Could Donald Trump Be Punking The USA?!

I saw this amazing Cracked video recently that poses the question, what if Donald Trump is just an elaborate prank? As I watch this strange election year unfold I’ve more than once thought this exact same question. It’s become at this point completely absurd that Trump has somehow managed to advance at all as the presumptive Republican nominee.

Aside from all of the hateful, asinine bull shit this guy has spouted he’s also said some things that are simply too unbelievable for any mainstream candidate. I’ve often times thought perhaps this year his new reality show IS the Presidential Election. I mean who would have ever thought you could appeal to people by being a total douchebag any and every chance you can. It’s batshit crazy that his “message” is resonating with anyone, even total idiots. So here’s an awesome video that to me seems at this point the most believable storyline of the Trump candidacy thus far check it out if you haven’t already!

Well? It seems possible doesn’t it? But wait there’s more here’s a little reality adding fire to the strange conspiracy theory, there’s rumors that perhaps Trump was called upon by the Clinton’s from the start too screw up the Republican Party. It’s well known fact that him and the Clinton’s have been buddies for years, it makes me wonder if indeed this really is some strange prank. Check this video from the Young Turks out: 

Hmmm…pretty fucking weird huh? Anyway I guess we’ll see, can anyone really be as blatantly idiotic as Trump? Or are we all in for the ultimate “Gotcha” moment?! Only time will tell I guess….

Comic Cover of the Week: The Gargoyle By Bernie Wrightson Can’t Be Beat!

When it comes to outstanding comic book covers by truly incredible artists The Gargoyle #1 is one of the best! A relatively obscure Marvel character got his own limited series in 1985 and was also a member of The Defenders around this time as well. Who better than to get to draw this monstrous superhero? Bernie Wrightson laid it onto paper like a true champ and gave us one of the best covers of his career! All four covers for this series are actually pretty incredible but this one takes the cake… 

The Great Lakes Avengers Return to Protect the Midwest!

Ok after all of my recent Marvel Comics bashing I had to take a minute here to mention that I’m actually pretty pumped about the upcoming Great Lakes Avengers ongoing series! Since 1989 when John Byrne (one of my top comic book idols) introduced the underdog team to the Marvel Universe in West Coast Avengers #46, I’ve been a big fan. In fact I listed them as one of the obscure Marvel teams I thought would make a great movie or better yet a comedic Netflix series after the success of the D-listers The Guardians of the Galaxy. Of course I have my bias as well, growing up in Wisconsin, that’s where this team is from. If you ask me the Midwest just doesn’t get enough love in the comic books. So the fact that these guys are still representin’ means a great deal to me.

I highly suggest checking out some of their earlier appearances, the classic Byrne West Coast Avengers is a great place to start but back in 2005 Dan Slott gave us an excellent 4 issue series as well. Most notable from the series today was the inclusion of Squirrel Girl to the team in that series, who we all know now is one of Marvel’s hottest titles.

That’s a great place to start and you get a chance to see in ‘Misassembled’ the origins of the team as they take on some serious Marvel Villains who arrive in their neck of the woods to raise some hell. The team finds themselves in serious trouble as they face a real threat for the first time. It’s cool little story with some great humor.

This new series finds the original core group back together in smaller numbers this time as Squirrel Girl has left the team and original member Dinah Soar died in battle over a decade ago. The team consists of Mr. Immortal, a mutant with a superhuman healing factor and the ability to survive the most gruesome deaths, Big Bertha who’s the most popular fashion icon in Milwaukee WI & has the ability to bulk up like the Blob, Doorman a mutant who can create doorways using alternate universes to pass through solid objects and finally Flatman, the openly gay two dimensional version of Reed Richards.

In the new series the team have been anointed official Avengers and are stationed in Detroit to keep  the region safe. The team on the cover of the first issue appear to be milking the fact that Squirrel Girl was part of the team and are seen carrying around a cardboard cutout of her. I’m hoping that they can convince Squirrel Girl to join the ranks again, it’d be a selling point for the book but more so she was a perfect addition to the team.

It’s clear we’ll be getting quite a humorous depiction of the team once again and I can’t wait to see what kind of mischief they get into. The new series comes out this fall by  Matt Gorman & Will Robson.

 

Identity Crisis: Is Marvel Ashamed of Their Classic Characters?

I have been pretty open about the fact that I really don’t read any Marvel Comics anymore these days and part of the problem for me is that they just don’t intrigue me the way they used to even a decade ago. I guess I was inspired to write my thoughts here as a bit of a response to the recent news that now Tony Stark will be retired as Iron Man soon. That’s fine by me but It seems that Marvel just can’t stop changing their classic characters races and genders. Now don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s always been an interesting concept to take a character like Iron Man even back in the 1980’s & have James Rhodes take over the suit or Bucky & The Falcon taking over the mantle of Captain America. However more recently it appears that Marvel is on a mission to change up nearly every classic character’s identity in some way shape or form. I mean the Fucking Hulk has even changed into The Totally Awesome Hulk with Amadeus Cho as the alter ego.  

I totally understand that Marvel is trying go a long with current social issues by trying to incorporate more diversity into their comic books. I really do commend them for the effort but after numerous changes to the gender, race and identities of Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Wolverine and now Iron Man (there are likely more) it’s beginning to seem like Marvel has just run out of good stories for their classics. Or perhaps people indeed are really fucking bored with the traditional Marvel universe? Marvel these days seems more worried about what race and gender their classic character’s are than giving people truly intriguing stories.

 I don’t mind a little change up here and there, in fact I totally dig it (heck I loved when Heather Hudson took on the role of Vindicator and lead Alpha Flight-it was a smooth, intelligent totally righteous transition) but it seems that Marvel has largely forgotten that they could simply bring more existing characters into the limelight rather than giving all of their classics a brand new identity? I think it’d be equally exciting to get some some brand new superheroes on the shelf rather than constantly changing the classics. I know times have changed and more people than ever read comics, it’s not just the stereotypical geeky men of yesteryear buying them up, so naturally they may want to rethink their strategy. I get it. 

 

It’s actually become somewhat of a  predictable move for Marvel in 2016, deciding to ditch Tony Stark and reboot a new series with a female Iron Man but (a bit odd to still call the book “The Invincible Iron Man” with a female lead, it must be because they don’t want to risk losing any money ditching the name?). I don’t think it’s really that odd of an idea for a woman to design her own Iron Man armor and start kicking ass. Though it seems like Marvel might trying a tad too hard to be relevant in 2016. We all know controversy does sell quite well…

 

For me there has always been a lot of pleasure in picking up a comic book and reading stories that take me away from our daily routines, media trends, political ideals, online debates and reality in general. I want as much diversity in comics as possible but it’s not feeling real genuine to me these days from the big Marvel cash machine doing anything it can to make a quick buck. I’ve heard as well the debates now heating up about the race and gender of the writers and that they’ve got to match the characters of the comic book they are writing…At some point I think all of this becomes a bit of a drag.

We’re talking about characters that were intended for kids that now have become somewhat of hot button for everyone and their mother & father to get all up in arms about. The landscape of comic books has changed quite a bit over the years and at least Marvel’s approach feels like they’re desperately trying to fit in. Perhaps it’s true people are tired of the old gang of Tony Starks and Bruce Banners. Perhaps their story has already been told and feels tired but I’m hoping Marvel will at some point settle on “who’s who” and let us all just get on with some incredible superhero stories. What do you think? Are you bored with the classic characters? Is Marvel setting bold new trends? Let me know what you think!

Donald Trump is the New M.O.D.O.K. & Hillary is the New Ms. M.O.D.O.K.?!

I just saw that one of my favorite freakiest villains of all time has gotten a new partner in crime via Marvel comic’s Spider-Gwen Annual. Yep it seems now that we have a new big headed pompous jerk on the block called M.O.D.A.A.K. whose name apparently means “Mental Organism Designed As America’s King”. You can see all the typical Trumpisms too in the picture, from his tan face and pink areas around his eyes to his taco bowl he’s eating.

I have always kind of viewed Trump as a bit of a real life supervillain, Lex Luthor type of figure & though I don’t read Spider-Gwen I totally dig the image of Trump as a M.O.D.O.K. character! It’s totally fitting for a dude with an ego as bloated as his. The real M.O.D.O.K. though should be totally offended by this shit though! Now though to be fair I suggest if Marvel is really daring, as it’s been the trend everywhere for sometime to rip on Trump perhaps they should give M.O.D.A.A.K. a proper bride like they way back in the spectacular Incredible Hulk #290! I can only nominate that the new Ms. M.O.D.O.K. be Hillary Clinton herself and since I know Marvel will never dare, then I’ll do it myself…so here I give you Ms. Hillary “MODOK” Clinton to match her buddy Donald!

msmodok-hilaryclinton

 Let’s be honest folks both Trump and Hillary deserve to be transformed into supervillains!  

        Like one big M.O.D.O.K. family! Perhaps Bill could become a M.O.D.O.K. as well!

Comic Book Cover of the Week: X-men & Star Trek Team Up?!

Here’s funny little team up that went down back in 1998 and happens to have a cover I think is deserving for a spotlight if not only for how odd the whole idea is! The X-men appeared along the cast of the Star Trek: The Next Generation for this 64 page one shot, something many people have forgotten about or perhaps just never even considered existed. But there was of course a small demand by some fans to see these guys team up against not only the Borg but also the Sentinels! This cover features artwork by Cary Nord and Scott Koblish check it out…

There was also an alternate cover too:

Now only if we could have had the X-men team up with the original crew right? Well they fucking did that shit too in 1996!

Yeah and we even got to see Wolverine and Spock tangle a bit- so there’s that! Seems like Spock just may have served Wolverine his ass on a platter if really pushed to the limit-non-berserker Vulcan style!

 

 

Best of VHS Box Art: Making Contact!

I love digging up these old VHS boxes as so many of them feature iconic artwork that’s never left my mind from way back in the days of the video store experience of the 80’s. So today I’m featuring a pretty unknown jem of a movie from 1985 by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich.

This one is a great movie, a total 80’s Amblin, Speilberg rip off but a ton of fun. It borrows heavily from movies like E.T., Poltergeist and Close Encounters. It was also known as ‘Joey’ and features a villainous ventriloquist doll so yeah there’s that too! Anyway I’ve always totally dug the cover art from when I was a kid and it totally represents the movie as well. You know most more obscure 80’s flicks feature some totally wicked cover art but then the movie just doesn’t deliver one tenth of that awesomeness. Making Contact has a great cover and is actually a pretty cool little flick too!

This cool ass box art was done by Barry E. Jackson, if you want the full scoop on him and some of the other totally epic cover check out this link from one of my favorite blogs Camera Viscera!!

Tank 432: The Military Vs. The Supernatural!

I’m a big fan of military horror flicks like Predator, Dog Soldiers and Frankenstein’s Army so this new trailer for Tank 432 I thought looked pretty darn interesting. I also really liked director Ben Wheatley’s ‘Kill List’ quite a bit and this one looks just as intriguing.

It looks like neat little claustrophobic horror movie that finds a group of soldiers having survive the night from an evil force and whole up inside of an abandoned tank. It’s already been described as a mix between Dog Soldiers and Jacob’s Ladder and if it delivers on that promise then I’m certain this one is going to a sure fire win. Check out the trailer:

 

Those Crazy Vintage Spider-man Fan Flicks!!

Who doesn’t love a good fan made film? Well these days it seems comic book fans waste no time pumping Youtube full of fan flicks and with modern technology everyone seems to think they’re a damn genius director. Well back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s making a fan film wasn’t exactly something that everyone was doing. Nope there was an actual serious shortage of regular fanboys and girls attempting to bring the pages of the comics to film.

However today I saw a pair of pretty entertaining Spider-man fan films one from 1969 and another from 1989. It’s awesome to see way back then people were inspired enough to give the near impossible feat of bringing a superhero to life on screen- check these out for a serious blast from the past, hey you gotta give these peeps credit and an A for effort, they gave it a good shot with what they had!!

Oh and you gotta love the Kingpin in this one!

 

 

Comic Book Cover of the Week: Night of the Living Wolverine!

Alpha Flight number 13’s cover has always been one of my favorites and if you were reading the comic book back in 1983 you know it was a pretty emotional time for the Canadian super team. This was again during a time when it was kinda special when Wolverine would show up on the scene as opposed to when he was featured in every comic book on the shelves. This was also a time when Wolverine was still a weird little 5 foot 3 inch mutant berserker rather than a Hollywood hunk! Anyway this cover was done by one of my all time favorite artists ever, John Byrne and the scene on the cover is actually a piece of a creepy dream sequence in the wake of the death of Alpha Flight’s team leader Guardian.

I totally dig Wolverine’s classic cowboy style here and of course the brilliant tombstones which feature the names of classic comic book artists. Of course Byrne’s name was usually cleverly hidden as part of the background and can also be seen on the tombstone. This is such a classic cover and a cool time to be into Marvel stuff. I’m still amazed they’ve never worked Alpha Flight into any of the Marvel movies as they’re a huge part of Wolverine’s past…also anyone else ever pick up on Wolverine having a crush on Heather Hudson?