Up in Smoke

The summer of 1995 was filled with some big changes in my life:  I turned 20, finally got my drivers license, got my first car, and officially moved to Stillwater full-time. However, the biggest change that summer came about several weeks after my move when I got a call letting me know that my parents house -- the only home I had ever really known -- had burned down.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the fire -- neither of my parents were home when it happened, and luckily they had let the cat out before they left.  After confirming that no life was lost, the next thing my parents assured me in that call was "Don't worry: your comic books survived."  To be honest, the condition of my comic book collection hadn't even crossed me mind until they brought it up, and it caught me off-guard.  It would catch me even more off-guard over the next few weeks when every single family member I would talk to would bring up the survival of my comic books almost immediately.

Of course, when I finally got a chance to go see the charred husk of my childhood home, their emphasis made more sense, as my bedroom's location on the opposite end of the house from the living room where the fire started meant that it was the least damaged, although all that meant was that my room suffered mostly heat and smoke damage rather than fire and water damage. It was an odd experience sifting through the debris, attempting to find anything salvageable.  I could see the spot where all of my longboxes filled with comics had been sitting, and was amazed to see that on one side of that spot there was the melted remains of my plastic pencil sharpener, and on the other side, the melted remains of my record player.  The fact that the cardboard boxes filled with comic books wrapped in plastic bags had emerged from the ordeal with little more than some smoke stains to the boxes was unbelievable.  I was able to recover a few other smoke damaged books and papers, many of which are still boxed up in my apartment.  However a great number of these items, including my high school yearbooks, were placed in storage at my Grandma Ann's house along with all of the stuff my parents had already recovered before I got there.

Over the years since then, I've often told the story of the fire, and invariably someone will make a comment about how relieved I must have been not to have lost all those comics because of how much they were worth, to which I would reply, "Actually, the only books I had that might have been worth something had been put away for safekeeping in my parents' room, so they didn't make it."  A nice bit of irony there, don't you think?

So, what's brought this incident to my mind?  Well, let's fastforward 15 years -- following my Grandma Ann's passing earlier this year, my family was able to sell her house fairly quickly, with the end result that my parents' current house is now overflowing with stuff they had to remove to make the sale.  Friday night I got a call from my dad who had been sorting through the stuff and found something he thought might be of interest to me.

"Was going through the stuff we brought over from mom's," he tells me, "and came across some of your comics."

"Really?" I replied, momentarily stumped at what it could have been -- the only thing I could think of off the top of my head was my long-lost run of original Offical Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which had disappeared at Papaw and Grandma Ann's farmhouse when I was still in Junior High, and that possibility was, to say the least unlikely.

"Yes.  It says it's a 'bagged, collector's edition complete with trading card' of '--"

"X-force #1." I finished for him, momentarily shocked.

"That's right.  And there's five of them!"

"Yes, one for each of the different cards," I commented.  He started to tell me that there were a few other books with them, but I didn't really need him to tell me the other titles, as I could picture them in my head fine:  the first Excalibur Special Edition that introduced my favorite X-team, and the first couple of issues of The 'Nam which dad had purchased himself.

Yes, after all these years, it turns out that the books I had put away for safekeeping had survived the blaze after all -- they had just gotten swept up in my parents' original salvage run and lost among everything else, thus making my long-standing ironic story ending unusable.

"But," you might be thinking, "shouldn't you be happy that the valuable books survived?"

Well, my Book Monkeys, for those of you unacquainted with the vagaries of the comic book explosion of the early 90s, and the subsequent implosion, let me sum it up this way:  those five "collector issues" I had purchased were emblematic of the speculator's mindset which drove the comic book industry for several years, in which comic book companies churned out countless variant issues which were snatched up by countless comic book fans wanting to be in on the ground floor of the next big thing, with nobody thinking through the fact that if everyone and their dog owns a copy of X-Force #1, then it's never going to be worth anything because, well, everyone already owns a copy.

Long story short, a quick view on eBay shows bagged copies of X-Force #1 going for as low as $0.99 cents -- and getting no bids.

So, in the long run, the value of the books did go up in smoke after all -- just not the way I had always thought.

We Watched the Watchmen*

Last night Li'l Random and I headed to the Movie Tavern for the midnight screening of Watchmen. When I bought the tickets a few days earlier, the guy suggested we get there by 10:30 or 11:00, and that they'd probably start seating at 11:00. I, being a perpetual early bird, got there about 10:15, and there were a handful of people already there and waiting; Li'l Random showed up right at 10:30, which is when the bulk of the people started to flow in; by 10:45 the lobby was incredibly crowded. They did indeed start seating at 11:00, but only allowed 20 people in at a time, allowing enough time in between each wave for people to find seats and possibly order their food. Li'l Random and I wound up barely missing the first cut, but were the lead offs of the second wave and so were easily able to get seats in our regular spot; I think it took most of that hour before showtime to get everyone in and seated.

One of the things I like about going to the Movie Tavern on premiere nights is that there are usually a couple of their wait staff dressed up as characters from the movie; last night there was a Silk Spectre and a Rorschach. I did turn to Li'l Random and remark that if someone showed up painted blue and in a speedo (or worse), I was out of there; when I mentioned this fact to Zinger this morning, he posited that that guy was there, but that I just didn't see him because he was too busy cooking in the back. Thanks for the nightmare fuel, Zinger!

The crowd was pretty lively leading up to the show starting, and Li'l Random wondered if we were going to have to sit through that the whole time; I assured him that from the rabid fangirl conversation I had overheard in line before he got there, there was at least one scrappy female who would be willing to crack some heads if they got in the way of her enjoying the film experience. Still, the concern seemed like it might be justified when the trailers started and the promo for Wolverine: Origins started; have never heard such clamor over a trailer in my life. The noise level continued through the Terminator: Salvation trailer as well, but died off when the movie itself started . . . mostly. There was one idiot who kept making whooping noises early on during the initial fight scene and Rorschach's investigation, but someone near him yelled at him to shut up, and despite a quick rebuttal along the brilliant lines of "No, you shut up!" the troublemaker shut his pie hole, and we made it through the rest of the film with no other incidents -- except, that is, for some distractions provided by the girls seated on either side of Li'l Random and myself.

