Scary

We take a slight detour today to bring you this year's Halloween Sunday strip.

Have no fear, we'll get back to the "Weird New Jersey" storyline on Monday.

Not so New Comic Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (1991) #52

                If you will remember, last issue ended with Talon becoming a werewolf version of himself.  We are not yet sure how this affected his personality though (a personality that was shitty at best anyway).  One thing we do know is that that transformation set off alarm bells that have the rest of the Guardians awoken from their slumber and running to see what the problem is.  The choice of sleep attire is odd for the Guardians as Yondu wears a skirt and boots, Yellowjacket wears a long button down t-shirt and what look like high heels, and Nikki wears a half shirt, bunny slippers and the weirdest looking underwear I have ever seen (are they really supposed to go that high?)

                They get to the medbay (I’m assuming that’s where Talon is) in time to see Talon throw Cuchulain through the wall.  Talon comes strolling out of the hole in the wall and is immediately reprimanded by Vance, who he proceeds to backhand, something we’ve all wanted to do to Vance for the better part of a year.  Yondu breaks up the squabble and removes Talon from the room before any more damage can be done.

                It’s new costume time!  Aleta couldn’t let Talon have all the fun when it came to a new costume, so she decided to get one of her own.  Unfortunately, Aleta’s fashion sense is right in line with her taste in boyfriends as her new costume is silly and downright ugly.  I like that Gallagher has given her the new suit because the black suit she had before reminds her too much of the containment suit that Vance wears.  This is a sound reason for changing costumes that most heroes rarely possess.  The fact that she comes right out and says that to Vance shows a distinct lack of tact, however it seems like all of the characters that Gallagher writes have that trait, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

                Back on Stockade, Charlie has got his ass kicked by Tork and his jailers, and is near death.  Luckily, the psychopath that is his roommate, Diablo, has something for Charlie that will apparently make him “good as new”.  We stay on Stockade as the warden of the prison planet speaks to the Guardians.  They try to get Charlie released, stating that he is not Ripjak.  The warden agrees to meet with a delegation of the Guardians, as long as there are no women involved (apparently no women are allowed on Stockade because Gallagher already wrote one rape scene and doesn’t feel like writing another).  Vance and Cuchulain head down to Stockade while the women handle things on the ship, including manning the torpedoes in case something goes wrong down on the prison planet (what could go wrong, seriously?)

                We check in on Talon who is resisting any attempt by Yondu to tame the savage beast.  Yellowjacket attempts to give Talon’s amulet back to him, but Krugarr, the Sorcerer Supreme will not allow it.  He takes the amulet and knocks Talon out in the process, claiming that Talon is no longer “worthy” (kind of a Thor-Mjolnir relationship I guess).  Yellowjacket then uses her Pym particles to shrink Talon down to a more manageable size. 

                We cut to Nikki in the torpedo bay, who is visited by the mutant Sidestep.  She tells Nikki about how she is becoming disenchanted with Rancor’s rule and she offers a clue to help Nikki down the road in the form of a riddle.  “Think of the scar” she says.  It’s an ominous warning that you can’t really make much out of at this point, but will be revealed in due time I’m sure.  She then disappears.

                On Stockade, Vance and Cuchulain are treated to the evidence that the Warden has of Charlie’s guilt, including a video and dna evidence.  Cuchulain decides he’s going to start a fight in the face of overwhelming evidence, one that spills out into the halls as more prison guards join the fracas.  The warden decides to use his backup plan, to unleash Drax the Destroyer on Cuchulain.  How does he do this, you ask?  By turning off Drax’s cartoons of course! 

Next Issue: Drax vs. Cuchulain, and the winner gets to watch Ren and Stimpy (this was the 90’s after all)!

Unexpected Logic

I think the jury is still out on whether they would even notice, but it's a valid argument.

Album Review: AC/DC – Highway to Hell (1979)

Overview: 

This is by far the best album of the Bon Scott era in my opinion.  Everything just feels like it’s hitting on all cylinders with the music and the vocals.  Scott is not as smarmy as he was in the previous albums and the music is a tad more accessible because of it.  Angus is just Angus.

