This

http://www.trollheart.com/batty.png

Ah ****. I cleared out a bunch of my Photobucket pics and apparently just about all the stuff on this journal got ****ed. Well... damn.

Ah, okay. That explains it then.

Update: Have replaced all the pics that got deleted. That sucked.

Well, this is gonna be a hard one to give you the backstory on, as Deadpool MAX (like any good Deadpool comic) is weird as ****. First of all, MAX is an imprint of Marvel started to allow mainstream comics to have more adult content (swearing, blood 'n' guts, drug use, boobies, etc), and is separate from the main Marvel continuity. For instance, nobody seems to have any superpowers, there aren't any mutants, and Deadpool's mainstream history has been considerably altered.

The story of this series is that Deadpool is unknowingly working for a rogue CIA operation, and has a handler named Bob (aka Hydra Bob). Hydra Bob manipulates Deadpool into doing missions by getting him to think that they somehow involve Hydra, a nonexistent terrorist group which Deadpool is obsessively fixated on. Multiple times it has been revealed to Deadpool that this is all a sham, but he always forgets, doesn't care, can't accept it, or some combination of the three (Deadpool is particularly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs in this series).

Despite this, Hydra Bob is Deadpool's only friend, and vice versa, but at the end of the first Deadpool MAX series his employers framed Bob for a terrorist attack in Cincinnati that claimed the lives of two hundred thousand Americans, and now they are both on the run from the entire world. And so, even though it's Christmas, Bob is feeling somewhat down...




Deadpool might be psychotic and unpredictable, but he's a surprisingly loyal friend, and he's not just going to sit by and watch his only buddy succumb to the holiday doldrums. So he does what any good friend would do: buys a corpse from the morgue, replaces its blood with two pints of Bob's, burns it beyond recognition, and leaves it for the police to find---not that Bob was aware of any of this, as Deadpool gave him sleeping pills to steal his blood. With the police temporarily thrown off their scent, Deadpool does the next logical thing: takes Bob on a world hopping journey to show him the effect his death would have on the people he loves.

First up is breaking into CIA headquarters and spying on Bob's old boss. You know, the one who sold him out? I think the whole sequence can be summed up with this panel...




Eventually they sneak into the facility and find Bob's ex-boss, Blind Al, and discover that his death has made her very sad. You see, without Bob as her patsy to keep America terrified, Congress is cancelling her department's appropriations bill, putting her secret takeover of the US government in jeopardy.




Now it's time to head from Washington DC, all the way to Kabul, Afghanistan, (and also to change artists for the first of two times) to spy on Bob's on-again-off-again superspy girlfriend, Colleen Lui, who's an actual traitor to America, and has sold him out to one group or another on several occasions at this point. Of course, Bob's an idiot, and still loves her, regardless of the fact that she's currently boning her fellow rogue superspy partner, Cable, who is either crazy, or from the future... and crazy.

As always, Bob is rather concerned about Deadpool's plans, but his charmingly unstable friend waves away his concerns...




This time the subject of stalkery is actually sad over Bob's untimely demise for Bob's sake; Colleen used to think he was just an idiot, but upon learning that he was in fact en evil, mass murdering terrorist, she was heartbroken. And now that he's dead, she becomes so distraught that she must go through several pages of the Kama Sutra with Cable.

But surely his parents must be distraught and not engaging in hate-sex-by-proxy. Well, I'm sure they would be, if the death benefits check from the government wasn't so juicy.




I guess to wash the taste of sad out of their mouths, Deadpool decides to visit his own wife and child at the mental institution. His wife is awesome. She's got... identity issues. When first they met way back in Deadpool MAX #2, she was going by Inez, and pretending to be a psychiatrist, but was secretly luring her patients back to an asylum so that the actual employees could harvest their organs. She became completely obsessed with Deadpool though, and helped to bring the hospital down. Unfortunately, she was even more bat**** crazy than Deadpool, so she was institutionalized and they parted ways.

Then she decided she was a terrorist named Domino (yeah, that Domino) and tricked Deadpool into marrying her by telling him she was pregnant with his kid. Instead of giving birth, she went into a bathroom and came out five minutes later with a doll of a baby, which Deadpool was convinced was actually his son. Then she had a breakdown, became Black Widow, left him, banged a bunch of fat guys, murdered the fat guys, and came crawling back to Deadpool, begging him to help her. So, he did the obvious thing and covered up the murders, tied her to a chair, held an intervention, convinced her their child was real, and had her committed again. I should also add that, even though they both believe their "child" is real, they're also aware that he isn't. I don't know either. And now you're caught up...

Upon arrival at the mental institution, Bob and Deadpool discover that Inez has once again lost the plot.




As she is no longer Inez, but "Santa Clawz", she does not recognize Deadpool, and has her elves/brainwashed fellow mental patients tie him up---there's this whole thing with her thinking that he's mocking her by showing up in a dashiki for Kwanzaa, cause last time he saw her she thought she was a Black Panther---and orders them to shoot him... with drawings of guns. Deadpool tries to appeal to her for the sake of their child, but then it gets kinda sad in a stupid/****ed up way...




That's one of the great things about this series. Often, instead of going cartoonishly zany, the joke is unspoken. The pic of the destroyed doll takes itself seriously, and is legitimately disturbing, but it's the nonsensical reality underneath that makes it messed up and hilarious.

Luckily, Bob rescues Deadpool by... pretending to shoot him with a real gun... which distracts Inez/Santa Clawz, who declares that her followers must "Make one billion of these! We leave in ten minutes!"... and for some reason Deadpool is freed. Even as far as Deadpool goes, this is confusing, but I'm rolling with it.

Whatever the case, Inez/Santa Clawz hitches her reindeer/mental patients with crude, paper antlers taped to their heads to her sleigh/chair and prepares to fly out into the night/??? to destroy Christmas. Bob tries to reason with her, which you know... doesn't work, so instead Deadpool gives her a crudely drawn picture of a baby, labelled, "Wade Jr."




You must be asking yourself, what on Earth could Bob have possibly taken from this? The only thing they've learned is that everybody on Earth really does hate him. Well, Bob now realizes that, even if the rest of the world would be better off if he were dead, without him, Deadpool would die. I guess when you're a wanted terrorist you take what comfort you can get.

Well, that's the story of how Deadpool saved Christmas... I guess. And as is traditional at the end of every Christmas story, for no apparent reason our heroes fight mental patients dressed as elves and armed with drawings of guns. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, oh inferior fudge gobblers. It's almost that "special" day when you will spend entirely too much time travelling to a relative's house for the purpose of a new pair of underwear and eating food that's probably not as good as you're gonna pretend it is. Since it is such a "special" occasion, I've saved something "special" just for you. I'm sure many of you already know this comic, as it's pretty legendary. If you don't, then you can go ho ho to hell. You are not wanted. Well, I tried reviewing the whole thing a few months ago so I could post it on Halloween, but failed utterly, as there's just so much going on with this graphic novel that the few days I'd given myself to do it just weren't nearly enough, so I gave up to preserve my sanity. But this time around, I'm only interested in three pages (Although the second page is actually a two-page spread.) You don't even really need to know what's going on with the overarching plot, as this little bit has nothing to do with it and is just here to introduce the Joker...




Isn't that just the best thing the Joker's ever done? If not, it's still easily in the top ten. He doesn't rack up a body count, or even kill anybody; he just crystallizes everything about himself that makes him great: whimsical, surreal, seemingly random lunacy that only he can possibly appreciate, and horrifying levels of psychopathic violence. Murder isn't at all necessary to make this scene shocking, and would actually cheapen it; the fact that he leaves his victims to bear firsthand witness to what, in his infinitely twisted mind, qualifies as art is far more demented than simply killing them.

Those first two pages are simply fantastic. He's downright jolly in the first: unselfconsciously singing a Christmas song with his legs pulled up like some merry frog. Yet in an instant that cheer turns ugly for no apparent reason. But the Joker is far too calculating to lose control like that, implying that this is merely an act to terrorize his victims. I like to think that since these poor unfortunates haven't yet been revealed that he's almost breaking the fourth wall, his unnerving gaze boring into the reader with naked malevolence.

It hasn't yet been explained just what the **** the Joker is even doing. The paper he's reading is about a serial killer currently plaguing Gotham, but why the Clown Prince of Crime should be concerned with this isn't clear. Turn the comic's page and his purpose becomes as clear as it is baffling: he's stealing a family's Christmas, seemingly for no other reason than the simple joy of ruining this most happy occasion.

I absolutely love the flow of the pages and panels. From the slow reveal from the first page to the last, to his exit from the house on page three, it's as if the story is being told in reverse, forcing your imagination to fill in the missing sequence of events. Beginning on page three we see the Joker with present and Santa sack in hand, followed by the terrifying revelation that he's taken this family hostage, all the while reciting a cherished holiday story, turning a scene of visceral horror into a warped illusion of an idyllic Christmas.

But the panel under that is pretty much god. The front door, hacked to pieces, battle axe embedded in the splintered wood, is funny as all ****, but at the same time, I can just imagine the Joker, maniacally cackling as he tears that door to smithereens. And I just know, in my bones, that when he finally smashed it open, the family gaping in stunnedhorror, he said in perfect Jack Nicholson, "Here's Joker!"

So, his mayhem complete, he calmly walks out of the house, toy sack thrown over his shoulder, into the kind of perfect, white Christmas usually seen only on postcards. I can't think of very many scenes that so perfectly encapsulate the Joker. That idiosyncratic sense of humor. That violence bubbling just under the surface. It's just perfect.

So to all of you, I have nothing more to say except...

!
 

Alright, I think that picture is pretty convincing. You can't make a face like that in real life and still be of any use to humanity. Seriously. Ugh. If you don't know who that dude is, Rob Liefeld is to comic books what Manowar or ICP are to metal and hip hop: an embarrassment whose main purpose in life is to be ridiculed. He's become a hated symbol of the self-consciously gritty artwork and grim, style-over-substance writing of the nineties. Equally damning, he co-founded Image Comics. And I don't think I've ever heard of a comic book artist whose ability to actually draw has been lampooned as much as Rob Liefeld. Seriously, people pretty much talk about him like he's the sequential art Antichrist. Some guy on the internet wrote two of the funniest articles I've ever seen, which just completely tear everything about his art and writing to pieces. They're epic stuff. Apparently for the longest time they were the first thing to come up when you Googled "rob liefeld". Now they're merely the second.

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings - Progressive Boink

40 MORE Of The Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings. - Progressive Boink

Now, I haven't actually read much Liefeld, and what I have was in the late nineties/early '00s. But even reading his Captain America series as a kid I was struck by how weird some of his stuff was. Now, I shall see just how awful he truly is, starting with X-Force #1.

P.S. I shall also end each entry by tallying up the number of feet that he's drawn. Apparently that's a thing with him. He can't draw feet. At all. I'll compare the totals with the number of feet drawn in All-New X-Men issue #1, just cause (31 feet, just FYI). I have no idea if its number of feet is representative of comics in general, but whatevs.

!
 

