Comics 2020!

 

I read a lot of comics this year! Probably a record, although 2017 came close:

I think last year I closed out my file at Happy Harbour, which resulted in an immense monthly savings- comics are expensive- and more of a focus on Marvel Unlimited. I still have a pile of floppies I need to read but for the most part I am doggedly trying to read every Marvel Universe comic ever. Just 50,000 more to go! So I will need to live another century, please. Most years I was pretty scattershot, reading a Fantastic Four here, an X-Men there, now an Amazing Spider-Man, and what about the Hulk what is he up to... but this year I decided to try and get all the comics synced up in time. That will be an ongoing project, as all the previous years' random issue-hopping left me with a bit of a mess. But I have Avengers, Iron Man and Captain America synced up in 1968:

Captain America actually started with issue #100, which was a name change from Strange Tales, I think. I didn't read too many of those. The early Lee/Kirby stuff is a little harder to read, stock plots and not much characterization, but later Thor stuff by Kirby sans Lee is absolutely amazing. He was definitely the King.

If this doesn't make your selfsoul happy, I dunno what will. I just read the first two TPBs of the new New Mutants comic, and that makes selfsoul happy too. The first volume is a Legion story, it was alright though I've never been a fan of Legion and his dumb hair. If he's so omipotent maybe he can get a better haircut. But the second volume is where writer Zeb Wells' lifeglow really starts to shine.

Digression. The New Mutants book of the 80s was one of the best for sure. Younger, more inexperienced, not-quite-ready-for-the-majors students of Xavier's, it was consistently well written by X-Men legend Chris Claremont and had a sizeable run by surreal artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Warlock was one of my favorites, though they all were, except maybe for Doug Ramsey, whose mutant power was understanding languages. Anyways, he met a violent end in a comic book that I missed, so I dunno how he died but he did. Warlock might have, too. They were best friends.

Okay. So Zeb Wells, in volume 2, decided to bring both Warlock and Doug back to the fold. Fair enough, happens all the time, with mixed results. But Zeb does it right. Not only does Doug come back in a convincing and kinda unique way, but his language power is revealed to be way more kick ass than Claremont or anyone in the world ever imagined.

Like I said, it made my selfsoul happy. Definitely going to read Volume 3: Fall of the New Mutants

Apparently I had stashed a box of Groo comics at my sister's house lo these past ten years or so. Do you remember Groo?

Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier and Stan Sakai are to blame. Just teasing. I love Groo. Did, anyways. He still has a place in the nostalgic rooms of my geeky heart. Most issues were kind of the same, with a lot of running jokes, like someone says to Groo, "I know you are slow of mind" and he eventually, with a longer gap every time, says "Hey what did he mean I was slow of mind?" And there was a hidden message in each issue ("This is the hidden message" it always said if you were clever enough to find it). I pulled a couple out today to read- issue 11 of the Marvel series, in which a handsome Adonis named Arcadio takes the credit for all of Groo's accomplishments, managing to fool everyone, even Groo. And also #2 of the original Pacific Comics series, something I didn't even know I had. The price tag on the sleeve said $4 but that was crossed out and in its place it said $200. Which would make it the most expensive comic I own! I certainly don't remember paying $200 for it but you know, you can have it for a mere hundred if you want. That is a great deal, as any fool can plainly see.

My friend JimSmash sent me some Hulk comics! Sweet! Me like Hulk. One of them was this classic from 1977. Spoiler alert- the unexpected super-villain is none other than Bi-Beast! Yup, the clone robot thing with the dual nature (plus he has two faces on his head) that was made by some bird-people on a floating island somewhere. I was a little hesitant to google him but it turns out he isn't as obscure as I might have thought, and even cameoed on a relatively recent episode of Avengers:Earth's Mightiest Heroes. It says so  on his Wikipedia page.

The library was kind enough to lend me the Marvel Civil War collected edition. Pretty cool. I liked how there was no major villain, but rather an ideological divide between allies, friends and even in some cases, lovers. I bought the first issue back in 2006 I think it was, and remember it as the one where Tony Stark reveals he's Iron Man. I thought that was their inspiration for the end of the movie. Memory's a funny thing since it was actually Spidey who unmasked. Weird.
Also what happened to Thor? In this series he was a clone or a robot or something. And Hercules snmashed his face in good using robot Mjolnir. That was cool.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite comics of all time- an old Thor (I would dig it out of my collection but that would require a lot of digging) where Hercules is out for a stroll in Central Park with the Avengers' butler and they come across a group of youngsters playing frisbee. Unbeknownst to Herc, one of the kids was being bullied by the others for always drawing pictures of his hero Thor. So the kids ask Hercules who would win in a fight, him or Thor. Herc, of course, starts spinning a tall tale about how he totally kicked Thor's ass after Thor bonked him on the head with Mjolnir. At one point he even picked up the entire island of Manhattan to throw at Thor ("I don't remember that," say the kids). Jarvis, the butler, notices what's actually going on and asks for a word with Herc, who then quickly edits his story to show that Thor was faking weakness the whole time and totally beat him up so bad. That was a good one. Oh yeah here it is: