It’s a week of endings. Grant Morrison finishes up his lengthy work with Batman by showing that, “Batman and Robin will never die!” is in actuality a form of Hell. The Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man team-up ends after its 12th issue, meaning that the Dr. Wily/Dr. Eggman bromance is gone for good. Then we got the last issue of the latest What If.

Guys, you know me. You know that I’ve read every single issue of What If. I know all of them from the great to the terrible. I can honestly say that of the 200+ entries of that series, What If: Avengers vs. X-Men is the absolute worst one. Yes, even worse than What If the Avengers Lost the Evolutionary War? At least that story was able to be bad in one issue.

I’m helped out by Gaijin Dan, Was Taters, Space Jawa, Jody and Matlock. Let the games begin.

Animal Man Annual #2
Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman

Batman ’66 #5
Jeff Parker and Ty Templeton

Batman Annual #2
Scott Snyder, Marguerite Bennett and Wes Craig

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You said it, Spidey. But Sunday is Sunday, so let’s get to it.

My crew this week includes Gaijin Dan, Matlock and Space Jawa. I don’t have anything else to really add to this white noise of an intro, so here. The theme to Pacific Rim. Listen to it as you skim the rest… or as you hit a monster in the face with a battleship. Either way.

With that out of the way, panels away!

All-Star Western #22 (Matlock’s pick)
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Moritat

All-Star Western #22 (Gavin’s pick)
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Moritat

Aquaman #22
Geoff Johns and Paul Pelletier

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All right. Yesterday we stopped right at Nick Fury. Also, that Kieron Gillen guy showed up in the comments and that’s rad as all get out! Let’s continue to the end.

Ninjette
Chosen by: Mr Wind Up Bird
Empowered #4
Adam Warren

Nova
Chosen by: SilverSupernova
Nova #2
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Sean Chen

Orion
Chosen by: Brobe
New Gods #9
Jack Kirby

Phobos
Chosen by: Gavin
Secret Warriors #8
Jonathan Hickman and Alessandro Vitti

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Yesterday, we made it to G. Let’s continue from there and hit N.

Glory
Chosen by: Darth Nat
Glory #27
Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell

Gorilla Man
Chosen by: Gavin
Agents of Atlas #1
Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk

Green Goblin
Chosen by: prezbuluskey
Thunderbolts #120
Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato Jr.

Groot
Chosen by: Space Jawa
Guardians of the Galaxy #8
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Brad Walker

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The other day, my regular series This Week in Panels hit the glorious Week 200. In preparation, I asked for assistance in putting together this special article This Character in Panels. Well, you guys didn’t disappoint. I got a shitload of entries from all around. It was overwhelming in the sense that a job I thought would take just a couple hours instead took me until today. Also, because of the many images involved, I’ve decided to split this into three parts, posting one a day.

The basic idea is to showcase one panel of a character’s history that best sums them up. It might be serious. It might be funny. It might not even have them in the panel at all! I got a lot of stuff from readers and people at the Something Awful forum and even had to ignore a bunch of entries because either they gave me splash pages (which I never use for these) or the complete lack of issue information.

Hell, I wanted to use that infamous, “PUNISHMENT DAY!” panel of Punisher 2099, but I have no idea which issue it’s from, so I passed. Regardless, thanks to everyone who helped out.

Oh, and I’m not listing the volume information for any of these. I have enough headaches as is.

Let’s start it off from A to G.

Alana and Marko
Chosen by: Gavin
Saga #10
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Animal Man
Chosen by: LtKenFrankenstein
Animal Man #26
Grant Morrison and Chaz Truog

Ant-Man (Eric O’Grady)
Chosen by: Gavin
Thunderbolts #131
Andy Diggle and Roberto Delatorre

Aquaman
Chosen by: Gavin
Aquaman #1
Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis

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Yikes! I never thought this would ever last this long. Started as an exercise in keeping me on some kind of deadline, This Week in Panels has been going strong for the last two hundo weeks. The idea is simple. Take the new comics me and my calvary have read over the week and chop them down until there’s one panel that best sums up the issue. It’s fun and people seem to like it, which is why it’s lasted so long.

My crew this time includes Gaijin Dan, Space Jawa, Matlock and Jody. Buddy Dickeye tried to toss me a panel for Avengers, but it kind of doesn’t work.

