I read some comics and I review them here. Just click “Read the rest of this entry” to see them. I know you’re all very excited. Happy Valentines Day!

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from marvel comics’s cage, art by richard corben and jose villarubia

I know you like the way I’m freakin’ it
I talk with slang and I’ma never stop speakin’ it

“Speak with criminal slang”
That’s just the way that I talk, yo
“Vocabulary spills, I’m ill”
–Big L, “Ebonics” (last two lines of the first verse, three lines of chorus)

The English language is a beautiful and malleable one. Sometimes you just have to sit back and listen to people celebrate it.

He’s cool, he’s bad, that’s dope, she’s ill, she’s a dime, he’s a buster, let me borrow your jack (iPhones are Apple Jacks for that double word score), look out for lizards, he’s selling wolf tickets, stop tongue-kissing cobras, get it crunk up, get outta here with that dragon breath, what’s crackin’ youngblood, where’s your bird at, listen at this joint man…

You aren’t rich. You’re ballinnnnnnn.

It isn’t Warner Robins, Macon, the Bronx, Manhattan, or Staten Island. It’s War-town, Mack-town, the Boogie Down Bronx, Money Makin’ Manhattan, and Shaolin. You from New Jersey? Nah, you’re from Dirty Jersey. Newark? New Jerusalem. I’m from the Dirty South, about an hour south of the ATL. I’m on the west coast now, living in the Bay Area (Yay Area), but it’s still deuces up, A-towns down. Is it where you’re from or where you’re at?

Your friend is your brother, but you still call him “son” ’cause he shines like one.

Sweet Christmas.

art from marvel comics’s essential power man and iron fist by dave cockrum and daughters of the dragon by khari evans and christina strain

The two best genres to come out of the ’70s are blaxploitation and kung fu cinema. While blaxploitation was essentially invented by whites, blacks came out in droves to support it. For some reason, blacks embraced both genres. Maybe it was the dope names. Master Killer, Ghostface Killer, Golden Arms, Grandmaster, Five Deadly Venoms… It could’ve been the fighting, or the stories about the underdog fighting against a corrupt regime, or infighting… could’ve been any number of things, really.

The only thing that matters is that both are dope.

Good times.

“There’s no such thing as bad characters, just bad writers.” – Unknown

It’s the truth. Especially in a medium where characters rarely have one set writer, sometimes not even one at a time, the quality of a character is largely decided by how they’re written. But sometimes a character needs a little more effort to work; characters with no set goal or motivation, a lack of personality or simply an outdated concept. Tigra is one of those characters. She never struck me as interesting in anything I’ve read featuring her; She was either just kind of a generic urban vigilante with a cat theme or caught up in the plights of some society of cat people with a convoluted history that I couldn’t care less about. But recently Marvel seems to have been making people more aware of the character, by making her the one who betrayed Captain America in Civil War, the person the Hood beat the crap out of to set an example in New Avengers and as one of the characters in the House of M: Avengers miniseries. So if you’re going to bring her to the readers’ attention, the least you can do is make her compelling. That scene in New Avengers was the first time I’d felt any sort of emotion towards the character, but it hasn’t been followed up on so far and it’s unclear if it will be (although I’m still holding out since Bendis tends to write stories with a slow burn). So here are some things I would like to see happening with the character to make me interested in reading about her:

– Politely ignore the cat people stuff. It’s unnecessary baggage and too goofy to take seriously in this day and age. There was a Tigra mini a couple of years back by Christina Z and Mike Deodato Jr. that did exactly this. It wasn’t very good because the writing was too cheesy, but at least it tried to do something new with the character and give her a place in the universe. Oh yeah, she became a cop at the end of that mini. That was sorta interesting. Whatever happened to that?

– Change the name while you’re at it. “Tigra” makes it sound like she should a member of the Thundercats. Either go for the Luke Cage angle and get rid of the name altogether (“Greer Grant” has a nice enough ring to it), or change it back to the more generic yet elegantly simple “The Cat”.

