I don’t have a lot of time at the moment (so go read Gavok’s What-If countdown, it’s great) but I do want to give you guys a heads-up!

Your local B Dalton or Barnes & Noble bookstore may have a sweet deal for you lurking around. They released a bunch of the Marvel Masterworks series in softcover format a couple years ago at 12.95 a piece.

I dropped by my local B Dalton today (and a tip of the hat here to the awesome manager there, her ladyship Shonda Wilson) and they had marked the books down to five dollars. I got 45 (or so) issues of early Marvel comics today for 25 bucks. Well, less, because I am technically an employee, but still!

Five dollars, people.

Here’s some ISBNs to make it easy on you.
The Amazing Spider-Man vol 1 (collecting ASM 1-10): 0-7607-3793-2
The Amazing Spider-Man vol 2 (collecting ASM 11-19): 0-7607-4957-4
The Amazing Spider-Man vol 3 (collecting ASM 20-30 & Annual 1): 0-7607-5565-5
Uncanny X-Men vol 1 (collecting The X-Men 94-100 & Giant-Size X-Men 1): 0-7607-4958-2
Uncanny X-Men vol 2 (collecting The X-Men 101-110): 0-7607-5566-3

Links go to the BN.com website, where the books are listed at full price. I don’t think that this is just a local deal, so give your local B&N or B Dalton a call and see if they can’t order one of these for you. I’m talking 30 issues of Lee/Ditko Spidey and the very beginning of Claremont on X-Men here.

I also bought Daredevil HC v6, wrapping up the Bendis/Maleev run in glorious hardcover format, Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her, Black Widow by Grayson/Rucka/Jones/Hampton, Gambit v2 by Layman/Jeanty, War Stories v2 by Ennis, and Daredevil: Means & Ends by David Lapham. Lads and ladies, I think I may have a problem. An addiction.

However: Comics :toot:!

Jesus, we’re actually at the top ten. And some of you haven’t even lost interest yet. I’m proud.

What If: Avengers Disassembled came out the other day. You might be wondering if I would have placed it on this list if it came out several months back. The answer is no. No, I can’t really get behind an issue that tries to retcon a major story into something that makes even less sense. Having written this paragraph, I realize the John Byrne jokes write themselves.

Before I start this, one more call for anyone interested in drawing fake covers for the countdown finale. Come on, you know you want to.

10) WHAT IF THE FANTASTIC FOUR’S SECOND CHILD HAD LIVED?

Issue: Volume 2, #30
Writer: Jim Valentino, Ron Marz
Artist: Dale Eaglesham, Rurik Tyler
Spider-Man death: No
Background: In-between having Franklin and Valeria, there was another time Sue was pregnant with Reed’s kid. Unfortunately, there were radiation-related complications due to the team’s recent venture into the Negative Zone. Reed went to Doctor Otto Octavius – supervillain Doc Ock and the biggest expert on radiation – for help. Ock went berserk for a bit and the two had it out on the rooftops of New York City. Reed calmed Ock down and he agreed to help out. Unfortunately, they were half an hour late. Sue had a miscarriage. So let’s say Ock didn’t freak out and made it just in time? We have two stories here on two different sides of the spectrum.

The first story is best described as a horror story. Franklin wakes up from a horrible vision of the future where his father is dead. His parents just think he had a simple nightmare and leave it at that, but Franklin already knows that there’s a monster living inside his mother. Over time, Sue’s pregnancy takes a horrible toll on her. She gets weaker by the day and almost skeletal, soon losing her invisibility powers. When she gives birth to her child, she dies in the process. Reed names the baby Sue in order to deal with the loss of his wife.

As experience has taught us throughout this countdown, this isn’t going to end well at all.

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Adam Beechen interviewed at CBR

It is sure to make a few waves regarding Cass Cain, but here’s a bit that I liked:

RT: Did you like the character?

AB: She’s a great character. Her central struggle to rise above what she was raised to become is terrifically compelling stuff. I went through and picked up a number of months’ worth of issues prior to One-Year-Later. So I was around for the last major storyarc, and I got the trades of the first few storyarcs, all of which were excellent.

Ours was not an easy story to write because it was a radical shift in a major character who had struggled for so long for her entire existence to overcome the way she was brought up. But I have friends who have worked hard to triumph over bad decisions or bad circumstances and have done really well for a time, only to fall back. It’s a sad thing to watch happen, really painful, but it happens, so it seemed plausible to me in Cassandra’s case.

RT: Are you satisfied with the way it was handled?

AB: I wish I could have taken more time with it, and explored more about why she changed and more about the information that shook her life up. My inclination is to spread that information and build the story gradually. Initially the arc was going to be six issues, but the arc was compressed to four issues, so some of the information was compressed as a matter of necessity. Maybe too much.

If I could do it over again, I would get into it a little more so that, while it wouldn’t make fans of Batgirl happy, it would get in there and explain what happened a little bit better.

Beechen isn’t exactly the pitchfork-and-tails demon I’ve seen him described to be on message boards by Cass fans. His mustache isn’t even long enough to twirl!

I was talking with dub, or hermanos, or 4thletter, or David, or Janet, or Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty, and the topic of Warren Ellis came up in the conversation.

I’ve seen a lot of people just this week talk about Ellis’s work as “cynical,” to the point where it seems to be the word you use to describe him. It’s an overused adjective used to discuss the body of his work.

The thing is that I don’t think that’s accurate, and I never have. Talking to dub, I figured out why.

For dramatic overthinking of funnybook swearing, read on after the cut:

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I realized last night that I’ve been reading comics for nearly twenty years, ever since around 1988/1989. Crazy stuff, man.

Anyway, this character is near and dear to my heart. Domino, Beatriz, Patch Eye, whatever you want to call her. She was a member of Cable’s crack Six Pack mercenary team, she’s crazy good with guns, and her mutant luck power is way better than that jerk Longshot’s. Things just happen to fall into place for her.

The power is kind of hilarious in retrospect, because I remember when it was revealed that the Domino we all came to know and love in X-Force was not the real Dom. She was Copycat, a blue-skinned shapeshifter the whole time! Mind = blown. The real Dom came back pissed and probably should’ve rightly killed Copycat. She eventually lightened up (lie) and joined X-Force.

I also love her design. She’d probably be hideous in real life, but the white skin and black eye-patch just look good on the comics page. It’s a striking bit of visual design. It makes her distinct enough that she doesn’t have to worry about wearing some standard costume to be recognizable.

You know what else is funny? Rob Liefeld created and co-created some great characters when he was at Marvel. I am secure enough in my comics nerddom that I can admit that. Sure, his Image/Extreme/Awesome characters were Bloodskin, Bagobones, Violencebloodstrikedeath and whatever, but Cable, Domino, Deadpool, G.W. Bridge, Kane/Weapon X, and Stryfe? All cool characters.

“Cable?!” you shout. “Stryfe?!” you scream. I like both of them. The mutant twin cloning bit is kind of stupid on an epic level, but the X-Cutioner’s Song turned out to be quite a ride. Stryfe finally just breaking down and wanting love from his biological (sort of) parents, Cable sacrificing himself to save those same parents, that’s good stuff.

People like to say “There are no bad characters, only bad writers.” I wholeheartedly agree. I liked X-Force as a kid. Looking back, a lot of it was dreck, yeah. But, look at these characters now. Fabian Nicieza is helping keep the spark lit for a lot of them, but people like them despite their early ’90s Liefeldian origins.

A good writer can make a “bad” character great.

I just want another Domino series, even if I have to write it myself. She’s too great of a character to relegate to guest-star status.

I love broccoli clones. No matter what you do to them, you don’t feel bad.

Walk down the right back alley of 4th Letter and you can find… well, articles about stuff.

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Have you ever read something and enjoyed it, but then had someone point out what are in retrospect glaring, obvious flaws?

May I reintroduce you to Geoff Klock’s blog. He does a pretty good bit of critical thinking-type stuff at his blog and it’s a definitely worthy addition to your RSS reader. Here, he’s taken on Planetary 26.

Planetary: A Rant about story failures. Click the button to see a quote, or click the link to see the full post. He makes a few very, very good points.

In Planetary 26 we finally see Dowling, for the first time other than in a flashback, after a six year buildup. We have been teased with his weird power, some kind of mind worms (“Everyone who has ever met Dowling probably is Dowling.”). We don’t get to see his power at all. He scans Elijah for anything dangerous, finds nothing, and hands over all his secrets. (?!) Why he does not scan the Drummer is beyond me. Then Elijah announces the Drummer handed him a special device that means that no information will work in this area save one kind. That was an awfully powerful magic chip Dowling forgot to scan for. Then Elijah takes a door out and the ground rumbles and the shiftship from issue 4 appears and Dowling and Kim Suskind just fall to their deaths. After six years they die off screen. We get to see their bodies later. In the first few pages of the same issue Elijah just announces that Greene and Leather are dead. All four of the Planetary’s main villains die off screen.

You know what? I can’t exactly argue with him.

It’s a good time for a new What If article. Not only does What If: Avengers Disassembled come out this Wednesday, but Halloween’s right around the corner. What If and Halloween go together hand-in-hand. On Halloween, children dress up as their favorite superheroes. In What If, Frank Castle dresses up as Captain America. On Halloween, the theme is horror and gore. In What If, characters die by the dozen if you ask them politely. Halloween is represented by a bald kid with a big head, whining about how all he got from trick-or-treating was a rock. What If is represented by a bald guy with a big head, telling us about times when Ben Grimm didn’t get covered in rocks.

