"To become whole, I must kill you all!"

If we follow this logic, characters like the Punisher must have a long way to go.

Come to think of it, Galactus might edge out the Punisher as far as body counts go...

Intriguing tho', that in Galactus' first appearance the Big G sends out a robot called The Punisher to deal with those pesky FF people. There was even an Iron Man story later on where Shellhead takes on Galactus' former servant. Now why isn't that robotic Punisher offered as an action figure or Heroclix miniature? He looks mighty cool!







....what was I talking about again?

Comics need more...

GIANT ANTS!! And more monster mash-ups! Frankenstein and Dracula meet the ants from THEM!!

Pokemon with a Gil Kane cover!

Eh. Not really. But I could tell The Master's style anywhere! Looks like he was channeling some Atom-sized goodness!

Parallel world playtime!

OK. We've got the Squadron Supreme, Marvel's alternate world version of the Justice League. They inhabit Earth-712. (Man, and people complained when 52 limited the alternate worlds in the DC Universe to only 52!) Hyperion is the leader of the Squadron and is analogous to Superman.

Meanwhile, on Marvel Earth-616, we have the Imperial Guard. As Wikipedia describes them:

The Imperial Guard has many intentional resemblances to DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes. The Guard is headed by Gladiator, who is the team's analogue to the LSH's Superboy and, to a lesser extent Mon-El. Oddly enough Gladiator's real name is Kallark; a combination of Superboy's real names Kal-el and Clark. Most of the other members are direct equivalents in super-powers and have similar details of costume design to specific Legionnaires (such as Oracle matches Saturn Girl, Electron matches Cosmic Boy, Mentor matches Brainiac 5,and Flashfire matches Lightning Lad), but there are a number who differ greatly from their counterparts or who have no counterpart at all. The original Imperial Guard members seen in X-Men #107 were designed by artist Dave Cockrum, who had previously been best known for his work on the Legion of Super-Heroes, and all had direct counterparts among the Legionnaires. (Nightcrawler was intended to be in a Legion spinoff team book, but Cockrum left the book before he could be introduced, so he brought the character over to Marvel.) Later Guardsmen, beginning with the members introduced in X-Men #137, moved away from the Legion pastiche and began introducing characters with no Legionnaire counterparts. New Guardsmen corresponding to the LSH would not be introduced until the 1990s' Avengers crossover "Operation: Galactic Storm". Kree guardsman Commando's real name is M-Nell; a nod to LSH member Mon-El.

My "What If?" question is whether there's an Imperial Guard team on Earth-712. If so, then did Hyperion encounter the Imperial Guard when he was a less experienced adventurer (the Wiki entry describes him as an Eternal, so I'm not sure if he would have had adventures as a young boy)? Or perhaps Earth-712's Gladiator met Hyperion as a young man? Did Hyperion travel to the Shi'ar empire and have adventures there?

There just seems to be lots of room there for play. Much in the way that was done with Sentry in their Age of the Sentry miniseries.

Found on the Internet!

The Composite Man!

Surely, one of the most stunning characters of the Silver Age is the Composite Superman. The Absorbascon has an excellent article here.

Well, in poking around, much to my surprise, I've found that there were multiple composite characters. I'll be taking a look at some and posting their images as I find them. In the meantime, here's an image of the Composite Legionnaire:

Rainbow envy

Over at the Weekly Crisis, they complain about the latest member of the Hulk Family: Red She-Hulk!

I dunno. I think Mort Weisinger would've face-palmed Joe Quesada for not coming up with it earlier. (Heck, he would've face-palmed anybody within arms' reach for not coming up with it sooner!) One thing I grudgingly respect Mr. Weisinger for is how he made sure to wring as much mileage out of a concept so that no one else would come up with their own version of a character or concept. I think that's one of the reasons behind all of the different Lanterns nowadays. It might seem a bit silly to some fanboys, but in lieu of any genuinely new characters being created by the Big Two this is the sort of thing we'll probably see more of in the future.

I mean, really. What new characters have been created by the Big Two that wasn't a re-invention of an old character or wasn't already tied in with another existing character? It's the Silver Age all over again! Captain America's showing signs of growing a family. Ben Reilly looks to be returning in Spider-Man and Spider-Woman is getting the push as the next big thing. Iron Fist did some sneaky franchise growth recently by flying under the radar. I wonder which character will be franchised next. Ghost Rider? Punisher? Green Goblin? Aztek? Blue Devil? Gorilla Grodd? Stay tuned, true believers!

Unified Superman Theory

Man, I'm just digging lots of the stories posted on io9 today...

They discuss a post that attempts to explain the Man of Steel's powerset.

In my head, I kinda subscribed to the "psychic Superman" explanation for his powers. This could fit in as well. I'll have to read it in more detail... The comments section is fun to read and even touches on the whole Clark Kent disguise thing.

Oh. And io9 links to clips of the new Superman/Batman video release. There. That should help boost their traffic.
:rolleyes:

This sounds... FANTASTIC!!!!

io9 wonders about what the increase in Cosmic Ray activity can mean.

Don't those guys read any comics?

Superboy and the two Wizards of Oz

When I saw that title at the Newsarama Blog, I thought we were in for an exciting story from Superman's past!

Imagine my disappointment when it was more ruminations on the Siegel case. Mind you, I think the heirs of Siegel and Schuster deserve all the money they can get, but I thought DC was finally going to do a neat story starring the Boy of Steel.

Sure would've been fun. I would want Eric Shanower to be involved in some way. If he writes, I'd try to get Stuart Immonen for the art chores. Publish it in a nice tabloid-sized edition that's very bookstore friendly. Something special...

There's gotta be some term...

...for when a character is "IRREVOCABLY CHANGED!" so that "NOTHING IS THE SAME!" as the status quo is changed to garner some interest. Kinda like Wolverine in the Fatal Attractions storyline, but then the creative teams just sort of leave the character in that screwed up state without returning the character to their original state or moving them on and having them grow.

Like Cyborg when he became Cyberion. ("Cyberion?" WTF?) Or Barbara Gordon after she'd been shot by the Joker. In these two instances the characters "got better", but what about those characters still sitting in limbo waiting for someone to remember them? Like Alpha Flight?

It reminds me of the Sid character from Toy Story. Via Wikipedia:

Sid Phillips is a hyperactive, ten-year-old boy and the main villain of the first film. He was Andy's vicious neighbour (until Andy moved), and the worst nightmare any toy could have. Sid is a young, bratty skate punk with metal braces, whose idea of fun is terrorizing his sister and destroying toys in various methods (exploding, burning or in his "mad doctor" plays). He also enjoys skateboarding. He is voiced by Erik von Detten. According to an interview, Sid is named after a former employee at Pixar who would take toys apart and sometimes rebuild them in different and disturbingly odd ways.

Maybe that's it. When a character's been messed up, when they were used as cannon fodder to show how dangerous a threat was, when they were pulled and stretched and twisted so no one recognizes them, and the marketing and licensing people are left shaking their heads wondering "How are we going to sell action figures of that?" and there don't seem to be any positive changes coming anytime soon, I'll say "Sid got 'em".

So... Alpha Flight? "Sid got 'em."
Aquaman? "Sid got 'im."

That works for me...

Scott McCloud brings back memories...

I was a bit old when the silent G.I.Joe issue Scott McCloud discusses came out. I think I must've been in high school when the TV show was on so I didn't get bitten by the "Go Joe!" bug. I knew about G.I.Joe and had picked up a couple of issues -- I liked the faux HYDRA-esque COBRA, but the military action hero thing didn't float my boat.

Now, ninjas I could dig.

With that cover, I think I'd guessed at the time that Larry Hama was trying to bring some of that ninja magic Frank Miller had woven into Daredevil I think I thought it was a good issue. Enough to buy it anyway.

