punchout part 2

drive-by readings

Hulk #24 (Marvel) "The Strongest There Is" Jeph Loeb Ed McGuinness Mark Farmer Morry Hollowell Richard Starkings/Comicraft McGuiness/Farmer/Frank D'Armata (cover) Dale Keown (variant cover)

what we learned: the final battle (yeah, right) between the original Hulk and Rulk (hey, they could be like Shake n Bake in Talladega Nights). Banner's masterplan unfolds and knowing he could beat Ross in a fight (laying waste to DC memorials in the process), backs him into a corner of defeat and humiliation. that is of course, until they need him again. that's a mistake that might blow up in their faces.
oh shit moment: great in-your-face artwork from Ed McGuinness. this is how it should end.
what's next: anybody still wondering why Red Hulk would be in Secret Avengers?


Honest Abe: "and what the hell are you two gonna do about this mess you made??"

my first project: Ultimates 3.

yes, Jeph Loeb is going to make you watch the death of Wanda and the Tony Stark sex tape and the Blob eating Janet on your TV soon! hwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

snaps: Hulk #23

... where everything about the Red Hulk and General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross is revealed. so do you feel like a chump after Jeph Loeb just put you on that rollercoaster ride the last couple of years? do ya??


uhhhh ... that Rolling Stone guy just published your drunken comments, sir.



i guess we know which Friend he didn't like.


seriously?? everyone can just revive everyone now? why is this not being mass-marketed? this spells the death of insurance and big pharma!!!


and here i thought ignorance was bliss.



streaks on his face? i don't even wanna go there.



the Redeemer Armor: because Mysterio and Bob the Uranian just wasn't enough.


Gen. Stanley McChrystal was surprised at the reaction of the Obama Administration.

Red Hulk is a redneck!

oh-HO-HO, Jeph Loeb, you did not!!!



so i was partly right. it was a red herring. i had my money on Glenn Talbot somehow.

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Hulk #22

snaps: Ultimate - New Ultimates #1

... where we find Jeph Loeb continuing his massacre of the Ultimate Universe in the attempt to out-Millar Mark Millar, and possibly even @Not_Mark_Millar. by the time this ends, i won't be surprised if there were no Ultimates left. tell you what: if you keep Frank Cho on the book till its inevitable critically-panned conclusion, i'll keep reading it.

"and we created fake Twitter accounts too!"


"Linda"? "asian"? is it Linda Park??


and after this conversation, you're still a coward.


you think this happens in the 616? maaaaaaaybe.


is it that time of the year? yeah, spring is in the air!

let's see how this plays out - Hela gets a son, but she also secretly empowered and sent the Defenders to grab Thor's hammer. in the end, Thor would be useless to her as her child would now be the Thunder/Death God. but how does Loki figure into this joke again?

he ain't Daken

well, the claws were a dead giveaway.

so this is Jimmy Hudson, son of the late (Ultimate) Wolverine. for now, he's got his dead dad's healing factor, and the bone claws. as an added bonus, he can coat the claws with liquid steel. next issue, he's gonna sprout feathery wings, show a modicum of telekinetic ability, turn into a snowcone machine, and shoot laser beams out of his left eye.


so ... X-Man or Mimic?

/Ultimatum sucks, and they're perpetuating it. thanks a lot, Jeph Loeb.

R.I.P. Thunderbolt Ross

wait, what rest in peace? serves you right, you selfish egoistic prick. i hope that hurt more than hell.

do we care?

well, probably by even posting this, we do. but will we ever really trust Jeph Loeb to write something decent again?

* Ultimate X looks like a hybrid of Nate Grey, Wolverine, Adam X, Longshot, Shatterstar and your regular emo teen. loads of fun.

who goes topless to the shrink?

of course, it wouldn't be Tony Soprano!

it's just the last decent Hulk character taking the step over to the dark side.

so this was the whole "WTF is a Red Hulk" thing leading to. Dr. Leonard Samson, psychologist to the superstars, has battling his own demons and has finally snapped. thank you, Jeph Loeb. we are so friggin' enlightened.

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Hulk #18

fay-ar!

Jeph Loeb axed. probably because the Heroes can't out X-Men the X-Men?

red tide

Red Hulk slaps Thor around. and even gets to carry his hammer to pound his Asgardian ass.




no need to show Thor getting his punches in, the outcome is the same.

somewhere, somehow, Tony Stark is laughing.

they better explain the whole shebang next issue, or am gonna pummel someone.

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Hulk #5
Jeph Loeb/Ed McGuinness/Mark Farmer/Jason Keith/Comicraft

almost

the ambiguously gay duo of World War II.




with apologies to Messrs Loeb and Sale. love all your works.

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Captain America: White #0
Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale/Dave Stewart/Comicraft

ultimate alliance

after reading the reissued Ultimates Vol. 2 as The Ultimates Saga, which was from Tony Stark's reflections (and hacking Samuel Jacks- er, Nick Fury's files), they gave out a teaser poster of the next chapter of the Ultimates (Marvel's re-imagined Avengers, for the postmodern 21st century ADD-addled internet generation).

you know most of them but wha-? is that a Valkyrie or is that Valkyrie? you know, the teenager they introduced earlier in the series with no powers whatsoevs.

are we there yet? can i sit down now?

freed from the purview of S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark finances the group and has some new members - the aforementioned sword-wielding bimbo and that kickass dude in a oh-so-difficult pose above. they just call him "The Panther". no T'Challa, no nuthin'.

first order of business: watch a sex tape of Tony and the recently-deceased traitor Natasha (the Black Widow). who made this and why? furthermore, did they watch it until the end? and is there a sequel?

the festivities are interrupted when Venom (huh? what?) barges into the mansion by using Thor as a wrecking ball. darn, its so easy to barge into the mansion these days. security, pfah.

