i'll be there for you

drive-by readings

Thor, The Mighty Avenger #4 (Marvel) "Boys' Night Out" Roger Langridge Chris Samnee Matthew Wilson Rus Wooton Samnee/Christina Strain (cover)

what we learned: with the arrival of the Warriors Three (always heartwarming), Thor gets a night out ... in Norway. he also makes friends with Captain Britain. after a fashion.
oh shit moment: rocketing from above, the pride of Britannia scatters the gods like leaves.
what's next: Thursday means Thor's Day. so there's gonna be a celebration?


there's a GPS sale at Best Buy, godlings ...

big

drive-by readings

Thor, The Mighty Avenger #3 (Marvel) "Here Be Giants" Roger Langridge Chris Samnee Matthew Wilson Rus Wooton

what we learned: here we see how Thor first meets the Pyms, but due to Loki's usual hijinks, Thor sees Hank Pym as a Frost Giant, and tormented by visions of his Dad and Asgardian pals. we also learn that Hank can do Jedi mind tricks, and Janet can help anyone secure job connections. see, she didn't die during Secret Invasion! wait, what ...
oh shit moment: my pea brain is just processing this - but how does Jane go from museum department head to nurse/doctor?
what's next: by what we see from the last page, its a hugfest courtesy of Volstagg.


and then there was that time that Odin got a severe case of rock diarrhea ...

little lost god

drive-by readings

Thor, The Mighty Avenger #2 (Marvel) "Hyde" Roger Langridge Chris Samnee Matthew Wilson Rus Wooton

what we learned: this kid-friendly series is a great intro for Thor to a new generation of readers, especially with the movie on the horizon. here, he's fish out of water after being cast out of Asgard and trying to walk with humans with Jane Foster as his guide. but of course, Mr. Hyde is there to mess things up.
oh shit moment: didn't know Thor could eat a lot of food! and he doesn't gain weight or get fat! what is his secret???
what's next: Jane takes Thor to Disney World!!!


what? you haven't seen the favelas yet, have you??

snaps: Siege: Embedded #2

... where the road to Oklahoma is paved with the bodies of H.A.M.M.E.R. troops who get between Volstagg and his pork rinds. pork rinds, i say thee!!!

well, why don't YOU be president, then?? on the other hand, never mind.


NormBots > DoomBots


what, not even King or Black Men? you racist bastards.


an out-of-shape ex-TV newscaster gets the drop on a trained soldier. yeaahhh, right.


which is more believable: that a magic kingdom floats over the fields of Oklahoma, or that Volstagg can smoothly maneuver a Goblin Glider and fight? even better, the glider can hold his weight!!!

i'm with fat

drive-by readings

Siege: Embedded #1 (Marvel) Brian Reed Chris Samnee Matthew Wilson Rus Wooton Adi Granov (cover)

Ben Urich is the luckiest character in the Marvel Universe, following in the footsteps of Phil Sheldon, and has been on the front row seat of every significant event in the Marvel U. not the least of his fortune is the fact that he's survived all the crazy shit that happened in the last decade at least, and he didn't need to be saved by his hero pals either. and it makes sense that this anti-Green Goblin crusader would be at the frontline and helping out when they finally bring Norman Osborn down.

running into an old journo/pisser/friend Wil Stern in Chi-Town post-Volstagg eruption, they catch up on old times. even better, Volstagg walks past their diner! talk about being at the right place at the right time. its that ol' Urich luck.

it's a bit contrived that Volstagg, all five hundred thousand pounds of Asgardian jowls and fat, can even be walking around Chicago without being noticed (except by that plucky newsman from New Yawk). not only that, they even feed him an inordinate amount of food, and no one in the diner (presumably, Chicago natives distraught at the destruction of Soldier Field) even acts suspiciously and picks up the phone to call the cops. the H.A.M.M.E.R. helicarriers are all around and with all that technology, they can practically find anyone! the failure to do so also reflects well on reality, as events from the last three weeks have shown, if you have been reading the news.

we're also introduced to the flipside of the honorable Urich cloth - a Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck hybrid who's been commissioned by Osborn to brainwash people all the more to the Goblin's way of thinking. aren't you glad comics aren't written by the conservative right? or maybe its just the sign of the times. if the conditions were different, we would have Captain America slinging his shield and beating up Middle Eastern people (wait, Mark Millar did that in The Ultimates).

