Posts Tagged ‘ Hercules ’

I miss Incredible Hercules.

I mean, I know I’m picking up Chaos War – which appears to be the culmination of Pak and Van Lente’s run on the character – in trade, but still; I miss panels like this in what I pick up week to week:

Awesome.

At the wake of Hercules, some of his (mainly more recent) conquests opened up about what kind of man he was.

Generally, the consensus was that he was a hot one – but it would appear that Herc didn’t just limit himself to female conquests.

That isn’t entirely out of line with either the Heracles of myth (his companion Iolaus was the patron of male love) or with the commonly held belief that the Ancient Greek soldiers often had homosexual relationships with one another, partly to boost the fighting morale of the unit; the Sacred Band of Thebes unit consisted entirely of male couples.

Either way, I think this was a nice touch and I’m hoping that nobody gets too annoyed by it. I’m kind of assuming that there will be a vocal minority who do get annoyed, but tough.

Continuity geek that I am, I’m also assuming it happened after the Avengers and Alpha Flight helped Namor free Marrina from the Attuma-led Atlantis back in Avengers #272 /Alpha Flight #39.

And it’s not like Northstar’s had a lot of action since he came out, so its nice to know that he got some before that (although I always assumed he and Raymond Belmonde were an item in the early days of Alpha Flight). Shortly after the time I assume this encounter took place, Hercules was beaten into a coma by the Masters of Evil and subsequently died (told you it had happened before), and Northstar contracted a disease which originally intended to be AIDS, but was instead revealed to be a disease he contracted as he’d been away from his Asgardian fairy homeland for too long.

Yes, Northstar was retconned into being a fairy when Marvel editorial got nervous about him being a gay man with AIDS.

Anyway.

I’m now thinking the disease was actually an STD from Hercules, which would make far more sense.

…you crazy self-referential fool, you.

Despite my attempt to Purge before the title began (although I guess since the title is counting backwards, it really started with last month’s Deadpool #900), I picked up Deadpool Team-Up #899 last night and, unsurprisingly, loved it.

Sure, it helped that it had a FVL-written Hercules on board for an adventure against Arcade – and who doesn’t love some kind of team-up issues that pitches mismatched heroes against Arcade? – but it was the combination of Herc and DP that sold me.

Can we get a buddy book for these two instead of a rotating DP team-up?

Come on, you know you’re itching for a fourth Deadpool ongoing really…

Last week was a huge week, so let’s get to it (some spoilers below) -

Detective Comics #854 – Beautiful artwork, solid story – and that’s on both Batwoman and The Question co-feature. I have to say that I like this version of Kate Kane more than the version we met in 52. Like the look, like the base, like her dad helping…good stuff all around.

Gotham City Sirens #1 – Store I went to was out. Maybe next week.

Green Lantern #42 – A bit of a let down, partly because I find Blue Lanterns of Hope stupid, partly because I find Larfleeze a daft villain, and partly because I’m sick of all the Lanterns just assuming that the Guardians are right, or at least being unwilling to question anything. This is on the endangered list post-Blackest Night.

Justice League of America #34 – Adequate wrap-up to the Starbreaker arc – although I still don’t really get why Cowboy Batman was there and the revelation about Sun Eaters being larvae Starbreakers is pretty much nonsensical. Let’s move on, already.

Superman #689 – A so-so ‘day in the life’ issue, with Valor touring the world and having splash page adventures in every country he visits, along with a one-panel inset where he sees something beautiful. Aw. Yes, it’s as cloying as it sounds.

Amazing Spider-Man #598 – Darker than usual, with Spidey getting a fistful of torture from Bullseye while Harry flounders and Norman proves he has a prediliction for blondes around his son’s age. Also, nodbody’s surprised that this guy seems to have been forgotten by everyone. Can it be? Did OMD delete Sins Past? Because if it did, I’m all for it!

Astonishing X-Men #30 – I asked last week if anyone still cared about this title. The answer is probably not. I’m kind of pissed off that Ellis killed Forge after turning him a little more crazy, though. I always liked him. Beautiful art, though.

Avengers The Initiative #25 – Good solid wrap-up issue as we get the new status quo of the Initiative. Lots to like here – dropping Gravity into the GLA is a genius idea (mini series, please!); I like the idea of the Avengers Resistance – especially with a newly-revitalized Tigra leading it; and Gauntlet sucker punching Ares out of the window of Avengers Tower. Good stuff.

Dark Avengers #6 – So. Norman’s still insane. Sentry’s still useless as a character. Mike Deodato still draws exceptionally well. And the cover doesn’t represent a single thing that happens in the issue. Still good fun.

Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1 – Okay set-up issue for the crossover, but I’m becoming less and less a fan of Fraction’s work on the X-Men, and that carries over here a little. Also, I’ve never been a fan of ‘torn from the headline’ stories, and Proposition X and Proposition 8 are a little too close for me to fully embrace the story yet. Oh, and the apparent treatment of Xavier seems a little pointless given the amount of time we just spent traipsing around the world with him getting him back. And, even though I’m told otherwise, I still think the Loki thing was a screw up.

Dark Reign Lethal Legion #1 – I picked this up because Tieri promised Crusher Creel. Well, he’s in it, barely, but I’ll forgive the false advertising. The majority of the issue focuses on Tiger Shark, in prison, telling how the current Lethal Legion – him, the Grim Reaper, Creel, Mr Hyde, Nekra (who also popped up in Utopia, oddly enough), the Grey Gargoyle and a final mystery member – got together and got set up. I’m not sold on the flashback-heavy structure of the story, but it’s got potential. Oh, and the art by Mateus Santoloco is very reminiscent of Darick Robertson.

Guardians Of The Galaxy #15 – The Guardians wrap up their War of Kings involvement in typical strong fashion; Moondragon’s not the woman she used to be; Warlock might be the man he will become and used to be (look, it makes sense); Crystal’s no helpless hostage; Lockjaw might be god (at least if you’re Cosmo) and Groot is Groot. Simply awesome. What comics should be.

Incredible Hercules #130 – Slight misstep this time out as Zeus gets put on trial, simply because he’s such a pompous ass that you really don’t want him to be saved. That said, there’s some good stuff with Cho and his parents (and Aegis, of all people), and Hercules’ speech in defence of his father is great. So even when this comic’s isn’t firing on all cylinders, it’s still better than 90% of the comics out there.

Nova #26 – A great book, but I’m not a fan of the reintroduced Corps. I don’t want a second rate Green Lantern Corps, I want Rich Rider. Let’s get this back on track and I won’t even mention that Robbie Rider’s supposed to be missing a finger, okay?

Secret Warriors #5 – Best issue so far, and the first one not to feature the team. What does that tell you? That nobody cares about the team because their characters haven’t been developed at all? Probably.

Skaar Son Of Hulk #12 – Some smashing and more than a few surprises. A light, fun read – and there’s more to Skaar than meets the eye. I’ll be picking up Incredible Hulk #600 to see where Skaar and his dad land next.

Thunderbolts #133 – Okay, well…if Black Widow isn’t who we think she is, who is she? Tasha? Mystique? This just got a lot more interesting between that, her real boss, Ghost’s connivingness and Eric O’Grady potentially stepping up in a big way. On top of that there were more examples of HAMMER’s gestapo-like tactics and the welcome return of Songbird. One of Marvel’s most unpredictable titles right now.

Uncanny X-Men #512 – So. Looks like it’s not just Greg Land’s static posing that makes Uncanny a bit of a mess right now, is it? Fraction is not on good form here. The whole X-Men science team thing seems like a good idea but plays like a second rate Planetary, to be honest.

X-Force #16 – The Messiah War concludes with not so much a bang as a whimper. A pity, because it had been pretty good fun up to hear – but at this point its difficult to see what, if any, changes to the status quo of either books this story has really made.

X-Men Forever #2- It feels a little wrong that I enjoyed this book as much as I did. From a page-long soliloquy from Nick Fury to hearing a sound in a corridor, to Wolverine apparently having adamantium hair, there’s so much wrong here that it’s difficult defend. And yet…and yet…it’s still strangely great.

Proof #21 – As much as I like the concept of this book, I think I’m about done. It’s well done, but over the last few arcs it feels like its lost its way – and that’s a damn shame because for a while there it was one of my most anticipated books. I’m out after the conclusion of this arc.