Tracks you may know: 

High way to Hell – You can’t get any better than this for a Bon Scott track.  The chorus, the guitar solo, it’s AC/DC at their best, and a spiritual successor to the entire Back in Black album.

Girls Got Rhythm – Just a great groove, one of the best songs on the album.

Tracks you should know:

Night Prowler – This is just a creepy, heavy way to end the album, and it’s something you should definitely listen to on the regular.

Touch Too Much – It’s a fun track with a good “Highway to Hell” kind of beat (as do a lot of the songs on this album) but it’s still clean and solid all around.

My personal favorite:

Girls Got Rhythm – Such a good track with a great beat.  The guitar work is still as good as ever, and it’s one of the tracks that doesn’t sound like a tweaked “Highway to Hell”.

Album rating: 

The best of the Bon Scott era for sure.

9/10

Lineage

It's like an after school special...kind of...in a way...okay, not really. 

Failure to Deliver

Ain't that the truth.  

Not so New Comic Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (1991) #51

                Who’s that on the cover?  Could it be?  The return of Cuchulain?  Thank Kirby, I’ve been waiting for this since the third annual…

                Okay, now that we got the sarcasm out of the way, this issue opens with the Guardians’ ship appearing above a village on Earth, one that just happens to be the home of Shamrock and Cuchulain (who made their first appearance in this book in the third annual issue).  While I give Michael Gallagher a lot of crap for his lazy writing, and terrible characterizations, the fact that he is treating the Annuals as if they are an important part of the overarching story is great to see.  Many writers use these issues for giant throwaways, or at the very least, a filler tale that has little significance on the overall story.  Gallagher has not only introduced characters that he brought back into the comic (the aforementioned Cuchulain and Shamrock) but he has also introduced big, overarching plot devices that need to be addressed in the regular series (talon’s impending forced fatherhood and Charlie’s disappearance).  This makes the annual more of an issue 50.5 than a regular annual, and for someone that loves collecting the complete story, I appreciate that.

                Back to the issue at hand.  When the ship appears above the village, it is not known by the inhabitants that the Guardians come in peace.  In fact, even those that have dealt with the Guardians before are unaware of the fact that they are the inhabitants of that spacecraft.  It doesn’t help matters that Vance, in his new black suit, is the first one to touch down on Earth.  His is unrecognizable in his new getup and everyone reacts as you would expect they would, including Cuchulain going on the offensive and outright attacking him.  The rest of the Guardians make their way down to the surface, after letting Vance and Cuchulain duke it out for awhile.  This seems like a silly re-introduction to the characters but I have a feeling at this point Marvel was just letting Gallagher do whatever he wanted.

                After some more mistaken identities, where Talon gets manhandled by Cuchulain (causing him to complain about his back…again) we cut to the heavy exposition portion of the program.  The Guardians then learn that Charlie’s whereabouts are actually on the prison planet known as Stockade, as he is being accused of being the interplanetary serial killer known as Ripjak. 

                Right on schedule, we head out to stockade, where Charlie is getting some pretty poor treatment from the guards, which only gets worse when he refuses to sign a confession.  He is then thrown into General Population (which is akin to a cop being placed in the same circumstance nowadays) with the insane villain known as Diablo.  It doesn’t take long for Charlie’s presence to be noticed though as Tork, the Tokka clone comes in and makes his presence known.  He apparently “runs” the floor and is hell-bent on making Charlie’s stay a painful one.

                Back on Earth there is more exposition as Cuchulain says goodbye to Shamrock (he has been asked to join the Guardians for this mission given the fact that their “heavy hitter” is the one they are rescuing).  They all get onboard the ship and Cuchulain freaks out because he has never seen anything like this before (remember, he is a medieval character who is now in the future).  While the ladies are calming him down, Vance and Talon fight once again over command of the Guardians.  That is broken up by request for aid from Nikki to help control Cuchulain. 

                After they deal with that mess, Vance sits down with Aleta to rekindle his romance.  He pulls back the symbiote around his mouth to reveal his old man face, which Aleta finds appealing for some reason, and they begin to kiss, until the symbiote gets an alien boner and tries to latch on to Aleta.  She runs in fear and Vance begins to cry.

                We cut to Talon and Trans-Molecular Reconstitutor, which has helped save Martinex and Charlie in the past, both times not only saving their lives but augmenting their existing powers.  Talon wants to use it to help his ailing back but he know that no one else will assist him in doing so.  He then drafts Cuchulain to do this for him because he knows no better.  After the machine does its job, Talon comes out looking more like a werewolf and less like a kitty-cat. 

Next Issue: we see if Talon’s latest hairstyle sticks and Vance gets all emo. 

Slurp Slurp

Again, with good reason Sluggy.

Tune in Friday to see what lurks in the shadows!

Album Review: AC/DC – Powerage (1978)

Overview: 

AC/DC went even deeper to their bluesy roots with Powerage, which, in my opinion, is a great album.  Powerage is one of the most complete albums with one of the least known tracklistings in the band’s discography, but it is one you should know.

Tracks you may know: 

Down Payment Blues – Just a great bluesy tune, kind of Rolling Stones-ish but with the Bon Scott sleaze.

Sin City – This is more of a traditional AC/DC track, but it is still a good one and would belong on any of their previous albums.

Tracks you should know:

Riff Raff – Kind of like “Rocker” in its speed and ferocity, just an all around great track that other bands may try to imitate but no one can duplicate.

My personal favorite:

What’s Next to the Moon – A great song with a good chorus and a nice riff.  This is one that is not a well known song, but a good one nonetheless.  The opening riff sounds incredibly familiar, but beyond that it’s one of the best songs on the album.

Album rating: 

It’s not their best album, but a solid return to form.  The final three songs end on a poor note, but the beginning is as good as any other album.

7/10

Rustling

With good reason, Sluggy, with good reason.

More Semantics

Sometimes semantics has a place, here...not so much.

Not So New Comic Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (1991) Annual #4

            This annual (the final one of the series) centers around the mutants.  We open with the mutants running rampant through Loki’s Moon mine, killing Inhumans left and right.  We get the stunning revelation that underneath Mindscan’s hair is a creepy-looking head, kind of like The Leader, or a Conehead with tumors.  Somehow, removing her hair-piece allows her the ability to synch up with equipment (though that’s not explained at all) which triggers a recording from Loki.  Rancor brings in the highest ranking Inhuman in order to kill him and send him back out as a message to the others in the tunnels.  Pretty shitty and a waste of time if you ask me, but Rancor has never been the brightest. 

            As Sidestep enters the Guardians’ ship, a video of Martinex shows up basically telling her that she is an intruder and to get off the ship.  Mindscan shuts it up and allows Sidestep to do her thing…which will be revealed later.  We get a quick history lesson from Ulig, the Last Watcher before the Guardians return to their ship (this all happens after the events of #50).  Sidestep has apparently altered the ship’s security system to not only recognize the Guardians as intruders and gas them, knocking them out, but also to fly to a world of Rancor’s choosing.

            The next chapter opens with Talon strapped down while Rancor regales him with her grand plan of pitting one of her mutants against one of the Guardians in a death match.  Talon tries to escape but Rancor thoroughly kicks his ass (he hurt his back after all) before turning to her video monitor to watch the melee unfold. 

            Chapter three consists of the fight between Yellowjacket and Blockade.  Yellowjacket gets the upper hand early by using her Pym particles (do these things ever run out?) to shrink blockade down.  Unfortunately, Blockade’s power is to change his size, so he counteracts that by growing.  Yellowjacket decides the best way to fight him is to just grow larger than him and continue trying to kick his ass.  She does this, but it comes at a price as she has grown too big too quickly and is suffering from a heart attack out in the middle of nowhere.

            We leave Yellowjacket to her fate and focus on the next chapter which shows us Batwing vs. Vance Astro.  We get a brief history lesson of what happened while the Guardians were asleep and en route to the planet they wound up on (apparently all of the Inhumans were moved to this new planet where they were tasked with building a new civilization).  There are only a few Inhumans that are not under Mindscan’s control and they are trying to get Vance to work for them and lead a rebellion.  He defeats Batwing quickly, but then, inexplicably, the Inhumans turn on him.

            Our next chapter focuses in on Yondu as he battles Mindscan.  However this battle is not on the physical plane but on the mental one as Mindscan shows Yondu that his “God” Anthos is nothing more than the despotic tyrant Thanos in disguise.  Because religion and spirituality are at the core of Yondu’s being, it shatters him completely, harming him more than any kind of physical attack (especially from the relatively weak Mindscan) could do.

            The next chapter involves Talon and Rancor, and the basic premise, and apparently the basic premise of this entire story is that Rancor is feeling motherly and wants to have a child.  She would never have one with a human, and the mutants available all suck, or are female, so that’s a non-starter.  She has settled on Talon.  Yes, all of this is an excuse to get Talon in the sack.  When Talon resists her advances, apparently homicidal maniacs are not really his type, she straight up rapes him.  How she is guaranteed that he’ll impregnate her I have no idea, but I guess we’ll just chalk it up to “she’s a mutant” and let it go. 

            It’s hard to keep going once one of your main characters has been raped but Gallagher pushes along, setting up the next battle between Sidestep and Aleta.  Aleta is underpowered but still formidable.  When Sidestep goes to transport her into the dimension of Nightmare (the old Dr. Strange villain) Aleta takes Sidestep with her.  They work together to defeat Nightmare and get out of the dimension, where Aleta straight-up blasts Sidestep right in her stupid half-shaved head. 

            Following that chapter, we see Charlie being confronted by the same police officers we saw in the regular Guardians book, the ones looking for Ripjak.  Charlie resists arrest and looks like he has the upper hand until the officers flying the spaceship gas him (and their own men at the same time). 

            Thankfully we’re almost done as Nikki takes on Shaddo.  They fight, with Shaddo getting the early upper hand until Nikki sets her on fire.  This was about to be the end of Shaddo until Vance shows up, extinguishes her and then bitches Nikki out for trying to survive (good lord I hate Vance as a character).  They blink out of existence and are instantly transported onto their ship, along with the rest of the Guardians, by Talon.  Vance gets all butt-hurt that someone else is doing something productive and Talon straight up slaps him before teleporting the entire ship far away.  The fact that he did all this without a direct order is what really sticks with Vance, proving that he may just be the worst leader in the history of comics. 

            We finish the story by focusing in on the mutants once again and see that Rancor is very much pregnant with her rape-baby.  This can’t be good.

            The third and final part of Future History follows and basically fills with everything we already know but weren’t told in the first two installments.  It was teased that we would finally get to hear about Spiderman’s fate as well…which basically amounted to he died but the body wasn’t recovered.  Talk about anti-climactic. 

Next Issue: Back to the regular series and more douchey Vance Astro than you can shake Talon’s stick at….too soon?

Angry Birds

Damn you, Angry Birds!

Album Review: AC/DC – Let There be Rock (1977)

Overview: 

The third album from AC/DC was a step back.  Mostly filler with a few standout tracks, Let There be Rock was a minor bump in the road as the band would get back to crafting hits with 1978’s Powerage.

Tracks you may know: 

Problem Child – And that’s primarily because it was also on Dirty Deeds…

Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be – A pretty standard AC/DC track. 

Tracks you should know:

Whole Lotta Rosie – It’s just a fun song with a good guitar lick.  It’s not the best AC/DC song, but it’s the best one on this album.

My personal favorite:

Whole Lotta Rosie – Ditto what I said above.

Album rating: 

This was a slight step down for the band, but not the beginning of a prolonged slump by any means.

4/10

Dibs

No one wants to be the middle of the human centipede.

Worse

Isn't that how it always goes?

