So, wait, what? - No, seriously Angela to Gaurdians of the Galaxy? And Thoughts on Age of Ultron

All of those unnecessary straps and belts are making me wicked nostalgic though.

I mean I'm excited that Neil Gaiman is coming back to comic books.  As he is very good at writing them, this is an established incontrovertible fact.  So that's really neat.  I just for the life of me do not know why I'm supposed to be super excited about a character who is known mainly for legal disputes and pantyless action figures.  That's really it.  Don't get me wrong though I loved the character as a boy, mainly due to the pantyless toys (God, I wish that were more of a joke), and the angels were always really well designed.  At the same time though, does anybody really care about the ancillary characters of the Spawn universe in 2013?  I guess they obviously do as this was a major-ish story last week.  I don't know.  Yet again, really psyched about the Gaiman, even if that is the most seemingly random book to bring him back to comics, but kinda meh on the Angela.

Their plan to distract the Ultrons by recreating the opening to The Lion King did not work.

On a side note, so far Age of Ultron is thoroughly not shitty.  It's self contained, ships briskly, looks nice, and doesn't involve me buying an ungodly number of side books.  Ah back to that faint praise that we do here, and that I do every day in real life.  Granted, the one issue that I do have with the book is that you can really kind of tell that it was written two years ago and shelved, as the unceasing tumult of Marvel Now! has made character relationships in the book, costumes seem out of date(Now! has by and large been neat, if you just say fuck it to establishing a concurrent continuity) So, Age of Ultron so far, while incredibly decompressed and after thought-y, has only cost me $4 on books with Bryan Hitch art and a serviceable, "Oh, reality got boned and we've got to fix it storyline", which are quickly becoming the "We got locked in a _______ what about those crazy adventures" of comic books.  However, I don't know if today's youth as fondly remember the clip show, but I am not above a faulty, shitty allusion.  So, in closing, Age of Ultron is okay so far.  It's not reinventing the wheel, and while the main plot point is a well worn trope of the past few years; I can still find some enjoyment in a reality thrown all out of whack due to a time whammy; it's a Bendis book - surprised nobody has said that exact phrase yet.  So there you go, I don't consider it a waste of $4, and it's mercifully self contained.  And my one buddy is all about She Hulk's short hair in it, is weird. I guess we're back everybody, the royal we really. 

So...That just Happened; a Spoiler-Free Review of Amazing Spider-Man #698 - Updated with Spoilers at the bottom

Now, I've read Spider-Man for a while.  I weathered the later parts of the JMS run, yes I am talking about Gwen Stacy/Norman Osbourne's kids.  Hell, one of my fondest comic shop memories was being a boy when the final issue of the Clone Saga and summarily shitting on it for a solid hour with older, cooler customers.  I enjoyed much of the post Brand New Day run.  I stopped reading at about Spider Island because I wanted to lighten my pull.  Anyway, I would say that the revelations made in ASM #698 rival those earlier ones.  Before I get into the vitriol though, I will say that as a writer, fake in my case, I understand where Slott is coming from.  Comic books thrive on new directions.  They're fictional characters, and the big reveal makes sense given events of the book, and the fact that it's a fucking funny books, so rules of what have you are arbitrary.  I mean the twist does make sense given the focus of the last year or two of the book, which I've skimmed.

Yup

However, as a fan of Spider-Man though; I absolutely hate every last fucking thing about it.  I loathe this new direction.  I'm hoping that this was an attempt to break the internet to push sales up for #700.  I do.  As yet again, it seems like another cheap fucking shock tactic that'll be sustainable for maybe 6-12 months of stories, until normalcy has returned.  Now, this may seem harsh as I'm getting mildly irate about the fate of fictional characters, but it's more than that.  I'm bothered that we all know how this is going to work out.  You troll the core fanbase; they get irked, as is happening here; this gains some legitimate "organic" "legitimate" media coverage; you get non fans into the stores; you get a six month bump; the "nerds", myself included come back to the book, and we repeat.  I mean it's really that well it sounds like an abusive relationship really.  And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.  But it's just an irksome, inglorious way to take things.  Who knows, I may be wrong; it happens, constantly; this entire blog is a monument to that.  I don't know; maybe this is the greatest thing ever, but my gut reaction is that it' just another cheap fucking twist to do get people, more popular ones, obviously, to do this very thing that I'm doing.  It's a vicious cycle.  Seems like a cheap, but rational and prefaced but just dirty feeling, twist that we'll go through for like 6 months-year.  Honestly, I think this may be one of the more reasonable responses to this that you'll see come tomorrow. So the verdict: I can respect the bold writing choices made by Slott; as a fan of Spider-Man I fucking hate this. I just hope this is a swerve before the new series.  Please?