The girl seated near Li'l Random spent a good portion of the last quarter of the film sounding like she was about to cough up her lungs, which always makes for an enjoyable experience for all involved, but at least her significant other seated in between her and Li'l Random served as a bit of a buffer. The girl seated right next to me, however, was slightly more distracting as two thing quickly became apparent: (1) She was incredibly squeamish when it came to blood and gore, and (2) That said squeamishness took the form of much squirming, squealing, and whimpering for the duration of the bloody sequence. And while the film was far from a non-stop gore-fest, director Zack Snyder definitely didn't shy away from ramping up the brutality factor when violence was called for.

As for the movie itself, well, I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that I thought that on the whole Snyder did a good job adapting a very difficult text. Was it perfect? Hardly, although I can probably chalk some of my problems to being such a big fan of the comic that when Snyder's interpretation didn't quite jibe with my own, I found it jarring; most of those moments revolved around Ozymandias. Not quite sure what it was, but the movie version of Veidt rubbed me the wrong way from the get-go. On the flip-side, pretty much every scene with Rorschach was pure gold, as Jackie Earle Haley (probably best known for his role as the rebellious Kelly Leak in the original Bad News Bears films) managed to perfectly capture the spirit of my favorite character from the book.

Much has been made among the comic geek world about the ending of the film, which differs from the book; I have to say that, from my point of view, the culmination of the villainous plot in the movie works just as well as that of the book, if not more so, but I know your mileage may vary on that one.

On the whole, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, as did Li'l Random, although it's interesting to me that we came at this enjoyment from two vastly different areas. After all, for him this was a new story, whereas for me it was simply a long awaited adaptation of a work that I have read countless times since I first got a copy of the trade paperback for Christmas of 1988. Yes, that's right, it's been 20 years since I first read Watchmen; if that doesn't make me feel old, nothing will. Anyway, those of us comic geeks who have basically grown up in the aftermath of Watchmen have become a bit jaded to its deconstruction of heroics what with the preponderance of grim'n'gritty books that followed, but to someone whose only real exposure to super-heroics is TV and Movies, the overly humanized heroes here are something of a revelation.

I really hope some more of my non-comic-geek friends see it soon; I'm incredibly curious to see how the bulk of the uninitiated react to it.

*For the record, in my head that title has the word "Watched" pronounced with two distinct syllables: "We Watch-Ed the Watchmen." Why? Partly because the meter better matches the original quote that way, and partly because it amuses me. Okay, mostly because it amuses me.

Danger Strikes to the Left! To the Left!*

This is the sort of thing I previously would have posted on They Came from Earth-K back when Bubblegum Tate and I were caught up in the whirlwind world of comic book blogging, but since that hasn't been updated in over a year and a half, I'll have to share this sequence from the recent Howard the Duck mini-series that amused me greatly here.

Forget "What a crazy random happenstance"; I think "I"m going to stab you in the left side of your neck" shall be my new catchphrase.


*That title's just for you, PigPen.

Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That

• When I first brought home my X-rays showing the big ol' break in my finger, PigPen's immediate reaction was "Hey, I do good work*." I told him that yes, yes he did, and I would be sure to recommend him to all of my friends.
  
  
• Upon hearing that I was going to have a screw placed in my finger permanently, people usually do one of three things:
  
  1. Make a crack about the fun I'm going to have with metal detectors
  2. Make a pun involving the word "screw"
  3. Make a Six Million Dollar Man reference
  
  Option number three was favored by Zinger ("You going to go for the Six Million Dollar Man thing one body part at a time?"), Li'l Random ("I'm going to start calling you 'Bionic'."), and PigPen ("We can rebuild you; we have the technology. And tell Zinger I'll be preparing the next piece to be replaced soon.")
  
  
• One of the few up-sides to waiting around in doctors' offices for hour s just so that you can spend 5 minutes with the doctor is that you can get a lot of reading done. Almost finished the first book of Gregory Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series, which is shaping up to be just as interesting as his excellent Children of the Changeling books. Guess I should go pay my fines at the Public Library so I can check out the next two, although it might be cheaper to just go and buy copies elsewhere . . .
  
  
• Been trying to decide how I'm going to entertain myself at home while recovering from the surgery; really wishing I hadn't reduced my Netflix subscription now.
  
  
• Another contender for favorite comment on my TMI interview comes courtesy of Flunky, who opines that the overshares listed weren't all that bad considering who they came from. That's a positive comment, right? Right?
  
  
• Allow me a brief minute of comic geekery: While I loved portions of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men and thought Grant Morrison's New X-men had some really cool ideas, Ed Brubaker's Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire is by far my favorite X-men story in ages -- not counting Peter David's X-factor run, which is its own private kind of awesome. We no return you to the non-comic-geek portion of your blog
  
  
• I finally tested out the "Watch Now" video on demand feature of Netflix and was pleasently surprised by just how well it worked, even if the film I watched was an incredibly low-budget horror flick shot on DV. Wish I would have tested it out earlier, since I now feel like I've been missing out on some of the value of my Netflix subscription.
  
  
• Favorite quote from the Lost panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con:

  I would actually argue that were you to go back and look at season one, you would find more acts of violence that our guys committed on each other than violence that the Others committed on them,” Lindelof added. “But our guys are just a lot prettier. So, when Sawyer is like, punching you in the face, you're like ‘More, please. You're just so attractive. Do you want to take your shirt off while the beating continues?' But when Pickett or Friendly is beating you up it's like, ‘Oh this is brutal violence!' So, we promise that as the show moves forward if the violence stays intense it will only be perpetrated by catastrophically good-looking people.

• Not too long ago I finally bit the bullet and arranged my MySpace Top Friends list into something other than strict alphabetical order; of course, this led to PigPen's righteous indignation at being relegated to the #2 slot under Li'l Random. When I pointed out that I'm #17 on his own Top Friends list, he defended my placement there by informing me that every friend listed above me is either family or like family to him, apparently not realizing that (a) my point wasn't that I was bothered by being so low on his list** but rather that in the grand scheme of things he was relatively high on mine and (b) basically telling me "yeah there are 16 people that I care deeply about, and then there's you" wouldn't be all that effective a tactic in convincing me that he should be my #1 friend.
  
  
• It looks like PigPen has managed to postpone starting his new hours another week so that he can finish out the final week of softball season, which has made him happy; I'm sure once he realizes that this will also minimize the time he has to spend with post-surgery, whacked-out-on-pain-meds Todd he'll be even happier.
  
