Yep. It’s time for another edition of Ruin the Moment, distracting you as I work on the next Professor Marc article.
This is based on Tim Drake receiving the call that Bart Allen has been killed needlessly because DC wrote themselves into a corner.
It’s time for another six issues of random. Sorry it took so long. One of the issues was an 80 Page Giant and you know how those can be.
The Phantom #3
Year: 1988
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Joe Orlando
Synopsis: The Phantom is the ultimate legacy superhero; a mantle existing throughout the years under different members of a bloodline. To give balance, there is the Chessman bloodline, which has been antagonizing Phantoms for ages. This miniseries focuses on the modern-day battle between Phantom (the 21st one) and Chessman.
There are two parts to the issue. To delve deeper into the legacy picture, we read about the great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of our main Phantom, Christopher “Kit” Walker. In a story transcribed by the 13th Phantom’s son, the Phantom has been beaten by the Chessman Brothers and is locked up in a pirate ship. Not only that, but one of the brothers stole his badass skull ring. Due to desperation and being totally pissed, the Phantom breaks the chains that bind him, beats up a bunch of pirates, sinks their ship and is saved by some allies. The Chessmans get away.
As a nice touch, this old timey Phantom doesn’t wear a domino mask, but rather has black paint or makeup splotched around his eyes.
He seeks out the Chessman that stole his ring and takes him on in a duel of swords. He steals his ring back, punches Chessman in the face, impales him with a dagger and tosses him out a window. That’s a pretty full day.
After nearly three months of ignoring it, I’ve finally updated the site’s Table of Contents page. Other than adding the newer articles, I’ve added Hoatzin’s section, got a better picture for the “Ruining the Moment” section and added the Juggernaut.
See? Cain can be seen dashing into any articles deemed suggested reading by 4th Letter’s writers or readers.
In other news, CHIKARA has a new contest based on their DVD covers. By sending in your own artwork, you could possibly have it grace the cover of their yet-to-be-named November 07 event and win a bunch of free crap. The requirements:
– .jpg or .psd file
– 200 dpi
– RGB mode (NOT CMYK!)
– Measuring 5.125” (width) by 7.25” (height) inches
– Keep it family friendly
Send the entries to lfchikarason@gmail.com with your name and address. You can enter as many times as you want. I’m going to try and break out the pencils for the first time in years and see what I can do with this.
Finally, I made a couple purchases yesterday for the next series of articles that I’ll get to once I finish the Professor Marc’s Homework Trilogy. All I can say is that despite all the comics I’ve read over the course of this site’s history, nothing… NOTHING… has made me fear for my sanity more than what I have in store. Stay tuned.
Where I work, I have a friend there who I will simply refer to as Professor Marc. I won’t post a picture of him since he may not dig that. Plus, he is really, really weird looking and if you’re reading this while in an early morning stupor, it will really fuck up your day and possibly take you out of the article. So to hell with that.
Marc’s level of comic knowledge makes me look like a guy who asks, “What’s a Bucky?” He’s about eight years older than me and has tons more experience than I do as a comic geek. It’s the kind of thing where I mention my “Deadshot’s Tophat” articles and he immediately gets the joke of the title. He’s the kind of guy that can name every single member of the Superfriends, including the guys that showed up for one episode like Plastic Man, Green Arrow and the ones I still can’t recall. In a sad kind of way, I sort of look up to him.
How do you become a comic know-it-all, anyway? I can read a bunch of comics, but it’s hard for me to branch out. Picking up something completely random and giving it a read is easier said than done. I could be spending that time reading a really good Justice League run or catching up on Daredevil. Still, I’m a man who loves his obscurity. A lot of the stuff I review on this site is stuff I make sure hasn’t been overly reviewed elsewhere on the net. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t touched the Ultimate Warrior comic. It’s old hat.
Professor Marc decided to lend me a hand. From his bottomless comic collection, he handed me nineteen random backissues to help build character. Stuff I would never think of reading on my own. Some issues are from comics I know of. Some issues are from comics I had no idea even existed. Only one of them is an issue that I’ve even heard of prior. Professor Marc’s list has more of a Marvel slant, but there’s still a good amount of representation all around.
I’ve read through six of these issues so far, so it’s time for part one of my book report.
Year: 1991
Writer: Doug Moench
Artist: Rod Ramos
Synopsis: This had to be the first one I read. I really don’t have much experience with the Toxic Avenger, honestly. I used to watch the Toxic Crusaders cartoon and years ago I watched Toxic Avenger 3 during one of those weekends when we got free Cinemax. But he is the Steve Rogers of New Jersey, so it’s my Jersian duty to read up on him.
