For The Love of Comics

As I’m sure everyone is going to say, Spidey takes this one on sheer popularity. Major motion pictures, animated and live-action television shows, action figures, coffee mugs, et cetera… By it’s definition, Spiderman is pop culture. Most people don’t who Thor is or what the name of his hammer is.
(Insert penis/hammer joke here.)
(Insert ‘insert penis’ joke here.)

Thor. Plain and simple. And where the hell is my essay AJ?!

Yeah, I gotta go with Thor on this one. Both characters have had thier interesting moments but (as usual) fizzle out of what ever it was that made them interesting to me. So, I’m voting from an unbiased power to power perspective.

So, as far as powers go….jeeze, do I really have to go there?

I personally haven’t touched any of the new stuff for Thor. I was never really a fan, but a friend of mine says it’s really good. So getting off of the topic of the tournament any opinions on, Thor’s, new series?

and where is my god damn essay?!!!

Spidey wins ’cause J’onn cheated last week and gave The Flush the runs!

Well, crap. Looks like I blew the call this week. Have to make it up next week. Time to go promote this contest to keep my standing.

I voted for Thor, because all it takes is common sense.

Thor’s powers are leaps and bounds above Spider-Man’s, plus you’ve got Mjolnir which would knock Spider-Man easily.

Hey guys! Sorry about the essay lateness, I’ve been on the road the past few weeks, and my fucking computer crashed over the weekend. I had to find a Circuit City in Florida to service it, which didn’t happen till yesterday, and I didn’t even remember about it.

If theres a penalty for that, I’ll accept, but I’ll definitely try to have the essay on Batman’s greatness up tonight.

Oh and CrackerBob, thanks for the bandlinkage!

I’ll have the essay and my prediction for this week by tonight, hopefully…

Okay, so could somebody possibly copy/paste the essay-rules for me quick, and I can whip that up?

Also, as for this week, as much as I love Spidey, I gotta go with Thor. Common sense wins this battle, even with Spidey’s popularity.

Good excuse jackass! Kidding of course. Essay Rules: You must explain why Batman is better then Iron Man by providing evidence of this which of course won’t be difficult. The essay must be a minimum of 1,000 words. And you must use proper grammar. That’s all.

I’m just anxious to read the essay. No offense towards AJ at all. I have no problems with him except for his lack of faith in the Batman. You know when I vote this year I think I just might write in: Batman. lol

You know I hear all this raving about how great THOR is as a book then I pick it up and wonder if I can have some crack as well to smoke so I can “get it”.

No one has explained to me why Thor is worth picking up. I hope Thor is a Skrull and they put him down right next to Cyclops ’cause that kinda makes sense. Best if Hercules puts them down as well.

Screw Thor. More Clor!

Also for me Spidey aint the popular pick ’cause he’s Spider-Man, its ’cause he’s the underdog all his life and one reason that makes him more appealing than a God who needs to be humanized for ppl to relate to him. Parker can be the geek/nerd who would be taking time when he could to do votes like this whereas Thor would just bash the ‘puter w/ him hammer till it stopped beeping.

I haven’t touched Spider-Man since that One More Day piece of trash they put out. They seriously should have just killed Aunt May. She’s old, it’s her time to go. And Spider-Man isn’t a teenager anymore. I’m tired of all of the childish crap. Instead of constantly evolving as a character he’s stuck in a limbo. As soon as he begins to take the steps towards becoming an adult, and therefore a more relatable, superhero they de-evolve him again. And I really hope they transition things back to how they were before, One More Day, and Brand New Day. Until that happens I refuse to buy or read another issue of Spider-Man.

And yeah, Hercules is totally lame.

I know… my “rep” on comics is tainted somewhat but I think its due to the comics of late, I may be vocal but I still drop billions a week on this paper addiction. Its a love/hate thing for me.

Ares is a pussy who doesn’t want to see his daddy and only popular as of late. Herc stands up to his daddio.

ps: Spidey needs to get over Some More Junk then I am sure he will be popular again. I am betting Bendis! will pull Parker to be one of the top heroes again to counter the SMJ bullshit.

Also Thor is only good when he’s written in the pages of Sandman.

To be honest, it wasn’t JMS that did this to him. It was Quesada. JMS never wanted to break up Pete and MJ and his scripts reflected that. Quesada made “drastic edits” as he called them and what we were left with was essentially OMD.

I hope they keep Spider-Man the way he is. For the most part, I’ve been enjoying BND much more than I would be enjoying the crap they would have been left with if they didn’t do something drastic and return the character to something people could somewhat relate with.

[...] don’t forget to tip your waitress!!Yet another reason why, besides having a currently awesome book, Thor will crush Spider-man like a… well, like a [...]

Funny. Like I said on my other post, even if Thor is a metalhead, doesn’t mean he’s better or can beat Spider-Man.

This is no where near as cool as a YouTube vid: http://betweenthestaples.com/2008/03/27/awesome-arena-toc-round-3-vote-spider-man/

[...] Awesome Arena TOC continues on Panels of Awesome, go vote an then comment on For The Love of Comics blog so they can keep track of points on who wins & who [...]

Okay! So after more computer troubles, I’m back, and with the long-awaited essay! And to answer your question Crackerbob, I skipped around in Florida, from Gainesville to Orlando to Jupiter. Now I’m making the trek home, currently in South Carolina.

Okay, here it goes.