  
• PigPen's girlfriend's*** review of 300 after we watched it Tuesday night: "too much killing." Obviously, she was not the target audience, a fact that was driven home when some dust of the disc made it skip back and play the same sequence of the Spartans killing off wounded men three or four times in a row, making her exclaim "I don't want to see them kill him again!" Women, huh?

*Yes, PigPen was partially responsible for my injury; no it was not on purpose; yes, he expressed genuine remorse over it; no, that does not stop him from continually mocking me and using it as a reminder of what happens when you "mess with the bull"
**No, really -- everyone above me on his list is either kin, the PigPen equivalent of the Parkerites (i.e. friends he's known for years and years ) or his girlfriend, so I can't complain about any of them being ranked above me. Honestly, I'm just happy that he finally moved me above Dane Cook.
***Until I come up with a good nickname for her, it's either call her that or Squiggly's sister. Incidentally, PigPen is #2 on her Top Friends list as well, while she's #16 on his; just thought I'd throw that in there.

I Can't Wait to See What I Get Next Punishment Day!

A few months back, the incomparable Chris Sims of the indescribably awesome Chris's Invincible Super-Blog held the a Q&A contest in which his loyal blog monkeys could post random and creative questions for him, all of which he would answer, with the best question being rewarded with free comic swag, an autographed issue of Cracked magazine featuring an article by Mr. Sims, and, the pièce de résistance, a badly drawn crayon picture of the super-hero of the winner's choice.

My question was this:

Question: is this page from Punisher 2099 funny because it's funny, or is it funny because it's not?



Imagine my surprise when, after three days of answering some truly innovative and entertaining questions, the generous Mr. Sims named yours truly the winner with the following response:

Answer: I don't know, but that might be the single greatest page in comics history, and I am going to insert those phrases into every single conversation I have from now on.

"Hey Chris, how many donuts do you want?"

"Thirty six... CALIBER."

Congratulations, Cap'n Neurotic! You've earned yourself:

• A poorly-done crayon drawing of the comic book character of your choosing!
• A signed copy of CRACKED Magazine #2, featuring two and a quarter pages of all-new Chris Sims "humor!"
• Max Collins and Terry Beatty's Wild Dog #1-4, where a vigilante in a hockey jersey kicks a terrorist in the face so hard that it breaks his neck!
• And my personal copies of The Punisher #22-23, where Frank Castle attends Ninja Training Camp, as seen in the ISB's One Year Awesomeversary!

Soon after posting the results, The Expert on All That Is Awesome contacted me to get my mailing address -- he initially inquired if he should just mail it to "the edge" -- and find out which comic book characer I would like him to draw poorly; after much soul-searching, I finally decided on the ultimate kung-fu super-hero, Iron Fist.

Not too long after that, I learned that The Great and Powerful Sims had a MySpace page. After being added to his friends list, I left him the following comment:

Many thanks for the add, sir, even if your horribly fabricated profile means you're a filthy, filthy liar. Why, I bet the crayon drawing you promised won't even be poorly, poorly drawn. Let me warn you now: if I get a well-drawn picture, I will be sorely disappointed.

Unless it's of Iron Fist kicking MODOK in the head, in which case, all is forgiven.

Lo and behold, what should arrive in my mailbox a few weeks later but this:


It's hard to explain just how giddy this picture makes me. I'm just sorry it's taken me this long to get it scanned in for the entire world to enjoy.

Possible Comic Book Goodness for the Cap'n

One of my co-workers, upon finding out that I'm now an indexer for the Grand Comic Database, mentioned that she herself has recently gotten a gig doing comic book reviews for a Fantasy/SF website, complete with free advance copies. And, apparently, there might be another vacancy or two in the reviewer ranks, so she has offered to pass my name along as a candidate.

The possibility of free comic swag which I could actually use as part of my professional development points at my job, means I have now officially lost what little work ethic I had for the rest of the day. If that's not irony, it's pretty darn close.

And Lo, There Shall Come . . . an Indexer!

As if I didn't have enough on my plate already, I recently signed up to be an indexer for The Grand Comics Database project, which should put my skills as a librarian and my curse of borderline OCD to good use. Plus, it counts towards my "professional development" which means that, in a way, I'm finally getting paid to do comic book related work. Sure, it's not any more than I was being paid before I started indexing, and technically I'm not supposed to spend more than 5% of my time on it, but that's beside the point.

So without further ado, I give you my first indexed issue.

Please, hold your applause.

Cold Shiny Claws Pop Out From My Paws . . .

Yeah, I haven't felt all that bloggy the last couple of days for one reason or another; part of it is due to spending way too much time invested in the X-Men: Legends video game, which of course speaks to the geek in me on several different levels. It's actually made me want to go dig out all of my old X-men comics, which I haven't read in ages. So, in honor of my most recent obsession, I present to you a nice little song parody which wasn't done by the greatest musical genius of our time, but is funny enough that it probably should have been.

Can You Say "Someone Has WAY Too Much Free Time?" I Knew You Could

For the non-comic geeks out there, the teams are Thor and Northstar vs. Spider-Man (duh) and the Sub-Mariner.

And yes, Northstar is gay.

Enjoy!

I'm Not Dead Yet

The move is nearing completion, which means I should soon have time to start boring you all on a daily basis yet again. Until then, here are a few random thoughts:

• Lost finale was everything I expected, and more; that ending has me really curious about the directions next season will take.
• Finished up season 2 of Deadwood and have decided E.B. Farnum is one of the greatest TV characters of all time
• Croquet can be surprisingly competitive; isn't that right, Cap'n Cluck?
  
• I finished my list of the top 50 DC characters; you can see my picks (and the reasonings) here and here if you have any interest, and then pop on over to The Great Curve for the final tally.
• I finally bought my first disc golf disc, and promptly lost it on the first hole I played. Darn you, Bear Creek course!
  
