VS.
So, the Canuck with the claws or...um, the pitcher filled with a flavored drink? CHOOSE NOW...cast your vote in the comments section.

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |

"I'm a creature of the wild. I hate cities...hate civilization, with all its idiot rules. Gimme the free, open, elemental spaces of my mountains...where a man holds his fate in his own hands, no lies there, no deception, no compromise."

--from Kitty Pryde & Wolverine #3 (Jan. 1985)

So pal JP was asking me about the whole "One Year Later" thing at DC, and I explained to him that following the events of the Infinite Crisis crossover, the DC universe continuity jumped ahead a year and during that time, Superman had no powers, Batman and his Bat-pals wents on a trip around the world, and....

Pal JP then jumped in with the greatest idea ever.

Remember those Dennis the Menace travelogue comics? You know, like Dennis the Menace in Mexico or Dennis in Hawaii? How 'bout a bunch of Batman specials filling in that missing year, with Batman in Australia or Batman in Germany or Batman in France? "You know, Normandy really makes you think, doesn't it, Robin?"

Because, honestly, if it's one thing we need, it's more Batman mini-series and one-shots.

"I'm an X-Man. Mutants like me, band of super heroes, good people, idealists, dreamers -- forever looking for the best in others. With them, killing is a last resort. With me, it's second nature. I take the world as it is, an' give better than I get. Come at me with a sword. I'll meet you with a sword. You want mercy. Show a little first."

--from Wolverine #1 (Nov. 1988)

A few of the goodies we received for new comics day:

Totally Spies #2: I Hate the 80s! - Okay, I'm already feeling my age a bit as it is. But not only is it bad enough that the villain of the book is using a "retro-gun" (or something like it) to turn back time (and fashions) to the 1980s, but one of the characters says this:

"Who would want to go back to the 80s? That was, like, 100 years ago!"

AAAAUUGH.

Hero Squared #3 - I think what I like most about this series is its poking holes in the conventions of the genre without going out of its way to tell you that it's "deconstructing" the superhero. It simply pits the normal non-super Milo versus his superheroic alternate-Earth counterpart and lets the conflict between their perspectives arise naturally. Which isn't to say that it's not a fun superhero book...okay, this issue is mostly characters talking to each other and getting on each other's nerves (with "more hitting" promised in the next issue), but the book's dialogue is its real strength and a pleasure to read. As always, recommended.

All-New Atom #3 - Gail Simone is now my new Favorite Person, simply for finding a way to sneak Swamp Thing back into the regular DC universe (as I had noted about the last issue), giving him a brief, shadowed cameo in this very issue. He sorta, kinda appears later in the ish as well, in a way that I won't spoil here. So, well done, Gail Simone...you're swell in my book.

Fred Perry's S-Guild #1 - I don't know what happened here, if they assembled the book before the ink was dry or what, but in all our copies the edges of all the pages were, um, stuck together. They pulled apart with only minor effort (and some very light discoloring on the paper that, hopefully, won't bother anyone), but still, that was a little annoying.

Life and Times of Uncle Scrooge McDuck Companion trade - I sold tons of the original Life and Times volume, and I expect this new book, featuring the Don Rosa stories that tied into his biography of Scrooge, to do just as well. In fact, we nearly sold through what we did get in.

Making Comics trade - I shouldn't need to tell you about Scott McCloud's new book...if you have any interest in the medium, whether you intend on creating, selling, or just plain reading funnybooks, you need to give this book a glance. I just got my copy today, and no, I haven't read it, but his previous books (Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics) are essential reading, and I can't imagine this new book will be any different. (And he's touring the fifty states in promotion of this tome, and you can keep up with his adventures right here.)

"Long before I hear his approach, the wind carries the smell of him. Him...and the blood of his prey. He's a rogue. A killer. So am I. And tonight...the need is on us both. And tonight...my need, like my hunger, is stronger."

