For The Love of Comics

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Apparently, writing Invincible Iron Man has been too much for Matt Fraction’s brain. First, he was seen at Comiccon wearing a blasphemous “Tony Was Right” t-shirt and now he’s made the artwork available for download. Just print it out onto an iron-on label, iron it onto a t-shirt, and VOILA!

…iron-on blasphemy.

Technorati Tags: Matt Fraction, T-Shirt, Iron Man, Captain America, Tony Stark, Civil War

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Image by lman1138 via Flickr

Last week, Mike Haynes from Panels of Awesome, RJP of Between The Staples, frequent readers and commenters AJ and Midknight, and I traded a bunch of e-mails that culminated in a Skype chat between Mike, AJ, and myself this past Sunday night.

The original plan was to focus on Iron Man, but the chat ended up going all over the place. We had so much fun that we decided to try and make it a weekly thing, every Sunday at 7pm EST. Hopefully Midknight will be joining us this week, but we know RJP won’t be there due to prior engagements at Emerald City ComicCon. We all expect tales of Seattle debauchery to make up for his absence.

If you would like to join us us this Sunday, or any Sunday, drop me a line at any of the many ways to contact me listed on the “About” page (or even drop a comment on the blog) with your Skype username (Skype is free, kids!) and I’ll make sure you get an invite to the chat!

Anyway, Mike beat me to posting excerpts from the roundtable discussion, but here are some of my favorite quotes:

Holy SHIT, that movie was awesome.

Hurry up and watch it so that I can geek out with y’all!

Also, in case you haven’t heard, make sure to stay until the credits are over.

~Me, immediately after getting home from seeing the Iron Man movie.

Best Marvel flick to date…with Spider-Man 1 & 2 coming in a close second and third. X-Men and X-Men 2 would be somewhere in the mix too I guess.
~Mike, on where Iron Man stands among the other Marvel movies.

I’ll go as far as to say best Comic Book Movie to date, edging out Batman Begins.
~AJ, going one step further than Mike.

I’m still not willing to go THAT far. Batman is God, people.

Mike Haynes: Speaking of acting, Robert Downey Jr. - Best casting ever?

AJ Tardive: Oh man, amazing. Like I said before, if Tony Stark was that much of a BAMF in the comics, I would be a die hard Iron Man fan.

Dustin Christian (Crackerbob): Yeah, Downey ran away with it, as I expected, but everyone was excellent in it. I think they cast with an eye on the long term… Howard can easily carry the focus on War Machine, as can Paltrow and Favreau with any increased exposure on their characters. I don’t think there could have been a better person to play Tony Stark.

AJ Tardive: Howard’s shining moment “Next time baby…” was great.

Mike Haynes: Loved that little teaser.

AJ Tardive: Really got my hopes up too, cause for a second I thought he’d actually become War Machine this early in the series.

Dustin Christian: I hear he probably will wear the armor in the sequel; everyone is signed for three movies.

AJ Tardive: Yeah, next film will supposedly delve in to Tony’s alcoholism.

Mike Haynes: Exactly. If it’s not Iron Man II, it’ll be in the third. Either way, he’ll be in that armor before the trilogy comes to a close.

~The whole group, discussing the casting and the future of the franchise. Again, this was before Marvel made their announcements on Monday morning.

Dustin Christian: I snickered every time they made fun of SHIELD’s name.

AJ Tardive: I was surprised, I didn’t catch the SHIELD references until he actually said “SHIELD” at the end.

Dustin Christian: really?

Mike Haynes: Yeah, me neither.

Dustin Christian: huh…I caught it right away.

AJ Tardive: yeah. when he said it I was like “oh…damn”

Mike Haynes: Then right before he says it I was like…”Oh. He’s SHIELD…” [and then] “…just call us SHIELD.”

Dustin Christian: I caught it the first time, when they said “Strategic Homeland…” I was like “ooooh… COOL!” I kept halfway hoping to see some people in the jumpsuits, even though they would have looked ridiculous.

Help me out, people - am I really the only one who caught that right away? Am I that much of a geek?

From there, we kinda bounced all over the place, talking about what’s coming out, what’s out, how much Jeph Loeb needs to step up his game with Captain America: White, how Spider-man can just not win as a comic in my mind (no matter what), my seeming obsession with the viral campaign for The Dark Knight, why no woman should EVER date Matt Murdock, and various other topics. There were awesome moments and I was funny as hell, but putting it all into context would quadruple the size of this already long post.

Your best bet is to join our little Bags-and-Boards Mafia this Sunday for more comic book fun! Anything goes and we can talk about anything you like - even RJP’s sex-change operation!

Technorati Tags: Panels of Awesome, Round Table Discussion, Bags-and-Boards Mafia, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Summer Movie Season, Batman, Matt Murdock, Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr

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Source: WikipediaCracka’s Note: During the craziness of the first week of the Awesome Arena Tournament of Champions battle between Batman and Iron Man, MidKnight and AJ placed a bet on who would win. MidKnight supported - of course - The Dark Knight. AJ supported Iron Man. The loser would have to write an essay on why their choice was inferior to the other combatant. As we all now know, MidKnight won.

