There are probably spoilers for 52 in this picture, so don’t click unless you want to be spoiled and/or absolutely terrified and have nightmares.

It’s a logic problem. How do you turn a ugly asian stereotype into a believable comic character?

You turn him into a hideous freaking death dealing robot machine thing. Holy moley. I thought Egg-fu showing up was just a joke, but this is an insane inversion of my expectations here. Gone are all the stereotypical features, in are robot death arms and a Mojo-mobile. Whoof.

This was kind of an insanely good week for comics. Seven Soldiers #1 was the event comic of forever, Deathblow #1 featured Brian Azzarello sporting a kind of Batman-esque sense of humor to good effect, Loveless #12 was a shock and a half, 52 was good, Black Panther had a great setup and more than a few great Storm moments… good week.

Too bad Wildcats #2 is pushed back to March!

Sorry about that. Real life schedule sort of held me back for a bit. But I’m getting back into the swing of things and we’re almost done with this. Just a reminder for the artist types reading this, I could use your help.

20) WHAT IF THE PUNISHER BECAME AN AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Issue: Volume 2, #57
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Mike Harris
Spider-Man death: No
Background: There’s no exact turning point here. Frank Castle has always been on the run of the law. Every once and a while, he gets caught. In this story, while in prison, Frank meets Nick Fury. Nick has kept an eye on Frank and wants him to lead a SHIELD strike force. No more going after the petty dealers. Now he’ll be going after the top drug lords with weaponry Frank’s never imagined using. With a choice between that or spending the rest of his life in prison, Frank makes the right decision.

Wouldn’t you know it, Frank Castle has never had so much fun. With his hand-picked troops behind him, Frank goes after high profile villains he never thought he’d ever get a chance to go up against. We see as he and his boys go after the Yellow Claw and bomb his drug crop into oblivion. He actually seems far less cynical now, feeling that he’s actually in a war he can win.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am not supposed to be posting right now! I’ve got eight hours until a beast of a games deadline and holy crap am I not even close to being done!

Couple quick procrastinatory things, though.

My secret shame is that I’m an Iron Fist fan. I love kung-fu movies. I used to own dubbed copies of nearly the entire Wu-Tang series, crap spinoffs and all. Putting Brubaker and Matt (Casanova) Fraction on a Danny Rand ongoing is icing on a cake… but when you give me covers like this? You guys are trying to make me fall in love. I love everything about it, from the awesome Iron Fist sweater (I would buy it) to the properly worn pants (off the hips is the only way to be) to the guns.

Guns! In an Iron Fist comic!

In other news, why are we not number one in a google search for Mary Jane Watson vs Lois Lane?

Do none of you remember “Who Would Win In A Fight? Mary Jane Watson vs Lois Lane?” I give you guys gold like this:

This seems pretty evenly matched. Rough’n’ready tomboy vs Super-hero trained model. Assuming no weapons, this would probably be a pretty even match. Lois Lane has experience, but she’s also got to be pushing 40 by now. Mary Jane is somewhere between 27-30. I will say that Kate Bosworth is an adorable Lois Lane, but she’s adorable because she looks to be roughly twee and a haff yeaws old.

and we’re only the fifth result on Google? We’re barely beating some nutball pervo’s story about Mary Jane and Lois getting into a catfight, which leads into frankly gross and violent sexual proceedings?

C’mon! Strike a blow for the power of not being a pervert!

Link that article, kids! Link it everywhere! We want to be number one! If we’re number one, then you’re number one! That doesn’t make any sense but believe it anyway!

“Totally amazing names… I mean, when you think about it… they’re, like, archetypal… they come right up from the depths, those things… how can they say that stuff’s stupid? Why do people get so ashamed of things? …I mean, I really love those comics…”
–Wally Sage, Flex Mentallo #1

“Oh yeah, and those paracetamols… what? I don’t know… a whole bottle, I think. What? Well of course I’m committing suicide. What did you think? I just wanted someone to talk to, that’s all. While I’m waiting.

“I just wanted to talk about the comics, see? All those shitty, amazing comics…”
–Wally Sage, Flex Mentallo #1

I :love: Flex Mentallo. It’s the greatest love letter to comics ever written.

(I couldn’t fit “that nobody asked for” after “dumb explanations”)

Okay guys, serious question time.

Which one of you out there demanded to know what the deal was with Power Girl’s cleavage window? Stop for a minute and think.