--from Wolverine #17 (Nov. 1989)

We also got this book in today...I wasn't planning on buying it, but, well...it's not just a Creature from the Black Lagoon original novel...it's a time travel Creature from the Black Lagoon original novel. This tickles the same spot in my brain that the Hex series did...taking some old comic, movie, book, what have you, and doing completely inappropriate things to it. In this case, "mix[ing] the best elements of 1950s Cold War science fiction" -- in other words, a movie about a guy in a rubber suit menacing girls in swimsuits -- "with today's cutting-edge cyberpunk."

No, honest, that's what it says on the back cover. Here, read it yourself. Fantastic.

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |

GASP! It's...the cutest l'il Wolverine ever:


This next item is a Wolverine head sketch by longtime X-writer Chris Claremont:

"AFTER FINISHING THE SKETCH, CHRIS SAID, 'PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK THIS IS BAT-MAN!' SO HE DREW THE BAT EMBLEM WITH A LINE THRU IT AND THAN HANDED ME THE DRAWING.'THAT SHOULD CLARIFY THINGS,'HE SAID WITH A SMILE.'

This next seller says "people won't believe their eyes when they see you in this costume and you feel like your the real deal" -- and I have to say that I indeed do not believe my eyes:


Actually, for being homemade, that's a pretty good costume. Extra kudos for going the brave route and doing the yellow costume. The fake hairy biceps are a nice touch, too.

Let's look at it in action:

posted by Mikester  @ 12:01 |

"The Wolverine" is a swinging Capricorn, standing 5' 3" (prompting one commenter to lament "How is Wolverine only 5"3? That just ruins all of my sex fantasies of him"). He'd like to meet "anybody who loves Wolverine."

This Wolverine's general interests include "tearin apart that bub sabertooth." What kind of music does he like? "I dont get much time for music." How 'bout TV? "TV is for the weak." As for whom he'd like to meet: "Jean Grey." Aren't you on the same team as her?

This Wolverine has lots of scantily-clad lady friends. Why, hello there, Somaya Reece.

"Logan_wolverine" has as his general interests "eating meat, drinking, smoking, riding harleys, wearing leather jackets, saying 'bub,' going into berserker rages." His personal heroes? "i AM a hero. but johnny cash, clint eastwood, and glenn danzig are all pretty badass guys." Fair enough. He'd also like to meet "the people in charge of the weapon X program, to tear them several new assholes each," and who could blame him?

This Wolverine is interested in "intercontinetal communication." And porn. He's friends with Quicksilver (who seems to have an ongoing thing with the Flash in his comments section, there).

This Wolverine earns between $150,000 to $250,000 a year. Being an X-Man is a good gig, apparently, unless he's pulling that down from his Avengers job. His interest is solely "killing," while his favorite TV show is "CSI." And he likes '80s music.

Here's a Wolverine who feels quite strongly about the events in the Civil War crossover: ""Sign the Registration? Over my dead body... the Government is F***ed!" His profile includes a looooong personal history, and he'd also like to meet Jean Grey. Is "meet" some kind of euphemism?

This Wolverine is a Korn fan, judging by the embedded music video that automatically starts playing. He's also a little unclear on the concept of "non-text obscuring background image." Let him tell you a little bit about himself:

"i dont remember much i am what they would call a romer or a nomad all i know is that i have these claws made from a metal called antamantium its harder than any other metal and can not be broke i also heal at a rate the is 50xs faster than a human i have a verry big chip on my sholder keep it there and your in a good day but knock it off and its to the hospital for you"

This Wolverine is an anime fan, apparently, as he belongs to the Love Hina and Vegeta's Throne Myspace groups. His bio, which relates his long life and struggles to learn more about his past, concludes "Now is a new day and I am taking it one step at a time. I still long to learn the truth of my past, maybe this Myspace can finally help me." I hope so, too, Wolvie.

This Wolverine's headline is "oh, no, I broke a nail." Well, I thought it was funny.

Here's a Wolverine that laughs, laughs at you weaklings and your "paragraphs." Lots of big ol' images of the Hugh Jackman Wolvie from the movies, though.

