DC’s experiment of desperation goes full blast this week. Instead of going out with the old and in with the new with only two comics as of last week, we have thirteen new #1s to play around with. Naturally, I bought all thirteen for my own little experiment. As I stated last week, I used to read a lot of DC only a few years ago, but over time they almost completely lost me. Now I want to give them a new chance and see how their 52 jumping on points fare by the end of six months of story.

Alphabetical order works, so we’ll begin with Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales. Couldn’t really ask for a better way to start. A couple years ago I read through a collection of old 1930’s Superman newspaper strips that featured less of Superman fighting robots and more of Superman standing up for the little man. Considering how unbeatable he was at the time regardless of who he was fighting, there was more enjoyment and will fulfillment in those down-to-earth adventures. I like getting to see a modern take and Morrison’s the best choice for it. He’s already said all there is to say about the previous incarnation of Superman with All-Star Superman and now he gets to go at it from another angle.

It’s fresh and it’s fun. Any shadiness from seeing him play interrogator is undone by his absolute glee in everything he does and the “oh shucks” way he interacts with the people he helps. Luthor comes off as menacing, Lois has her trademark death wish for the facts and the only real drawback is the occasional weird Morales eyes.

It’s a new world in the DCU, so time will tell what Superman will develop with and what he’ll develop from. Either way, I’m definitely sticking with this one for the foreseeable future.

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Can you believe Infinite Crisis only ended a little over two years ago? It feels so much longer. At the time, it was an exciting time to read DC. A lot was going down, 52 was on the horizon, One Year Later was starting up, among other things. The miniseries did come off as a letdown, but considering how hyped it was, how could it be anything but? By the time the seventh issue landed, with its rushed art to meet the deadline, I couldn’t be happier to be done with this whole storyline.

Sometime after, author Greg Cox wrote a novelization of Infinite Crisis. Such an odd concept, isn’t it? A novelization of a comic book? It’s like the literary version of hearing a country singer covering a rock group’s hit song. I guess I shouldn’t talk, since years back, before I was even into comics in the first place, I read the novelization of Knightfall. Plus there’s the whole movie novelization thing I do for the sake of getting site hits.

I didn’t read Cox’s take on Infinite Crisis, but through chance, I discovered an interesting piece relating to it. A company called Graphic Audio had done a book on CD version of his take. That’s right, an audio book based on a book based on a graphic novel. What an insane concept. Too curious, I ordered the two sets and spent a couple weeks listening through them. Yes, weeks. The entire story is told with twelve discs over the course of thirteen hours. Thirteen hours to tell the story of seven issues.

Well, that’s not fair. It’s more than just the seven issues. Cox chose to cherry-pick tie-in issues to help pad out the story to differing success. This includes the end of Crisis of Conscience where Superboy Prime attacks Martian Manhunter, the Spectre vs. Shazam fight from the end of Day of Vengeance, the part of Gotham Central where Crispus Allen got killed, an issue of Aquaman and parts of the Rann/Thanagar War Special.

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I read some comics and I review them here. Just click “Read the rest of this entry” to see them. I know you’re all very excited. Happy Valentines Day!

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It’s time for another look at decent comic book scenes as having been skewed by horrible Photoshop skills. First, we have Civil War, where Reed Richards shuts down the cyborg Thor clone with his complicated voice-activated code.

Being in an Illuminati meeting was pretty fun stuff if it was a holiday.

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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”

I’m going to level with you. This is not going to be an impressive group of characters. Remember how the last article had Captain America and Captain Marvel and shit? The most famous character here is known for having a cameo in X-Men 2 and a damn near non-existant role in the third movie. But we are going to delve into some really weird stories. Oh, yes.

God, I hate you, Wonder Woman.

CELESTIALS

Eternals #2 (1976)

The Celestials are mentioned a few times in the first issue of Eternals, but we don’t get to actually see one until the next issue. Now, bear with me on this because I don’t know the slightest thing about the Eternals and I’ve never really paid attention to the Celestials. The story here has to do with Ikaris and his archeologist friends fighting some Deviants until Ajak comes in on a spaceship and saves the day. All of the sudden, this guy shows up.

Sorry. Too much trippy exposition for me to follow.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN

Showcase #6 (1957)

I would barely even know who these guys were if it wasn’t for New Frontier and that one Amalgam story where the Challengers of the Fantastic fought the mighty GALACTIAC. Looking at it from the beginning, these guys have one cool origin story.

Rocky Davis, Professor Haley, Red Ryan and Ace Morgan are four different guys announced to be guests on a radio show dedicated to heroes. As they ride the same plane, they run into turbulence and crash.