• While I'm looking forward to seeing my family this coming weekend, I'm not looking forward to the drive to Miamuh after a week of much activity and little rest
• The news that one of the Everwood producers is heading to Gilmore Girls makes me very happy
• The fact that I will soon no longer be able to tape one channel while watching another makes me less so.
• There are times I miss the 70s; what other time could have produced a comic book panel with the dialogue "Someone's bred a giant rampaging Jimmy Olsen!" with absolutely no sense of irony whatsoever? Well, other than the 40s, 50s, and 60s, that is. Bless you, Jack Kirby, wherever you are.
• I saw X-men: The Last Stand on my birthday. My review shall be written soon, but for now I shall just say that I thought it was weaker than the first two, but still stronger than Fantastic Four
  

As Long As the Movie's Less Cheesy Than This, I Think I'll Be Happy

With X-Men: The Last Stand only a week away, I thought it would be a good time to post the following: a failed pilot for an X-Men cartoon from 1989. True, it's a bit cheesy, and the science of the villains' big plot is kind of wonky, and Wolverine sounds like he's an Aussie rather than a Canuck, and Nightcrawler comes off as a borderline pedophile at times (and this is way before he became a priest, too), but hey, the animation looks cool at least.

Trivia question for all you Futurama fans: which three character voices are done by Futurama vets?

Which Super-Hero Am I?

My results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 65% Superman 60% Robin 43% Hulk 40% Green Lantern 40% Catwoman 35% The Flash 25% Batman 25% Supergirl 23% Wonder Woman 18% Iron Man 15%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

He Might As Well Be Fighting Fin Fang Foom!

The latest fan film to sweep the comic geek world: Secret Wars Re-enactment Society

First Comic Week

2 Guys Buying Comics, the latest addition to my "must read" blogs has proclaimed that this is "First Comic Week", creating a nice blog meme asking folks to talk about their very first comic. How could I pass this up?

The biggest problem with the idea of a "first comic" is that I honestly have no clue what the first comic book that ever caught my interest was; I got hooked on my uncle's comic book collection before I can remember, so it's highly possible that my first comic was Nova #1 which I don't recall ever seeing at the time, but which my uncle says my young toddler hands destroyed. However, while narrowing down whether I was first entranced by Avengers #147 and the appearance of the Squadron Supreme or by my cousin's issue of Showcase #100 which featured practically every character to ever appear in that book is next to impossible, thanks to the beauty of the Grand Comics Database I was able to narrow down the list of suspects for the first comics I ever purchased myself. Being the sort to go overboard in all things (and, being totally overwhelmed by nostalgia by the whole process), I've decided to not just focus on my first comic, but on my first year of comic purchasing which, if my calculations are correct, began with the cover date of February, 1979. And what would that first crucial title be?

Super Friends #17 Feb. 1979. Honestly, I feel embarrassed that this is the first comic book I ever purchased. Not because it was Super Friends; well, not just because it was Super Friends. No, I'm embarrassed because there's absolutely nothing about this cover that I find appealing today. Which bring up an interesting point; not a single one of my well-worn issues of Super Friends still has a cover; heck I'm not sure any of them still have all of their pages. In fact, it's been so long since I've seen any of the covers that I had to double-check that this #17 was even the issue I thought it was, since the cover left me so under-whelmed. Even the story inside isn't all that great, all things considered; the Super Friends have been separated and tossed through time and space and have to find a way to survive. Of course, this issue did serve to instruct me in a few of the basic rules of the pre-Crisis DC universe, like the idea that the whole red/yellow sun thing wasn't just a Kryptonian thing, so that if a sun suddenly turned blue or white normal humans would suddenly become like Superman.

But while this issue doesn't hold up as well under my present-day scrutiny, I'm much more forgiving of the other issues of the series I purchased. For example, there's #23, which featured the Wonder Twins squaring off against the Mirror Master; #24, featuring the Wonder Twins evil twins; the Halloween themed #28 featuring Felix Faust and faux versions of Swamp Thing, Bizarro, Solomon Grundy, and The Demon (and which is one of the earliest memories I have of buying a book solely because of the cool cover); and my favorite of my Year One purchases, #25, where the mind controlled Super Friends try to take over the world and are stopped by a wide range of international heroes including future Justice League members Green Fury (who would later become Fire) and Tasmanian Devil, as well as Wonder Woman's African counterpart, Nubia. That's right, Nubia.

Man, sometimes I miss the 70s.

Seriously, how cool would that cover be to a four year old?



One month after picking up my first issue of Super Friends I moved on to the series it was descended from with Justice League of America #164 (March, 1979). Again, the cover doesn't strike the 30-year old me as anything that would catch my eye, but the story inside had more than enough off the wall goodness to keep my young mind entertained. While the cover focuses entirely on Zatanna's search for her mother, the first half of the book is actually concerned with the League's battle with Anton Allegro and his magic synthesizer. There's a great scene where Zatanna uses her backwards spell casting to give all of her teammates magic earmuffs to block out Allegro's attack; again, I really miss the 70s. I only bought one other issue of JLA during that first year, but it was a doozy: #171 (Oct. 1979), featuring not only a JLA/JSA team-up, which helped to fuel my love for all things Earth-2 already kindled by a few of my uncle's comics, but also the death of a hero. True, it was Mr. Terrific, someone I'd never heard of before, but still a pretty significant event. Unfortunately, it would be many, many years before I would be able to track down #172 and finally find out who the culprit was.


The next month I branched out to my first solo title with The Flash #272 (April 1979). Now, as goofy as the cover might seem (homicidal clown using a super-calliope to paralyze The Flash), I can see why it would have appealed to almost-4-year-old Cap'n Neurotic. Like a lot of titles at the time, the cover story only took up the first part of the book, while the second half set up a couple of mysteries which would consume the next several months of the series, primarily the creation of a character who I'm sure almost nobody else remembers, but who holds a special place in my comic geek heart: Clive Yorkin, crazed emotional vampire who for a time was the primary suspect in the death of The Flash's wife. Yorkin would play a big part of the next issue I bought, #278 (Oct. 1979), which also introduced me to perennial Flash villains Captain Boomerang and Heatwave; the scene where Flash kicks Boomer's butt was one of my favorite sequences of any book back then. It was rivaled only by the fight with Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash, a few issues later in #281 (Jan. 1980). Surprisingly enough, the Zoom-splits-in-half thing promised by that eye-catching cover actually happens in the book itself.

That same month I picked up my first Flash I also picked up the Superman team-up title DC Comics Presents #8 (April 1979). Again, not sure exactly what possessed young Cap'n N. to pick this title up, although I have a vague thought that this one was purchased for me, not necessarily by me; I could be wrong. Anyway, the comic itself is filled with all sorts of freaky scenes, like Swamp Thing having his arm ripped off and then slowly growing a new one, or him accidentally creating an army of Solomon Grundys, all of which probably added to the appeal. This is also the first comic I have a really strong recollection of making my dad sit down and listen to me read out loud. I also picked up #16 (Dec. 1979( guest-starring Black Lightning; this issue confused the heck out of me at the time, as it featured a character who jumped all over the evolutionary ladder, a concept that I wasn't quite up to speed with at the time. Plus, the whole "Black Lightning puts on an afro wig as part of his costume" thing didn't quite make sense to me at the time.



