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Black History Month 01: A Man Is Just A Man

February 1st, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , ,

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from dc comics’s new frontier, art and words by darwyn cooke

John Henry told the Captain
That a man is just a man,
And I swear by all that’s right and wrong
I’ll kill you where you stand

Can I do 29 of these a month? Who knows. I bring the food for thought, you do the dishes and think it over.

John Henry meets Nat Turner.

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Ultimate Edit Week 2: Day Five

February 1st, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Me and ManiacClown are back for another go. Last time, Tony Stark was really drunk (surprise) and Mystique tried to kill him by pretending to be Black Widow. What a stupid, stupid plan. The more I think of that plan, the worse it is. Of all the people to be, why a dead traitor who last tried to kill the guy you’re trying to seduce? At least if she was Captain America or a pizza delivery man, she’d have an outside chance of fooling someone who wasn’t drunk. At least that scene gave us Iron Man’s “sober enough” panel, which I admittedly thought was kind of cool. Now on with the show.

Join us tomorrow, as Captain America learns it’s time to play the Game.

Day Six!
Day Seven!

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Ultimate Edit Week 2: Day Four

January 31st, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

And we’re back. In yesterday’s installment, Quicksilver showed up to show off Scarlet Witch’s dead body, vikings had sex and something exploded. Sounds like a full day. Now we see what Iron Man’s up to. Fun fact: Tony Stark makes you feel he’s a cool exec with a heart of steel. And if you’re a woman, Tony Stark makes you feel other things.

Thanks to ManiacClown by having me take the high road with masturbation jokes. See you tomorrow.

Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

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Bendis Hates Tigra, Brubaker Hates Milla, BKV Hates Black People

January 30th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Or do they?

How long do you give a story before you judge it? If it’s obviously one part of a series, do you wait until it’s done or are you just so turned off that you shun it forever and cast it into outer darkness?

I tend to walk the line. If it’s a writer I trust, I’ll ride it out and see where it takes me. If it’s a writer I don’t trust… well, I don’t generally read books by writers I don’t trust, so that problem basically solves itself.

I mean, I saw one of the best black characters in comics catch a bullet to the dome a while back. It was a good scene and a good story, so I stayed interested instead of turned off.

Also, can we please stop talking about how much X writer hates Y character just because bad things happen to that character? One joke in an interview two years ago does not a vendetta make, no matter how often and how loudly it’s repeated. Bendis doesn’t hate Tigra any more than he hates Dr. Strange or Mary Jane.

I should probably also talk about Young Avengers #1: Patriot sometime soon, too, huh? I’m sure you’re all dying to know my thoughts on it.

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Ultimate Edit Week 2: Day Three

January 30th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

If you forgot about yesterday already, here’s the gist of it: Hawkeye and Captain America proved their worth in protecting the innocent by drugging an innocent Spider-Man, threatening to kill him and then leaving him to die alone in the snow. But if you want a real recap, you’re in luck.

Thanks to ManiacClown, who wrote a huge chunk of this one. And thanks to John Rambo, for killing half a continent over the course of 90 minutes. I salute you.

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

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Ultimate Edit Week 2: Day Two

January 29th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , ,

In our last installment, Hawkeye just kind of showed up like a jerk and shot at Spider-Man. Spider-Man realizes that the only way to counter an excessive amount of sound effects is his own assortment of too many sound effects. Let’s watch!

Thanks to ManiacClown for sharing my burden of being constantly confused for MightyGodKing.

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

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Ultimate Edit Week 2: Day One

January 28th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , , ,

What, you don’t think we forgot about this, did you? It’s another week of fun at 4th Letter with a brand new issue of Ultimates 3 to deal with.

If you missed the last issue, um… hm. The recap isn’t for another few pages. Bear with me. Here, just read this stuff about Spider-Man. You kids love Spider-Man, right? I promise, no Mephisto jokes.

Thanks again to ManiacClown for reminding me that most of the readers either don’t watch wrestling or are too young to get a Junkyard Dog/”THUMP!” reference.

