I’ve mentioned before that I tend to think of Grant Morrison as a relentless optimist. It’s an admirable trait and it makes his comics kind of a joy to read. The heroes, while not flawless, are heroes still, even when they don’t want to be or do not believe themselves to be.

I’m in the middle of rereading New X-Men. it’s been a while, so it all seems pretty new. I just finished the first hardcover and a couple pages jumped out at me. Well, a lot of pages did, but these are the two I want to talk about. Both are from New X-Men 122.

This is almost self-explanatory and a perfect encapsulation of Morrison’s optimism. The last time the X-Men fought Cassandra Nova, she laid waste to the team. It was only a last minute save by Emma Frost that took her down. Even then, Cassandra won. She jumped into Charles Xavier’s body and switched minds with him. She’s now in the body of the most powerful telepath on the planet. Shortly before Cassandra left Earth to take control of the Shi’ar Empire, she reduced Beast to a wreck and had him beaten nearly to death. Even while she’s been gone, her plans have been in motion. She’s poisoned the X-Men with nano-sentinels and booby-trapped her own body with a number of degenerative diseases.

In short, she’s completely played the entire team and she’s coming back to finish them off. Hank in particular is shaken up by all this because Cassandra tore him down to his basic elements. Jean’s response works to both reinforce Hank and to remind him that the X-Men don’t lose. It’s not even an option. It isn’t on the menu. For every negative that Hank brings up, Jean has an overwhelming positive. Can’t play the guitar? You can learn the drums! You’re afraid? You’re a hero to a kid who needs one. Blocked on creating something? It doesn’t matter. Keep trying. That is hope, and hope will triumph.

Another thing Morrison is big on is being true to yourself. The Invisibles dealt with this quite a bit, with King Mob trying to figure out who he is, Dane embracing the Jack Frost identity, Lord Fanny period, and the climax of Boy’s story arc. He’s got this whole thing about being radiant and true before you face down your big bad. This page is another perfect moment in time.

The Phoenix entity has a long comics history. It’s reached cliche status now, and it usually signals that something terrible is going to happen. Jean Grey could unmake the universe one day due to it… until now. She’s embraced her wings, strange eyes, and brilliant mind. It’s a new era. Hiding who you are in an attempt to fit in is the wrong way to go about things. Repression is wrong.

It’s hinted here that Jean only lost control because she was afraid and ashamed of her powers. Scott suggests that she go back to strict self-control, but what he’s suggesting is really self-limiting. It’s hiding all the things that are you in an attempt to fit in and be safe.

There’s an old saying. “Scared money don’t make money.” If you’re too afraid to take a risk, you aren’t ever going to get anything. Jean has taken a risk and embraced who and what she is and look- she’s better for it. “Do I look like I’m losing control?” She is in complete control of everything now. Herself, her powers, and her confidence.

This is really good stuff that isn’t always immediately apparent. Quitely’s body language says a lot here, too. Scott is hesitant and unsure. Jean? She’s in charge.

When he’s on top of his game, Morrison is one of the best. These two single pages just show a couple of his more enjoyable quirks. Even the end of The Invisibles features a hug and a reminder that good things are coming. “is allnow love,” and so on. He’s all about letting your freak flag fly.

If you’re curious, Geoff Klock has quite an interesting look at the issue here, as part of his ongoing look at the whole of New X-Men. Worth a read. He talks about all the things I don’t in this post.

There’ll probably be more later. NXM is a personal favorite of Morrison’s works, in part because it works with so many characters that I loved and grew up with in new ways. I think that there is a lot to be said about the way that Jean stepped up in the Professor’s absence to play the nurturer and carry the dream, as well. Even though it was Cassandra who left her in charge, she truly is the team leader, at least during the first year of NXM. Interesting, in that it’s usually Cyclops who is in charge, but he’s got so many issues that he is only on-point when he’s in battle. He’s flawless in space, for example, but a bit of a milksop when it comes to relationships.

But, wow, Charles Xavier is only 42 years old?

Have you guys read the new Marvel and DC solicits? I love comics, but those things are a bore and a half. It’s like they don’t even want you to read their books.

It’s cool, though. Here are the ones that are new and good and interesting. Jumping-on points only here, with one exception, perhaps. My pithy and vitally important commentary is in italics.