Not So New Comic Review: Galactic Guardians (1994) #4

            It’s time to wrap up the Galactic Guardians miniseries, the first (and only) spin-off for the Marvel 3000 line.

            This issue starts with a proclamation from Mainframe that the main villain that was revealed to us at the end of last issue, Ubiquitor, has appeared on every world simultaneously.  This obviously raises the stakes for the Guardians in that if they fail to defeat her and her footsoldiers, the rest of the galaxy will fall.  Hollywood gets the action started by attacking Silverback. 

            After a quick aside where we learn that Hollywood and Vision regained their consciousness and memories (Vision used a separate body to go wake Hollywood up and replace his memories, which were absorbed and transferred into his mind from the memories scattered on the ground) we see Mainframe attack Savant and overload his mind, knocking him out of the fight.

            Hold the phone…it’s origin time!  This time we learn that Ubiquitor is a member of a race known as the absolutes, one of the last of her kind, that thrives on the creation and destruction of universes (which is where her team of baddies comes from, former universes that she destroyed).  While it’s an interesting origin, part Galactus, part Phoenix, it’s still pretty boilerplate stuff and shows why Ubiquitor hasn’t made some kind of comeback.

            Speaking of Phoenix, Ubiquitor sees the potential power in him and whisks him away to a separate plane of reality.  While they are gone, a little teamwork by Replica and Martinex takes care of Hazmat, while Ghost Rider disposes of Ganglia by sending it to Hell.  Out in space, Hollywood and Silverback are still going at it when Mainframe teleports them both to the edge of a black hole.  Even though Hollywood isn’t being sucked into the black hole, Silverback sure is.  Hollywood tries to hold on to him and not let him die, which is very Avenger-y, but he cannot and Silverback is gone.  Hollywood then flies back to the ship, pissy that he couldn’t save the bad guy.

            We finally check in on Ubiquitor and Phoenix as she makes a pitch to him to join forces with her.  He rebuffs her advances though, as we all assumed he would, and really that is the best idea, look what happened to all of her other minions.  They fight back and forth, neither combatant gaining an upper hand, that is until Woden shows up and offers his hammer’s power to be combined with that of Phoenix.  Together they dispatch of Ubiiquitor pretty handily.  In the grand Guardians of the Galaxy tradition, Woden is offered membership in the Galactic Guardians to which he declines.  As he flies back to Asgard, Phoenix returns to the ship.  As we close the series we see that the only individual happy that everyone is still alive and working as a team is Martinex.  No one else is remotely satisfied with this outcome, just like no one else should be satisfied with this limited series.  The artwork was generally better than that of its parent title (having Kevin West pencil the whole thing instead of providing breakdowns alone helped immensely) but the story was still pretty silly and unimaginative.

 

            Next Issue: Back to the Guardians of the Galaxy!  Before we get to the regular series though we have one more stop to make in the fourth and final annual, and this one’s a doozy.

Romance

The pig-faced guy looks a little too happy to see people that don't run away from him, that might be creepier than the murderer in the fields.

Album Review: AC/DC – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976)

Overview: 

One of the knocks on AC/DC throughout the years is that the music is very derivative of itself.  The band is not going to stray too far from what they do best, which is why all of the Bon Scott songs sound like they could come off any album, regardless the era (even though his era was short) and the Brian Johnson songs follow that same pattern.  I personally don’t care that much as the catalogue is so large that I usually just shuffle them all on Google Play anyway, but I completely understand the argument.  This album follows that mold very closely, but is a bit more cohesive in my opinion, with less filler.

Tracks you may know: 

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – It’s not as overplayed as T.N.T. but it’s damn close.  Still, a great opening song for the album.

Big Balls – The song that makes every teenage boy giggle until he’s blue in the face.  Bon Scott packs more innuendo into this one song than the rest of the songs in the whole AC/DC catalogue combined.  It still holds up well even if it sounds sillier the older you get.

Tracks you should know:

Rocker – I love the beat, the speed, the guitar, it’s all there.  It sounds like something Motorhead would play, just without Lemmy’s growl.

