Tagged: John Byrne

Comic Book Cover of the Week! Byrne & The Man of Steel!

Back in 1986 it was a real treat when John Byrne took over Superman starting with the mini series The Man of Steel. He rebooted the series with that limited series and then took over Superman and Action Comics entirely doing the writing and artwork. He gave the people of the 80’s a more adult version of Superman and drastically changed his arch nemesis Lex Luthor into simply an evil billionare instead of an adversary that would often times tangle physically with The Man of Steel.

Byrne was on top of his game artistically as well and here is one of my favorite covers from that era where Superman takes down my personal faves The Teen Titans in Action Comics #584. Damn may have to pull out my Superman back issues later tonight, I have every issue of the Byrne era and it still withstands the test of time…
Check out this rad article that gives you the full story on the John Byrne era Superman stuff, a fun read to say the least!

So Where Are The Great Lakes AVENGERS These Days?!!

I am a mid westerner originally from Wisconsin, born in Milwaukee so naturally I have a HUGE soft spot for our super hero team The Great Lakes Avengers! Well first off they were created by John Byrne one of my all time favorite people ever in the world of comic books way back in 1989. Second they were formed in / and operate out of Milwaukee Wisconsin!

So I was thing today that it’s been a while since we’ve heard a much more than peep out of these guys, aside from their brief appearance in Fear Itself: Home Front #6 -last I heard they were forced to change their name from Avengers & X-men to The Great Lakes Initiative.

Well it seems these guys are always jumping on the bandwagon, so one might naturally assume that due to this sudden popularity of the Avengers that they would surely be changing their name Back to The GLA?!

Well here’s a blog post purely made to generate a little interest from the people of the Mid-west to demand that these guys get some new born respect!! Hell how about another mini series? The Dan Slott one was great and now that the Avengers are all the rage I’m certain these guys could sell a few issues no problem!

So Marvel let’s get on the ball because there are people out there (there are some right?!) who can’t wait to read what Mr. Immortal, Big Bertha, Doorman & Flatman are up to these days? Let’s not forget that Deadpool is a reserve member of the team! In the meantime I am gonna track down all of their appearances I missed out on! Mid-west Represent-LONG LIVE THE GREAT LAKES AVENGERS!

Oh yeah…weirdly discovered a pop punk tune written by Kirby Krackle from Seattle about the team..interesting…I guess they are some sort of geek core band?

The New Hulk Series: Far From Incredible!

You all must know how disappointed I have been with the Incredible Hulk in the comics for the last few years, the Red Hulk, A-Bomb, The Incredible Hulks….Uggh! I just couldn’t stand it! So naturally I was pumped to have all of that bull shit wrapped up with the mess that was made of the Hulk over the years when I heard that Hulk was going to get a new writer and start over again at number one with Jason Aaron and Mark Silvestri on board. Now here we are at issue number four and I have got to say my attention is seriously faltering.

The concept seemed interesting enough, well sorta, Hulk and Banner have split into two different entities and are at odds with each other. Well too bad John Byrne already did this in his short but brilliant stint / story arc way back in the 80’s. But well we all know how original ideas are hard to come by now days…anyway what we have ended up with is a long haired bearded Hulk who lives in the crust of the earth with the mole men and a psychotic dick of man, Bruce Banner who lives on an the gamma Island of Doctor Moreau. Seriously borrowing a bit TOO much there from Moreau-it’s almost sickening. But hey what the hell right it’s the Hulk?

Well for some reason Banner is trying to turn into the Hulk again but it ain’t working and he’s become a mad man, sending his Doc Moreau clones after the real Hulk and pissing him off. So the Hulk decides to go after Banner once and for all…oh yeah the Hulk is intelligent again. How the hell is it determined these days if he’s a mindless monster, a child like brute or an intelligent bad ass? I have been confused for years about this all. Anyway Amanda Von Doom (no relation to Doctor Doom, apparently that’s a common last name?!) has gotten the Hulk to help her destroy Banner because her group of assassins takes down mad scientists exclusively. How convenient huh?

Now they head toward Gamma Banner Moreau island and get attacked by Hulk Sharks, Hulk bats, Hulk Tiger men ect. It’s a pretty weak story if you ask me…I almost prefer Abomb to this really. Then there’s a question of the art, I used to like Silvestri, but today his sketchy art reminds me more of slightly talented Rob Liefeld, I also don’t really dig the long haired handsome bearded “hunk” Hulk that is portrayed here-or for that matter the “old Hulk” they for some reason draw on the cover with his “foot ball player / meat head high top” bowl cut. To make matters worse they have got Whilce Portacio stepping in on issue #4 for some seriously crap-tas-tic artwork that’d make Liefield cringe in his Levi’s 501’s & Doc Martens. I think I just have to say it-the Hulk sucks again!!! How is that possible? Am I crazy Hulk fans?! Have I gone mad and this shit is actually brilliant?! I am hoping this story ends soon and a new writer and artist take it over….hey Mantlo, Stern, David, Jones, Byrne and Buscema rescue me from this ongoing Hulk Nightmare!!