But I'd been exposed to special comic storytelling issues by that time... by that time I'd started collecting Kitchen Sink's Spirit reprints, and I'd seen new storytelling possibilities in a reprint volume of Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson's Manhunter. Plus in Goodwin and Simonson's work on the Alien and Close Encounters of the Third Kind adaptations, I'd been exposed to the power of caption-less and dialogue-less storytelling. Still, it's nice to see in Shaenon Garitty's appreciation how one book made a difference for someone younger than me and in their appreciation of sequential storytelling.

The Floating Heads of Marvel Comics!

Again from Comic Coverage, an appreciation of the unique Marvel cover design, floating heads.

Speaking of Morbius...

...I was looking for images of Morbius recently (getting ready for Halloween I suppose) and noticed that all of his images have him depicted with his mouth open. Now, I know he's a vampire, which means the artist is obligated to remind the reader of that by showing Morbius with a mouth full of teeth.

It just made me wonder... with that smashed-in nose, could he have some respiratory issues which force him to breathe through his mouth? Is he, as Garrison Keillor might suggest, a mouth breather? This might add a bit of poignancy to the character, where his affliction has turned a Nobel Prize-winning scientist into a mouth-breathing monster. Kind of like a pulp monster reverse version of Flowers for Algernon.

Just something to think about...

Public Domain Heroes!

There's now a Wikia which lists superhero characters now in the public domain!

Jeepers!

I'm tempted to throw in a joke about this but it's too late and it's time for me to go to bed. Maybe some other time...

I confess...

This cover image makes me want to read the story. However...

1) An "Electronic Date-Matcher"? What, is Superman behind eHarmony.com?

2) Why does Supergirl look like Lauren Bacall?

Via DC Comics, 40 Years Ago...

UPDATE:
You know, looking at that face on Superman, maybe he's just being jerk again.

Seriously, I wonder if someone like Grant Morrison should write a story that exorcises this aspect of Superman into a separate entity. Kind of like the Commie-bashing Captain America of the 1950's was made into a separate and unique character who was different from the "real" Steve Rogers.

What's going to happen to Marvelman?

Yes, yes, da Internetz is all abuzz over Marvel's acquisition of Marvelman. Everyone is speculating over whether Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's stories will now see print (or re-printing, as it were), whether we'll get to see Neil Gaiman's final storyline which was never published, whether Alan Moore will send a pox down upon the American comics industry, what DC might do since Marvelman is a direct copy of Captain Marvel, and on into infinity...

I'm left wondering what Marvel will actually do with the character.

See, if DC had acquired the character (which would have been a mighty interesting turn of events!), they might have re-published the original stories in some great big Absolute edition with new coloring and such, finally published the remaining storylines, printed any number of limited series and such, and, lastly, found some way to integrate some version of the Marvelman Universe into their DC Universe cosmology. Earth 16 or something would have become the world of the Marvelman Family and there might have been crossovers with the Justice League. Or the whole Marvelman Family will suddenly appear in England and there might have been crossovers with the Justice League and the Marvel Family. Or some other such thing.

But Marvel... what're they going to do?

Create some alternate dimension, like the Ultimate Universe or the Marvel Zombie Universe?

Have some sort of Golden Age/Silver Age back story like they did with The Sentry and The Blue Marvel and integrate them into the current Marvel Universe?

Introduce Marvelman to the current Marvel universe with a crossover story starring Captain Britain?

Create a line of stories in the Marvel Adventures books to introduce Marvelman to kids?

Have Kurt Busiek write up a big crossover story involving the Avengers, the Squadron Supreme, the Grandmaster and the Marvelman family?

I'm kinda convinced that Marvel as a company is now old enough to be at the Silver Age stage that DC was years ago. Older characters, like Thor, Captain America/Bucky, and Spider-Man (with the Brand New Day stories), have been re-introduced for new readers much like the Flash and Green Lantern were introduced to new readers in the 1950's. Spider-Man, their flagship character, has his share of storylines (Clone Saga, One More Day) that some readers would like to forget much like Superman and Batman did during the 50's. I'm sure there are other analogies, but those are the ones that come to mind.

One thing that Marvel is new at is acquiring licenses of existing characters formerly owned by other companies, and doing something interesting with them. For example, in the 90's Marvel acquired Malibu Comics, but let those characters disappear from the minds of readers everywhere. Here, however, Marvel's got a brand new toy to play with.

