INKSTAND

People are always on about ninjas and robots and pirates. Fuck them. It’s all about cowboys. I’ve read this series from the start and even some of the older ones from the 60’s. I’ve learned one thing about Jonah Hex and that’s that he’s all about the money. People will beg him to help them, but he usually only does if there’s something in it for him. Luckily for those in distress, the writers always have a way of making that work out. In this issue, a group of mormons living in the hills are hiding from townsfolk who want them dead. Hex gets caught up in the middle. He helps the mormons, killing all the bounty hunters from town, and as uaual, gets something in return. I think it’s a deed to land so he can sell it.
This issue was cool, with some awesome gun and knife fights, but I doubt I will see anything as cool as issue 10, when Hex feeds an old lady to an aligator.

I had to throw this explanation from Joe Mathlete Explains Todays Marmaduke in because it might be the best one I’ve seen. Not only does it use my name (apparently owner-man’s name is Phil), Marmadukes writer has stumped Joe. As he has me. What the fuck is going on? We can only assume Marmaduke has an elevator in his doghouse, but that alone is absurd if only because it’s not like a trademark for Marmaduke. You know, like how Garfiled likes lasanga. I’m certainly not trying to explain this cartoon since Joe MAthlete can’t, nor will I ever try to do so. I won’t mention this blog again.

This morning I realized that I almost certainly have a drinking problem. Vowing not to drink for two weeks, I’ve been sitting around all day bored out of my mind. Not even new comics and soap operas have entertained me. I’m pretty sure all the drinking I’ve done latley has sucked any creativness right out of me. Luckily, a friend sent me to this blog, Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke wich in and of itself needs no explanation. This is one of the funnest things that I’ve come across this week. Others include the SciFi museum and Stephanie teaching me how to ride her motorcycle (I look pretty stupid ).

Gray Matter KimmieI’m glad that Josh has started writing a blog stemming from the Boontdusties page. With Gray Matter Kimmie Josh seems to be chronicling some of the important aspects of my patheticaly co-dependent group of friends. Okay, maybe I’m the only one who’s co-dependent, but that’s because I rarley meet people I like, muchless people who become a family to me. So far he has touched on some of the things that I was not around for because we all went to two different high schools in the same district. While Jake ping ponged between the two, KC and I were stuck at the shitty new one, Freedom. All the other cool kids went to Liberty. I met a few of them during high school, but thank God I assimilated into the tribe later on.
While it may seem that the content of this page is only of interest to those involved, I assure you our lives are better than anything you can ever read/watch/hear/feel/taste anywhere.

ok, this is a post-post crisis deal, so it requires some backstory and never being a big Flash reader, I’m not sure I can do it. But I’ll try:
The original flash, Jay Garrick is the only metahuman Flash. After that there was Barry Allen, who sacrificed himself in the original Crisis, then Wally West, former Kid Flash, then Barry’s son from the future, Bart Allen who, up unitl the last Infinite Crisis, was the new Kid Flash. With the exception of Garrick the other Flashes had to tap into something called the “Speed force”.
During the last Crisis Garrick, West and Bart Allen grabbed the psychotic Superboy Prime and pulled him into the speed force. This action was seemingly sacrificial, but necessary to save, you know, existence. The result: The speed force is gone, Wally West is dead, and Bart Allen, 16 yrs old before, has aged four years becoming an adult. He had similar problems in his youth, aging years within hours before learning to control the effect the speed force had on him.
So now, one year later, Bart is adjusting to his new, normal life. The folks at S.T.A.R. Labs are concerned because he has cut off communication with them so they can’t figure out what happened to the speed force. He’s just trying to deal. He has a job ( I think he’s a scab) at the motor works with a douchebag roommate who wants him to get wasted and laid. Now keep in mind this seeming 20 yr old is, in real time, about 10. I could relate to this part pretty well because Bart has no idea how to approach women. I don’t want to approach WOMEN, but you know what I mean. I’m 25 now and I’m about at the same level a lot of my friends were at at, like, 15. I’m working on it…
Now, one of the striking workers at the plant makes some big explosion or something. The artwork isn’t very good and it’s kind of difficult to tell what’s going on. Bart’s douchebag roommate gets caught up in it and needs rescuing. So, oddly enough, Bart somehow taps into the speedforce and barley saves him. At this point Jay Garrick, the O.G. Flash, comes in and takes over, but Bart’s a little worse for wear. How did he tap into the nonexistent speed force? He ends the issue by saying: “The speed force must never be tapped again. NEVER. I’m not going to let it kill me.” So what’s the deal? I have no idea.
Like I said, the artwork isn’t very good and the writing is sub-par. The story, however might be worthwhile for someone like me who likes to keep tabs on the big guns, even if I don’t read the title religiously. I’ll get the next few issues to see what happens.

