It’s revealed that this poison was created by the United States government that can turn animals into wild monsters that they could drop into combat zones. There’s a ridiculous series of panel that shows cute little rabbits being turned into Sweetums-like monsters. Don’t believe me? You can view the page over on Marvel Comics Chronology. Conveniently it’s assumed that there is an antidote to this that can be found among the wreckage of a ship in the Pacific Ocean.

How convenient that our hero–a mermaid of sorts–can find the cure under the water. It would be funny if Namor would have to go somewhere random, like the Sahara Desert or an Arby’s in Passaic County, New Jersey.But no…writer Marv Wolfman set it in the ocean. How imaginative.

So Namor is looking through the wreckage only to be attacked by a group of Men-Fish. Pretty much, the Men-Fish are sea creatures that have been mutated by Doctor Dorcas.There’s that name again. The Men-Fish are pretty silly looking, seemingly more appropriate being member’s of Skeletor’s army of minions. And like minions, Namor is able to dispatch them fairly easily.

WHat Namor didn’t count on was the Men-Fish having a new leader of sort called Pirahna who can be described exactly how his name sounds. And that’s how the issue ends.

Not caring about spoilers, I looked up what happens in the next issue. Namor and Pirahna tussle some more until the Sub-Mariner beats him bloody. That in turns causes a school of piranhas to feed on Pirahna, causing the fishy villain a painful demise, and Namor leaves with the cure. Isn’t that irony!

After reading it a few times, I’m still not sure what exactly happened. It was intentionally vague, with Thanos’s forces scouring the galaxy for various tribute and this will lead him to Earth for some sort of cataclysmic encounter with the Avengers (I guess tying into that next movie, at least in theme). As someone who is up on their comics, I had trouble following what was going on. So I can only imagine what someone making their first trip to a comic book store would think after reading this.

On the bright side, Jim Cheung’s art was stellar. But that’s usually a given.

The book also reprinted a back up story from Logan’s Run #6, which had Thanos and Drax the Destroyer battling on an alien planet. The mad Titan winds up destroying the last living plant on the planet in a symbolic gesture that one day he will be back to kill them all. There’s also a super brief excerpt from Warren Ellis’ new Avengers graphic novel, but it was really too short to get any feel for. I’m extremely interested that and have added it to my mental pull list.

So this year’s Free Comic Book Day offering was definitely a treat for me. It featured new stories written by Jeff McClelland. He certainly knows how to put together in the spirit of the original Ben Edlund material. The main feature involves the Tick, his longtime (and long suffering sidekick) Arthur on vacation with several other super heroes. The relaxation comes to a stop when lobster people from the ocean floor start invading the surface. It’s up to an extremely sun-burnt and lobster-looking Arthur to stop the invasion. The other features involve the duo on a deserted island and the Tick attempting to learn about the internet.

This was a great treat for me; it reminded me how fun the character is. There is just something charming about the Tick. He pretty much should be one of the most annoying…if not the annoying characters in comics. But his simpleness just makes him so entertaining. He’s like if Tigger and Sheldon Cooper were merged into a muscle bound blue hero.

I’ll give this a thumbs up. If McClelland is in charge of the character these days, he get’s a double thumbs and a “SPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!” battle cry. He gets what a Tick story is supposed to be and I can’t wait to see more material from him.

When Michael passed away in 2008, I kind of lost track of what the company was publishing. This year is the publisher’s fifteenth anniversary, so Worlds of Aspen 2013: Free Comic Book Day is an opportunity for them to show off the new Fathom series. Aspen Matthews is back, taking a reporter on a journey under the sea (fortunately without Flounder or Sebastian). Along the way, Aspen recaps all of the previous plot-lines and characters, only to find out that something bad has happened to her longtime nemesis Killian. This pretty much serves as a jump-on point for the next volume of the series.

On the art side, it has really well rendered backgrounds and features some of the best coloring you would see in modern comics. Plus for some reason, every woman is wearing a bikini and the men are overly muscled and scantily clad as well. It’s everything you would expect from an Aspen book.

The rest of the issue shares some information about the other new Aspen series that are coming out this year, all of which feature a lead female character. This approach is very interesting to me, as it seems like a good way to expand their audience to more women. But the fact that these characters are drawn like pin-up models makes me wonder if that will be a turn off women from wanting to read these.

I might give these a try, but the only thing I’m positive is picking up the Fathom series once its in a collected version. They’re much more satisfying to read in a single volume.

This might be one of the most iconic Sub-Mariner covers of all time. Issue #67 reveals a brand new costume for Namor–the bad ass version designed by John Romita! In this issue, the Sub-Mariner is back and angrier than usual!

Namor is fighting the evil killer whale Orka and the monstrous She-Beast (who has an incredibly boring name) are battling on the floor of the ocean. The Sub-Mariner’s are attempting to destroy Atlantis yet again. In the ensuing battle, Namor winds up getting thrown into the wreckage of an old US Navy submarine. The impact releases a toxic gas into the water that nearly kills Namor.

The underwater Inhuman Triton finds Namor’s sickly body and brings it to the Fantastic Four for help. It turns out that the chemical has somehow changed Namor’s biological makeup, no longer allowing him to spend extended time outside of water. Luckily for him, Reed Richards is able to put together some moisture delivering clothing to make him a new outfit (that reminds me of something that Gene Simmons would have worn during the seventies) to allow him a little more environmental flexibility.

Then Namor goes, well, Namor. Enraged that he has had suffered the indignity of not allowing to walk on land and the fact that this chemical has caused a plague among the Atlanteans, it’s time for a good ol’ fashioned Namor rampage. He trashes the Fantastic Four’s headquarters and then declares war on the surface world.

The book is pure Namor fun; he gets mad and destroys everything in his path, all the while completely being self-absorbed and unreasonable. And as a Namor collector, I like having the first appearance of this iconic look.

I never really read much from the publisher, save for the stuff that was put in the value comic bundles at dollar stores all through the nineties. The publisher returned in its newest incarnation last summer and the Valiant 2013: Free Comic Book Day special does a pretty good job serving as a starting point for new readers.

It features an excerpt from their big summer crossover Harbringer Wars as well as their other monthly books. In addition, they have creator intervivews. And the art in the Valiant books of 2013 looks a lot better to me than the art of Valiant in 1993.

The purpose of Free Comic Book day offerings is to attract new readers, so I guess I would say this did it’s job. I’m a bit more interested in their Archer and Armstrong series, but that’s more due to me really liking writer Fred Van Lente. So I’ll keep that on my radar but it’s not a must read for me. I’m going to put it out to the rest of you: how are the modern Valiant books?

Poor Namor.

I love the whole concept of Super-Villain Team-Up so much. The idea of Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner just teaming up and going on there own adventures just entertains me so much.

On one hand, you have the extremely self centered ruler of Atlantis. And his best friend (well, at least for this story’s purpose) is an egotistical mad scientist with an inferiority complex. It’s like the adventures of Cousins Larry and Balki, especially since Dr. Doom and Balki are eastern Europeans.

The second issue of this series has Namor by his longtime villains Attuma, Tiger Shark and the worst named villain in the history of comic books–Dr. Dorcas. His name is just s ridiculous as it sounds.

It’s up to Dr. Doom to save his bestest friend in the world, using a remote controlled camera masquerading as a fish to find his location. And with some help from Namor’s longtime love interest Betty Dean Prentis, the prince is rescued. During the ensuing facas, poor Betty gets hit fatally by a blast from Dorcas’ laser cannon. And this sets up the next issue, where we assume the Sub-Mariner gets a little savage.

The book is just what you would expect of a Marvel issue from the mid 1970s. It’s a fun story, sublimely over-the-top in all aspects. But what makes the book is the artwork; with a cover by Gil Kane and interior art by Sal Buscema, it’s just full of awesomeness.

So does Betty survive? Or at the very least, does Namor avenge her?

Who knows.

I don’t have Super-Villain Team-Up #3, but I would be happy to review it if one of you doesn’t mind passing it along.

Remember how not too long ago I was professing my love of those early 1980s Moon Knight comics? I read that series’ 1985 follow-up mini-series Moon Knight: Fist of Knoshu and didn’t really enjoy it.

The whole purpose of this was to set up a new status quo and to reboot the character to a certain extent. The character’s origin is still the same; they’ve just added more ties to the Egyptian god Knoshu.

Knoshu’s rival, the deity known as Anubis has selected a new avatar to walk the earth. To combat this, Knoshu’s worshipers have recruited Marc Spector into becoming Moon Knight once again. To help sweeten the deal, the cult arms him with some magical weapons and cast a spell on him gives him supernatural powers tied to the moon.

Moon Knight goes on to stop Anubis’ avatar, but at the cost of alienating his girlfriend Marlene and much of his inner circle by re-donning the costume. But hey, he got some sweet powers out of the deal!

