Mighty Bahlactus decrees that Friday nights are alright for fighting, and when Bahlactus decrees, we must obey!

From the final issue of “Major Bummer” by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke:

That’s a time-traveling alien with six arms using one superhero as a club to beat up an older version of that same superhero. And yes, the word “Bludgeon” is repeatedly used as a sound effect.

That’s why they had to cancel the comic — they broke DC’s printing press with Pure Brain-Breaking Awesome-osity.

World War Hulk #3

Well, last issue, the superpeople had their chance to take down the Hulk, and they got stomped. This issue, the Hulk’s biggest enemy, General Thunderbolt Ross, wants to try it with the Army. The Army is armed with adamantium bullets. Hulk still stomps ’em, though the military did more damage to Hulk than the superpeople did. We get treated to several pages of Hulk destroying military hardware, and it’s big fun.

On top of that, Dr. Strange forces a magical confrontation inside Hulk’s mind and manages to briefly turn him back into Bruce Banner. This is still all inside Hulk’s mind, though, so it’s not like Banner’s getting cut to ribbons by the Army. Anyway, Strange thinks he’s got Hulk all talked down until Hulk grabs Strange’s hands — again, inside Hulk’s mind — and squeezes so hard he breaks Strange’s hands for real.

After that, we find out that Hulk and his alien allies, the Warbound, plan to get their revenge on Earth’s heroes by forcing them to fight each other in gladiatorial contests. And the Warbound are already closing in on a mostly helpless Dr. Strange. But Strange still has a trick or two up his sleeves.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Listen, I love intellectual comics, I love comics with lots of talking and dialogue and characterization, I even like nonviolent comics. But this series has been almost nonstop SMASHING, and it is awesome.

These days, you hear a lot about non-comics writers who start writing comics. Novelist Brad Meltzer is writing “Justice League of America,” novelist Jodi Picoult is writing “Wonder Woman,” director Kevin Smith wrote “Daredevil” and “Green Arrow,” writers/producers J. Michael Straczynski and Joss Whedon have written a ton of different comics. But there’s only one comics writer who’s managed to cross from comics to mainstream fiction, and manage to hit big: Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman is a Brit who now lives in Minnesota. He started out as a journalist, reviewer, and author (I owned one of his books, a companion guide to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” for years before I realized that the guy who wrote it was actually famous). He was friends with Alan Moore, who introduced him to comics. After taking over Moore’s “Miracleman,” Gaiman’s work got more and more attention, eventually leading to experimental/artistic efforts for DC Comics with his frequent collaborator, artist Dave McKean.

Let’s take a look at some of Gaiman’s best works.

Sandman

First and foremost, you can’t talk about Gaiman without talking about “Sandman.” This epic series, which got its start back in ’88, focuses on Morpheus, sometimes called the Sandman, sometimes the King of Stories, sometimes Dream. For lack of a better word, he’s the god of dreams and story-telling. He’s a tall, pale, gaunt guy with an unruly mop of black hair and a preference for black clothing.

The series starts as he is imprisoned for almost a century by a magic spell and finally earns his freedom in the modern world. The first batch of stories are horror stories, told in almost pitch-perfect “Tales from the Crypt” style, but they eventually evolve into modern/urban fantasy. The stories range throughout history — though the bulk of the series is set in the modern-day, there are tons of flashbacks about Morpheus in Ancient Greece, the French Revolution, Victorian England, etc., etc., etc. Dream meets a few superheroes, plus William Shakespeare (in a story that won the World Fantasy Award), Emperor Norton, Marco Polo, Augustus Caesar, and others. We also meet Dream’s family, the cosmically powerful and cosmically dysfunctional Endless, including devious Desire, pitiful Despair, loopy Delirium, and sensible Death.