Batman. He’s a man, not a bat, but that doesn’t make him any less awesome, does it? You bet your “Holy Moodiness!” it doesn’t. No, Batman truly is the peek physical specimen that any hero should aspire to be, and marvel at when he or she is not. Meanwhile, his opponent in this battle, Iron Man (Super alias of Anthony Stark), is what? A sniveling drunk, that’s what! Some gullible naves (myself not among them of course, I obviously know Batman could and did kick Iron Girl’s ass) actually believed that Stark had the one-up on Bats because of his armor. Bah! Anybody who’s read a comic besides Archie knows that Batman has countless weapons at his disposal, such as EMPs and grappling guns to dispatch the Iron Whimp. Batman is also an expert in many, many hand-to-hand forms of combat, something Tony can’t claim. Sure, Tony may have sparred with Captain America or Hawkeye a few times, but you know who he sparred with a lot more? Jack Daniels, thats who!
Another point in Bruce’s favor is his wealth. According to the Forbes List at http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/11/richest-fictional-characters-oped-books-fict1507-cx_mn_de_1211fictional15_land.html , Bruce Wayne is ranked Number Eight in the Top Fifteen Wealthy Fictional people, while Tony Stark is stuck in double digits at Number Ten. And, on top of that, Bruce spends his money on crime fighting and charity. You know what Stark spends it on? The Avengers, booze, and whores.
And that’s not all. According to BusinessWeek, at http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/smart_heroes/index_01.htm, Batman comes in at Number Two on the Top Ten Smartest Superheroes, while Tony Stark is close behind at Number Three, with the key word being, behind. As in “Tony Stark may get more behind, but Bruce Wayne is no slouch either, and he doesn’t need a parade of bimbos to make him feel better about not being Batman…because he is Batman.” Put that in your Stark Enterprises brand pipe and smoke it!
Lets take a second to examine the cast of characters that these two surround themselves with. Batman has the the Robins – Dick Grayson (who became bad ass Nightwing), Jason Todd (who became a bad ass corpse, and later bad ass resurrected and pissed off dude), and Tim Drake (who is still a whiny pansy and occasionally cool), and that chick one who died but no one seems to remember or really give a damn about. There’s also Commissioner Gordon, who’s played by Gary Oldman, ’nuff said. Then theres Barbara Gordon, Catwoman, and all his various allies and their baddassery. On the flip side, who does Iron Man have? Jim Rhodes, who is actually a cooler version of Iron Man than fucking Iron Man! Happy Hogan, God rest his soul, who isn’t around anymore. Pepper Potts, who Tony spent all his time trying to get with, despite the fact that she was married to his buddy Hogan. Gee Tony, you sure do know how to pick a bunch of winners. And then theres Jarvis. I have to give it to Jarvis. I couldn’t even lie and say Alfred Pennyworth is cooler than Jarvis, because Jarvis is fuckin’ harsh. Keep it real EJ, keep it real.
Okay, so lets move on to the rogues galleries of the two combatants. Clayface, Scarecrow, Penguin, The Riddler, Killer Croc, Ra’s al Ghul, Two-Face, and of course the mothafuckin’ Joker! Not to mention hundreds more, all of whom Batman has opened a can of whoop-ass upon. My God, what a group of amazing villians. I may make mine Marvel (Alliteration Ahoy!), but the Joker and Two-Face are by far two of my favorite comic villians (which is why I’m psyched for the the upcoming Dark Knight). So complex and layered, and fucked up…gah, I could do a thousand words alone on why those dudes are awesome, but I won’t. Conversely, who does Iron Man get? And, for the record, I’m not talking Avengers villians here, I’m going with original Iron Man villians. Fing Fang Foom, M.O.D.O.K, The Mandarin, Titanium Man…eh. I mean, sure, they’re aight, but they’re no Harvey Dent or Joe Kerr. Plus, Iron Man actually has a villain called “The Unicorn.” A Soviet super soldier called “The Unicorn.” If I was a Soviet, and somebody told me I could be a super villain, but I had to be “The Unicorn.” I would go “For the Motherland!” and shoot myself in the face.
So, anyway, what else is there to say? Iron Man is currently starring in Mighty Avengers, in which he seemingly dies in almost every god damned issue, only to miraculously and unfortunately not be dead in the next issue. He’s also got his own series chugging along “Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D”…whoopee. He got Captain America killed because of his stupid Civil War…asshole. He’s probably going to be revealed as a Skrull, absolving him of every wrong-doing he’s committed recently, while causing a massive continuity train wreck, which Joe Q will just shrug off and give a passive aggressive insult to the heart of the fan base. Iron Man will come out of some kind of prison, give up running S.H.I.E.L.D, which will of course return to the infinitely more capable hands of Nick Fury, and tell everybody that everything that happened he would’ve done the opposite of. He will miraculously clone Captain America, marry him, and reunite the Avengers while causing Maria Hill’s head to explode….okay, the Maria Hill head explosion thing is just wishful thinking, but you all know you were thinking it too.
And what will Batman do? Batman will continue being awesome, fighting the Joker, Tim Drake will die or disown him sooner or later to drive him even further into his cause, The Dark Knight will do better at the box office than Iron Man, the Iron Man game will be “aight” but overall disappointing, and Batman will forever reign supreme.
Thee End

Here’s my two pimpages for this week

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&pop=1

http://www.viewaskew.com/theboard/viewtopic.php?p=2874139#2874139

Oh man, I forgot you lived in Florida! Otherwise I definitely would’ve hit you up. I go down every Easter though, and I might be moving down after high school for a little while, so I’ll remember you for next time.

Also…theme parks are for the weak. When I come to Orlando I viait Barnes & Noble, and Colosseum of Comics, which is the best comic shop I’ve ever had the pleasure of going to.

Sir, I would love for you too post it here.

Sir, you definitely should go…it makes living in a box worth it, when you realize the parts of the box you don’t take up are filled with awesome fuckin comics. Not to mention everyone who works there (that I’ve met) are all so nice.

Pimpage: http://www.comicvine.com/myvine/MidKnight/blog/#blog28167