snaps: Dark Avengers Annual #1

... where Noh-Varr is shown to be a lot more needy than we thought.

1) guess who looks like a penis!! a Space Ghost Penis!!!


2) apparently, he's not really seeing the illegal aliens surrounding him, right, Lou Dobbs?


3) wait, shouldn't Noh-Varr be talking to Medusa or Crystal, not this Cthulthu-inspired know-it-all whose answer for evolution is to nuke his own people??


4) yes, and the best way to do that is to hang around with a hip and trendy NYU student!



5) so, he got saved from the time trap then? did Reborn end already? did the printing schedule fuck up again? hey, wait, that's the RED SKULL!!!

brand new ways to die

yeah - i mean, why not??

thanks to Bullseye's creativity (eat that, i-make-promises-i-can't-really-keep-so-my-wife-dumped-me Clint Barton!), we are treated to new methods of killing. they should make a History Channel documentary on this, or update it if they already had.

ever tried tossing Paris Hilton's poodle at someone? no? well, damn you better try it sometime. it could be fun.

next, we have Death by Corndogs!! don't tell the good folk at Nathan's and the Coney Island Boardwalk, or we'd have a massacre on our hands!

as for the comic, Brian Reed said it best: "What the Fuck is this Shit all about??"

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Sinister Spider-Man #4

i gotta have faith!

in keeping with the brand new day in this nation



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Amazing Spider Man #576

cliffhanger of the week #1

counting down the best (i.e., the ones i read) cliffhangers of the week.

#3
Iron Man #25
Knauf Brothers/Roberto De La Torre


Maya finally learns who "Tem Borjin" is, Sec Def Koonig sings, and Tony goes head to head with the old geezer with rings in his retro Iron Man armor and without Extremis. oh joy.


#2
X-Men #207
Mike Carey/Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend et al.

though it is a concluding issue, there are still a lot of questions that pushed us over that cliff - starting with "what the hell is going on with Bishop???" who is this new mutant baby? what happens to Gambit? is Sinister really dead? is Charles really dead? what happened to Layla? will Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination?

#1
Astonishing X-Men #24
Joss Whedon/John Cassaday

just whose side's on whose? does Peter have the balls to break this alien world? and with a ten-mile long non-electronic bullet fired at Earth, will the X-Men be able to stop it in time? will i be able to hold my pee? tune back next month! (or months, because this will be allegedly be concluded in a giant-sized issue)

X-terminated

oi!!!

its the conclusion of Messiah CompleX storyline over in X-Men #207, and the world (and our merry mutants) is/are stunned as a rogue Bishop shoots down Ol' Baldie, Chuck Xavier himself.

oh, who are we kidding? Xavier died already several times in the past, at the least regaining/losing the use of his legs as well. we just need Lilandra to get back the Shi'ar Empire and use their technology to bring Xavier back to life again. what's that, Havok? issue #5 of Emperor Vulcan is still going to press? how about those alien jerks in Astonishing X-Men? didn't they revive a dead Cyclops? what, no continuity links between those two? how do you explain Colossus, hmmmm??

here's a curious scene. look carefully, don't blink and you tell me where Xavier's body went.

huh? huh?

well anyway, Chuck's "death", as it were, is the convenient premise for the next storyline, Divided We Stand, and it just means we are just fish that can't fight the hook. damn you, Mike Carey!

but what i really wanna know is ... what the hell's up with Bishop? (yeah i hope no one forget that itty bitty part)

ps. props to everyone for kicking Marauder ass.