I can’t recommend this series highly enough. It’s one of the best runs of comics ever, with the best ongoing storyline ever, with the coolest characters ever. DC keeps the entire series in a set of ten reprints. Yes, it’s expensive, but man alive, I’ve never once regretted spending all that dough on the series. It was fun to read and is still fun to re-read. Start with the first collection in the series, “Preludes and Nocturnes.”

Marvel 1602

Gaiman’s first major work for Marvel Comics plays into his love of history. It’s basically Marvel’s characters transplanted to Elizabethan England. Dr. Strange is Queen Elizabeth’s court magician, Nicholas Fury is her spymaster, the X-Men are superpowered outcasts in a school run by a bald guy named Carlos Javier. The world may soon be destroyed by mysterious storms, and Dr. Strange believes the problem may lie with innocent Virginia Dare, the first child born in the American colonies. On top of that, the wicked Count Otto von Doom is plotting against England from his fortress in Latveria, and the Inquisition is moving against all of the “witchbreed” who are born with mutant powers.

This is another very enjoyable series, very fun, lots of entertaining cameos and easter eggs for fans, plus an outstanding story, too. You should go pick this one up, too.

Like I said before, Gaiman has had great success as a novelist, writing “Neverwhere,” “Coraline,” “American Gods,” “Anansi Boys,” and others. My two favorite Gaiman novels are “American Gods” (a modern fantasy about American manifestations of weakened mythological gods) and “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch” (written with Discworld creator Terry Pratchett, it’s a comedy about angels, demons, the Apocalypse, the Four Horsemen, and an awfully nice 11-year-old Antichrist). I insist you go buy these immediately. Go! Run!

If there’s ever been a comic character whose adventures should’ve always been Capital-E Epic, it’s Marvel’s Thor. Yeah, he’s a god, and a thunder god to boot. And he’s got the most dynamic pantheon. Sure, the Olympians are older, but they spent all their time turning into swans and chasing maidens and letting mortals do all the hard work. Sure, the Egyptians were even older than that, but they always seemed mummified and remote.

But the Norse gods had epic poetry and operas. Operas by Wagner, let’s not forget. They had mad dwarfs, frost giants, Valkyries, a giant ash tree that held up the world. Norse mythology even came with a prepackaged End-of-the-World looming in the future, and their End-of-the-World was so cool, they called it Ragnarok. That’s one heck of a name. Say it out loud. Ragnarok. Say it loud enough and heavy metal bands will start following you around.

But even with all that, Thor still ran around the Big Apple, fighting bank robbers, hanging out with a drunk in powered armor, being waited on by an English butler named Jarvis.

Then in 1983, a guy named Walt Simonson started working on “The Mighty Thor.” And Simonson made Thor Epic.

David L. Wyatt Jr. has written an essay on Simonson’s run on Thor’s comic, called “Simonson in Asgard,” and with his kind permission, I’m going to reprint it here. If you want to see it in its original form, just click here, but David has very kindly given his permission to have it reprinted here.

Simonson in Asgard
by David L. Wyatt Jr.

When a new writer takes over an established comic book it may seem like smooth sailing. You have a ready stock of villains and supporting characters. The book has loyal fans who bought every issue since number six and almost certain to buy the next one. You have a franchise. As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But the safe route leads to mediocrity and inevitable decline. The regulars will continue to buy until they grow up and demand more. New readers will look for the stories that excite them. Even the strengths of an established title, a well-developed roster of supporting characters and villains, a worldview, can become crutches if the writer repeats him or herself. To reach out to readers who have never before considered the book you must introduce change. But change carries certain dangers. Change risks angering the book’s loyal fans, who expect the writer to maintain consistency with issue number six. Change and you toss away many established advantages. Bruce Wayne can grow old in a miniseries, but in the regular Batman series Wayne must remain thirty, and no one dare suspect his true identity.

This was the situation when Walt Simonson took over Marvel Comics’ Thor. Thor had a rich history. The comic was the brainchild of comic legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It had a variety of Lee’s original characters and the whole of Norse mythology to mine. But the comic had its faults as well. Ragnarok is supposed to be the end of everything. This cataclysmic struggle took place every third year. Odin was little more than temperamental father. The supporting characters were full of weaknesses.

Let us consider Thor’s secret identity, Dr. Donald Blake. When the book was begun all superheroes needed a secret identity. It was a time honored cliche. But why in the world would a God need a secret identity? Thor already had an identity, thank you, and one developed over several millennia. The idea of his father trapping him in the hammer to teach “humility” ought to summon an army of social workers. Silliness abounded everywhere. Heimdall, all-seeing Guardian of the rainbow bridge, spent eternity at his post without even a potty break. Balder the Brave was the most joyous and pure hearted person who happened to have slain a few thousand in combat, and a few dozen deaths. Balder remained merry, and endlessly willing to blindfold himself in the face of mistletoe. You’d think after the thirtieth death he might learn.

But the biggest absurdity was Volstagg. Corpulent, gigantic, clad in a puffy maroon tunic with a gold cap topped with long corn leaves, Volstagg looked more like a professional wrestling manager than a God. He could be counted upon to hide, and then come out with bombastic egotism to claim how his large stomach had turned into the key of victory. Worse, he was supposedly one of the “Warriors Three” with dashing Fandral and Hogun the Grimm. Now ask yourself, “Why in the world would Errol Flynn and Omar Sharif hang out with Fat Albert?” More than any other character, Volstagg symbolized the fact that Thor had fallen into cliche.

Until Thor #337. Simonson starts conventionally enough, Nick Fury sends Thor to intercept an alien vessel approaching earth. Thor awakens its protector, Beta Ray Bill. Like all superheroes meeting for the first time, they fight. Pretty much normal stuff, except for one thing: Thor tosses the hammer at Bill, and Bill picks it up. Thor suddenly becomes Donald Blake. And when Odin calls his son to Asgard, he gets the wrong hero.

The next issue Bill and Thor fight again, this time for possession of Mjolnir. And, once again, Bill wins– admittedly abetted by the rather hot place Odin chose for the fight. Again pretty normal stuff, except for the hero losing a rematch.

But in issue #339 we begin to see where Simonson is heading. He’s mining a deeper vein of gold, moving away from the more obvious conflicts into the nuts and bolts of Norse myth. Bill is worthy to lift Mjolnir. Which means he’s honest, and wouldn’t even consider taking the Hammer if his people weren’t facing a dire threat. So instead of simply claiming his prize he asks Odin if there might be a solution to this dilemma. Odin hears and sees both wisdom and nobility in Bill. And so Odin goes dressed as traveler into the land of the dwarves. But Eitri the Dwarf leader recognizes the all father, for Eitri too is wise. One issue minor characters begin to take on a richness normally absent in comics.

Other characters change in subtle ways. No one more than Volstagg. Oh he’s still the self aggrandizing King of the Clean Plate Club, but Volstagg is no longer just a buffoon. He knows he’s compulsive, and even a bit of a joke, but because he understands pain he can see it in others. Simonson reinterpreted Volstagg as jester rather than joke. He becomes serious when appropriate, brave when required, and silly when the tension needs relief. Volstagg belongs in the Warrirors Three for the things he does away from battle.

Simonson introduces that rarest of comic book virtues, character growth. Balder the pure hearted finally began to feel the deaths he has caused. Suffering from depression, Balder has forsaken the sword. Volstagg alone suspects what consumes Balder. When a younger warrior comes to challenge Balder, Volstagg easily disarms him. But he is not angered to see his friend challenged. Rather Volstagg sees in the lad the impetuous ambition of youth. Sitting on the youth, he becomes a mentor

Ragnarok does come to Asgard. But Simonson builds it slowly, and mines the full depth of Viking myth. In issues 342 and 343 he fills the last seat in Valhalla. Odin works quietly against what he fears, with sad resignation almost never seen in comics. A quiet moment with his wife says more than a thousand podium speeches. The End of All brings great fear, not glorious adventure.

In 344 Simonson transforms Loki, the God of Mischief. Loki is often portrayed as malicious force, a powerful sorcerer but little different from any other supervillain. But in 344 Simonson displays a real Loki, one whose humor and malice the Joker might envy. For Balder has been sent by Odin to summon the trickster to Asgard, to aid in the struggle against Ragnarok. And the brave has forsworn violence, and killing. Naturally, Loki forces Balder into lots of killing, sending thousands of cannon fodder against the Asgardian. Until in desperation Balder himself is forced to take up the sword, and slay his way into Loki’s castle. There in Loki’s castle, in front of the destroyer Surtur’s servant Malekith the Dark Elf, Loki summarily refuses to read Odin’s proposition. In a moment of rage at what he has been forced to do, in vain, Balder decapitates Loki with a single stroke, then exiles himself to the desert.

A lesser writer might have let the suspense of Loki’s ‘death’ hang. But not Simonson. Instead the headless body of Loki searches for his head, until he finds and re-attaches it. Loki is in stitches, for the agonized look on Balder’s face proved “an excellent jest, one well worth the price of a stiff neck for a day or so. Balder, thy name is laughter.”

Issue by issue the tension builds. Malekith the dark elf schemes to take the Casket of Ancient Winters, that once released can freeze the barrier Odin’s bothers used to seal Surtur in the realm of flame, away from Asgard and Midgard, the Norse name for our Earth. But the casket is shattered and Surtur’s endless minions released into this world. Ragnarok has come.

But instead of facing the enemy alone, all of Earth unites against the forces of Muspellheim. Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four come to battle.. The warriors of Valhalla fight along side US Army divisions. Odin, Thor and Heimdall await Surtur in Asgard. If Surtur passes them he can set his sword alight, and burn the nine worlds to nothingness. Surtur seems invincible. Heimdall falls and the Rainbow Bridge is shattered. Thor is defeated, and unable to use his full power. Odin too is brushed aside. And at his moment of triumph Surtur finds himself confronted by Loki.

The battle is one of the finest in comics, with many little contributions summing up to a greater whole, Surtur versus Odin, Thor and Loki — for Asgard, Midgard, and as Loki put it, “for Myself.”

Of course the tribulations of Thor are only beginning. Before it ends he will have been turned into a frog, had his bones ground to dust, fought his way in and out of Hel, had Hela refuse him death in torment, then forced the Death Goddess regret her decision. He will fight the Midgard Serpent and fall before it, and yet not fall into death. Heimdall, the stoic all-seeing guardian of the Rainbow Bridge will prove that not only has he seen and heard everything, but thought about what all this meant. He well matches wits with Loki. Heimdall even bags a babe. Volstagg gets trapped in Manhattan to the delight of New York restauranteurs. Thor gets a job. All of which is in the greatest of fun.

No writer, before or since, has done to Thor what Simonson did. His run at that comic rivals the Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight, for its sheer inventiveness. Perhaps the Dark Knight is the best comparison, for in it Miller took Gotham and made it the same, yet completely different. The rainbow bridge still links Asgard and Midgard. But because of Simonson, Asgard could never be the same.

Simonson issues: (his art and script until otherwise noted)

