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November 24, 2005After the House of M storyline in which Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch rewrote the world (you heard me) so that mutants were on top, she re-wrote it again so that only 198 mutants remained with their powers. That's right, only 198 out of over the 100,000 that Grant Morrison postulated in his remarkable New X-men run (thereby driving the last nail into the stories' coffin). So, who are the 198? Here's a partial list, to be added to once i find out more, as well as a companion list detailing some of the more notable mutants that have lost their powers. The 198 Core X-men: New X-men (the kids): New Excalibur: X-Factor: Great Lakes Avengers: Others: that's 37. others to be revealed later. The Ones with No Powers Magneto and everybody else's status is currently unknown. thecomicman spoke @
02:15 AM
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Paty Cockrum has gone fucking nuts! thecomicman spoke @
01:19 AM
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November 20, 2005Ode to Times Square* Fuck you and your bright lights that attract idiotic tourists like fucking moths. *There is nothing wrong with Times Square in and of itself. I mean, for God's sake, it has a gigantic Cup o'Noodles and that's just fantastic. The problem arises when it attracts a lot of retarded people from every other place in the world. These people, these tourists, will just stop and gawk at every little thing in Times Square. Don't get me wrong; i've been a tourist in other places of the world and i have gawked at every little thing (hey, it's exciting and new), but i have always been mindful that some people live and work in this place i have come to gawk at, and i should really not be in their way. These Times Square tourists don't seem to understand this. Hence, they stop to gawk in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk, clogging the walkways. They take pictures; they stop and make sure their entire group has the correct directions; they stop and look at the Naked Cowboy and the Peruvian guys with their stringed and woodwind instruments; all well and good things to do, except that they're all done in the middle of the fucking sidewalk. Act like you've got some goddamn sense, and move to one side so that others, namely me, can get past you. It isn't hard; just take a step to one side (maybe two if it's a particularly wide sidewalk). All of you idiots are giving the giant ramen cup a bad name. P.S. I'm not even a native New Yorker and i get this angry. Imagine what a lifelong Brooklynite will do to you. thecomicman spoke @
09:52 AM
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The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman it's a book about, among other things, the secret fake history of the hobo nation, including their little known two-week long attempted coup of the United States government. they only took over the position of Secretary of the Treasury before being stopped. thecomicman spoke @
09:50 AM
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November 15, 2005
Speak up next time and another prediction So i'm reading the latest Teen Titans (#29), and expecting a fluff piece to see who's a better fighter, the latest Robin, Tim Drake, or the recently resurrected Jason Todd, the second Robin that got beat to death by the Joker when out of nowhere, i get this exchange: Beast Boy: I don't understand [death]... Jason's back. Donna Troy. Golden Eagle. Green Arrow. Green Lantern. Even Elasti-Girl... Raven: I can feel it in my soul-self. I've felt something for awhile. Death and life have lost their meaning. The doorways have been cracked open. Souls are slipping in and out. Clawing their way... they're... The doors are trying to close... they must. The dead must stay dead and the living..." And then the Spectre and Brother Blood show up to set up the next storyarc. But holy beejeezus, the doorways between life and death have been cracked open! And for awhile now. Well, thanks for letting us know, Raven. This was information that would have been useful YESTERDAY! Incidentally, Todd owned Drake like a pair of shorts. As for my prediction, it goes along with a few predictions i've already made (Diana going to prison, Bruce going nuts, and Wally taking some time off), but i predict that the majority of the JLA will be replaced by their younger counterparts: Dick Grayson will become Batman; Conner Kent will become Superman, Bart Allen will become Flash, Donna Troy will become Wonder Woman, so on and so forth. thecomicman spoke @
06:45 PM
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November 13, 2005