DC Comics is first since Marvel is better!

BATMAN #667
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cover by J.H. Williams III
The Batmen of All Nations reunite for a weekend of fine food and nostalgia, but an unexpected visitor has other plans for the gathering. Batman, Robin, and the rest of the Club of Heroes find themselves trapped and at the mercy of a dangerous madman on the Island of Mister Mayhew!
This is why I read Grant Morrison. Mad ideas that sound completely goofy. He’s Silver Age with a Modern Age sensibility. Plus, I hope the sweet Knight and Squire from JLA Classified 1-3 shows up.

ROBIN #163
Written by Adam Beechen
Art by Freddie E. Williams II
Cover by Patrick Gleason & Wayne Faucher
It’s Tim Drake’s first Father’s Day as Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, and he wants everything to be just right. Unfortunately, the justice-crazed supervillains known as The Jury pick that very day to go on a murder spree in Gotham City!
This is a great idea for a story. The “family” part of Bat-family doesn’t get looked at often enough. “The Jury,” though, conjures up images of a certain ’90s anti-Venom team.

BATMAN: HARLEY & IVY TP
Written by Paul Dini and Judd Winick
Art by Bruce Timm, Joe Chiodo and others
Cover by Timm
Paul Dini and Bruce Timm -two of the masterminds behind Batman: The Animated Series – join forces in this volume collecting the miniseries BATMAN: HARLEY AND IVY! Also included is the special: HARLEY AND IVY: LOVE ON THE LAM by Judd Winick and Joe Chiodo, plus a newly-colored story rom BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE VOL. 2!
It’s Harley Quinn, so shut up and buy it.
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Welcome to the fifth installment. Took me longer than expected, but a lot of these guys are big names. If you reach the end of the article, Batman will reward you with his greatest quote ever.

CABLE

New Mutants #87 (1990)

Originally, Cable appears in Uncanny X-Men #201 (1986) as a baby, but I figure it would probably make more sense to show his real introduction. The story begins with a terrorist act by a team of Stryfe’s henchmen in some facility. The only one I actually recognize is Four-Arm. After they leave, a new figure enters through a hole in the wall.

Cable tracks Stryfe’s team on their next mission, where they plan to kidnap a couple kids out of a government facility. He takes the battle to the enemies, but their numbers eventually overwhelm him. He’s left to die and the mutants get away. The issue ends with Cable in military captivity, thinking about how he went at this the wrong way. He’s going to need help.

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This is going to sound weird coming on the heels of my “Ollie Queen is a jerk!” post, but hear me out.

I love character turns, be it heroes gone bad (Zoom, Batgirl, Eradicator) or villains gone good. It’s always interesting to see that breaking point that makes someone change. This post is about a villain who went good.

Paul Booker was a crap villain. He called himself Major Disaster, wore a disaster of a costume, and had a disaster of a career. To be quite honest, I haven’t read a lot of his early work just because it looked so awful. He’s got on pink gogo boots, a blue body suit, and a lighter blue hood. It’s a costume on par with some of Scarlet Witch and The Wasp’s worst excesses, but not quite as bad as Susan Richards’s negative-space 4 costume from the ’90s.

Booker joined the JLA at Batman’s request. Yes, the same Batman who gave Huntress the old heave-ho. The JLA were MIA and he had a Substitute League lined up in case of emergencies. Booker so liked the respect that he stuck around on the team and ended up proving his worth. He even made it onto the JLElite, before finally retiring.

Booker’s face turn for JLA was more of an “Okay I’m good now guys” rather than a gradual shift, but it feels right. Here is a guy that, in another world, could’ve been a true hero. He could theoretically prevent disasters, or come up with new ways to research them. The problem is, he’s selfish. He decided to look out for number one first and foremost, and ended up crap villain. He’s had tastes of the good life during his stints in the Suicide Squad and Justice League Antarctica, but he never hit the big times until the JLA accepted him.

He brings an interesting dynamic to the team for a couple reasons. One, he’s a reformed villain. As he says at the beginning of the Rules of Engagement arc, “Vote from the reformed criminal type! If more capes hunted down more bad guys, we’d have a lot less crime!” He doesn’t look at things like the other heroes do. He’s a very to-the-point, man-of-action type. If there is an easy solution that solves the problem well, do it! Why not?

