Category Archives: Marvel
I Am a Sucker for Adorableness
I have zero interest in the character X-23. She’s a young, female clone of Wolverine that skirts around the edges of the X-Men franchise. I just don’t care about her at all. She’s a silly idea that has somehow gained enough traction to warrant her own series. I guess she’s got fans somewhere…(says the guy who loves Multiple Man and the Mimic).
But despite my disinterest in X-23, I’ll definitely be buying her new issue Wednesday because she’s going to be baby-sitting Franklin and Valeria Richards, the children of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four!
The preview pages for this issue, written by Marjorie Liu and drawn by Sana Takeda, are too adorable for me to pass up.
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The Rise of Lady Stilt-Man
There is no dorkier character in all of comicdom than Stilt-Man. Here is a super-villain whose only real ‘power’ is that he invented a robotic suit with giant, telescoping legs. The legs let him raise up to the top floors of skyscrapers, bypassing all security by just breaking into a super high window. Now that’s creative thievery. And he’s been around for decades, returning again and again to battle all manner of superheroes in pursuit of riches.
Unfortunately, he’s dead.
Stilt-Man is gone to that great super-villain volcano lair in the sky. Brutally killed by the Punisher with a rocket launcher. Stilt-Man has been around since the 1960s! He was one of Daredevil’s earliest foes, debuting in Daredevil #8! In fact, I have a copy of that very issue framed on my wall. My brother got it for me for my birthday. Kudos to him. But one of the great things about Marvel Comics and their writers is that they are in on the joke. They know just how awesome Stilt-Man was. So rather than just let him die and fade away, they threw a wake! All of Stilt-Man’s low-level super-villain friends threw him a wake at the Bar-With-No-Name – which the Punisher crashed and tried to poison everyone.
Then in a recent anniversary issue of Iron Man, he and Spider-Man teamed up to take on a group of technological cultists who had taken to worshiping the late, great Stilt-Man! Marvel has done so much with Stilt-Man’s legacy, but the greatest of all is the new queen of dorky super-villains: Lady Stilt-Man!
She's going to squash that menace Spider-Man like a bug!
Review: Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #4
The new Ultimate Spider-Man series slows down with issue #4 so that we can all catch up to what came before: the death of Peter Parker. Miles Morales has his spider-powers, so now it’s time to find out how and why he became the new Spider-Man. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense to tie his decisions directly into the death of the first Spider-Man. But on the other hand, this makes for a slow issue filled with moments we’ve already seen before. And it doesn’t give us any new insight or surprises to go along with those moments.
Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #4
But a last page cliffhanger promises some excitement for issue #5.
Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.
The low rating does not reflect poor quality, but instead the lack of story. By all means, this issue is written quite well and Miles continues to be a compelling protagonist. But as I said, this issue is just a retread of everything we’ve seen before. The story of Miles Morales has finally caught up to where Peter Parker’s Ultimate Spider-Man series left off. So this issue is basically just a paint-by-numbers look at what Miles was up to in between Peter’s death and his fight with the Kangaroo from Ultimate Fallout #4.
We don’t see any character beyond Miles and Ganke and we still don’t have his black and red Spider-Man costume. Though this issue does mark the start of Miles’ first-person narration thought balloons. That might liven things up from here on out.
Playing in the X-Men Toy Box
Can you imagine how much fun it must be to write for the X-Men? To be allowed to pick whichever characters you want and come up with some cool new setting or story to put them in? To have the freedom to just create adventures and relationships using some of the coolest characters ever?
That’s why I want to be a comic book writer.
And that’s what it must be like to be a part of the current Regenesis story event.
It's a brave new world
MODOK Makes Halloween Funny
MODOK dressed as Elvira is brilliant in every sense of the word. This is a hilarious parody by the crew at Marvel: What the…? And like in Treehouse of Horror fashion, there are three funny Halloween shorts. The best one is the second one.
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