Alright, I usually don't concentrate on art as much as some people, but I'll make an exception for Rob Liefeld. A few things. Why does Shatterstar (the samurai/musketeer with the boxing training headgear) have a sword with two blades? What purpose could that extra blade possibly serve, other than to make the sword heavier and less capable of actually cutting things? I can only assume that Rob was shaving one day and looked down at his twin-blade, disposable razor. Looked up at his reflect in the mirror. Looked down. Looked up. "I'VE GOT IT!!!" Also, note the gun in Cable's hand. I've heard it said that Rob Liefeld often haphazardly adds weapons to his characters' hands after the fact. This is clearly one of those cases. If you look closely, you'll see that the trigger guard on Cable's gun is disappearing into his hand. It's not being held between his fingers either. It's going right into his knuckles, as if there has just been a horrific Star Trek transporter accident. Rob Liefeld clearly drew a fist and just added that gun at the end without even trying to make it look believable. On a cover. I could note many other things that look awkward here, but that would take far too long. I'll just add that I haven't counted any feet, as they are all covered up by an arbitrary dust cloud. I don't think that I am going to enjoy this...

Good lord, where do I start? First of all, if I'm picking up issue #1 of an entirely new series, I should be able to actually understand what's going on. Apparently X-Force is picking up where the New Mutants series (which ended to basically become X-Force) left off. Like, without skipping any sort of beat or giving a single sentence to recap what's happened up to this point. This issue starts off with the team (Cable, Domino, Warpath, Shatterstar, Cannonball, Feral, and "Boom Boom") attacking some base in Antarctica with almost no context. Apparently this "Mutant Liberation Front" is doing... something, but what exactly this is Rob Liefeld doesn't even attempt to explain. Afterward it cuts to two completely random guys I've never even heard of, who don't appear to be anywhere near Antarctica, doesn't explain who they are, doesn't explain their relationship to X-Force, and doesn't even really tell you what the **** they're doing. They're just kinda of fighting some training robots, and then they go into a board meeting of what I assume to be a company that they run. You could have taken it out and the main story wouldn't have been changed in any way. Okay... That's pretty much all that happens.




Real talk, except for the fact that the Mutant Liberation Front's leader is some guy named Stryfe, who's dressed like a Power Rangers Megazord, you've pretty much been given all the information that you're gonna get. I have found exactly no reasons to give a **** about the "plot" of this issue. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. Good job, Rob. You're an inspiration to blithering idiots everywhere.

Of course, I've read some poorly written comics in my time. Just give me some good characters, though, and I can deal. Good thing X-Force #1 doesn't just give us characters whose only real dialogue other than boring, uninformative exposition consists of sub-Schwarzenegger one-liners. Oh wait...




How do you turn that in and still get paid? That's pretty much the high point of the funny too. And actual character development? Rob Liefeld is clearly above such populist nonsense. If you can't appreciate his characters for their wooden, two-dimensional dialogue, then you're clearly a Philistine and would be better off reading drivel like War and Peace.

Gah. There's nothing else really to do except to count the number of feet that Rob actually drew... Alright, **** it, I stopped counting. He actually drew a lot of feet. Terrible feet, that look like something you would dig holes with to plant Azaleas, but they're still feet. I don't know if the legend is partially a myth, or whether he was just really trying in this issue, but for now, he drew some feet. The real story however, is the eyes. Rob Liefeld never draws eyes. There are literally two times in this entire comic where he drew pupils. Most of the time the characters don't even have any white in their eyes, and it just looked like X-Force was trying to be nice to the Mutant Liberation Front by fighting with their eyes closed.




Aside from... nothing, the only redeeming thing about this comic is the return of Black Tom and his shillelagh---who you might remember from when I covered the Phoenix Saga back when I started this journal.




But yeah, other than that, there is absolutely nothing that makes me want to read issue #2: don't give a **** about the characters, don't give a **** about the plot, and I don't give a **** about the innumerable pouches on display. How is this the second-highest selling comic in history? Seriously. It sold five million copies. This sub-mediocre pantload sold five. Million. Copies. I know there were trading cards, and alternate covers, and ****ing hologram ****, but how many idiots could there possibly be on Earth? Don't answer that.

Well, on to the next birdcage liner. Toodles, folks.

Are you going to feature Batman Knightfall, a lot of people don't like it but I was always a fan?

No. Rob Liefeld wasn't involved with that storyline as far as I know.

I'd never read any Deadpool comics until last summer, but in the short time I've been delving into him I've become pretty attached, so I'm gonna write this little series exploring his development over the years, from villain to anti-hero, as a tribute to the character who is now tied with Batman and Spider-Man as my favorite superhero. I imagine it's easy to assume that my preoccupation with Deadpool is down to his puerile humor and general douchiness (which I do love), but he has depth that I really identify with that probably gets ignored by a lot of people---honestly, I think you really have to be kind of an ******* to truly get him. But enough babbling. Hopefully this post'll give some folks a bit of an interesting history lesson in Deadpool's origins...

First Appearance/X-Force #2--#15


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bbEuPGEuXc...-the_super.jpg

There really isn't a whole lot to say about Deadpool at this point. He was created by Rob Liefeld---one of the only good things he ever did---which should give you some idea of the Pool's early depth. By Liefeld's own admission he just wanted a character with a Spider-Man-like costume (I imagine mostly cause he just hated drawing facial expressions) who made Schwarzenegger one-liners. Deadpool wasn't even crazy yet, just kind of a ruthless mercenary who made bad jokes (as in bad bad, not good bag), and was a mid-level flunky working for some guy who hated X-Force for reasons I've already forgotten. Any character development just made him look like a dirtbag with no motivation other than money. The only time we ever really learned anything about him was with a former girlfriend, who was impersonating the X-Force member Domino in order to spy on the team for Deadpool's employer. She seemed to have switched sides, and so Deadpool was dispatched to bring her back into the fold. Rather than showing a human side, he merely knocked her around a bit, making him look like nothing more than a psychopath.




