The weekend of chunky guys dressed like Colossus and hot women dressed as Slave Leia has come to an end. I myself had a great time, spent with hermanos from this very site and a whole bunch of guys from Funnybook Babylon. Sadly, Thomas “Wanderer” Wilde deemed himself “too broke” to consider joining us and Hoatzin would have probably involved a gigantic plane ticket paid in rare diamonds, since he’s from Europe. I don’t know. I really have no grasp on how that type of thing works. Besides, Hoatzin seems to have vanished from our planet. What happened to that guy?

This one movie sent the other movie into space.

Day One

Last year I got to New York the day before the con started, which allowed me enough rest and whatnot. This year I had to come in the first day of the event and kill time until David Uzumeri came in from Canada, since he was in charge of dealing with the hotel. I walked straight from the Port Authority bus terminal to the Javits Center, which tired me the hell out.

After getting my swanktastical press pass, I met up with hermanos and Joseph of FBB. They were at a panel starting up that was a screening for a new Will Eisner documentary. Since I was tired from all that walking, I decided to stick around and watch it. I found it interesting in the sense that I honestly didn’t know all that much about Eisner, which is almost a sin if you’re a comic fan. The four of us (David U. showed up towards the end) mostly agreed that while it had some fantastic stuff in there, such as taped conversations between Eisner and guys like Kirby, the sum of it was incredibly dry.

Shortly after, we went to the panel on online journalism, with guys from Newsarama and CBR there. It wasn’t as good as the comic blogging panel from last year and mostly focused on arguing over criticism vs. getting press releases. Once that was done with, I was rested up enough to do some wandering.

Read the rest of this entry �

I know that if you’re writing for a comic book blog and it deals with superheroes you’re pretty much obligated to say something about One More Day, but I think everybody’s getting sick of it by now and I don’t have anything interesting to say about it anyway. So I’m not going to write anything about One More Day itself, but the song Four Color Love Story by accoustic indie band The Metasciences came up on my playlist the other day and I had to share it with everyone. It was composed about two years ago but is almost eerily appropriate for the story. Even the line “Elektra isn’t evil or insane” is accurate, since she’s actually a dead Skrull.

(Note: This was originally meant to be a few paragraphs, only it stretched into a full rant about a series of things. I’m not a Spider-Man expert and haven’t read every single thing he’s been in for the past few years. Forgive me if my information is off. But I feel that I know enough for my ire to be justified.)

Back when Marvel was in the latter days of the Spider-Man Clone Saga, the writers all got together to brainstorm a good way to end this massive story arc. They needed something big. A lot of the ideas weren’t so good, like revealing a big chunk of it to be a virtual reality program or have Peter Parker go public with being a clone or just kill off Ben during Onslaught. Some were a bit better, like revealing that Judas Traveler was Seward Trainer from the future and that Seward betrayed Peter into thinking he was a clone all this time. The most interesting and best way to keep both Peter and Ben fans happy turned out to be a time loop.

See, Ben would start remembering events that happened to Peter. Being buried alive by Kraven or fighting Venom. Then, during a big villain gathering climactic finale, Carnage would mortally wound the Judas Traveler and Scryer would reveal his true self. He is Mephisto, orchestrating this whole mess.

As part of this craziness, Peter is sent back in time five years with a distorted memory. Hence, neither is the clone. Peter Parker and Ben Reilly are both Spider-Man, just aged a bit differently. Not the best story ever, but it wasn’t too bad.

There were a handful of reasons why this idea was turned down. Ben should be more aged if this was true, but considering the healing part of his powers and the relatively less stressful life he’s had in those five years, I could buy that they’d still look the same. Then there are a couple continuity issues, like how Mephisto is supposed to be dead around that time. But the main reason why it was tossed out?

Mephisto doesn’t really belong in a Spider-Man story!

Read the rest of this entry �

I’ve seen this in a couple places, so I activated my giant brain and put some thought to it. 72 hours later, I have a solution.

Short answer: they don’t.

Long answer:

In World War Hulk, Sentry is shown as unresponsive and noncommittal. He has yet to lift a finger to help the anti-Hulk side.

In a recent issue of Mighty Avengers, so recent it just came out yesterday, something happens. Lindy Reynolds, wife of the Sentry, is apparently killed by Ultron. I say apparently because there is at least one 100% fake death in the series already, not to mention the fact that Ultron can create appendages and probably change shape.

People are linking this and WWH to explain why Sentry is so out of it. Here’s a simpler idea–

The Hulk is a good friend of Sentry’s. He’s only calm around the Sentry, so the Sentry has kind of a paternal love for him. He wants to be able to help him as best he can. And then, one day, Hulk comes back and blames Reed Richards and Tony Stark for firing him into space. The Sentry’s own friends betrayed Hulk.

And then they come to him and ask him to help the Hulk… by taking him down.

When they ask him to help, Sentry asks Tony for a moment. He wants a word with him. My bet is that Sentry asked Tony, “Is it true? Did you send him into space?” and Tony said, “Yes.”

That’s why he’s sitting on the sidelines. His own friends are using him.

WWH is a good story and it stands on its own. It doesn’t need Mighty Avengers and it’d be foolish to tie that in.

WWH is about old Hulk vs new Hulk. His new friends vs his old friends. General Ross shows up in the last issue. He’s an old enemy, but his daughter was married to the Hulk. She’s dead now, I think. Hulk’s invading Earth because his wife died. There’s your drama right there.

The Rick Jones = Miek thing is pretty dumb, though.

WWH, when you boil it down, is about relationships. World War Hulk: X-Men is proof positive. (It’s also the only tie-in I’m enjoying.) The X-Men, even after all the crap Xavier has put them through, stand by their former headmaster. Xavier is willing to give in, but the X-Men are a family. All for one and one for all. It’s pretty good stuff.

I’m betting that the big fight in WWH isn’t Hulk vs Sentry. Not at all. I feel kind of like it’d be an depowered Hulk (read: Banner) versus Bob Reynolds. It’s just a hunch.

Oh, and Spider-Man: One More Day isn’t about Mary Jane dying at all. That’s a smokescreen. Joe Q is pulling the wool over your eyes again.

It’s about Aunt May getting one more day with Uncle Ben, or maybe her family, before she dies.