Today I bought the Essential Luke Cage, which has his first 27 issues. Sadly, Mr. Fish shows up in issue #29. DAMN IT!

Anyway, the article.

60) WHAT IF THE KINGPIN OWNED DAREDEVIL?

Issue: Volume 2, #73
Writer: D.G. Chichester
Artist: Tom Grindberg
Spider-Man death: No
Background: The Fixer had Jack Murdock killed for refusing to take a dive during his big fight. Matt Murdock was already training under the martial arts master Stick, and with his drive for justice, one day became Daredevil. Years later, he would become the mortal enemy of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. Here, Kingpin hears about the Fixer/Murdock incident and how young Matt has been seen with Stick. This interests him and he decides that this boy might be worth looking at.

We see young Matt Murdock on the day after his father’s death, unaware but suspicious of why he hasn’t seen him yet. It’s a day in the life as we see him deal with bullies and briefly talk to Stick. Policemen show up and bring him to the morgue to identify his father. As Matt is leaving, Kingpin’s assistant arrives and gives him a card (then realizing his obvious mistake, since the words are in print) telling him to meet Wilson Fisk at spice warehouse near a pier. Matt recognizes the name and goes even colder.

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You can find the list, plus covers, over at Newsarama.

My commentary on the interesting books lies after the jump, and I’ve included the solicit text for them, too!
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“What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time.”
–Grant Morrison

I’m not usually one to complain about comics companies “destroying” characters. In fact, I think it’s kind the kind of stupid invective that gives comic fans such a negative fanboy image. “Destroying” is a loaded term, and there’s much, much better ways to express your feelings on the matter. This may be my attempt at that, or my attempt at putting my foot in my mouth. U DECIDE.

I do think, however, that comics companies can make/allow some fairly terrible narrative choices. Turning Xorn into some kind of Jerry Springer-esque twin brother was one. Actually, every time Xorn has been mentioned outside of Morrison’s New X-Men has been a mistake, I think. Identity Crisis left a bad taste in my mouth, despite Rags Morales’s excellent art. I liked the scene where Batman and Robin are trying to get to Tim Drake’s house before his dad dies. That was powerful, but the death of Jack Drake? Bleh. He was a cool dude. Mark Millar turning the New Warriors into patsies? Bah, Doom says.

So basically what I’m saying is, not everything comics companies do is great. Big surprise, huh? I once read a comment Keith Giffen made about the death of Blue Beetle. He said he wasn’t mad about it, and that his only feelings on the matter were “I would’ve done it differently.” I think that’s all any fan can really say. “I would’ve done it differently.” Mark Waid once said something like “Comics is the only industry where 90% of your audience thinks that they can do it better than you.” It’s true.

Long, rambling introductions aside, DC screwed the pooch on the Batbooks when they made the main man overly angry, right? Well, what about the satellite titles? Catwoman went from a must-read book to “Peace out, homey!” all in the space of one issue for me. Batgirl has renounced her title and is pretty much a villain now.

I am okay with one of these things, but I do not like the other. Let us begin, then.
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Back when I first started reading comics, in the 90’s (thunder noises), I was a bit too young to have any real income and was mainly relegated to read comics that had Spider-Man and/or Venom on the cover. One of said covers was for a What If about the New Fantastic Four, made up of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider. I had never heard of this team, but the concept was too rad not to look at, so I got the issue.

That, from what I recall, was the only one I ever did get back then. I remember passing on one about Cannonball’s brother Josh because, hell, I didn’t even know who Cannonball was. Didn’t he show up once during the really shitty final season of the X-Men cartoon?

Like many comic readers, spider-clones and evil, magnetic Xaviers pushed me away from the hobby for years. I can’t really remember when I got back into it again, but I know it wasn’t long into it that I remembered the What If series. With nearly 200 issues out there, I only looked at those based on characters I knew about. X-Men and Spider-Man mostly. Then, over time, as I started to understand more about guys like Iron Man and Dr. Doom, I’d read their stories. Then Dr. Strange and Captain America. Then Fantastic Four and Namor. And so on and so forth.

Until Wikipedia came around, these comics were some of the best ways to get background on characters and storylines. I didn’t know a thing about how Strange became a sorcerer until reading these. I didn’t know the story behind how the Silver Surfer became Galactus’ flunky, only to be given independence. In fact, most of Captain America’s backstory I’ve learned from his What If issues. So thanks for the help, Uatu the Watcher.

After realizing how many of these I’ve read, I knew I had to finish the series off. And so, at the time of this article, I have about 30 issues left to go through. Once I’m done with those, it will be time for me to reflect on it with my list of the best 100 issues. Read the rest of this entry �