Ad It Up: WWF Games & Quick Shot Controllers
Today’s Ad It Up is a double whammy! I saw this one in Silver Surfer #21 (1989) and it made me smile immediately. This comic is from before I read comics, but features not one, but two things that were a part of my childhood. I’ll start with the Quick Shot controllers first because this is a simpler story and boils down to the fact that I had one of these NES controllers (the one on the far right in the smaller picture). I didn’t use it a ton because it was a little awkward, but I actually still have it and it’s sitting in my living room as I type.
The WWF (as it was known when I was a youngin’), I had a more complex relationship with. My dad wrestled in college and always hated this fake stuff and didn’t want me watching it. I assume there was also an element of my parents not wanting me to watch the violent sport, but I bet legit wrestling pride was an equally strong, if not stronger motivator. As such, I thought the WWF was fake and lame and didn’t care about it. But I did like Hulk Hogan (what kid my age didn’t?) and watched the WWF cartoon and oddly enough became a fan of the video games. I remember playing the NES game advertised about at a friend’s house and it was fun. Later, when I was a teenager and regularly babysitting three boys, we spent many an hour playing one of the Sega versions (it had Doink the Clown if that helps). They’re just fun, beat em up games with colorful characters and big personalities, the same thing that drew me to comics, really. I’ve even thought of picking up the WWE Legends game for Xbox hoping it’s kind of in that same vein. Anyone played it? How does it stack up against games I played on occasion almost 20 years ago?
Killer Comics Trade Post: Suicide Squad Trial By Fire & Uncanny X-Force The Apocalypse Solution
Suicide Squad Volume 1: Trial By Fire (DC)
Written by John Ostrander, drawn by Luke McDonnell with Bob Lewis, Karl Kesel & Dave Hunt
Collects Secret Origins #14, Suicide Squad #1-8
Sometimes I plan these Trade Post columns out really well and sometimes it just so happens that two books I’ve read within a given time have a similar theme. The latter happens to be the case with this particular one. I’ve been sitting on this first (and possibly only) volume reprinting John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell’s excellent Suicide Squad run. I had a little experience with this comic while coming up in comics and an iteration of the idea became very prominent in DC comics around Infinite Crisis and the surrounding events, but it was my pal Ben Morse who turned me on to this book specifically. He’s a big fan and has all the issues. A few years back, when we were still at Wizard he let me borrow a big stack of issues and I tore through them. Luckily, my memory is pretty crummy, so I didn’t remember everything when I sat down to read this book recently. As a nice bonus, this trade not only brings the first eight issues of the series together, but also the team’s origins that were printed in Secret Origins. I love when companies put a little extra time in to do something like that.
The idea behind this book is essentially The Dirty Dozen with superheroes and villains known from throughout the DC Universe. Amanda Waller rejuvenated an old idea with the son of a former leader in Flag who wants to prove himself and also die a little bit. These early issues feature characters like the original Captain Boomerang, Bronze Tiger, Deadshot, Enchantress and the Penguin, some of whom are part of the regular team while others pop in to help out in certain cases. Their early adventures are actually pretty real world-based, even if they do still involve people with super powers. You’ve got them taking on a foreign terrorist group, the Female Furies, a white power group and vigilante and Russians.
I really like how grounded the stories felt even given the more super elements. It reminded me a lot of the Mike Grell run on Green Arrow or Dennis O’Neal’s run on The Question. This series would go on to have a healthy 66 issue run. I hope that DC decides to collect them all, including The Janus Directive a crossover that involved books like Checkmate, Captain Atom and, I believe, Firestorm. It looks like they solicited a second volume, but it has yet to come out, so it’s probably not looking good.
Uncanny X-Force Volume 1: The Apocalypse Solution (Marvel)
Written by Rick Remender, drawn by Jerome Opena with Leonardo Manco
Collects Uncanny X-Force #1-4, Wolverine: Road To Hell
Much like Suicide Squad, I was encouraged to check out Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force by Ben Morse. I recently read his first arc on Venom which, while well done, just wasn’t the kind of book I was looking for but had also really liked what he did with Punisher and the wild FrankenCastle story. From what I’ve read, Remender’s excellent at coming up with capital A awesome ideas that sometimes might not get to be as cool as you want them to be because he’s working within the Marvel Universe, which can have it’s fair share of constraints, as do all of the shared, multi-book, multiple creator ones. That’s just how those work.
So, I was curious about his X-Force and when I saw it on sale for a reasonable price from an Amazon seller I was buying a few other things from, I bit. I knew that this first story was about a new X-Force team consisting of Angel, Wolverine, Psylocke, Deadpool and Fantomex deciding whether or not to kill a resurrected Apocalypse who came back as a child. I think I wrote something about it for Marvel.com, otherwise, I probably would not know all that. And that’s basically what this book is about. I don’t know how the previous X-Force team ended and it doesn’t really matter because this is an all new direction, so none of that really matters. All you need to know is that X-Force is a team of mutants who send themselves on the dirty jobs that Cyclops and the X-Men don’t want to deal with personally, as it has been since the wonderful Messiah Complex.
And the story is as straightforward as I mentioned. Sure there’s inter-character things like Psylocke helping Angel keep his Archangel persona in check and Deadpool being, well, Deadpool, but the main thrust of the story is first finding this new Apocalypse, fighting his new Four Horsemen (or Final Horsemen as they’re called this time around) and then deciding whether or not to ice the kid. The four issues did a weird thing where they at times felt rushed and at other times stretched out, but I think the end result is a well balanced story. I have questions about some of the technical stuff, but I’m guess that’s because I don’t know much about the X-Men and even less about Apocalypse.
Overall I did like this comic, it was a fun, interesting read that got me interested in Fantomex, a character who is so weird, he clearly came form the brain of Grant Morrison. An external neural system that can also turn into a spaceship connected to a guy genetically created to murder but instead pulls of elaborate capers and based his life on a French novel character? Yeah, that’s Morrison. I will also say that SPOILER I was really surprised with how they ended this arc. Seeing as how Apocalypse was a kid, I really did not expect them to kill him. As they were discussing the possibility of taking him with them and training him to be good, I was excited to see where that would go and then, literally, bam. It’s over. And that’s essentially where this trade ends too. I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to purchase the next volume, but I will definitely keep my eyes peeled on Swap to see if anyone’s got an extra.
Wow, it’s been a while since I wrote about TV, hasn’t it? I admit, I get a little burned out after being on the computer all day and don’t always feel like sitting under my laptop while enjoying the evening’s mindless entertainment. With the regular TV season coming to an end, expect a lot of reality series’ to pop up as well as summer series’ on networks like USA and TBS. But, there are a few ongoing series that my wife and I have been watching and even a few that we’ve been enjoying. Here’s a few of the reality shows we’re digging right now. 
My wife and I stumbled onto Shark Tank because we’re old and lame and don’t do anything on Friday nights anymore. The show, which is on at 8:00PM on ABC, features a panel of sharks (ie very rich people who are looking to invest in new ideas/business/products) hearing presentations by inventors and deciding whether they want to invest in them. In addition to showing off some really interesting advances, the show captivates us because of the way people make their decisions. It’s easy to say that many of them are outdone by their greed, they don’t want to trade away a certain percentage of their idea for some money and solid backing by people with zillions of more connections in the biz, but I think there’s more to it than that. If you spend all this time and money working on a project, it really becomes your baby and you don’t want to just hand it over to someone else. But, that’s what you usually need to do to put a dent in whatever industry you’re trying to break into. After watching a good deal of episodes at this point, it’s funny how my wife and I can kind of see the Matrix. If someone comes in asking for a lot of money and a low percentage offer, you can just tell they’re not getting that deal. There’s also a clear correlation between having a good product that you’ve started selling and the sharks’ interest. If you come in with a great idea, but zero sales and want a lot of money? Kick rocks, kid. It’s super interesting, love this show. 
I’ve also become fascinated with Discovery’s The Devils Ride, which follows the exploits and inherent drama found in a motorcycle club. I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but I was immediately absorbed. This is kind of the perfect reality show because it’s not corny and it also shows viewers a world most of them have never seen. It certainly helps that these people have an air of violence around them, you never really know what’s going to happen. Additionally, there’s a good deal of political and dramatic elements going on in the club itself (the elements that would make this an interesting series, not just a reality show). In the first episode, the guy who started the club and has been the president since inception stepped down and gave the job over to the vice president. So, there’s a lot going on there that has surely been explored in the episodes I haven’t seen just yet. It’s on Tuesdays at 10:00PM EST and I just realized I missed it again last night. Boo. On a fun side note, I was in a fraternity in college and it’s really interesting how similar the set up between that organization and this motorcycle club are. I was VP myself, but I didn’t get a cool patch.
Lastly, I want to talk about a show that’s not actually on. Why am I not watching a new season of The Real World right now? Traditionally speaking, a new RW immediately follows a season of The Challenge. For instance, the DC series ended on March 31st, 2010 and Fresh Meat II premiering a special preview that night and then the first full episode on April 7th. This year, though, The Challenge ended (back in April) and yet there will not be a Real World until the June 27th premiere of the St. Thomas season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a much bigger fan of the Challenges and would be fine just watching those every few months, but Real World acts as a really good cast member generator. Has anyone heard about why they decided to do this? I did notice that MTV kicked off a lot of new shows directly following the last Challenge including The Pauly D Project, the new Punk’d and the unbearable I Just Want My Pants Back. Maybe they were trying to leave room for those series’ to do their thing? Who knows. Actually, if you do know, let me know in the comments, I’m very curious.
The Box: Venom Lethal Protector #3, Brave & The Bold #157 & Adventures Of Superman #473
To be completely honest, this installment of The Box is a bit of a cheat. First off, I read a pair of terrible comics I literally have nothing to say about. I won’t say what they were, but they were both mid 90s Image books that did nothing for me. I don’t want these posts to be completely negative and I also want to have some fun, so those books went right into the recycle bin. I also actually specifically purchased the latter two books at a flea market, so they’re not as random as the other picks, but we’ll get back to that next week, I’m sure. Did I succeed at picking out good comics for myself to read? You’ll have to read (or scroll) on down to find out.
The one random comic from this post is Venom: Lethal Protector #3 (1993) written by David Micheline and drawn by Mark Bagley. Venom’s not a character I’ve ever really been into, but there was always something a little cool and dangerous about seeing these comics in the pages of Wizard or on comic stands when I was looking for the books I wanted.
This issue really has all the components you’d expect from a 90s comic starring Venom. He cracks wise while beating up on bad guys wearing a LOT of armor. There’s actually a solid story underneath all that with a guy trying to get revenge on Venom for his dead son.
Overall, it’s a fine story. I think it’s hard to take a book with so many spikes and pouches seriously these days, but that was the mode of the day. On the other hand, though, Bagley’s art doesn’t look as jagged and crazy as a lot of the popular artists of the day. He is just a damn solid, classic style artist that looks rad no matter what he’s drawing. I won’t be keeping this comic nor will I be tracking down the rest of the issues, but it was a fun read for a few minutes and now I’m ready for the next thing.
I chose this comic for one simple reason: I wanted to see how Jack Kirby’s Last Boy On Earth found his way to Gotham to team-up or tussle with Batman. Brave And The Bold #157 (1979) was written by Bob Haney with Jim Aparo artwork and unfortunately, it’s pretty boring. The story revolves around a new super powered enforcer on the scene and Batman trying to figure it out. However, since we know that Kamandi’s in the issue and doesn’t show upfor a while it’s not much of a surprise that it’s him.
The worst part though is that the scenes between Kamandi and Batman just aren’t that fun or interesting, I just kept thinking about how much cooler this issue could have been or how rad the team-up between the two of them was on the wonderful animated version of this comic from a year or two back. It also sounds like the BATB issue where Batman goes to Kamandi’s time was a lot more interesting.
I think even if I wasn’t comparing this issue to those other stories that I wanted, I still would have hoped for less Batman-talking-to-people and more Kamandi-punching-people. I’m just simple like that, I guess.
It was neat seeing Aparo draw Kamandi, though.
I grabbed this issue of Adventures Of Superman #473 from 1990) because it’s not part of the wonderful Man Of Steel trade series, it has Green Lanterns in it and that Dan Jurgens cover sure looked neat! Written and drawn by Jurgens, the issue was great looking, but it was the kind of story I’ve read before. Basically Hal Jordan’s being held captive by a giant alien who crashed and remained underground for many years. He sens out a distress signal for Superman who winds up teaming with Guy Gardner. Unfortunately, this is also the version of Guy that really grates on me: the asshole loudmouth who never shuts up. I’m more a fan of the confident, but layered version Beau Smith wrote in Guy Gardner: Warrior.
So, while the main story felt like something else I’d read (another Superman story? something with the Fantastic Four?) I was actually more interested in what was going on back at the Daily Planet because this was right after Lois and Clark got engaged the first time. I came to Superman a few years after this when he was killed, but a lot of what was going on in issues from this time were referred to when I came on and even well after Supes returned.
While I wasn’t really ennamored with this issue, I will hold on to it. I kind of want to fill all the post Crisis Superman holes that exist between the existing trades and when I started collecting. Just thinking about that makes me a bit sleepy.
