Category: Marvel
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Conan The Barbarian Hits the NYC Streets?!
What If was one of the coolest Marvel Comic books ever, it was kinda like a weird ass Twilight Zone episode starring your favorite characters! This cover here to What If #13 is a personal favorite and it wouldn’t be the last time Conan grazed the pages of this particular title. He’d go on to face off with the likes of Thor and Wolverine as well here. But this at the time was a trippy idea-what if Conan walked the Earth today? You just know that he’d get into some major shit as it clearly shows by the situation arising on the cover here. This was way back in 1978(notice the Star Wars poster in the background!) and this cover was beautifully drawn by John Buscema and Ernie Chan! A true classic!!

Comic Book Cover of the Week: She-Hulk’s Racey 80’s Centerfold!
This particular cover for Fantastic Four # 275 has always been a total favorite of mine! In fact when the Thing left the Fantastic Four back in the early 1980’s I was at first super pissed! But then he got his solo book which ended up being one of my favorite titles as a kid and I was totally thrilled when the FF got their replacement for The Thing- The Sensational She-Hulk!! The Hulk was my all time favorite superhero so of course I was always totally crazy (and a bit crushed out on) about She-Hulk! So apparently was John Byrne-as he gave her a shot as a member of the team and eventually gave her a solo comic series and a graphic novel of her own! This Byrne cover shows an enraged She-Hulk as she get ready to confront a sleazy magazine publisher who took candid photos of her sunbathing topless!! Bad bad move my friend!!

Comic book Cover of the Week: The Blob’s Ultimate Dream Babe!
I always loved this particular comic book cover by John Byrne way back from 1985! Alpha Flight #22 is a fun issue with a great simplistic cover. I love when team titles have issues where you get either a solo adventure or a pair together, in this case two of my favorites the mutant twins Northstar and Aurora! I love how frustrated they both look while in the clutches of The Pink Pearl.
Alpha flight was an excellent title and I highly suggest the entirely charming John Byrne run of the series. Now the cool thing about this is that you might think the Pink Pearl was simply a one off villain but in fact she has sine appeared several other times through the years most recently briefly in The Logan Legacy. John Byrne too had his act fully together with these 80’s Alpha Flight comic covers too! This one though has always been a fav of mine!

The Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer: Did it Deliver?!
I know, The Avengers: Age of Ultron probably doesn’t need any more hype, as it’s clearly on it’s way to probably being the most successful movie of all time. But to not chime in a little on this one would be a crime right? I was a big fan of the first one, it was a damn fun movie, I finally got a pretty decent Hulk (though I still am not a fan of an entirely CG character) and it merged all the other Marvel movies together seamlessly. Now I’ll say this I’m not sure that The Avengers with all of it’s slick computerized fx will age very well and I to be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of Loki & The Chitauri as the films main villains. But regardless now we have the first trailer for the second installment and it looks pretty damn awesome! So here it is again, like this fucking thing needs any more attention with it’s near thirty million views in like 2 days…
It’s clear the movie is going for a darker almost apocalyptic vibe to it. It’s tone is much more serious and the trailer clearly lets us know this movie is filled with secrets and clues to future Marvel movies. The first look at Ultron was chilling too, he’s a creepy ass robot the way he should be, so I’m tickled pink that they got that right. It promises to an epic battle between The Hulk and Iron Man (or possibly Iron Man’s armor under the control of Ultron?) that I can’t wait to see. It’s clear there’s some sort of problem with Tony Stark in this one that I suspect could set up the movies for the Civil War plot they have been talking about. I also see potential for maybe a Planet Hulk flick coming out of this one. I cannot wait to see the Vision! And this messed up romance!

Now as cool as Ultron looks I wish and hope that there’s more to flick in way of super villains. I love Ultron, but the whole idea of The Avengers fighting another huge ass group of guys who look the same (ahem the Chitauri in the first film and army of Ultrons this time)) again might be the one thing that I am not too thrilled with. I really would love instead to see some Avengers villains really get into the next movie. Give me The Masters of Evil, Baron Zemo, The Super Skrull, The Absorbing Man, The Leader, M.O.D.O.K., The Wrecking Crew for cryin’ out loud!! Where are all these great villains dammit?

I wanna see the Avengers take on a team of bad guys like in the comic books-Let’s get a roster of great actors for the third movie with a final superhero/villain battle unlike anything we’ve ever seen on film. I cross my fingers for part three to deliver this and more. In the meantime though I am pretty damn pumped about The Age of Ultron, it somehow looks leaps and bound more exciting than the first one. It seems Marvel just can’t be stopped, let’s see Fox or Sony or hell even DC top this! It’s an exciting time to be a fan of the superhero…
Comic Book Cover of the Week! The New Defenders by Bill Sienkiewicz!
This particular cover way back from 1983 was one of my favorites as a kid and today it stands as a truly stellar piece of work even by today’s standards. The New Defenders were pretty awesome and you had three of the original X-men all together in the same book! It’s clear when you had Bill Sienkiewicz on a cover back in the 80’s you were gonna get something leaps and bounds ahead of the curve. I consider him along with Mike Zeck one of the best comic book cover artists of all time bar none. His cool jagged style added that extra edge to your favorite book, suddenly making them cooler than ever before. Check this one out! They just don’t make em’ like this anymore…

The Death of Wolverine #4: Final Verdict!!
Just got done reading the Death of Wolverine #4, the final nail in the coffin for Logan! Now we all know that Wolverine will only be “dead” for maybe a year or two tops. Same cookie cutter superhero death formula as always, a big comic book hubub, news stories, a bunch of comic books that feature the effect of the characters death, funeral issues, blah blah blah..Yeah so Wolverine will be going MIA for a little while and hopefully people will miss him enough that Marvel can then again make some big money on his return as well.