Did we really need an explanation for PG’s window? I quite like Amanda Conner, so the PG arc of JSA Classified was very good, but I could’ve done without knowing why she has a gaping hole in her costume. Before, I’d chalked it up to being yet another side-effect of cheesecake comics. Tying it into the Superman mythos is interesting… but also kind of creepy. I liked it better when it was just “Hey, free cheesecake.” Now it’s like… highbrow cheesecake or something. Expensive cheesecake.

I kid, really.

But seriously fanboys and fangirls, we don’t need everything explained to us. If there’s a minor continuity glitch, write it off as Hypertime. Hypertime was fun, easy, and let all your imaginary stories be real ones. If your hero isn’t acting properly in a team comic, hey, it’s just a bad day! Give it two months and you probably won’t even remember that Clark Kent parted his hair on the left instead of the right or that Power Girl’s boob window is actually due to deep, introspective thought and psychoanalysis rather than, say, a tragic fabric shortage at the warehouse.

It’s just comics. We all love ’em, but sometimes, ignorance actually is bliss.

So right now, The Top 100 What If Countdown is winding down. It’s almost obligatory that by the time this is over, I’m going to have to make some kind of epilogue post that includes my own ideas for what could make for decent What If issues. I mean, I’ve read every issue of that thing and spent 3 months so far talking about how many times the Phoenix has gone crazy and blown up the universe. You have to trust me to have some insight here.

Anyway, there have to be some readers out there who are either artists, or know an artist who needs something to do. While writing my own 1-2 paragraph What If concept summaries could possibly be amusing, it would be even better if I can toss in some actual cover images for these made-up issues. Like, for example, the first cover of Power Man and Iron Fist, only Iron Fist running replaced with Spider-Man swinging and Jameson tossed into the background collage. Something like that.

So if there is anyone curious and possibly willing to do a cover or two, email me at jaguartooth (at) gmail dot com.

Jade Reporting looks to do for games what When Fangirls Attack does for comics. Go give them a look. We were linked due to Gavok’s MK article here.

Okay, I’ve got some room to breathe, so let’s close some tabs and hit you guys off with some knowledge!

Seven Soldiers #1 is almost here! Scope the seven page preview for a look at what is sure to be a great finale to the best megaseries ever. Oh, baby, October 25th can’t come quick enough!

I’ve got a three part interview with Brian Azzarello that is honestly a must-read. Part one, part two, and part three. As usual, 100 Bullets is the best comic ever go buy it blah blah Loveless blah blah Deathblow blah blah awesome. Seriously, Azz writes great stuff, so check his interviews and buy his books. We get confirmation (again, possibly) that DC is going to support 100 Bullets through to the end, so I’m a happy camper.

Lisa Fortuner discusses the uncanny valley in comics and I pop up in the comments feed. This could turn out to be an interesting discussion, but only I’ve commented so far.

Gavok is a stupidhead. That’s not a link or anything, I just wanted to let you know that he’s got a funny face.

Now, I’ve got a personal rule on this site, which I’ve technically already broken by writing about Patriot a while back. I don’t like to talk about comics that I don’t like. I do enough of dealing with stuff I dislike in real life, you know? I don’t hold Gavok or Thomas to this rule, it’s just a personal thing. I don’t like to talk about bad comics unless I can get a laugh out of it or there’s some larger point behind it. Bruce Jones on Nightwing? :loleyes:. Winick on [variable]? 😆 again. Millar on Civil War?

I could say a lot. Instead, I’ll just say this: read Giffen on Annihilation instead. It’s the best “big event” going on right now. Civil War has had some sweet tie-ins (Wolverine, Captain America) but the main series is a joke.

On the other hand, Annihilation has Drax and his young sidekick Cammi, a not-stupid Richard “Nova” Rider, Gamora, planets exploding, Galactus as a weapon of mass destruction, Annihilus with the quantum bands, Annihilus killing Quasar to get the quantum bands, Quasar being killed, Thanos as scheming trickster god, and Phyla-vell. It is excellent and well worth your time. Also, Quasar died in it.

More detailed content later on. I need to take some time to chillax. I updated the sidebar, by the way. Can you tell what’s new?

I’ve seen this in various places (specifically BSS and Newsarama) and I figure it’s worth a bit of wider notice.

You’re publisher at DC for a day. You can change three creative teams, create three new books, and cancel three to make room for the new ones. What do you do? Show your work.