Where the F@#k is Puck?!

So I just got done reading the brand new Alpha Flight 0.1 and it was a pretty nice re-introduction to the original team! It had some real great artwork by Ben Oliver and Dan Green and a great cover which brought back memories of John Byrne. What really would have been great would have been if they could have actually got Byrne to draw this new series(check out the amazing pick below by Byrne). So far so good here as we get a pretty interesting idea of some sort of political turmoil in Canada as their elections are about to begin and a new party called Unity is revealed. I am assuming that Unity leader must win the election and somehow turn the country against Alpha Flight? We’ll see I guess!

Anyway the whole  resurrected cast is here, well sorta… Continue reading →

Alpha Flight Preview Arrives!

I just found out a few minutes ago that there’s a 9 page preview up for the upcoming 8 issue limited Alpha Flight series that ties into the current “Fear Itself” storyline! Now I’m not really following the Fear Itself storyline per say as personally it just really didn’t sound all that interesting to me. If I was made of money these days I would most likely be throwing down the cash for it regardless but sadly as of late I have to be a bit more picky with my weekly selections. However I will be checking out this mini series as it features quite possibly my fave super hero team of all time.

Anyway as you can imagine I am downright thrilled to see Alpha Flight is back again! Even Bendis couldn’t keep them down, but the question remains is this going to be the Alpha Flight book fans have been waiting for? Is this the answer to John Byrne’s magnificent 80’s run? Well if you check out this link here you can make that judgement yourself I have my fingers crossed as I’m going to check out the first nine pages right now! One question I have however is what the heck happened to Marrina? She looks like she just got off work from her weekend job at Hot Topic!

What do David Bowie & Wolverine Have in Common?

Word on the street is that The Wolverine, the sequel to the god damn awful “X-men Origins: Wolverine” is possibly back on track after the recent depressing news that Darren Aronofsky, had left the project. Naturally I thought the worst, thinking our new director would be some hack like Michael Bay or Uwe Boll and we’d get a repeat of the last movie-more shit served up hot for us true Wolverine fans.

 

 

Well it seems someone out there still gives a damn about ol’ Wolvie as new has hit that Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie and director  of the amazing sci-fi movie Moon and most recently Source Code  (which I’ve yet to see). If you’ve seen his work you’ll agree that if he does indeed direct The Wolverine we’ll be getting something special from a director who actually cares about the final product. So once again, I am excited about  a new Wolverine movie, so please guys don’t let me down again….

Check this interview out where we get a little bit of the scoop on Wolverine!

Comic Book Cover of the Week!

Incredible Hulk #314 not only is one of my favorite comic book covers but it was also the start of one of my favorite Hulk runs by John Byrne. Nobody draws the Hulk as epic as Byrne. Plus adding in some of his best bad guys (yeah I LOVE Modok) is even better. You can check out this run in the Marvel’s Hulk Visonaries Trade Paperback and read Byrne’s all too short run on the book jam packed as well with lots of Doc Samson-they just don’t make ’em like this anymore!!

Comic Book Cover of the Week! Wen-Di-Go!!

Let’s face it Wendigo is one of the coolest Marvel Comics characters ever and X-men # 140 from 1980 is probably the BEST portrayal of him as being drawn by John Byrne. Not only is the cover to this comic 100% classic but the whole story is just damn awesome. The real story starts in X-men # 139 as Wolverine and Nightcrawler head off to Canada to help none other than Alpha Flight take down the vicious beast. I miss simple storylines like this one which features them all shacking up in a cabin in the woods together. This is one of the classic Claremont/Byrne isssues and may be a bit pricy in it’s original form-but it can be found reprinted several different places-Long live WEN-DI-GO!

Bigfoot Battles an Alien!

If you’re looking for a good epic back issue to pick up along with your new releases on Wednesday look no further! I am recommending one of my all time favorite back issues ever! Of course it’s no secret that I love Alpha Flight! I honestly can’t wait for someone to give it the reboot it needs in the Marvel Universe today. It seems it’s been tried several times and it just never seems to be even  remotely close to as good as the original John Byrne Run. Which leads me to one of my favorite issues from 1984. Alpha Flight # 10!

 

Of course if you really want the whole story you should really pick up #9 as well but if you wanna cut straight to the action this issue delivers the goods with Byrne’s amazing artwork. Continue reading →