Hazmatter

We know. We're just choosing not to acknowledge the pun.

No idea, but it sounds like a reeeeeeally oddball character concept. And considering we're already talking comic characters... that's saying something.

The only guys I know of who extensively make use of mirrors as part of their shtick are Mysterio and, naturally, Mirror Master.

Thank gawd, somebody at the Big Two finally figured out that jacking up the cover price tends to make people buy fewer comics.

Considering we had at least two fake-outs regarding Hush's real identity when he first appeared, I wouldn't be surprised if the recent "revelation" wasn't some kind of red herring.

Anyone else find it kinda funny that they got Scott Menville (who played Robin in the Teen Titans cartoon) to play Bucky?

Hey kids! Guess what, it's October! You know what that means...

Time again for Linkara to review another Silent Hill comic that has NOTHING to do with the games!

Issues #1 and #2

Issues #3 and #4

and the finale, Issue #5


And for a trip down memory lane, here's last year's review:
Dying Inside Part 1
Dying Inside Part 2
Dying Inside Part 3

Morrison's already responsible for #3...

I'm suddenly picturing Gerard Butler doing his "This! Is! SPARTA!!!" voice for the "You WILL bow down before me!!" rant at the beginning of the first Superman movie.

What I don't get is the whole "living shadow" look they seemed to be using for Darkseid's first appearance. Okay, I get it, he's got the word "Dark" in his name, and he's this "darkness" that's coming that Clark will have to deal with. But come on! Didja have to be so literal with it?

More to the point, THAT'S NOT HOW DARKSEID WORKS!! If you're going to have Darkseid make an entrance in Smallville, you could at least just have a Boom Tube appear out of nowhere! A sudden explosion of sound and fury ripping a passage through space to deliver this mysterious new evil onto earth would be much more impressive than a bad-CG shadow slithering off from the site where the Kandorians all vanished.

So, wait... Teri Hatcher + Michael Ironside = Erica Durance?



Brilliant!!

At least this version of the team is actually going to have the Big 3 Avengers (4, if you count the Hulk), unlike the ridiculous Fox Kids series with everybody in stupid-looking "battle armor" and Hawkeye trying to do his best Wolverine impersonation. *sigh*

Evan Horizon strolls through Pocket D with his normal happy, almost childlike innocence and wonder. His fathomless white eyes widen in surprise as he spots a stray atom in the air that catches his interest for some reason.

Holding it in an immensely complicated but deceptively simple-looking gravitational field between his hands, he bounces, stretches, squishes, and otherwise plays with the sub-microscopic anomaly for a few minutes before being distracted and loosing track of it. Suddenly, he feels a strange sensation in his throat and before he can stop himself... he hiccups.

The end result of which leaves everyone standing on the ceiling of the club, with the colors of their clothes reversed and inexplicably speaking Swahili. Evan claps a hand over his mouth as everyone slowly turns to glare at him. "Sorry! Sorry, ev'rybody!" After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he quickly runs back toward the elevator, accidentally letting slip another hiccup that unceremoniously drops everyone back down to the floor and returns their speech to normal... but now everyone's undergarments are still suspended in space above the ceiling where they'd been standing moments ago, and the Freakshow member trying to hit on a Ring Mistress near the exit is now a penguin dressed as the Monopoly Man. The Ring Mistress has just as inexplicably been replaced with a tapir wearing a tutu.

I don't think there's anything wrong with not particularly liking a specific comic character. Hell, I know people who don't really like Superman, and he's literally the origin of the whole superhero concept!

As for the Hulk, I just find it kinda funny that more than half of his rampages are usually triggered by people coming after him (the military, heroes, villains, etc.). And what's one of the things Hulk almost always shouts when he's being attacked? "Leave Hulk ALONE!!!" He's TELLING you what to do to make him stop smashing stuff, people!

Now, Ultimate Hulk is another story. That guy's just messed up, most of the time.

I seem to recall there was a point where it was rumored that if you had a new series at Marvel, it wouldn't succeed unless you had either the Hulk or Wolverine make a guest-appearance by the second issue.

Gah! I completely forgot about Planetary!!

I second that nomination. The series just wrapped a few months ago, and it's all very, very good.

The various Astro City books are pretty much always good, and an interesting take on a superhero universe, as it more or less happens in "real time." The various stories and characters span entire generations of adventures, most of which are really only hinted at to the reader, while tweaking established archetypes of characters and stories already present in the genre in interesting ways.

PS238 is another series that plays with conventions of the superhero genre in a fun and clever way, but this time in the setting of a secret, underground elementary school for the children of superpowered folks. It is ongoing, but not monthly, so it shouldn't be too hard to catch up in trades and such. And the series' writer/artist is a CoH fan! (Unfortunately, the interior art is done in black-and-white/grayscale, but it's nice and cartoony while remaining internally consistent.)

They only have 30 minutes?

Hmm...

Tony could probably seduce/charm their hostess sufficiently to secure the tattoo, and Bruce could take out her bodyguards without much fuss, but honestly, I think either of them would more likely find some other way to discover the code and defuse the bomb without bothering with the tattoo business.

Bond could and likely would do all 3 (remove the bodyguards, seduce the knickers off the hostess, and disarm the bomb), but probably not in time to beat his superheroic counterparts to the punch.

I would also consider Zero Hour to be a sequel event series to Crisis on Infinite Earths. After all, the subtitle for it was "Crisis in Time."

You could always look to the Praetorian counterparts of Ghost Widow and Wretch for inspiration. Namely, "BV" (Belladonna Vetrano, naturally) is a high-ranking and secretive Resistance fighter, while Paolo Marino is a PPD officer working with the Resistance to smuggle his family out of the city.

Venom (or whatever you end up calling this version of her) would most likely have been a Seer at some point, since that seems to be the ultmate fate of pretty much anyone with mental powers in Praetoria. She might've been freed by members of the Resistance, placed in Powers Division by Mother as a test of her capabilities, or found some other way to shake off the control of her cybernetic implants on her own.

Everybody's said a ton about Praetorian history and society here already, so I almost feel silly for bringing this little tidbit up. But I found it interesting, so here you go!

In one mission for the final Warden contact in Nova Praetoria, there's a bit of optional dialogue in an NPC conversation with a homeless former Destroyer in the Underground where he mentions America. So obviously there are some who recall a time before Cole's empire with some fondness. Though I can easily imagine "America" taking on a status similar to that of Camelot within a generation or two.