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— Dinosaur Comics is one of the hands-down funniest webcomics out. Here is my favorite strip. It is a comic about the male gaze (yes, that male gaze) as explained by a neon green t-rex. The red-tinted text is the devil speaking. Enjoy!

— I’m a Wonder Woman fan for very specific stories, and Amazons Attack sounds like one of those stories! Plus, Pete Woods and Will Pfiefer are great together. I’m not sure why they’re attacking, or how, since I could’ve sworn that the Amazons disappeared to another dimension or oblivion along with the Greek gods and didn’t exist any more, but okay. I do like that Pfiefer is going to focus on the foot soldiers, though. That sort of thing has always been more interesting to me.

— Amazons Attack is a great title and I’m glad that they’re actually going to use it. It really, really needs an exclamation point, though. 4thletter!. Amazons Attack!. It’s dynamic, exciting, and cool. Very Silver Age.

— Paul Pope is one of my favorite creators. He is definitely among my ever-growing Top Five Favorite (I’m up to 150!). He has a must-read blog. He’s got a lot of Kirby-related shots up. A little bit of FF, a bit of OMAC (a little Erica in my life). Their styles couldn’t be more different, but both bring a large amount of energy into the fray. Their figures pop off the page. Pope’s OMAC story in his issue of SOLO was great, great stuff. I’ll admit that I haven’t read any of THB (much to my chagrin), but I own 100% (brilliant comics) and One Trick Rip-Off in trade, 3/4 of Batman: Year 100 (and I will buy that trade when it hits), and his issue from Spider-Man: Tangled Web. I love his indie and superhero work equally and I eagerly await everything he puts out. Anyway, read the blog. The stuff about the Batman typeface is fascinating.

— This is an odd thought, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Jack Kirby-drawn Batman. I think at the point when Kirby hit DC, Batman was enjoying the new and gritty revamp, so his style might not have fit? I’d kind of like to see his Bats.

— The 4l crew, as far as we know, are all going to be in full effect at New York Comic-con, Feb 23-25. We’ve got the hotel room booked, flights scheduled, and money saved for getting on a jet plane. See you there? Quite possibly!

— Brian Vaughan’s The Escapists, with art from Phil Bond/Steve Rolston/Shawn Alexander turned out really, really well. Excellent book and possibly my pick for miniseries of the year. Christos Gage and Mike Perkins’s Union Jack, from Marvel, was another surprise hit. It was kind of delightful in a superspy action movie kind of way. The end bit with Sabra and Arabian Knight both not being willing to let go of their prejudices, despite a grudging respect between the two, was pretty well-written, too.

— Come to think of it, Gage wrote that pretty awesome Deadshot mini from a couple years back, too. Someone give him more work. Stormwatch is a start, okay?

— Is it possible to read too many comics? I’ve consistently cut boring or bad comics off my to-read list, so my reading habits are pretty healthy, but I think I try to read everything that’s good. Speaking of good, I think we’re due for a new volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster any week now…

— There is a game coming out pretty soon called Arthur and The Invisibles. It isn’t the picture to the left, there, in any way shape or form. It’s based on some movie or another, but I’m so disappointed that I don’t even want to see the flick or play the game! I mean, this thing right here is what you call a killer crossover. You get in the toddlers and youngsters and the dope-smoking smelly hippie crazies! I’d see it twice, even! Arthur Read meets Dane McGowan. The world would never be the same.

I started 4thletter.net way way back on March 24, 2005. It was run off a blogger template back then, and I managed to make it to September 2005 before we realized that we had no time for it and shut it down. I reopened it that November and we’ve been going strong ever since.

Man, I really, really like some of those old posts. A lot of them need editing and my opinions have changed on some things, but it’s an interesting look at what I was into nearly two years ago. Shoot, I think I was even a Millar fan back then!

If I can salvage the images, I’ll post up the first four of my Top 15 Greatest Comic Stories. I did four and then found myself lacking for time. I also realized that a Top 15 is an awful idea because, holy crap, my tastes keep changing! I also have the first part of “101 of My Favorite Things,” an alteration of a comics meme that hit the net around 07/2005. That’ll probably kill my bandwidth dead, though, so I think I should retool it into another form that isn’t 100 images.

Also, Gavok made some Galactiac jokes or something. Those were the days, right?

Anyway, what follows is the first post from the old blog. It’s dated and pretty much obsolete, as far as these things go. “No more mutants” and “Gambit is a Horseman” pretty much killed it dead, not to mention the death of Sean “Me boyo” Cassidy.