I was one of those who was looking forward to Dan Slott’s take on the Avengers when it was announced that he was taking over Mighty Avengers when Bendis left to take over Thunderbolts create Dark Avengers.

I’m an Avengers fan since the days of Roger Stern’s stint as scribe, and I’ve read/now own a good chunk of what came before that, so I was all up for a return to an old school feel for the book – something that Bendis’ Mighty never achieved, in spite of the initial claims that it would provide that feel.

Instead, we got a weak and muddled three-issue opening arc which dealt with magic, Wundagore Mountain and Modred the flamin’ Mystic, perhaps the least useful magical character in the MU. As someone who doesn’t like much magic outside of Dr Strange, this wasn’t an ideal arc for me – but more than that, something felt off about Pym’s portrayal.

It wasn’t the new codename or outfit – in spite of Hercules’ concerns. It wasn’t even in the way that Iron Man reacted to him leading the team; it was in Pym’s reactions to everyone else.

Let’s see…he’s lost Jan and is hanging out with the robot whose brainwaves are based on hers. He’s desperate to prove himself as a hero, apparently to partly honor Jan’s memory but also apparently for himself.

He’s also overbearing and more than a little condescending to the younger members of the team, including but not limited to Cassie, who’s been quite successfully proving herself a hero for a while now.

He grossly over reacts to Jocasta shutting off their lab to protect it – to the point where you have to wonder if Slott’s really on board the Pym redemption train as he’s claimed to be.

Oh, and not only is he displaying some very erratic behavior, building a robot called Salvation Two (presumably because Salvation One went so well), but he’s also picking a fight with Reed Richards.

I mean, granted Richards was being uncharacteristically dickish, but still…

And, oh yeah, his team’s being led round by the nose by Loki.

What really bugs me is that Reed and Stark, prior to the Skrull invasion would never have treated Pym this way. They both respected his scientific prowess, regarded him as a friend and treated him as an equal. But now they’re both acting like heels and Pym’s disintegrating.

It’s not an Avengers that appeals to me; it’s not what I thought Slott would deliver, it’s making me actively dislike one of my favorite characters and to be honest, it’s not a lot of fun.

I’m disappointed, and if things don’t turn around in this FF arc, then I think I’m actually going to do something I’ve never done: drop an Avengers book.

heh heh heh

Sorry Hercules, you’ve been bumped…

Go buy Agents of Atlas this week!

Back to that potential Mighty Avengers line-up…you know the one:

In light of what I said last post, and that several people pointed this out to me, and that Bendis said he was going to be one of the Avengers teams, I’m going to call that gun-wielding guy on the bottom left not as Hank Pym, but as Noh-Varr, the new Captain Marvel.

Also, you may remember that Slott said that there will be a founding member on the team – but the absence of Pym (sniff) still leaves Iron Man and Hulk on that pic above.

Or does it?

The image below appeared on Mike Deodato’s blog a few days ago, and Bendis had hinted at the appearance of a character by this name –

– so it could be him and not Iron Man, although Mike Deodato is the artist on Dark Avengers and not Mighty, so maybe not.

It could still be War Machine on the Mighty Avengers cover with the shoulder cannons down. Yep, I’m going for that, because I really, really, hope that’s the Hulk on that cover above and not Hulking, so he’s the only founder.

Dear Marvel,

I see that you will be celebrating 70 years of Marvel in 2009, complete with variant covers and little ’70 Years’ corner boxes.

Maybe I’m not quite as good at maths as I thought I was because when I started picking up US Marvel comics in 1986, I was fairly certain that all the corner boxes then trumpeted that that was Marvel’s 25th Anniversary.

In fact, I’m relatively sure that all your November 1986 issues carried special anniversary covers too. Of those books, only eleven are still around in some form or other (I’m counting X-Factor and New Mutants to be generous), but only three are still on the same numbering run – and of those, only Uncanny X-Men has been numbered straight through.

Sadly, Ewoks, Care Bears and Heathcliff are no longer published by you, and you’ve lost both the Transformers and GI Joe licenses since then.

But I digress.

The point I would like to make is that if you’ve got a big year planned, maybe I can give you some pointers on ways to make it a good year…

1) No deals with the Devil (or demons, imps, devil substitutes or hedge fund managers). It may actually result in a substantial uptick in quality of the title, but it’s not worth the year of pissing and moaning from people who somehow believe that this will cause mythical young readers to fall into satanism (or become accountants).

2) Stop with the status quo-shaking crossovers. Look, if you change the status quo every twelve to eighteen months or so, the new status quo doesn’t have time to become status quo, okay? I understand that BOLD NEW DIRECTIONS! result in temporary sales boosts, but eventually you’re going to lose readers because of them. I know you’ve got War of Kings and probably some mutant-superhuman war thing lined up, but try to keep line-wide ramifications to a minimum, eh?

3) If you must have a status quo-shaking crossover, try to limit the number of new titles that spring out of it. For every Avengers: The Initiative that actually succeeds, you get a The Order which will fail and a New Warriors that will flounder, or an Omega Flight which will just plain tank. Just concentrate on putting out fewer new books and making sure that they’re good ones. Like Guardians of the Galaxy, which is awesome.

4) Stop launching new titles with old title names that bear little relation to those old titles unless you actually have a plan to tie it to the team’s legacy in some way. A good way of doing this is as Abnett and Lanning have done in Guardians of the Galaxy, which is awesome. A bad way is shoehorning Rage and Justice into the New Warriors book, which only reminds us how much better the original book was.

5) I get that #1′s sell, but if you want to relaunch a character who already has a book, just do it in that book. Otherwise the existing title suddenly becomes secondary and it’s blindingly obvious that it’s being phased out. It just pisses readers of that book off. And yes, I know that Invincible Iron Man is pretty good, that’s not the point. The point is that for the past six months, Director of SHIELD has been the red-headed step child.

6) Reinventing characters is great. I for one would love a new spin on, say, Nomad. Or Rocket Racer. But leave alone existing marquee characters unless they actually need a revamp. For example, if you have a character that has had more development in the past year than in the past ten years put together, don’t revert to the most annoying take on that character and introduce a big mean new-colored version of him who, although he may make a good visual, kind of stinks up the place. Am I being too vague, or would you like to look at the cover above?

7) Quit with the Zombie and Ape variants. I know I don’t have to buy them, and I don’t. But they annoy the crap out of me*. We get it! You’re marketing geniuses! You can change any cover into a variant by changing a little bit…it’s irritating in the extreme. Next things you’ll be sticking Skrull chins onto…oh.

There are some great underused characters out there who could do with a limited series or ongoing to spotlight them. The upcoming Cloak and Dagger is a good start, but how about the main MU Power Pack? Alpha Flight? Werewolf by Night? The Shroud? And, of course, Dazzler? I realize that you must get burned on these things but honestly, don’t they sound better to you than Hellcat or The Last Defenders?

9) Not just Wolverine needs inventory stories when he’s running late. Would it kill you to line up some Fantastic Four one-shots so that by the end of 2009, when we still haven’t finished Millar and Hitch’s run, we at least have a couple of issues starring the team out there? Yes, I’m being facetious and delays have lessened over the past couple of years, but I wouldn’t say no to the odd one-shot starring Marvel’s First Family.

10) You’ve got some great books out there at the moment. Captain America, Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, Incredible Hercules, Captain Britain and MI:13 are all solid gold and I continue to hear very good things about Immortal Iron Fist. Don’t screw ‘em up, ‘kay?

I can hardly believe it, but my favorite page of the week was a recap page.

More specifically, the Incredible Hercules recap page, summarizing Herc and Cho’s journey to date.

It’s the trip across America that really amused me – I want to see a Hercules: Roadtrip mini series.

I want Hercules knocking back beers in bars in the midwest.

I want Herc starting brawls in biker bars in Nowhere, AZ.

I want Herc discovering the wonder of karaoke night.

I want Herc carousing, singing and telling tall tales.

I want Hercules: Roadtrip.

You know you want it too!

There’s a page this week that deserves an honorable mention (although it doesn’t quite make page of the week) – and that’s from Incredible Hercules #113.

