Check out the new variant IRON MAN 2 Poster with me (Godzilla) as Whiplash!

Also click on the new poster for more info on some viral marketing that they seem to be doing for Iron Man 2.

I AM GODZILLA

&

I NOW

RULE THIS

BLOG!

From this point forward there will be

no more Robert, only me on this blog.

My reviews, my rants, my raves

& other various tidbits I want to post.

No one else will…

“WHAT THE FUCK UP, BITCH!”

Oh SNAP, its Mechagodzilla!

“What’s happening, dude? Are you really doing a blog?! YOU?!”, MechaGodzilla

YES. Now shut up and let me finish up wha…

“Hey. Can I help?”, MechaGodzilla

Okay but remember who is in charge around here!

As I was saying, I Now…

“Ahem!”, MechaGodzilla

*sigh*

WE NOW RULE THIS BLOG. BEWARE!

No one is safe with Godzilla

& MechaGodzilla

now blogging on BtS!

So the end of Dark Reign begins in the upcoming Siege: The Cabal book and IGN has preview pages of the upcoming book. here:
http://comics.ign.com/articles/104/1041537p1.html

BtS has a special preview of Siege: The Cabal: I AM DOOM variant issue preview here…

Hehehe… when I saw the preview pages on IGN, this ran through my head so I wanted to get it out. I am SURE that Bendis! will have written a much better comic, I actually am looking forward to SIEGE and how everything falls out after Dark Reign!

UPDATED: Everything Nerdy has more preview images of the upcoming SIEGE Marvel event:
http://www.everythingnerdy.com/2009/11/03/marvel-samples-seige-with-teaser-image/

SO… I was wondering how I would do reviews and such. I used to do the Best Bang but that was then… now I am just going to do something similar to Twitter reviews. Short & sweet bite sized reviews called FUSION Comic Reviews ’cause FUSION sounds COOL! Love it or leave it. FYI – FUSION posts will happen when they happen & not saying it will be each week.

Ambush Bug: Year None #7 (of 6) – Finally the book comes out with help from Franco & Baltazar. The issue was pretty enjoyable & crazy much like the entire series. I am betting Dan Didio is happy that the book is finally out so fans can stop harassing him about this from con to con. Thanks to all who put the book out!

Fantastic Four #572 – Jonathan Hickman does a great fantastical story for Reed Richards & all the alternative versions of the Richards fighting Celestials of Earth-4280 which gives Reed perspective to him & his family. Loved it & look forward to more of what Hickman can do with the first Marvel family!

Justice Society of America #32 – It must be hard to write a book where you have such a huge team of heroes and still do a plot which not only involves them all but keeps the tensions high without zombies from Blackest Night. Willingham & Struges did a good job this week keeping the pace moving and the whodunit interesting.

Dark Avengers: Ares #1 (of 3) – The book was decent but I wasn’t feeling that this was the same Ares from the Dark / former Mighty Avengers title. Seems like the story with Nick Fury is kinda confusing given what is / has happened so far then this book. I confused.

Dark Reign – The List: Punisher #1 One-shot – Wow. Not only did John Romita Jr nail this issue but Rick Remender comes along with a powerful issue that ends… well it leads to the end of Frank Castle as we knew him. Next up: FRANKen-Castle?! If this issue is not a way for me to follow up and find out what happens, I don’t know what else you would need to do. Very enjoyable & yet chilling ending.

Detective Comics #858 – Rucka & Willians III are crafting quite a lovely run on the book with Batwoman. Amazing of the different art stylized used for flashbacks. Just amazing. The Question back-up story ain’t working for me though & I loved the Question.

Hulk #16 – Red She-Hulk in ripped up clothing with a Uber-gun & Sai. Loeb has me addicted to the bloody book. Who is Red Hulk, who is Red She-Hulk & who cares, well shit now I care PLUS I do like how Red Hulk is being written. Also Loved the ripped up Red She-Hulk cover – what an uber-fun!

Green Lantern #47 – So this spins out of Blackest Night & continues from issue #3 of BN. I understand they put this story in GL book than in BN for sales. That all said – the issue is very solid with wonderful work from Doug Mahnke. Loving Sinestro in his fight with Hal against the Black Lanterns lead by their former friend & mentor Abin Sur (although I had always thought that Abin Sur was a truely peaceful Lantern who SHOULDN’T have risen much like DOVE but that’s me — I am hating the Blackest Night story).

Guardians of the Galaxy #19 – KANG! How is this book NOT the top title of Marvel Comics these days? What a great wrap-up of the entire recent storyline with the team split up & the coming of Magnus from Adam Warlock. I thought the end of Frank Castle was intense but this was almost as sudden & shocking for me. I really really liked this latest incarnation of Adam Warlock, I guess we will see what the next incarnation brings. Also the last few issues has beautiful coloring by Nathan Fairbairn that helped make this book look so stunning and great!