#337 ” ” (November 1983)
#338 A Fool and His Hammer . . .
#339 Something Old, Something New ..
#340 Though Hell Should Bar the Way
#341 The Past is a Bucket of Ashes
#342 The Last Viking
#343 If I Should Die Before I Wake
#344 Whatever Happened to Balder the Brave?
#345 That Was No Lady!
#346 The Wild Hunt
#347 Into the Realm of Faerie
#348 The Dark and the Light
#349 Debts of Honor
#350 Ragnarok and Roll!
#351 Ragnarok and Roll, too!
#352 Ragnarok and Ruin
#353 Doom II
#354 Pickin’ up the Pieces
#355 The Icy Hearts (or My Dinners with Thor!) — pencils and inks by Sal Buscema
#357 A New Deal from an Old Deck (or Credit Card Soldiers) ? art by Simonson
#358 When Dalliance was in Flower (or Take the Cash and let the Credit Go)
#359 The Grand Alliance (or Life with Loki)
#360 Into the Valley of Death
#361 The Quick and the Dead
#362 Like a Bat out of Hel!
#363 This Kursed Earth . . ..
#364 Thor Croaks!
#365 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (or It’s Not Easy Being Green)
#366 What do you call a 6’6′ Fighting Mad Frog? Sir!
#367 The Harvest of the Seasons
#368 The Eye of the Beholder —- art by Sal Buscema
#369 For Whom the Belles Troll—- art by Buscema & Geoff Isherwood
#371 Peace on Earth art by Buscema & Albret Blevinson
#372 Without Justice, there is no Peace art by Buscema & Bevinson
#373 The Gift of Death art by Buscema
#374 Fires of the Night art by Buscema
#375 Shadows of the Past art by Buscema
#376 Heroes Always Win . . . Don’t They? Art by Buscema
#377 This Hollowed Armor art by Buscema
#378 When Loki Stood Alone art by Buscema
#379 There were Giants in Those Days (or, a Discussion between Heroes and Villains) Art by Buscema
#380 Mjolnir’s Song
#381 Ye Olde Shelle Game! art by Buscema
#382 Journey Into Mystery art by Buscema
(August 1987)

My Avengers, let me show you them

The only comic book convention I’ve ever attended was one I went to back in the early ’90s at the University of North Texas in Denton. Everyone fit into one fairly small room in the student union building. I think there were a dozen or so people selling comics. No one dressed up, there were no special guests, no one got excited. And I probably wouldn’t have gone at all if it weren’t a five-minute walk from my dorm.

Something like Comic-Con last weekend in San Diego? Never been to anything like it, probably never will. Too big, too far away, and I’ll never have enough vacation time to go that far away, much less enough money to cover admission.

But John Rogers went to Comic-Con and gives us his thoughts on conventions, culture, and the media.

The Con’s current scale hammers home the hackiness of the standard American media narrative. I noticed multiple news camera crews, and each time it was the same. 124,000 people at the Con, give or take. But if you turn on your news coverage you won’t see the giggling, happy five year-olds with their parents, having the “together family time” we’re always whinging on about. You won’t see the young woman who wrote and drew a comic about her time as a soldier in Israel. You won’t see the scrum of young Marines I spotted as they compared Magic the Gathering cards. You won’t meet the junior high teachers who are using my comic in their predominantly Hispanic classrooms to spark discussion about racial representation in the media. You won’t see the indie film-makers, the kid who shot this 25 minutes in a week and left every industry pro who stumbled across him slack-jawed.

A thousand stories, tens of thousands of families … yet the newshacks couldn’t wait to hustle up the dozen or so real freaks in costumes, the literally .001% that gave them what they wanted. Not even the kids in the Harry Potter outfits, or the Japanese anime kids, or even the clever unfolding Transformer rigs — no, they found every empty-eyed overweight forty-five year old Flash or flab-rolled part-time stripper Catwoman and latched on tight for the creepy interview.

In the American media there are two constants. In politics, it is always and forever 1968, and liberals are Dirty (F***ing) Hippies. In culture, anyone who decides to poke their head out of the cultural world of the CBS primetime line-up is a sad, basement-dwelling loner screaming into his Hello Kitty pillow as crackling video dubs of the original Spider-Man cartoon flicker on his television.

And that’s not a bad view of the way things are nationwide. In all the years I’ve been buying and reading comics, I’ve seen mighty few Howling Freakshow DoomBeasts hanging around Star. Frankly, I can think of two — every other person I’ve seen there is as normal as normal can be. Kids, parents, men, women, old, young, businessmen, cowboys, goths, geeks, punks, preps, you name it.

Of course, if the national media had to interview ten typical comic book readers, they’d panic. “These aren’t real comic book fans!” they’d scream. “Get us the freaks and weirdos! Get us people who look like the nerds we knew in high school! Get us people who look like the stereotypes we have in our heads!”

And that’s really what I think a lot of that stuff is about — maintaining and enforcing cultural taboos and divisions. The media — and the national media in particular — has a point-of-view that’s firmly ensconced within the status quo — usually by necessity. But nowadays, some folks within the national media have gotten it into their heads that they’re supposed to promote the status quo, rather than just report from within it. And the way they promote the status quo is to marginalize the square pegs who don’t quite fit into society’s stereotyped round holes. Hence: nearly all media depictions of comics fans are Comic Book Guy, goths wear trenchcoats and shoot up high schools, feminists have hairy legs and hate men, gays wear leather thongs and dance on parade floats, environmentalists are granola-eating hippies, blacks are rappers, Hispanics are either gangsters or illegal immigrants, Muslims are terrorists. True? Of course not. But you can’t get a cookie-cutter culture without demonizing a few Nutter Butters (or something like that).

The point is to tell the audience that those people are not normal, and you shouldn’t want to have anything to do with them, or you’ll be abnormal, too.

Is there a way out? Probably not. There doesn’t seem to be much of a way to make the national media less shallow. Is there a way around the problem. Sure. Do what lots of people do already — do what makes you happy, and don’t let the clucking busybodies on TV scare you off.

(By the way, the comments on Rogers’ blog post are outstanding all the way through — make sure you read them, too.)

Not many comics left to review this week, and I think I can get most of them reviewed pretty quickly. To the ReviewCopter!

Hellboy: Darkness Calls #4

Baba Yaga’s crusade against Hellboy continues, as Koschei the Deathless attacks. Hellboy’s a pretty tough customer, but he does his best work against opponents who eventually stop living, which Koschei doesn’t do. Luckily, Hellboy gets a little assistance from a little girl from Russian folklore, but it may not be enough.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mike Mignola’s take on Russian mythology is big fun. Not much horror action in this issue, but a full issue of near-nonstop action is nothing to sneeze at.

JSA Classified #28

This issue focuses on Jakeem Thunder and his wish-granting Thunderbolt as they try to use their nigh-omnipotent powers to give everyone everything they want. While Jakeem expected to spend his time reconstructing demolished homes and feeding the hungry, he ends up fielding demands for new plasma TVs and repaired PlayStations.

Verdict: Thumbs up. One of the superhero criticisms you see from time to time is that you see them pull people out of fires and accidents, but you never see them stick around to clean up damage or rebuild homes. This issue has one of the better explanations for this that I’ve seen — it’s better thought-out and doesn’t completely insult your intelligence the way some of these do. We also see some much-needed character development for Jakeem, who tends to get forgotten over in the main “Justice Society” comic book.

Teen Titans #49

It’s a crossover with the “Amazons Attack” miniseries. There’s a three-way battle between the Titans, the military, and the Amazons with a bunch of innocent internees in the crossfire. Most of this takes place on a runaway passenger train, and it’s still not a bit exciting.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Boring, irritating, confusing, poorly written, badly plotted. I have a hard time believing that the Titans would help escort military internees to a concentration camp just to keep themselves from being arrested. And Supergirl and Wonder Girl somehow manage to go off, get persuaded to fight with the Amazons, crash Air Force One, and then change their minds and come back to the Titans, all in the space of a few hours. This comic was freakin’ awful. I’m not dropping it yet, mainly ’cause Blue Beetle is going to be in the next few issues, but things better improve soon or I’m giving it up.

Once again, it’s Friday night, and Bahlactus calls for BATTLE!

