Category Archives: Comics
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/1/20
Another week, another pile of enjoyable comics, proving that some aspects of life can get back to some semblance of normal. It’s good to have comics again. We’ve got nice issues of Power Rangers, Legion of Super-Heroes and even X-Men, kind of.
Comic Book of the Week goes to the first issue of X-Factor, possibly because I’m attached to the comic name, even if Multiple Man doesn’t appear in the issue at all. We do get Leah Williams writing the Blob again though! And an actually entertaining Daken!
Meanwhile, I’ve finally started my reread of the classic Milligan/Allred run on X-Force/X-Statix! I bought the first compendium volume and it is easily holding up after all these years. This comic was so insanely ahead of its time! I can’t even imagine how X-Statix would deal with Twitter.
Comic Reviews: Empyre #3, Legion of Super-Heroes #7, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #52, X-Factor #1 and X-Men #10.
Read the rest of this entryOne of My X-Men Wishes Came True!
The great thing about Dawn of X is that every single mutant character that ever existed has a chance of showing up in the pages of an X-Men comic. For a fan of obscure mutants, that makes every new issue out of the X-Men franchise a game of Where’s Waldo, in the hopes that some random Z-list favorite of mine will show up.
And one has! And he was on my list! A couple months ago, as Krakoa was really getting started, a did a List of Six for obscure mutants I hoped to see on Krakoa. This week’s Cable #2 brought forth one of those characters: Paulie Provenzano!
Turns out, Paulie — known here by his mutant name “Omerta” — is the father of the first mutant baby born. He’s partners with Stinger, another obscure Z-list mutant who was mentioned in another comic as being the first mutant to give birth. So mazeltov!
You can follow my earlier link for the scoop on who Omerta even is. He was an X-Man for a single storyline, and mostly served as a jackass homophobe who learned an important lesson about acceptance from Northstar. That storyline was one of my earliest attempts to start reading X-Men on a regular basis, so Paulie stuck with me for some reason.
Now to use my mutant-summoning powers for good! Bring forth the rest of my list! Where is Lacuna?! What about Abyss? Perhaps even…Shortpack!!
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 7/25/20
Oops! Looks like I got my timing wrong and this weekend is Comic-Con @ Home weekend, not last weekend like I thought. Ah well. Who can tell what day it is anymore? We’ve still got new comics to enjoy, including Batman, New Mutants, and more Empyre, including a nifty tie-in with the X-Men!
Comic Book of the Week goes to Power Rangers: Ranger Slayer #1 for a truly wonderful one-shot set in the alternate Coinless dimension! Fun times all around!
Meanwhile, one of my local comic book shops had to shut down due to COVID and they held a going-out-of-business sale. I swung by and picked up the first four tpbs of Peter David’s most recent X-Factor series! Score! I’d been eyeballing the big compendium for that series because it’s clearly out of print, but these half-priced tpbs should tide me over nicely! I’m also thinking of getting into Invincible…anybody have any thoughts?
Comic Reviews: Batman #95, Empyre #2, Empyre: X-Men #1, Hellions #2, New Mutants #11, and Power Rangers: Ranger Slayer #1.
Read the rest of this entryMy Ongoing Investigation to Determine the Truth of Multiple Man on Krakoa
A man needs a mission. What else do we have in this life but the urge to accomplish a goal? Why even keep this blog going after all these years considering it never became the biggest, most interesting blog in the world? I guess I just like having stuff to do. There’s my Strong Guy Watch, chronicling every random, minor appearance of Strong Guy. And now I’m going to dub this my Multiple Man Mystery!
Multiple Man is alive and well on Krakoa…but is he the real Multiple Man? New evidence arrived this week in Empyre: X-Men #1, the tie-in to Empyre. For the first time in Dawn of X, Multiple Man has speaking lines.
He’s also wearing his modern costume, which is mostly just a jacket over a stylized T-shirt. I really like the modern costume.
So in this issue, Multiple Man joins up with Angel, Monet and Magik to investigate one of the gateways on Genosha, with the lot of them getting wrapped up in the whole Empyre thing. Multiple Man is mostly used to help clean up the gateway.
And that’s it so far! We’ll find out more as the story continues.
But here’s the big deal: not too long ago, Multiple Man was killed off. He was eventually replaced by one of this dupes, who had reduced powers and just wasn’t the same guy. This duplicate starred in an actual Multiple Man-titled comic book mini-series, the only comic to ever bear that name, so it felt like a big deal.
When all the mutants were resurrected on Krakoa as part of Dawn of X, Multiple Man came with them…but which Multiple Man? Did they resurrect the original? Or did they resurrect the replacement? I’d like to think it was the original, but considering the weird retcons and continuity flubs inherent in the replacement storyline, I wouldn’t put it past the current X-Office to just not care to get Multiple Man right.
Hence this new Multiple Man Mystery segment! I will track every appearance the character makes on Krakoa to hopefully determine, once and for all, whether or not this is the original Multiple Man back among the living. It’s important to me.
Also, he’s worn a different outfit in every appearance so far. That part is kinda weird…to the point that it’s gotta be intentional, right?
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Sadly, That Glorious Silver Batman Costume is Not Real
The internet got hyped the other day when DC Comics revealed this new costume for the Caped Crusader as part of the upcoming Batman #100. It also made its first proper appearance in this week’s Batman #95, though only for a single panel.
As expected, the internet comic fandom lost their minds at the idea of their beloved Batman in this glorious silver fashion explosion. Personally, I thought it looked pretty neat, but didn’t worry too much else about it. Then DC Comics’ official Twitter put out a Tweet that suggested this costume was something real and permanent going forward, and suddenly my interest was piqued!
Is this really something DC is going to do? Something new and exciting with the Dark Knight?
Nope. The internet became so bothered that current Batman comic writer James Tynion IV got on Twitter and quickly explained that this costume will only exist as part of a dream sequence in an upcoming story.
Which is fine. I guess.
But…but what if…what if that costume was real? What if DC’s promise of a “New Batsuit. New Villains. New Gotham.” was a legitimate promise of an entirely new style and direction going forward after Joker War and issue #100? What if this glorious image was real and this got to be our Batman for a the foreseeable future?!
I don’t know what this wonderful world would look like. It’s not my job to design the next generation’s Batman. But just imagine how funky it could be!
In the comics, Bruce Wayne just lost his billions. Alfred is dead. The Robins are estranged. He’s about to have a pretty final-feeling confrontation with the Joker. Man…just imagine the places Tynion could go! Maybe this is a costume that Batman wears out during the day! Maybe he’s more open about helping the community. Maybe he’s healing some of her personal demons!
Maybe he gets a new Robin? With a costume to match? Just throwing that out there…
But nope. This is just for a dream sequence, which is a shame. The future could have been so silver…
Oh, also, while I’m imbedding Tweets, comic book artist Dan Mora designed a Power Rangers version of Batman and Robin!
And he’s got some other superhero Power Rangers crossovers in his Twitter feed. Check them out, they’re pretty fun!
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