DC hates Giffen; and, Crisis predictions This joke has been made a lot, but i thought i'd list all the characters from Keith Giffen's excellent JLA/I/E runs that DC has recently changed for the worse or killed outright because of the Infinite Crisis: Characters killed during the Crisis: Characters not dead yet, but have suffered loss in other ways: Characters thus far left alone: Characters killed before the Crisis (like, way before): Characters always in the League, so not really Giffen's, but still... And don't let the list of characters thus far left alone fool you; there's plenty of Crisis left. also, i guess here's a good as place as any to give some of my predictions for the remainder of Infinite Crisis. In the interest of full disclosure, i do go around the internet and read stuff online, but i try to steer clear of spoilers, so there's that. These are my own thoughts and theories on what will happen with certain characters. 1. Crispus Allen, not Jim Corrigan, becomes the new host for the Spectre, possibly after being killed by Corrigan. thecomicman spoke @
01:33 AM
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November 12, 2005Ode to Billabong* Fuck you and your ridiculously good marketing department (circa 1995). *In the interest of fairness, i do think this is of my own doing more than anybody or anything else's, but still... Back when i was in junior high (you know, 7th and 8th grade), i began to fancy a cute surfer girl. She was blond and tanned and all that other neat stuff surfer girls are known for. She wore mostly shorts and t-shirts, as well as sandals (even in the California winter, God bless her). She hung out with a bunch of other cute surfer girls and hot surfer guys (i can say that; i'm secure in my masculinity), but she was the cutest by far. Her mouth wrinkled in this funny way everytime she smiled and her nose and ears were tiny. Not tiny enough so that she looked like a freakish, malformed gnome or anything. Just smaller than normal in a cute way. She was really cute. In my youth, i watched a lot of television, and therefore, a lot of commercials. I also watched television commercials about the surfwear company Billabong (the kinds that make impressionable young men think that wearing that stuff will make cute surfer girls like them), and i decided this would be a most excellent way to make this cute surfer girl like me. So, i plunked down about fifty dollars of my own hard-earned cash (my saved-up allowance for about three months) to get two t-shirts and a pair of shorts. This was a great feat for me because i have the worst legs to be put in shorts. They're stick thin and hairy as a fox (Goddamn that's hairy) and i really try to avoid wearing shorts for these reasons. But this cute surfer girl was making me think crazy. I pulled on an old pair of sandals and i started hanging around their little surfer clique in an effort to talk to the cute surfer girl, but unfortunately the hot surfer guys kept me at arm's length. I hung around them on and off for about six months, just trying to catch the ever elusive glimpse of her. I never even got to talk to the cute surfer girl. I blame my hairy chicken legs and Billabong's shorts that failed to cover them up. So, in summary: surfer girls are cute, so cute, regular guys are willing to plunk down some hard-earned cash for the chance to speak with them; surfer guys are hot, but insist that regular guys not go near the cute surfer girls; and wearing Billabong clothing will not make you into a hot surfer guy, no matter how easy the Billabong ads make it look. thecomicman spoke @
06:39 PM
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True Comic Book Clerk Stories #1 me: Do you have a number? thecomicman spoke @
05:06 PM
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November 10, 2005Next up on my 'Let's Dissect the Infinite Crisis' is the differences and appearances of Lex Luthor and Lex Luthor. The last issue of Villains United revealed that there are two Lex Luthors currently running around Earth-1, and moreover, the head of the Society is not the Luthor native to this Plane. So, when did Luthor-2 show up (i'm not trying to imply that this other Luthor is from Earth-2; i merely need a signifier to differentiate between him and Luthor-1), and more importantly, what have the two Luthor's been doing? As far as i can tell, Luthor-1 was elected President of the United States of America in the year 2000 (showing the real world that it could have, in fact, been worse). There is much evidence that points to this, including that he references things that happened in his history while he was President. (Nightwing:"Got to Hell." Luthor: "I've been. It's overrated." Superman/Batman #5, referencing the Underworld Unleashed storyline.) He left office in a dramatic way, injecting himself with Venom and donning a battlesuit to fight Superman and Batman face-to-face. In Superman/Batman #6, Luthor-1 is defeated. Since this happens while most of the American public is watching, Luthor-1 leaves office disgraced and goes into hiding, his armor destroyed, and Venom in his system. Three important things to file away for later in this discussion: 1) The reason Luthor-1 got into a fight with Superman and Batman in the first place was because a Kryptonite asteroid was heading towards Earth and Luthor blamed Superman for it. In a subsequent storyarc, it was revealed that Supergirl was in a spaceship that had been programmed to seek Kal-El out, and this spaceship was inside the Kryptonite asteroid. So it was in fact heading towards Earth because of Superman. Luthor-1 got this information from Darkseid, dictator of Apokolips, as well as Boom Tube technology. 