We are living in a post-post-crisis world. Back in the 1980’s, The DC Universe went through some monumental changes in the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, which actually re-wrote the history of these heroes. This was a little before my time, comic-ly speaking, so I was brought up in the post-crisis world that only had one color of kryptonite(green, duh), and no supergirl until 1988, who turned out to be a shapeshifting clone-bot or something. The real supergirl showed up just last year, i think, as supermans cousin, just as she had in the 1950’s pre-crisis world. Anyway, the last couple of years have been immersed in Dc’s Identity crisis and Infinite Crisis mini serises which both led to changes of the same monumental porportions.
It all starts when Dr. Light, a second string Villan , rapes the wife of Elongated Man, a second-string hero…It all unravels from there…Even if I wanted to go into it, there are plenty of other resources, I’m sure, that could break it down for you even better. In a nutshell, the multiverse, which is an infinite number of alternate reality earths, is re-created and in the end, one earth remains: New Earth.
Now at the end of all this, Superman has somehow lost his powers. After that all the core titles jump ahead one year. In this time Clark and Lois Kent have been adjusting to being a normal married couple and both have been quite happy with it. Superman #652 is part 5 of this “1 year later” storyline, and at the end of part four in Action comics #whateverthehell Clark is attacked by super-gangsters for an expose he wrote. Then he gets hit by a train…and survives. looks like his powers are returning.
Discovering that Superman is back, Intergang, those super-gangsters, send five nutty villains after him, including Silver Banshee and Livewire. I’m glad to see Livewire still around. I only ever saw one episode of the Superman cartoon on the WB, and it was the one with her, and last year they introduced her into regular continuity. I kind of like her; a radio shock jock with a grudge against Supes who gets super electrical powers…and shes blue. Now Supermans powers are coming back slowly, so he’s not at his peak performance, but still easily takes out three of the would-be assassins. Then Bloodsport decides to shoot Jimmy Olsen in the head. This is the jump that Superman needs to get all his power back as he lives up to one of his tag lines and is faster than the speeding bullet, plucking it from the air just in time. If you’re into it as much as you can tell I am, which I bet you’re not, it’s pretty cool.

Ever since Jim Lee and Scott Williams did four different covers for the first issue of the new X-Men series in 1991, variant covers seem to be a gimmick that won’t die, like foil and chromium covers eventually did by the end of the 90’s. The most outlandish display of this, I think, was the first issue of Image’s Gen 13 ongoing series wich sported THIRTEEN different covers! This kind of gimmic only appeals to collectors who believe that these issues will be worth more than the initial investment sometime in the future. It is my opinion that efforts to sell so many copies of a comic book that wont even be read is the work of noneother than Satan himself.
There are a couple of other reasons for variants that aren’t nearly as malicious. One is to show what printing a book is, and that’s what spurred this review in the first place, but I’ll get to that later. The other one is when a book is offered at a comic book convention. This is completley ok in my view because it is a souvenier from a once-in-a-lifetime event. There SHOULD be more value assigned to is both monetarily and sentimentaly.
The last reason for variants is to show what printing a book is. When a comic sells out and there is still a demand for it, they print a second run which is usually less valuable than the first. It’s not uncommon for a book to have three runs of a single issue. Something happend to me today that pissed me off a bit. Back when Superman “died”, DC had a lot of runs of those issues, and they were noted by a small roman numeral by the issue number. For instance the second printing of the issue when superman dies would have said 75 where the issue number was and a “II” next to it. Fast forward to today. When a second printing comes out now, the cover is some variant of the original. For instance the superman covers from the One year Later storyline are replaced by pencil sketch versions of the original printing.
Then theres Batman. An issue of Detective comics came out last month with Harvey “two-face” Dent’s human half of the face on the cover. The next moth was going to have the warped, monster half of his face on it. I saw an issue in the store today with both of those pictures together, basically just showing an image of two-face. So I bought it thinking it was the one I wanted, but in reality it was just the second printing of the issue with harvey’s human face. I got all mad. That’s why I wrote this. Why didn’t I just look at the issue number? It was issue # 818. I kind of stop looking at the numbers when they get that out of hand. Silly me.

Let me try to set this up…Years ago, there was a government backed team of mutants called X-Factor. It first consisted of the original X-Men, and then switched to a group of second stringers. I don’t know what ended up happening to that team, but most of them are in this new incarnation. One of them is Jamie Madrox, The Multiple Man. He can make clones of himself. Last year there was a series I only caught th first issue of called Madrox wherein Jamie starts an investigation agency.
Jump ahead to late last year, that House of M fiasco the Marvel Mutants had to deal with…Thanks to Scarlet Witch, most mutants lost their powers leaving only 198 mutants on earth. I think that was a great idea because it seemed like they were popping up everywhere. Most of them were probably trendy metromutants anyway. In the aftermath of M-day (a mutant related thing that doesn’t start with X?!? How novel.) Madrox forms a group of muties, some from the old X-factor, some from other x-teams that are now defunct (x-force, Generation-x). So is born the non-government related X-factor investigations.
This book is written by comic superstar Peter David who made the Hulk famous. He does a good job setting up the story. The group just solved the murder of a woman by a movie star. While this too four issues, it seems in doing so they ruffled the feathers of another agency, Singular Investigations. SI also had a hitman sent back to them in a pine box courtesy of Layla Miller.
Now who the hell is she? That’s the question. In the first issue, she shows up and no one knows who she is. She’s this little blonde girl who keeps saying she “knows stuff”. It gets kind of annoying and I thought she was some lame Veronica Mars knock off. Then in the end of issue three, she killed that hitman then sent him back in issue four. No one else on the team has any idea about this exept for Monet, who only really thinks about herself. So, like I said, the question is who is she and whats her game?
I like the art by, good lord, I just looked and it’s a team of FOUR artists…I’m not gonna list them. Anyway, it’s got a film noir-ish look to it, which I think is the goal. Sometimes it looks funny, like Rhane looks like Shenade O’Connor with a mane. Some parts look really good, though, like the last page of issue four where Syrin gets beaten good by the son of the head Singular guy.
Am I going to keep reading this? Hell, yeah.