Second, Booker is a big, dumb lug in the Bibbo Bibbowski/Lobo vein. He doesn’t say exactly what’s on his mind because he doesn’t really think. His brain isn’t just not connected to his mouth, it’s not connected, full stop.

Case in point. When the Elite gets together, they’re masterminded by Naif al-Sheikh, who can best be described as an Arab, male, and chainsmoking version of Amanda Waller. He’s got crazy black-ops and intelligence clout, so much so that the JLE gets approval based on his word alone. al-Sheikh sees these men and women as “demons playing in the robes of angels.” They terrify him, and that cannot be. He wants them to share a secret so that they can begin to build a trust. He wants them to explain why they fight for the light from the shadows. Booker’s response? “I, umm… this is really gay. Can’t we just go kick the @&#% out of some bad guys, “sir?”

This man is “Hurrrr!” incarnate! Another example. Booker’s been talking about Kasumi, an assassin on the team with something to hide. This scene follows:

Yes, Booker. You got zapped because it’s that time of the month. That is it exactly.
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It is Hal Jordan Appreciation week. In honor of HJAW…

Huh.

I got nothing. Moving right along–

I love 100 Bullets. You all know this already, right? I’m confident that I can prove that it is the finest piece of comic literature amongst a field filled with self-absorbed people whining about their life and tights’n’fights.

Here’s the long and short of 100 Bullets: The Trust are the scary behind the scenes people that are usually referred to as “they.” They are obscenely rich and outside of the law without being outlaws. The Minutemen were a group of men who protected The Trust from threats both foreign and internal. If a member of The Trust moved against another, the Minutemen would handle it decisively. A few years back, The Trust tired of this and had the Minutemen eliminated in Atlantic City… or so they thought. Agent Graves, leader of the Minutemen, faked their deaths and dropped them into new lives through hypnotism. Now, he’s reactivating his army and appears to be in the process of taking careful revenge on The Trust.

One of my favorite characters in 100 Bullets is Isabelle “Dizzy” Cordova. A reformed gang member whose husband and son were murdered while she was in prison, Dizzy is both one of the reader’s many POV characters and a moral center for the series.

Graves approached her with a briefcase and revealed that two policemen were responsibile for the death of her new family. The briefcase held a pistol and 100 bullets, both of which were completely untraceable. They were “magic bullets,” and any police investigation that involved them would be canceled and wiped away clean. It was a license to kill.

By the end of that arc, it was clear that Dizzy was destined for greater things. She’s appeared throughout the series and you can see a clear progression from broken-hearted girl to grown woman. She’s still young, though quite some time has passed since she first crossed paths with Graves, or rather, since Graves began grooming her for his purposes.

You see, Dizzy is “The Girl,” and she is slated to become one of the new, post-Atlantic City Minutemen. Even more so than the others, Dizzy is slated to be a check within the group itself, as she has been given both a reason (or two!) and the training to kill Agent Graves if and when the time comes.

Time will tell how she ends up, but as-is, she’s easily my favorite female comics character. She’s got heart, she’s got character, and she’s awesome. She’s had an interesting character arc, too. She’s gone from ex-con with a death wish to a person with a fierce wish to live.

Early in the series, she’s told that she had every right to kill a man. She would have gotten away with it. “Well,” she responds, “that don’ make it right, knowhumsayin’?”

That’s Dizzy.

I have trouble with Green Arrow. Ollie Queen has only had a handful of stories that ever really interested me, and even then only slightly. It doesn’t help that the past few years of his book have been not to my taste at all. Longbow Hunters was good, and I’ve been meaning to read Grell’s run on the character because of it. It might help me “get” Ollie.

I think it boils down to his character. He’s this super lefty, hero of and to the people type of guy. He’s that annoying, loudmouth, brash guy who I don’t think anyone likes. He’d be positively frustrating to hang out with. I dig Black Canary, but I have no idea what she sees/saw in him.

Plus, there’s this kind of thing.

So, in short, Ollie Queen is an annoying slimeball with a stupid mustache. I realize that this is a plot point in Justice League Elite, but I don’t see it being even remotely out of character for Ollie. Shoot, one of his character traits is “unfaithful.”

Also, Hawkeye has the same gimmick but is at least fifteen times as cool, Connor Hawke is more interesting, and Oliver Queen having a win against Prometheus is ridiculous. I actually like Mark Millar’s Ultimate Hawkeye more than I like Oliver Queen. Hate may be too strong a word, but I definitely am not an Ollie fan.

Oh yes, it is that time again! Time for your favorite feature and mine, Who Would Win In A Fight!

If you’re new to the blog, WWWIF is a semi-regular (read: whenever I remember to do it) feature where I put some thought toward non-standard comics fights. No Superman vs Batman, Thing vs Hulk, or Spider-Man vs Blue Beetle here, no sirree. These are the fights that are important. If you want to read the previous entires in this battle, click the “Who Would Win In a Fight” category link over to your right, or click here.

Er, now that I click the link myself, I see that there is only one other fight. Oops! Well, here’s a second. Onward!

Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde vs Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee!
“I was the first and the best, Jubilee! You’re going down!”
“Pfft, I’m shoor, old-timer. As if.”

Kitty and Jubes have a lot in common. They’re both teenaged sidekicks. They both had to fight to stay on the X-Men. Kitty Pryde had her “Professor Xavier is a JERK!” and was Jubilee ever an official X-Man? Wolverine has a paternal relationship with both of them, even going so far as to drag them along on trips to Japan, Madripoor, and who knows where else.

It’s kind of interesting in how they differ in their relationships with the other X-Men. Kitty’s “mother,” for lack of a better word, is Ororo “Storm” Munroe. They have a great and nurturing relationship going. Of course, Kitty also dated Peter “Colossus” Rasputin for a good long while, turning Peter into not only a mutant hated and feared by a world he’s sworn to protect, but a probable sex offender.

Jubilee, however, is a bit more rough. She’s been openly jealous of many of the X-Women’s X-Bodies, she used to hate Psylocke’s ninja-kicking, bathing-suit-for-a-uniform-wearing, race-changing guts, and for a little bit she had something of a crush on Gambit, even if she would never admit it. Also, she called Longshot “Blonde Jovi” once and wondered how he got into the X-Men.

Kitty Pryde has enjoyed no small amount of popularity. I mean, and I’m not trying to be mean here, but she’s tailored to be someone’s dream girl. I’m sure you know what I mean. She’s a collection of traits that make people go “Ooh, awesome!” She’s consistently cute, super-smart, has ninja skills, is great with computers, and isn’t so hoity-toity that she won’t date a normal guy like you Doug Ramsey. I mean, that’s not even touching on the Agent of SHIELD stuff, Excalibur, Mekanix, or any of the other awful things she’s done or been through over the years. She’s got baggage. Now, she’s in Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men, hardcore-ing it up, slapping Emma Frost around, and getting all the good lines. It’s worth noting that Kitty’s current and original costume are classics, but every single costume she had in between these two have actually been worse than every costume the Wasp has had. That is an incredible accomplishment. Even when she’s screwing up, she’s perfect at it.

Jubilee, on the other hand, hasn’t. She was in Generation X for a while, then that got canceled, and then she lost her powers during House of M. She had a good run in X-Men, though, and I hear that her stuff during Wolverine’s solo series was great, but I haven’t read it yet. She was pretty awesome in the X-Men tv show, too. The yellow trenchcoat is bright enough to be blinding. The “Jubilee” earrings are a nice touch, too, but the bright pink shirt and ’90s shorts that go up to her armpits are awful. I’m kind of glad that those got dropped, costume-wise. Shorts don’t belong above your belly button.

Jubilee is another of those characters with “hidden potential.” She could theoretically kill people with her “pafs,” but tends to shy away from doing such a thing. Even better, I read somewhere that she is technically splitting atoms on a subatomic level, which makes her a nuclear threat. When properly unleashed, she is crazy powerful. She blew up the Mandarin’s boat back during the bit when Jubilee, Psylocke, and Wolverine were traipsing around Southeast Asia. She’s an Olympic-level gymnast, too, and a decent fighter. This doesn’t stop the other X-Men from saving her on a daily basis. She’s gone toe-to-toe with The Hand, though, so she can’t be too bad. Then again, it is The Hand. You can get a Hand membership out of a Crackerjacks box. Jubilee is also a walking and talking ’90s pop culture reference, and starred in a really, really bad Generation X TV pilot from the ’90s that I inordinately loved as a kid. It should’ve gone on to be a TV show, I’ll tell you what. It would’ve been bigger than Buffy.

Kitty Pryde’s abilities are pretty well-defined. All of them. Putting aside the ridiculous idea of “phasing between worlds” or whatever that was in X-Treme X-Men, she can phase herself and things she is in contact with through nearly any object. It’s been suggested that she can phase through anything but adamantium, too. She’s super smart and an expert computer user. She can hack and program and blah blah blah. She was an agent of SHIELD for a little bit, so she may even be government trained. She was possessed by Ogun, Wolverine’s former sensei, and had crazy ninja skills for a short while. Later on, according to Thomas Wilde, Warren Ellis realizes that “Kitty’s spent years and years being taught how to fight hand-to-hand by one of the scariest bastards on Earth.” So, sup crazy fighting skills! Also, she can phase just enough that she can walk on air.

Yes, she can fly. She also has a pet dragon. Cripes. She probably isn’t a long-lost princess, though.

Taken head to head, this would be an interesting and pretty short battle. Kitty could just grab Jubilee and half-phase her into a rock or something. Jubilee probably couldn’t open up full bore on Kitty the way she needs to do in order to win the fight, so it’d devolve to hand-to-hand… against a ninja master who can turn intangible. Jubilee is agile, so she could probably dodge a few hits, but Kitty is super smart, can walk on air, and has crazy fight training. Jubilee could use her fireworks to blind Kitty and get in some good hits, but all Kitty has to do is turn intangible and nothing Jubilee throws would land. It is worth noting that Kitty can still see when she’s phased, which means a couple things. One, light can still strike her eyes (and the rest of her, since she doesn’t turn invisible). That means she still has some form of solid matter. Two, if light can strike her eyes, Jubilee’s pafs might have the impact of actual matter. Gavok thinks that Jubes may even be able to induce seizures in Kitty. Even if she can’t, having fireworks going off in your brain can’t be a good thing.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that, six times out of ten, Kitty Pryde would probably beat the bone marrow out of Jubilee and then invent a cure for cancer, AIDS, and the common cold out of that bone marrow, all the while singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

…

Final Verdict: Jubilee wins by authorial fiat.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry, just a bit of sarcasm there. Seriously guys, I know you love Hawkeye/Beetle/Spoiler/The Aquarian/New Warriors/JLI, but no one actually has a vendetta against these characters. Do you know why companies kill them? They kill them because you love them. They know that every character, from Skin to Ronnie Raymond to Doug Ramsey to Bill Foster, is someone’s favorite, except Wyatt Wingfoot, of course. This is especially true on the internet. Killing a character, or hinting that you will kill one, is a surefire sales and word-of-mouth bump. That’s why they do it. They’ll get a rise out of you each and every time.

It’s okay to be upset, but not to the point that you’re throwing out ad hominems and death threats at writers.

Just… be real about it. It’s just comics, dog, it’s not that serious. It sucks, yeah, but that’s life, right? It’s cool to come up with scenarios to bring them back to life or critique why they died, just have some perspective.

Anyway, Blue Beetle.

Like a lot of the DCU, I first encountered Ted Kord in the pages of the Death of Superman. He, along with Booster Gold, were part of the JL(A?) that went up against Doomsday before Superman. I had no idea that those two were the jokey-jokesters that they apparently were in JLI. I thought that they were just two heroes with cool costumes, but that’s possibly because I’ve always thought of goggles as being kind of cool. (Don’t tell anyone I told you that.) Plus, geez, they went up against the guy who killed Superman!

I thought that Blue Beetle was pretty cool, and then promptly forgot about him and the rest of that Justice League until probably about the time that Formerly Known as the Justice League hit. That was good stuff, so I became a mild fan. Countdown hit after a while and bam, Beetle was dead.

And the internet knew the sound of a billion angry keyboards, epithets and incensed forum posts a-typing.