This is AJ’s essay.

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

Technorati Tags: Iron Man, Tony Stark, Captain America, Jason Todd, Avengers, Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Batman, Awesome Arena, Tournament of Champions

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I learned something about myself on this vacation. I can’t just jot down some notes about what I should write a post about and expect to come back a week later and either know what I wanted to say or still have the same enthusiasm for it. I either need to write more detailed notes or make myself sit down and at least write the post out in notepad or word while I’m still feeling it.

Nonetheless, I have these notes and I guess I should at least mention the thoughts, even if I don’t quite have the details of what I was thinking at the time. For no other reason than I feel like it, I’ll give you the verbatim note that I left myself before I say a little about it.

Mighty Avengers 6 - Actually enjoyable! Maybe write a review?

Well, I don’t really have a review in me, so you’re not getting one of those, but this was a pretty good issue. Frank Cho’s art was amazing as always, even if it wasn’t worth waiting months to see. I may have been more impressed if they actually left Sentry’s wife dead, just for the “oh crap” factor, but I understand why they didn’t and I can live with it. I really enjoyed the thought/speech bubbles, they gave a nice contrast between what was being said and what was going on in the character’s heads; the interaction between the Pyms was probably the best use of it in the entire issue, it made me ache for them both, even if Hank is a wifebeating moron. Another nice touch was showing the team member’s logos as they joined the action. A very bad touch was the prologue, having the scene with Spiderwoman showing up with Skrullektra’s body, thus reminding us how very very late this issue was. It was almost enough to drain all the good-will that this issue had built up with me and really should have been left out of the finished product. It served no purpose in furthering the story at this point. No positives, only negative.

But, in the end, the fact that I actually had a moment of liking Tony Stark won me over for this story. That moment of him checking for his penis was excellent, he’s an okay guy when he’s not trying to be the commander of everyone. Actually, any comic that can make me actually like and feel for a group of characters that normally don’t even cause a blip on my radar is a damn good comic. Strong work, Mr. Bendis.

Ghost Rider 18 - I don’t really get it; the plot seems overly convoluted. Why keep changing his origin and make it even more confusing and [expletive deleted] up?

That… pretty much says it all, actually. I’m not sure if I planned on doing an entire review or just wanted to condemn Marvel for making Ghost Rider even more ridiculously hard to follow.

I really don’t understand why they keep messing with his origins - he’s a cool character, has a pretty damn cool backstory, and I don’t really see any point to messing with his origin. Demon harnessed by a good man to fight evil? Cool. Ancient spirit of vengeance connected to a bloodline that possesses the first born of each generation? That’ll work. Angel of Vengeance tricked into thinking he/she/it is a demon? I’m starting to get annoyed here.

I’m starting to think that Ghost Rider has the same problem as Wonder Woman… people will not quit messing with the character. If you “tweak” and manipulate a character’s origins and make everything you think you know about them false right when fans are starting to get a handle on the character, people will lose interest.

Quit…messing…with…the damn….CHARACTERS!

Infinite Horizon - The Odyssey applied towards America’s current war on terror, short blurb, recommend it.

I’d heard some talk about this one and actually had someone shove it into my hands and demand I read it. I’m not sure if I would have picked up on its connection to The Odyssey if I hadn’t known about it beforehand or not, but that’s not really the point. This comic is an excellent read and you don’t need to know anything at all about The Odyssey or any of Homer’s other works in order to enjoy this. The basic premise is that the United States takes this War on Terror to an insane level until we just run out of resources. Troops are stranded in the Middle East, martial law is declared at home. Infinite Horizon focuses on an Army Captain’s fight to get home and his wife’s struggle to keep things together while not knowing what has happened to her husband. Pick it up, you won’t be disappointed.

I just picked up my stack of comics for the past two weeks, so there will be more news and reviews soon.

tag: comics, reviews, avengers, ghost rider, infinite horizon, wonder woman, marvel, tony stark, image

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Image by fengschwing via Flickr

Contrary to the slanderous disinformation spread by Tony Stark and perpetuated by the propagandists at Marvel and my well intentioned, but misguided friend The Mike Haynes from Panels of Awesome, Hulk is NOT to blame for the issues Marvel.com had on Tuesday, Nov. 13th.

The perpetrator was actually Iron Man, who decided to crash Marvel’s website for “the people’s own good.” Because Stark is incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions and must use others for his dirty work (see Harry Osborn and the Atlantean Ambassador), he tried to set up a defenseless man who is currently buried under the desert and unable to defend himself to take the fall.

This is typical behavior for Mr. Stark and I encourage you all to spread the truth about this out-of-control fascist gearhead, before he decides that breathing is not in our best interests, either.

tag: Death to the Initiative, Hulk, Iron Man, Marvel, Tony Stark, Digital Comics Unlimited

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