Okay, this is going too far. Let’s get to the article.

15) WHAT IF NOVA HAD BEEN FOUR OTHER PEOPLE?

Issue: Volume 1, #15
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: Simonson Wiacek, Infantino Springer, Andru Giacoi and Perez Palmer
Spider-Man death: Yes
Background: The Green Lant—I mean, Nova got his powers when the previous Nova Rhomann Dey was mortally wounded while around Earth’s atmosphere. He transferred his powers and spot in the Nova Corps to a human at random. That human turned out to be Richard Rider, who continues to fight as Nova to this very day as the main hero of Annihilation. So if he was randomly picked, that opens up a lot of possibilities.

The first story begins with a mugger killing a man and running off in a panic. The victim’s wife, Helen Taylor, screams a vow that she’s going to find this guy and kill him. Months pass and Helen stands at her husband’s grave, sad that the police are no use and there’s nothing she can really do to help him. Only a miracle can set things right.

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Sometimes the internet is a wonderful place.

I hang out on SomethingAwful’s Batman’s Shameful Secret because it is an awesome comics forum and free of a lot of idiocy. There is a “Funny Panels” thread there that is really just a catch-all for funny comics-related images. It all began when someone posted this bit of art:

Some joking occured until Doctor McNinja (yes, that Doctor McNinja) chimes in and mentions that he did a little work on that toy line while he was interning at Marvel. He shares with us a quote from the line.

“Quiet Bruce Banner gets excited by sunny days and ice cream trucks, and turns into the fun loving Hulk!”

Oh, man. Can you guys believe it? I couldn’t and responded in kind.

A What If based on this would be epic.
“Guys, we have to keep Bruce Banner angry… otherwise he’s going to drink all our beer and fall asleep in my room after throwing up all over the place again :(“

What followed were a bunch of Animal House-style jokes (a movie I’ve never seen!) until Rustym takes one of my posts and comes at us with this:

Yes. This is what the internet is all about! Comics and funnies. Drunk Hulk would be the most obnoxious thing ever. Could you freaking imagine it? “Hulk getting… TIIIIPSYYYYYY!” and then he vomits on your backseat, gamma-style. “Hey brah is that Jaeger brah Hulk love Jaeger brah let Hulk get a sip of that man c’mon brah Hulk and you, we cool right?” He’d totally be a lying drunk, too.

Iron Man in a toga is the second-best thing ever, by the way.

Thanks to Rustym for letting me use his art!

It’s been a minute! Let’s chat.

-Did I tell you guys I’ve got One Volume Bone? I’ve got the first four colorized volumes, and I may continue to buy them, but I’ve got the big phone book now. I’m waiting before I start to read it, though I’m not entirely sure why. Anticipation?

I also scored Doom Patrol v4: Musclebound. Volume 5 is being solicited in January, and I’m hoping that Flex Mentallo trade is right around the corner!

–Gavok still wants artists! Show us your funny bone and art skills!

-Stephanie Brown died in War Games, the Crossover That Blew. Her treatment was pretty shameful, and some would like to see a Robin memorial case dedicated to her. I’ve thought hard about this issue (no lie, i think about things sometimes!) and I just can’t agree. My argument, boiled down to its basics, is that “Steph wasn’t ever really Robin and she doesn’t need a Robin case.” That’s selling myself short, however.

Johanna Draper Carlson made a post on this subject a couple days ago and I ended up responding. I make an appearance in the comments thread and try to articulate why I feel that way. I really do have (what I think is) a well-thought out and reasoned point, so give it a look. I wonder if I could expand it into a better-edited post for here…

-Anyone else playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance on 360? If you’re not a jerk, add hermanos to your friends list and we can get our game on. The cast list is spectacular, Sue Storm is ridiculously good, and Deadpool is hilarious. Solid game all around and I wish I could’ve reviewed it in the magazine.

-Speaking of the mag! HGM17 is out and about and ready for downloadin’. Our site is at Hardcore Gamer and here is the direct link to our magazine download page. Want to pay money for a print copy? Check out our subscribe page!

Go forth, my children, and make me rich read my magazine. We’ve got a dope Grand Theft Auto: Vice City cover story (complete with foil cover, no lie), a gaggle of galloping previews, some great reviews of video games due out soon, and a couple of sweet features. I think the Lost in VR feature ran this month, which dealt with VR in games. Check it out!

-More content later! I’ve got a Wildstorm post half done for you and those guest articles I promised before my business life exploded. Stay tuned, true believers!