Matt Cruea, long-time 4l reader, did his own list of 50 things he likes about comics here.

In addition to that, I’ve been getting some responses from fans with their own. Here are 50 things Matthew Bensen loves about comics:

1. X-Men 132 – “Okay suckers – you’ve taken yer best shot! Now it’s my turn!” (back when Wolverine was still cool)
2. Spider-Man fighting the Juggernaut
3. Secret Wars – The Hulk holding up a giant mountain, the X-Men getting their asses handed to them by Spider-Man and Wolverine cutting off the Absorbing Man’s arm
4. The Michael Jackson Beyonder from Secret Wars 2
5. The Miracleman series – despite the fact I had to pay a trillion dollars on Ebay to get the back issues
6. Stormwatch’s evil Henry Bendix
7. Avengers #274 – Hercules getting his ass handed to him by the Masters of Evil because he is drunk
8. Deathstroke the Terminator and his creepy relationship with an underage Terra
9. An idiotic Ultron, who for some reason felt compelled to build himself a robot bride (Jocasta)
10. All-Star Superman
11. The boxing tournament set up by the Champion in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7
12. A deaf Hawkeye nearly missing his shot with Mockingbird
13. Crisis on Infinite Earths
14. When the Invisible Girl became an Invisible Woman
15. The Headmen
16. The paparazzi getting naked photos of She-Hulk while she is sunbathing
17. Jonah Hex
18. Bullseye tossing a scalpel at Matt Murdock just to test his wild theory that he may be Daredevil – then hightailing it out of there
19. Changeling and Kitty Pryde making out on Metron’s chair
20. Thor being transformed into a frog
21. A drunk Colossus getting into a fight with the Juggernaut
22. Geoff Johns writing the Justice Society
23. Doc Frankenstein
24. The Claremont/Miller Wolverine limited series
25. Thor fighting the rest of the Ultimates
26. Ultimate Wolverine trying to kill Ultimate Cyclops on a mission just so he can steal his lady – only to have everyone later forgive him for this betrayal
27. Robin giving up the short shorts to become Nightwing
28. Jericho’s blond ‘fro and chops
29. Tony Stark as a drunk
30. Thor’s trysts with the Enchantress and her sister
31. Woodrue’s autopsy of Swamp Thing
32. Morrison’s Animal Man
33. Fables
34. Wormwood’s escapades in Leprechaunia
35. The Thing’s girlfriend who was also a thing
36. Ozymandias dismantling Rorschach and basically telling him to give up
37. Storm’s Mohawk
38. Captain Hero pounding in Iron Fist’s head while trying to wake him up from a trance
39. When Sobek eats Osiris in 52
40. Emperor Doom
41. The last page of Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1 which shows all of the villains together
42. Kraven’s Last Hunt
43. Dazzler’s walkman and rollerskates
44. Because the 90’s eventually ended and good comics returned
45. Because Jim Lee still manages to produce art every once and a while
46. John Stewart’s arrogance leading to the destruction of Xanshi (because the Anti-Life creates a yellow bomb) in Cosmic Odyssey
47. The continuous cover for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe
48. Ed Brubaker comics – Sleeper in particular
49. God Loves, Man Kills
50. The fact that Marvel never sold out and brought Captain Marvel back from the dead – oh, wait…

Good list, yeah? A few of these are things I’d entirely forgotten about, but loved when I saw them. If you’ve got a list, send it over or link back. I’ve got more to come, too.

Joëlle Jones took a stab at redesigning a few of the X-Women, with colors by her friend Terry Blas.

Props to Khux for the find.

by Tobey Cook

What was originally going to be a piece in tribute to the late, great Mark Gruenwald last week quickly ballooned into something much more than what it was intended to be. So with that in mind, I bring you what I hope will be the first in a series I call Magnum Opus. What I’ll do here is spotlight a miniseries or trade that to me has a special place in my collection. This article’s highlighted miniseries will be Squadron Supreme, because it’s easily my personal favorite and has so many things it brought to the table as to changing the way comics had been written up to that point. It’s also the first major maxiseries I remember buying as it was coming out on the stands every month. It featured some decent art from Paul Ryan, John Buscema and one other artist during the 12-issue run.

For my first treatment I decided to choose a book that I think has held up pretty well – Squadron Supreme. Each member of the team was loosely based on a character from DC Comics’ JLA. You had Hyperion as the Squadron’s Superman, Power Princess (Wonder Woman), Nighthawk (Batman), and even a Skrull analogue to Martian Manhunter in the Skrullian Skymaster! While the names of the characters weren’t exactly original, Mark Grunewald decided he wanted to use them to do something that hadn’t been done in comics before – what happens when the heroes decide they can fix the world’s problems?

