walking on sunshine

drive-by readings

Curse of the Mutants: Blade one-shot (Marvel) "The Light at the End" Duane Swierczynski Tim Green Nathan Fairbairn Dave Sharpe Dave Wilkins (cover)

what we learned: why is Blade in Frisco, cozying up to the X-Men? well, he learned he's not the only Daywalker around and his crew of vampire slayers folded faster than an origami championship ensemble. and current big evil kahuna Xarus let it slip that they like mutants. a-ha.
oh shit moment: did i mention that posse of Blade's which went down faster than a waterfall? the Skrull Kill Krew would last longer. or Team Jacob.
what's next: if they were going to remake the Blade movie (historically, Marvel's first big movie hit) for the new generation, who would you want to play the role? Nelsan Ellis? Jaden Smith? that kid in Everybody Hates Chris?


freaks and geeks has been renewed!

snaps: Cable #23

... Cable and Hope find an old friend in 2044, and find even more enemies. in the middle of it all, they take a stroll through Central Park.

not the thing to say for a white-haired middle-aged man traveling with a young girl still in her teens.


i think Emma Frost would like this spunky brat. after she gets past the red hair.


this is what they mean when they say you need it like a hole in your head.


who says women are bad drivers? oh, wait ...


you better hope its going to be concluded next issue, because we're goddamn tired of time travel.

snaps: Cable #22

... where we've been doing this time hopping for the past year. man, even the fans are tired. good thing the end of this Messiah trilogy is around the corner. so anyway, Hope Summers - now a smoking hot young woman - confronts her longtime (thousands of years in hers, though maybe only 12 months in comic fans' lives) tormentor Lucas Bishop (one thing that gets my goat is the turning of Bishop into a prime grade AAA asshole, though the storyline wouldn't work if he's not the antagonist, given his background and history). yeah, they do talk, but forget about the diplomacy, they just declare that they hate each other and the chase is on once again.

white woman standing over black man - a bit heavy-handed, don't you think?


Bishop screams his anguish when he learns they cut off his beautiful dreads.


1940 Al Pratt would kick the shit out of you, Rockslide.


yes, he was played by Mel Gibson then.


and that's why Bishop can't have any meaningful relationships.

she's a man-eater!

drive-by readings

Immortal Weapons #4 (Marvel) "Tiger's Beautiful Daughter" Duane Swierczynski Khari Evans Victor Olazaba Allen Martinez June Chung Nate Piekos David Aja (cover)

another excellent Immortal Weapons origin story. too bad you can't make a movie out of these kickass peeps unless you introduce the whole Daniel Rand/Iron Fist/K'un L'un thing. or can you? in this issue, we learn that Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, real name Li Hua, is a young princess longing to be beside her father fighting wars to protect their city. tradition has it that women play the homemaking, nurturing role and leave the fighting to the men. or so they think. when an invading army starts slaughtering them, it is revealed that this horde broke a peace treaty after killing all their women - and it was the women who used to do the fighting (turns out Li Hua's mother was like their #1 badass). the role reversal forced the men, especially Li Hua's father, to invent war stories to keep the next generation safe and not provoke the bad guys. but since the latter just broke the treaty, the men of Li Hua's tribe are too soft to really defend their last moo goo gai pan. this forces Li Hua to fulfill her dreams of being a warrior and thus leads all the remaining women to defend themselves. shame on you men! even i felt emasculated reading this comic. almost. i mean, looking at the hot outfit Li Hua's wearing, and knowing she can beat me up easy ... whoooaaa.

drive-by readings: Immortal Iron Fist #27

Immortal Iron Fist #27 (Marvel) "The Fall of the House of Rand" Duane Swierczynski Travel Foreman David Lapham Timothy Green Juan Doe Javier Rodriguez Nate Piekos Kaare Andrews (cover) Ariel Olivetti (variant cover)

i'm not sure who the best rich dude playing superhero in the 616 universe is: Tony Stark or Daniel Rand. between the two of them, they should've solved cancer, AIDS and the Israel/Palestine question by now. instead they've been distracted saving us from bigger world-beaters (true) time and time again, and now they've both been stripped of their companies. Danny still has his secret ID though, and despite the opportunity to do so, his list of conquests is modest, definitely not in Tony's league, and unlike Tony, he's ready to take the next step as a responsible human being. wait, Tony Stark just sent a text message saying he too, will settle down as soon as he takes care of that Green Goblin maniac running the USA.