– Change the outfit. It makes her look silly. Yeah, I know, she’s confident about her sexuality, blablabla. Lots of people (real and fictional) are confident about their sexuality, yet they generally don’t walk around in a bikini all the time. Besides, we all know the real reason she’s dressed like that. It’s not even a practical outfit, since very rarely is it drawn as giving any sort of support. The only thing it’s good for is removing the impact from dramatic scenes. She doesn’t need a superhero outfit anyway, much in the same way Wolverine doesn’t need one. She has no secret identity anymore and her look is distinctive enough to not warrant a flashy costume. Like I mentioned, she’s supposed to be a police officer now, so put her in a police uniform.

– Yeah, she’s a police officer! That’s one of the things that always appealed to me about Savage Dragon, that he was a cop who got super powers but chose to stay a cop in favor of becoming a generic superhero. Focus on that idea and it’d both give her a unique role in the universe and be the perfect opportunity to show the Initiative in action; Superheroes actively working together with the police force. And, hey, holy crap, guess who’s the new top dog in Marvel’s criminal underworld? The Hood. The guy she’d have a very personal reason for going after. This stuff practically writes itself.

In fact, this can all be brought back to simply remembering that she’s a cop. That one story element from a five year old miniseries suddenly makes the character relevant again. This really isn’t that hard.

I used to feel kind of sorry for Iron Fist, despite not having read many of his comics. It’s stupid to feel that way for a fictional character you know little about, but I did. Everyone always thought highly of Luke Cage, but nobody ever cared for Iron Fist. Did Iron Fist get shoved back into center stage by Brian Michael Bendis? Did Iron Fist ever review old Twinkie ads with Doctor Doom and a talking fish? Have you ever heard anyone wax poetic about that awesome comic where Iron Fist beat up Doom? No, not really. All he got was a bunch of jokes about his name and costume, all while being referred to as Power Man’s sidekick.

Even Bendis didn’t seem to give him much love. If you look at Iron Fist’s appearances in Daredevil under Bendis’ pen, it feels as if he writes him out of necessity. In every appearance he makes, he’s standing firmly in Cage’s shadow. All he ever does is help out Cage. He’s the supporting character of a supporting character. Granted, Bendis did give him that awesome scene in the Pulse where Danny got all tense and insinuated that Jessica Jones is a whore. I like Jessica and all, but that was flat out hilarious.

His facial expression after that just says, “Whoa, that may have been a bit over the line… but really.”

It was Bendis’ lax treatment that made Ed Brubaker’s reveal that Danny Rand was filling in for Daredevil one of the all-time best revelations in comics. It worked out so well. It didn’t come out of nowhere, but Iron Fist was so low profile in his background actions that it wasn’t obvious. Then it succeeded to both push Iron Fist out of Luke’s shadow and give him a new lease on life by giving him his own critically acclaimed series and a spot on the Cage-led New Avengers.

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Despite being a millionaire who knows 4,103 ways to kill a man, I feel sorry for Iron Fist around this time of year. Think about it. His partner Luke Cage probably has a stocking the size of a horse’s head. But what about Danny? How many gifts can you possibly fit in a tiny, little, yellow ballet slipper? You can try to prop up a candy cane or two, but they’ll probably fall out of it by morning. And candy canes aren’t even all that good.

To add to the Heroes for Hire/Christmas humor, try to imagine Cage and Iron Fist singing We’re a Couple of Misfits from Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.

“We’re a couple of misfits!
We’re a couple of misfits!
What’s the matter with misfits?
That’s where we fit in!”

“So why are you a misfit again, Danny?”

“Everybody makes fun of me because my fist glows. And also because of my shoes. And the rest of my costume. And my name. But mainly the costume. You?”

“I’m a misfit because I want to be a dentist.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, well… All right. Not exactly a dentist, you see. I just wanna knock fools’ teeth out.”

“I… uh… Luke, I don’t know if that qualifies you as a misfit. Wait, you are black, right? That should count for something!”

“……”

“What? Why are you cracking your knuckles?”

“Danny, it’s time for your appointment. Let me take a look at your molars… bouncing off the wall.”

Merry Christmas, folks.

There were two, count ’em, two Marvel comics this week that featured sex tapes as a plot point.

One was Ultimates 3 #1, a comic so thoroughly bad that the only thing I can really praise is that there is an Ultimate Black Panther now, though he jobs like a chump to College Sophomore Eddie Brock in the Venom Costume.

I guess I can’t praise that at all.

Was the newly deAsianed Wasp honestly letting Captain America know that it’s the 21st century now and his pitiful 1940s-era brain just doesn’t get that incest is all to the good?

