Ricochet to Freedom

This is an advertisement. You can see it on the top of this comic strip. Please, please, please let this be official Marvel canon.

Please. Spider-Man and Captain America are chosen by the president to be fired from giant pistols into an enormous spider web that was put there by aliens to strangle the hopes of freedom.

This is an official story, right... please?

--Andrew S.

Sal's Sunday Punch #14

 Man, it's just been way too long since we had a Sunday Punch from our old pal Sal. So how can we possibly make it up to you? Hmmmm... how about Namor punching a bunch of medieval knights?

Welcome to Defenders #4.

Avengers #90 And the Stream of Consciousness.

Spoiler: This cover references
the LAST PAGE of the comic!

Avengers #90 is a Silver Age Super Hero comic. In fact it's probably one of the most Silver Age Super Hero comics I've ever read. A lot of people try and describe what makes a Silver Age comic. They usually use words like "Goofy" or "Silly" or even "Unrealistic", and I think that's missing the point, really.

Silver Age Super Hero comics had a certain style of writing to them which for various reasons is very stream-of-consciousness. Reading a lot of old DC and Marvel comics is like reading an Axe Cop story. Things flow from one idea to the next without even a sign of how the ideas connected in the writer's mind. Things travel from point to point at breakneck speed, and if you don't keep up you'll be completely freaking lost.

This can be the most glorious thing ever, or it can be horrible.

So, before we talk more about the origins of this writing style, and the differences between Marvel and DC let's take a little looksee at Avengers #90.

Finally Finished: Akira.

Remember that robot and fat chick from
the movie? No? Of course you don't. Read
the damn comic, you loser.

Ever have something you've been meaning to read for a long time? Something that has eluded you, that for whatever reason you've maybe read part of it, but not all of it? For me, that was Akira. About ten years ago I picked up two volumes of Akira (printed at the time by Dark Horse comics) at random because I was going to be teaching a class on "Manga Art", so I wanted some examples of Manga art in my collection.

Having bought these two volumes of Akira I found another piece of Akira at a second-hand store. This wasn't part of the six volume series I was already collecting, but part of a series published earlier by Marvel through their Epic comics imprint. This version was in full colour, and had a different (and in my opinion better) translation than the later Darkhorse reprints.


It was around five years later that I got another volume of the Darkhorse version, and maybe another four years before I got yet another volume. By this time the publisher was Kodansha Comics, but they were still using the same format as Darkhorse for the printing.

Sal's Sunday Punch #10

So there's not an enormous amount to say about Incredible Hulk #246. It was written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema. It's about Hulk trying to recover the body of his dead love, Jarella... and it ends with a trapped-in-the-Microverse cliffhanger, with Hulk trying to return Jarella's body to its rightful resting place.

The best complement to a Sal Buscema Punch -- a Bill Mantlo Yelp.

There's some fighting between the Mandroid and the Hulk (in this case, the Mandroid is Glenn Talbot, a long-time Hulk rival for the affections of Betty Banner). There's some fighting between Captain Marvel and the Hulk, and Captain Marvel even ends up siding with the big green and helping him.

Really the most important part of this issue is page 19. And since I pasted the entire damn thing in up above, you can see why. It is glorious.

--Andrew S.
(Also, the sound effects are hilarious... you got that bit right? I didn't need to explain it, right?)