It wouldn't be until his first two mini-series in the early/mid nineties that he ever showed signs of becoming the character we all know and love today.

Yup, more Deadpool. Suck it. This is from Deadpool's first monthly series by Joe Kelly, all the way back in '97. The past few issues had been a bit on the dark side, even for Deadpool, so a story like this, with it's unbridled, whimsical insanity, was a welcome reprieve from the (bitchin') nihilism.

Last issue, Deadpool, in a fit of delusional, psychotic whimsy had decided to have his prisoner/friend/house keeper/mother figure/old lady, Blind Al, take a spin on the vaguely sinister "Road-Trip Roulette" in order to decide where they'd be going to spend the day. Result: the aquarium. Through a series of idiotic shenanigans, they encountered a third-rate group of Avengers wannabes calling themselves the Lightning Rods and in the ensuing battle ended up going back in time to...

An issue of Amazing Spider-Man circa 1967. Unable to get back, and kinda sorta unwilling to disturb the space-time continuum, Blind Al impersonates Aunt May---rendered unconscious when Deadpool and Blind Al land on her upon entering the past...




And Deadpool uses his image inducer to take Peter Parker's place---who Deadpool sends on a wild goose as Spider-Man to New Jersey. Deadpool has an actual goal though: to infiltrate Peter's school and convince the teenage version of his weapon's expert, Weasel, to fix his teleporter---there's a whole hocus pocus sciency thing about using it to get back to their own time period.

The brilliance of this issue is Deadpool's inability/unwillingness to act in any way like Peter Parker, his reactions to caricatures of sixties culture, and the "respectably in-character depictions" of comic book icons . Also Harry Osborn's haircut.




Weasel is unfortunately unwilling to help, due to he and Parker being up for the same job at Oscorp, and because Deadpool/Peter is a douchebag. So DP hatches a scheme to get Weasel drunk at a party being thrown by none other than Gwen Stacy.

Meanwhile, Blind Al/Aunt May has been harangued into staying with Mary Jane's aunt, who believes her to be having a bad reaction to her medication. She also meets MJ... and is less than impressed.




While Al phones Deadpool and begs him to rescue her from her personal hell, Deadpool's plans for Weasel are being set in motion. He also meets Normal Osborn.




And then, in quite possibly the greatest subversion of a beloved, classic comic book, we see Gwen in all of her college socialite glory being epically perved on by a bogus Peter Parker.




When the party finally rolls around, Peter/Deadpool's plan seems to be going well, as Weasel gets suitably drunk. Alas, he still rebuffs Deadpool's advances, but the nearly conscienceless merc with a mouth can't help but be moved when he sees the nerd elite getting his boogie on with none other than Gwen Stacy.




Soon however, the party is crashed by none of other than Kraven the Hunter in all his Tarzan-meets-the-Village-People glory. There's this whole subplot where he's trying to track down Norman Osborn, so he's getting at him through Harry. It doesn't really matter though, but it is pretty awesome seeing Deadpool fight an old school Spidey villain in old school Spidey art.




Seriously, how can you not ****ing love that ****? And of course, Deadpool wins, tells Norman Osborn that Weasel is a drug addict to cost him his job, Weasel is so distraught that he begins what will be a lifelong alcohol problem, and most importantly, fixes Deadpool's transporter, allowing him to return home. So, all's well that ends well. Except for Weasel of course.




Do I really have to defend why this is the best issue of a comic I've read all week?

I was never really certain what I thought about Deadpool, but that issue you've put I think is late 90s? If it is he was the 'in fashion' superhero around this time and his comic was heavily in demand.

The Amazing issue you've put, basically I love any Spider-Man from this period and Kraven is just one of so many great super villains he had, Spider-Man has consistently had the greatest array of super villains anyway imo.

From what I hear, he was more of a cult hero at this point, and it wasn't until Daniel Way wrote his second series in the early '00s that he really took off in popularity. You should really check out his first series with Joe Kelly, his MAX series, and his current series with Brian Posehn, as all of those series have treated him as much more than a two-dimensional quip machine. He's actually a very deep and tortured character.

Apparently Killing Joke, as in the band, owned the rights to that name, and so DC had to cut a deal with them to be able to use it. Not for money. Killing Joke (band) were allowed to use Batman on two of their album covers...




See? Sometimes facts really can be fun!

DC's bizarre deal with an '80s metal band to make Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke | Blastr

Yes. This is just as stupid a comic as it looks. What the **** is a "Squirrel Girl" you might ask? Well, she's a mutant with the proportionate strength and speed of a squirrel. I'm sure you might think that that is the most useless power anyone could ever have--as did I--but think about it. Squirrels move their body weight up and down trees on a regular basis with a dexterity and ease that most humans can't match on the ground. So, they have to be pretty strong don't they? Of course they do, or else this comic book makes even less sense.

But even if you accept such a ludicrous premise for a superhero, she's still gotta be pretty useless, right? Wrong. Here's an abridged list of all of the people in the Marvel universe whom she has defeated...

• Doctor Doom
• The Mandarin
• Wolverine
• Deadpool
• Fin Fang Foom
• THANOS

Yep. She beat Thanos. Apparently this victory is disputed however. Uatu the Watcher backs her up, but Thanos claims that she really defeated a clone. Still, a clone of Thanos is pretty much still Thanos, so it should still count. Clearly then, I have just proven Squirrel Girl to be a hero of substance, and not at all the worst thing that anyone ever created strictly for the amusement factor of creating the worst thing that anyone ever created. On to the comic (her first actual solo series if you can believe it)...