Yeah, Space Knights (sans Rom, the only one anyone cares about). Those are cool and all, but they have barely anything to do with anything. They’re in there for one panel and are never referenced. Still, I posted it here anyway because I didn’t want my first panel for ThWiP 200 to be whatever the hell that nightmare is in Animal Man.

No, seriously. What the fuck is this thing?!

Animal Man #22
Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh and Francis Portela

Avengers #16
Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer and Stefano Caselli

Batman ’66 #3 (Gavin’s pick)
Jeff Parker and Jonathan Case

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*yawn*

Yo. Welcome to This Week in Panels. Posted this later than I wanted to thanks to spending the entire day working/watching Evo/watching Money in the Bank. I’m tired.

My panel crew this week is made up of Matlock, Gaijin Dan, Jody, Space Jawa, Was Taters and the grand return of one David Brothers! Remember, next week is Week 200 and that’s when I’ll be doing This Character in Panels. I have a lot of great stuff so far and if you have anything you want represented, by all means send me a line. Deadline is July 21st.

Remember that it should be one panel (not a sequence or splash page) and try to have the issue number, writer and artist.

Meanwhile, after seeing Pacific Rim the other day, I ended up buying tickets for my first ever Kaiju Big Battel show this Saturday. This will be a few hours after my next improv performance, this time at the UCB Theater in Chelsea at 1:15. If you’re in the area, check it out.

Now roll that beautiful bean footage.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search Part 2
Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru

Batman #22 (Taters’ pick)
Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, James Tynion IV and Rafael Albuquerque

Batman #22 (Gavin’s pick)
Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, James Tynion IV and Rafael Albuquerque

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Hello, ladies and gentlemen. The ThWiP wheels keep turning and it’s been a great week of stuff, especially because of Batman ’66 gracing our digital devices. Also, Venom has bitching art and Deadpool Kills Deadpool cleans off the stink that came from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe… even if it killed off Golden-Age Deadpool from that comic one-shot that only I and four other people read from three years ago. Speaking of Deadpool comics that are no longer bad, Daniel Way is off Thunderbolts and it’s already much, much better and comprehensible.

My helpers this week are Gaijin Dan, Matlock, Space Jawa and Jody. Speaking of helpers, thanks to the many people who have already contributed to This Character in Panels. Keep it coming! The deadline is July 21st.

Adventures of Superman #10
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Wes Craig

Avengers #15
Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer and Stefano Caselli

Avengers AI #1
Sam Humphries and Andre Lima Araujo

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Getting closer and closer to the 200th week, it’s This Week in Panels! Got a lot of stuff for this entry, helped out by the likes of Gaijin Dan, Matlock, Was Taters, Space Jawa and Jody, so a big thank you to all of them. Unfortunately, nobody read Captain America this week of all weeks. Not that I expect Jody, since he’s of the Canadian persuasion.

This coming Saturday, I’m going to be performing improv at the UCB East theater in the East Village. So for anybody in New York with time and five bucks to spare, go check it out. Jokes will happen!

Age of Ultron #10AI
Mark Waid and Andre Lima Araujo

All-Star Western #21 (Matlock’s pick)
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Moritat and Staz Johnson

All-Star Western #21 (Gavin’s pick)
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Moritat and Staz Johnson

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Welcome! It’s time again for This Week in Panels. A good sprinkling of random stuff this week, brought to us by myself, Matlock, Gaijin Dan, Space Jawa and Jody. Jawa has another My Little Pony comic panel included, meaning like clockwork, someone in the comments will complain about it.

While Batman and _____ has become inadvertently hilarious after Robin’s death, this issue takes the cake. Not that it tops the time Batman cut apart Frankenstein to see if he can use the same technology to turn Damian into the patchwork undead, but it’s the timing. Snyder’s Batman has shown him out of control and mad at himself, but there’s a sense of grounded sympathy in there and Batman’s shown as trying to work through it. Morrison’s Batman Incorporated shows Batman dealing with his grief via going over-the-top ridiculous in his attacks on Talia. Not to mention, both of those comics are taking breaks from all of that. Batman is doing Year Zero while Incorporated did a one-off about the Japanese Batman.

So when I see Batman’s still being an unbelievable super prick in Batman and Batgirl, I can’t help but think, “Oh yeah… Damian’s dead, isn’t he.”

Now panels.

Age of Ultron #10 (Jody’s pick)
Brian Michael Bendis and various others

Age of Ultron #10 (Matlock’s pick)
Brian Michael Bendis and various others

Animal Man #21
Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh and Francis Portela

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