Who Dares Challenge Doom?

I have a general rule of thumb. Any comic that prominently features Doctor Doom is 90% of the time going to be awesome. So as you can imagine I'm a sucker for those solo Doom stories in the early issues of Astonishing Tales. Old Larry Lieber (Stan's brother no less) doesn't disappoint, giving us tales of Doom being ruthless, evil and thoroughly cool. However with Doctor Doom as your protagonist you inevitably face a dilemma 'who is tough enough to cross swords with the Marvel Universe's number one bad guy'? It can't be the Fantastic Four or the Avengers again and again, but a face-off against Rhino or The Shocker just isn't gonna cut it. I mean once you have him summon up the devil and yell 'I AM DOOM!' in his face (which is just what he did in Astonishing Tales #8) where is there left to go?

Who is bad ass enough to take on Doctor Doom?

It's got to be someone who has the charisma to convince the Latverian peasants to strap on their jet-packs take up their ray guns and throw off the shackles of oppression. It's got to be someone with the balls to meddle in the creation of Doctor Doom's most unstoppable android ever - the Doomsman. It's got to be someone with the fashion sense to steal 'the-goldfish-bowl-for-a-head' look made so very popular by super-villain fashion diva Mysterio.

In Astonishing Tales #8 Larry give us the answer. It's got to be the Faceless One!!

Never heard of him eh? Don't worry about it, just take it from me that he's bad to the bone. Look at this picture (rendered in sumptuous Wally Wood art) of the Faceless One trying to wrest mental control of the Doomsman away from his master:

Okay, you call the Doomsman, then I'll call the Doomsman and we'll see who he comes to.

Obviously in order to be a worthy foe to Doctor Doom you can't just cause an uprising amongst his subjects, you can't just steal his best toy,you can't be just like all those millions of other goldfish bowl wearing Mysterio knock-offs that are wandering around out there. You have to have a secret weapon.

A secret weapon that is so shocking it will amaze and disturb not just Doctor Doom, not just his Doomsman but all of the cynical jaded fanboys of Marveldom Assembled.

A secret such as:

Oh My God! He's just a goldfish bowl with legs!!

Okay, okay, I know you're freaking out, but everything's okay, calm down. It all works out in the end. Doctor Doom exiles the rebellious Doomsman to another dimension and sticks it to the jetpack touting malcontents invading his castle reaffirming his iron grip on Latveria. All is well. Doom is supreme.

Oh No, wait! He forgot about the Faceless One!:

Geez, you'd think Castle Doom would have an elevator

Take note all would be dictators out there in the audience. If your arch-enemy reveals himself to be a goldfish bowl with legs don't leave him to scuttle about your lair unattended while you go to put down a filthy peasant uprising and banish your evil android lackey to another dimension. That's just going to give him the precious seconds he needs to find your master control room!

Or maybe he'd just go looking for the little goldfish bowl's room. Whatever.

Booster Gold in Monkeyface Scandal...

We're Onto You Batman!

Batman always wins. We avid comic fans know this from experience - that dude is unbeatable. Did you ever stop to wonder how he does it?

Let's face facts here people keen detective skills, flawless fighting skills, peak physical fitness and squillions of dollars aside he's still just a dude in a rubber costume who carries bat-shaped boomerangs in his belt. How is it that he doesn't get his ass handed to him every time he comes up against one of the more 'super' super-villains in his rogue's gallery.

I'm talking about guys like Bane, who can and will snap you like a twiglet. Clayface who can turn his fist into a big freaking mace and pound you into bat-paste. Or even Mr Freeze who can turn whole cities into the icecapades and make an icecube of your boy wonder from 50 yards away:This guy has been touting that ice gun for God knows how long. Surely by now he's got handy enough with it that anytime he comes up against Bats he should just be able to make a bat-popsicle of him without so much as batting an eye.

You would think, but somehow, inevitably Bats ends up kicking his frosty ass back to Arkham.

How does he do it?

It's quite simple really. He cheats. That's right, you heard me! Batman cheats his bat-ass off.

