Friday Night Fights - Round 1: Stark Reality


Tony "Iron Man" Stark has a lot to answer for:

- Tricking the Hulk into a rocket and jettisoning him into space, where said rocket later exploded and killedthe Hulk's city and family.

- Using Thor's DNA to create a clone that ended up killing Bill "Goliath" Foster.

- Convincing Spider-Man to reveal his secret identity, thereby putting his life in danger and causing his AuntMay to get shot.

- Locking up unregistered heroes in a prison in the Negative Zone.

- Establishing a team of villains to hunt down unregistered heroes and putting Norman Osborn of all people in charge of that team.


Suffice it to say that a lot of fans carry intense hatred towards Iron Man bacause of those above actions.


This post is for those fans.

Because there's no better outlet for satisfying all that Stark-hate than....

...watching Iron Man get pwned by a guy with a bow and arrow.


Thank Bahlactus.

Scene from "The Making of the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special":

(Scene: The offices of DC Comics)

Judd Winick: "We're out of toilet paper!"

Dan DiDio: "Here." (Hands Winick a stack of Gail Simone "Birds of Prey" comics.)
"Use these."

Judd Winick: "Thanks, Dan!" (Proceeds toward bathroom.)

A correspondence I'd like to see..

Dear Judd Winick:

Just finished reading the Wedding Special. Thanks for taking all our years of hard work on Black Canary's character and flushing them down the toilet. We'll be coming over shortly to kick your ass.

Sincerely,

Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone

Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special: The Return Of ........


(Warning: Contains Major Spoilers)


I skimmed through the Wedding Special at the local shop yesterday.

Notice I didn't say "bought". That's in part because I'm far from sold on the idea of Ollie and Dinah marrying, having been a huge Birds of Prey fan. It's also because Judd Winick is far from being one of my favorite writers. (Plus, I had to leave room for the new Suicide Squad book.)

The finished product didn't exactly sway me from my preconceived notions, particularly with the fight scenes.


Memo to Judd Winick: Dinah Lance aka Black Canary is one of the top martial artists in the DC Universe. She definitely has more moves at her disposal than kicking a man in the nards! Plus, she runs a team with two Green Lanterns and a guy who can see dust settle on the moon, so she should know that finding a lost ring later in a small general area is not a problem.

So then I got to the ending.....

(MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!)



...where an apparently mind-controlled Ollie suddenly attacks Dinah and tries to kill her on their honeymoon, and her only recourse (????) is to stab him in the neck with one of his arrows.

Memo#2 to Judd Winick: Really, Judd ? That was her only option? Top DCU martial artist, remember? Do the words "pressure points" mean anything to you?

Suffice it to say I didn't find too many good things about the book, and I walked out of my comic store without it.

But then something hit me: Exactly how did Ollie get brainwashed in the first place? And then I realized:


Back in February of this year, in this column by Lisa "Ragnell" Fortuner, I introduced a catch-phrase that I predicted would replace "Superboy-Prime punched a wall" as the leading explanation for character inconsistencies in the DCU, and even beyond it.

That phrase?

Slade's hypos.

I thought it would be the leading comic catchphrase of 2007. But that never came to be. The phrase "A Skrull did it" swooped in to steal my glory. (Damn you, Bendis!!!!)

But with Ollie's mind control at the end of the Wedding Special, that can only mean one thing:

"SLADE'S HYPOS" IS BACK, BABY!

IT'S BACK!!

WOO HOO!!!!!!

Yeah, yeah, you say that now, Cheryl, but we'll see when the next Dwayne McDuffie book comes out.....

P.S. I'm psyched about the new season of "Prison Break", too.

The above was my response to this post by Digital Femme.

What If? Starring Green Lantern


Phillipos must think I'm stalking him.

The first time I linked to his post was to chide him. The second time was to compliment him on his analysis of the Spider-Marriage. Now, on my third consecutive post:

We have a hat trick.

Philippos was elaborating on Wonder Woman's status as the flagship female character of the DCU. This provided me with a perfect springboard to share a scenario that's been swimming around in my brain recently.