I really liked the previous take on the character, with Moon Knight having a much stronger pulp influence. This more supernatural based version really didn’t do it for me. I mean, I still like the character but in general anything that goes too much into supernatural and even horror genres turns me off. I do have more of the previous series that I want to look at. That said, I’ll recommend this for completion only.

This weekend I saw Iron Man 3 which finishes probably the best trilogy in super hero movies. Tony Stark is back and he is a bit of a mess.

Since the events of The Avengers, he has been suffering from severe bouts of anxiety as to his role in being a self-appointed protector of mankind. Things get even more complicated for Stark as he has to fight off a new global terrorist known as the Mandarin, who has struck at him first by attempting to murder Stark’s longtime driver/bodyguard/assistant Happy Hogan and then launching an aerial attack on Stark’s Malibu home.

It turns out that this latest threat to Stark and the world at large is tied to Aldrich Killian and his quasi research company/terrorist group Advanced Idea Mechanics. Unfortunately, no one in the movie version of AIM wears the beloved yellow bee keeper’s suits. Killian is upset that Stark blew him off at a millennial New Year’s Eve event and has spent the last thirteen years perfecting a regenerative healing technology (kind of like Wolverine) that was coincidentally developed by a scientist that Stark had a one night stand with that same night. Unfortunately, this bio-tech called Extremis is extremely volatile and can be used to make explosive soldiers. Not to mention, Killian has kidnapped Stark’s love interest Pepper Potts.

This all leads Stark to face the biggest challenge of his life, stopping both Killian and the Mandarin and rescuing Pepper while not having access to his usual arsenal. Our hero is able to save the day with more than a little help from his friends James Rhodes (sans his War Machine armor) and Pepper (who has gained some extraordinary abilities of her own after becoming infected with Extremis). But the battle that Stark had with himself in overcoming his own fears was much more important than his struggle with Killian and AIM.

I loved how they made the hero seem so vulnerable, but only in his own mind. Yes, he’s Tony Stark, one of the smartest and most successful men on the planet. But in his own mind he was done for. He pulls himself together at the right time to protect what is most important to him. The resulting story is very compelling and isn’t overshadowed by robotic armor and a billion explosions.

Plot aside, there were a lot of other details that I liked. Here they are in no particular order.

• The movie borrows a lot of concepts from Warren Ellis’ “Extremis” storyline. This gets acknowledged by the filmmakers in a roundabout way, as the movie’s president shares a last name with the writer. 
• Don Cheadle was awesome as War Machine and I liked how they were able to tie the Iron Patriot armor into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially since they don’t have access to the Norman Osborn character.
• The scenes with Stark hiding out in Tennessee and befriending the kid inventor Harley were really funny and sweet at the same time, with the younger one being more optimistic of Stark’s skills.
• The Ben Kingsley Mandarin character had an unbelievable plot swerve and was acted so well. If you haven’t seen the film yet or have no interest in it,

What I also liked was how they tied up the loose ends of the movie series. For now it seems like another Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man film may be unlikely, but they smartly found a way that satisfactorily ends the trilogy that can allow Downey to revisit the character or relaunch the franchise with someone else. But until that happens, Iron Man 3 finishes the greatest super hero movie trilogy of all time.

So after about thirty years, He-Man decided that he’s going to do something that the rest of us have to do: wear pants. DC Comics shared his new look on their blog this today.

This is taken from Ed Benes’ cover for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #4. I’m sure him and the series’ interior artist Pop Mhan (and probably toy maker Mattel) had some input on these new duds. It tones down his barbarian image a lot and has lots of plate armor. The one thing i’m not to keen on this redesign is that it looks like he is still wearing his furry underwear, and the tufts of hair around the shoulders.

So what do you guys think?

Photo courtesy Flickr user DanCentury

Yes, that is a dog dressed up as Captain America. Last month was the Asbury Park Comic Con rolled into my neck of the woods and I was treated to a fun Saturday of comic book goodness at the Jersey Shore. And it was the first (and only) time I’ve ever seen a pet dressed up as their favorite comic book character.

It was a fun show and a perfect way to spend the Saturday before Easter. I still have a few picks of my haul that I was going to post but we’ll get to that later. This show moved across the street from their previous home, the punk rock bowling alley/bar Asbury Lanes to the Asbury Park Convention Center. For next year, the show is expanding to a whole weekend at the Berkeley Hotel, right on the beach. Perhaps I might now be motivated to finish one of my projects so i can get a table there…

I was on the fence about going to anything that week, but the fact that Japanese wrestling legend Jushin “Thunder” Liger was added to the card made it a can’t miss event. Which lead to me getting the picture above.

Liger was put in a match with Davey Richards of ROH and Anthony Nese who has been appearing in TNA and Dragon Gate USA. The match was really fun with Liger busting out all his trademark moves and such. I still remember the first time I saw Liger on WCW television probably sometime during 1990 and to this day I’m still just as amazed by him.

Local PWS guys aside, there were so many random wrestlers on the show, like Kevin Steen, the Hurricane, Simon Dean, Elijah Burke, Shelly Martinez, Tommy Dreamer and even New Jack! It was like playing Fire Pro Returns on random.

That said, the most random match of the night was the Rock N Roll Express vs.the Briscoe Brothers. It was amazing; Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton have probably wrestled the same match since the early 1980s and it still works.

You can view all of the pictures here.

Writer Doug Moench really makes Moon Knight a complicated and interesting character, much more like a Don Draper then I ever expected. I was always under the assumption that the character was former mercenary Marc Spector having had some sort of near death experience that made him moonlight as the Egyptian themed hero.

That is a big part of the character, but there’s more to it. Spector is publicly living as the fictitious millionaire Steven Grant in order to use his ill begotten fortune as a soldier of war. But he also uses another alias, that of the taxi driver Jake Lockley as well. Basically you start to wonder which of these is the real personality of this character.

Spector’s complexities are only balanced by how great his supporting cast is, all of whom support him and assist his mission. He has a girlfriend, Marlene Alraune, who is almost as adept a combatant as he is.  There is also his longtime pilot/sidekick Frenchie. More privately in the Lockley persona, the old bum Crawler, a diner waitress named Gena and her two sons always go out of their way to help inform him of the latest street crime gossip.

The resulting stories have Moon Knight stopping various different criminals, including a psychopathic murderer, an antiquities thief and the criminal organization the Committee who armed Spector previously.

Covers and art in these issues was by Bill Sienkiewicz, who is such a great artist. I’ve always loved his more stylized work, but I never knew he used a more mainstream super hero comics style in his earlier projects.

In story-line, Illyana was missing for only seconds. But while in Limbo, she experienced the events of several years of her life. She was a small child at the beginning of the story but returned as a teenager. What had happened was the evil  sorcerer Belasco pulled her into his dimension in an attempt to make her his dark apprentice. Fortunately for Illyana, that dimension’s version of Storm (who is an elderly sorceress in this reality) and Kitty Pryde attempt to keep her safe from Belasco. The villain’s plan is to use her teleportation powers so he can leave limbo and conquer the Marvel Universe.

And as much as Storm and Kitty want to save Illyana from Belasco, it is up to the young girl to save herself. There is an extra element of difficulty, as if Belasco dies, his soul will wind up possessing Illyana’s body.

Magik is a lot of fun. The story is filled with swords and sorcery, and it makes it pretty different from a lot of the Marvel comics at the time. It’s kind of like the X-Men are hanging out in the He-Man or Thundercats universes. While this isn’t “required reading”, it’s worth reading.

It was written by Chris Claremont, who pretty much did most everything involving any X-Men related character during that time. The art is fine; it’s by John Buscema and Ron Frenz, but what makes it sticks out is all the detailing that inker Tom Palmer put into it. There are all kinds of Easter eggs hidden in the pages that don’t affect the plot, but add nice touches.

The most important thing that Jack Of Hearts did of note to me in maybe the last fifteen years was his explosion that was a catalyst for the events of Avengers: Disassembled. It turns out there is much more to this character as I found out in Jack Of Hearts #1-4.

You feel really bad for Jack; the miniseries reveals that everything in his life is a complete lie. He may of wound up with his energy powers through an accident in his father’s lab, but it turns out that his mother was an alien from the planet Contraxia. She was only on the planet to steal his father’s research on alternate energy sources in order to save her home world.

Fast forward to the current day, and Jack is a super hero whose super powers have grown wildly out of control. It also turns out that his longtime friend/girlfriend Marcy is a Contraxian herself and convinces him to follow her to the planet.

Jack enjoys this, feeling like he finally fits in and is accepted. Things get awkward as they learn the true reason the Contraxians were so interested in tracking him, as they wanted to detonate him in an effort to reignite their dying sun. And you thought you had problems! Jack is able to figure out how to rekindle the sun without sacrificing his life and decides that he should spend the rest of his days away from any other living things, as they will only choose to use him against his will or he will eventually hurt them, as his powers keep increasing beyond his control.

On the whole, this miniseries was a lot of fun. It worked because it was a self-contained story with a character that I wasn’t all that familiar with. There is a definite beginning, middle and end, all of which I enjoyed. It was written by Bill Mantlo, and I’ve really been enjoying his work of late.

The main feature sets up a crossover with the New Warriors, and there is another serialized story about the evil mutants turned government operatives in Freedom Force.

But the best part of this is the last short story by writer Judy Bogdanove and artist Jon Bogdanove (I’m assuming they are married).

It features the young mutants Artie, Leech and Wiz from the X-Terminators going on an adventure of their own and unintentionally causing a ruckus as they fly around town in a flying saucer. It ends with them finding a new friend in a grandmotherly old woman. The whole scene is really touching with Leech mistaking her for his deceased mother. That said, the story is a lot of fun and really is the highlight of the annual. It reminds me of something out of Spielberg’s Amazing Stories television series.

Since it is an annual, there is also the obligatory pin up pages (by Rob Liefeld and Art Thibert) and a pretty cool organizational chart of the team which you can view here.

Bloodstone was a character that I didn’t even know existed until I got into the Avengers 1959 books. It turns out that he’s actually a pretty cool character from the 1970s.

Bloodstone debuts in this character and he’s an interesting take on the whole monster character. He’s gained immortality and Captain America level physical abilities.

I also love on this cover, and well this issue, Bloodstone is fighting what appears to be the spiritual inspiration if not the great-grandfather of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon!

This is one of the comics in my collection that I was so happy to add. Growing up in the 1980s, Howard the Duck was all over the place, but got relegated to second-tier status, mostly because of the less than amazing film that he starred in. But that didn’t stop me from having a fondness to the waterfowl.

Howard the Duck #1 isn’t the first appearance of the character, but his popularity lead to him getting his own series. Howard comes across odd, even for someone living in the Marvel Universe. The story told here pretty much sets up the direction the series would take.

Howard just goes around the country solving mysteries and having adventures. He meets nude model Beverly Switzler who becomes his friend/travel companion and spends the rest of the issue trying to save her from the evil wizard/accountant Pro-Rata. The diminutive duck does get some assistance from Spider-Man along the way.

It’s a fun issue and I really want to read more of the character. Steve Gerber writes this character so well; there’s a certain absurdity and seriousness to it that reminds me of Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark.

This issue does exactly what you would expect it to do. It’s a quick adaptation of the Transformers back story, with the Cybertronian civil war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons spilling over to our planet, with them laying comatose under a volcano in Oregon since the dinosaur era. One day an eruption reawakens the robots (who have now adapted to their new surrounding), rekindling their ages old feud. It also introduces the comics version of the Witwicky family, the humans who wind up interacting the most with the Autobots.

It’s a great beginning to the run of the Marvel era of Transformers comics, and hard to believe that this almost wound up being just a four issue mini series. The book sold like hotcakes and went on to have an eighty issue run.

There’s a lot of talent on the creative side of this book, whether it be the awesome Bill Sienkiewicz cover to Bill Mantlo’s credit as a co-writer on this book. That is something that I was never aware of till this last re-reading.

The one very impressive thing about the creative team on this is that colorist Nel Yomtov did the colors on all eighty issues of the series, plus all the various specials and related mini series that were off shoots of this. That’s one heck of a streak right there!

New Mutants #87

New Mutants #87 introduces Cable to the Marvel Universe. It’s not every month a character who is going to have this big an impact on the series debuts every month.

Not only did Cable debut in this issue but his primary nemesis Stryfe does as well. Stryfe is part of a group of terrorist mutants called the Mutant Liberation Front. They’re attempting to rescue the incarcerated New Mutants Rusty and Skids. And by rescue, I mean wind up brainwashing them into joining their ranks.

As this is going on, Cable shows up in an attempt to stop Stryfe from abducting the duo. The book ends with the MLF escaping and Cable being locked up by the government, as he was blamed for the attack.

What this issue did was set up the last year of the series, as well as it’s relaunch/metamorphosis into X-Force. In the issue, it wasn’t very clear why Cable needed to protect Rusty, Skids or the rest of the New Mutants, but it was established that there was some reason he would not accept them joining Stryfe’s forces. There’s a lot of mystery about what is going on and it does get explained in later issues.

New Mutants #87 is also pretty cool in my book, as it’s a collaboration between writer Louise Simonson and artist Rob Liefeld, both of whom I am a pretty big fan of