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
Kind of a scattershot article this time around, so bear with me.
Things are overall pretty swell for me these days and I thought I’d take a couple days to sit back and talk about positivity. More specifically, as you can see in the big letters above, 31 things that make me happy. The kind of stuff that I can look at, think about or just plain talk about and I’ll turn my frown into a smile. This isn’t really a countdown, as there’s no actual order. In fact, it’s just a bunch of random crap meant to reach that number. The neat stuff I don’t talk about, I’ll save for next year when I discuss 32 things that make me happy.
Why 31? Because I’m becoming increasingly grizzled in the next couple days. I suggest other bloggers give this a try when their time comes. It’s fun.
1) That What If Story Where Galactus Turns into Elvis
I wrote about this last year, so you can read my lengthier review here. The short of it is that Galactus is magically transformed into Elvis Presley and shot to Earth, where he finds family and a new meaning to his life. More importantly, he redeems the names of Galactus and Elvis Presley by assuming the throne of King of Rock and Roll.
Yeah, comic books are sweet.
2) “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters
I can’t say that I have a favorite song, but I’m sure “Learn to Fly” is in my top five. It’s a beautiful tune that gets me pepped up to do whatever it is I’m preparing myself to do. For me, this is one of those songs that you listen to a million times, only listen to half of the words and get this image in your mind of what the song is really about, which is completely off-base. I can’t be the only one who does that.
For me, I always imagined the song as being about a World War I pilot in a nasty dogfight whose side is getting cut down by the enemy. He’s trying to get out of there with a handful of enemy fighters on his tail. He prays that his luck and worth as a pilot will let him live one more day to the point that he even considers selling his soul to the Devil. In the end, he maneuvers his way to safety to the point that he thinks his survival was caused purely by divine intervention.
Apparently the real meaning of the song is that it’s Grohl explaining the mental desperation of trying to write a good song under pressure. That’s pretty cool too, I guess.
3) Whenever Somebody Awesome Beats Up Superman When They Really Shouldn’t
When you ask the average man on the street who the strongest superhero character is, they’ll say Superman. Sure, a comic geek could say that Superman is nothing compared to the might of the Spectre and you’re always going to have that one guy desperately jumping through hoops to come up with a scenario where Batman makes a fool out of the guy. At the end of the day, Superman is considered one of the most unbeatable dudes in comics.
So it’s always a blast when he loses a fight to someone who isn’t even in his weight class. Sure, there’s always an explanation, but it doesn’t change the fact that Superman got his ass kicked by someone like Evil Spider-Man.
Yep. Back in All-Access #1, Venom showed up in the DC Universe and was quick to getting in a couple fights with Superman. He absolutely thrashed him again and again. And this was written by Ron Marz, a DC guy! Even when Spider-Man showed up, Venom kicked both their asses until the lame-oid Access showed up with a giant sonic cannon to save the day.
Some fans will explain it away that this was after Final Night, meaning that Superman wasn’t fully cooked up by the sun’s rays and was at a disadvantage. Too bad. My guy beat up your guy, so ha!
There are other examples. In one of my all-time favorite comics, Superman boxes against Muhammad Ali on a planet with a red sun, so naturally, Ali beats him down. Even though Superman has no chance in his vulnerable form, he still proves himself a badass by taking a beating and not falling down until the bell rings.
There was a crossover from when DC had the rights to Masters of the Universe and Superman ends up in Eternia. Despite having been thwarted by He-Man at every turn for years, Skeletor is able to pretty easily take down Superman without breaking a sweat. He just slices him in the chest with his magic sword and then zaps him with it until he stops moving. The dude beat up Superman, saved Christmas one time AND has a skull for a head. He’s the best.
Slightly related, but that JLA/Avengers crossover had a scene where Superman and Captain America are at each other’s throats to the point that the other heroes are pulling them apart. I’ve always thought this scene was great in its own flawed way because, really, what is Captain America going to do? His powers are that he’s good at doing crunches and talking. Superman can turn a mountain into glass by looking at it. It’s one of those cool little moments where Captain America is so in over his head but doesn’t care because he’s so determined that you believe he has a chance.
As of today, I am no longer a man in my 20’s. I was wondering how to be all sentimental about such a change and decided that I would do a 4 Elements post on my favorite comic story. That’s a hard decision to make, really. What to choose? I love Watchmen and all, but I don’t know if I’d rank it that high. Hell, I love Kingdom Come more than I should, but even that rings hollow. Maybe there’s some Deadpool story buried in there that I should gush over.
In the end, I decided to go with a short story from a 90’s What If issue. Yes, I’m terrible. In fact, most of the issue is terrible. It’s What If #34 from the second volume, otherwise known as What If No One Was Watching the Watcher? Years back when I ranked the top 100 issues of the series, that one only made it to #57. Despite being a humor issue, it featured 19 pages of unfunny jokes and inane concepts. The only reason it ranked so high was because of the opening 7-page story.
The story, written by Scott Gimple and drawn my Tom Morgan, came out in 1992, only a month or so after the finishing of Marvel’s hit Infinity Gauntlet series. Now, I’m a fan of violence and fictional destruction, but strangely, there’s a major lack of it in this story. In fact, the only actual action comes from the first page as this reality’s Thanos gives the business to Galactus, Eater of Worlds.
