Recent Posts

The new Essential Avengers edition is out now (yay!) and this early Graviton issue is in it. I agree that the story sucked. I barely remembered it from years ago but now that I re-read it, I know why! I don't have the book in front of me now--but this Graviton story seems incredibly weak compared to the great stuff that came immediately before it, when Hellcat joined the team. Was this a different writer or something? Things really pick up again afterwards though.

Every one of those covers is a knock out. JB's inability to draw an awkward pose has never been more obvious. Most comic artists have what we call a "catalog of poses" which they use over and over again. Not JB!! Every single pose had nuance and ease--that guy was just unbelievable. Even the guys I work with in the games field, those who aren't even much into comics, know and admire John Buscema.

I have to say I am surprised at the hoopla my comment about "kissing a girl" has created. There was a Saturday Night Live skit back in the 90's where Captain Kirk asks the guys at a Star Trek convention if they'd ever kissed a girl, and they just looked away in shame. I was just making a joke.

Listen, I collect comics, make video games for a living, and go fossil hunting every weekend. It's hard to get much nerdier than that!

I also collect figurines but only if they are really well done--and this Ant Man figurine fits the bill.

And yes kissing a girl is over-rated. Goats on the other hand...

Are you daring to suggest the Red Skull would have worked better than Osbourne? That is just crazy talk.

Glad somebody here is open to new books!

I realize nobody cares, but is anyone reading Captain America Reborn and the Black Panther? Both of these books are BLOWING ME AWAY. Both actually have exciting, action-packed stories that are coherent and fascinating. The art in both is fantastic too. Please guys--give these books a chance. They are Marvel at its BEST!!!

The new writer on BP actually has Dr Doom using mechanized insects as weapons--something I put in my graphic novel in 2003.

PS I am not saying any of this because the Panther is my favorite Avenger--I've hated most of his solo stuff. This book is about the best thing Marvel is putting out now IMO.

I'm with ya, my brutha. I work with the biggest introverts in the world (not all, but a large percentage). I can't lecture them because I look like the guy who beat them up in high school. In fact, I've really had to tone down my personality so as to not scare anybody.

Okay--let me define the term "Most Improved" as the Avenger who grew to be a major asset to the team, from meager beginnings. I meant in a battle sense, not in the sense of character development.

Hey--I make video games for a living and don't play them at all. I think they are a waste of time. But I do care about doing my best work on the games I help develop.

HB--I work with guys whose entire cubicles are packed with hundreds of statues like this. The fad seems to be fading a bit--but people think they are cool and feel they'll be worth a lot of money some day. A collector's item kinda thang. I have figurines of my beloved Black Panther, Medusa, the Silver Surfer, Galactus and the Scarlet Witch. I only buy the ones that I think are really well done. I'll probably get this Ant Man guy.

I love what Bendis has done with Spiderwoman.

I just said that to be annoying. Did it work?

Sorry I didn't see this until now. Not to be a jerk, but the drawing is really stiff, and amateurish. CA's eyes convey zero emotion--in fact, it is impossible to know what CA is supposed to be feeling by looking at that illustration. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights--or more like a walleye flopping around in a net.

That being said, the coloring here is just perfect! Perfectly WRONG. Muddy, overly complicated--it is impossible to tell what you are supposed to be focusing on. What's with the rock texture on the wall? It just adds to the confusion on this (I'm assuming) cover.

This is a perfect example of two things:

1. A newbie artist who learned how to draw from looking at comics, rather than studying real human anatomy.

2. The Everything But the Kitchen Sink approach to coloring. Less is more, usually. Remember that thread where people picked their favorite covers? Well most were simple and direct, as it should be. A simple image draws your eye in a sea of clutter.

Yeah this drawing is bad, but the coloring is the real disaster.

Hey guys--and this is a thread for us old-timers--

Which Avenger, over the years, gets the Most Improved Player award?

I pick the Wasp, hands down. I recently purchased The Essential Ant Man edition, and I swear to God the Wasp gets kidnapped virtually every issue. I am not exaggerating. Just off the top of my head, in that volume and the first Essential Avengers volume, the Wasp was captured by The Human Top, Masters of Evil, Porcupine, Enchantress, Madame Macabre, Count Nefaria, Attuma, my GOD the list goes on and on. She was even bested by a fly swatter made of webbing, a spray can of DDT, a sparrow, and even lost a fight to a bumble bee. It got so bad that in one issue, Jan is actually captured off-screen (can't recall who got her that time--there were so many times I get confused) and they don't even bother showing how.

So basically, the Wasp was a complete liability for the first few years of her tenure at Marvel.

John Byrne, of course, ramped up Jan's powers considerably in Marvel Team-Up in the 80's, and in that same decade she came into her own as a leader and a fighter in the Avengers. But in those first few years, she was basically just kidnap bait.

uhhhhh who is "anti-modern era?" Not me!! I happen to love Mark Millar and think newer artists like David Finch and Bryan Hitch are two of the greatest comic artists of all time.

I love comics past but don't live there. I despise Bendis and I'd have despised him if he came out in 1964.

Yeah--those shoes are hard to fill.