Hey! I’m nearly famous!

Yeah yeah, I know that I’ve been saying this for years (even got a T-shirt that proclaims it way back in the beginning of my career), but apparently there are some folk that I’ve actually conned into believing it! No, really!

Fine, I know that that no one out there is listening to me (Save for you two guys), but there is a real-live reporter fellow named Mike Gelbwasser, who writes for the Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA. Well Mike has this whole “Online Community” he services with his fine column, and — as something of a funnybook aficionado himself — he somehow got hooked up with my pals over at the Comicbook Artists Guild (CAG).

Mike’s goal was to hook up with any and all funnybook folks here in the New England area, and well, we turned him on to our membership, and he’s been interviewing our New England rank and file. (He already spoke to Everett Soares, writer of the wonderful Sky Pirates from Free Lunch Comics — Unavoidable aside, Free Lunch is the publishing empire of my good buddy Matt Ryan, the artist on Wülf Girlz).

Anywho, to return this focus to little ol’ me, Mike (for whatever reason) thought that I’d make for a good interview, and buttonholed me for to answer a few questions for him, which I was only too happy to do. The result, it up on line. Check it out. In the interview we talk a bit about my deep, dark past, How I “broke in” to comics, as well as some of the stuff that I’m doing today. So go on over and tell Mike that his column is very cool. (I didn’t include any pics of myself as I A) didn’t want to scare anyone, and B) I’m still in the Witness Protection Program. Shush!

Superhero Sex

We were always told that Comicbooks are the young boy’s soft porn. That is to say, that since young boys couldn’t buy Playboy,we bought funnybooks so we could ogle the chippies in spandex. Well, that was in the days before Maxim and, well, the Internet.

Still, even with the Comics Code Authority (as tepid as it is these days), Apparently Sex and superheroes isn’t a new Though, as this old article by Sci-Fi author Larry Niven wrote in 1971 in the publication All the Myriad Ways. The article is of course the legendary Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.

Needless to say, that was probably not the first time that anyone dared speak the unspeakable, it was certainly not the last time, as Gabriel McKee wrote in his piece, Sex and the Single Superhero. And then again by another blogger in this piece on modern day (ne: cinematic heroes).

OK, I’m out again, see you later.

Oh yeah, the Supergirl image at the top of this post is by my good buddy (and artist on my Agent Unknown revival — Springload & Renegade) Chris Torres.

More Hulk than you can Shake a Whopper at!

So not only did I see The Incredible Hulk on Sunday (the day of all Father’s) But I managed to score a couple more of Burger King’s Hulk toys. I’m going to post the pics here now. I know that I posted some of them earlier, but I actually have some better photos now, so I figured that I’d put them up as well.

Needless to say, I plan on reviewing the flick as well over on my film column (Suspension of Belief), but in the meantime let me tell you that not only was it way better than Ang Lee’s The Hulk, from 2003, but it is shaping up to be the year of All-Marvel (Punisher: War Zone is slated for December 5th).



These are the two toys that I acquired today. The ones that appear below are close-ups.




The two that appear below, were from last week's acquisition.




As there are six toys in this set, I suspect that I’ll have the final two next week. These toys are pretty cool, and I’m enjoying them, only with all of the recent influx of superhero movies (and their requisite fast food toy tie-ins) I’m rapidly running out of places to display them all.

OK, I’m going to break for dinner now. See you all in the funny pages.

Even Fathers are Superheroes

OK, OK, I know that you folk all what to see what cool Spider-Related crap stuff I acquired from my family on Father’s day (hey, some days — not often — it is good to be me). So, without further adieu here we go.

First up, was the card itself! which is followed by a very cool Spider-Mobile, a Spider-Flashlight, and an incredible growing Spider-Man. As my daughter pointed out, I do have another growing Spidey (that came packed with a cool mini (reprint) comic), so perhaps I will grow this Spidey, and show you the resulting figure.