Yes. My favorite comic book story is What If Thanos Changed Galactus Into a Human Being? Rather than imprison him in energy cubes like in the original story, the omnipotent Thanos punishes Galactus by sending him to Earth in the form as a human. In his naked, human form, Galactus finds himself in a Kansas trailer park. With no memory of his true identity, hungry and entranced by the sound of nearby music, he stumbles into the home of Gertrude Rebmann, a waitress, single mother and Elvis enthusiast. At first, she’s horrified that there’s a naked dude collapsing at her front door, but then we get a good look at Galactus’ human form and she’s even more shocked.
Complete cosmic coincidence, Galactus had been transformed into a form that looks and sounds just like Elvis Aaron Presley. Gertrude is sure it’s him and spends the next few hours feeding him, playing him Elvis records, reading his life story via magazines and showing him some of his movies. Since Galactus has amnesia and he’s a complete match – even down to the singing talent – he agrees that he is indeed Elvis. He doesn’t understand it, but he knows he has a second chance and he intends to do it right this time.
Tuesday gave us the long-awaited videogame sequel Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and you bet your ass I picked it up. Not only that, but I picked up the special edition. In addition to the game, the package includes a tin case, free access to the downloadable characters Jill Valentine and Shuma Gorath, free Marvel Unlimited for a month and a booklet that features lots of sweet art and a prologue comic.
Now, I know what a lot of you are saying.
“Who gives a shit about a fighting game’s story, let alone a stupid crossover story like this?”
Me. That’s who. I love fighting game storylines… at least until the 4th or 5th game when they run out of ideas and go through the motions. I love cheesy crossovers. I guess I just love plots where the basic idea is, “Here are a bunch of interesting individuals out to beat each other up. There can be only one winner. Who’s it going to be?” I guess this is part of why I love the Royal Rumble so much.
I was going to scan the 12-page Frank Tieri/Kevin Sharpe comic, but that would be too easy. I thought it would be better for everyone to simply transcribe it for all of you who picked up the regular copy of the game. So it back and enjoy Fate of Two Worlds.
SCENE 1
(Zombie-filled laboratory)
Jill Valentine: Wesker has to be here somewhere. Boy, we really have our work cut out for us. Chris Redfield: You said it. All sorts of zombie types here. Oh, crap! It’s an Executioner boss! Jill: We don’t have enough ammo for this! Chris: Why the hell not?! We haven’t shot our guns once yet! We’ve just pointed our guns at zombies and acted like it was good enough! But you’re right about us being screwed. We’re going to need a miracle here. (a green hand appears through a portal, grabs the Executioner by the hood and slams his face into the wall repeatedly) Hulk: HULK SMASH ENDBOSS! Jill: That green monster just saved us. Chris: You’re right. LET’S GET HIM!
So a few months ago, someone online posted a leaked list of the roster for Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Big deal, there are leaked lists all over the place and they have crap like Howard the Duck and Dio Brando in there. This specific list has been right on the money again and again for every reveal and leak. Especially the specifics of the downloadable characters. That does make me late to the party, but I post this now because the more interesting inclusions has finally been made public via leakage.
First, let’s look at the confirmed list:
– Morrigan Aensland
– Amaterasu
– Arthur
– Tron Bonne
– Captain America
– Chun-Li
– Crimson Viper
– Dante
– Deadpool
– Doctor Doom
– Dormammu
– Felicia
– Hulk
– Iron Man
– Magneto
– MODOK
– Chris Redfield
– Ryu
– She-Hulk
– Shuma Gorath
– Nathan “Rad” Spencer
– Spider-Man
– Storm
– Super-Skrull
– Thor
– Trish
– Jill Valentine
– Viewtiful Joe
– Albert Wesker
– Wolverine
– X-23
– Zero
From the list, that leaves seven characters left to be officially announced. The four who haven’t been hinted at in any capacity are Phoenix, Sentinel, Hsien-Ko and Akuma. About a month or so ago, a picture appeared online of a Capcom employee’s office with Mike Haggar on a monitor. So we got that going for us.
Today, an interesting development happened. On the Comic Art Fans website, Kevin Sharpe posted a few pages of the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tie-in comic. Images included Hulk dealing with the Resident Evil crew and various Marvel guys fighting their counterparts from the trailers. Two pages are of special note. First off, the end boss. Behold the Devourer of Worlds.
Sweet! We got Galactus! Now for a page of Doctor Doom holding a meeting of the Marvel villains. We got Magneto, Super-Skrull, MODOK and… hello, who is this?
Hey, now! Taskmaster is now confirmed. Now my Deadpool/Taskmaster/Haggar team is a lock.
I would have linked to the Kevin Sharpe page, but wouldn’t you know it, his profile’s been deleted.
Time for another week of ThWiP. This time I’m helped out by Was Taters (Power Girl) and ManiacClown (Loki). Apologies for the lack of content in the last week outside of that Avengers cartoon article. Various things have been holding back my free time. I’ve been busy with a bad work schedule and ManiacClown has been… learning how to make Mjolnir with balloons. Not making that up.
Anyway, panels.
Azrael #13
David Hine and Guillem March
Batman and Robin #15
Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving
