I think we’ve all had a stressful enough week that we’d all appreciate a wonderful weekend, wouldn’t we? And as always, the best way to start off a wonderful weekend is with some gratuitous, face-cracking violence, right? So let’s get this party started — it’s time again for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our pain-packed panel for this week comes from November 1985’s Fantastic Four #284 by John Byrne as She-Hulk hits one of Psycho-Man’s minions so hard his whole head blows up.

Over the top? Maybe. I guess that’s just how gamma-powered lawyers roll…

Captain Britain and MI-13 #11

Dracula has declared war on Great Britain and made his first attack against MI-13. Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom have escaped injury in their exploding car, but one of their backpacking friends is killed. The Black Knight and Faiza Hussain are stuck in freefall from 10,000 feet up, but Faiza actually manages to heal their injuries as they hit the ground. Faiza’s family, in the meantime, has been targeted by Dracula, and Spitfire’s dead vampire son has come back from the grave to drag his mother into Dracula’s service.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ve got some quibbles with the depiction of Dracula, but I’m a bit of a purist for the glories of the “Tomb of Dracula” series from the ’70s. Other than that, there’s nothing but win going on here. The interaction between Spitfire and her son is excellent, Dracula’s taunt at his old foe Blade is much appreciated, and Pete Wisdom’s leadership is wonderful to watch. This comic is huge fun.

Secret Six #7

Deadshot has apparently tried to kill most of the team, but he botched the job on all of them, and now they’re chasing him down to get revenge. Meanwhile, Tarantula, riding along with Deadshot with Bane unconscious in the back seat of the limo, figures out the truth — Deadshot’s an expert assassin, and if he’d wanted his teammates dead, they’d be dead. Everyone finally meets up in Gotham City, with the addition of all the supervillains who’ve been trying to kill them, plus Junior, Ragdoll’s creepy sister, plus the Mad Hatter, plus Huntress, Grace, and Lady Blackhawk. And then Bane finally breaks out his stash of Venom, and things really go nuts.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, great interaction between all the characters. Tarantula is just great here, as is Mad Hatter. And it was pretty cool seeing how Bane looks at the world once he’s got Venom in his system. Gail Simone and Nicola Scott are doing outstanding work with this series.

PS238 #38

The kids from PS238 are competing against the kids from the wildly evil Praetorian Academy in a soccer match. So the Wonderburg sports complex has installed forcefields to protect the crowd from high-velocity soccer balls and soundwave cancellation systems to cut down on the sonic booms. The Praetorians jump to an early lead, thanks to the former Captain Clarinet and to the Praetorians’ willingness to cheat. But Tyler Marlocke, the Flea, and Cecil Holmes have discovered an invisible ship observing the game, and they sneak aboard to investigate. But can they escape the clutches of the Headmaster and keep a dimensional rift from eating the soccer field?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great work with the plot advancing along with the soccer game, which is a lot of fun all on its own. Bernard Brenner, PS238’s pint-sized Hulk analogue, has a lot of fun cheering on his team. And Cecil is, as always, great to read — he’s really developing into one of this series’ best characters. If you’re not reading this comic, you should start reading it as quickly as you can.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #9

This issue focuses on the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange, along with his assistant, Jason Wong, and his teacher, the Ancient One. Strange and Wong are enjoying an afternoon at the Guggenheim Museum when they’re suddenly attacked by a spell-slinging squirrel. A squirrel? Turns out its actually Dormammu, Ruler of the Dark Dimension, temporarily forced to assume the form of a lowly rodent. When he finally claims his full power, he has some odd ways of going about conquering the world. He turns all the vehicles in the world into red convertibles, except for the ones parked close to a mailbox. And he eats a hot dog. What’s going on? Turns out the last time the Ancient One defeated Dormammu, he got him to sign a binding contract forcing him to follow all kinds of silly rules. Can Dr. Strange, Wong, the Ancient One, and Daredevil’s pal Foggy Nelson find the right loophole to banish Dormammu again?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is pretty amazingly silly stuff. So of course, I approve wholeheartedly.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let us gather together and gaze in wonder at the Dumbest Thing Ever:

In some universe, the name “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel, is betting it’s this one.

To that end, the 16-year-old network — owned by NBC Universal — plans to announce that Syfy is its new name March 16 at its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”

…

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

Mr. Brooks said that when people who say they don’t like science fiction enjoy a film like “Star Wars,” they don’t think it’s science fiction; they think it’s a good movie.

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Wow.

Consider me gobsmacked.

Well, the unwritten story in this article is that NBC’s lawyers probably realized there was no way to trademark “Sci Fi” — but they could trademark a goofy spelling like “Syfy.” So there actually is a legitimate business reason for the change.

But it’s too bad they didn’t just say that. “Hey, folks, we’re changing the name of our network to something we can trademark.” They might get a little razzing about it, but not all that much.