This issue starts off as might be expected: Squirrel Girl sitting in a tree and singing her own, Squirrel Girl-themed rendition of the 60s Spider-Man cartoon theme. And then she fights a bunch of muggers by hitting them with her tail (yup), punting them, and throwing squirrels. All while still singing.




Aside from superhero stuff it's a big day for Squirrel Girl: she's going off to college, and finally moving out of the attic of the Avenger's Mansion--because where else would a squirrel-themed superhero live but in a superhero-themed attic. She's got some moving to do, but first, there's a secret identity to worry about; and with a giant squirrel tail that's a pretty tall order. Luckily all she has to do is stick it in the back of her pants, which gives her the Power Girl equivalent of a ghetto booty. This is made even more hilarious since there is absolutely no fan service in this comic, so this is pure gag.




However, there are of course superhero shenanigans. Namely, one Kraven the Hunter. In order to gain intelligence on him, she employs quite possibly the greatest arbitrary Deadpool cameo ever, further cementing my newfound love of SqueeGee (I just invented that)...




And so ensues a superhero battle to end all superhero battles, filled with surprise attacks, Squirrel Girl being held up by her feet like a small child playing with her father, Squirrel Girl geting covered by a net, Squirrel Girl biting through the net with her buck teeth, Kraven being swarmed by an army of squirrels, before finally, our heroine prevails! Although by "prevails", what I really mean is that she convinces Kraven to go hunt evil whales at the bottom of the ocean. Chalk up another victory for the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!

But don't get too comfortable, gentle reader, as according to the last panel of her first issue...




Oh, and did I mention her best friend is a squirrel? That she talks to? And understands?




With any luck, Squirrel Girl could be the non-evil Harley Quinn. I'll certainly be keeping up with her adventures to see how her series pans out. Luckily, issue #2 is already out, but after that I'm gonna have to wait each month for my fix like crack fiend.

Batman does awesome ****. We know this. But sometimes he outdoes even himself, and I intend to document these moments. History will thank me one day. Today's Batmoment comes from the first (yes, the first) Batman/Spider-Man crossover. There really isn't a whole lot to say about the issue itself. I mean, on paper, it should be the ultimate culmination of all that comic books have been trying to achieve for three-quarters of a century: Batman teaming up with Spider-Man, Carnage teaming up with the Joker, what the **** else do you want out of life? Too bad just about everything about the issue is phoned in. Carnage actually comes out looking cooler than the Joker, just cause the writer clearly has no idea what to do with him besides make him a more malevolent version of the Adam West version. And Peter Parker has a mullet. A ****ING MULLET!!! God damn nineties.




However, there are three things that make this vaguely worth reading.

1.) There's actually an interesting comparison between Spider-Man and Batman's motivations and their consequences on their respective lives: Peter was raised normally, with loving guardians, which, along with his relatively mature age at the time of the tragedy which set him on his path, allowed him to live as normal and fulfilling a civilian life as one can while fighting villains in technicolored spandex; whereas Batman losing his parents at a much younger age robbed him of a healthy childhood, making him a far more dysfunctional superhero whose development as a normal person was stunted.

2.) There's a pretty bitchin' scene between the Joker and Carnage that compares their murderous, chaotic personalities, while revealing that they can never in fact work together, as Carnage operates purely on his homicidal instincts, making him impatient and bored with the Joker's more methodical, "artistic" modus operandi.

But we're here for reason #3. A single page that illustrates (pun intended) the ultimate comic book law: Batman always wins. Just like Batman beats Superman in The Dark Knight Returns, and outwits by proxy the entire Justice League in JLA: Tower of Babel, Batman proves his superiority over Spider-Man. Not with fists or gadgets, but with a much more subtle show of awesomeness.

Another comic book law is that Spider-Man never shuts up. No matter how bad the situation, his mouth continues to run, and his enemies become ever more infuriated, often leading to their downfall. It's just the way it is. Until now. Decades of fighting some of Marvel Comics' most heinous villains haven't managed to shut Spidey's mouth, but one look from the Batman is all it takes ...

Clearly, I'm not the first one to make this connection, as /\ that and \/ this graphic illustrate.



Although why they would compare Lumen, someone screwed up by a traumatic event, with Batgirl rather than Robin is beyond me, except for just casual sexism. But anyways ...

There also seem to be more than a few articles likewise comparing them, as I kind of expected since it's not that far a leap, and nerds notice EVERYTHING. I'll refrain from reading them for now, just so I don't end up ripping them off. Apparently there's even a crossover fan film that I will check out before finishing this post. But **** it, I'm still throwing my two cents in.

Again, it's pretty obvious: young boy, parent murdered in front of him, forever fracturing his psyche; trained as a boy in multiple disciplines in order to make him the ultimate crime fighter, including but not limited to fighting training, detective skills, and subterfuge as a non-descript goofball; uncontrollable obsession to do what he does that consumes all aspects of his life; "human" self actually the disguise, while his "alter ego" is in fact his real personality; consequently any relationship cultivated with his "human" self is at least to some degree shallow and doomed, and so he can only truly connect with those who are a part of his "true" self (be they enemies or doomed love interests), even though such people are also so damaged that they are as destructive to him as he is to them; the only healthy relationships he has are with those few who are his allies and aware of his secret, but since they accept him for what he is, he takes it for granted and uses them as resources until they reach a breaking point; and yet, despite his single-minded crusade and severely repressed emotions, there is somehow a hero down in the depths of his soul.