As you can see on the inside of the card, it was signed by both of my kids. For Father’s Day, I also went out with my son to see The Incredible Hulk (review to follow) and The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan’s latest horror Creapfest. Both were very well done, and I enjoyed them both. (My daughter chose to pass on going to the movies which is why we went to see them both, had she chosen to accompany us, we would have just taken in Hulk, as The Happening is Rated “R.)






When collecting stuff like this it always helps to have an understanding family.

Time for a Cup o' Iron Mead

As you all know, I’ve been stalking a whole passel of Marvel-related 7-eleven stuff, well, this Saturday, I acquired the four Iron Man cups and two of the Hulk Straws. I was aided and abetted in this endeavor by a pair of friends and fellow CAGers (Liz and Chris — take a bow). Liz purchased the items for me, brought them into the City on her visit to last week’s Big Apple show (which I was supposed to attend, but missed). She then passed the items over to Chris, and I acquired them from Chris when I went to the CAG-NY meeting yesterday.

Actually, now that I see the cool Hulk figures on these straws, I’m looking to see if I can find the third figure-straw. Whelp, Back to ebay, I guess.

Still out on the Horizon (which I purchased on ebay but haven’t yet arrived) are the missing Iron Man Burger King toys, and a set of Iron Man 7-eleven straws. I purchased both recently online, and am simply awaiting them to arrive into my hot little hands. I’m thinking that at the end of the summer when I have all the Summer Superhero food-related toys (those mentioned, plus (hopefully) Batman: Dark Knight, Hellboy, Punisher, Hancock, what-ever), that I’ll pen an article about them that I’ll post to my regularly-schedule fast food toy column on American Antiquities

Well, that's it for now, Perhaps I’ll be back later with some other cool Bon Motts.

A Dark Knight Breakfast

Just in case you kiddies thought that all of this Summer’s food-related toys are MARVELous, I just wanted to get you all hip to what could be coming with the most important meal of the day. You got it kids, There are Batman toys packaged with your Cheerios!

(And here I was wondering if there were going to be any food toy tie-ins to that flick because of the film’s dark nature and the death of Heath Ledger. Well, I guess that the licensing gods must be served, so here come the toys!)

This one is sort of a disc launcher, and the other items on the back of the box look king of cool. To be sure, I’m not going to be actively collecting these toys (Yeah, it may be Batman, but — for better or worse — I’m first and foremost a Marvel Zombie.) Thing is, I really only like Cheerios so, I’ll probably wind up with more of these.

If I get doubles, anyone interested?

The Enormity of it all

OK, so they tell me that it is hard to tell the players without a scorecard. Well, it occurs to me that I actually DO have a scorecard, and I still can’t friggen’ tell who is who and WTF is going on?

Confused? Well so am I. I’ve been reading Marvel Comics for some 46 years (yes, you read that right forty-six years!), and I’m seriously trying to A) figure out what is going on in the Marvel Universe, and B) if I actually care. No seriously. I’m trying to work it out in something relating to an organized, chronological manner. So, If I have this right, here’s a brief synopsis of what has gone down recently:

0) Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD convinces a handful of heroes to invade Latveria on a mission of questionable “National Security” (not so important by itself, but it grows into the most important event of the next couple of years, so pay attention).

1) The Avengers break up because they are attacked (Wasn’t reading them at the time, so this wasn’t as important to me as it later became).

2) Wanda goes Nutsy Fagan and remakes the world into her own little fantasy world, where Mutants rule and Humans are the disenfranchised (House of M).

3) Non-mutant heroes (along with a mutant or two) figure it all out and put a stop to it, reverting the world back to the way it was, only Wanda then slips whatever cogs she has left and eliminates all except 198 mutants worldwide.

4) Spider-Man is tapped to join a new Team of Avengers.

5) Tony Stark achieves the complete Fascisim to which he has been aspiring all of his corporate Military Industrialist Complex life, and forces through legislation that kick-starts Marvel’s Civil War Event.

6) Peter Parker is seduced by the oily-smooth father-figure opresented by Stark and all of his billions, and goes over to the dark side during the initial parts of Civil War.

7) Peter finally re-discovers his moral soul, and slides over to Captain America’s side, thus swinging the ultimate outcome to the side of the Angels.