Wonder Woman, created by William Moulton Marston, first debuted back in All-Star Comics#8 back in December of 1941 . But But nearly a year and a half prior, Martin Nodell and Bill Finger introduced another super-hero.

From Wikipedia:

Green Lantern (sometimes called The Green Lantern in the early days) was created by Martin Nodell (using the name Mart Dellon) and Bill Finger. He first appeared in the Golden Age of comic books in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), published by All-American Publications, one of three companies that would eventually merge to form DC Comics. This Green Lantern was Alan Scott, an engineer who had come into possession of a magic lantern. From this, he crafted a power ring which gave him a wide variety of powers. The limitations of the ring were that it had to be "charged" every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern for a time, and that it did not work on wood.

But what if one thing had been different? What if the original Golden Age Green Lantern had been....

...a woman?

What if the person who found the lantern had been Ellen Scott, instead of Alan? What would have changed?

The questions are endless.

-Would she have had more or less sales success than her male counterpart?

-Would Doiby Dickles still be her original sidekick?

-Would she still be in the Justice Society?

-How would her status affect that of Wonder Woman? Would Diana still be a flagship DC character, or would GL replace her and Diana be relegated to a status similar to, say, Miss America?

- What about her outfit? Would it be similar to Alan's, or would it be skimpier and more "sexed-up"? Would she still wear a red shirt with a purple cape?

- Would this female GL have been able to appeal to women readers, despite Nodell and Finger not having the same feminist sensibility as Marston?

-How would the Silver, Bronze, and Modern Age GL's have been affected? Would there have been, say, a Helen Jordan or a Kylie Rayner? Would a Green Lantern have existed in any of those eras at all?

Discuss.

Pete and MJ: Will Marvel pull a "Sacrifice" play?

For a second consecutive post, I'm linking to a Livejournal by the blogger known as "philippos the acidic one". But this time it's for a much friendlier reason. This time I'm hoping he's right.

Philippos contends that the powers-that-be at Marvel are not going to break up the Spider-Marriage within the next few months, and he presents some very logical and compelling reasons to support his thesis. Logically, I'm totally on board with what he believes will happen.

Except.....

....let's just say I've got a baaaad feeling about this.

I just finished reading Part One of the "One More Day" arc, and it establishes Aunt May early on as the front-runner in the "which woman in Peter Parker's life is going to die" sweepstakes. In popular fiction, that often means it's going to be someone else.

Remember the 100th episode of "Smallville" a few years back? It was called "Sacrifice", and it had a similar "one person in Clark Kent's life is going to die" hype to it.

It began with Clark revealing his secret identity to Lana and asking her to marry him. She said yes, and they broke the news (sans the secret identity part) to the other key people in Smallville. Unfortunately, this included a drunken and depressed Lex, still reeling from just losing a congressional race to Clark's adoptive father Jonathan. Suffice it to say that when Lana told him, he didn't take it too well, leading to Lana fleeing the Luthor Manor and an inebriated Lex in pursuit. So intent was Lana on eluding Lex that she failed to notice the oncoming truck which slammed directly into her car, killing her instantly. Clark arrived at the scene too late to save his lady love.

This was fine with me, as I had grown to hate the character of Lana over the years. Good riddance.

But then I noticed the time. It was 8:30. Only halfway through the show.

And that's when that baaaad feeling first hit me. It intensified when Clark visited his Fortress of Solitude and begged Jor-El for a chance to save Lana. As I feared, Jor-El sent Clark back before he revealed his identity to Lana. This time, he didn't reveal his ID, and Lana predictably didn't take this too well. Events unfolded in a similar sequence to the first half of the episode, with key variations, and this time Clark saved Lana from the fatal accident. Unfortunately, in doing so he was too late to save his dad Jonathan from suffering a fatal heart attack.

Needless to say, since Jonathan was one of my favorite characters on the show and Lana.....wasn't, I was not a happy camper.

And now I fear that Marvel is going to pull the same trick with "One More Day": stacking the initial odds strongly in favor of Peter losing May, and then at the tail end arranging a "twist" that ends up with MJ either dead or divorced.

So while my head agrees completely with philippos and hopes he's right, that feeling in my gut says otherwise.

I hope my gut is wrong.

Definition of "Out of Line"

This.