Another thing that's rather obvious, and that some people might perhaps be uncomfortable with, is that both characters -- while being law breakers who would be rightfully arrested in real life -- are somehow romantic in their simplistic and violent approach to crime. People like to think they're evolved and that whatever the problems with the justice system, it's still worth saving, and yet when given half a chance they cheer on and put on a pedestal those who embody the very ideal that they claim to be above. Rather than contemplate this possible hypocrisy, they (and most certainly I) simply call it fiction, which means it's okay to cheer on someone who in real life would be a volatile, unpredictable lunatic whose motivations would be too unstable to be allowed to go unchecked.

I'm sure I could go on with how various characters in Dexter serve as mirrors to his character in the same way that Bruce Wayne's circle of friends and enemies do the same, but the graphic at the top probably does a better and less TL;DR version than I could, so I'll just end with that fan film ...




Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Batman might have beat Superman in fight a in The Dark Knight Returns, but that was a climactic showdown, where Batman prepared and schemed as much as he could just to have a shot. But I love how in the three-part Batman/Superman crossover in Superman: The Animated Series, Batman just kind of casually pwns Supes -- in his own show -- without breaking a sweat; and in a way which feels natural rather than the writer trying to twist logic just so Batman gets to win.



Just look at that ****ing ****. Superman just kind of lays his arm on Batman's, assuming that since he's the Second Coming of Jesus that any sane human being will back down, cause he's ****ing Superman, ya know? Not Batman. Batman doesn't hesitate for a moment before tossing a guy who can punch buildings into a table like it ain't ****. And the look on Superman's face, like, "Did I just get tossed into a table?"

Yes you did, bitch. Yes. You. Did.

Of course, in a second it looks like Superman gains back the upper hand by slamming Batman into a wall and then using his x-ray vision to discover his secret identity. But Batman still couldn't give half a ****. He's so prepared for any and every eventuality that of course he has somehow managed to obtain a piece of Kryptonite. How? Who the **** knows. He's the god damn Batman.

Whether it's the smartest idea to then throw the Kryptonite into a drink -- which considering how small the cup is, how hard it probably is to accurately throw a small rock in a Ziploc bag, and how far away the cup is, that's some Michael Jordan **** right there -- but he's Batman. You know he's probably got enough Kryptonite to build a house.

Still, Superman has an advantage with knowing Bruce's identity. So what does Batman do? Not only does he use trickery and gadgets to learn Clark's identity, but he does this while Clark is on the phone and being told that his new best friend is about to banging his not-girlfriend. Whether it's just the timing is just a coincidence isn't clear, but it's Batman, so you can never be sure. Regardless, you know he's listening in on that conversation, so that thumbs at the end is a "**** you!" in more ways than one.

****ing. Pwned.

Through pretty much this whole series I was cycling through one of three stages: not knowing what the **** was going on, thinking I'd finally figured out what the **** was going on, and then throwing up my hands and admitting I still had no idea what the **** was going on. If I had to compare this to anything, it would be the Arkham Asylum graphic novel. They both have that bizarre, impressionistic art style that assaults the eyes, and they both try to confuse the **** out of you with left-field storytelling. But I pretty much always knew what was going on with Arkham Asylum. The plot may have been weird, and the storytelling obtuse, but it never had me pulling out my hair trying to figure out whether an event/character/entire-****ing-comic had been a hallucination, or desperately attempting to piece together a timeline of when issues were supposed to have taken place within the series.

Seriously, I'm still not entirely sure I know what the **** just happened. Frank Miller has officially rearranged my ****. For most of issue four I was convinced I knew what was going on. There was a head**** plotline going on that I was sure was a smokescreen to lead me away from the truth, and I was all like, "Alright, Miller, you comic book hack, I'm onto you. You can't fool me." Then it turned out that the entire story that I had thought to be a red herring was in fact real, and I had misdirected myself (and by that I mean that Frank Miller made me his bitch). If you're looking for an easy read, or a piece of comic book pulp, then go pick up Batman, cause this is anything but. This is the comic book equivalent of an acid trip. I mean that. If I were to drop acid and pick up a random comic book, this is how I imagine the art would look, how bewildering it would be to read, and how unsettling the experience would be in general. I'm stone cold sober and I still feel like curling up into the fetal position and sucking my thumb.

Just look at this ****...




I had the benefit of context, but I probably still only had a vaguely better notion of what the **** she was talking about than you just did.

Aside from the head****ery of the story, this was also a vastly different Elektra than I had become used to during Miller's run on Daredevil in the early eighties -- which is where she debuted and, at the time, died. Nobody seems to want to say it, but he wasted her potential there as far as I'm concerned. She was meant to be a ruthless assassin, but her role as tragic figure and estranged lover to Daredevil often neutered her. She had some seriously good moments, but by the time of her death I didn't feel that Elektra had been done justice.

In Elektra: Assassin, however, the darker side of her character is explored to full effect. She shows a level of competence, ruthlessness, and single-minded determination that would have Batman sleeping with a nightlight. Rather than concentrating on her backstory and romantic history with Daredevil (who is mentioned only once in the entire series), Miller tells much of the narrative through the eyes of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who she is psychically controlling in order to do... **** knows. With a plot that is also centered around the concepts of political demagoguery and the apocalypse, there's a pretty clear parallel between Elektra and the devil himself. Think Dracula, but as a hot, Greek ninja.

With only her original Daredevil appearances, and this, I still don't know what to make of her character. They're two completely different interpretations and, while this series does an excellent job of turning a conflicted villain/antihero who I am told is a ruthless assassin into an actual ruthless assassin, I have no idea where the two are supposed to meet. I see that as Daredevil's failure, however, even if Elektra: Assassin swings the ball a bit too far in the other direction to be able to reconcile it with her characterization anywhere else in the Marvel universe.

So, in closing, read this ****. You need to. It's awesome. Why did Frank Miller have to go off the deep end?

Collects issues #0-#8 of her current series. I ****ing love this comic so ****ing much. Her characterization in Suicide Squad is fun, but just doesn't have that lovable insanity which makes her so awesome. This series manages to get that right, all while integrating her new, homicidal tendencies, making a character that is hilariously ****ed up and delightfully whacky. I anticipate each new issue like a crackhead does his dealer finally getting off work. And a lot of people complain about her new bleached skin, hair color, and costume, but as far I'm concerned her design is perfect. The Victorian ruff collar in Suicide Squad needs to die, but in this series she looks fantastic.





For those who have only seen the movies, then quit ****ing around and go read the comic. The movies are pretty good, but the comic ****s on them. A perfect deconstruction of superhero tropes while being a great action series with amazing characters. It took me two days to make my way through all three Kick-Ass series, the Hit-Girl mini-series, and the two movies, and I am thoroughly smitten. Hit-Girl has become one of my new all-time favorite comic book characters. Her portrayal in the movies was fine, but she's absolutely perfect in the comics. Love, love, love her. An avatar will be forthcoming. Possible favorite line in the whole series is in this TPB: "You're not a superhero! You're a little girl with a personality disorder!" Will also be checking out everything Mark Millar has ever done.

They are not cosplayers. They are not hobbyists. They are not like you and me. These are men and women who take the law and their lives into their hands to suit up, with homemade uniforms and cellphones to call the real police, in order to fight crime. Just. Like. Batman. I bet you thought superheroes were confined to the pages of comic books; you would be wrong. There are indeed "real" ones walking the streets today, and I shall highlight the most hilar-I mean, notable individuals.




I think the name says it all. From his intimidating goggles, to his knick knack-covered body armor, this is clearly a man for whom the word "extreme" is not just an idea, but a way of life. Security guard and volunteer fire fighter by day, by night Mr. Xtreme patrols the streets of San Diego to discourage violent crime, and even participates in community outreach programs. Not a man to go by half measures, he has even established the so-called "Xtreme Justice League", with whose members he teams up for patrols and volunteer work. His identity and marital status remain a closely guarded secret.




Keep up the good work, Mr. Xtreme. We are xtremely proud of you.

Motor Mouth

http://i.imgur.com/8TqXPOi.jpg?1

Can you guess what Motor Mouth's special ability is? It's a stun gun. But first he'll try to talk his way out of a confrontation while patrolling nighttime San Fransisco, California with his team, the Northern California Protectorate -- part of a larger group that operates up and down the West Coast.

But he's not all talk -- remember, he has a stun gun. During 2010 riots caused by the verdict in a racially sensitive court case involving the shooting death of an unarmed African American man, Motor Mouth and his fellow super heroes bravely took to the streets of Oakland to try to maintain order.




As you can see from his impressive physique, Motor Mouth's namesake is a versatile weapon. Keep on motoring, man.

Zetaman

Like any self respecting real life superhero, Zetaman does his share of late night patrols, but his real passion is community outreach. The thing that really sets him apart from his peers is that he has his own Youtube reality show, The Real Adventures of Zetaman, which documents his "adventures" (i.e. Toys for Tots kinda ****).




Surely, a cartoon series will be soon to follow.





... I'm sorry, what was I saying? Oh right, in a "field" dominated by men, Nyx is an exception. Operating out of New York, she concentrates her work on protecting the homeless. But where other superheroes are more open about their patrols, using their intimidation factor as a deterrent, Nyx prefers to operate in the shadows: “Like the night, I cannot be proven or disproven to certain degrees; and also much like the night, when morning comes, there will be no trace of me.”




You know, I think those crazy, crazy, mother****ing crazy kids just might make it.




I suppose that there would inevitably emerge an anti-hero in the real life superhero movement. Phoenix Jones is that man, along with his Rain City Superhero Movement. A professional MMA fighter in his civilian life, he has been arrested after using peppery spray against an assailant, and been involved in numerous other altercations which have given him a rather dubious reputation with the Seattle police.





I don't know about you people, but knowing that heroes like these are out in the streets, protecting the innocent, makes me feel much safer to step outside my house. So, I salute you, oh Justice League wannabes of dubious mental capacity. Now, will one of you fall into a vat of toxic waste and get laser eye beams already?

I saw a documentary on real life heroes, those guys are for real, some of them think they have a real power while others just want to do justice as vigilante.

I liked your Elektra entry too, can't say im surprised Frank miller f*cked her up though, that's kinda what he does, right? i remember hearing a friend telling me about how Frank miller did the same thing for batman, he told me this years ago before i even knew who we was.

He didn't so much **** her up as not really flesh her out enough, which isn't that surprising considering that Daredevil was one of, if not his first writing assignment ever. She was fantastic in Elektra: Assassin though.

And I don't know that I'd say he ****ed up in Batman. I think a lot of sexist comic book nerds just can't get over their own prejudices when Miller portrays Catwoman as starting out as a prostitute.

I didn't mean f*cked up in a bad way, i meant it in a good way.

I said F*cked up cause he made them more flawed and gritty which was welcomed by most fans, no? that's why i came to know about him. i remember my friend making a big deal on how remade Batman for the better.

Ah. Yeah, the dude has a knack for elevating characters beyond comic book pulp.

I've been a massive fan of the current Hawkeye solo series: it's charmingly offbeat, has some of the most fantastic characters I've ever seen in a comic, uses innovative storytelling, and is as literate and mature as any comic has a right to be, while still using vast amounts of clever humor to poke fun at both itself and comics in general (as many of the best superhero deconstructions do).