I thought that the Beetle parts of Countdown, save for the bits where Bats and J’onn were jerks to him, did a good job of showing that he was a hero. I particularly liked the bit where Beetle realized that he had a choice between doing wrong and living or remaining a hero and dying.

“My name is Ted Kord. I am the second man to call himself the Blue Beetle. I tell myself there will be a third. And I hope whoever he or she may be, they do better at it than I have.”

He realizes that he can’t stop what’s happening, not even remotely. Lord’s plan is going to take effect, and it’s “Join me or die time.” Beetle’s response?

“Rot in Hell, Max.”

That, lads and ladies, is a true hero. Defiant to the end and ready to spit in a villain’s face.

He was right about there being a new Beetle, too.

The new Beetle is Jaime Reyes. (It’s not Jay-me, by the way. It’s pronounced more like High-may. Sorry, I’m a stickler for Spanish.) He’s the brainchild of Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner. He’s from El Paso, Texas, and got the Scarab that gave Dan Garret, the first Beetle, his powers.

I really, really like Jaime. He’s quite a believable teenager, thanks in no small part to some smart dialogue from the writers. Jaime was missing for a year thanks to the events of Infinite Crisis, unbeknownst to him. While he was gone, his family came apart. His father was shot, but not killed, and his mother turned into a wreck. When he got back, the very first thing he did was reveal his powers to his understandably freaked-out family.

Yes. That is excellent and it was so nice to see. Jaime is still a teenager, still in high school. He isn’t super smart, or agile, or whatever. Shoot, he doesn’t even know how to fight. But, he understands that family is one of the most important things in a person’s life. He trusts them enough to give them his secret. His best friends, too.

After that, Jaime is almost a traditional Marvel hero. He’s inexperienced, flawed, and honestly, he doesn’t even want to be a hero. He didn’t ask for this, and he definitely didn’t ask for the JLA to take him into space and leave him there. He’s been dealt a raw deal, but he’s going to deal with it as best he can.

I like Jaime. I think that he’s a worthy successor and his book is a lot of fun. It sucks that Ted had to die to make way for him, but that’s comics. You can either embrace the illusion of change and hold onto your favorite characters until they stagnate, or you can embrace actual change and watch your favorite characters grow old, die, retire, or whatever, only to be replaced by new and improved versions or, heaven forbid, actually new characters!

It’s just comics, baby. Love them or leave them. Bad stories are a given in any medium. Whether it’s War Games or Onslaught, something out there is going to rub you the wrong way. Enjoy the good stories, ignore the rest. Just don’t be afraid to try something new.

Sorry for being a week late. The holidays drained me faster than a three-way with Rogue and Parasite. …Please pretend I didn’t just say that.

THE BEYONDER

Secret Wars II #1 (1985)

We start out with another iffy entry. The Beyonder was present during the first Secret Wars. That’s obvious. It’s just that at no point did he actually appear. That didn’t happen until the horrifying sequel. We know him for his silly disco outfit, but that wasn’t what he originally showed up in.

I like it. We see him talking with the Molecule Man, who tries to explain things to him in a way that is admirably calm and casual. Molecule Man and Volcana send Beyonder on his way as he takes a more subtle form on his quest for experience. This form is of Molecule Man himself. He proceeds to turn a desk into apples, turns a fat television writer into a super-villain and then turns invisible and follows Captain America around for the hell of it.

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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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Well, it’s been four months of lead-up. When the first part of the countdown came out, Lynxara asked about why I’d do a top 100 list for a series of books that only have 175 issues. Especially when I count two-parters as one entry. Truth be told, this isn’t like ranking the best issues of Nightwing or Mighty Thor. Most comic series have cohesion and you usually have an idea of what to expect in each issue. Writers, artists and story remain the same for months and sometimes years at a time.

What If, on the other hand, is different. What If is the ultimate comic book box of chocolates. Writers, artists, stories, ideas and tones change from issue to issue. Many stories are good. Many are bad. But almost every one of them is interesting in its own way. I could have easily have done a top 20 or top 50 list and be done long ago, but there’s too much fun we’d be missing out on. No jive-talking Incredible Hulk, or Matt Murdock crying over Wilson Fisk’s death bed, or Kraven the Hunter eating Peter Parker’s face.

Now let’s get in our Quinjet and take us down to #1.

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