Just what are they going to do with this new toy, I wonder?

The new Superman Red?

Over at Newsarama, J. Caleb Mozzocco speculates with tongue in cheek whether Mon-El is Superman Red. At first glance it seems geeky funny. Now he's got me wondering...

Will Mon-El run off with Lana Lang? Stay tuned!

For those of you who need a refresher on SupermanRed and SupermanBlue, here you go.

Characters worth saving: A clarification

WARNING!! OLD-TIMER ABOUT TO START RANTING!!

I'm a long-time comics reader, so I remember reading the X-Men first time around. One of the things that used to amaze me was how Chris Clarement would "borrow" a character from another comic's run (say, Belasco from "Kazar the Savage"), do a little hocus-pocus, and boom!, a new character is interacting with the X-Men. This was the way crossovers and such used to be done. I remember this happening most often in the team-up books like Marvel Two-In-One and Marvel Team-Up (which, incidentally, Claremont used to work on, including a memorable run with John Byrne).

Anyway, one thing he'd usually do (but not always, as Rachel van Helsing can attest) is that he'd leave the character in a state where the original character was left intact and could be picked up by another creative team and used in their stories. Thus Dracula would harass the X-Men or the X-Men would travel to Asgard and met Loki and when the story was done, Dracula was still undead and loving it, and Asgard was still intact.

Nowadays, the Avengers travel to Canada and meet Alpha Flight to fight some menace, and Alpha Flight is wiped out by said menace! What the...?!!?

Now the next creative team who wants to use Alpha Flight has to jump through hoops to explain how they've returned? That's just ridiculous...

One thing an old time editor (I think it was Julie Schwartz, but don't hold me to it) used to tell his writers was: "If you're going to wipe out an old character, you've got to create a new character to replace him." There's none of that going on, especially it seems at Marvel. Old characters are removed and then resurrected, with no new ones being created. Characters like the Owl and Alpha Flight are going through their 3rd or 4th re-conceptualization. New characters don't last long enough to make an impression before they're wiped out.

Sigh...

Anyway, this rant is long-winded way of describing "Characters Worth Saving from Oblivion". Some of these characters been done wrong. They need to have their Reset button pressed so they can start over and get back to basics.

Character worth saving from oblivion: Major Disaster

I'm not sure about the "new reformed Major Disaster". I liked the old classic bad guy who could cause earthquakes, shoot lightning from his hands, and stuff like that. That's the one I'd like to see.

UPDATE:
I thought about Major Disaster overnight and I realized that what Major Disaster's major flaw was that he was a Marvel character in a DC universe.

Lemme 'splain.

With his powersets of earthquake generation and lightning control (and possibly other powers like storm control and fireball generation, the Wiki entries seem to be a bit vague on the subject and only discuss his current incarnation), he sounds like someone who (with proper training) could go toe-to-toe in a proper slobberknocker with someone like Thor or Iron Man. Yet he was created in the DC universe where Julie Schwartz and his writers probably didn't watch too much wrestling and so involved him in clever puzzlers with the Flash and Green Lantern. Going up against Flash and Green Lantern (two of the cleverest super-heroes around, especially as handled by Julie Schwartz, Gardner Fox and John Broome) would make any villain look like a putz. Thus his mortyrdom in later years to be regarded as a candidate for the the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League stories.

What he needed was some serious Stan Lee monologues, declaring how great and powerful he was and how he could completely destroy Green Lantern and the Flash and whoever stepped in his way, blah blah blah. Add some potent displays of power and he could've been an Amazo-level villain capable of taking on the entire Justice League (in a non-Giffen/DeMatteis manner).

Turning him into a megalomaniacal Marvel character might've made more sense than turning, say, Despero into one (truly, a brainy villain if there was one, dumbed down in later years to be an evil smart Hulk) or even Starro, especially in his recently-previewed new incarnation.

Sshhhhhhh!! It's a secret...

FHV GSRH KLDVI LMOB ULI TLLW, YLBH ZMW TRIOH!