I have a hard time believing that one of Wolverine's favorite movies is From Justin to Kelly. I mean, c'mon. His hometown? "I live whereever I breath." Well said. He'd like to meet "that guy who played me in the xmen movies....cuz he sucked and i want to beat him up."

AAAAAH! MY EYES!

The "about me" for this Wolverine is sorta funny in its "look how badass I am!" forced crudity...if you can read it over that background, that is. And looking at his friends...there sure are a lot of superheroes on Myspace, aren't there?

Ah, another Myspace designed by the blind. He'd like to meet fellow X-Men...yeah, that's stretching your boundaries.

Wolverine wants you to know "just because I rock doesnt mean I am made of stone." He also says "I am really an uptight guy and can sometimes come off as an asshole. [...] I am in love with a great girl, her name is Jean Grey, but she doesnt realize how much she loves me yet because of faggot cyclops." Gee, why would anyone think you're an asshole?

EXTREME WOLVERINE's bio includes stuff from that Earth-X mini-series. You're mixing continuities! DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS! His occupation? "Just call me the guy that saves you."

This Wolverine's interests include "fighting, slashing, stabing, anything that involves me hurting someone! I also injoy taking scotts bike and wasting the gas in it! Oh the best part is stealing the x-jet and finding the best way to crash it! Rogue will fix it!"

The loneliest Wolverine of them all. Only one friend, and it's Myspace founder Tom. Poor guy.

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |

"Godzilla vs wolverine? can he stop the lizard?"

"...Godzilla's thermonuclear breath would distinegrate right through doomsday, that includes superman, Superman can get cut, And I know, if he was hit by breath that has a heat of way over the suns heat, he would destroy all. Im sorry, None of the super-heroes could really mess with him. Theres probably three heroes who could beat him. overall, godzilla... its... HES A FREAKIN HUGE GIANT 25,000 TON LIZARD WITH SUPER HEAT BREATHE, RADIATION SUPER BREATH, AND HE HAS THE POWER OF A NUCLEAR A BOMB.
His G-cells would heal him quicker than any hero ive ever heard of, and... Gahhh... He just... Hes impossible to beat, even by other giant monsters.
If you people know ANYTHING or have seen at least 4 giant monster toho movies, You all would see just how powerful kaiju monsters are."

"i seemeed to remember the punisher killing wolverines useing an electrical charge that fried him in ' the punshiser kills the marvel universe' so i think godzilla is going to have no trouble killing him"

"He'd be like a 7 foot (arms up) tack in Godzilla's foot. Now that's a pain that makes one truely lose."

"This is a retarded thread. Against the real Godzilla the entire Xmen roster would be dead. You even knew this when you made the thread, so what was the point?"

"Why would Godzilla even notice a single human? He wouldn't; it would be simple for Logan to climb up him enter his ear mess shit up. Also Colossus is stronger then Godzilla."

"I'd like to see Colossus pick up a Kaiju by the tail and slam the Kaiju repeatedly into the ground before hammer throwing it away. Hell, I doubt Colossus could even bench Showa Baragon."

"NO. First of all, cutting into Godzilla's INNER EAR to get to his brain might get his attention. Second, even if Wolverine could get in, Godzilla could regenerate any damage he would do. THIRD, Colossus is nowhere near as strong as Godzilla. The giant lizard knocks over sky scrapers on ACCIDENT, there is no way Colossus is even budging him."

"yeah big G is far above level 100 class strength. and Godzilla-like monsters account for nothing. Godzilla fights and kills Godzilla-like monsters easily all the friggin time. That's like saying that a vampire hunter can take down dracula with ease because he does it to other vampires all the time,,,,,it holds no water."

"I wonder how high Godzilla's body heat is. To be that big, heavy, and radioactive, Godzilla's insides must be a very volatile place. Would Logan even want to go inside Godzilla?"