The next month I continued my exploration of the DC universe with Green Lantern/Green Arrow #116 (May 1979). This is another case of "I don't remember ever seeing that cover before in my life!" Also, this issue features an obscure villain that always springs to my mind when I think of GL, but which probably only a handful of other comic geeks know exists: The Crumbler. I always liked the visual effects of his power, for some reason, which is probably one of the reasons he's stuck out in my mind for so long. For once, I actually bought the subsequent issue, #117 (June, 1979) which featured the first time Guy Gardner donned the power ring; I just re-read this last night, and it's really odd to see a hesitant, unsure Guy, as opposed to the loony toons versions of Guy which would dominate during Giffen's run on the Justice League titles in the 90s.







My next new title to purchase was Superman #337 (July 1979). I've never been a big Superman fan, and would buy very few issues of this series over the years; in fact, the next issue I wound up buying years later was a direct result of my early love of this issue. The premise of the issue is that Superman is having a horrible day, as he's attacked by one super-villain after another, from the well-known (Brainiac, Bizarro), to the moderately well-known (Metallo, Toy Man), to the "who the heck is that cowboy, and why does his horse have wings?" (Terra Man). This issue would color my perceptions of each of these villains for years, even though they all turned out to be imposters . . . but perhaps I've said too much. Anyway, the character of Terra Man was just oddball enough for me to pick up any other book I saw with him on the cover, hence the later issues purchased.




Look, an actual Marvel title! Will wonders never cease? That's right, it took me around 8 months to finally join the ranks of Marvel consumers with my purchase of The Invaders #41 (Sept 1979). Another book whose cover has been gone forever, but as soon as I saw the scan on GCD I thought "that's it!" From what I can tell, this was actually the last issue of the series, and it’s pretty much non-stop action. Don't know for sure when I figured out that the series was set during WWII; I do know that the character of U-Man was directly responsible for me learning what a U-boat was.

Once the Marvel floodgates were open, they just didn't stop: next up was Micronauts #9 (Sept 1979). I had already been exposed to the Micronauts thanks to my cousin having a couple of issues, but this was a world of difference. His issues were set on Earth, where the heroes were the size of toys; this issue was set in the Microverse (yes, the Microverse) and introduced the warrior world of Sparta (a name which meant nothing to me at the time, but which now makes me roll my eyes). Even though I had a great love for the Micronauts at the time, the series was hard to find in my neck of the woods, and it would be many years before I would be able to expand my collection.

Next up I made a return to DC with the anthology title Adventure Comics #465 (Sept/Oct 1979) which featured four different stories: a Flash story where he talks to dolphins; an Aquaman story where he deals with underwater villains in Arctic waters; a Deadman story which boggled my young mind because I didn't realize that the reason nobody was reacting to his speeches was that nobody could see Boston at all; and, last but definitely not least, a Justice Society of America story which introduced me to The Huntress and prepared me for the JLA/JSA team-up that was to come out a month later.

Finally, we finish up my first year of comic buying with the reprint series Marvel Super Action #15 (Jan 1980), which featured an early adventure of the Avengers where they traveled back in time and witnessed the death of Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, a pretty pivotal event in the Marvel Universe. My grasp of the Avengers was pretty weird at this point in time, since I had gorged myself on all of my uncle's Avengers comics, which spanned a huge amount of time, from the first line-up, to the first big line-up change, to the days of the Serpent Crown saga. I had no clue how it all fit together chronologically, and yet it didn't matter; all that mattered was that they were all really, really cool, and I couldn't wait to read more.

And thus ends a brief (well, briefer than it could have been) run-down of my first year of comic buying as best as I can recollect; if I were to extend it just a mere two months, you would get to hear about the first issue of Uncanny X-men I ever got, smack dab in the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga, but that's a story for another time.

Maybe I'm Being a Skoche Negatve Here, But . . .

Trailer for X-men gave me goosebumps.

Trailer for X2 made me go "Woo-hoo!"

Trailer for X3 makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and pretend it's all just a bad dream.

Bubblegum Tate's "Two-Fisted Philosophy": the Thrilling Conclusion!

All right, boys and girls, here be the conclusion of Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate's guest post on comic books and philosophy; last week, you got the philosophy: this week, you get the comics.

Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate’s Two-Fisted Philosophy Part Deux

At last we come to my wheelhouse. In almost every way, the supermen presented in glorious four color and newsprint are exemplars of Nietzsche’s philosophy in pop culture. Let’s look at a few examples of how they’re the best examples and then I’ll share with you the two I consider to be the BEST of the BEST examples.

1. Rise above the Herd and live glorious lives…
Imagine if every single day you saved somebody’s life. Or went to a distant planet. Or fought monsters. Or romanced princesses of lost continents. Or traveled through time. Or met beings of godlike power. Or if you WERE a being of godlike power. If any one of these things was true, let alone all of them, what would you have in common with your family or co-workers? Absolutely nothing, your concerns would have risen as far above the Herd as the average person’s thoughts are above the animals. This is how most superheroes live. To paraphrase a comic writer Cap’n Neurotic and I enjoy, comic book universes are a day-glo funhouse where the world is threatened every ten minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks. Does this describe your life in the cubicle?

2. …That ultimately end in Tragedy.
Nearly every super hero is in the midst of a mission that cannot be successful. Superman actually describes his daily activities as the Never Ending Battle. Wonder Woman seeks to bring Peace to Man’s World by fighting for it. Spider-Man and Batman will never be able to save their lost loved ones no matter how many people they protect each night. Each catastrophe is averted, but a few more lives are lost, a bit more property is destroyed, a few more comrades fall. And when they wake up the next morning, they’ll be ready to do it all over again. THAT’S tragic optimism.