Instead, what they went with was just pointlessly insulting: “Yeah, we’re going to take our core audience, the science fiction, fantasy, and horror geeks, and just tell ’em to take a flying leap. We’re gonna try to get an all-new core audience, one that’s cool and hip and young and sexxxay, if we can convince them to watch old ‘Star Trek’ reruns, wrestling, horror-themed reality shows, and painfully bad movies like ‘Mansquito’ and ‘SS Doomtrooper.’ ”

So five points for having a legitimate reason to change your name, but several thousand points off for telling your friends in the D&D Club that you’re deserting them to try to con a spot at the jocks’ table in the cafeteria.

The Sci Fi Channel has been a pretty sad joke for a while — a few huge successes like “Battlestar Galactica” and “Farscape” balanced against management so cheap they’d broadcast reruns of “Law and Order: SVU” — but I never really imagined they’d end up going hostile on the audiences who supported them over the years. I don’t know if the Secret Masters of Fandom have enough power or a long enough attention span to convince the world’s geeks to boycott the network, but I wouldn’t shed no tears if they did.

Anyway, what’s the over-under for when “Syfy” switches over to an “All Wrestling, All the Time” format? I’m betting on 18 months or less…

Hey, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Hope you remembered to wear green today, or you’re gonna get a pinch. I reckon some folks, however, are pretty reliably safe from pinches no matter what…

Green Lantern and Green Arrow

The Green Goblin

The Green Lama

The Green Hornet

The Hulk

She-Hulk

The Martian Manhunter

Beast Boy

Jade

Brainiac

Brainiac-5

The Spectre

Poison Ivy

The Enchantress

Ambush Bug

Swamp Thing

Man-Thing

The Savage Dragon

Fin Fang Foom

Banshee, ’cause the Irish lads are assumed to be Irish enough to avoid pinches

As for me, I very rarely wear green on St. Paddy’s Day. Partly to buck tradition, and partly because — Hey, ladies! Free pinch!

For no reason other than I’m feelin’ down in the dumps and don’t want to do any serious writing, Hero Sandwich now presents: The Hulk makes rude and insulting comments about the intelligence of fish.

(Image courtesy of Timeshredder, who is Canadian and looks like Lex Luthor)

Let’s make it short and sweet: If it’s Friday, and it’s night(ish), and I’m posting a panel with a fight in it, it must be time for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes from November 1993’s Blood Syndicate #8 by Ivan Velez, Jr., ChrisCross, and Shepherd Hendrix, as Fade backhands Boogieman.

Ya know, the Syndicate are the only major Milestone Media characters who haven’t yet been revived by DC. Here’s hoping that changes soon, ’cause they were always my faves of all the Milestone crew.

The Age of the Sentry #6

This is a near picture-perfect send-up of the old “imaginary stories” in the Silver Age “Superman” comics — from the Sentry getting his secret identity revealed to the team-up of his greatest enemies to guest appearances from almost everyone imaginable to a couple of deaths and resurrections to an unusual amount of head-trippy weirdness that may or may not be in continuity. The entire story is so wild and weird, I’m not sure any actual discussion of the plot would make a lick of sense — which isn’t a bad thing in this case, it just means you’ve really got to get on board and enjoy the ride in person, instead of having me describe it to you.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Grand, whacked-out fun. Not sure if this is the last issue or if it’s going to continue — I hope it keeps going for a while, because Jeff Parker is really bringing the awesome home with this one.

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #4

There seems to be a Kryptonite-powered cat kidnapping everyone at Supergirl’s school. The only students left are Supergirl, her popular Bizarro clone Belinda Zee, and her best friend, Lena Thorul, who is also Lex Luthor’s little sister. And when Supergirl accidentally reveals her secret identity, both Belinda and Lena hate her. Can they all work together to save their classmates?

Verdict: Another thumbs up. I love the artwork, I love the jokes, I love just about everything about this comic. It’s irritating that it only has another two issues left before the series is over — it’s certainly deserving of being a regular ongoing series.

Even I am sometimes amazed by some of the awful comics they’ll make. Case in point:

That, my friends, is one great big bushel of crazy. And not the good crazy, either.

(You can read about this nightmare-inducing thing in more detail here.)

Time for another entry in our semi-regular series on current and former Lubbockites who’ve worked in comics, cartooning, and animation. We’ve already taken a look at Dirk West and Alex Ross — time to look at someone from the field of animated cartoons: Jim Smith.

Not a name you’re probably real familiar with, right? Born James Carl Jobb in Lubbock in 1954, Jim Smith is an animator and musician. After working for years on a variety of different cartoons, he worked on Ralph Bakshi’s acclaimed “Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures” with his long-time working partner John Kricfalusi — better known to cartoon fans as John K.

Smith later briefly worked on “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and then along with Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, and Lynne Naylor, he founded an animation studio called Spümcø. He also co-created “Ren & Stimpy” and “The Ripping Friends.” Spumco’s brand of subversive, gross-out humor strongly influenced lots of different cartoons, including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy,” “Cow and Chicken,” “Drawn Together,” and many, many more.

As I’ve already mentioned, Smith is also a musician. In the “Ren and Stimpy” theme at the beginning of the show, Smith is the guy playing the hot licks on the guitar.