A Late April Fools

From the letters page of yesterday's Detective Comics #878:

One little paragraph, so many...ahem...inaccuracies: Not only will Jock not be back on 'Tec in issue #881, there won't even BE an issue #881. And although Scott Snyder will be switching over to Batman, Jock won't be drawing anything at all in the new improved DC Universe--at least in September.

This is just odd. OK, we know DC wanted to keep the cat in the bag about Flushpoint. But that bag is wide open now. This letter column appears 4 weeks and a day after DC's big announcement, 3 weeks and 5 days after DC announced the new Bat titles and creative line-ups. It ran more than two weeks after the full September solicits were released online. It ran on the same days the new Previews was on shelves. And in the very same book, the DC Nation page reveals the big changes, including that Snyder was moving and that Jock wouldn't be his artist.

The need to lie about what was upcoming was long past, is my point.

And before anyone suggests how long a lead time the letters page might have had, this column has a letter discussing Detective #876, so at most its 2 months old. And while I don't know DC's exact production schedule, or when the issue was sent to the printer, the DC Nation page says that Flushpoint was announced "21 days" ago--which means that page was sent off a week ago, which means they should have been able to go in and edit that letter column to reflect reality sometime in those 21 days.

So why let the blatant deception stand? Maybe DC just doesn't care enough about their letter pages to worry. Or maybe DC *still* hasn't told their letter page editors about Flushpoint--that's how intense the secrecy was!!

Just a picayune point, I know. And besides, come September, the letter pages in most comics will be gone, for at least awhile, since so much of DC's output will be new #1's, and therefore have no letters.

Still, it is annoying that DC has so little respect for the vaunted letter columns (that they trumpeted about so loudly on their return), that they publish deliberate misinformation long after the need for that misinformation has passed. I'm just sayin'.

A Humpday Present For My Loyal Readers

It's Wednesday, it's already been a freakin' long week, everyone is yearning for the long holiday weekend...so, I figured...

...that everyone needed to see Janet Van Dyne attacked by a giant red-and-black-striped bull, as drawn by Amanda Conner. (click on the pic to embiggen to full Connerrificness)

Oh, yeah, the bull is really a giant Inhuman with a magic shape-shifting jewel that lets him turn into a giant red-and-black-striped version of any old animal. And he's attacking Wasp at a fashion show for petite women because he thinks that tiny humans have stolen the world away from giants.

Really. Hey, cut me a break, I didn't say it was a brilliantly written story...

Anyway, the Wasp and Dakota North (!) whoop him and turn him over to Reed Richards, so the world is safe for "the tyranny of the tiny."

Really.

Man, Friday can't come fast enough...

From Marvel Super-Heroes #3 (1990)

Do You Remember The Days...?

Remember when Speedball was fun?





Ahhh....

From Marvel Super-Heroes #3 (1990)

Dunkin Donuts Has The Super Soldier Formula?!?

Seriously, best commercial ever (this week):

Canada's Revenge?

Don't $%^& with Canada:

The menace of the maple leafs? Pshaw.

But wait--the cover isn't lying to you!!

See??

It turns out that, in ye olden days, the townsfolk of this burg had tried to kill themselves a witch (no word on whether the town or the witch was Canadian). She manages to get away, and...


So no one ever dared cut down any of the trees. Not until big city slicker industrialist Mike Stone came to town!!


Not surprisingly, that doesn't turn out too well...


But Mike Stone, an obvious metaphor for American capitalist imperialism, won't give in, nosiree!!

And as he goes off to buy a proper suit for dynamiting trees (don't ask)...











Lesson: don't mess with Canada!!

Oh, don't worry, we were Code-approved here...it turns out the leaves just grabbed a mannequin wearing the exact same suit that Mike Stone just bought. So those dumb maple leaves didn't kill anybody, they just trashed a dummy. Still, properly chastened, Stone left town, never to return, and no one ever chopped down the trees...

Oh, I know what you're saying...I should be scared of a bunch of dumb maple leaves that act tough, but can't even tell the difference between their enemy and a mannequin? Well, sure, they're not the most threatening creatures ever...but then again, they're a heck of a lot more menacing than these maple leafs have been for the past 45 years:
Gratuitous sports slam courtesy of Steve Ditko and Strange Suspense Stories #33 (1957)

Manic Monday Doubel Secret Bonus--Good Thing He Has Super-Speed, Too!

From the letter column in World's Finest #164 (1967):

Yeah, how are you going to answer that one, huh? HUH?

Well played, gentleman.

Too bad we never got to see Sal Jacopelli's follow-up letter asking if the crooks got frostbite from the super-cold breath...but I suppose that explains why the rounds in the melting guns wouldn't explode from the extreme heat...

Manic Monday Bonus--Don't #$%^ With Neil Armstrong, Dude!

I'm sure that there are many, many qualifications for being an astronaut...

...I just never thought that being a pumped up muscle guy was one of them...

"Tiger quick response"? And built like Charles Atlas?

Watch out, Chuck Norris--Buzz Aldrin is coming to kick your ass!!

Ad from World's Finest #164 (1967)

Manic Monday--More DC Geography

Braniac has come up with a female robot to use in a nefarious scheme...let's watch:

"Orienta"???

People today complain that DC is taking teeny tiny little liberties with their maps, but man, Leo Dorfman was straight up inventing entire countries!

Superman, Batman and Robin save the real President Madame Tru, yet let Brainiac escape after he tries to shrink Metropolis, New York, London, Paris and Tokyo in World's Finest #164 (1967)

The Forgotten Batgirl

Given all the talk about Barbara Gordon resuming the mantle of Batgirl, it's funny that so many people have forgotten about the short-lived Batgirl of 1976.

No, not Betty Kane. No, not Barbara Gordon. No, not Helena Bertinelli. No, not Cassandra Cain. No, not Stephanie Brown.

Who am I talking about, then? Check it out:

What, you don't see it? Take a closer look:

And just like that, a thousand fanfics were launched...

By the way, speaking of that cover...since it would appear to be a Riverdale High baseball game, why is Reggie umpiring?

Yeah, that's Archie #255 (1976)

DC Missed The Boat

Clearly, in the rush to come up with 52 new titles (why 52?? Why not?? Because it would make a good deck of playing cards?), DC has failed by giving us mostly the same old same old. 4 Green Lantern titles and 9 Bat titles?? You've wasted 1/4 of your output there!!

And how many three-time losers are you giving a fourth chance to, DC? Aquaman? Hawkman? Green Arrow? Animal Man? Captain Atom? Blue Beetle?? C'mon, these schlubs couldn't hold there own titles before (multiple times before for most of them). What would make you think that this time will be any different?

No, DC really missed the boat here, a prime chance to really shake up the marketplace!! They should have taken an example from an old competitor, long-since absorbed by the DC Borg Collective:

Hells yeah!! Back in 1971, Charlton was publishing 11--that's right, 11--different romance comics. And the number being published now?? ZERO!!

Shouldn't DC have have taken some of their new output and, instead of wasting it on still more super-hero titles, given us romance comics??

Can you believe that they wouldn't want to protect trademarks like Career Girl Romances or Teen Confessions or Love Diary?!?

Oh, DC, it's still not too late...enough with the Wildstorm revivals and multi-colored Lanterns and rebooted Titans--give us some romance comics!! If you're going to roll back the clock, let's really roll it back, to a time when the market wasn't all super-heroes, and publishers actually aimed at demographics other than males 18-34!!

Please?

Friday Night Fights--Russell Crowe Style!!

It's Friday Night Fights, and last week we showed Black Bolt kicking Hulk's butt. Since it's REPEAT--REHASH--REVENGE, I've got to use one of those two this week.

I'm bored with Black Bolt, so let's do Hulk. But not just any Hulk. No, we're doing late-1990s-ridiculously-over-hyper-muscled-uber-violent Hulk.

The set up? He's fighting Gladiator of the Imperial Guard. Why? Don't worry about why--let's just start with the punchin' and the organ removal!!













OUCH!! Gladiator gets a french-fried face! Hulk-with-Banner's-brain whoops Marvel's Superman analogue (the non-Sentry one, that is).

Of course, Spacebooger does not approve of the gratuitous ultra-violence on display here. He loves it, but he doesn't approve.

Chris Cooper, Jeff Rebner and Mark Irwin have Hulk bare his heart to us in Incredible Hulk Annual #21 (1997).

Voting for my fight certainly isn't required--but, given that the Hulk is on my speed-dial, you might want to consider the consequences of not voting for me...