He distracts you with his mean stare. He keeps you off balance with his grim and sullen attitude. He gets you all mad with his repitoire of 'yo momma' jokes. Then the instant you're not looking in comes his secret buddy 'The Magic Hand' and steals your weapon! Then while you're trying to figure out what the hell just happened he pops you in the jaw with his patented bat-sucker-punch! See:

(click to embiggen)

We're onto you Batman. We've seen the callow sucker-punching coward that lurks just beneath your noble heroic facade. You'd never catch Superman dealing with people in such a sneaky under-handed fashion...well except for Silver Age Lois Lane but who could blame him that chick was a pain in the ass.(Todays post was brought to you by Booster Gold v2 issue 14 wherein a mind-controlling starfish takes over the earth...only in comics my friends.)

Captain Comet - Can You Dig It?

I am a sucker for comic shop bargain bins. Normally a trip my local comic shop consists of perusing the shelves and picking up the new issues I want to buy that month then with whatever money I have left cleaning out as much of the bargain bin as I can. Every so often in amongst the issues of 'Guy Gardener:Warrior' and 'Darkhold - the Book of Sins' that seem to permanently reside there you can unearth a gem.

Mystery in Space #8 is just such a gem.

Okay I'll admit to only buying this book because it starred the Weird who is a freaky Jim Starlin character who got a 4 part mini-series way back when. Let's face it I wasn't about to buy the book because it starred Captain Comet was I? I mean when was the last time anybody bought anything because it starred Captain Comet?

Imagine my surprise then when I came out the other side of this comic thinking that Captain Comet was bad mutha of Shaft-like proportions:

Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?

We join the story just as the ELC are about to drop a boatload of their evil telepathic monks on the Captain's head (Note: That was ELC, as in Electric Light Corporation, not to be confused with the ELO as in Electric Light Orchestra. Not that a story that consisted of Captain Comet battling Jeff Lynne and a band of his deadly psychic monks wouldn't also be kick ass). Anyway, as I was saying - Captain Comet, killer monks, big trouble.

In the olden days the Captain probably would've given them a mild electrical shock, or read their thoughts about what a loser he was - or something equally lame. With Jim Starlin at the wheel though the Captain doesn't mess around when it comes to dealing with mind-reading religious nuts in questionable capes. Instead he takes care of business John McClane style.Yippe-Ki-Ay you Mr. Blue Sky singing motherfu - no wait ELC not ELO, I forgot. Anyway after he blows up all their grunts the big bad guys of the ELC: bald, alien computer nerd Prime-7 and the clergyman with the cool name Deacon Dark send the Weird out to wack the Captain.

Some telepathic hijinks ensue, the Deacon gets defrocked, literally and Captain Comet gets punched in the jaw a whole load of times. It's all good stuff but it's really just whetting our appetite for the Captain's big showdown with Prime-7 at the end.

With all his ELC cronies out of commission Prime-7 decides that wasting a whole space station full of innocent people doesn't seem like too excessive a way to off the Captain. Before he can do the deed though the Captain decides that blowing the shit out of a whole spacecraft full of innocent people doesn't seem like too excessive a way to stop Prime-7 from wasting a whole space station full of - - well you get the idea.Are we noticing a pattern here?This is where all those other Captain Comet writers of the past have been going wrong. Forget lame psychic powers and cheesy electrical blasts. Just give the guy a little clicker wired to a hundred of tons of explosives and let the good times roll.

Bless you Jim Starlin. You, Captain Comet, his little clicker and the complete disregard for innocent lives that go with it have made the explosion lovers here at 'YouAreComic' very happy, if somewhat sick and demented, people. All for a bargain price too. What more can we ask for?

PS: Did I mention this book also has a talking dog?No? Well it does.

Well When You Say It Like That....

KickAss Splash...

When it comes to comics nothing is more awesome than a killer splash page. Now I know that artists these days have got chops and can splash it up with the best of them but when it comes to splash pages to get the really good stuff - you gotta go old school.

I was reading some old Marvels recently when I came across Marvel Two-In-One #10 and this little gem really jumped out at me:That's pretty sweet! One of the toughest things to pull off in comic-book art is car chases. They rarely ever come out looking as dynamic and exciting as they should. This is one of those rare exceptions. These guys totally nailed it.

I could gush about the awesomeness of the splash page for a whole post but the story beyond the splash page is pretty nice too.

