Category: comic books
Comic Cover of the Week: Zeck’s Iconic Kraven The Hunter!!!
Mike Zeck in my opinion is easily one of the BEST comic book cover artists of all time! Now with the news of Spider-man’s arch nemesis Kraven the Hunter being cast with Aaron Taylor Johnson in the role, I thought it’d be the perfect time to revisit one of the classic covers of the 1980’s limited series. Check out The Amazing Spider-man #293 from 1987’s brilliant cover by Zeck. Hopefully the cinematic version of Kraven will honor not only this iconic look but also pay homage to the classic storyline. This cover truly shows just how great Zeck is with this brilliant work of art!
Marvel Team Up: Spider-man & Chef Boyardee vs Mysterio?!!
So back in 1996 Spidey teamed up with none other than Chef Boyardee for his signature brand pasta that lead him on one wild and crazy 30 second animated adventure!
I love these old commercials when you had stuff like this on tv! Check this out as Spider-man squares off against his classic nemesis Mysterio to protect his pasta!!
Comic Cover of the Week: The Hulk’s Dangerously Green Gamma Virus!
One of my personal favorite single issues of The Incredible Hulk comics is Annual #11 from 1982! I remember when this came out, I was 8 years old and I carried this issue with me EVERYWHERE! It’s story is quite relevant still especially today as we see a gamma virus running rampant among the US population that makes people sick and turns them green! Yowza!!! This issue pits the Avengers along with Spider-man up against their old teammate The Hulk and it’s a glorious little superhero sci-fi tale that also features The Leader at the core of the mayhem. It also features a super sweet short solo adventure from Doc Samson too!! One thing of course I’ve always loved about this issue was it’s magnificently simple cover by Al Milgrom which deserves the spotlight here today:
Comic Cover of the Week: Barry Windsor Smith’s EPIC Machine Man!!
I recently pulled out my old ‘Machine Man’ limited series from 1984, some thing I do pretty regularly because it’s just that damn awesome. The series brings Machine Man into the future of 2020 where he faces off with the evil Arno Stark, the next Iron Man! The thing that sets this series apart from a lot of the stuff back then is the fact that Barry Windsor Smith showcases how much of a bad ass he is with his stunning artwork on not only the cover but the inside as well. The series of 4 covers is pretty amazing as it shows his circuitry transforming him into his original form. Here’s issue #3:
They reissued the series again a decade later and then issued a trade paperback with yet another amazing cover by Barry!!
The ‘SHANG CHI’ Trailer From an Old School Fan’s Perspective!
Sometimes I feel like I’m just raining on everyone’s MCU parade! I really don’t want to be THAT guy. However as a fan of the comic book as a kid in the 1980’s I can say if you’d shown me the trailer with no mention of what I was seeing I’d probably wouldn’t have guessed it was Shang Chi “The Master of Kung Fu’ I’d grown up to love!
Comic Cover of the Week: John Byrne’s Super-JOKER!
So sooner or later The Joker was bound to get tired of Gotham and Batman! 1987’s Superman #9 has one hell of an awesome cover by John Byrne and the story is pretty fun as The Joker stops by Metropolis to make people go crazy with his deadly laughing gas! He’s also managed to bring along a robot Superman with a freakin’ nuclear bomb inside, thats when Superman steps onto the scene! He easily foils the Joker’s plan asking point blank why he came to Metropolis, Joker simply laughs and says “Ooh Superman…Why not?”
What I really love here is just seeing seeing The Joker on the cover of a Superman comic, something we rarely, if ever, had seen before this. It’s always great I think when we see a traditional villain of one superhero square off against another. Byrne captures the Joker in his own unique way here on this amazing cover I want on a t-shirt! My only issue is I wish The Joker had been able to give Superman a better run for his money!
There Is NO Way The Falcon Needs a Damn Loan from a Normie Bank!!
So I just watched the first episode of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, I thought it was good, not like mind blowing or anything yet at least, but pretty decent all around. There is however, one damn big ass elephant in the room though. Sam Wilson is BROKE? WTF? I’m just not buying this one at all folks. Ok so you mean to tell me one of the top tier Avengers, who just helped save the enitre planet, has a multi billion dollar, state of the art, robotic winged flying costume & flying robotic weapon companion, good pal of Tony Stark, heir to the mantle of Captain freakin’ America, who gives speeches at The Smithsonian needs a damn loan from a freakin’ normie ass small town bank?!! And can’t get one approved?