The basic premise of the maxiseries is that the Squadron, having just recovered from a battle with the alien Overmind, returns to a world that is in ruins. Seeing that the only way to fix the world’s problems is to take matters into their own hands, Hyperion decides that they must find a way to repair the damage that’s been done. Despite the fact that the people mistrust and despise the Squadron, Hyperion comes up with Project Utopia, a way to, as he puts it – “abolish war and crime, eliminate poverty and hunger, establish equality among all people, clean up the environment, and cure disease.”

However, not everyone agrees with Hyperion’s plan. Nighthawk, one of the Squadron’s founding members, resigns in protest believing that the Squadron has no right to force people to bend to the Squadron’s will.

Tensions are further put to the test when the Squadron decides to use a behavior modification machine to ‘rehabilitate’ criminals, even going so far as to use it on some of their former enemies – Quagmire, Foxfire, Shape, Lamprey, and others. This proves to be the most controversial move the Squadron would make, and prompts Nighthawk to join up with the Squadron’s enemy Master Menace in order to find a way to reverse the behavior modification process.

There are so many moral dilemmas in this series – much more than any Marvel series at the time, and it proves the old theory about absolute power corrupting absolutely. A couple more highlights of the series are Squadron member Tom Thumb’s search for a cure for cancer and a brief foray by Nighthawk to the mainstream Marvel Universe to get help from Captain America and The Avengers (not coincidentally written by Mark Gruenwald and illustrated by Paul Ryan, the same art team) to stop the Squadron.

If you’re looking for a book that will give you a good, solid read, look no further. The first printing of it is a bit difficult to find unless you’re an avid EBay fanatic, but it’s been reprinted several times since then as it’s a pretty solid seller for Marvel. What’s so important about the first printing? Mark Gruenwald’s ashes were mixed with the printing ink.

That’s it for this installment of Magnum Opus. If you have any comments or suggestions, or would like to recommend a book for a future column, feel free to drop me a line in the comments below.

Click here, scroll to the bottom, and vote for Genius.

Thanks.

Rad Nauseam » Blog Archive » Have You Got Yourself an Occupation?

Like all great things, Babysan is extremely racist, heavily sexist and oh-so erotic. Published in 1953 (a year after the American occupation of Japan ended), Babysan is a series of one panel cartoons accompanied by a few paragraphs of explanatory condescension.

These are amazing. Click through and check these out. FBB4l affiliate David Cole also runs Atavism and will design you an awesome website if you give him money.

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.

Other than being one of my favorite recording artists, Erykah Badu gives good interview. Blender interviewed her here, on a piece calledWho Does Erykah Badu Think She Is? What’s it got to do with comics?

Who is your fantasy man?
Batman. He’d let me drive that fast car. We’d go to Whole Foods and hold hands and take a shot of wheatgrass together. We’d go up to the counter, and he’d pay. I’d have an invisible jet, so we’d fly away -leave the car there, let Robin take care of it-and kiss in midair. We wouldn’t care who sees us.

I also laughed at this:

Have you ever doubted your sexual orientation?
Never. I’ve had a boyfriend since I was 5. His name was Benny, and he could make gun noises by crushing a milk carton with his foot. The first person I ever kissed was Huber Miles, in third grade. Then I asked him for money. (laughs) I thought it was appropriate.

What does a kiss cost now?
You have to change gods and wear crochet pants. You haven’t heard about me?

Whattup Andre and Common.

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

The Savage Critic(s): A History of Punishment for Adults: Jog reaches the last, black page on 8/13

And so, here we are at the spectacularly-titled Valley Forge, Valley Forge: The Slaughter of a U.S. Marine Garrison and the Birth of the Punisher, Vol. 10, the last. Like I mentioned, Frank’s story reached a sort of ‘ending’ in Vol. 9, so this one is a little different. It’s the only one of Ennis’ MAX stories missing the title character’s famous narration; here, he’s observed, puzzled over. We never once climb inside him, for what more needs be said? The action is often interrupted by text and ‘photos’ taken from a book written by the brother of a dead character from Born, and the chapters we read touch on prior themes of the series, though with a special emphasis on warfare waged on questionable grounds.

This is an amazing review, is all. I hope to have a wrap-up on it soon, too.