So was the death of Wolverine worth all the media hype, shiny metallic variant covers, director’s cuts and a high cover price of five bucks a pop? I’m gonna say a firm no. This series should have been at least 6 issues better yet 8 to really tell a compelling unforgettable Wolverine story with some serious staying power. Aside from a strong first issue, the story in general while playing on nostalgia from Logan’s past felt incredibly rushed with not much real substance and not much new to offer to his complex story.

On a positive note at least it wasn’t Sabretooth who “killed” him, his final nemesis “Cornelius” was at least a surprise and the series art was pretty fantastic. Shocking? Nah…issue number four brought Logan’s legacy full circle back to the Weapon X program where Cornelius of course was creating super soldiers with adamantium laced bones and of course he needs Wolverine’s healing factor to ensure his test subjects can survive the procedure. Of course when he realizes he no longer possesses it, he’s got little use for Logan and orders a new nemesis Major Sharp to destroy him. Ultimately the ending is in many ways very predictable and I can already see the image of Wolverine literally bursting back into the realm of the living in a year or so.

My final thoughts, I’m glad Wolverine is “dead”. He’s been done to death literally. He’s been around every corner for the last two plus decades, he’s turned into a bit of softie too. Wolverine is not the mysterious anti-hero we came to fall in love with anymore. I think some time apart is healthy, he’s like a lover who you’ve spent every waking second with for far too long, you need some time to breath dammit! I also really hate these ‘Death’ of events. They’re NOT shocking in the least. If you really wanted to shock us have his death take place unannounced in his main core book! Have all this shit happen but don’t tell us he’s gonna die a year before it happens!! Imagine if Robert Kirkman announced every death in The Walking Dead and made a damn spectacle out of it every time someone kicked the bucket?! How shocking would that be?!
I also don’t like all these tie in books, I for a second considered buying “The Logan Legacy” #1 today until I saw how terribly drawn and stupid every panel of it all looked. I for one look forward to a good loooong ass break from Logan. When they do bring him back, and they will,I hope Marvel learns from their mistakes. Give him a spot in the X-men(One title), give him one solo book of his own, get his hairy ass out of The Avengers and make him more like the guy who we used to all wanna hang out with! Make him pissed, mean and most of all a loner like he was meant to be. I look forward to the day I miss me some Wolverine!!! ‘Nuff said…..
The 1989 “Trial of The Hulk” Daredevil Returns in Marvel’s Netflix Series?! WTF?!
Ummm…this is a bit of an odd surprise here, we just got the official look at the new Marvel Daredevil from the upcoming Netflix series today and well it seems they’ve decided upon the 1989 “Trial of The Incredible Hulk” TV series version of the characters costume!!? I’m not kidding this is exactly the same costume design from that movie that Rex Smith wore! Which, um….wasn’t really the best interpretation of the character I’ve seen, heck I might even take the Affleck Daredevil’s maroon leather look over this one! Don’t believe me? Check out this newly released pic:

And now let’s look at the 1989 Trial of The Incredible Hulk Tv version:

Ummm…kinda Baffling huh? I guess we’ll see how this all plays out, my guess is the newly released Marvel pic above could be Daredevil’s starter costume? Like maybe it’s the first one that he puts together? If not boy that sucks!!! I wonder if John Rhys-Davies will be returning as the Kingpin?!!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Vintage Snake Eyes!
Here’s a great blast from the past, GI Joe #53, by none other than Mike Zeck! Duh! You know I am starting to think that he might be the best cover artist of the 1980’s as I’ve seen a trend of consistently posting covers by him during that era. He did a ton of super awesome GI Joe Covers back in the day. You know all of us kids back then were obsessed with Snake Eyes! This was a simple, basic but totally bad ass cover that showcased how cool the character was-proving you just can’t ever go wrong with a god damn ninja!!

What’s even more bad ass is the full picture Zeck originally drew-Check it!!

Fastner & Larsen’s Classic 1980’s Comic Book Paintings!!
As a kid I loved the Fastner & Larsen superhero paintings they did back in the 1980’s which were often sold as portfolios! These two started out drawing fantasy & scantily clad sci fi pin up girls and muscle bound dudes, I’d imagine that Frank Cho must have had mega inspiration from these two. Eventually they were approached by Marvel to do some work and boy did they ever! As a kid I had these portfolios and they still today remain some of my favorite pics of some of my favorite superheroes. Today these guys still do amazing art check out their website, and check out some of these classic comic book paintings from yesteryear! Stuff like this is why I love comic books today sooo much!









Comic Book Cover of The Week: Mazzucchelli Batman and Daredevil!
I think this awesome cover to Batman #405 (better known as “Year One, Part 2”) deserves to showcased here. First of all it’s proves that sometimes simplicity works best for an effective comic book cover! Second it’s drawn by one of my favorite comic book artists, David Mazzucchelli! In my opinion his version of Batman is perfect, forget the battle armor kevlar BS, this is the perfect Dark Knight stripped down and dirty. This was a great series too written by classic writer Frank Miller (now a total D-Bag) it’s considered now one of the best Batman Stories of all time.

Mazzucchelli also drew some of the best Daredevil comics of all time (also teaming up with Frank Miller), in a similar tone he proves that Daredevil is Marvel’s Batman. This has inspired me to get the full scoop on what David Mazzucchelli is up to now, so expect a post on that soon!

