As I type this, I wonder if I should go for the more classic Northstar reference or just keep it current with something about Wiccan and Hulkling. It’s too late now.

With hermanos gone and Wanderer on a never-ending quest to find a soundtrack that perfectly syncs up with the movie the Stupids, that leaves me in charge. Sure, I could post a series of crappy Photoshops or talk about some comics you don’t care about, but it isn’t that simple. With hermanos’ absence, I have to fill in the void. It’s like the latest She-Hulk arc, “Planet without a Hulk”, only I wouldn’t deny sleeping with the Juggernaut. Think of all the media appearances you can make with that on your record.

Now, then. Here are some posts I figure hermanos would make if he was here:

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Oh, this is gonna be epic! Getting right into it…

Ghostface “Yo, man, you’re gonna come up outta that shiny armor, dog! This is Theodore Unit and you’re outta pocket, knahmean?!” Killah
versus
Tony “The ends justify the means and I’ve got enough ends that I can get away with being mean!” Stark

“Wait, this isn’t a comics matchup!”

It is, because this is my site and I say so.

The Rundown:
Ghostface Killah is probably unfamiliar to more than a few of you. If I had to describe him in one sentence, that sentence would be “GFK is what James Joyce would be if he rapped.” He’s self-referential, clever, punny, and willing to go on complete stream-of-consciousness tangents during a rhyme, even going so far as to detail what a group of people he’s about to rob are eating and finishing with “My stomach’s growlin’, yo, I want some.”

GFK first rose to fame on Wu-Tang Clan’s first album, “Enter the Wu-Tang.” The first track, “Bring Da Ruckus,” opened with GFK spitting “Ghostface, catch the blast of a hype verse” and capturing the minds of the youth. Years later, his second solo record, “Supreme Clientele,” was credited with both saving the Wu-Tang Clan and his own career. “Supreme Clientele” was an instant classic and gave Ghost a chance to shine and show off his storytelling and abstract skills. You could make a case for Ghost being an abstract rapper, but a better term would probably be “free-association.” His rhymes shift in and out of the topic of the song, but are always related somehow. Think of him in the same way that you think of decompressed storytelling in comics– he adds color commentary and that helps fill in the blanks between what he’s saying.

GFK has in common with Tony Stark is a love of alcohol. He’s even done a St Ide’s commercial. Something else he has is a collection of aliases. Tony Stark (also rendered Tony/Toney Starks), Ironman, Ghostdeini, and plenty of others serve as clever pseudonyms. He’s got as many names as Iron Man has spare armors in his garage.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, on the other hand, is the much maligned victor of the War Between the Heroes. His victory has resulted, directly or indirectly, the death of one of his best friends, the imprisionment of dozens, if not hundreds of his compatriots, and the worst press since Richard Nixon kicked a baby on live television.

He’s a recovering alcoholic, super-rich, and the owner of a gang of armors that have enough firepower to level a third of the free world and all of the rest of it.

Too easy? No contest?

Iron Man is a hardened warrior and the type of guy to shaft his friends in the name of the greater good. GFK is a beloved rapper, smart, and has dropped at least four classic albums and had a hand in two others as part of a larger group. Nobody likes Tony Stark, not even the people who work with him. Everyone likes GFK, even Freddie Foxxx, who hates everybody.

The trick is, Ghostface named himself after Tony Stark. His first album was called “Ironman” for a reason. He grew up on Marvel Comics. He’s a student of Tony Stark, and please believe that he knows all his tricks. This is simply a case of the student going up against the teacher. Ghostface has seen “Demon In a Bottle” and all that.

Tony Stark doesn’t have that advantage. Sitting up in his ivory tower Stark Tower like he does tends to skew your perspective of the little guy. Ghostface is beneath his notice, literally, which is a mistake.

Tony would try to hot dog this one and take him out solo, leaving SHIELD at home. Show some flash, do a few tricks, and teach the kid a lesson, get him off the streets. Problem is, Tony would catch the blast of a hype verse and get taken by surprise. The pen is, after all, mightier than the sword.

After that, Tony Stark would catch a Kennedy, and that would leave one Iron Man standing in the end.

I’m Iron Man, no die-cast metal, I’m steel alloy
–GFK, “Daytona 500”