the machinist

drive-by readings

Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #2 (Marvel) Ed Brubaker Dale Eaglesham Andy Troy Joe Caramagna Carlos Pacheco/Tim Townsend/Frank D'Armata (cover)

what we learned: Ed Brubaker doesn't waste any time in revealing who the big bad villain is. after another Erskine bites the dust because Rogers can't save any of 'em, he does the patented Daredevil schtick and beats up half of Madripoor including the ice cream cart guy, and gets zilch. he starts following the late Erskine's wife, who's a doppelganger for a previous love interest (Steve Rogers, Ladies Man). but of course, that's just to prick his all-American heart.
oh shit moment: anybody remember the beach scene from the Madbomb storyline?
what's next: Steve Rogers, Super Sissy!


his safehouse has HDTV? holy crap! i gotta break into one of those!

snaps: Fantastic Four #576

... where we meet the representatives of water, whereas last week we met the denizens of the deep earth. waaaaaaaaait a minute, i see where you're going here, Jon Hickman! so you are telling me, that the three races of old as created by those smug Celestials were not Eternals, Deviants and humans? geddouddaheah!!

Johnny Storm ... loves the winter.


yes, yes ... you forgot making blockbuster movies!!!


Sue confessing to having an affair with a student, in front of students.


this is the Man vs. Wild episode we weren't supposed to see.


male chauvinist pigs all over the world suddenly collapsed from simultaneous heart attacks.

snaps: Fantastic Four #575

... where the Mole Man enlists our fearless foursome to help him ... am not really sure what for. there's this underground city that used to be inhabited by the High Evolutionary, and now it's rising up, and whoever stays within its limits becomes super intelligent. so it rises up, the US is in an uproar, and Ben Grimm may just, just maybe, become at par with Reed Richards in the smarts department.

and the cover of course, has no connection whatsoever with the story inside.


oh my, Princess Leia ... you look different.


get out!! he's a geneticist?? i thought he built a chain of hotels!


umm ... weren't you in New York ... where there's no fault line? (apparently there is.)


the best way to beat Galactus as always, is to starve him.


what are the chances that devolved children living miles beneath the earth's surface, speak English?


shut up, Steve Jobs!! Reed Richards had the HomePad even before your iPad was launched!!

drive-by readings: Fantastic Four #570

Fantastic Four #570 (Marvel) "Solve Everything, Part One" Jonathan Hickman Dale Eaglesham Paul Mounts Rus Wooton John Cassaday/Laura Martin (variant cover)

once again, hubris rears its ugly head. but then again, Reed Richards wouldn't be Reed Richards if he wasn't like this, no? and therein lies the conundrum. for all his smarts, he hasn't made the world a better place to live in. they still got villains running amuck, the Negative Zone still a hotbed of revolution, three cosmic wars just occured, Steve Rogers is lost in time, Norman Osborn is in charge, and even the 616 mutant equivalent of AIDS was solved by Hank McCoy (subsequently rendered moot by those Breakworld aliens). so what does he do for an encore? well, just keep on choppin', that's what. to this end, he built a great machine (oooh, it always starts from those things) allowing him to calculate answers to impossible and even better, reach out to entities who apparently, share his line of thinking. is it a surprise then, that they ... are all him? and these Reeds from different realities and pocket universes - they also seem to have the Infinity Gems in their possession. hey let's play a game: who would win - the Infinity Gems or the Cosmic Cube? the answer is, neither. the Beyonder always wins.

Jonathan Hickman has posited some interesting ideas. let us take a ride with him.

drive-by readings: Captain America #600

Captain America #600 (Marvel) "One Year After" Ed Brubaker/Paul Dini/Roger Stern/Mark Waid/Stan Lee Alex Ross/Butch Guice/Howard Chaykin Rafael Albuquerque/David Aja/Mitch Breitweiser Kalman Andrasofszky/Dale Eaglesham/Al Avison Frank D'Armata/Edgar Delgado/Matt Hollingsworth Marte Garcia/Paul Mounts Todd Klein/Joe Caramagna/Chris Eliopoulos

the landmark 600th issue arrives, with all the hype building up for some time back, with the intent on putting fans and non-fans alike on the edge: how is Marvel bringing back its greatest super-hero? (Spider-Man just looked at the chart of incomes generated by Marvel properties and snickered) the answer to that is coming next month actually. for now, we have a lead-in anniversary issue of sorts, containing previously-published work and new stories examining the support characters in the Captain America mythos - Bucky, Sharon Carter, his Avenger pals, mortal enemy the Red Skull, Tony Stark (via proxy - but is it him really? i thought he was M.I.A.), Crossbones and Sin, the crazy 1950s Cap, Elijah Bradley, even the alternate-Earth "Bucky" Rikki Barnes. but my favorite has to be the return of Bernie Rosenthal, whom Steve squired during my early reading days.

of course, the meat of this comic lies in the fact that Sharon may have found a way to bring Steve back to life (ooooh, do tell), and this seems confirmed by the fact that Sin refers to something about his death that the general public doesn't know. oh yeah, do tell!