Friday Night Fights--Yay, Superman Style!!

Attention you Friday Night Fight lovers that may be a tad bit on the younger side: did you know that Superman used to be cool, and popular?

No, really!!

Let's journey back a bit. A Darkseid-built, Morgan Edge-controlled robot of destruction is, well, destructing the heck out of Metropolis.

Fortunately, a certain someone has just returned from a sojourn in space:





POW!!!!

But wait--here's the unusual part:

Wait--the citizens love Superman?!? They cheer super-heroes?!? And he's not brooding? What poor, benighted universe is this??

Ah, but Turmoil, the killing machine, isn't quite done yet:








YOWZA!!

Spacebooger is concerned that this type of rough-housing may set a bad example for his younglings.

George Perez (story and breakdowns) and Brett Breeding (finished art) completely forgot to take away the red trunks and make the guy emo in Action Comics #643 (1989)

Now, the time has come for you to vote. And if you like a world where people aren't concerned that a hero "wears his underwear on the outside," then maybe you should rewards this fight. So vote, dagnabbit!!

If Twitter Had Existed In 1982

*Why don't Moore & Leach invest their energy in something original, find the "next Marvelman" instead?

*You gotta admit, a relaunch of a 20 year old strip steeped in 50s imagery is really relevant today, and a great way to bring in new readers. Not.

*This "relaunch" of Marvelman is the most cynical money-making exercise I have seen in a while.

*No matter how good the creators on this new Marvelman is, I won't buy it, out of respect for the original

*They're changing his name to Miracleman? They've destroyed my childhood!

Why House, M.D. Isn't A Big Hit In The DC Universe

It's sad what you find laying around, discarded in the streets of Keystone City...

Oh, no, not the Flash!! And he's not all:

That's Dr. Flura, the Golden Age Flash's scientist friend.

Well, this quickly turns into an episode of House, with a mystery disease that the best doctors in the world are completely helpless to diagnose (until, of course, Dr. House's fifth act epiphany, triggered by a random comment someone made. I wonder how many of his patients died the times no one was around to say the magic trigger phrase to inspire his train of thought...).

Is "not really dead" like "mostly dead?"

The doctor realizes that, in the absence of Miracle Max, he needs some serious help here:

Well, the scientists of the world listen!! So let's watch them travel in stereotype fashion!!

Sigh...

And how long, exactly, does it take to reach Keystone in a rickshaw, anyway?

Not that it matters, because the assembled stereotyped scientists are as clueless as House's "elite" team (seriously, why even keep these other doctors around? All they do is come up with 42 incorrect diagnoses per episode and stand around waiting for House to pull the answer out of his ass thin air...no wonder medical costs are so high...)...

"Every known method in medical history"?!? Leeches? Banishing the evil spirits? Sacrificing a cock to Asclepius? Balancing their humours?

Fortunately, this ends far more interestingly than any House episode:

Huzzah!! The Golden Age Star Sapphire somehow split them in two, leaving their "earthly bodies" behind but comatose, while their other bodies (?!) were transported to Star Sapphire's 7th-dimensional planet!!

You know, if House ever had a final diagnosis like that, maybe I'd watch more often...

From All-Flash #32 (1947/1948), as reprinted in Flash Annual #1 (1963). You know, when I started this, it wasn't intended to be a screed against House. Just sorta worked out that way...

Why I'm Not A Cat Person

Len Wills is living the dream...he marries a rich dame, and proceeds to spend her money on...

Swamis? Really?

Of course, there are drawbacks--Gloria is a little bit...well, not nice:

PRO-TIP: Never give your husband the idea to murder you...

See, he never would have come up with that on his own!

PRO-TIP #2: Don't go to a swami for murder advice:


Well, Len poisons her, no one is the wiser, and he's living the high life. But at the funeral:


Uhhh, Len, "developed from thin air" isn't quite how reincarnation works...


Len decides that the cat IS Gloria, so he's going to keep it and mistreat it for all the years of abuse he had from Gloria:


But you can only push a cat so far...


YOW!!!

And worse? The scratch became infected, and, well...

Must have been cat scratch fever...

Oh, but wait...this is a horror comic, so simple revenge is not enough of a twist, no sir:


So, in summary: cats are reincarnated evil women who are not-so-secretly trying to kill you.

Don't say you weren't warned.

From Mister Mystery #15 (1954). Siskoid, please feel free to pilfer the images for Cat Of The Geek.

Manic Monday--Avengers Vs. X-Men, 39 Years Early!

Well, apparently, the 1973 Avengers-Defenders War is in my brain today (and why shouldn't it be? Black Panther kicked Doctor Strange in the face--twice!!).

I very well may wrong, but I think this was maybe the first inter-book crossovers at either company, certainly of that length. If you counted the 4-page prologue in Defenders #8, the 3-page prologue in Avengers #115, and the two-page "bye, everybody" in Defenders #11, the whole thing took place over 8 issues of the two mags.

It's interesting to compare with the forthcoming Avengers Vs. X-Men book, which will be 12 issues long, plus a zero issue, plus a six-issue mini "expanding" fights from the main mini, plus 5-6 issues each of New Avengers, Avengers, Secret Avengers, Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine & The X-Men.

That's a lot of issues. Granted, there are a lot more members (and series!) of the Avengers and X-Men these days. But still, it sure seems like they're giving every single member their own individual issue.

Plus, buying each issue of the Avengers-Defenders War? $1.60. Avengers Vs. X-Men? Following every word costs you approximately $196. Save your shekels, kids!

It should be noted that the entire Avengers-Defenders War was written by one person--Steve Englehart. Avengers Vs. X-Men? The twelve issue series has FIVE different writers (Bendis, Fraction, Aaron, Brubaker and Hickman). Five writers...

There are other similarities. At the time Hulk and Hawkeye were former Avengers but hanging with the Defenders, something Englehart made good use of. Present day, the multi-team statuses of Wolverine, The Beast, Namor, and Storm will certainly come into play.

Both deal with potentially universe-altering crises: Dormammu and Loki taking over the universe, the Phoenix Force coming back again for...?

So 2012? Bigger, longer, more sprawling and much more expensive. But at its core, not really that different from 1973--two teams of heroes beating each others' brains in.

And to those complaining about multi-title crossovers? Your 40 years too late for that...

Manic Monday--Identity Crisis, 31 Years Early

At the climax of The Avengers-Defenders War (in Avengers #118 (1973)), the teams are confronting a now-all-powerful Dormammu, and he's getting a little bit pissy about it:

Well, [SPOILER ALERT], the good guys win. But what about Tony and Don's secret identities?

Uh...well, OK, I guess. It was just the two of them, it was correcting something an interdimensional god did, and presumably they agreed to it.

But, in the epilogue (In Defenders #11 (1973)), they return to Earth, and hook up with S.H.I.E.L.D., who had been keeping the chaos under control. But Nick Fury has questions...


Wait...what?

EVERY LIVING BRAIN?!? Doctor Strange just unilaterally decides to go and muck with every mind on the planet...for his personal convenience?????

(And the Avengers acquiesce to this? And Iron Man actually THANKS Strange for LETTING them remember?!? Earth's Wussiest Heroes, indeed)

(And I'm pretty certain that at some point, Nick Fury would have wised up, and his first step would have been to put a bullet in Doctor Strange's brain. Someone write that story, please)

Perhaps I'm old fashioned. But I've always been of the opinion that the Charles Xavier/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Doctor Strange style of altering the people's minds to be both offensive and unheroic. Overriding the memories and free will of people is something villains should do, not good guys.

For all its many (many, many many) faults, at least Identity Crisis presented such mind-altering hijinks as morally questionable, and having pretty terrible consequences.

Of course, Strange never learned any lesson, as in One Moment In Time, he and Stark and Richards erased Peter Parker's identity from the mind of every person on Earth, making Zatanna look like a birthday party hack magician. And not a single consequence.

(Hey, Dan Slott, here's a story idea for you...it turns out that everyone on Earth is getting seizures and strokes and turning evil as a result of Strange's tinkering with their brains, and Peter has a choice to make...which hopefully includes beating the crap out of Strange as part of the solution...)

Anyway, our lesson?? Don't piss off Marvel, or they'll have their "heroes" muck up your mind. Then again, if it could make me forget Fear Itself...? Hmmmm....

The Avengers Drive Me Looney!!

So, the Ambassador from the white supremacist regime of Rudyardia has come to the Avengers for some help. T'Challa greets him, and...


Did you see? Did you see?!? He pressed the blue button, and everyone came in response to the "blue summons."

Don't they realize they can't do crap like that to me?? Look at all those other buttons...all those other colors...I must know what they do!! I MUST!!!

I mean, the blue button is the blue summons, that's obvious...and the blue summons obviously means "not important enough to get Cap, Thor and Iron Man to end their session of Call Of Duty 5."

But what about the purple button? Is that the "purple summons"?? Is that a higher or lower priority than the blue summons?!?

And what about the yellow buttons?!? There are TWO of them!!! What does that mean?!?!? Is one yellower than the other??

WHAT DO THE OTHER BUTTONS DO???? I HAVE TO KNOW!!!!

pant...pant...sorry I got so worked up. But these things bug me. Can someone go find Steve Englehart and Bob Brown and Dave Cockrum and Petra Goldberg and find out what all those buttons do?? Please?!?!?

Well, at least we all know what the red button does:

From Avengers #126 (1974).

Mission: Impossible (And Silly)

OK, minions, I have a task for you.

We all know Galactus, Devourer Of Worlds.

And many of you know Sinistar, the greatest video game of the early 1980s.

Well, these have, on some level, a pretty strong similarity. To wit, compare and contrast this...

...with this:



Again...this...

...and this:



Now, you know what would be cool? If someone more computerly than I could hack Sinistar, and put Galactus' face on the bugger.

I'm not looking for some photoshop job--hell, I could do that myself (albeit badly).

Nope, I want to actually PLAY the game Sinistar, but against Galactus' head instead of Sinistar's.

The prize for whomever accomplishes this? Undying nerd worship from both comic nerds AND video game nerds.

Go to it, code monkeys--FLY, FLY!!!

(editor's note--snell doesn't really expect this to come to anything. But a boy's gotta dream, right?)