2) In the first arc of the Outsiders, the Joker kidnaps President Luthor to get some of his merchandise back. He succeeds with the forced help of Gorilla Grodd. The Outsiders save Luthor-1 but not before Joker tortures him a great deal. 3) Teen Titans #1 revealed that Superboy was cloned from not just Superman's DNA, but also Lex Luthor's. Identity Crisis #1, besides featuring the death of Sue Dibny, also features the mercenary Bolt, a lightning-based villain, who was attempting to buy a crate from some thugs while Elongated Man and Firehawk watched. Bolt was getting his information from Noah Kuttler, the Calculator, before he was shot by the two thugs and revealed that the item in the crate was none other than a LexCorp Battlesuit. Identity Crisis finished and the suit wasn't mentioned again. However, Luthor-2 popped up and started recruiting members for his Society (we know now that this was Luthor-2 because of Villains United #6). His inner circle consisted of Black Adam, Talia Head, Dr. Psycho, Deathstroke the Terminator, and the Calculator, but many other villains were recruited as soldiers and administrators. The Battlesuit popped up again in Teen Titans #20 where the Electrocutioner was hired by Noah to take the Battlesuit from the two thugs who apparently kept it for themselves. The Titans of course got involved, but the suit was stolen by Warp in the end and the Electrocutioner sent to prison. At the end of the issue, Noah is speaking to Luthor-1 about how he hired Bolt and the Electrocutioner through him, but Warp through a different service. Luthor-1 also threatened Noah with his partner, someone who was not revealed until later. The reason i am certain this was Luthor-1 is because he wanted the Battlesuit so that he could help his "son," Superboy. This raises an interesting question: does Noah know he's talking to two different Luthors? At about the same time, Villains United #1 and Outsiders #24, the second part of "The Insiders" storyarc, shipped, and the public saw two very different Luthors. In VU, we had a suave Luthor-2 who wore suits and ties with matching shoes and was content to tell others to fight for him. In "The Insiders," we had a somewhat crazed Luthor-1, wearing a battlesuit and fighting alongside his partner, Braniac, and their two soldiers, a mind-controlled Superboy and Braniac 8, recently pretending to be Indigo. "The Insiders" storyarc told of Luthor-1's agenda to reclaim Superboy for his own purposes and kill the entire second- and third-generation of heroes in the Titans and the Outsiders. Braniac and Braniac 8's agenda was to make sure Donna Troy did not come back to life and they knew her family, the two young teams, would make that easier. It ended with Superboy rebelling against his programming and helping to take down Luthor-1, revealing in the process that Luthor-1 had Kryptonite fragments in his knuckles. In Villains United, and later in JSA: Classified, Luthor-2 was busy consolidating power amongst all the villains on Earth (except for the Six who were a continual thorn in his side), as well as bringing in to the fold or taking prisoner those that either remembered the original CoIE or were from different Earths (i.e. Lady Quark, Pariah, Psycho Pirate, Power Girl). In Villains United #6, it was revealed that Mockingbird, the Six's secret benefactor, was actually Luthor-1. While the Six are getting pounded by the Society in their headquarters, Luthor-1 dons his Battlesuit again in his own secret headquarters. The Society is forced to back off the Six by Vandal Savage threatening Luthor-2's life in an effort to save the life of his daughter. The series ended with the two Luthors aware of each other, but as of yet, still hadn't met face to face. In the new Supergirl series (of which only two issues are out thus far), as well as Superman/Batman #19, Luthor-1's interest in Supergirl is made clear, although his motives are not. Once again, he speaks to Noah to trade information and Noah refers to him as Lex. Once again he is in his Battlesuit and admiring the Kryptonite in his knuckles. In the latest storyarc of Superman/Batman, Luthor-1 is revealed to be behind the plan to have the Maximums, otherworldly heroes that have more that a passing resemblance to Marvel's Avengers, take down Superman and Batman so that he can concentrate on Supergirl. He even goes so far as to use some of Luthor-2's methods and hire other villains to do his work for him. In Adventures of Superman #645, Luthor-1 tells Superman that Ruin does not work for him, although Ruin seems to think that he does. Luthor-1 also shows us that he has implanted a mole within the Society in the form of the new Parasite. We also see the first time Luthor-1 is