Marvel Two-In-One as a book had a kinda klunky premise. Every issue they'd have to dream up some reason or other for the main hero of the book (usually the Thing) to run into whatever other hero he was gonna fight/team-up with this issue.

That being said Marvel Two-In-One nine times out of ten would give you a great little done in one story and usually some B-list super-villain scoring some serious face time. Being a sucker for B-list super-villains they had me at hello.

What this issue lacks in B-List super-villains it more than makes up for with bumbling terrorists 'the Sword of Judgement'. These clowns plan to drop a thermo-nuclear bomb into the sea in hopes of causing a radioactive tidal wave that will wipe out the eastern seaboard.Why they don't just drop their thermo-nuclear bomb on the eastern seaboard I'm not entirely sure. Maybe they just really like to wear their water wings.

Anyway, their plot contains one fatal flaw. Their boss used to date slinky, sexy Russian super-spy Natasha Romanova aka the Black Widow who inevitably shows up to throw a leather-clad spanner in her ex-honey's works. Coincidentally while being chased by her ex-boyfriend's goons she almost runs over the Thing and Alicia Masters in her fancy sports car - oh the serendipity!

With the klunky meeting behind us we get to sit back and enjoy the Widow and the Thing engaging in some good old fashioned bad-guy-ass kicking! In the ensuing ass-kickery though the enormous thermo-nuclear bomb accidentally gets knocked into the sea. Whoops! Now Ben has to haul the frickin' thing back up with his bare hands before it reaches it's trigger depth and blows them all to smithereens. With Benjy out of the fight it's up to Black Widow to single-handedly take down an army of lover-boy's crazy henchmen!That's a great moment. A heroic conundrum of Stan Lee-esque proportions. Moments like these are why we read comics - am I right people!

Incidentally this issue also has an A-Team-style escape. Of course unlike Hannibal and the boys the Widow doesn't need to be locked up in a barn full of power tools to pull a Houdini. She packs a whole ACME escape kit under her fake back skin.

I'm not kidding check it out:Woo-Hoo!! A sleazy cossack striptease of Howard Stern-esque proportions. Moments like these are why we read comics - am I right people?

But that splash! That splash! Lord have mercy!!!

Oh Say Can You See....

Captain America #344 comes from the fantastic Mark Gruenwald run of the late 80s/early 90s. This issue contains one of the main reasons why Gruenwalds run is so beloved (by me anyway). That reason....is snaky bad guys.

You betcha. There's nothing I like better than a good snaky bad guy (except maybe a monkey themed bad guy of course but that's another post).

Mark Gruenwald is the picasso of snaky bad guys. He introduced the decidely silly Serpent Society and during the course of his run turned them into - - well who am I kidding they're still decidedly silly, one of them's called Puff Adder for crying out loud! Anyway he used them a lot and I loved it.

How can you not love the Serpent Society? I mean look at them! Here's Cobra, Sidewinder and *snicker* Boomslang whomping the shit out of some unsuspecting citizens and generally having a merry old time of it.Those guys rule! The costumes, the dialogue, the thinnly veiled hatred for one another. This is the very foundation legendary bad guy teams are built on!

Anyway, I'm wandering off topic here, this isn't a post about the awesomeness that is the Serpent Society. I'm here to talk about the quality snake-related moment that occurs in this issue that doesn't involve the Serpent Society.

Okay, so a bizarre epidemic is sweeping Washington turning the citizenry into weird, scaly, reptile-folk. The cause of the madness is the sultry, green-haired vixen of the snaky set Viper who is using the chaos as a cover for an attack on the White House!

Even though in those days the government had stripped Cap of his classic flag-covered duds the Sentinel of Liberty is not about to let some pinko-commie, snake chick wack the big man! So he pulls on his drab, dark coloured fake Cap suit, grabs his cheap, knock-off shield and heads off to protect the prez.So he got there a little late and the President is a snake-man himself that's hardly Cap's fault those skin-tight all in one costumes are a bugger to get into!

Ever the patriot Cap tries to fight off the snaky-prez without hurting him. Even after he strips down to his tighty whities and tries to give Cap the mother of all hickeys!

