THOR #600

Loki, that mischievous bitch, resurrects an ancient Asgardian warrior, enchants him so that he thinks everything he sees is demonic, and sets him loose to wreak havoc in Times Square. Thor arrives just in time to get the shit slapped out of him, and when he cries out for reinforcements, Norman Osborne and his Asshole Avengers answer the call and try to arrest them both. Thor heroically beats their asses and manages to strike a desperate final blow against the mad god, slaying him. But lo, what treachery is this? Loki arrives and informs Thor that the Asgardian he's just killed was Bor, father of Odin, grandfather of Thor.

In Asgard, the law is clear and absolute, and for his act of deicide Thor must be banished. Unfortunate, because the remaining Asgardians are a hapless, pitifully stupid bunch; and sure enough, with Thor gone it takes Loki something like 15 minutes to convince the lot of them that they should pack up and move to Latveria, the most evil place on Earth. Quite why Dr. Doom should want these drunken louts living in his country is not made clear, but doubtless he has some nefarious end in store for them. Tragedy, thy name is Asgard!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!

ULTIMATUM #2

The first thing that any good emergency worker will tell you is that when you've got a critically injured patient on your hands, time is of the essence. A wasted second could be the difference between life and death, and you can't always afford to play by the rules. When the clock is ticking, there may be no time to open a door and walk through it -- instead, crash face-first through the plate glass windows of the hospital, using the patient as a sort of battering ram. It may be the only way to save a life.

Mighty Avengers #20

Just as the full, united force of the Marvel Universe prepared to strike its final blow against the invading Skrull empire, the Skrull Queen pulled one last ace from her sleeve: a deadly biological weapon, hidden inside the DNA of Janet "The Wasp" Pym. The heinous Skrull plot was thwarted, but at the terrible price of Janet's life. This would be the most heart-rending superhero story in decades if there were one single person on Earth who gives the smallest sliver of fuck what happens to Janet Pym.

Now, free after years in alien captivity, Hank Pym is forced to confront a world in which the Avengers are shattered and Captain America and his wife are both dead. He attributes this to the bungling of one Mr. Tony Stark, and fair enough, but it seems something of a faux pax to just fuss him out in the middle of Janet's funeral. Luckily reason and good manners return in the appearance of Thor, who gently reassures Hank that Janet has achieved her ultimate triumph in Valhalla (well, he would know, wouldn't he?) before gently carrying him away, so that the two men may conquer their sorrow together in private. Also, Hawkeye runs into Norman Osborne at the funeral and tells him to get fucked. Where did these so called heroes learn to BEHAVE like this?

Liveblogging the Wolverine trailer

- Apparently Wolverine fought in the American Revolution, and every subsequent war

- Ryan Reynolds looks less like Deadpool and more like a huge douchebag, which is just shocking

- Didn't X2 establish that Brian Cox created Wolverine? Brian Cox owns, why isn't he in this movie

- huh yeah I guess that is what Gambit would look like in real life

- haha why does Sabertooth run like the effeminate vampires from Twilight

- Emma Frost looks less like a femme fatale here and more like a 14 year old girl

- unless Colossus was inside that Jeep tossing him out, I'm not sure Wolverine can leap 15 feet into the air

- "Do you even know how to kill me?"

"I'm gonna cut your head off".

Yeah I mean, I guess that would do the trick.

- Why isn't Brian Cox in every movie. That guy is the best.

Changeling

As it turns out, this film was written by J Michael Straczynski, whose tenure as writer of Amazing Spider-Man presented us with:

- the revelation that Spider-Man's powers are actually the product of a magical spider cult

- Gwen Stacy as the mother of Norman Osborn's bastard children

- Peter Parker revealing his secret identity on national television

- a grand finale where Peter Parker must negotiate with Satan to re-write history and save his octogenarian aunt from machine gun wounds.

In retrospect, it's hard not to wonder if Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada signed off on Straczynski's maniac ideas as a way to purposefully fuck up Spider-Man so bad that he would be left with no choice but to hit the reset button, and thereby fulfill his long-time dream of dumping Mary Jane from the book.

Anyway, I'd like to say this justifies my decision to not see this movie, but really I'm just happy to learn that there's so much upward mobility from writing He-Man adventures.

ULTIMATUM #1

Alright Jeph Loeb, are you ready to save the motherfuckin' Ultimate universe?! HELL YEAH BRO LET'S DO THIS THING.

First we are treated to an intimate moment with each character, where they are placed in a setting that allows them to explain, out loud, whatever Loeb feels is their defining character trait (helpful for the reader who is maybe not familiar with, say, Spider-Man). Tony Stark is given room to celebrate his alcoholism, Johnny Storm screams petulantly that is father will "never get" him, the Thing lifts something heavy, and so on. Suddenly it gets a bit dreary out, and New York is destroyed by a tidal wave that kills roughly half of the superheroes. I know it's a tidal wave only because Mark told me so -- the art does nothing to convey this, and the book leaves us with the impression that Earth's Mightiest Heroes have been done in by a rainy day.

The book is structured in such a way that when Magneto is revealed as the culprit on the last page, it's meant to be a surprise -- and it certainly would be surprising, considering Magneto is not known for his ability to create fucking tidal waves -- were it not for the fact that his face is plastered over all of the advertising for this stupid comic. In his address over the Emergency Psychic Broadcast System, Professor Xavier informs the remaining heroes that Magneto had long spoken of his "doomsday plan" to kill everyone on Earth(!), but apparently Charles never believed he'd go through with it. Really now, Professor, you are a doctor of psychology. How could you disregard such a blatant cry for help? Shame on you.

Jeph Loeb had, at one point, been a perfectly competent hack, producing some pretty decent sequels to Batman: Year One, but this... this is not good. The plot is the absolute dregs of hackneyed superhero crossover fare , the dialogue is beyond preposterous, and the art is both ugly and confusing. It almost seems an excess of charity to call this "shit", but I'm at a loss for something more repellent to compare it to. If you can think of something worse than shit, please let me know.