It's made me pray to the comic book gods for a Hawkeye solo movie -- though from what I hear, that's not exactly a priority for Marvel at the moment -- and given me the little sister I always wanted, in Kate Bishop, a teenage(?) girl Hawkeye who refuses to go by Lady Hawkeye or Hawkgirl, or be called a sidekick.

That said, the current run is coming to an end, and there is now a new creative team to replace Matt Fraction (writer) and David Aja (artist), with Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez, respectively. The combination of the two former collaborators has been nothing short of inspired, with both being integral to the overall quality and vibe of the series, so even though I have some serious respect for Jeff Lemire for what he's done with the current Green Arrow series, I can't help but feel nothing but resentment for the end of an era. I know creative teams come and go, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

R.I.P. all that is good in life.

Disclaimer: This went down two Saturdays ago, but I held off on doing a write-up about it since my main acquisition was a special order that took a week to arrive, so I wanted to wait till I could show off my glorious prize.




When the owner of my local comic shop (pictured above, with unknown female) mentioned that the most important holiday of the year was coming up in a week a little while ago, I was stoked: along with the free comics, he promised cosplayers and food -- there were neither of the latter when I showed up, howeveer. Of course, it's possible that that all went down later in the day, but I wanted to show up early, before all the free stuff was gone. I'll have to ask the dude if there's an optimum time to show up next year. Consequently, aside from the table full of free comics, and a big crowd that was all up in the way of the graphic novel section, it ended up being a pretty normal day at Borderless Comics.

Too bad I don't have a camera on my phone, or I'd have some pics from the day, but due to the lack of anything particularly exciting going on, I don't suppose you're missing much.

Still, I got me some free comics, most of which weren't particularly notable. I guess that shouldn't be surprising, considering they were free. But here they are anyway...




Most notable I guess was that 2000 A.D. anthology. It had some Dredd and an assortment of other half-decent/meh stories, mostly of the OTP, old school sci fi/fantasy pulp variety. Then there was a two-part issue with a Teen Titans Go! story about an all-girl slumber party, which was moderately amusing, backed with a Super Friends/Scooby Doo crossover that considerably less so. I was most stoked for issue of The Tick that you can kind of make out at the back, but it was relatively meh. I'm intrigued by the Fight Club comic, which is a new sequel to he original book. The Free Comic Book Day issue is apparently an introduction to the series, which will begin actual publishing later this month. Was actually fairly cool. I'll actually be keeping an eye out for this new series.

I was more happy with a couple, small, free posters I picked up for Spider-Woman and Deadpool, which now proudly adorn my door, along with my Marvel calender. The camera on my computer sucks, and the lighting in my room is awful, so the pic I took doesn't look so great.





They're posters for the new issues of their respective series, so here's what they look like when not blurry and ugly.





****in' righteous. Any ladies looking to engage in sexual intercourse should form an orderly line and patiently wait their turn. There's enough Batlord for everybody. But the real story is that special order I made: all eight issues of Elektra: Assassin. Aw, yeah.




Just picked those bad boys up today, and they are now one of the crowning achievements of my comic book collection, not to mention a significant step forward in my journey as a comic book nerd. Plenty of people have bought a comic book before, but how many have actually special ordered them? How many Dork Lords have put down money for a comic that they didn't even get until a week later? I think there's an outside chance that there are more active serial killers on Earth than there are people who have special ordered a comic book. The few. The not so proud.

Well, that's all for this year. Till next Free Comic Book Day, mother****ers!

Ah, the helmetless, wheezing Darth Vader look, sure to strike fear into the heart of the criminal underworld.

Goddamn, you must be knee deep in pussy with that collection bro

Have you ever showed pics of your entire collection? im curious to see it.
i had a friend who had a decent comic book collection him and his older brother had built up, he had a ton of Ghostrider comics that was his favorite character.

Most of my comics are digital, my physical collection only takes up about half a bookshelf of space at the moment -- those it is always growing. Comics are expensive.

Do you remember the special editions and variants that Wizard used to offer? I got a lot of ace editions and "limited" copies that were autographed by the artists. There also used to be a monthly comic-book catalog that was put out by American Entertainment, a company that was (I believe, don't quote me) started by a college student at the time. They always had cool discounts and would give out free comics if you ordered such and such amount.

Took it for granted at the time, as both of them are now-defunct institutions. Especially with Wizard. Kind of thought they'd be around forever.

Time to use your power against you!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i..._jn4Qk-glW86Wg

I'm still too new to comic collecting to remember stuff from the past, but I'm guessing those were holdovers from the nineties, before the speculator bubble burst, and the industry almost collapsed.

I've got a few comics that I've had for years that are kept by my brother who has about 50 of those special comic book boxes. I don't even remember what ones I have in that collection, but I'm pretty sure I remember one of them being a Strange Tales #3 or something like that. High value item for sure, but I'll never get it back since my brother's an *******.

I remember having these 2 comics as a kid

https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.ne...600/873131.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...onderMan-1.jpg

I didn't have the 1st wonderman comic, i think i got volume 8 but i definitely had the 1st volume of Wildcats.
i remember cause an older kid swindled me out of it!

Interesting. The way you write about them, it would seem as if you've been collecting since you were a kid.

I haven't bought a comic book since about the early 2000s, although I used to pick up Wizard magazines for several years after that because the writing and humor was superb, and if you wanted to know prices, it was thee go-to source; they were a huge influence. Not sure what the industry-equivalent would be today. The collecting aspect was part of the fun.



Is digital the way the industry is headed?

Damn, my daughters were complaining that all female superheroes are just copies of men (Supergirl, batgirl) and I brought up that there was no such thing as Wonderman. Guess I was wrong.

In Wonderman's defense, he's from Marvel, not DC, and nobody cares about him.