Hilarity ensues.

Pak and Van Lente are really doing a great job in setting up Hercules as a viable candidate for his own book, and having the Greek myths (a lot of which were pretty damn dark when it came to Herc) interwoven and echoed in the current storylines is a great touch.

Plus, Ares is fun. An ass, but fun.

The Bad

1) Tom Foster is a self-entitled whiny brat that I have no interest in reading about. I always liked Bill Foster and wish he had survived long enough to give his troublesome nephew a clip round the ear and a stern talking to.

2) Misty Knight transforms from a hard ass into a self-doubting fool. I was never that keen on her but that’s just plain annoying.

3) No Colleen Wing.

4) Amadeus Cho is crossing the line from amusing to obnoxious.

5) With the Damage Control mini coming out in January, it would appear that the rebuilding of New York will last till next May. Which is odd because it looks fine over in Spider-Man right now.

6) No Colleen Wing.

7) Manhattan starting to split apart. Just stupid.

I don’t believe Colleen Wing was in it.

9) Luke Cage acts like an ass in response to someone who says that they didn’t want to fight. How does Cage respond? By hitting him and saying that they did.

The Good

1) The Warbound in general and everyone else turning a blind eye to them escaping.

2) The preview for the Incredible Hercules wherein the bearded demi-god attacks a SHIELD helicarrier with a barrel of merlot.

3) Hercules holding Manhattan together with chains reminded me of another stupid Marvel Hercules feat, where he towed the island of Manhattan. Yes, read that sentence again and boggle your mind at the sheer stupidity of it. I wish I had a scan of that, but I’ll settle for the book’s cover…

I have to say though, I kind of like my idea better. Having Herc trying to contain the Hulk’s essence would have been pretty good – a mythological figure fighting the monster within.

Ah, well. Next time.

Over at Newsarama, editor Mark Pannicia took over Joe Fridays last week to tease some suff on the Hulk and Agents of Atlas, amongst other things – read the whole thing here.

One interesting thing that came up was the cover for Incredible Hulk #111:

Hmm, that sure looks like Hercules in silhouette there, doesn’t it, with Amadeus Cho in the background?

A couple of other things came up:

What’s next? Hmmmmmm. Let me see if I can be cleverly cryptic about this…Ok. For one thing, you’ll see the true color of anger.

And…one could say that Banner’s “curse” will definitely live past WWH.

More hmm. Banner’s curse will survive but Banner – and Hulk (being the curse, I assume) – might not? Is that’s what’s being teased?

And what’s this about the ‘true’ color of anger – implying that perhaps it isn’t green?

And then there’s this little comment a while back in another Joe Fridays (empahasis mine):

Q: Blaqstar 05-14-2007 06:00 PM : Not counting the Hulk. Name the top 5 characters that you think we readers should look out for in the second half of the year?

JQ: Well, too bad, ‘cause I’m going to say Spider-Man. Okay how about Thor, Cyclops, Ultimate Nick Fury, Spider-Woman and Hercules. Thanks for asking Blaqstar.

Intriguing stuff – could Hercules be so angered by the outcome of WWH that he goes on a rampage, thus revealing his own color as the true color of anger? It would certainly be an interesting twist and a new direction for the character and the book – and it’s not like we haven’t seen a Bannerless book before – or a Bannerless Hulk for that matter.

In fact, the last time I recall there being a non-Banner Hulk outside of the Avengers issues Rick Jones was a Hulk once too – and this was also teased by Pannicia:

As for Rick’s role, it’s very important to WWH and beyond, so if you’re jonesing for Jones, stay tuned and make sure you pick up Incredible Hulk #108!

Rick’s hair is kinda long sometimes, isn’t it?

One way or another, looks like we might be seeing a whole other Hulk come the end of the current World War…

EDIT: I’ve had a brainwave…what if the only way to stop Hulk ends up being that Reed or someone whips up a device that allows someone stronger than Banner to take on his curse and try to contain him? Hercules would be the perfect vessel to try and contain the Hulk’s power – and I’m fairly certain that Pak said that the relationship between Hulk and Banner would be changing – so what if Hercules is the new alter ego of the Hulk? Would that work??