I mean, what was that all about?

Also it’s kind of awesome how Wasp goes out and buys Tony Stark’s sex tape and screens it in front of all his buddies for what’s apparently the first time they’ve heard about it?

“Hey guys, check this out! Tony Stark and his dead murdering traitor of a fiancee are getting it on! PS Tony what’s the deal with this tape I just bought?”

Great writing, that.

The other book is The Order #5, words by Matt Fraction and art by Khari Evans over Barry Kitson’s layouts.

In the words of one syllable: Wow. Two syllables: Holy wow.

My hands down favorite panel in the book is the one at the top of this page:

He draws the most beautiful sneers I’ve ever seen. The body language is so dead on, too.

Marvel? Push this guy. He is the next big thing. He’s got a funky style that isn’t too far off from the superhero standard while still being pretty awesomely distinct. His talking heads are wonderful, too. Give him a go on a Bendis-written Luke Cage series if you gotta. You know that Bendis would write that in a hot minute.

Do everything you can to make him a star, but please don’t let him draw anything Loeb or Millar writes because I’d like to enjoy the story as well as his awesome art.

Just give me (us) more of his art, that’s all I want.

Once again, Geoff Klock’s blog is the place to be, as there’s a great discussion of Morrison’s Batman vs Frank Miller’s Batman.

I really liked this comment, in fact:Voice of the Eagle said:

Gonna go out a limb and saw it off:

Between this and DKR, Miller not only has the definite Batman, but the definte Joker.Yeah, better than Moore’s.

It occurs to me that he switches the traditional readings of these two characers even as early as DKR- Batman is the laughing lunatic and Joker is the grim, “sane” one.

I can’t go into detail on it now, but I’ve got a foolproof way to make Misty Knight a Marvel heavy-hitter ala Luke Cage or Daredevil. I’ll save that for another post. I’m going to give those in the know a big hint on how I’d approach it, though.

Who want to battle the Don?
I’m James Bond in the Octagon with two razors
Bet y’all didn’t know I had a fake arm
I lost it, wild and raw before rap, I was gettin’ it on

With the first Essential Luke Cage collection so fresh in my mind, it didn’t take me too long to finish off his solo series. Essential Luke Cage, Power Man Volume 2 covers from issue #28 to #49, plus an annual that Chris Claremont wrote. That’s good, since we’re cheated out of an issue. Power Man #36, which claims that “Chemistro is back! And deadlier than ever!” is really just a reprint of #12, the only Chemistro appearance up to that point. The nerve.

On the subject of them messing with us, the back cover of this book promises a guest-starring role by the X-Men. Bullshit. The closest we get is one panel of Iron Fist saying, “I just met the X-Men the other day.”

Except I didn’t read this for the X-Men cameos. I read this because back in the 70’s, the blaxploitation man-tank named Luke Cage was a ridiculously fun protagonist who beat up any jive sucka that looked at his metal tiara the wrong way. The last trade ended with a wacky, but somewhat heartfelt story about a dumb wrestler with a terminal blood clot who finds and drinks a random can of Super Soldier Serum and temporarily reaches his peak physical condition. It’s weird, but it has it’s right at home with the rest of the series and keeps the momentum going into issue #28.

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There are so many reasons people wished they could have Superman’s powers. The strength, the flying, the speed, the eye-lasers, the x-ray vision… er… Pretend I put “x-ray vision” in there a couple more times. It’s always funnier that way. Anyway, one of the cooler things about Superman’s powers is his ability to slowly storm forward as criminals empty clips into his chest and continue firing in horror and futility as the bullets keep bouncing off his body. I’m sure Batman wishes he was from Krypton just so he could do that every other hour. Superman doesn’t even need to do it! He could zip over and steal the guns if he truly wanted. He only does it for the kicks. That has to be the most gratifying thing you can do as a crime fighter.

Luke Cage exists for the sake of doing this bit whenever he’s in a bad mood. He also exists to show that black people can have bad fashion sense too, but that’s beside the point. Luke Cage’s main superpower is walking forward while armed bad guys shit themselves. The difference is that he loses a lot of shirts. Really. Luke Cage goes through more shirts than Bruce Banner.

Heheh. I wonder if he knows that in 30 years, that’s going to be a stinging insult.

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