Then the snaky-prez takes it too far:Sure you can try to bite him, you can spit at him - hell you can claim you've been replaced by dimension-hopping troll and pop him one in the kisser and Cap will still turn the other cheek. What you don't do is hit him in the bonce with Old Glory!

That kind of thing gets him all steamed!

It's no surprise that scant seconds after this heinous flag bashing Cap has the prez defeated and unconscious in a puddle of his own sweat and the villainous Viper all wrapped up for the Feds.

Such is the beauty of Mark Gruenwald's Captain America. It's cover to cover super-heroics, patriotism, snaky bad guys and half-naked presidents.

It almost makes me want to stand up and salute.

Erik Larsen Hurt My Brain...

Erik Larsen is a crazy man.

I mean seriously cuckoo-bananas. The man is wacky with a capital WACK!

Don't believe me?

I present you with exhibit A: BRAIN-I-APE.

Now anyone out there who reads this blog regularly knows that I'm a sucker for monkey related comic-book characters. The Mandrill, Gorilla Grodd, Monsieur Mallah, Ralph - you name 'em I love 'em.

But Brain-I-Ape is in a league of his own. He's not just a great, big super-intelligent gorilla who likes to go toe-to-toe with a big, green cop with a fin on his head. He's a great, big, super-intelligent gorilla with a goldfish bowl on top of his head!

Whoa, Whoa! Hold your horses nay-sayers I'm not done!

As I was saying - he's a great, big super-intelligent gorilla with a goldfish bowl on top of his head which contains the preserved living brain of Adolf Hitler!Didn't I tell you? Erik Larsen is a loony tune!

Not happy having cooked up the world's first Hitler-monkey hybrid Erik Larsen then decides it's not crazy enough! So in Savage Dragon #49-50 he takes it to the next level.

What's the next level above a monkey with Hitler's brain?

Well first you have Hitler's brain evicted from it's fishbowl and replaced by the severed head of the recently deceased super-villain Cyberface. Then you have him use his new monkey body to pilfer the fancy-smancy armour of another dead villain Overlord.

Now with the brain of Cyberface, the body of Brain-I-Ape and armour of Overlord he......looks like a bit of a knob really:Now as you would expect (well you would if you were Erik 'my head is full of wee white mice' Larson) Hitler's preserved, living brain is none too happy about being evicted from his comfy little fishbowl.

Unfortunately, being a disembodied brain, there's not a lot he can do about it.

No wait- what am I saying, of course he can do something about it. Erik Larsen wrote this book! That means Hitler's brain is perfectly capable of showing up with a huge gun and blowing the shit out of that ape-stealing son of bitch!

No he really can, honest. See for yourself:That's the last page of Issue #49. Hands down, the absolute best comic-book cliffhanger I've ever read in my entire life.

Savage Dragon is an awesome series. Packed within every issue is comic-book wackiness of unfathomable, Thundercats vs. Superman proportions.

Erik Larsen should be strapped down and medicated before his gibbering insanity infects us all.

In the meantime just go buy Savage Dragon before Hitler's brain gets pissed at you!

Easy Adolf. Easy.

Bippety Boppity Booze

Comic-book fans love John Constantine.

You know why we love John Constantine? In most cases it's because he's a scheming, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited, vicious, nasty bastard! Being that he's such a scumbag why is it that comic-book fans love him so?

Well y'see basically....it's because we're jerks.

That's right you heard me. It's too late to get all defensive and apologetic now. Instead why not get your jerk on with John at his bastardy best in Hellblazer #42.

This issue comes right in the middle of Garth Ennis' bitchin 'Bad Habits' storyline. You know the one, where John gets lung cancer? It was the basis of that Constantine movie (ick!).

Anyway, John's got cancer and he's trying every sorcerous trick he can think of to wangle his way out of it. So he heads off to Ireland to see his old buddy Brendan Finn. Maybe Brendan can help with the whole cancer-curing thing. I mean who better to go to for a cure to cancer than a drunken Irish stereotype?

Unfortunately for John it turns out that Brendan himself is dying from liver disease. Now with both their lives on the line you'd think they'd put their heads together and come up with some serious dark mojo that can save both their asses.

Well you'd be wrong. Instead they decide to brew up some magic beer and get pissed!That's right! You heard me! I said MAGIC BEER! Even Vertigo titles are not immune to the infectious tickle of comic book wackiness!

