Friday, April 26, 2013

Friday Night Fights: Assassin - Prize Fight: Quoth The Raven: "SPLAT!"


Welcome to tonight's Friday Night Fights: Assassin Prize Fight. Our host Spacebooger has given us one special ruleIt must be a fight scene featuring a fight where the loser “never saw it coming"The final blow should take place either off panel or by surprise to win the championship.


Tonight's surprising slugfest comes from Defenders#10, written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton. Synopsis: The Defenders (aka Black Cat, Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Nick Fury, and the Red She-Hulk) have been transported to an alternate-present Earth where nearly everyone is dead. Also? They're stuck at ant-size. They get rescued by Scott "Ant-Man" Lang and his ants and brought to an unknown location. Unknown until now, that is.




In other words, Ant-Man's mystery hideout is in a garbage bag on a New York City rooftop. (Not exactly the Justice League Satellite there, eh, Scotty?) And now that bag is being attacked by ravens.




Which brings us to our host's rule for tonight's fight: That the loser never sees it coming. This raven thinks that the ant-sized heroes will be easy dinner for him.


He's wrong.


Guess we won't be getting any more lip, err beak, from that raven.


NOBODY ever expects a growing angry red lady!


And nobody ever expects Tilly And The Wall, who will be providing tonight's fight music.





For more unexpected embroglios, click here. And don't forget to vote!




Thursday, April 18, 2013

It Was 75 Years Ago Today!

Who knew this...




...would lead to this?
































Happy 75th Anniversary, you two crazy kids!

Friday, April 12, 2013

Friday Night Fights: Assassin - Round 12: The Forecast Calls For Pain!



There's an old saying that goes: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever posts a Friday Night Fights entry about it."


Well, uh, maybe that's not how it goes. Just in case, though, I'm posting this entry featuring the debut of Mark Mardon aka the Weather Wizard, longtime member of the Flash's Rogues Gallery who has also fought Superman and the Nestle Quik Bunny. Our meteorological melee comes from Flash#110, written by John Broome, drawn by the recently-deceased Carmine Infantino, and inked by Murphy Anderson and Joe Giella.


Synopsis: The Flash has just foiled the Weather Wizard's scheme to take revenge on the policeman who arrested him, so the Wizard decides to take his revenge on Flash instead. Which leads to tonight's atmospheric altercation.




I can picture the Weather Wizard's opening pickup line: "Hey, babe, want to see my Weather Stick?"


Let's see how ol' Wiz handles his....Weather Stick.






Gee, that went well!


But before the Wizard has any other bright ideas, the Scarlet Speedster comes up with one of his own.









Ouch, that's going to leave a....Mark!


Our fight music for tonight's weather walloping comes from Crowded House.




To weather more barometric battles, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, April 05, 2013

Friday Night Fights: Assassin - Round 11: WHO Taught Kyle Rayner How To Fight Again?



Tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Assassin answers an important question: Who taught Kyle Rayner how to fight?


Sinestro wants to know.






Question asked and answered!


This one-word explanation of Kyle's pugilistic prowess comes from Green Lantern Corps#54, written by Tony Bedard, illustrated by Tyler Kirkham, and inked by Matt Banning (whose nickname, coincidentally enough, is "Batt").


Tonight's fight music is this didactic ditty from Sloan.




For more answers to Raynerian riddles, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Monday, April 01, 2013

The Greatest Love Of All! Or: Why The Old Order Changeth!

You may have noticed the logo change at the top of the blog this morning, so now I'm making it official: I'm completely revamping my blog. As of today, changing the name and format of my blog to singularly focus on the greatest romance, real or fictional, since the dawn of creation.


Introducing......


THE "FUCKIN' A, SUPERMAN AND WONDER WOMAN!!" BLOG!!!!


(Yes, they're only making out here because they're both under a magic emotional manipulation spell cast by a Greek love god, but why quibble over something as trivial as consent? It's love, LOVE, I tell you!)


***ATTENTION, PRESENT AND FUTURE COMIC BOOK WRITERS!*** There's no longer any point of introducing any more comic book romance, because with Superman/Wonder Woman, it's already being done to complete perfection! It's so incredibly awe-inspiring, it officially replaces oxygen and sunlight as the thing we need most to live!


I know what you're thinking: "But what about Lois Lane?"


Lois Lane? HAH! Lois LAME is more like it!


Some people on my Twitter feed have been arguing that Lois should get her own alternate cover for Superman Unchained#1, because of her "important role" in the Superman mythos, but really, she's just a Jenny-come-lately. After all, Superman made his debut all the way back in June of 1938 in Action Comics#1 on Page 1. Lois didn't make her debut until Action Comics#1 on Page 6. Page 6!


Let's put that in perspective: The wife-beater appears earlier than Lois -- he debuts halfway through Page 5. Should the wife-beater get his own cover, too?