confused and can't think straight. Some mental strain is affecting him. Once again, Luthor-1 is in his Battlesuit. Thus far, this has all led to Infinite Crisis #2, where Luthor-2 planned on betraying Black Adam, and Luthor-1 was in the Arctic, once again confused and not thinking straight, once again in his Battlesuit. My theory thus far is that Luthor-1 is the only one that wears the Battlesuit and that he was in fact President. He is still obsessed with all things Superman, including the cloned Superboy and the new Supergirl. When Luthor-2 first appeared on Earth-1 is anyone's guess at this point, but he is more interested in cosolidating power amongst the villains so that he can unleash some kind of super weapon on the heroes. Noah has been in constant communication with both of them, although he usually speaks to Luthor-2 in person, and has only ever, as far as I can tell, spoken to Luthor-1via a satellite video feed. He must know that he is speaking to two different people, but i'm not sure what his angle on that is yet. A few incosistencies have arisen: 1) In Villains United #6, when Oracle takes control of the Society's secret satellites, Luthor-2 says he depleted many secret taxpayer funds in order to make those, and in order for him to have done that, he would have to have been President. I hold that he was merely lying to keep up appearances. 2) In Infinite Crisis #2, the Joker asks the Royal Flush Gang why he hasn't been invited into the Society and the King responds that he is too wild. I choose to take that at face value, but it's possible that, if Luthor-2 has been on Earth-1 much longer than i originally thought, he remembers the torture he took at the Joker's hands in the opening storyarc of the Outsiders. Again, these two seem easily explainable, but should still be noted, just in case. Well, that's that. If and when i remember anything else that is germane to the discussion, i will add it in where it fits, as well as placing in the comments section. thecomicman spoke @
09:29 PM
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Ode to the Sizzler* Fuck you and your non-existent all-you-can-eat buffet. *Back when i still lived in California, me and a few buddies went to a Sizzler for lunch. We paid for the all-you-can-eat buffet and ate like, two plates a pop. Now, because we were amongst friends and friends will invariably talk about all kinds of shit, we sat in our booth for about two hours and ate real slowly-like. And like i said, we ate about two plates of food each. And because this particular Sizzler's staff did fuck all, these plates were never removed from our table. So imagine our surprise when the Sizzler shift manager comes to us and says, "You guys have been here too long and eaten too much. It's time for you to go." Now, before people start calling me an unfair sumbitch, i understood the argument that we've been here too long. You need the booth for incoming customers. I get that. And if that had been all that the shift manager had said, there would have been no problem. But no, he had to say we ate too much. Firstly, it's an ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BUFFET you fucking moron, which should mean there is no "too much." If all I can eat is your whole fucking restaurant in under an hour, you're going to feed me your whole fucking restaurant, your profit margin be damned. Secondly, show me how i've eaten too much. There were four of us, and like five or six plates on the side waiting to be taken away, and three of us were currently working on a plate. The manager says that he can't show us because his staff have already taken away most of our plates to be washed. Show me this staff member, I replied. I want you to ask your staff and find out which one has taken these fictitous plates of ours away. Of course he does not and we are forced to leave. So fuck the Sizzler. Listen up, restaurants boasting an all-you-can-eat buffet: if there is a time limit, make that plain to paying customers, and in no way can one eat too much at an all-you-can-eat buffet. If in fact there is a "too much," then do not call it an all-you-can-eat buffet. That might be considered fraud. thecomicman spoke @
01:15 PM
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November 07, 2005
since Erin's comments are down... i like this one the best. most of the people that refer to the other cities as "the City" live around it, whereas NYC has a large following as "the City." i'm intrigued by the rest of the world's responses to this question. thecomicman spoke @
11:37 PM