3. Become the next step in human evolution.
The absolute best example of this is the X-Men. Although they technically go against Nietzsche’s concept that the next leap in human evolution will not be merely biological, there is another aspect to the X-Men that is VERY Nietzschean. They were born a step above, but the Herd looks down on them. The Herd KNOWS that it is inferior, and it fears the X-Men because of this. Despite the hatred and fear, the X-Men strive for acceptance and co-existence which will never be given to them. They know it’s a hopeless goal, but they strive for it anyway because the alternative is stagnation. All of that on top of the “typical” activities of visiting distance worlds, traveling through time and doing combat with beings of godlike power!

4. There is no religion in super hero comics.
Oh sure, there are a few exceptions, but for the most part, nobody in super hero comics belongs to any organized religion. The closest you get are the characters that actually interact with those beings that are considered gods. However, in true Nietzsche fashion, the heroes are arrayed against the gods as often as they are the agents of the gods. In a world devoid of religion, a standard for ethics and morality can only come from within. Superman does what’s right because it’s what’s right (Sound too simple? I challenge you to find a better explanation of Superman’s motivation). Spider-Man does what’s right because of a lesson he learned in tragic circumstances from his Uncle Ben. Batman ignores the law in order to serve Justice. If you are living the life of the ubermensch, then mere morality cannot hold you accountable.

Unfortunately, this is also where the parallels fall apart a little. Nietzsche would be horrified how often the ubermensch of comics are tending the needs of the Herd and protecting the status quo. Is Superman really maximizing his potential for the betterment of everyone if he’s not using his powers to END crime (or war, hunger, poverty, pollution, ethnic cleansing, etc), not just fight it? Are the X-Men working in the best interests of both humanity and mutants if they aren’t using their powers to take over the world and institute a government of mutants that ENFORCES peaceful coexistence with humanity? Batman operates outside the law, but refuses to kill even the most deranged dangers to the lives he holds dear. Is he REALLY serving the public good by not ending the Joker’s rampages once and for all? According to Nietzsche, the superhero may actually be a bigger failure than the Herd. In every way they live the Dionysian lifestyle, but they can’t quite let go of their last vestige of mere humanity.

Didn’t realize that there was that much philosophy in comics, didja? Well, it can certainly go deeper. Take the examples I used of how the superheroes still conform to traditional morality. There’s a fertile ground for discussion there. How many times has Superman flown into a country like Iraq or North Korea and deposed the leader who’s oppressing or starving his people? Right now, I can’t think of even one time. But if you were Superman, wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? We are told to act locally and think globally, but with that kind of power acting globally would be easy. But where do you stop? Do you put the world under your control? If you do, what happens when the power starts to corrupt you? If you have a book club, I challenge you to make Watchmen by Alan Moore the next book you read and see if you’re group doesn’t wind up in similar conversations. When the high schoolers and I started kicking these questions around, we inevitably landed on “Who is the best example of the Nietzschean ubermensch in comics?”

Up until I sat down to write this post, I believed that Batman exemplified Nietzsche’s ideal. After all, here is a man who had everything important in his life taken away from him while he was too young to do anything about it. He did not fall into the quiet misery to which so many of the Herd would have succumbed. He took his sadness, his drive, his ambition and his existing advantages and forged a new destiny for himself through sheer force of Will. When the Herd’s laws were shown to be a hindrance, Batman ignored them in the interest of his self imposed definition of Justice. In the face of a hopeless war, he fights on night after night, losing a little bit more of what ties him to humanity with each sunrise. He trains lieutenants despite a loner nature because he knows the work must go on when he inevitably succumbs and his mind or body fails him. Batman has so separated himself from humanity that he barely bothers to maintain the so-called secret identity. Bruce Wayne is merely another tool he uses in service of higher ideals. Batman has had very few love interests, even fewer friends and has even managed to alienate Nightwing, the original Robin, a man he raised, because of devotion to his ideals. Batman even holds himself aloof from the other ubermensch, believing himself to be superior to them because he does what they do without the benefit of special powers even as he’s separated from the Herd by the fact that he can keep up with the other super heroes. All these things are true, but I kept coming back to the major failing of all the super heroes from Nietzsche’s standpoint. Batman has morals and CARES for the Herd instead of disdaining them.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a fundamental flaw. Batman couldn’t be the truest ubermensch. Then it hit me like a gamma bomb in the desert. Batman isn’t the ubermensch, but the Hulk IS.

The Incredible Hulk is a superman that is set in stark contrast to the Herd mentality of Bruce Banner. It was Banner’s scientific genius that created the gamma bomb that would give birth to the Hulk. It was Banner’s own force of will that allowed him to survive the gamma bomb by becoming (a key Dionysian concept) the Hulk. Since that moment, though, Banner has hated and feared the superior being he created. And he has, in true Herd fashion, tried to destroy it at every turn.

The Hulk is raw power and passion in a rampaging form. In true Dionysian fashion, he knows nothing but his own desires from moment to moment. He has literally frozen time for himself through sheer force of Will. Nothing can stop him because of the strength of his Will. After all, the madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets. The Hulk knows no morality beyond his own needs; whether Hulk wants Betty, the world to “leave Hulk alone,” or the sheer joy he takes in wanton destruction, he makes his desire into reality. He is the next step in human evolution and hates the man he once was even more than Banner hates the Hulk. The Incredible Hulk exemplifies Nietzsche’s overman.

That about sums up my thoughts on Nietzsche and how he relates to comics. The only thing you guys got that the kids didn’t was my musing on the Hulk, and I intend to add that the next time Dallas invites me to help teach his class. I’m pretty sure that this entire line of discussion would absolutely appall Nietzsche. If anybody knows where he’s buried, let’s go get him. With a couple magnets at either end, I bet I’ve got him spinning fast enough to light the eastern seaboard!

Thanks for indulging me and I look forward to some good conversation in the comments section.
Excelsior!
Tate

Because I Asked For It: Bubblegum Tate's "Two-Fisted Philosophy" pt.1

Happy 4-Color Friday, everyone! I know all of you loyal blog monkeys are just dying for the latest installment in comic book goodness, right? Well today we have a special treat: the first of a two part essay by everyone’s favorite self-promoter, Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate. Please, pay him the same faux respect and feigned interest that you present to me each day.

Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate’s Two-Fisted Philosophy

Greetings! I am the oft mentioned but not-heard-from-enough, one-time Book Monkey and currently fellow blogger, Bubblegum Tate. I recently found myself in front of a class of high school seniors having a conversation about Friedrich Nietzsche. Because I have absolutely mad skillz (and the teacher of the class was steering the class this way in an effort to allow me to talk in front of high schoolers), I was able to turn it into a conversation about one of my top five favorite subjects: COMICS!