New Teams

Wonder Woman

Heinberg isn’t working for me. In fact, I hate it. His book reads like he’s finally got a chance at the character, so he’s going to throw in every stupid trope ever. The Dodsons are pitch-perfect, however, so they can stay. The new team would be Joe Kelly and The Dodsons. Kelly was the one writer on JLA who made me genuinely and truly like Diana, so he deserves another crack at her. His Diana was a warrior and generally awesome. I’d like to see his treatment of her post-Crisis. If the Dodsons are unavailable, I’d love for Doug Mahnke to take another shot at drawing the Maid of Might Princess of Power Thunder from Down Under— does WW have a catchy subtitle? Mahnke’s “wet-hair Wonder Woman” (so-called by one Thomas Wilde) is the best version of her I’ve ever seen. It worked.

Teen Titans

This book has been crazy downhill for ages and DC needs something relatively childsafe. Put Daimon Scott and Skottie Young on art and let Ty Templeton write. Ty’s old work on Batman Adventures was better than a lot of the more mainstream bat-stories. He can bring kid-friendly stories with adult sensibilities to the table, and Scott and Young bring some hyper-expressive and awesome art… let ’em go wild.

JLA

Meltzer’s run has been wack, just like Heinberg’s on WW. Replace Meltzer with… hm. I’d say replace him with Dwayne McDuffie. He definitely knows the JLA well enough to do a rocking job. Give him Doug Mahnke on art because I love Mahnke. If not Mahnke, make it Justiano for some bright and shiny superheroics.

New Books

ZOOM

The creative team would be David Brothers and Gavin Jasper Geoff Johns on words and Karl Kerschl on art. The idea came from something that Mr. Gavok and I bounced around one night over IRC. Here’s the angle:

Bart Allen, Flash, is in trouble. Gorilla Grodd not only has him on the ropes, but is inches away from killing him. He’s groggy, and Grodd has telepathically turned off his access to the Speed Force and the calming words of Grandpa Barry, Wally, and Max. In short, Bart is in trouble deep. His heart sinks as he hears a voice begin speaking.

“Barrrrrrt Allen. Flaaaash.” The voice pauses. “Fastestmanalive.”

It’s Zoom. Wally’s worst enemy and a man who gave Bart nightmares. He flashes into and out of visibility and time. He is directly in Bart’s face, at his side, and below him, studying him. Grodd laughs and welcomes his comrade. He doesn’t even see Zoom turn before Zoom is right in his face.

“GorrillaGrrrrrrrrrodd,” Zoom says. “Monkey.” Grodd’s face falls and twists in anger.

What happens next can only be described as a dismantling. Zoom takes Grodd apart, shattering almost every bone in his body and putting him out like a light. He turns back to a shocked Bart.

“Hunter Zolomon. Zzzzzzoom. Fastestmanalive. Show me how tobeabetter herrrrrro.”

(I swear, I didn’t do this blog post just so I could post that. Well, not totally.)

After the Crisis and Rogue War, Zoom realizes that he has no one to blame but himself for his troubles. He was not the hero he thought he was, and he lost his wife because of it. He turns to the one man left alive who he can connect with, Bart Allen, Flash. Zoom is going to become a (better) hero and he’s going to learn at the feet of a man who is tied to a heroic legacy, whether he wants to teach him or not.

Fourth World

The team is Grant Morrison and Walt Simonson trading back and forth on writing chores, while Jamal Igle and Walt Simonson handle art chores. I think that working from a Morrison or Simonson script could push Jamal, an already incredible talent, into the stratosphere. Morrison and Walt are the only two who have shown themselves able to properly handle the Fourth World, anyway, so give them the book, let them go wild, and keep Byrne away from it. I see this as a kind of antholgy title, with an A story and a B story, both of which are 16 pages long and written by either Grant or Walt. I want some bright and shiny and incredible Kirby, and those two are the ones to do it.

Gotham Confidential

This would be another anthology, this time starring Slam Bradley, Jason Bard, Eel O’Brian, and Harvey Bullock, or perhaps Montoya depending on how 52 shakes out. In short, the supporting cast of Gotham City. The writers would be Brian Azzarello, David Lapham, Darwyn Cooke, and Will Pfeifer. I’d like to see a rotating team of artists, from Cooke to Lapham to Eduardo Risso to Kano to maintain the noirish feel. Total vanity title here, guys.

Cancelled Books

Outsiders: Wack.
Green Arrow: Wack.
Flash: The Fastest Man Alive: Just so-so, but my idea is better and builds out of this series, so it has to go.

(DC, seriously, I would write ZOOM for free holler at a brothers man c’mon)