Chris Samnee (The Exterminators) brings a gritty feel to Urich's most important journey, and i'm glad to be along for the ride.


you deserve this, America. if you believe ranting idiots like these, its no one else's fault.


imagine if Matt Lauer did that.


hey, i don't see Bullseye in this picture. he's probably killing off survivors.


aw, c'mon! didn't he have burgers in Oklahoma?? are you kidding me??


useless billion dollar technology - no wonder we're in the tank.

snaps: X-Men vs Agents of Atlas #2

... where the time-honored tradition of fighting before simple diplomacy is in full effect. (actually that describes around half of superhero comics since 1938!)

1) cat? i thought he was a dog?! or a horse?!

Q: What do you call a bunch of Hank McCoys?
A: The Blue Cat Group?


2) Namor: "that insolent remark will cost you thirty lashes in our next tryst. when is that scheduled, by the way? am not sure we should do it in Utopia."


3) how do you say "get a room!!!" in Atlantean?


4) speaking of feelings, here's some creepy ones along the lines of cyber-telepathy.



5) oh, i see what you did there, Jeff Parker, you clever man you.


6) lookit! it's Cyclops without his visor or any eyewear!! isn't he handsome?? (this would qualify for a No-Prize, except that its in the astral plane or some plot device which anything is possible)


7) see, there's always a way to stop Wolverine (short of a Muramasa blade).

drive-by readings: Daredevil #500

Daredevil #500 (Marvel) "The Return of the King: Conclusion" Ed Brubaker Ann Nocenti Michael Lark Stefano Gaudiano David Aja Klaus Janson Chris Samnee Paul Azaceta Matt Hollingsworth Chris Eliopulos Marko Djurdjevic/Geof Darrow/Gabriel Dell'Otto/Alex Ross/Patrick Zircher (covers)

and we all thought this Brubaker character couldn't top what Brian Michael Bendis did for our favorite blind lawyer. he also won a what - an Eisner, you say? geddouddaheah!

just kidding. super big fan of Bru, from Sleeper to X-Men to Criminal to Captain America, and to this emphatic conclusion of his Daredevil run. for the first time in a long time, Matt takes a long hard look at his life, and finally makes a decision that has been hinted before but everyone just seemed to go "no, he won't do it ... would he??" and when it happens, they all go "well, yeah ... its about time."

this issue also delves into the long-awaited origin of living-la-vida-loca martial arts sensei Master Izo - who apparently, is a much greater figure than Stick (who's uh, dead for years now, right? - or has he been reincarnated as a blind Asian delivery guy?). the Daredevil/Izo team up is like Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi, only a gazillion times cooler and much more badass. i want Master Izo to be my granddaddy!! he's crude, cunning, devious and insolent and he'll beat up all the bullies in my class!

and Kingpin ... Kingpin ... name me a great DD storyline that didn't have Wilson Fisk's fat (now svelte) ass in it. he may not be as have as much weight (pun intended) as years back when he ruled the underworld, but Brubaker still manages to fit him in such a way it makes sense with his current situation (stripped of his power, demoralized, desperate to find meaning in life). so it stands to reason having Matt take away his golden opportunity to regain his standing will lead to more revenge stories as he might put a lot more effort now into rebuilding what he once had - like making deals with Norman Osborn. little question here: is he still that fat that with two swords buried on his back, he's still breathing? or maybe it was the adrenalin? oh yeah he already got shot in the eye once and still survived. as they say someplace, bad grass die hard.

so where does Matt go from here? certainly not back to Milla (awwww), not back to Dakota (double awwww) and not back to his old life with Foggy (now that's a real friend). no, he's going to do what needs to be done, and that is either lead a criminal organization to a much more benevolent path, or he'll become the World's Most Wanted by 2011. King of The Hand. now that's a Dark Reign.

