Here is an Amazon link to the book I mentioned on the episode:

Related link: https://www.facebook.com/ComicKick

Uncanny X-men 247 and 248

Any way, I was pissed with issue 247 because it was so obviously written for her to come back one day and 248 felt such a bait and switch that I didn’t come back for issue 249. It felt like they were playing me for a fool (Not everyone just me in particular) and I was done. The never-ending subplots of Chris Claremont’s X-storytelling didn’t help either. Going forward I may have picked up an issue or two, but I didn’t get them regularly/add them to my pull list until Uncanny X-men 500, and that only lasted a couple of months before I got laid off and had to stop collecting altogether.

When I started collecting again, I stayed away from the X-Men because that whole corner of the Marvel universe just seems confusing and angry. It wasn’t until Marvel NOW! started up with All-New X-men and Uncanny X-Men that I have decided to bring them back to my list. Since modern day covers no longer tell you what to expect inside the books, I don’t think I will get turned away due to shenanigans like in the old days.

Have you ever been so turned off by the cover shenanigans of a comic series that it caused you to drop it? Let me know.

Buck Wild makes his first appearance in Icon 13.

From Icon’s Wikipedia Entry:

Rufus T. Wild/”Buck Wild, Mercenary Man” – First appeared in Icon #13 “It’s Always Christmas” (May 1994); Buck Wild possessed “belief defyin’ strength” and “tungsten hard skin”, but spoke as if he came from a blaxploitation film. He was a hero to the local folks, but he also took money for his work. It was revealed in his first appearance that when he received his powers in 1972, his brain had been frozen, which explains his outdated speaking patterns. Wild was clearly a parody of Marvel’s Luke Cage, complete with afro, gold headband and yellow shirt unbuttoned to the navel. In his next appearance, he is recruited to take Icon’s place—costume included—when Icon returned to his home planet. Rocket (Darnice) used her Inertia Belt to carry him, making him appear to fly. Buck’s time as Icon II was short-lived, as he gave his life in order to stop Oblivion, a mass murdering alien foe of Icon. In an issue devoted to his funeral, it is revealed in a series of eulogies from his enemies (although it is unclear how trustworthy these eulogies are) that he had taken several other costumed identities, all of them parodies of other famous black superheroes. According to these eulogies, Buck once used an experimental growth serum which turned him into the gigantic “Buck Goliath” (a pastiche of Black Goliath). While working with a Captain America-type known as Patriot, he called himself “Jim Crow” and wore a winged costume allowing him to fly (as with Falcon). As “Buck Lightning” (Black Lightning), Buck wore a wrist apparatus that generated lightning bolts. At the funeral, Kingfish (a take on Kingpin) used the legendary Ruby Begonia gemstone to bring him back to life, now able to generate green smoke, the sound of drums tolling doom, and a ghost-like double which could possess others and make them do his bidding (Brother Voodoo). Darnice, however, tells him that his time on earth is over, at which Buck removes the Begonia stone and allows himself to die. Icon recounts that Buck serves as an example to all of us of how we can be heroes wherever we are.

Bully Rogers

At this time Tony Stark is drinking on a dirty mattress in the poor part of town. The last thing he needs is Steve Rogers (in full costume) walking in and knocking the bottle out of his hand. When faced with a steroid rage bully with an indestructible shield that he uses as a weapon on a regular basis, Tony just wants to be left alone to drink.

Bully Rogers throws his father under the bus.

As pitiful as Tony is at this moment, Rogers turns around and walks out of the room (after spilling the man’s booze). Before he leaves, Rogers casually throws out there that his father was an alcoholic. However, Rogers’ father died when he was a child. So Rogers made it up to make a broken man feel even worse or he took time out to admit his father was a criminal who was an alcoholic during Prohibition. Either way, Steve Rogers proved in that one panel that he was a scumbag on top of being a bully.

This story happened back in 1983, so I have to wonder how long as Steve Rogers been a bully. I will keep reading older comics and each time I come across Bully Rogers, I will be sure to share it.

BTW: The villain Firebrand was also in that Skid Row flophouse without his costume on. When he saw Captain America stroll in there, he assumed the jackass was looking for him, so he suited up and set fire to a bunch of stuff. None of which would have happened if it wasn’t for a Bully on the Stroll.

Tom Brevoort answered a question about Maddie on Formspring by saying “I don’t really know much about the inter-office politics of the era, but I do think that Madeline Pryor was a train wreck from beginning to end, from her first appearance to her latest.” While appreciate his frank answer, he is wrong about two major things: 1) It’s Madelyne, not Madeline, and 2) She didn’t start about as a train wreck, she was made that way.

According to Chris Claremont, there was not only a different fate in store for Maddie, but also for Scott and eventually, the rest of the X-Men.