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X-Men #207
Mike Carey/Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend/Victor Olazaba/Jon Sibal/Al Vey

some Devil

"The Universe"
v2, #65
Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev/
Michael Golden/Greg Horn/P. Craig
Russell/Phil Hester/Ande Parks/
Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend/
Jae Lee/David Finch/Frank Quitely

yeah, so that's another 2 months off the books ... geez. if this was a paying job, i'd been fired oh-so-long-ago. so i'm grateful it isn't.

but what about my minuscule audience, who have been starving on my take on DD for the longest time? i apologize, but i probably will get to issue #100 when in real time, they'll be putting out issue #200.

for now let us subsist on the 40th anniversary of the man in red tights, issue #65, an all-star extravaganza, which doesn't advance the current storyline, but adds layers to the mythos and makes Daredevil the treat that it is.

back to where we left off ... Daredevil's been outed to the press, his personal life is a mess ... what else is there to say? well, apparently, the ageless Mr. High and Mighty Nick Fury has a few words.

"i'm THE SPY. it's what i do." that made me chortle.

very few people would not shit in their pants when Fury starts talking tough. Matt is one of those (uhm, on account of being blind, perhaps ...?).

Fury offers Matt a way out, to be a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. he would have an easier time rehabbing A.I.M. and make them all Red Cross volunteers.

ok, how much does anybody want to bet that the reason why Fury has been missing all these years is that he went underground to prepare against the upcoming Skrull invasion (the future crossover i call World War Skrull, but commonly known as Secret Invasion)?

this special issue is an all star jam showcasing Matt's relationship with certain characters in the Marvel Universe at this particular juncture, and is led off by the highly esteemed Michael Golden. next up is a splash page special by one of my favorite cover artists, Greg Horn, whose brilliant visuals on Spiderman's reflections on Matt keep fueling my dream that he'd be doing interiors one day. wait, that's not Mary Jane! that's Tila Nguyen, a.k.a. Tila Tequila!!

then we have Mr. Killraven himself, P. Craig Russell, contributing a quiet scene with Captain America in Central Park (?). i guess if Nick Fury can't convince Matt to cut and cut cleanly, neither can the figurehead of freedom.

a couple of nice bits was Matt being paranoid about being seen with Cap - he senses "fourteen people within shouting distance" and "a couple making out under that bush". which means whenever i'm in Central Park, i never look at the right places!!!

then there's the Punisher sequence, courtesy of the Irredeemable Ant-Man team of Phil Hester and Ande Parks. it turns out the Punisher was present in that Hell's Kitchen bar when Matt uttered his "I am the Kingpin" soundbyte. i'm sure he's more than a little pissed that Daredevil beat him to the Fat Man (hello, Frank, you've racked up a high body count, but very few majors).

running into each other 2 months later, Matt and Frank get into it, and there's no doubt who's gonna win in this book. this is payback for that humiliating scene over in Punisher #3, where he hogties DD enough to equip him with a gun, and makes him choose between letting Frank assassinate a bad guy, or stop the whole thing by taking Frank's life.

the inimitable Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend duo seems to be in the wrong book (i thought i walked in the Joe Kelly X-Men set), but this is fine ... its the Dr. Strange sequence. Matt pays the good doctor a visit after pwning him when the guys met in Central Park.

well, whaddayaknow ... the Devil knows how to apologize.

Matt allows the Doc to complete his sentence about the proverb this time, although Strange senses that Matt "may not be the proverb type." but advice is what Matt came there for, thus Doc gives sage wisdom as befits his stature. however, it must be the tea sometimes ...

ouch. for such a sorcerer supreme, you don't watch TV, don't you? i almost sense a billy club striking you on the head.

Matt tries to know if there's an easy way out of his problems. but as we all know, whether you're a fictional hero or a real one ... there really isn't a magic pill for life (ok, the Scarlet Witch's reality-altering powers not included!).

Messrs. Jae Lee, David Finch and Frank Quitely all contribute splash pages, and i like the latter because fighting ninjas over the edge of a building is not the usual Quitely fare.



to end, we learn that the kingpin before the Kingpin is getting out of jail. of course, there will be a connection.


addenda (12/10/2007):
i should have thought of this sooner, but my friend (and sole regular reader - hahaha) Gloria pointed this out to me. Brian Michael Bendis, bless his cranium, had a rare brain freeze and ...


well, okay, if anyone can tell me that wasn't Doc Stephen in Daredevil #8, then i'll give you a free chai latte. just go to your local Starbucks and tell 'em i sent you.

species diseases

despite being a lifelong X-fan, there's a conspicuous dearth of X-related posts in this blog, and am correcting that now.

the latest summer X-crossover is "Endangered Species" and springboards off the House of M/Decimation storylines of 2 years ago (the mutants were basically benched in Civil War), where the Scarlet Witch pretty much switched off the mutant gene (except the -cough, cough - major characters in X-Men, of course). as a result, there are no more mutants being born or exhibiting powers at puberty. so basically, if you can kill off the X-Men and their affiliates, you'd pretty much wipe out mutantkind. oh, the joy of Steven Lang and Cameron Hodge's ghosts, dancing on top of tables right now.

given the poster/cover above, we should expect a lot more mutants to go six feet under. well, that's what they want us to think; writers usually kill off insignificant characters, or if they do kill major ones, there's already somebody out there planning the comeback from the grave. c'mon, we know the drill.

since they don't do wraparound covers anymore, this means hardcore fans have to shell out double or triple bucks for variant covers. capitalism rules!!!

let's check who's on deck ... courtesy of the always-fun Chris Bachalo.

Colossus? check. i know its been a couple of years, but how glad are you that he's back, rendering his spectacular sacrifice for curing the Legacy Virus moot? if not for Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men - where he was ironically brought back - i'd be really, like, disappointed. ah dunno if you like Sam's toothpick-in-mouth look, but he does look a lot more like a redneck. and is that Northstar on the upper left?

we got Rogue, the leader of the adjectiveless group of X-Men (to distinguish those from the Astonishing ones). Cyclops with minimalist visor, Beast, Kitty Pryde, and Bishop. did you notice what he wrote on his gun barrel? badass!

i still wonder they associate with Mystique - bloodlines to Rogue and Kurt be damned. i guess we got a whole new confident Iceman now, and Cable's still holding the line (heh). i don't like Wolverine's pose here - is he having a bad case of diarrhea?

and even this little spy is in the mix! let's have him breath fire on Mystique's smug face!

over to the other side, courtesy of i-do-like-him-but-really-cant-figure-out-why Humberto Ramos ... we have the antagonists of the piece.

Sunfire, we know ... looking closer to his Age of Apocalypse incarnation, and more recently, involving himself more and more into mutant affairs (he was one of The Twelve, after all, not to mention served as a Horseman). not like in 1970, when he walked out of the Xavier's school even before they made him an official X-Man. something about Bobby making a joke about Japanese internment camps.

we have the usual gaggle of Marauder suspects - Vertigo, Harpoon, Scalphunter, Arclight and Riptide - who may or may not be clones. i don't know anymore; didn't Mr. Sinister get the memo? clones are so '90s! ask Spiderman.

should i be surprised that petulant jerk Random is on this side? and why is the White Queen doing a sexy pose here? you mean to say she loses it again and flips again like a pancake/Democrat? Scott should dump her right now! what in the name of the Shi'ar is going on?

and who's leading the charge from the bad side? why, its none other than Rogue's ex and ex-X-Man, Gambit, who's been more on the side of the crazies in the past 5 years or so. really?? that lovable Cajun? i guess he's been twisted inside so much he doesn't know which way is up anymore. or there's something here that Mike Carey isn't telling us. yet. so i'll bet on that.


the loser Exodus is onboard as well, as is Marauder Prism (that's him, right, with the V-shaped forehead?). rounding out the posers are two chicks who were most recently on the side of the angels - Omega Sentinel and Lady Mastermind. they switch to the other side right here.

and the biggest switch of all, which probably sent most X-fans into a cesspool of shock, anger, and i-told-you-sos, was this:


and this after boinking Iceman (he won't live the teasing down for awhile).

oh, it's on, baby!


(damn, i need a mutant refresher course)
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X-Men: Endangered Species #1, X-Men #200
Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas, Tim Townsend, Scot Eaton