(props to Ann like-a-girl-from-my-past Nocenti for her little Coney Island tale. Brooklyn represent!)

drive-by readings: The Mighty #6

The Mighty #6 (DC) "Blue Moon" Peter Tomasi Keith Champagne Chris Samnee Rob Leigh John Kalisz Dave Johnson (cover)

i admit, i am torn between The Mighty and Mark Waid's Irredeemable. the two are fairly similar, but diverges slightly in execution, as the latter explores the conditions that drive a beloved superhero to evil, while in the former, the protagonist/antagonist Alpha One has dark secrets that the other protagonist Gabriel Cole has to unravel. in this issue, Cole finally realizes what the vagrant Taylor Rhines, ex-Section Omega, was trying to tell him. we all know Alpha One killed him, and its up to Cole to (prove it and) find out why. his closeness and friendship with Alpha One is a big problem, but it seems like Alpha One doesn't trust him anymore anyway. the tension is building, and this may not be a big DCU title, but its worth checking out.

the devil you don't know

Marvel's MAX line has a new addition: Dead of Night starring Devil Slayer (sounds like a glam heavy metal rock band).

let's just make one thing clear: it ain't your daddy's Devil Slayer (more recently seen in the Hawaiian Initiative - doing luaus and sensing portents of doom and showing Cloak how its done). 

no, in this tale, we have Iraqi vet named Danny Sylva going back for another tour of duty - once a soldier, as they say - to the disbelief and joy of his former buddies. in his case, it seems more like a homecoming.

Sylva has his reasons for going back, since he has nothing else to live for. alternative careers for ex-soldiers seemed in short supply with the tanking of the American economy, and the breakup with his fiancee Maria left him with charges of aggravated assault, drunkenness and disorderly conduct. his CO, Lt. Buckler leaves him with a semblance of something to hold on to - fighting for your comrade in arms, despite the presence of other less-than-honorable men from defense contractor Bloodstone, a Blackwater analogue (apparently, you can get blood from this stone). 

for those not in the know, Lt. Buckler is named after Rich Buckler, who created the Devil Slayer character back in 1977.

a fellow soldier, Wahl, has been kidnapped by jihadists, and a midnight call from an embedded journalist from the Daily Bugle (don't they call it the DB now?) puts Sylva and the team in an impromptu rescue mission. it doesn't go well. for example, Pvt. Miles Ochse, fresh out of boot camp and Sylva's seatmate on the plane back to Baghdad, gets his brains blown out rather quickly.

with his teammates dying alongside him, Sylva runs for cover in a room, he finds a lot more than he bargained for.

Danny Sylva ... Devil Slayer, get it?

just for informational purposes, Dead of Night is written by one Brian Keene, he who ushered a new age of zombie splatterfests with The Rising. i know of one friend who's gonna cream in his pants when he reads this. 

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Dead of Night: Devil Slayer #1

bugs ... live!

The Exterminators
Simon Oliver/Tony Moore/Philip Bond/Chris Samnee/Mike Hawthorne/Ande Parks
DC/Vertigo


humanity has been the ruling species on this planet for thousands of years now. but if you think about it, including the periodic reigns of other life forms (e.g., reptiles), civilizations do come and go. it may only be a matter of time before mankind also goes the way of the dinosaurs. so are we really in control? who is?

newcomer Simon Oliver pulls out all the stops in his comic debut with The Exterminators, a blend of sci-fi, horror, talky drama, political and corporate intrigue, and self-examination, in collaboration with indie artist Tony Moore. i mean, barring the Pixar cartoons, no one would bother to write a comic book series revolving around bugs. or the guys that kill bugs (unless you count Starship Troopers, but that's on a different scale).