My personal favorite:

Ride On – This could be the slowest song in the entire discography, but it is so smooth, so rich of a blues tune that I can’t help but stop what I’m doing when it comes on and just listen to it.  This may in fact be my favorite AC/DC song of all time (and that’s saying a lot as I am a pretty hefty supporter of the Brian Johnson era as the best era of AC/DC).

Album rating: 

It’s a great sophomore effort and produced some of the best songs of the entire catalogue.  There is very little filler as even songs like “There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’” and “Love at First Feel” are quality tunes.

9/10

Leave a Message at the Beep

There are some messed up things that happened back in the day (like the above story) that would have made social media lose it's mind if it happened today.  Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but at least we know that the present is no more or less fucked up than the past.

Oink

When I'm right, I'm right.

Not So New Comic Review: Galactic Guardians (1994) #3

            We open this issue with Ghost Rider, one of the two remaining Galactic Guardians that is not injured and out of commission, fighting against Hazmat.  Hazmat tries to pull the same trick on Ghost Rider that he did on Firelord, shooting him with the acidic material that burned Firelord (and you know that’s powerful if it can burn a guy that is literally made of fire).  This doesn’t hurt Ghost Rider at all, and instead leaves him open to be taken out by Ghost Rider’s space-motorcycle.  As Ghost Rider speeds off back to the Guardians’ ship a mysterious figure comes to retrieve Hazmat.  The original Guardians of the Galaxy series has made its living on shadowy figures in the background.  I’m curious to see how this villain stacks up to the likes of Doctor Doom and Loki.

            At the end of last issue, Replica fell prey to Ganglia, the Mother-Brain looking villain that gestated inside her long enough to become relevant.  With Replica down, Ganglia now turns its attention to Martinex, the last remaining Guardian on the ship that can do anything.  Surprising everyone that has ever read a Guardians comic in the past, Martinex actually proves useful and freezes Ganglia before taking off and getting Replica to the med-bay.  On the way there, he is ambushed by Ganglia’s tentacles, proving that maybe he isn’t nearly as adept as we thought. 

            Now it’s time to check in on Hollywood and Vision as they duke it out.  You’ll remember that last issue, Savant wiped their minds and then pitted them against one another in combat, for his amusement I assume.  A break in the fighting (because they are both knocked out) provides the perfect opportunity for the mysterious figure to come collect Savant, ordering him to scatter the memories of the two combatants among the rocks. 

            Hey, while we’re here, let’s check in on Woden, who is fighting Silverback on Earth.  Last issue they came face to face with a giant crab/octopus creature in a lake.  Woden electrocutes the creature in order to escape its clutches and drags Silverback out of the water.  Woden then flies off as that mysterious figure comes to collect his fallen champion.

            Back on the ship, Martinex is about to be infiltrated by Ganglia when Ghost Rider shows up and sets it ablaze.  As Ganglia tries to retreat, Firelord wakes up, renewed from his nap and sets Ganglia on fire even more, supposedly killing it.  Martinex then suggests that Ghost Rider transform into his native form of a priest in the Universal Church of Truth.  Martinex thinks this will help keep Replica calm when she wakes up…boy was he wrong.  She goes nuts and attacks him.  Knocking him out of a window so that he can plummet to his death, and he would have too if Hollywood hadn’t showed up right then to catch him.  He then turns back into Ghost Rider and goes back to confront Replica.  Hollywood stops the confrontation and it is revealed that Mainframe is back online as well.  This means that Phoenix can finally come out and play.  Everyone thinks that they are done with this mission and that the last issue of their miniseries will be about that time they went out for tacos without Martinex and he called them all jerks because he likes tacos too.  They are dead wrong though as all of the villains have returned as one team led by the mysterious figure known as Ubiquitor.  Not as cool as Doom or Loki, but we’ll see.

Next Issue: this series comes to its painful conclusion as everyone fights yet again. I think they should go out for tacos afterwards, but that’s just me.