the new Hawkeye (well, the same one, but much more ... suicidal) becomes a cardboard cutout hardass, given that he's already an iceman as it is.

i'm not sure if the inclusion of Valkyrie here was to provide a fantasy setting (flying horse, sword). didn't she sleep with Hank Pym once? and now she's sucking face with Thor? talk about sleeping your way to the top!

speaking of Thor, he seems to have lost his green street cred and is now embracing all the worldly pleasures this mortal plane can offer. and he speaks ... like a Hollywood writer (not the ones on strike).

after disposing of Venom (who was raving about a girl) with a well-placed thunder lightning strike, the team, now with Jan as team leader, tries to regroup, but everyone seems to have their own separate agendas - Tony drinking (tumor problems?), Hank trying to OD (probably because Thor is boinking the sword chick), Cap feeling distant ... and even more so when he gets it that siblings do boink each other (yes, i'm talking about you, Pietro and Wanda). Magneto's children are sick in the head.

talking about these sick puppies, somebody tries to gun them down on a cold wintry morning on Sixth Avenue, and for all of Pietro's speed, somebody succeeds.

seems like there's a conspiracy going on to take down the Ultimates. based on the expanded cover below, they'll be going toe to toe with some "bad" muthers soon enough (is that the Blob?? and Sabretooth? what, were the Ultimate X-Men not good enough?).

though the work isn't a great leap from BattleChasers (and we all hope this run of yours doesn't end up that way either) ... welcome back, Joe Mad.

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Ultimates Vol. 3
Jeph Loeb/Joe Madureira/Christian Lichtner

falling star

it is time to really say goodbye to Steve Rogers, as detailed in the closing chapter of the Fallen Son series, shepherded by Jeph Loeb.

but if we are expected closure, more questions come to light.


so some substitute is buried in Arlington, and presumably the real body is here in this coffin. and the Shield? where is the Shield? Tony's holding more secrets than J.K. Rowling prior to the last Harry Potter book.

Tony wants Steve buried beneath the icy depths, where his second life started. in a show of solidarity, Namor pledges to safeguard his body.


but is Tony really going to accept that his best friend is dead?


with all the liberties Tony took after Steve died, i can't believe that he might not have given a thought about cloning Steve. he already did it once, and i can't wait to see his reaction when Thor learns of that perfidy. heh, perfidy (thank you, Kurt Busiek).

and with all the hints of the Skrull shit going on here and there .... who can we trust??

and Namor talks about protecting the body as long as he is the ruler of the seas. by the way, in Sub-Mariner #1, i believe a coup against him is in progress ...

sorry to be so cynical. can't help it.
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Fallen Son - The Death of Captain America: Iron Man
"Acceptance"
Jeph Loeb/John Cassaday

on your mark, get set ... no.

Fallen Son: Captain America
Jeph Loeb/John Romita Jr./Klaus Janson
Marvel


three deep into the self-contained introspective stories after the death of Cap, Fallen Son: Captain America examines the effects on the long-lost Hawkeye (has there been any, any solid explanation at all how he came back from the dead? no? figures.). right off the bat, the moment he shows himself to Tony Stark, he gets sucker-punched.


Luke Skywalker needed S.H.I.E.L.D. treatment after getting raped by wampas


finding an opportunity to bring another hero to the fold, Tony nudges the always-impulsive Clint Barton into possibly donning the uniform and the Shield. after much screaming and scheming, Clint does agree. but only for a spin.

as i see it, Tony has a point, but its difficult to roll out a new symbol of the American Dream, especially if the previous one had size 25 ones. even one who could capably fill them admirably. why not roll out an armored Captain America robot, Tony? that could assuage your guilt. but nah, it wouldn't work.









we get teased by what could be when Clint shows up in full costume, accompanying Tony to stop two renegade teenage heroes, the Patriot (grandson of the black Cap, Isaiah Bradley), and "Hawkeye" (Kate Bishop, whose costumed identity was offered to her by Cap himself, after Clint's disappearance.

of course, the black guy starts cussing. i mean, how typical is that, Jeph Loeb?

after listening to them (and enduring a skirt costume joke), Hawkeye/Cap lets the two go, to Tony's consternation (his record in attempting to capture the renegade Avengers is now 0-12). they have a final discussion, again putting Tony's sterling reputation in the mud.

reminds me of that time when all Avengers got to live in Camelot-ian times, courtesy of Morgan Le Fey's magic tricks (thank you, Kurt Busiek!), with Hawkeye trying to convince Iron Man to see it from the point of view of the regular guys, but gets dissed.

by the way, with Hawkeye being the latest, how many Cap substitutes has Marvel tossed out there already? actually, the whole exercise is fun, pitting fanboy against fanboy, with their own frothy opinions on who could be the next.

here's Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, going up against super neocons in the Punisher War Journal.

America ... Fuck Yeah!

this is MVP (Michael Van Patrick) a sort of super athlete with perfect genes (revealed to be the grandson of the inventor of the original Super Soldier serum injected into Steve Rogers). too bad he got killed in the first training mission in Avengers: The Initiative. God who knows whose keeping a sample of his DNA right now, for future use? as maverick/hack auteur Carlo J. Caparas would say, "God Save Us!"

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

and we still haven't gotten into the reborn Bucky Barnes yet (a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Captain America's Boy Toy), who, as per Captain America #26, wants to whack Tony Stark.

speaking of Tony, i think he had a quick fling with Katie Couric, she of the $15 million salary and falling ratings, with his inclusion of colonoscopy in standard physical exams of suspects.

so far, the Fallen Son series has been an enjoyable one, and i'm looking forward to the last two (Spider-Man and Iron Man).