“The original Madelyne storyline was that, at its simplest level, she was that one in a million shot that just happened to look like Jean Grey, [a.k.a. the first Phoenix]! And the relationship was summed up by the moment when Scott says: “Are you Jean?” And she punches him! That was in Uncanny X-Men #174. Because her whole desire was to be deeply loved for herself not to be loved as the evocation of her boyfriend’s dead romantic lover and sweetheart.

I mean, it’s a classical theme. You can go back to a whole host of 1930s films, 1940s, Hitchcock films—but it all got invalidated by the resurrection of Jean Grey in X-Factor #1. The original plotline was that Scott marries Madelyne, they have their child, they go off to Alaska, he goes to work for his grandparents, he retires from the X-Men. He’s a reserve member. He’s available for emergencies. He comes back on special occasions, for special fights, but he has a life. He has grown up. He has grown out of the monastery; he is in the real world now. He has a child. He has maybe more than one child. It’s a metaphor for us all. We all grow up. We all move on.

Scott was going to move on. Jean was dead get on with your life. And it was close to be a happy ending. They lived happily ever after, and it was to create the impression that maybe if you came back in ten years, other X-Men would have grown up and out, too. Would Kitty stay with the team forever? Would Nightcrawler? Would any of them? Because that way we could evolve them into new directions, we could bring in new characters. There would be an ongoing sense of renewal, and growth and change in a positive sense.

Then, unfortunately, Jean was resurrected, Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to the old girlfriend. So it not only destroys Scott’s character as a hero and as a decent human being it creates an untenable structural situation: what do we do with Madelyne and the kid? … So ultimately the resolution was: turn her into the Goblin Queen and kill her off.”

Can you imagine if Marvel had actually let their characters grow older and be replaced by different characters? Of course, it couldn’t happen, so they had to get rid of the reason why Scott Summers would even believe he grow up and be an adult. Remember that at the time, whatever affected the X-men affected the rest of the Marvel Universe. If they grew older, then so would The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc. I wish I knew about the inter-office politics then, because 1983 seems like a good time to try and change how comic book storytelling would proceed. But what do I know…?

BTW: I also prefer Emma Frost and I hope she and Scott reconcile.

BTW: The real title is Noob’s Views 001 – Why I SALUTE Captain America

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Blackhawks
Hawk and Dove
Men of War
Mister Terrifc
O.M.A.C.
Static Shock

The only one I didn’t have on my pull list was Static Shock because I have no confidence that DC would do the title right and, from all that I’ve heard, I was correct. I liked all of the titles I was getting (obviously) but I can also see why most of them were cancelled.

Blackhawks should have been DC’s version of GI Joe, which is what I thought. Instead of introducing the team and showing them as bad asses in their first storyline (or at least semi-competent), Blackhawks started out with a Team Under Siege story, but since no one knew or cared about the team members, it was pretty boring and confusing. When one of the characters is infected with a life-threatening illness but no one can even remember their name, then maybe you should have started with a different story.

Hawk and Dove had pretty artwork (remember that I am an unapologetic Rob Liefeld fan), but I didn’t like the story that Sterling Gates had put together. Of course, Rob will probably get the blame for the failure, but that’s just because haters like to hate.

Men of War was a good title, but it was one of the more expensive ones and that’s why a lot of people were going to pass on it. However, I think the book also suffered from not facing a familiar threat. There was a superbeing in the first issue that I thought was going to be someone we had at least heard of, but it wasn’t to be. If the story had passed on the superpowered aspects and was more like the backup features, then it might have reached a different audience.

Mister Terrific was just getting good. Like the other books, the first storyline was weakened by having an unfamiliar villain as the main bad guy. Once they started the Mister Terrific In Space story, it looked like the book was going to start getting good, but now it won’t get the chance to show what it could be.

O.M.A.C. was a really good title and most of the people who read it said they liked it. I guess people don’t like to try new things or they don’t like the fact that Dan Didio wrote it. I don’t get understand why this one isn’t selling better.

These are some of the reasons why I think the books didn’t sell better, but they were all pretty good books and if given time I think they would have found their audiences. However, don’t think the fact that half of the books cancelled had “diverse” lead characters wasn’t lost on me, but that’s a podcast topic for another day.

Mike Baron posted this on Facebook: “Mike Baron and Steve Rude are working on a new Nexus story.”

He gave no other details except that it will be published by Dark Horse.

In the comment section, he also revealed there’s a six issue Badger series in the works and he has posted some art on his fan page.

Earlier this year, Grey Dog Software announced that Adam Ryland is working on a game that lets you guide the career of a superhero called “Comic Book Hero: The Greatest Cape”. Here is the official announcement. I am looking forward to it, because even though the title contains a pun that makes me think it will be a little wacky (and we all know how I feel about wackiness), the Developer’s Journal makes it seem a lot more serious. If you like text based games where you have to actually think and not just mash buttons, then this may be a good game to check out.

They recently announced a release date of Monday, November 21, 2011. However, there will be a demo coming out Tuesday, November 14, 2011. This is definitely on my “to get” list.