Avengers: The Initiative #29 – A solid issue that moves along the New Warrirors / Avengers Resistance storyline with the big twist on Night Thrasher, Trauma & Penance. I like to see Constrictor & Diamondback hooking plus the Tigra & Komodo team-up. It saddens me to think that this book is ending but I am excited to how it will.

The Incredible Hercules #137 – Amadeus Cho story keeps moving along with the all origin issue that ends with a nice tie into Spidey leading to the Amadeus & Herc reunion. Another one of my fav comics by Marvel. Great great writing by Pak & Van Lente!

Secret Warrirors #9 – Dark Avengers vs the Secret Warriors & I am glad that the SW team get the upper hand (although that seems to be the theme these days, the Dark Avengers are the jobbers of the Marvel U other than Daken in Dark Reign: The List: Punisher) & leads to the big Ares vs Fury face-off. I am still enjoying this book & Hickman has his finger on all these characters.

Necrosha #1 One Shot – Okay so I was completely wrong and Selene is raising the dead mutants to take her revenge on Emma Frost & the rest of the Hellfire Club. This book sets the tone of the series and what is to come. One thing that should be noted — some of those dead mutants who have risen, they are their own ppl & may even fight what control Selene has re: Destiny & Douglas Ramsey which is much more appealing than your typical “braiiiins” zombies like in Blackest Night. I really enjoyed the techno-virus ridden dead Hellions standoff against Emma.

X-Force #20 – What a bloody crazy violent all out slaughter issue with X-23. Great pacing and action. My only issue was that X-23, Kimura & Agent Morales looked too similar through-out the issue that made some bits a touch confusing. How many times have we seen Wolverine loose an arm and keep fighting? I thought that was original & I love that X-23 still has her nemesis Kimura out there. That was nice.

Nova #30 – The adventures of the Nova Corps & Richard Rider continue with more progression of the future of the Nova Corps. Enjoyable story which takes the Nova Corps out of Ego, the living planet, to Nova being asked to capture Darkhawk for a nice ending. Another top Marvel title!

Batman #692 – Tony Daniel takes over the title (or at least for now) on the main Batbook as writer & artist. Daniels first story brings back Hugo Strange as part of Black Mask’s Ministry of Science which was appealing along with seeing Dick outside the cowl in a face to face with Selina (Catwoman). What I didn’t care for what the artwork of Black Mask — he is NOT like the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker, and does NOT need to dressed up in anything but a suit & tie with the black skull face. Please Tony Daniel, please fix this in any upcoming issues ’cause that is NOT the Black Mask look at all. It’s like dressing Catwoman in her older gear or Batman in the Azreal-Bat costume. Just not right at all.

Teen Titans #76 – Felica D. Henderson’s run on the Teen Titans is not bad. The Wyld attack the Titans and Raven while Wonder Girl (and team) & Beast Boy battle for team leadership. I like the feel of the book and decent artwork (outside the sexual scenes of Raven as previously mentioned) which may lead to a good run on the book. I feel that Felica may have a pulse on this new team with the angst of the new young gen vs Gen X into the mix.

The New Avengers #58 – BEST COMIC OF THE WEEK! (Although the cover art didn’t match the inside story) Solid artwork by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger & wonderful colors by Dave McCaig. Bendis keeps the book moving in high pace, great dialog and stunning moment as with the team telling Jessica about Luke & the final page. Loved the sewer fight! Love’d it!

Alright so that’s about all the books I got. Of note – I did read Blackest Night #4 and I have to say, I am very impressed with how much I enjoyed parts while other bits reminded me of why I hate the whole zombie crap, especially with the death of Damage. Blah. Also I checked out New Mutants #6 which finally looked ok and I might get the next issue if it keeps up, I almost picked it up as it starred Warlock but still I need to see more. Ms. Marvel #46 seemed okay but I am not sold on the artwork. Ultimate Avengers #3 seemed decent but rushed artwork and story. X-Factor #50 made me think it wrapped up the book to date but I don’t read it so I was lost.

So what did you get this week? What did you like? What did you dislike?

Loving the Super Hero Squad Show variant Marvel covers!

Is the upcoming rumored Apple tablet the future of comic books? Will this be the death of your local comic store in the coming years going from being just a comic book store to becoming a GEEKS-R-US store with everything plus maybe some of the limited printed versions of some digital comics. More on this maybe every Wednesday morning the new comics will published new on iTunes & productivity drops at those times. Could that be the future of comic books?

