The Inevitable Result Of The X-Games And Insane Amounts Of Energy Drinks

The future (or past?!?) fate of Shaun White:

Great Caesar's Ghost, why hasn't someone made a movie of this 1958 cover?

New Contest: Two Words, Ten Letters, 2015

On Formspring, Tom Brevoort spilled a bean or two about Marvel's future plans:

If all goes as planned, our big storyline for 2015 will have a title that’s two words long, ten letters in total.

Well, then, game on. Two words. Ten letters. Go!

I, Marvelman

It might take that long to actually clear up the rights tangle.

But it's a great name for a series, right?

Of course, the question then becomes, how exactly does Marvelman fit into the Marvel Universe? Does Doctor Gargunza know Dr. Doom? Does Mike Moran work at the Daily Bugle? Or would this just turn into another Sentry-level clusterfrak?

Darth Vader

By 2015 Disney will have given the Star Wars comic(s) to Marvel. And why not be ambitious about it? An Exiles team leaps into the Star Wars universe, and inadvertently brings Vader back to 616. Ah, the ensuing havoc. Especially when it turns out that The Force is...

Hey, it makes more sense than having Norman Osborn run things during Dark Reign...

Malibu Wars

Marvel will finally resolve whatever the pesky contractual problems are, and revive the Malibu Universe, and integrate it into Marvel-616. Black September II, dawg!!

ROM Revived

Speaking of intractable rights problems...

Well, it's late, that's all I've got. Your turn now.

Big storyline. Two words. Ten letters. GO!!!

Friday Night Fights--Ten Rings To Rule Them All Style!!

Hey!! Iron Man and the Mandarin are in a movie right now!!

So I guess that makes this an apropos time to break this out for Friday Night Fights:

Awww, yeah!!

No preamble, no explanation--just fight, dawgz!!

And...he's out!!

Spacebooger is pretty sure Robert Downey Jr. smacked Ben Kingsley around like this backstage during the filming of Iron Man Three...

Ten rings don't rule them all in Iron Man #100 (1977), by Bill Mantlo, George Tuska, & Mike Esposito.

Now is the time for you to vote for my fight. Why? Because you don't want to know where the Mandarin kept his 11th ring....So vote!!

This Guy Should Be The Villain In Iron Man 4

Yeah, yeah, we've done all the evil industrialists, the Mandarin is done, we've done evil armors...

This could be a problem, you see, as Iron Man's rogues gallery isn't the deepest out there. So who's left to be the bad guy for Iron Man 4?

This guy:

THE SOULFATHER!!!!

Who is the Soulfather? Well, nameless minions and henchmen really, really admire him:

"Mind-Mote"?!?!

And clearly, Mikas has a high opinion of himself:

Oh, yeah...

The Soulfather was a minion of the mysterious Mister Kline (please don't ask), sent to ruin Iron Man's life.

He was (maybe) a Mexican orphan given powers through radioactive treatments, which resulted in his having powers over "earth," and some vague form of mind manipulation, and even evil demon/thingies to control...

Or, there were some hints that, like many of Mister Kline's other minions, Mikas was merely a robot who thought he was a real boy.

Still, there is one undeniable, incontrovertible fact about Mikas the Soulfather...

He's dead sexy!!

After debuting in Iron Man #42 (1971), Stark beat him and left him buried under rubble the very next issue, never to be seen again, ever.

Which means he's free and clear to be brought back for Iron Man 4, right?

BRING BACK THE SOULFATHER!!!

What Is Irony?

As a special treat for all of you studying for your English final exams, allow Gerry Conway to give you a quick and easy bon mot about irony to put on your paper to guarantee an A:

No, I don't know what it means (and neither did Conway, probably)...but I promise you that it will get you a better score than quoting Alanis Morrisette on your test.

Oh, and there's this...

Gerry, Gerry, Gerry...

Weird stuff from Iron Man #42 (1971)

Snappy Answers To Silly Critiques (**Spoilers For Iron Man Three**)

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR IRON MAN THREE--BEWARE.

I thought Iron Man Three was rather good. Still, any movie has it's flaws, and is subject to legitimate critiques.

These critiques, however, are not legitimate.

I. WHY DIDN'T S.H.I.E.L.D. OR THE OTHER AVENGERS COME TO HELP OUT? HUH?!?

Yes, I am certain that every time Iron Man has faced off against the Mandarin, all of his allies showed up to help...

Err...OK, I'm sure that whenever Tony faced off against AIM and assorted other super-villains, S.H.I.E.L.D. was right there to help--they'd never let Tony go solo...

Ummm...All right, if ever a colossal menace threatened our entire federal government, there's no way that the Avengers would let Iron Man face it all on his lonesome...

Well...you have to acknowledge, if Tony Stark were believed to be dead, well, every super-hero and secret government agency would be there to pick up the slack...

Look, the problem with this critique is that it also applies to virtually every issue of every hero's solo title EVER. OMG, the Red Skull has the Cosmic Cube--how come Captain America has to deal with that alone? Brainiac about to destroy Earth? Where the hell is the Justice League? This is one of those things we accept with a wink and a nod in our comics. It's Comics Trope 101, right after "glasses or a domino mask won't hide your identity!" But because it's in a movie now, some people think it's somehow different. It's not. In the Marvel Movie Universe, not everyone is going to show up in every movie. Deal with it.

Plus, the movie explains it fairly well. Rhodey tells Stark that the government doesn't want any super-heroes involved in this. See how easy that was? The other guys listened, or were busy. And when Stark did get involved only he had all the data and the smarts to figure out where to go. For all we know, Hawkeye and Black Widow were looking for him or the baddies--but they had no clue where to start. Easy peasy.

II. OMG TONY STARK HARDLY SPENT ANY TIME IN HIS ARMOR!! I THOUGHT THIS WAS IRON MAN 3, NOT TONY STARK I!!

Fair enough, because really, who would ever want to see Tony Stark playing secret agent?

Urrr...no one would ever desire to see Stark out of the armor...that's the only reason to see the mvoie or read the comic--to see him as Iron Man!!

Maybe the blunt summary at the end ("the armor was becoming a cocoon") was too subtle. But the whole theme of the freaking movie was Tony finding himself and becoming less reliant on the armor. So, no, we didn't need more "Tony as Iron Man" scenes.

As for me, I enjoyed seeing CSI Tony, Secret Agent Tony, Mechanic Tony, etc...

III. TONY WAS REALLY STUPID FOR GIVING OUT HIS ADDRESS ON LIVE TV

Yes, because no one in the world knew where Tony Stark lived. It's not like he took reporters back to his crib for intimate encounters; he never threw huge birthday parties with hundreds of guests there whilst doing Iron Man tricks. Nope, his home was a classified secret.

Yes, publicly challenging the Mandarin like that was reckless and stupid, as he acknowledged. He was distraught over Happy, and his other troubles had him way off his A game. But giving out his address had nothing whatsoever to do with his being attacked (unless we assume that our villains can't use Google, or even a phone book). And, in Tony's defense, the helicopter attack on his home was absolutely nothing like the Mandarin's M.O. He was expecting a suicide bomber, not air-to-ground missiles.

IV. STARK TOLD RHODEY THE ARMORS WOULD ONLY WORK FOR TONY--BUT PEPPER USED IT!! WTF?!?

Yes, but all of the armors at Rhodey's portion of the battle were older armors. The one Pepper used each time was the Mark 42, which was an unfinished prototype, so presumably it hadn't been finally "set" to the "only-Stark" setting yet. It probably would have worked for Rhodey, too, but it didn't show up until after he left. Or, alternately, Tony did specifically design it to work for Pepper, to better protect her...he just didn't want to hurt Rhodey's feelings by telling him that.

Thus endeth the rant.

Bold Fashion Choices--Hot Stuff!!

So, Hot Stuff's Aunt Mushy (????) buys him a darling suit:

Well, the little devil hates it, so he "accidentally" ruins it in a fight with sharks (!!).

Not to worry, though...Aunt Mushy has back-up!

Surprisingly enough, that suit experiences a tragic demise while Hot Stuff is "attacked" by ogres. Completely unprovoked. Really.

Still, you can't keep a good aunt down!

SPOILER ALERT: He just "walks around" through a pit of hot lava...

Confession time!

I gotta say...I'm 100% with Hot Stuff here...

But...

D'oh!!

I shan't ask why, if Hot Stuff can walk and talk and fly and fight monsters, he would need a diaper...

From Hot Stuff #1 (1991)