Now, many of you blog monkeys may be intimidated by things you know nothing about like Friedrich Nietzsche and, let’s face it, comics. BUT, if you can manage to stick with me as long as the seventeen-year-olds did, you just might learn something.

I have an initial caveat. I will not be editorializing on Nietzsche’s philosophy except in how it comes into play with my personal favorite slice of pop culture, the super hero comic book. If any of you would like to discuss it in greater detail and in light of your own philosophical or religious leanings, that’s what comments are for. And believe me, I have got some SERIOUS commentary on Nietzsche, I’m just trying to maintain a tight scope.

As I’m sure many of you are not aware of the basic tenets of Nietzsche’s philosophy, we’ll start with a basic primer. In as few words as possible (which isn’t really all that few), I bring you the Brief Guide to the Glorious Anti-Christ. Don’t look at me, that’s what other people called him, I’m just borrowing it.

With no belief in a transcendental God but a desperate need to make some sense out of the universe, Nietzsche developed a few core beliefs. He vehemently believed that life is Tragedy; devoid of hope for good or justice but also devoid of the cynicism that would believe in evil’s ultimate triumph. Indeed, Nietzsche thought of good and evil as abstracts with no real meaning, that there could be no immorality in a world that was inherently amoral. For Nietzsche, the only hope against despairing nihilism was to give in entirely to the Dionysian spirit.

Dionysian thought was centered on tragic optimism and sought to stop the moment in time through a lust for knowledge, youth, beauty and your own superhuman power (starting to get an inkling of where we’re headed here?). A Dionysian would create a superabundance of creative energy and seek to harness that energy towards change or “becoming.” There was no hope outside of yourself, only the potential of self-transcendence could hope to lift humanity out of its mire. Its pretty heady stuff, I know. You can believe me or not, but I really am trying to boil this down to the simplest explanations. He was called the Glorious Anti-Christ, cut me some slack!

Nietzsche hated the middle class and its so-called “good life.” Comfort and conformity were chains causing the mass of humanity, the Herd as he called it, to stagnate in its own mediocrity. The merely average spent their days toiling away trying to get that slightly nicer house or slightly larger television (pardon my modern perspective) while the Dionysian sought to write music, create poetry, make art, love, fight battles and really LIVE, even if they would ultimately fail (a core concept I’ll deal with in greater detail shortly).

Nietzsche also loved the theories of Charles Darwin. He believed that humanity will be supplanted by a newer, better humanity even as we supplanted the apes before us. However, Nietzsche also believed that this next evolutionary step, this creation of the ubermensch (overman or superman) would not be merely biological. Humanity would do with its Will what biology could never hope to do. Humanity has an innate Will to exercise power over itself and others, according to Nietzsche, and it is this Will that is the key to the next step in human evolution.

Nietzsche’s most influential work and the best example of his thought is the epic poem Thus Spake Zarathustra. Zarathustra is a fictional Persian prince who comes down from the mountain to explain that he is in absolute awe of humanity’s potential, but is in constant lamentation over its inability to move the vast majority of itself out of a passionless, orderly and rational existence and into something greater.

According to Zarathustra, we should aspire to heroism because it is the highest state of self-actualization. The definition of a hero is one who strives to achieve goals that have hitherto been the purview of the gods. However, because the hero strives for unattainable goals, they usually fail. Tragedy is the glorious end for the Hero! The Herd also fails, but its goals are so low that there is no tragic or transcendent dimension. In the striving and ESPECIALLY in the failing, the hero rises above the Herd’s pathetic, lowly existence and becomes something more through the exercise of the hero’s will.

Sounds pretty damn good, doesn’t it? The attractiveness isn’t surprising. The examples of the tragic hero are nearly uncountable in mythology. The Greeks had Achilles who, knowing that life was useless and fleeting, sought immortality through fame. The Norse had Siegfried who knew throughout most of his life that it would end in tragedy, but fought the good fight and demanded all that life could give him despite the whims of the gods. With very little investigation, you will find examples of this in nearly every culture.

“But what about our culture?” you might be saying (that is, if you intrepid blog monkeys are still awake at this point). Examples in today’s pop culture are nearly as rampant as they were in older civilizations. Think of James Bond who succeeds in the face of insurmountable odds through his own strength of will. But his successes are never long term; he is just holding the line against the Communists with no real hope of ultimate victory. To borrow my friend Dallas’ favorite example, you also have Ferris Bueller. Ferris’ life is hopeless. He is embroiled in his last opportunity for “one good day” in the last good time in his life, his waning youth. Soon, college and adulthood will close in and turn Ferris into the middle-class drone striving for the mediocrity that he sees his parents exemplifying. But before that happens, he will have one amazing day despite all the powers and circumstance arrayed against him. (If anybody likes, we can also talk about how Ferris Bueller is literally an example of evil in its truest form, but that’s a bit off topic in a discussion of a philosopher that didn’t really believe in good or evil.)

At last we come to my wheelhouse. In almost every way, the supermen presented in glorious four color and newsprint are exemplars of Nietzsche’s philosophy in pop culture. Let’s look at a few examples of how they’re the best examples and then I’ll share with you the two I consider to be the BEST of the BEST examples.

So that's where we'll leave off for this week; I love a good cliff-hanger, don't you? those of you still intrigued/interested/awake can check back next week for the conclusion of Two-Fisted Philosophy

4-Color Fri - The Crisis Is Here, And I Have Read It!

On my way back from seeing Wicked in Dallas, I was stuck in rush hour traffic. When I got to the Lewisville exit, I decided to go ahead and head on to Plano, figuring that by the time I picked up my comics and headed back to I-35, traffic would have cleared up a bit. Plus, I was about to go crazy trying to avoided Infinite Crisis spoilers. And speaking of spoilers, they abound in the following reviews, so readers beware.

Villains United #6: Still my favorite of the Infinite Crisis prequels. The big reveal of there being two Lexes was a great twist; I'm very curious which reality the other Lex is from. Was going to be ticked if they'd bumped off Deadshot, who is one of the best anti-heroes around.