back to Danny: his recent adventures have left his company vulnerable and as a result, his net worth has shrunk to Vern Troyer proportions. i would have preferred that Swierczynski painted a few more details as to the tumbling of Rand Inc., but that might be a boring exercise to some. i'm sure the destruction of his building (no insurance?) would qualify as a huge event and should be referenced in other Marvel books. i also liked the neat interspersing of flashbacks of an 8-year old Danny coming to grips with defining a relationship with his dad, building up to this point when he'd be in the same shoes. Luke Cage provides the support as a best friend would, and this is one of the enduring friendships in the Marvel Universe i'd never want to be broken, harking back from their Power Man/Iron Fist days.

as if i didn't like this issue enough, this is where i learned that they're gonna be issuing out Immortal Weapons one-shots for each of Danny's new pals (starting with Fat Cobra). excuse me because i need to change my pants.

Frank doesn't hit like a girl

not only that, he has no problem hitting a girl.



imagine doing that to the bitch who cheated on you and dumped you. whoa!

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Punisher #70

drive-by readings 021409

Cable #11 "Wasteland Blues" Duane Swierczynski Ariel Olivetti Jamie McKelvie GuruFx Joe Caramagna

This series gets more depressing as we go along. Cable's broken time machine can only keep jumping into the future, and that future progressively gets bleaker and bleaker. seriously, i needed to eat some chocolate after reading this. or play some Viva Pinata. anyway, Hope (the baby now grown up a bit) deserves a lot better than piggybacking with Nathan (and without chocolate!) to the future that contradicts her name (i'm sure Duane has a plan. right, Duane?). she also deserves not to be drawn like a seven year old with an adult head. thankfully, Jamie McKelvie restores some order in that regard.

Wolverine/Power Pack #4 (of 4) "Alex Power: Master Ninja" Marc Sumerak Gurihiru Dave Sharpe

the Power family mosey over to Japan, because Alex has been chosen to be contestant on a Japanese gameshow "Ninja Master". talk about exciting. and silly. of course, since the title of this book says so, they end up running conveniently into Wolverine (again), who's - guess what - fighting ninjas. the battle provides Wolverine to dispense ol' grampa wisdom to the kids, which in turn Alex uses to win the Ninja Master competition. at least in the eyes of his family. always a fun read, i hope there'll be more Power Packs coming our way soon.

Adventure Comics #0 "The Legion of Super Heroes"/"Origins and Omens" Otto Binder Al Plastino Geoff Johns Francis Manapul Swands Brian Buccellato

reprinting the now-classic (and also somewhat corny) Adventure Comics #247, where Superboy first meets the Legion, the rebooted series, ostensibly starring the Legion of Super Heroes, leads off with a #0 and contains a backup story by DC superwriter Geoff Johns. in the former, Superboy is recruited by the Legion and made to pass a series of tests. take note that they went back to the past to recruit him and he travelled back with them. they should loan Cable a time machine! so, back to future: Superboy only fails because there were other emergencies that delayed him, and thus he's rejected and subjected to jokes. it turns out they were just joshing him and he actually made the cut. this tells us that in the future, jerks will still abound and won't be eliminated in the evolving gene pool. of course, i was more interested in the backup story, where Luthor uses Brainiac to get out of prison. operating with that assumption proves disastrous, as Brainiac has other plans and forces Luthor to work for him. oh, and did i mention a dead Super -being might be involved?

buggy

cliffhanger of the week!


its always a cliffhanger to have man-sized roaches chasing you at the end of the show.

eeewww. this is almost as nasty as The Exterminators.

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Cable #8