From “Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #1” by John Layman, Tom Peyer, and Scott Chantler:

Hey, ya ever wondered what happens to skeleton aliens who taunt Stephen Colbert?

NOTE: That panel sounded totally dirty.

SPLURRCH! SNEPP!

Stuck?! That’s one heck of a kick…

SCHPOP!

It’s violentastic!

Blue Beetle #17

In this issue, Blue Beetle takes on a guy named Typhoon, a corporate mercenary who can turn himself into a full-sized hurricane. Jaime insults Typhoon’s lack of pants, gets depressed when he fails to save a bunch of hurricane victims, and uses his brain in dealing with both the bad guy and a ritzy hotel that refuses to give the victims shelter from the storm. We also get treated to a great scene between Jaime and his dad and to some wonderful banter between Paco and Brenda back home.

Verdict: Thumbs up. John Rogers and Rafael Albuquerque are killing on this book. Jaime’s reactions to Typhoon’s rampage and to his perceived failure to save lives are excellently written, and his solutions to his problems are both cerebral and fun. Why aren’t you reading this comic yet? No, no excuses — go pick it up now.

Awright, time for some reviews. This one actually came out last week, and while it was one I was keeping an eye out for, it sneaked under my radar. But I got it now, so let’s start with this one.

MODOK’s 11

Ahhh, MODOK. Is there any villain anywhere who’s as utterly lame and yet so mind-manglingly cool at the same time. MODOK — the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing — is a super-genius with a giant head, an awful haircut, an oversized mouth, itty-bitty limbs, and a hoverchair. He looks utterly bizarre and he tends to get his teensy butt humiliatingly kicked every time he shows up. To be honest, that’s why we comic geeks love him so.

MODOK has a purebreed pedigree, too — he was created by Marvel’s greatest superstars, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Here’s a classic picture of MODOK (probably not by Kirby himself, but definitely in his style) which is far cooler than the one on the cover of this month’s comic:

I’ve got a headache this big…

So a while back, there was an issue of “Marvel Adventures: The Avengers” in which MODOK showed up and turned the Avengers into giant-headed megalomaniacs like himself. This caused many people to giggle a lot and talk about how much they loved MODOK, so Marvel decided they’d better give him a miniseries.

Most of what we get in this first issue is MODOK recruiting various villains for a big heist — he calls on a bunch of also-ran villains like Armadillo, Puma, Mentallo, Deadly Nightshade, the Living Laser, Chameleon, Spot, and a very reluctant Rocket Racer, and they all get greedy and fight each other. A bit cliched? Maybe, but these guys are not A-list supervillains, so it serves more as an introduction for a bunch of characters who many readers may never have heard of.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A slow but very promising start. I like light-hearted comics, and I like heist comics, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that this will be a wonderful fusion of the two…

Well, maybe more like “Marvel Heroes put stamps on envelopes.”

If you remember last year’s DC stamps, they’ve finally gotten around to putting out some Marvel stamps, and they’re coming out tomorrow!

If you collect stamps, there will be a special superheroes pictorial cancellation for local collectors from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Singer Slaton Post Office at 4901 S. Loop 289. The Post Office will also sell special cachet envelopes with the pictorial cancellation for $5.

My opinion on these stamps? I like ’em and will probably pick up two or three sets of ’em, but I actually think it’s a slightly weaker set of stamps than the DC stamps. Elektra, but not Daredevil? Spider-Woman and not, well, anyone else? I realize they wanted to have a couple of female characters, but why not She-Hulk or Storm? They’re much more popular and important characters than Elektra or Spider-Woman.

Ya know what else I noticed? They’ve got a stamp of Wolverine, but the corresponding comic cover stamp is of “X-Men #1” from 1963 — nine years before Wolverine was actually created…

UPDATE: Ya know, the more I look at that sheet of stamps, the more I think to myself, “Wow, I am going to own stamps with illustrations by Jack Kirby himself.” And that is solid, 24-carat awesome.