bugs, insects and pests have been a bane of society since civilization began, and perhaps they are a by-product of progress. despite inventing ways to efficiently eliminate them, we can never totally do. they even stir our imaginations as a fantasy scourge in novels and films - add some radiation, voila! instant hyped-up objet d'pop culture, on both sides of the fence. do you prefer 8-Legged Freaks or Spider-Man? Food of the Gods or Mickey Mouse?

note: if you're eating while reading this, and have no stomach for gory details, just go to disney.com right now.

here we are in 21st century L.A. where we find one Henry James, ex-con, starting a new job as an exterminator for Bug Bee Gone, owned by his mother's 2nd husband Nils. his first week on the job has him teamed up with AJ, a corrupt misogynist racist bastard.


aside from extracting "favors" from (female) customers who can't pay, AJ also spends his free time getting high ... injecting himself with Draxx, Bug Bee Gone's roach poison of choice. but despite his negatives (nyuk nyuk), the jerk's a pest expert.


and without much ado, he bites the dust in issue #2, exploding from the inside (not for the squeamish). he would be the second fatality in that same day, as Henry discovers another dead body with similar cause of death. he also discovers a box with a scarab symbol among AJ's things.

Saloth Sar, Bug Bee Gone's resident chemical expert, has just presented Nils with evidence that Draxx may not be what it seems - introducing it to a cockroach's latent mutant gene makes it go nuts. introduced intravenously to the human body, Draxx becomes a potent addictive drug as any, and once it reaches its saturation point, organs will go boom! (exhibit A: AJ)


with AJ dead, Henry needs a new partner to finish up training. he either teams up with Kevin, a (yech) bug-eating weirdo, or Stretch, a mysterious Zen-quoting black cowboy. thankfully (but he doesn't know it at that time), Nils pairs him with the latter.


their first team-up brings them to a rat-infested halfway house owned by a friend of a local congressman. Henry is incensed by Stretch's pacifist stance seemingly clashing with his decision to take hush money from the owner, who wants them to shut up about the shoddy treatment of the inmates. little does Henry know that Stretch got it all worked out. owner and his roadster goes ... off-road.

we should do this to all corrupt elected officials. sometimes we can't wait for Karma, can we?

just to let you appreciate how crappy and thankless an exterminator's job is, what if you wake up at night and find yourself in this situation?


still wary of Stretch's belief system, Henry rides out with Kevin for a couple of days. not to say that it wasn't interesting - the Carpenters all day on the truck radio, and finding pests in a ridiculous situation like this:

"supersize me!" seems too weak

Kevin also has a fatalistic streak - and believes Judgment Day will be coming soon, with the people screaming for them "Bug Brothers" to save them from damnation (being overrun by Mother Nature's wrath). Kevin then mentions the symbolism of a Scarab - which drives Henry to discover a scarab beetle key in the home where he discovered the dead body previously.


Henry also provides a quid pro quo for a single mother, whose apartment is infested by roaches. before you pass judgment, Henry did the job in exchange for book-keeping for BBG. however, the job he did (you got it ... spraying roaches with Draxx) just made the sitch worse.

never happens to Wall Street types

Draxx is like PCP, crack, shabu and cocaine all rolled into a hand grenade.


notifying Nils of the problem, and thus independently verifying Saloth's findings, the BBG guys have no choice but to do a Code IV. this means low-intensity kaingin (slash-and-burn for you English types).


in the process, Henry finds Stretch a suitable partner and a good friend.

aside from his daily adventures with BBG, Simon Oliver antes up the multi-threaded story by having his girlfriend Laura (who wants him to find a better job) get a job and promotion with Ocran, the corporation responsible for Draxx, and whom Saloth suspects of developing Draxx for the military back in Vietnam, and peddled as roach poison decades later.

by the way, did i mention Laura swings both ways and thus has an easier way to the top?

Henry's continuing involvement with BBG and his increasing comfiness with his new pals drives him further away from Laura ...

when you think of Laura, laugh don't cry, i know she'd want it that way

... and at the same time finding new love in a form of Page, a ... what shall we call it ... a worker in a "fantasy sex institute". damn, give me the address!!!

raaawwwwrrrr.

despite BBG's best efforts, Saloth fears that the Draxx-powered bugs are not going away anytime soon, and the possibility of them getting organized is high. his fears are realized when a the truck carrying the dead roaches gets into an accident, and the lone survivor (i don't mean the sanitation workers) gets to fight another day.


you have to follow all the storylines, but to Oliver's credit they never get convoluted.

it turns out that Page's day job pays for her post-grad Egyptology studies, so Henry has more reasons to hang out with her. Page helps him out with the Scarab box questions with Professor Wolfe, a spinster with a pizza addiction, and who may or may not have been the official psychiatrist for the Nazi party (and still pining for Carl Jung, that horny toad).


it also turns out that Kevin the weirdo has S&M inclinations, cranking up his exterminator instincts by moonlighting as El Muerte Negra, a player in the underground wrestling circuit. he goes up against rats. did i mention he goes up against rats?

a deleted scene in Nacho Libre

Saloth Sar, genetic genius working for a bug company, may have his own demons - he has a hidden past working for the great humanitarian Pol Pot, a past that he has no compunction to do anything to keep hidden.


and he has good reason to keep it that way, since he's kind of getting some. revenge of the nerds, baby!!!



but wait ... Pol Pot's real name is actually Saloth Sar!?! Mr. Oliver, you fiendish, you.

Nils has to reluctantly dip into and retell BBG's history as a company founded by his father, with a partner named Crawley. Crawley until his death, was increasingly becoming a sexual deviant and dabbled in ritualistic practices, not coincidentally tied in with BBG's meal ticket: bugs. (crap, did i say "meal"?)

there's also the research made by Page and Professor Wolfe, about a brutal Egyptian king named Atan, who worshipped a bug deity called Kheperon, and forced his people to do so or else. just prior to being mummified, Atan vowed to return in another form, one way or another, to bring dominion of the bugs over mankind.

sounds like a movie to me!


oh, yeah, and there's the sightings of a mysteriously-resurrected AJ. no coincidence.


Saloth's fears are realized when a bug insurgency takes place, and they methodically attack a power station (no, not that semi-supergroup).

the Bush presidency will always have its laughable moments

Detective Hunter, an ornery detective character role made for Jack Nicholson, is still unconvinced about Henry's innocence in AJ's death, but promises to sweep things under the rug if the Bug Brothers fix this mess.

"Protect and Serve" is only for rookie cops. after that, its "Heat and Serve".

what follows is an icky/funny battle down in our sewage system, as Henry, Stretch and Kevin wade through shit (literally) and face off against a probably-resurrected Atan (via AJ) and his roach army.


Oliver has the trio talking like informed and intelligent geeks, rather than the blue collar joes that might be associated with such a job.


i don't have enough experience with being in sewers and how it may affect your logical reasoning; let's just say you might lose your sanity in that muck.



with millions of roaches overloading their sensors, the facility manager has no choice but to pump all the raw sewage out in the sea.

fear factor: septic tank edition

The Exterminators is a funny and interesting read, and even throws in relationship issues more than most. obviously, the story isn't over, with Atan convincing the roaches that he is the real deal, leaving Henry to deal with him in the future as he learns more about the box. plus you have the mega-corporation factor and the knowledge (or not) that Saloth may be on the side of the angels (or not).

oh by the way, did i mention about the sex ... maybe i forgot. my bad.



humanity may still exterminate all the pests plaguing it. but we could still shoot ourselves in the foot. with fatal results.

we could easily be la cucaracha
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issues read: #1-12