Casting Internets
I’ve been doing more off-line reading lately (hence today’s About A Boy review) and the kid’s been exploring her sleeping options lately, so I haven’t been sitting down and reading things on the computer as much lately. Anyway, here’s the things I dug from the past few weeks.
First of all, my wife made a fantastic photo collage for our daughter’s first birthday. I warn you, it’s 16 minutes. I won’t feel bad if you don’t watch…much.
I talked to Robert Kirkman about the 100th issue of Walking Dead, Geoff Johns and Jim Fletcher about DC Collectibles and Steven T. Seagle about Batula. 
My dude Rickey Purdin did such an awesome job with this Street Fighter piece over on the Sketch Attack job that I want it on my wall.
I enjoyed this Robot 6 interview with Kevin Huizenga.
Rolling Stone posted this 2006 feature about Fall Out Boy talking about them rising to stardom. That’s about the time I started listening to it, so it was fun reading it, especially now that they’ve broken up.
Chris Cornell talked to Rolling Stone recently about the upcoming Soundgarden record and the song they created for The Avengers. 
I really, really like this James Bond 50th Anniversary poster by Max Dalton (who sounds like a Bond character himself).
Get yourself frozen in Carbonite at this year’s Star Wars Weekend!
I’ve been catching up on every episode of The Nerdist Writer’s Panel which focuses on TV writers, so this THR photo batch about show runners was very interesting. Lots of crossover.
I just heard today that Van Halen cancelled the rest of their tour mysteriously. Glad my dad and I saw them when we did. Anyway, before all that Esquire did interviews with Eddie and Wolfgang Van Halen that I found enjoyable. 
I love these OMFG figures from October Toys.
I have a lot of ideas for a post about MCA’s passing, but while I’m still organizing all those thoughts, I really enjoyed Perry Farrell’s take on things for Rolling Stone. I am fascinated by that late 80s heavy LA club scene, man.
I’m not what you’d call a Gin Blossoms fan by any means, but I found lead singer Robin Wilson’s very realistic and honest take on the 90s nostalgia that he’s a part of refreshing (via Rolling Stone).
One more Rolling Stone link, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid started a jazz fusion supergroup with Jack Bruce, John Medeski and Cindy Blackman Santana. This makes me VERY excited. 
Oh goodness, Joao Carlos Vieira’s Spaceman Spiff drawing for Ashcan Allstars was AMAAAAAAAZING.
Wired‘s look at an old school fortune cookie factory was pretty darn interesting.
Neil Marshall is great, so I’m excited that he’s working on something called The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, which is about the boat that Dracula rode in to get from Transylvania! Sounds rad. (via THR)
I will be studying Esquire‘s list of six summer cocktails, but I’ll probably just wind up drinking strange mixtures of whatever I have on hand.
Oops, here’s one more Rolling Stone link, apparently there’s a whole album of Joey Ramone tracks ready to be released called …ya know? I really like Don’t Worry About Me and of course everything Ramones, so this should be interesting.
Finally, Louis CK has some more awesome stuff on sale for $5, check it out!
I’m a big Nick Hornby fan and have been since reading High Fidelity, but I haven’t read through all of his books. This is mostly because I’m cheap, but last year I came across all the books of his I was missing between a closing Borders and a used book store in New Hampshire. While reorganizing our storage unit the other day I found one of the three containers filled with unread books I had in there and decided to give About A Boy a read. The quickness with which I made it through Hornby’s sophomore effort spurred me on to come up with this summer’s Ambitious Reading List.
I actually had no idea what the book was about. I’d never seen the 2002 Hugh Grant film and picked up the book based solely on Hornby’s name (just like I did with A Long Way Down and Slam), but it turns out that a man named Will — who has lots of money thanks to his dad being a one hit wonder still bringing in money long after his dead — trying to pick up women in a single mother’s support group. Will winds up meeting an unusual 12 year old boy named Marcus when his mom Fiona tries to kill herself and Will happens to be out with Marcus and Fiona’s friend (and will’s target) Suzie. After the event, Marcus keeps his relationship up with Will because he likes how Will has life figured out.
Actually, that’s who the book is about, it’s not really WHAT the book is about. The book is about how we all deal with emotions, truth and the world and how pretty much no one seems to get it right. Will is super rich and therefor has no real problems in his life. He also comes from a family that sounds like it wasn’t loving, so he avoids emotions at all costs, until he’s thrown into Marcus’ life. Fiona on the other hand is the kind of free spirit hippy who makes it seem like she’s teaching her son to follow in her own ways, but without explaining to him how the world might respond to that (by throwing candy at it and stealing its shoes). Marcus is the result of someone with really good intentions who also happens to be incredibly unstable being out in the world and not wanting to bring his problems back to his potentially still suicidal mother. Will’s there to teach Marcus how to fit in and be more normal while Marcus is there to show Will what emotions can do to reality. This opens Will up to finally get in a real, legitimate romantic relationship with a woman named Rachel who has a son with his own set of problems.
That all sounds really heavy and potentially difficult to get through, but it really isn’t. I read this book in a handful of sittings which is impressive for me, but that’s really because Hornby writes in a way that really absorbs me. He absolutely nails that interesting time in a kid’s life where they realize that the world of adults works differently than their own and they try to figure it all out. I realized part way through the book that Marcus is roughly my age. When I realized that, it made the reading experience all the more interesting and also reminded me of another favorite coming of age story The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. The way Hornby calls back to childhood is just amazing, but he also seems to perfectly capture the almost-40 playboy Will in ways that I can partially relate to and will probably be able to relate to even more when I’m a few years older.
And that’s what I really love about Hornby’s books: you get different things from them when you read them at different stages of your life. High Fidelity meant something completely different to me when I read it in high school than it did the last time I did. I think I also got more out of this book now that I’m a dad than I would have if I read it right after picking up Fidelity. I had kind of forgotten what Slam was about, but after going back and re-reading my review of it, I’m sure it would play completely differently now that I’m a dad myself.
One more thing I wanted to talk about in reference to Hornby and his books. First off, there’s a direct reference to Fidelity in Boy when Will finds himself looking around Championship Vinyl. I dug that. But more than just directly referencing his other book, you can see the seeds of his other books in this one (and parts of Fidelity recurring in this one as well). The whole idea of an unusual kid growing up was also the subject of Slam as a boy who talks to his Tony Hawk poster accidentally knocks a girl up. There’s also talk of suicide and even doing it on a holiday which is the starting point for A Long Way Down, which is literally about a group of people who meat on the same building they intend to jump off of. I bet there’s also bits and pieces of How To Be Good and Juliet, Naked in here too, but I haven’t read them just yet. Maybe when I’m done with this year’s Ambitious Summer Reading List.
With the first of 12 books down, I decided to move from fiction to autobiography and read George Hamilton’s book Don’t Mind If I Do which was co-written by WIlliam Stadiem who also helped George Jacobs write his excellent book Mr. S. I started it yesterday and even though I don’t know much about Hamilton, I do find his old Hollywood swagger very engaging and think that this will be a very entertaining book about Hollywood in the same vein as Mr. S. The only downside? All this reading is getting in the way of blogging, so sorry about that.
Ambitious Summer Reading List 2012
Longtime readers might remember that I tried to tackle a large stack of classic books for my Ambitious Summer Reading List last year. Well, that wound up spreading into the beginning of this year and wound up not being a whole lot of fun. So, this summer, I wanted to try something different and finally read some of the books that have been sitting under my bed for ages. This is a mix of autobiography, mystery, psychological thriller/horror, slice of life, drama, food, music and just about everything else. I started off with Nick Hornby’s About A Boy (review coming soon because I finished it today), but don’t have an order figured out (last year’s was chronological).
The pile includes another Fletch book by Gregory McDonald (Fletch And The Man Who), Stephen King’s Misery, the aforementioned Boy, an oral history of the punk rock and new wave movements called Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Anthony Bourdain’s follow-up to Kitchen Confidential called Medium Raw, Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake (I loved her book An Invisible Sing Of My Own), Alice Sebold’s The Almost Moon which I know nothing about but liked The Lovely Bones, the latest Diary Of A Wimpy Kid installment which doesn’t really count but I want to finally read it, Steve Martin’s autobio Born Standing Up, actor George Hamilton’s autobiography Don’t Mind If I Do, a book about a band I’ve never heard of called Petal Pusher by Laurie Lindeen and Erik Larson’s historical thriller The Devil In The White City.
It’s a pretty eclectic mix, but also a pretty apt representation of the kinds of books I’ve been wanting to read for a while, found for a few bucks at various places or both. I’m hoping that by choosing books I’m interested in, I’ll stick with them a little better. I also admit that the idea of actually focusing on getting through a dozen of the books I’ve been collecting for more years than I can count and either put them on a shelve (or more likely a box in storage) or give away to someone else. I’d much rather store books I’ve read and liked than ones I’m still waiting to get to.
