riders on the storm

drive-by readings

Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven #3 (Marvel) Ron Zimmerman Howard Chaykin Edgar Delgado Jeff Eckleberry Mark Brooks (cover)

what we learned: i am not ashamed to say i like this series, fluffy cowboy and all. so we learn who the seventh man is, and he's just a Kid named Billy. Zimmerman evokes the silly comedy of old Westerns in moments where Doc Holliday bitchslaps the punk, and the Earp brothers fighting each other in their jail cell (something's not right there). even better, seven bad guys have been matched against the Sensational Seven. that evokes Avengers vs Squadron Supreme circa 1976. another Avengers tip o' the hat: Matthew Hawkins remembering his Avenger days. good times.
oh shit moment: the opening scene has the jackass (and ugly) Billy throwing his weight around, before Doc puts him in his place.
what's next: slap leather!!!


if there's a Kid Dead, then No-Good Kid sounds better.

prissy prissy bang bang

drive-by readings

Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven #1 (Marvel) Ron Zimmerman Howard Chaykin Edgar Delgado Jeff Eckleberry John Cassaday (cover)

this is where i make peace with the fact that one of my childhood cowboy friends is a fast-drawing elegant metrosexual. right. breathe deeply. exhale. how ya doin', Kid?


that's just his way of saying he blows. i kid, i kid.

Rawhide Kid saunters into Tombstone, where he discovers the Earp brothers have been kidnapped by an old unfriendly acquaintance named Cristo Pike. most of this he learns from his good gal pal, Annie Oakley, who's probably not as fetching in real life.

does "continental lifestyle pleasures" include eating snails and horses? just asking.

he dresses well, he's a deadeye, he fixes hair, and to top it off, he can quiet an unruly crowd and lay a beating on bullies with the best of them. yeah, he doesn't like the name calling so you's better watch that potty mouth, boy.

with the threat of Pike hanging the Earp brothers, the Kid decides to rustle up a posse to mount a rescue, and one of them fellers is probably below:

hey, did you rape Mockingbird?

actually, its a fun read, and riffing off The Magnificent Seven, this looks to be a nice trip back to the Old West, Marvel-style.

say, Kid, what do you do to keep your face clean and smooth while riding out there?



which reminds me ... i need to get Red Dead Redemption so bad.

yippee ki-yay, M'F-er!

drive-by readings

Die Hard: Year One #1 (Boom!) Howard Chaykin Stephen Thompson Matthew Wilson Ed Dukeshire Dave Johnson Jock/John Paul Leon (variant covers)

well, well, well. i didn't know they were putting this out. as a fan of the Die Hard series, i feel that its best served on film, not on sequential art. but whatever. until the next movie comes out, this is aimed squarely at the ... well, die-hards.

here our intrepid hero John McClane starts life as rookie cop in mid-70s Big Bad Apple, emphasis on the bad, which today's generation wouldn't really know about. yes, kiddies in those days, you would not want to walk in Times Square, and no, there wasn't any Toys R Us then!

and that's as far as we go. this is primarily a set up issue. we have country bumpkin Rosie Haskell, trying to keep up with life in the big city, becoming a witness to a murder perpetrated by two corrupt cops (and before you say anything, only one of them is white). the vague reason being, the victim, Ira Lewis, wanted more money for something, and the two cops wouldn't budge. so as usual, events beyond his control will engulf McClane and be his first test of fire, honing the skills of getting out of sticky situations, skills that should serve him well in the future.

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!

cherry picking

cherry picking: stuff i double-clicked read. will try not to spoil. i said try.

World War Hulk is NOT the end of the world!

as we can see here, Jen got a haircut, lost her powers and is back to lawyering. which means the world survived World War Hulk. now if only we could learn in advance what happened. Recorder, speak up!!! oh, he blew up?! dang.

Marc Ecko supports the New Warriors

that's all you need to know. oh, and Stark Tower (and Tony Stark) are still/again upright. which corroborates the statement we made above. this officially makes all plot threads running in the Marvel Universe entangled - what happened when?


'Cuda, Woulda, Shoulda.

guess who's back ................! yep, its your friendly neighborhood gangsta Barracuda! mayhem ensues. and Frank's all tied up. and is possibly a pappy?