"This is so stupid Godzilla would just use fire breath and blast wolvi into nothingness his claws could even break godzilla's skin. And no kids collosus in nowere near as strong as Godzilla the big green guy knocks over building and navy ships on accident"

"He can self heal, but not fast enough from the damage Godzilla can do to him. Fire breath (whether it was radioactive or not) would fry him to his adamantium bones a la Days of Futures Past, or he can get stomped on, indestructable skeleton or not, he ain't surviving that much pressure. Or, he could just get punted cross-country."

"Is this a joke? In Final Wars godzilla killed another Giant monster, called Gigan, with one super blast he blew apart his head.
Thats a head that probably has Hyde (or hide, whatever) on it, about as tough as admantium skin."

"why did you just make the assumption that now Godzilla's enemies have skin tougher than adamantium?"

"Because, Gigan is a alien from deep space, and it was said in Final Wars 'These monsters have unbreachable skin'"

"Wolvey wins easyyy with prep ti....wait thats Batman never mind."

"godzilla beats the xmen? that's stupid. The most i can say on this subject is wolverine has taken down dinosaurs like a t-rex but i do know that's not on godzillas level."

"How long are Logan's claws? he could ram those little things in Godzilla as hard as he possibly can, and it's barely going to go through the thickness of his scales. A Hippopotamus has about 3 inches of skin and 3 of fat...can you imagine how thick Godzilla's scales are? True he is a reptile, and scales of reptiles the same size as mammals are only barely thicker, but Godzilla is larger than any living animal to compare him to. [...] This fight would end without Godzilla even knowing it began."

And then the real shocker:

"ANOTHER Godzilla vs Wolverine thread?And it's not merged or closed?"

This has been discussed before?

And I missed it?

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |

We join the 25th century, which is already in progress, in a space observation center, where "nearby sectors of space are constantly monitored." And this monitoring has turned up something...unusual:


It's identified as "an old-style Earth bomb," which looks like a huge ol' jungle gym:


...And Captain Buck Rogers and Colonel Wilma Deering are on the case, zipping towards the massive construct in their space jets. Wilma makes her approach, only to discover that the bomb has ways of defending itself:


Buck and the world's most annoying robot, Twiki, take a different approach, leaving the ship behind and using a potentially dangerous handheld jet to zip 'em over to the artifact, presumably under the impression that a defense system that so easily deflected a spacecraft couldn't possibly do anything to a guy in a spacesuit and his robot hitchhiker:


Oh shut up, Twiki.

Anyway, as soon as they're on the bomb, the defenses once again spring into life! Buck and Twiki evade the laser attack by, apparently, jumping faster than the speed of light:


They then jump to a door, in order to draw the laser fire to that door in order to blast it open:


Oh shut up, Twiki.

Buck's plan works, as the lasers destroy the door and giving Buck and Twiki access to the corridor beyond, even though the entire construct is apparently comprised of open latticework that they easily could have climbed through.

As they make their way through the artifact, avoiding electrified catwalks and a solid steel cage that, coincidentally, was perfectly sized to catch Twiki, they find themselves on a long catwalk that appears open. Open, that is, except for some large "coffin"-shaped boxes. As they approach, the boxes open, revealing:


Robots with swords.

ROBOTS WITH SWORDS.

ROBOTS WITH SWORDS.

Fantastic. Well, I suppose the robots couldn't be armed with projectile or laser weapons, to avoid damaging the bomb, but, um, everything else on the ship fires lasers or (as we'll see) projectiles, so there goes that explanation, I guess.

Well, doesn't matter, because ROBOTS WITH SWORDS!

Anyway, after some swash-Buck-ling (sorry) swordfighting, the robots are defeated and Buck and Twiki face more lasers and, get this, a giant falling blade:


Oh shut up, Twiki.

Nearing the end of their search, Buck and Twiki find themselves in a hall of mirrors, which absorb laser blasts and, when probed with a pipe, seems to hold the pipe fast, "hanging in space on the other side" as Buck says.

Previous vistors to the bomb encountering the mirror hall were less cautious (didn't I see something like this in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign somewhere?):


Passing though the mirrored corridor, they find themselves in view of the detonation box...but as they approach, they hear a ticking noise in the vacuum of space. Apparently they've set off a timer, which will cause the artifact to explode!

As they rush to the deactivate the bomb, they suddenly find themselves under fire, not from lasers, but from, of all things, bullets! Buck's ankle is lightly grazed by a bullet and he immediately collapses, the wuss:


Buck bravely sends Twiki ahead while he nurses his bruise. (I mean, c'mon...okay, you and me, we'd drop like a load of sand if we got shot in the ankle, but what kind of hero lets something like that slow him down? Geez.) Twiki busts open the detonator's case, but doesn't know which wires to cut. At first, Buck doesn't seem to know how to help, but suddenly:


And Twiki does as he's told, and the day is saved. But how did Buck...well, I'll let Twiki ask, I guess:


Yes, it's as I've always figured...whenever I paid my AT&T bill, I was funding the future construction of huge jungle gym-shaped space bombs populated by laser and projectile guns, giant blades, electrified floors, magical mirror traps, and, lest we forget, ROBOTS WITH SWORDS.

Well, if we're gonna get robots with swords, I suppose I'm okay with it.

And shut up, Twiki.

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |

So long, Steve

posted by Mikester  @ 23:24 |

DOR 'N' MIKE, JUNIOR DETECTIVES

in

"THE CASE OF THE MISSING MANGA"

Chapter One: The Game's Afoot!

"Jeepers!" exclaimed Dor. "It just doesn't make sense!"

Dor was standing in front of the large shelving unit, staring at the rows and rows of paperback manga books, mindlessly twirling his oversized magnifying glass in one hand. To the untrained eye, the shelves looked as if they were fully stocked, but Dor knew better.

Mike, Dor's fellow detective, stood at the store's front counter, notebook and pencil in hand. "You say the manga is missing? That someone stole the books from you?"

"No, no, it wasn't like that at all," came the reply. The store's proprietor, the kindly Mr. Daniels, shook his head sadly. "They never arrived at all."

Mike was puzzled. "Wait a minute...if you never had them, how could they be stolen from you?"

"Look here," Dor called out to Mike. "Take a look at this shelf. See the books there?"

Mike stood beside Dor and peered at where he was pointing. "Yes, I see...Dynamic Hero Gunface volumes one through nine. What about them?"

Mr. Daniels replied before Dor could answer. "I was able to order those first nine volumes of Dynamic Hero Gunface from the publisher, and I expected that I'd be able to order the rest of the series as well. However, starting with volume ten, I'm no longer able to carry the series, no longer able to offer them to our customers, even after spending time and effort to build an audience for them at my shop."

"So who's doing this to you?" Mike asked, anger flushing his cheeks. "Hmmm...maybe one of our old nemeses...the dread pirate Evilbeard, perhaps, hijacking your shipments? Or maybe that local crimeboss Fleshhead, putting pressure on the distributors...."

Dor shook his head. "No, Mike, that's just it. That's what's not making sense. Mr. Daniels says it's the publisher who's holding the books from his shop. And not just his shop, but shops like his all around the world...allegedly so they can sell the books directly to the customers themselves."

"WHAT?" Mike exclaimed. "Why, that would risk undermining retailer confidence in ordering and supporting future products...what publisher would want to do that?"

"It certainly is a stumper," came Dor's reply. "And I want answers."

"As do I," said Mr. Daniels.

"And that makes three of us," said Mike. "Mr. Daniels...never fear, for Dor 'n' Mike, Junior Detectives, are on the case! We'll get to the bottom of this nefarious scheme!"

Ah, don't take any of that seriously...it's just a goof. I just wanted an excuse to have pal Dorian saying "Jeepers!" Anyway, thank you for reading/enjoying/tolerating my first 1,500 posts, and hopefully you'll be around for the next 1,500. Hopefully I'll be around for them too!

posted by Mikester  @ 00:01 |