Whatever, though. Here it is, in all its untouched glory. Don’t kill me.

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That’s a damned good question, Michael. First appearing in the pages of 52 Week 8, Supernova’s since been a mystery. Where does he come from? What exactly are his powers? What is his role in the grand scheme of things? And just who is this guy?

First, let’s take a look at Supernova’s various appearances up to this point:

Week 8: Over the course of several days, we see the first appearances of this red, white and blue stranger. On Day 3, he appears before an old woman and her grandchild, glows real bright and brings them across the street before they can be crushed by a falling monorail. The next day, he appears among firemen who are about to get crushed by falling debris. Glowing brightly once more, the new hero makes the debris vanish. The next day we get reports of him cleanly shearing a gunman’s rifle in half, as well as saving one woman’s daughter from a riptide. Booster Gold, whose image has just been destroyed a week earlier, rants about this new character in front of one Clark Kent.

Week 10: Clark Kent, having just been fired at the Daily Planet, sees Supernova flying around the city. With sudden inspiration, he hops out the window and freefalls. Supernova swiftly catches him, assures him of his safety and asks if he’s okay. Clark pulls out a tape recorder and asks for an interview. As Clark later explains to Lois, they didn’t get too far before seeing Bahdnesian terrorists stealing a military all-terrain vehicle. Supernova puts down Clark and uses his glowing power (which Clark describes as “peculiar eyebeams”) to take away the pavement under the vehicle, locking it into the ground. Supernova poses and answers a couple questions from Clark, trying hard to conceal himself. He sees a child almost walk into the hole in the ground, teleports in a bright light and appears in front of the child. The way he responds to the boy shows that he has some semblance of a personality under the mask. Clark tells Lois that he believes that Supernova’s on the level and that he has an air of experience about him. Elsewhere, Booster is growing more and more frustrated, while Skeets admits that even he doesn’t know who Supernova is from his historical files.

Week 15: The big one. Booster takes on a giant sea monster in the middle of Metropolis. He fails pretty badly, including a bit where he causes a massive power outage. Supernova flies in, soars to the monster and with a bright blast, zaps him away. Supernova offers his hand to Booster and makes a comment about Booster not caring about the people he saves. Noticeable frown under the mask. Booster snaps and tackles Supernova. The two brawl, showing that Supernova is at least strong enough to trade fists with Booster. Supernova’s only use of powers are to momentarily blind Booster. Supernova highly disapproves of Booster, saying he’s too pathetic to be considered a joke. Skeets mentions a radiation leakage. Supernova wants to stop it, but Booster sucker-punches him and tries to stop it himself. Beaming at his return to greatness, Booster saves everyone, but is engulfed in an explosion. Supernova, shocked, flies upwards and catches Booster’s body. To the horror of Clark and the noticeable surprise of Skeets, Booster Gold is just a skeleton in futuristic tights.

It’s worth noting that there were two alternate endings to this issue. In one ending, Booster turns to dust upon landing in Supernova’s arms. In the other, there is no radiation leakage. Supernova tries to teleport Booster back a few feet. At the same time, Booster turns on his force field. The result causes Booster to be cut in half. A horrified Supernova swears he didn’t mean for it to happen and Clark Kent believes him. Supernova covers one half of Booster with his cape while Clark uses his jacket on the other half.

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The What If issue where Storm became the Phoenix was a piece of crap, but I still respect it for one reason. It’s the only What If appearance I can recall of this guy:

Though considering his series started around the same time What If ended, it’s not so surprising.

25) WHAT IF THE NEW FANTASTIC FOUR HAD REMAINED A TEAM?

Issue: Volume 2, #78
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Enrique Alcatena
Spider-Man death: No
Background: Early in the 90’s, a fake Invisible Woman convinced Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Hulk and Ghost Rider that the Fantastic Four had died and that they needed to fill in for a bit. This led to a story involving Skrulls, monsters and Moleman that ended with the revelation that the real Fantastic Four were really alive. The fake Invisible Woman, a Skrull with limited psychic powers, tried to blast the Fantastic Four with some kind of power ring, but nothing happened. Reed had stolen the ring before she could use it. In this reality, the Skrull lady fires a second before Reed can successfully make the steal.

We begin with Wolverine, Spider-Man and Hulk mourning at the funeral and discussing how badly they screwed up. Ghost Rider appears (which Logan appreciates, since he needs to light his cigar) and says that the loss of the Fantastic Four creates a void. They should stay a team and try and fill that void in order to redeem their failure.

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