Oh, sure, you say, but she's the earliest consistently-appearing character in Superman history other than the big guy himself, right? Well, what about George Taylor? He also appeared in Action#1, and he's a more consistent part of the Superman mythos to boot. Why, he's appeared in a few stories in the first year of Grant Morrison's Nu52 Action Comics run, and before that he was in the Bronze Age Mr. And Mrs. Superman backups and...some of the late 70's Green Arrow/Black Canary stories in World's Finest. Top THAT, Page 6 Girl!


More importantly, Lois Lane was never a decent match for Superman. In fact, Lois wasn't originally intended to be a love interest for Clark/Superman in the first place. The internet says so! And you can always believe what's on the internet, can't you?


Why, just look at her introductory panel in Action Comics#1.


Yeah, this SCREAMS "intended love interest".


You call THAT an "intended love interest"? He's not even spying on her text messages!


Yes, Lois was patterned after Joanne Siegel, who just happened to be writer Jerry Siegel's wife and the woman he called his "soul mate", but that's irrelevant. Because when a male writer is writing a male lead character and then patterns the most prominent female character after his wife and soul mate, he's never intending her to be the love interest, is he?


And what did Jerry Siegel know about how Superman and Lois should be interpreted, anyway? He only created both characters. Big deal! How could that possibly stack up against the vast combined comic book wisdom and understanding of the man who introduced DC's premier mystery man by revealing his origin right out of the starting gate, the man who designed a bare-midriff costume for a non-powered Gotham City vigilante who had previously been stabbed in the stomach, and the man who retooled Captain Marvel's Shazam's origin to include Billy Batson calling the Old Wizard a pedophile?


"Lois was originally intended as Superman's love interest". How ridiculous! Next you'll be telling me how Marvel mutants are a metaphor for marginalized minority groups! 


Why, look at how wonderfully Superman and Wonder Woman work together!




In that very issue, Superman spells out why The Greatest Romantic Pairing In All Recorded History is vastly superior to Clark-Lois:




He's got a point, Lois. How could deep conversations with you about things like world affairs, journalistic integrity, and the complications of maintaining a human/superhuman relationship possibly compare with the sheer awesomeness of being able to mansplain how to eat dinner in a public restaurant?


What better display of how Superman's love for Diana greatly overshadows his slight feeling for Lois than these sage words from Princess Diana herself?




Proof positive that he couldn't care less, amirite?


And why should he? She's nowhere near the attractiveness level he deserves. Why, look at how unsexy she is!









What does he see in her?


You want proof she's unattractive? Just look at the homely plain Janes who have played her over the last quarter-century.








Total dogs, right? Not a sexy or glamorous bone in their bodies!


And speaking of sex, there's no way Superman could ever have sex with Lois. "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", remember? Because the key to great sex is just a matter of being able to pound as hard as possible and nothing more, isn't it? It's the core principle of the Kama Sutra! That's why Clark needs Diana. Clark and Lois have never had sex in their entire 75-year history. How could they? It's not like past Superman writers could have the two consummate their relationship and couch it in a clever G-rated code word like, say, "Beef Bourguignon", could they? Impossible!


Why, look at a comparably-matched couple like, say, Nolan "Omni-Man" Grayson and his wife Debbie. He's from an alien race with Kryptonian level strength and she's an ordinary Earth woman. There's no chance of poor Debbie even surviving, let alone producing a child who would grow up to become a Kryptonian-level strongman himself and star in his own solo comic, catapulting Robert Kirkman to stardom and helping revitalize Image Comics. No fucking way!


This comic? Could NEVER HAPPEN!



And look at how the revised Nu52 status quo greatly benefits all the key characters in the Superman/Wonder Woman mythos:


It benefits Steve Trevor because it frees him of the restrictive role of being Wonder Woman's mere human boyfriend and allows him to fulfill the role he should've been playing all along: Leading covert government teams and being the next Rick Flag.


It benefits Lois by simplifying her character arc. Why waste all those pages actually showing what a great reporter and woman she is when all you need is the occasional splash-page narrative infodump? And why bog her down with the whole "journalistic integrity" narrative? Give it to Clark instead!


It benefits Wonder Woman by freeing her from the burden of being self-sufficient or being best at anything or having her own narrative. When has she ever had the chance to utter such dialogue as "Clark, people actually eat with UTENSILS? That's AMAZING!"


Best of all, it benefits Superman by letting him do what he should have been doing all along: BEING BETTER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE AT EVERYTHING!


Let's face it, there's nothing Supes can't do better than anyone else in the DCU. He's more impervious to magic than Wonder Woman's magic-proof weaponry! He can out-report Lois! He can outsmart Batman! He can outrun the Flash! He can outswim Aquaman! He can out-bullshit John Constantine!


He can even out-head-trauma Hal Jordan!


Before, we were bogged down in the silly idea of Clark and Lois somehow being equals.


This? MUCH better!


And now for a....


***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!*** Not only will I be writing the new "Fuckin' A, Superman And Wonder Woman!" blog from now on, but I will also be accompanying each blog post with a video version of each post I do! You'll finally hear what I sound like. You can hear the first video installment HERE!



(Special thanks to Tom, Brian, and Mary for words, ideas, and opinions that I have ripped off outright drawn upon for inspiration in writing this post.)