coming out to play

drive-by readings

Shadowland: Power Man #2 (Marvel) "War In the Neighborhood" Fred Van Lente Mahmud Asrar Scott Hanna Bruno Hang Dave Sharpe

what we learned: now i get why the Simster was raving about this yesterday - only old school guys will probably get the joke. the new Power Man (Kid?) gets into a tussle with Danny and Luke (the original), and in the process draws attention from a bunch of gangs (well, really, just a representative) who's out to bag him for money. hilarity ensues.
oh shit moment: this kid can absorb Danny's chi? really? wait, shouldn't Danny be out like a light now? remember mind melds and that healing shit (when he first "died"; thanks a lot, Captain Power).
what's next: Nights-s-sh-sh-shade! (to the tune of "Shirt Tales")


uhhh .... she's ... Bejeweled?

rolling to the edge

drive-by readings

Daredevil #509 (Marvel) Andy Diggle Antony Johnston Roberto De La Torre Matt Hollingsworth Joe Caramagna John Cassaday/Laura Martin (cover)

what we learned: Master Izo and Elektra infiltrate the Snakeroot HQ and find out who's pulling the strings. apparently, they have no teleporting device and Matt's not exactly answering his Droid X. so they need to get back to the States by foot. meanwhile, Typhoid Mary shows up at Matt's door, ostensibly to work for him and work him, if you know what i mean.
oh shit moment: anybody seen the new-look scruffy Iron Fist? awesome!!
what's next: something exploded in Shadowland, and i doubt if it was the ninjas who had polished off the burritos for lunch.


then there was that time Master Izo joined Takeshi's Castle (Wipeout for you Americans)

heart of darkness

drive-by readings
man, with the LeBron James reality show, fighting Burning Maniacs and Spiderants in Borderlands, the oppressive heatwave in the East Coast, and this little thing called the day job, i didn't have time to do anything with the funnybooks. trying to correct that ... right about ... now.

Shadowland #1 (Marvel) Andy Diggle Billy Tan Batt Christina Strain GuruEFx Joe Caramagna John Cassaday/Laura Martin (cover)

just like the Stark Tower before it, a new skyline attraction has sprouted up in Manhattan in the Hell's Kitchen district. the Stark Tower, despite being built only a few years ago has been destroyed and rebuilt several times already, probably at a rate not even the original Avengers Mansion endured. will Shadowland go through the same thing?

not if the Avengers have anything to say about it. the Big Three thinks its a blight on the landscape and on the Heroic Age they're trying to establish. Luke Cage and Danny Rand, more of street-level heroes than most and with stronger ties to Matt Murdock, prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. considering they don't really know what the devil Matt's doing with it (or whatever his endgame is), that's pretty much a big leap of faith, and this series will explore how that's going to turn out.


welcome to this summer's crossover du jour (Second Coming is ending, so what else is out there?). Andy Diggle puts his stamp on Daredevil by placing him in Punisher territory, with the difference being he didn't start out like Frank Castle did. it certainly intrigues the fans as to how this thing will end - has The Hand really changed Daredevil, and will he turn a heel for the foreseeable future? or will he make a last-second turnaround, make the sacrifice play and destroy the Snakeroot once and for all? for Daredevil followers like me, it does make me happy to see the Snakeroot back, and to see Bullseye get the royal asskicking he richly deserves since getting a bullseye carved on his head back in the Bendis run. the last page is an obvious homage to the Frank Miller era. their costumes, now eerily similar, poses the question of "what's the difference between them now?".

not a big fan of Billy Tan, and this reminds me why. he's mostly competent, but there are times when things seem off (like long limbs and weird faces?). that's fine though; it won't dissuade my interest. i'm going to follow Matt down this dark path, and see where it takes him.

snaps: Thunderbolts #145

... where we find that it wasn't really Baron Zemo that showed up, it was just the Fixer. oh thank goodness! after being humiliated, the new T-Bolts go on their first mission: to find and capture some runaway Asgardian Trolls, who apparently have been spending too much time on the Internet that they're crashing forums and message boards.


yes, and those smelly geeks and nerds at comic cons too!!


how the hell can he drink and punch at the same time now?


uh oh. traitor alert!!!


imagine what would happen if Moonstone got torn in half by the Hulk!!


Juggy suddenly wanted to eat some dirt, then take a nap.


have you met the Ghost, the floating high tech garbage can?

thunderous

drive-by readings

Thunderbolts #144 (Marvel) "The Boss" Jeff Parker Kev Walker Frank Martin Albert Deschesne Marko Djurdjevic (cover)

the Heroic Age/Avengers relaunch books have been outdoing themselves in the past week. Secret Avengers #1 trumped Avengers #1, and now Thunderbolts #144, with Luke Cage leading the new team, just one-upped Secret Avengers.

Cage has been put in charge personally by Steve Rogers, of rehab/redemption of the wayward superpowered denizens of the Marvel U, and that's a tall order even if Cage has been on the wrong side of the law numerous times (technically, does that include his time with the resistance Avengers during the SHRA?). i'm pleased that ex-Thunderbolts that did display the propensity to reform (Songbird, Fixer, Mach V) are still in the mix, and i hope it stays that way. if not, you can just scrap this program.

just like the Avengers lineups, the new T-Bolts are intriguing. the choices weren't 100% Cage's choices, but then it would be great to see them all work out. especially this guy:


and this guy:


the need for a team tech still falls on the Ghost who sort of straddled the fence in Siege and now has been given another chance. the inclusion of Crossbones is a much convoluted one, as the selection committee wanted to have someone to be the polar opposite of Cage so the others would stay away from. huh? so why is he even there then? betrayal seems to be in the air down the road, especially when the Red Skull comes back (you know he always comes back).

i'm surprised no one has used the (mind-bending) Man-Thing before for teleportation purposes - Osborn didn't see the need except to chop him up for one reason or another. i guess he regenerated himself somehow (did that happen during Frankencastle?). i wonder what happens if he refuses to cooperate. "Man-Thing tired today. go use a chopper."

though am not sold of adding Moonstone (again!) with the group, especially with her new duds that confuses her with Dagger or Emma Frost, i guess they need some kind of energy wielder with some psych background. i hope they all have spinal bomb implants, because when they all decide to go rogue (even more than Sarah Palin), Cage will be in big trouble.