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

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It is a joke, you see

January 26th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: ,

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Oh man! What a great joke from the fourth issue of Gotham Underground! Geordi LaForge is the newest Captain Cold, you see, and he is black, so of course he’s got ironic jokes about a) being black and b) the cold!

If only we could get a vegan black villain! At the Secret Society of Supervillains monthly buffet dinner he can be like “Well, who says all black people like chicken? And who says we don’t like watermelon!? Pile that plate up high! Mmmm-mm! I shol’ do love it! Haha, a little period humor for you, there!”

Ha! Ha! Ha!

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MILLAR ON “OLD MAN LOGAN” – NEWSARAMA

January 25th, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , , , , , ,

Mark Millar is talking up his upcoming run on Wolverine over at Newsarama.

NRAMA: Okay, so sketch out Wolverine when we first see him in #66 – who is he? You say he’s broken…how? Body? Spirit? Is he still a scrapper?

MM: He’s not a scrapper anymore. He’s a guy who will see a fight, look sad and walk away. If someone spits in his face, he’ll wipe it away and walk off, even if his kids are walking. But we know what he’s capable. His teenage son thinks he’s a failure, but his wife knows what he can do when the right buttons are pushed and is proud of the fact that he’s turned his back on everything. She also knows exactly what happened to him on the night the heroes fell to the villains. So she’s entirely sympathetic.

NRAMA: Who else will we be seeing in this story?

MM: Only a few Marvel Heroes are still alive and the story mainly focuses on their descendants. There’s a new Kingpin for example and Spiderman’s granddaughter, Spider-bitch, is a favorite but the characters I’m most excited about are the radiation sick sons and grandsons of the Hulk – and inbred, ugly, incestuous team of supervillains with a nod to The Hills Have Eyes.

NRAMA: Eu. Speaking of the Hulk’s kids and descendants…what role do they serve in this new world? Besides the creepy factor…

MM: They’re the ganglords for California. Banner is a bald old man living in the remains of the Playboy mansion and he’s there with his sons and daughters and inbred gandchildren. Beau and Luke Hulk are the two terrifying enforcers giving Logan a huge amount of shit in the first issue. Steve has just knocked these villains out of the park.

Find the good or original idea in those answers.

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Headlocked: A Fake Truth About Fakeness

January 23rd, 2008 Posted by | Tags: , ,

It’s a good time to be Gavok because in just a couple days, I’ll be going to the WWE Royal Rumble in Madison Square Garden. The event has always been my own little “Wrestling Christmas” and I look forward to it every year. I felt that I needed to prepare in my own little way.

Like I recently acquired the DVD set of all 20 Royal Rumble shows in a big, white cube. Considering I also have a collection of the first 20 Wrestlemanias sitting around, gathering dust, I figured I would watch them all in chronological order. Right now I’m in the middle of Wrestlemania 9 (taking place in 1993). I figure by the time I’m completely caught up, it’ll be time for this year’s Wrestlemania.

That at least explains why I’ve been kind of lax here lately, though it’s hardly noticeable with the good job hermanos and Hoatzin have been doing. I knew I needed to do another Wrestlecomic article. I could cover the Chaos Comics WWF stuff from the late-90’s, but I think I’ll wait until I reach those years in my Royal Rumble/Wrestlemania watching to dive into that. I found a guy selling a manga from what appears to be the same people behind the Hulk Hogan manga, making a big deal about a huge battle royal featuring a bunch of big 80’s wrestlers.

I got the idea that this was some big all-star crossover fight that would last for an entire comic, so even if I couldn’t read any of it, I could at least follow what was going on. When I got my book, I discovered that this battle royal was extremely brief. I tried pretending I could follow what was going on in the manga, but it wasn’t working. I know when I’m beat. At least the Engrish cover refers to the story as “Super Real Fiction!” which, now that I think about it, is a strangely accurate description of professional wrestling.

So the manga thing was a bust. Now what? I decided that if fishing in the past wasn’t going to work, I’d see what’s going on in the present. I picked up a comic called Headlocked: Work of Art, written by Michael Kingston and drawn by Randy Valiente.

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