UPDATE - SPOILERS BELOW









Yeah - Dock Ock switches bodies with Peter Parker; Parker dies in the feeble Doc Ock body.  Octavius is now Spider-Man; he's going to bang MJ.  Octavius tried to marry/bang Aunt May.  Weird.  Not sure how much juice is there. 

Even though it's All-New; you've already read it before - All-New X-Men #1

And now it's time to strut.

Inflammatory titling aside, the reason that you've read this all before is that frankly the majority of the content has been repeatedly plastered on far more legitimate comic book blogs.  That's really the main hindrance of enjoyment.  I mean the comic book itself is engaging, but you've seen most of it, save five pages, before, so that's the main detriment to enjoyment.    Aside from this book being light on unrevealed content, it's a pretty decent read and a novel concept.  That's really it without getting into too many specifics.  The art is crisp, and the characters don't, in my estimation, come across as too Bendis-y, (i.e. middle aged New York Seinfeld character).  I mean it's worth your four bucks if you're looking for another X book to get into, and if you read comic books like me and are a compulsive, borderline, hoarder.  So there you really have it.  Not too much to grouse about, and unfortunately, nothing that surprising, kinda like AVX #1. That's really it.  No need to endlessly pontificate. 

So Where are we Going NOW!... Wait did you get that? I don't know...may have been a little subtle... the other idea was Marvel MEOW!

So, as I did to mild fanfare back in the days of Myspace, in my salad days, I'm pretty much going to spoil semi obvious things or make wild speculations about unrevealed things about comic books that have yet to come out.  Now, you may be wondering where my skills of ratiocination come from, mainly Phoenix Wright games and tv mysteries of the 80's.  So without further ado, to spoil the unspoiled, which is difficult in our day and time.  So we'll start with the only one that nobody is going to call.

Avengers

So, who's that guy in the back you may ask?  Well, there's really just one logical choice for it.  First, look at the hair.  It's dreadlocks or something of that nature.  You know what, I don't feel like drawing this out with a bunch of cute little questions and shit of that ilk.  Really no sense in drawing it out.  They're coming our of a portal; he's got dreads; they're trying to add new blood to the line up (i/e Cannonball and Sunspot) and it's obviously Eden Fesi from Secret Warriors, which was written by Avengers author Johnathon Hickman, and also a pretty good read if you haven't picked it up.  IT can get a little dense with all of the insane plot twists, I mean as dense as a cape and tight espionage book gets, but it's a fun read with solid art and characterization that really plays with the universe well and has some pretty neat moments.  So yeah.  There's that.  

All New X-Men

So far it's looking like it's just some new characters in the background.  Probably with some tangential connection with the franchise.  As the girl with the obvious phoenix attire (yes, I'm speculating on a sash on a funny book cover, my former professors and employers are rolling in their respective chairs) is not Rachel Grey,  well who is it?

You've really only got two options then: Hope and also teenage Jean Grey.  First one makes some sense as with the whole summer event book and the phoenix thing, and the sash.  It's a logical-ish call as this is a place for kinda logic.  Teenage Jean Grey though is the more interesting choice as well the leads of the two x-men books are both fascinated with dead gingers, but our nation still mentions Lindsay Lohan, so it's understandable (I'm a time traveler from six months in the future). The other reason that it works, honestly, is based around the potential storyline aspects of it, and by that I mean teenage Jean Grey after learning about her many myriad deaths and being dressed as a dominatrix and marrying a herb who mind bangs a woman behind her back is like nertz to um living through this and jumps ship to probably Uncanny as it's more interesting what with the whole broken up Scott and Emma, so there you have it.  Also, there's really no correlation of thing sin the present of comics on some things (I'm talking about Damion Hellstrom who is a hero and a villain and dead all in the same month).  So the space time doesn't really matter and having them float around in the present indefinitely is kinda neat conceptually.

Update - I'm totally fucking wrong.  It's some girl with a sash and time powers.  Doesn't even have red hair in the thing.  

X-Men Legacy

I'm more excited than I thought I'd be for this one.  I've always liked Legion as much as you can as he only showed up every so often back in the day and would go coma, trying to kill Wolfsbane, unwriting history etc. every so often.  Anyway, the whole multiple personalities, powers, psych prison thing is kinda cool.  And for the new series it should also be cool as, obviously, the gimmick is now changed to be the well received, but cancelled Moon Knight reboot of a couple years ago. In that book, Marc Spector vacillated between the personalities of Wolverine, Spider-Man, and I want to say Cap instead of the given personalities he had established which is a novel twist on it and more compelling to the less well versed fan, as we weren't all in middle school freaking out over Stephen Platt's art on it and glancing at it.  Anyway, 

So, I mean this is pretty obviously going to be dude controlling the many farcical characters in his head by jumping from the personalities of Wolverine, Magneto, Cable, and Beast.  I mean it's kinda right there.  Or not.  I'm just trying to kill time until 5 at this point.


Superior Spider-Man

So the slip on that one is that it's Miguel O'Hara from Spider-Man 2099, which is actually the most palatable option really.    Unless it's 616 Miles Morales, who if you read Spider-Men (which was actually pretty good) does exist.  Although that might be a bit too much.

And on that note I'm done for right now.  Here are a couple of quick ones though.

Iron Man

A lot of people really don't care for Greg Land and are quite vocal about it.  Just saying.  Read issue #1 going to give it an arc before passing judgement.

Deadpool

It's Deadpool all right.  Now the question is to see if it stays fresh or gets grating.  So far though it's got Brian Posehn and Tony Moore, and that's awesome.  Even though the last series lost it's way after a while, Deadpool is either nifty or grating; it's one or the other; there is no middle ground.  So far we're at nifty.

Uncanny X-Force

It's a tall order to fill.  I'll give it a shot, but I don't know if it's going to live up to the last series.  Also, the only real question is if Cluster is a girl clone, as Fantomex does do the cloning, or EVA in a suit.

So there you go.  Comic Book fever.  Catch it.  I guess. It's better than Magic: The Herpening.  Yes, I just made that up.  But seriously, they make you buy new cards every year.  Glad that I've spent this many 0 dollars on it since the late 90's.  I'm a freeloader and will just borrow your deck.  I digress.  #NERDSHIT.

   

Fine, More Star Wars - What's so Funny about Apathy, Your Childhood, and Cash Grabs?

When I was a wee lad, I loved a certain trilogy of films.  I also had contemporaries with a predilection for paste in those days too.  I mean while I was a clever child I was still, at heart, dumb as shit.  Now, while I'm not going to say that the Star Wars franchise of films at the time were dumb as shit, I will argue that the combined opus of six films is, as continually groused about on the internet since restarted in 1999, kinda assy.  Look, let's cut it to brass tacks here: the prequels are shitty movies.  Now, I have never been accused of a lack of sentimentality. Hell, this sentimentality, or hoarding as it's called by some, almost got me on Comic Book Men (I may have overestimated my efficiency at keeping accessories when I talked to central casting, pointless story for another day.).  THe point that I'm laconically making is this: George Lucas already fucked our childhoods.  The mythos of Star Wars, while engaging in it's original form, could not stand without our warm fuzzy feelings.  While some of the ancillary properties that it has spawned since it's inception have actually been pretty solid in my estimation: Knights of the Old Republic, the Rouge Squadron series, the Gendy Tartikovsky Clone Wars films etc, they work mainly because of the talents involved.  This point is backed up, frankly, by the number of times that it has not worked: KOTOR 2, the prequels, a lot of the ancillary material, every other Star Wars book, Masters of Teras Kasi, etc.

If you throw in a keyblade, I'll have kittens.



Moreover, at their heart, the original trilogy of films worked because they captivated our imaginations by combining the tropes of samurai films with the sensibilities and settings of classic serials of Lucas' youth.  Moreover, it is not the story that made Star Wars iconic; it was how it was told and how it makes you feel.  IT is comfort food on celluloid, frankly, and comfort food always has gelatin in it.  I'm not trying to marginalize the tale or the characters, as your connection to them is what fuels this and they are vividly rendered on the screen; it's that the story and themes are some of the most well worn in history.  But it is a tribute to the filmmakers that this tale in particular of the force and gay robots revolutionized popular film and became an iconic part of the last fifty years of Americana.  Pretty much, the original trilogy should be lauded, but somebody already took a big messy dump on your childhood and continually whipped and milked a dead horse for much of the last fifteen years.  So why worry?  Who really cares?  No matter how many times they futz with the original trilogy you'll know that Han shot first; Jabba is only in Jedi, and the Max Rebo band is not fronted by a fraggle or whatever.


So look, the well has been dry for a while.  I mean while compelling for three movies that's all the juice Lucas could get out of them, before forcing me to spend thirty dollars watching inert tech demos on opening weekend during the late 90's/00's.  At the same time there is hope.  And that hope has been mentioned as when in the hands of competent talents there is a life and vibrance within this universe, but this ain't the fucking be all end all.  It's a universe with like 8-12 well realized characters that are at their heart still archetypes following a logical heroic arc, but they're our archetypes that we grew up with.  While the intricacies of the Jedi, the tech, and the geoplitics of it were compelling, um fucking midochlorians are a thing that happened.  I mean the reason that we keep coming back to Star Wars as individuals and a culture is that we loved Star Wars.  Lucas knew that, and Disney knows that, and there are still stories to tell within that universe, but we will always go anyway no matter what, but maybe they'll get someone who can wring some life out of it.  We've seen it done before, and we've seen it bungled on every level, but who cares?  We'll always have the Star Wars that we loved no matter when Greedo shoots or how many ancillary and contradictory scenes of mobile Jabba that they edit in but not on Blu-Ray, but you can't win them all.  So don't worry; your childhood has already been vigorously sodomized for the purpose of fattening the coffers of Kenner and Taco Bell.  We survived because it's a series of movies that you loved when you were 8 or 18 or 38 or legally dead and nothing more, and some pretty good video games and some cartoons of wildly varying quality.  And who knows, maybe these movies will be competently directed or actually have a plotline that can justify the creation of a new trilogy or not feature so much walking and talking and terrible decision making and filler, so much filler, and old timey racism and characters doing neat fight scenes that in a sense invalidate the fight scenes of the original given that Obi Wan is seen flipping around in the prequels and then has an awkward ass sword fight in A New Hope and sure he's old but Count Dooku was old and doing flips in the second and third prequels, and Vader building C-3po, and Obi Wan knowing R2-D2, and Yoda knowing Chewbacca which none of them ever bring up because this was obviously not planned out in advance.

And that's it really.  I don't care that they're making new Star Wars; I've seen good and bad ones.  Just cherish the good times.  And who knows, maybe they'll be good.  If not, they're fucking movies, and you've got real problems, probably. God knows I do.  So that's it.  Your childhood got banged; we're all going to give up the cash, and who cares really?  Also, Disney pretty much let's Marvel do their thing, so I mean you don't buy a company to savage it. 

Party like it's 2005...kinda - AVX Retrospective.

As the leaves change, so to does the landscape of comic bookery.  It is inevitable.  Every year, every thing changes.  It is the mutability of the beast.  Before us, it transmutes into a chimera.  This sloughing beast has many names: New 52, Dark Reign, and now...um Marvel Now.  But6 how did we get here?  What was the impetus for this monumental return to a prior status quo?  Punching space gods in both the face and genitals; that's how.  But how does all of this interstellar nard punching make us feel?  Well, to answer that you can start your own blog I guess, and I'll read it fair, illusory reader.  Now though we will deal with how I feel.

It was okay I guess

I mean it didn't leave the typical flavor of carrion, from pummeled equine, that a lot of events give me.  Part of this was just due to the fact that it didn't really up my pull, as I was reading most of the books anyway.  The other part was that there was less truly ancillary filler. Granted, there was a lot of expounding on the meteoric crackle of fists between say The Thing and Namor, but there was less of say, Jackpot, fighting a Skrull that was a hodgepodge of B-list Spider Villains.  So, yes, that's a plus I guess.  Pretty much, these comic super events are typically a bloated mass of vestigial tales, bloat, and laconic droning.  This event at least stayed on topic for the most part with the tie-ins.  Sure, some of it was kind of filler, but it was competent filler usually, and it all dealt with the main conflict, more or less.  As for the plot, they probably could have tightened the thing up a scooch, as the most interesting concept, beloved X-men making the slow burn from magnanimous cyphers of an ill defined space god to fascistic, man thonged, tyrants was left on the side for more punching.  THe reason for this is that well after the X-Men made that full, inevitable, heel turn you knew where this was going.

 

  Sisqo saw all of this coming

 As for the events within, there have been some decent moments and interactions sure.  I do look forward to some of the new books coming out of this, but yeah pretty much this:  Charles Xavier died way more convincingly, given ephemerally, in Messiah Complex; the Phoenix lost way more meaningfully in um The Dark Phoenix Saga; The Thing punched Namor way harder in the 60's when men were men, and women knew their place.  I mean, yes, characters come from literally out of left field in the last issue, and I mean I almost called the resolution to it Spoiler it's just that they didn't say "Fine, More Mutants" but "More Mutants" and "No More Phoenix" as it's good to be the Deus Ex Machina.