After they are both well and truly rat-arsed John decides to hit the road, leaving Brendan to catch forty winks in his drafty basement (what a pal!). On his way out the door he runs into the First of the Fallen on his way in to collect Brendan's soul. Poor Brendan, dying off panel! An Irish stereotype just can't a break in this book!

Anyway John doesn't fancy letting some two-bit, wannabee Satan take his buddy's soul and so the bastard cogs in his brain begin to turn, formulating a dastardly plan.

He invites Firsty to have a drink with him over Brendan's corpse. Gullible old Firsty thinks 'wow, this guy's a real jerk but soul-collecting is thirsty work' and agrees.One tall frosty one later John pulls some of his patented bastard-hocus-pocus out of the bag and changes the enchanted booze into holy water!

Now as any Joss Whedon fan will tell you holy water and demons just don't mix. Poor Firsty - he thought it was just a bad case of wind until his guts began to melt.John's not done yet though. Not satisfied with pureeing the dumbass demon's innards he decides to channel his inner football hooligan and deliver what back in his neck of the woods is known as a Geordie kiss (the rest of it know it as being stabbed in the face with a broken bottle).You're all grinning out there now aren't you? You enjoyed that didn't you? All it takes is some poor sap getting his face torn off by the business end of a ’74 Latour and you're happy as a clam.

See? You're all jerks. Just like I told you.

Why they didn't include the jerktastic magic booze incident in that Constantine movie is beyond me. Sure they'll throw in mystical tatoos (ick), Gavin Rossdale (ick), weener-taxi-driving-sidekicks (double ick) and nicotine gum (one thousand times ick) but magic beer, demons who can't hold their drink and face-bottling is going too far!

Damn you Hollywood - aren't you supposed to rot our brains and loosen our morals? What's up with that?

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole 'Bad Habits' storyline, which (in the comics at least) is quality start to finish.

Kudos to Garth Ennis - he knows good bastard.

Guess he must be a jerk too.

SMUT

That's right people in a flagrant attempt to increase my hits from Google searches I'm going to talk about smut! Actually I'm going to talk about Irredeemable Ant-Man #3 - but that's pretty much the same thing as talking about smut!

For those that don't know Irredeemable Ant-man is the most recent (if not the only) Ant-man series Marvel have come out with. It's written by Robert Kirkman of Invincible fame with art by Phil Hester.

The new Ant-Man is Shield agent Eric O'Grady and the entire basis of the series is that Eric is - - well Eric is a big jerk.

Don't believe me? Well he and his buddy stole the Ant-Man armour from Doctor Henry Pym who they were supposed to be protecting - how about that?

Not jerky enough for you huh? Then how about the fact that Eric's buddy died wearing the armour when the Shield Helicarrier crashed and Eric stole the armour off his corpse and kept it for himself? What do you think about that? C'mon that's a total jerk move.

Still not convinced? This will top it off for you. Eric accompanied Chris's grieving fiancee Veronica to his funeral only to end up almost having sex with her the very next day - - on top of Chris's grave!!Smut! See I told you! Right there - total smut! Ha Ha! Caught you off guard with that didn't I. When I promise smut - I deliver smut baby!

No wait, don't go. Okay okay, so you super-hero fans aren't all about the smut - who knew? This issue has got stuff for super-hero fans too. Honest!

Let's see - - um - - oh yeah I've got it. Super-heroing is all about using your unique abilities to accomplish things regular folks can't. Like using your shrinky Ant-Man abilities to secretly sneak into places without getting caught right?

This issue has got Ant-Man doing just that - check this out:No wait, that was smut again wasn't it. Dammit. There is non-smutty super-hero stuff in this book I swear. Just let me think....

...alright I've really got it this time. Super-heroing is all about rescuing damsels in distress and punching people right? How about Ant-Man stepping in to rescue a battered housewife about to get a serious whupping from her drunken lout of a husband? That's got to qualify as super-hero action right:

Have a look:Boo-Yaa! That's just awesome right?

What do you mean no? You've got Eric giving the dude an ant-sized, super neck punch. You've got a big spurt of blood. What more can you possibly want?

Well bite me asshole, I like it!

Damn prudes!