Birds of Prey #87: One of the best things to come out of all of the recent Crisis shenanigans, apart from all the alternate reality stuff, has been the reinvention of The Calculator (who was formerly a really, really dorky looking villain) as the anti-Oracle. So, it's only fitting that he's finally getting to match wits with Babs. Once again, Simone is doing a bang-up job on this book, and I'm curious about the teaser of an ex-JLA member joining the cast soon.

JLA #120: Oh good grief, what a stinky pile of cheese this issue was. The whole "cleansing ceremony to put the old league behind us" thing was painful. Did like having the gang getting some of their beefs off their chests, even if it did get a little overboard at times. Hoping that the recruiting of new members and conflict with The Key (whose identity was pretty veiled throughout the issue itself, but spoiled by the next issue blurb) will improve things. The one downside to pre-ordering the comics is that you've usually paid for half of a story arc before you find out it's crap. I offer up any single issues of any series by Chuck Austen that I own as evidence.

Manhunter #15: Fun standalone issue that explores the history of the super-powered items Kate pilfered from evidence lockers for her vigilante activities. Knew that the staff was tied into Mark Shaw's days as Manhunter, and was pleased to see that they tied in the death of the fake Shaw from the Eclipso series, but was surprised by the origin of the armor and claws. Next issue promises to bring the DEO more firmly into focus, which means more Chase, which means the book is probably doomed *sigh*

Gravity #5 (of 5): This was a nice little mini from McKeever of Sentinel prestige. Loved that Black Death's master plan was basically to use Gravity's powers to wreak havoc on his alma mater because of the way he was mistreated by the profs and classmates. It's always refreshing to see a villain who's just plain nuts.

She-Hulk #1: Some people might find the "waiting for the trades" jokes in this issue to be a bit too nudge-nudge-wink-wink, but for me, that self-aware aspect has been one of this series' strengths. Plus, the whole "the trades saved me, I'd have been dead without them" payoff was worth it. The whole "bringing Hawkeye back" thing has me confused: is he going to be brought back through time travel here? Or resurrected in House of M? Or have the bastages just been teasing us, and Clint's really on the K.I.A. list for good?

Runaways #9: The strength of this series is its character interactions, and after a couple of so-so issues, it's back in top form. Not sure I liked how ready the Avengers were to assume that Cloak had gone bad; then again, we only have his word that they were only going off a grainy video. Poor Tyrone: one of the eternal whipping boys of the Marvel Universe.
Astro City: The Dark Age Book One #4: Good to have Astro City back on the scene, just wish Busiek could pump the issues out a little more often. As usual, the things that jump out at me are the throwaway characters and concepts; I really want a Bouncing Beatnik origin story sometime soon. Overall, haven't cared for this story arc all that much, am hoping the next one grabs me more.

House of M #7: Honestly, after all the hype about the big twist of who was really behind everything, finding out that it was Pietro whispering in Wanda's ear and not Magneto was a pretty big let-down. And don't get me started on how badly Bendis has butchered Wanda; will never forgive him for the whole mess.

Firestorm #18: Interesting to see that Stuart Moore set up a whole batch of supporting characters, only to effectively remove them a few issues later; it's usually the replacement writer who scraps the old cast. Guessing this was all to set up Jason's involvement with the Donna Troy subplot in Infinite Crisis. The blurb promises he'll merge with an "unexpected partner"; I wonder if it could be Firehawk, who didn't take too kindly to it last time, or possibly that odd sentient energy cloud that was apparently tied to him last issue; could that be Professor Stein? And does anyone reading this have any clue what I'm talking about? I thought not.

Infinite Crisis #1: Okay, here it is, after months of speculation and a couple of weeks of spoiler-avoidage, the first issue of the defining DC event of the decade. Was it worth all the hype? For my money, I say "yes." Even having had the big reveal of the return of the Earth-2 Superman and Earth-Prime Superboy spoiled a while back, the issue had enough other good action to hold my interest. The deaths of Phantom Lady and Human Bomb didn't affect me all that much, but I had much relief when Psycho Pirate spared The Ray, whose short-lived series by Priest is sorely missed. I also got geek-bumps (look goose-bumps, only geekier) from the shot of the L.E.G.I.O.N. flagship crewed not just by Dox, who is almost always the only member that pops up anymore, but also Telepath, Garyn Bek, Lydia Mallor, Strata, and Garv; would have been better to see them in action, but getting to hear Garyn be snarky was good enough. And was I the only one to find Alex Luthor to be just a bit too over-eager for Old Man Supes to bust through the barrier? Looking forward to the next issue of JSA Classified to see how Power Girl ties into all of this, and also looking forward to finding out just what the heck is going on.

4-Color Fri - Webcomicpalooza

Yes, it's late in the day for it, but here it is, for all three of you who care: today's 4-color Friday.

The biggest comic related news that's caught me interest is the upcoming Dark Tower comic series penned by Stephen King and drawn by Jae Lae. Click here to find out more details and see a few pretty preview pictures.

I finally read the Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive TPBs, thanks to the wonders of ILL; wish I could have read it before I read Countdown to Infinite Crisis and The OMAC Project, what with the setup of the new Checkmate and all. I actually enjoyed the books more than I expected to; am now waiting for the first volume of Hush to come in, after which I should be able to get up to speed on the Bat-books pretty quickly since I believe the local library has pretty much every TPB from Hush v.2 on.

Speaking of DPL, yesterday I picked up their brand-spanking new copies of the New Invaders and Superman/Batman: Supergirl TPBs, but have yet to dive into them.

And now, to make the post a little less shrimpy, a few links to some recent webcomic strips that spoke to me:

Dangit, now the song's stuck in my head too.
Get out of my head, Kurtz, get out of my head!
It's funny because it's so true! And creepy!
It's also funny because it's so true! Just not as creepy!
It referneces Harry Potter and Dune! You just can't beat that!

4-Color Fri. - Silencers' Golden

Short and sweet comic review this week.

Silencers: Black Kiss TPB: Entertaining series published by Moonstone about a gang of super-powered mob enoforcers. As the series opens, Cardinal, the leader of The Silencers is planning faking his own death so he can finally get out of the business. Of course, this being the first issue of a series, things don't go quite as planned, and the team finds themselves caught up in a power struggle between their mob and the mysterious Syndicate. Try not to get too attached to any of the characters; not everyone gets out alive. My favorite scene involves the planning and exectuion of a break-in to a building which is highly reminiscent of the Hall of Justice. Looking forward to seeing the further adventures of Cardinal and his gang.