Jeff Parker has hit his stride with the Thunderbolts at the tail end of Dark Reign/Siege, and now he's cranked it up another notch. not only does he give a nod to Busiek/Bagley's Thunderbolts #1 with his last page reveal, his choice of characters are definitely at the least odd and at the most dangerous. the point is to put the readers on edge on every single issue and i'm looking forward to that.

a backhanded compliment to Gray's Papaya

not that Nathan's will complain ...

-----
Daredevil: Cage Match one shot

Luke he's ugly

and how the hell did Jessica Jones fall in love with this hunky pile of bullet holes? and don't you dare say "once you go black ..". shut it! shut it!!

only the shadow knows

this summer, the pages of Daredevil explode as his very own event, Shadowland commences. that's good news for Foggy because he's kinda missed being the collateral damage in his pal Matt's everyday adventures with the Hand and the Kingpin and your everyday street crime.

Marvel has been releasing teaser images in recent weeks, and we would be remiss (oh, you can't imagine how much we've been remissing) not to take a look at them. and praise them. and make smart-ass comments. minus the 'smart' part.

right off the bat, we're suspicious of this cover (let's assume it is). how many times have we been scammed, bait-and-switch tricks pulled on us, with such fantastic-looking covers depicting events that never really happens in the actual book? i mean seriously. if you're making a cover, we expect it to be a snapshot of what's going on inside. for all we know, the story's about Spidey and the Punisher holding hands, hopping along Ninth Avenue while eating Italian ices. WTF, dude.

speaking of the Punisher ... does this mean some magical event is going to restore Frank back to his original human dick self, completely eradicating Frankencastle from our memories? definitely, this isn't the Punisher MAX version. maybe he makes a deal with Mephisto too? or maybe kill off the useless Parker (Robbins, The Hood) and comes back to life. i want a rematch with Daken!!!

one more thing about that cover: hope Pete had Reed and Tony make him some bulletproof duds (passphrase is "unstable molecules"). that's easier than Spider Armor eh?

how much you wanna bet there isn't much of a throwdown here? unless Cage and Fist are still thinking "you're a goddamn Skrull, lady, and we're taking your head off!", this is one of those scenes where they preen and posture, and then decide to work together. The Heroic Age: Back to Status Quo.

Clayton Crain's bombastic covers doesn't always translate well to interiors, and there are days that the black ink threatens to cover everything just like that Gulf Coast oil spill. see Necrosha.

Ghost Rider's hasn't been back to the Big Apple since World War Hulk by my reckoning, so not sure what he's doing here. maybe its to test the mettle of the newest Secret Avenger, Reverend Syung Mun Moon ... i mean Moon Knight. after all, its a battle for the soul of Khonshu. what? its a battle for the soul of New York?! bummer.

i immediately recognized the cover, and it should have been re-done by somebody else - Clint Langley, Alex Maleev, Marko Djurdjevic, even Clayton Crain. if you're going to ape someone else's cover that previously signified heartbreak and loss, i don't think anime style is going to cut it. not Niimura's style anyway. maybe he could have done it in black and white?

so what is the point here? Elektra's mourning the loss of Matt's soul, right when he took the leadership of the Hand, promptly joining the Dark Side? doesn't look like she's mourning though. maybe she's pissed because she was supposed to be the Hand boss. then that whole Skrull thing happened ...

now these are the coolest teasers of them all: Wolverine holding up two trophies - one's Bullseye and the other a Hand mask (or maybe that represents Daredevil - who hasn't had a good night's sleep since Bendis started writing him). the ace of spades in his neck is a nice touch, though it shouldn't appear on the second image. not unless Bullseye got his mask ripped off (first image), takes a fallen Hand ninja's mask and tosses another card at Logan's neck, and ending with the same disastrous results (second image).

should be a very interesting summer for DD and his fans (of course i'm in!).

heckling from the peanut gallery, part 2

the call to assemble has gone out again, and we the people, the huddled masses of collateral damage from the disassembling, house of m-ing, civil warring, planet hulking, secret invading, and dark reigning, exercise our right to yell our opinion from the streets, as is our democratic right. the first time around, we yelled at the regular Avengers. this time, its the new ones. wait, what?




"sure, sure, your pals from Yancy Street just adore ya. sellout."
"so is it really friends or family first?"
"shouldn't you change the logo on your belt so the '4' can look like an 'A' at a certain angle?"





"really? didn't you run away and hide when Captain Hero killed Danny and they all thought you did?"
"how come ya look like a tanned Crusher Creel?"
"your tiara sells on eBay for $13.95!"




"didn't you get fired?"
"Jackpot on line 2, a Felicia on line 3, and oh, your roommate Michelle wants the rent pronto!"
"responsibility, schmesponsibility ... your Aunt just had her 109th heart attack and you're posing for the press junket."



"and that means doing what ... exactly?"
"let's see you put your money where your mouth is. two words: Romulus and Daken."
"by the way, a new Alpha Flight is being formed next month and they want you in!"



"if you're here, who's taking care of the baby?"
"can't you have a better codename than a pop-country singer who used to live in a van?"
"i guess you and Luke both wear the pants in the family."


most of these people were New Avengers. so .... status quo.