Sure that it far fetched and not everyone is going to have a new Apple tablet to view their digital comics on but doesn’t almost everyone have a computer / laptop these days & running some version of iTunes? How much of a stretch is this considering the costs involved in printing comic books over digital publication.

I do not see this happening overnight but I would imagine in a few years, the comic book industry will change a great deal and more towards a digital media. Look at the big MarvelFest event today in New York for the launch of the Astonishing X-Men motion comic (likely will come out in a zillion months for us up here in Canada — LAME!) so why not feel that the comic biz is changing.

Shit, I wonder how comic book conventions would be if most of the comic books came out online?! Would fans still travel to San Diego Comic-Con to get digital signatures on their latest download of their favorite motion comic.

Good article on Gizmodo:
http://gizmodo.com/5391045/apple-tablet-will-restore-comic-books-to-former-glory

So this morning when I finally crashed, I was drifting off and got dreaming about Garrison Kane (WAIT — you sickos! Not THAT kinda dream!) – a Marvel Comics character. Many might not remember him but I did in part because he was one of the very few non-mutants who graced the New Mutants & the then new X-Force book PLUS (and this was huge for teenage me) he was Canadian. Now outside Alpha Flight and Wolverine, not many Canucks made it out to the Marvel Universe and had any kinda real impact. Now I am not saying that Garrison Kane had any impact but he was out there. So then I went to the Marvel Comics site and found this…

http://marvel.com/universe/Kane%2C_Garrison

“Then Kane along with Weapon X members, Mesmero, Marrow, Sauron, Wild Child, Washout, Aurora, and Sabretooth went on several missions for the Director. Later When Cable’s underground movement attacked Weapon X, Cable used his telepathic abilities on Kane to knock him out. When Kane awoke he saw the error of his ways and sacrificed his life to draw all of Madison Jeffries technology into himself, allowing the underground to further attack Weapon X.”

FUCK! He’s dead, Jim! I wonder if Madison Jeffries remembers him? Maybe that could be written into an issue of X-Science Team one day. The KANE I remember was the one created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld (Red & Silver with the high collar and his hands that shot off) not the later versions of Cyborg Kane with different hair (good for him to stop the receding hairline that he had) & cannons for hands (How the Fuck would / could you eat with those? Like a dog in a bowl? With your feet? HOW?!).

R. I. P. Garrison Kane (until a creator dusts you off)!

Hmm… so Garrison Kane then first 90% of Alpha Flight gets killed off. Does Marvel have issue with Canadian characters?

Yes more of the Deadpool family are coming to our comic shelves and into our homes. They are Deadpool, Lady Deadpool, Kid Deadpool, Headpool, Dogpool, Major Deadpool, the Deadpool Kid, Zombie Deadpool’s Head & group shot with Lady Deadpool partially unmasked (OOOOHHH). Blog@Newsarama has more like according to the Deadpool Bugle, the event will come together March 2010. This makes me feel funny inside… mommy?

Check more out here:
http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/26/marvel-unleashes-the-deadpool-corps/

** Updated: Link to Necrosha interview at the bottom of the post.

I am so LOVING this X-Force Lost Boys inspired ad for the upcoming Necrosha cross-over storyline! It is great how the team (Warpath, Archangel, X-23, Elixir, Wolverine, Wolfsbane, Domino, Vanisher — in the order of the poster, right to left to back) is laid out to match the original Lost Boys poster art.

This is a great ad for the upcoming NECROSHA storyline which pits X-Force and some of the X-Books against Selene and her new horde of baddies that include Cameron Hodge, Bolivar Trask and Graydon Creed. I overheard that this is Marvel’s Blackest Night which ain’t really a correct assumption since this is not really good guys vs zombie good guys (YET) but that could be where they go if Selene decides to raise the dead of Genosha (which then makes sense for the title of the series being called Necrosha, I guess… hmm) other than raising the dead of Cypher (Douglas Ramsey) & Caliban who were once New Mutants and members of X-Force alike.

Okay so maybe this is slightly like the idea of raising the dead of Genosha for power BUT these are not (yet) revealed to be un-kill-able zombie mutants of all the dead former X-Families raised in order to scare and horrify their victims before taking their hearts as a power-up for their undead Master. Plus didn’t Marvel do the whole Marvel Zombies things FIRST which Blackest Night is a copy of so then this really ain’t a copy but it’s just putting zombies into the Marvel 616 Universe proper. Wait.. what? Fuck… am I interested in a series that involves fucking Zombies?!

FUCK! Hmm… I may need to reconsider buying these books. Might skip New Mutants as the artwork and story have been HORRIFIC to date. I was so excited for NM coming back but WOW did that turn out wrong, rushed and way off the mark for the book.

Anyways it all starts this week with X-Necrosha One Shot that comes out this week! Let me know what you think if you pick it up or if your excited to be getting this series / crossover.

Oh and I saw this ad in the issue of Thunderbolts I picked up this week.

Updated: I dug up this cool interview with Criag Kyle & Chris Yost about the upcoming Necrosha crossover here, check it out:
http://marvel.com/news/comicstories.9662.Wednesday_Q&A~colon~_Craig_Kyle~and~Chris_Yost

This week I have been thinking about my father a great deal. I realized that my father was a huge part of my comic book addiction, especially The X-Men. I found that I have these memories of the X-Men comic books & my father.

When I was young, little kid, I got a big toy chest with the American flag on it from my parents (the irony ’cause I am a Canuck). It became the central place for all my toys. At around the same time, I used to get comic books from the local hospital where my mother worked. Every week, new comics came into the childrens floor and the old comics, once read by all the kids, were given to my mum to take home for me. I was very lucky and they had all these old issues of Superman, Detective Comics, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman & The X-Men. I remember this because one day I was watching either Captain Kangaroo or The Friendly Giant and I got the idea to line the inside of my toy chest with comic book pages. SO I went and cut out pages from these used comics and glued them into my toy chest. Later I looked back to see I had almost a full run of John Byrne’s X-Men run glued on the inside of this toy chest. Once the free comics ran out, my father realized how much I loved them and went out to the local corner store and bought me a bunch. He kept this up for a while until he showed me where he was getting them and told me if I worked around the house, I could get an allowance & buy then my comics.

Once I realized I could get comics from the local corner store, it then became fun adventures with my friends to find other comics from other corner stores ’cause not everyone got the same comics or had older issues on dank, dusty stand down around with the candies. So week to week, I would go finding these comics where I could & feed my addiction that way. This continued and got more serious when I went on a trip with my father to Los Angeles. Every time we hit a gas station along the way, I went scavenging for more issues of Marc Silvestri’s X-Men run where Storm lost her powers, Rouge just joined the team and they were in San Fran for the first time.

Later when my parents split up, I fell deeper into my comic addiction going all over the North Shore to find corner stores for certain new comics or older issues. When I used to go with my father on weekends, we always used to go out to other corner stores so I could search out comics I didn’t have. This became apart of our routine during the time we spent together as he had moved out so we hung out on the weekends. This continued until I hit high school and at that time did I hear about and visit the first Comic Book store in my life — The Comic Shop out on West 4th Ave in Vancouver, Canada. Now this store (and others) had been around for a while but I never got to see them when I was younger.

In the summer of grade 9, my father made the decision to move to Los Angeles for work. I ended up staying up in Vancouver with my mother & sister but I did visit my father each summer from that point forward for most of my life. Each time I went down to LA to see my dad, we always went to find comic book stores around and my dad NEVER had problems with me buying and reading comics. He was happy that I was reading. Granted at times, I am sure he wished I had more hobbies than just comics — computers being another hobby which became a big part of my life, another big part of my life I shared with my father. It was after my second trip to LA that I came back to Vancouver and found many comic book stores in North Van, where I lived, and they became my new hang out. I kept reading The X-Men up and until soon after Jim Lee restarted the book back in the 90’s until my interest weened around the time I stopped going to school and had to get out into the work force. From the point forward, I would pickup the X-Men when I could but it wasn’t until Grant Morrison’s run on the X Books did I come back for a bit and again during Matt Fraction’s run.

For most of my life, I have been buying comics & my father was always supportive of my comic book hobby. Whatever issues I had with my father, this was one of the best things that we shared. I used to ramble to my dad for hours about all the comics I got and he never told me to shut up or saying that he wasn’t interested. He just listened and at times made little jokes about what I said but most of them time he enjoyed hearing more tell him all the comic book stories I had just read with a little smile on his face. This is one of the best memories I have of my father & I still have the toy chest.

Kudos to Cover Brower website for the covers!

Marvel brings in the new year with the upcoming SIEGE mini series which will be the end of Dark Reign which includes Norman Osborn, assault on Asgard, Loki, Doctor Doom and the rest of the Avengers (Dark, New, Mighty, Initiative & Secret Warriors) along with Hercules, Thunderbolts (maybe?) and likely some other gods. I don’t know if the X-Men books are tied into SIEGE (yet!) as they have the NATION-X & NECRO storylines to deal with. Looks like Jubilee is back with the X-Men, Rouge gets all Sookie Stackhouse with Magento and the Ghost Rider brothers (Johnny Blaze & Danny Ketch) end in a hog wild battle with Heaven then go rest off shelves for a bit.

Check them and more out here on CBR:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23372