Ummm…This is more unbelievable than any Norse god appearing on Earth or whatever wild time travel shit we all witnessed. Seriously is this just bad writing? C’mon, no way Sam doesn’t have major $$$ from government contracts or being part of the damn Avengers initiative!! He’d at this point have to have some severe high stakes gambling addiction to need to go to a local bank and plead with a lowly wise ass bank teller for some damn chump change. His opening mission alone in the show was probably at least letting him pocket a couple million! The guy is one of the most elite super soldiers on the entire planet-He really needs to plead with some damn asinine bank teller?! Um…Ok..what the holy hell is going on here?!
They’d better have a good explanation here in the “wings” because so far that’s got to be one of the most stupid pills to swallow in the entirety of the MCU!! ‘Nuff SAID!!!
Comic Cover of the Week: Wisconsin’s Finest AVENGERS!
I’ve been saying it here literally for years, the MCU is missing the boat on one of their most outrageously hilarious superhero teams: The Great Lakes Avengers! Since the Avengers are still all the rage and essentially dismantled at the moment, it’d be the perfect time for the comedic gold of Wisconsin’s very own superhero team to get a series of their own on Disney Plus. The team was created way back in 1989 by none other than comic icon writer and artist John Byrne and their introduction back then meant a lot to me at the time being a Wisconsinite myself. Essentially a band of misfit z-grade superheroes who decide to start an Avengers team of their own to rep the Midwest, only problem is their crime fighting skills aren’t exactly “Avenger’s level”. Nope the team’s got A LOT of work to do-but none of that’s gonna stop em’ from tryin’ dammit!
Even at one point Hawkeye and Mockingbird attempt to train them, which of course proves to be quite challenging in itself. The team went on to later appear alongside Deadpool and also had a great 4-issue miniseries by Dan Slott that’s a must read. They more recently tried to give them their own monthly book, but it really lost the dark comedy angle and edge of their previous appearances and was cancelled. This great cover by John Byrne shows once again how effective simplicity can be as we got our very first look at the mighty Great Lakes Avengers!~
Spider-man and his Amazing 80s Hardee’s 3-D Happy Meal!
Ahhh the good old days where Happy meals truly made people happy! Back in the 1980s you could score a Happy Meal that really had something to offer. You could also watch a commercial that was actually better than what you got inside of it. Check out this classic 1980s Happy Meal commercial featuring Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends along with The Incredible Hulk! Back when I was a kid I would wake up early every Saturday morning and watch Spider-Man and his amazing friends and then my favorite show The Incredible Hulk part of the Marvel Comics Power Hour, then I begged my mom her one of these things- check it!!
The MCU Meets The DCEU: The TRUE Secret of the Multiverse Movies?!
I’ve got a prediction here, and remember peeps you heard it HERE first at my measly little “hobby blog” (as John Campea would call it), that it’s no coincidence that BOTH the MCU & The DCEU’s new agenda seems to be the “multiverse” idea. I mean the MCU casting supposedly three different Spider-man actors from the past movies (Toby, Andrew and Tom Holland) & then hearing the news of The Flash going to the multiverse where we have at least Affleck and most exciting Michael Keaton BOTH as Batman sounds suspicious. I’m calling it here, the MCU & the DCEU are going to meet in the finale film’s after credits scene of all this multiverse stuff. Sound crazy? Well maybe you forgot THIS classic comic back from 1981?
Well if it does sound crazy, THAT’s exactly why I think it’s going to happen and think about it, what kind of after credits scene would shock every one after the big ass CGI finale. Think about this- The Flash and the multiple Batmans meeting the Peter Parkers at the end of this phase, or even some of the DCEU’s villains meeting an MCU villain from another dimension? How much hype would the next phase generate? I remember a couple crossovers a couple times back in the 80’s or maybe you’ve forgotten ‘DC Versus MARVEL’ in 1996? That shit was a big damn deal and I’m betting high on something like that taking place cinematically sooner than later. Think of the $$$$$ potential here-there’d be nothing bigger.
This multiverse plot line put forward at the same time by both studios is either the most lame copy cat cinema plan or it’s the event that blows the lid of of both franchises. I think there’s really no other event that could top this idea and for the studios to NOT take advantage of this with some secret back door deals would be actually ludicrous. Something is cooking true believers and remember you heard it at U-Dork first! Count on it! MCU Meets DCEU-suck it Campea!!!
Universal Dork 