8) Full-scale war erupts in Times Square, Cap Surrenders, the New Avengers go underground.

9) Captain America is killed.

10) Iron Man forms New-New Avenger team (henceforth called “Mighty” so as not to sound redundantly silly).

10A) In conjunction with the Mighty Avengers, Stark also founds the Legion of Substitute Avengers, (called Avengers Initiative, so as to avoid lawsuits with the Distinguished Competition) which is designed to train all of the young collaborators, turncoats, Avengers-in-training for his grand 50-State Hero Initiative.

11) May Parker is shot (with a bullet intended for Peter) and lies in a coma, thus “forcing” Spidey to re-don his black (Venom-inspired) spider-suit (which has been webbed up on the underside of some random building’s ledge for an untold time by webbing that lasts only an hour).

12) The Hulk returns from off-world to extract vengeance on the Illuminati (a secret coven of heroes who have been “manipulating” the events of Earth since 1962 or thereabouts given the vagaries of the “official” Marvel time line), captures most of the heroes in NY, and thrashes Midtown in the process.

13) After beating the crap out of half the thugs left in NY, Spidey goes back to wearing his red-and-blues and cuts a deal with Mephisto (the Effin’ Devil, sometimes referred to as Satan in the real world!) to end his marriage ah, save Aunt May’s life.

13A) The results of this deal (the law of unintended consequences?) also apparently include Harry Osborn inexplicably returning to life, MJ sleeping around with some whiny, shallow, self-involved, Brat Pack Media Whore, Peter somehow becoming stupider, more accident-prone, and less competent as a super hero.

14)) (Before, after?) Hulk all but destroys Manhattan (and it is rebuilt by Damage Control), it is invaded and nearly over run by an army of Venom-like Symbiotes that were apparently (accidentally) launched by Dr. Doom).

15) After (I think) the Symbiote invasion, the Invaders (the original team from WWII) are somehow mysteriously transported to — you guessed it — Midtown Manhattan where they fight the Avengers (Mighty, & New, along with the Thunderbolts, and probably everyone else and their brothers — as this is ongoing as I type this up, I’m sure there are more curves yet to come).

16) (Told) Simultaneously (but occurring after?) is the Summer’s great brouhaha The (not so) Secret Invasion, whereby the Skrulls have been infiltrating the Earth since shortly after FF #1 or some such. (Would it be redundant to point out that as I pen this section an armada of Skrulls have invaded, a-yup, you guessed it, Midtown Manhattan.)

17) As Midtown is being invaded, the Avengers (New & Mighty) are duking it ouch with each other where, no, not in Midtown Manhattan, but — as far away from Midtown as you can possibly be while still on Earth — in The Savage Land. There they come face-to-face with who else? The Avengers and friends (probably from 1985, but don’t even get me started about the continuity glitches rampant in that series!)

So now, I’m reading Amazing Spider-Man with a guy in the Spider-Suit that can’t be the real Peter Parker (because he made a deal with Satan! whom we also know as The Effin’ Prince of Lies!), a Spider-Man in Spider-Man Family who can’t be Spidey because, it is being written by hacks; a bunch of Spideys who appear in the Alt-Universe Marvel Titles (Marvel Adventures, et al.) because they simply aren’t mainstream; Spidey-who-isn’t-Spidey appearing in virtually every other Marvel Comic who can’t be Spidey (because nothing of value ever happens in not the main title book); and not one, but Two Spideys appearing in the Secret Invasion titles (Secret Invasion, New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, etc.) neither one of which can possibly Spidey (because no one else is Spidey!).

In fact, I’m completely convinced that the only Peter Parker running around in Marvel Comics these days who actually IS Peter Parker is the one that appears in Amazing Spider-Girl, because That one is still married to MJ, actually had a daughter, and is being written by a real Spider-scribe (Tom DeFalco who also served as Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief and didn’t try to end Peter’s and Mary Jane’s marriage).

Some one please tell me I’m wrong, that I’m going to wake up and discover that all of this is a bad dream. Or, failing that, ‘splain to me (in small words) what is going on here.

Pretty please.