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bear with me here; and, welcome back, one and all! Okay, so i know i haven't blogged in what, a year and a half? Well, i'm back (for the foreseeable future) and i'm gonna talk about comics. DC's Infinite Crisis thing is kicking my ass and i need to get my thoughts down somewhere so that i can view them for posterity. First up, how DC's multiverse seems to be arranged. Originally, there were multiple Earths. Earth-1 was where the Justice League of America hung out, Earth-2 was where the Justice Society of America hung out, Earth-3 was where the Crime Syndicate of Amerika hung out, and so on and so forth, with Earths 4, 5, C, C-, D, S, X, Prime, and all the rest. This was the original set-up. (From here on out, i'll refer to these things as Universe-1, or better yet U1, and so forth, just to not confuse myself and you guys.) Then Crisis on Infinite Earths came and then there was no multiverse anymore. There was only one Universe and one Earth. One Batman, one Wonder Woman, and one all the rest, with the exception of U2 Superman, U2 Lois Lane, UPrime Superboy, and U3 Alexander Luthor, the son of that Earth's Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, who took them all to 'Paradise.' Confused, yet? No? Okay, good. Almost the entirety of U2 (including the JSA), as well as key elements from U4, U5, U6 were folded into the history of U1, which caused a few technical glitches for the writer's, who tried their damndest to make sense of the whole thing. Later came Mark Waid's The Kingdom and Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth-2. Honestly, i don't think it matters which came first. The important things are that Earth 2 re-introduced the Crime Syndicate and The Kingdom established Hypertime The Crime Syndicate in Earth 2 weren't actually from U2, or even U3, their original home. No, these guys were from the anti-matter dimension from U1. You know, that place where the Qwardians are from (those guys that keep trying to beat down on the Guardians from Oa and the Green Lantern Corps). U1 has always had an anti-matter counterpart. Hell, that's where Krona and the Anti-Monitor were from (two big players in CoIE). But now, since there is no longer a multiverse, the CSA cannot be from U3, so instead they're from U1's anti-matter dimension. The title was just a ruse pointing to alternate universes, although, i guess anti-matter U1 technically is. Regardless, the CSA is now from anti-matter U1. Hypertime is a concept that said that all stories occured somewhere, somehow. Meaning, even though they'd been erased from continuity and history (two very different things, i assure you), the JSA's adventures on U2 still existed, as well as the CSA's adventures on U3, even though neither party was from those respective Earths anymore. But not only that, it meant that every story ever had happened somewhere. All of DC's Elseworlds, pre-Zero Hour, even pre-CoIE stories happened somewhere, at sometime. It also showed us that U2 Superman and the rest where still in 'Paradise,' and U2 Supes wasn't enjoying it very much. He wanted to escape from it in the beginning of The Kingdom, but at the end he was content in knowing that he would one day, not today, but one day, he would get out. So, here's my theory on the set-up of the Universes of DC (yeah, all that was just preamble). There are many Planes of Existence (U1, U2, etc.). Each Plane has a home Universe that contains an Earth (Earth-1, Earth-2, etc.) Each Universe also contains countless worlds besides Earth (Rann, Oa, Thanagar, Tamaran, etc.) that may or may not have counterparts in different Planes (there could conceivably be a Rann-2 or an Oa-4). Each Plane also contains an anti-matter counterpart (where the U1 CSA is from, as well as Qward, but again, there should be an anti-matter Earth-2 with a Crime Legion of Amerika, or something, as well as a Qward-2). Each Plane also contains its own higher dimensions (Mr. Mxyzsptlk, as well as Jakeem Thunder's Thunderbolt come from the 5th Dimension of U1, and Johnny Thunder's Thundebolt in Earth-2 had to come from a 5th Dimension in U2. Likewise, there was probably an Earth-3 Mr. Mxy that just loved to screw around with Ultraman). And finally, all the magical planes (astral, limbo, etc.) and such are present in all Universes. Some Planes may not lend themselves to all of this (for example U4, where the Charlton characters were originally from, probably doesn't have an anti-matter counterpart or a 5th Dimension), but for the most part, this is my going theory. Each Plane of Existence contains the following: a main Universe filled with a plethora of planets, including an Earth an anti-matter counterpart filled with its own set of planets, also including a counter-Earth higher dimensions are present in and unique to all Planes the magical planes So that's that. That's my guide. Remember, as far as i'm concerned, this applies not only to the main Universes, but also to all the Elseworlds like Kingdom Come, Superman: Red Son, and all the rest. Some of my upcoming write-ups will include (in no particular order): the weakening of the barriers between Planes of Existence, the collusion between Marvel and DC to bring about their big summer crossovers, and the differences between and appearances of real-Luthor and other-Luthor. And welcome back to my blog (i hope Erin removes me from her lost to time links section). thecomicman spoke @
11:10 PM
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