We all would have preferred it ending with "Fine, More Maggot"...No?

You Should buy AVX Versus #6

It's got Squirrel Girl and Pixie, and Domino beats up Rulk.



So...

In summation, AVX was who we thought it was.  It was Avengers and X-men punching each other and eventually coming together to fight a common enemy, some of the X-men.  Wakanda got leveled; Hope knows Kung-Fu; Spider-Man can take a punch to the face; fine, More Mutants; Cyclops' arc has made him both more interesting over the years/ kind of a dick;  I guess as the heavy handed allegories for civil rights go, that makes Wolverine MLK Jr?   I don't even know any more.  So, in closing, it was better than last year's events, as Fear Itself was instantly retconned after publication/ inconsistent and Flahpoint, seriously what the fuck just happened?  Wait?  What?  Sot that's what you missed in AVX.   

No, Seriously, what the fuck?  I still don't, what?

Top Nine Least Intimidating Iconic Comic Villains

The beauty of the top whatever list is that it is totally subjective. We read them on the internet and take them as cannon from upon high. Yet you can pretty much base them on a nebulous field of arbitrary metrics. I mean these are fictional characters that are written by a small army of creators for decades in some cases. With that in mind, and my natural proclivities towards the svengali lifestyle, I present you the reader with this definitive list of the least intimidating iconic comic book villains. Although we're going with nine because I'm lazy.

Now the reason that I am saying iconic comic book villains is that it would be entirely too easy to come up with a list of Mandrills and Boomerang themed villains to make a list of just plain old comic book villains. And that's why we'll begin with a semi shocking number 9.

# 9 - The Joker

The Joker, as everyone in most civilized nations knows, is the premier Bat villain. He provides a perfect foil for the cool and calculating Bruce Wayne by fundamentally countering him with a degree of organized chaos. Yet when we think of his main accomplishments, we think of killing Jason Todd and paralyzing Barbara Gordon - Robin 2 and Batgirl respectively. Fundamentally, he's a way more likable Joe Jackson because he's famous for beating kids.

In fairness, Jason Todd does suck pretty hard.

Secondly, there is the infamous boner issue. I think nothing more needs to be said that cannot already be taken from the source material. Having read he issue in its entirety the only thing that is missing is the phrase, "I will literally choke the Batman with all of these delicious boners."

No caption joke will top this. I don't know; think about your favorite Tobias Funke quote and imagine that you're reading that.

The next point is that before there was Harley Quinn there was this guy: Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy.

Break yo'self Pierrot le fou.

He dresses like Pagliocci, and his powerset involves headbutting Robin in the tender vittles. Granted he only appeared once before being dusted off a year ago, but he's a midget dressed like Pagliocci that headbutts Robin in the midsection.

# 8 Venom

When I was a boy, the undisputed niftiest talking Marvel figure was Venom because of his vocal and unabashed devotion to brain eating. (Not in the way Nicki Minaj intends to.) Now while Venom is a beloved character, he's on this list for a few reasons. Number one being that he went from a cannibal to a lunatic anti hero in the 90's. And lunatic anti heroes never work.

He's everywhere you want to be.

The main reason though is that while we think of Venom most people think of Eddie Brock or Mac Gargan, but, in actuality, the symbiote is a bit of a whore. In total there have been seven people that have been taken over by the symbiote without including the brief Venoms such as Franklin Richards. And there is nothing more disturbing in Spider-Man comics than this image.

That's going on my boner jams '11 post.

Finally, Venom is on this list because it's a product of the 90's really. He even went as far as to quote Homey the Clown in the final issue of "Maximum Carnage". Oh, and he's on here for never really getting closer to winning than a hundred year old czarist with a lion vest.



#7 - Magneto

He used to dress like this in the 80's.

We also would have accepted a joke about the aerobics movie "Perfection".

Now aside from rocking a gigantic M on his chest and resembling an extra from "Satan's Alley", Magneto is on this list for a few major reasons. Aside from his sartorial failings, Magneto finds his way onto the list for being not really that evil all things considered. He switches teams more frequently than Lindsay Lohan as he is currently back with the X-men. (the funny book Samantha Ronson it seems)

Granted, he has tried to take over the planet a few times, but he usually fucks up or is revealed to actually be a Chinese guy with a star for a head's evil twin who also has a star for a head. Also...he made a robot nanny for some reason and made out with the Wasp which is more puzzling than anything else.

Retcon: Because dammit I can't leave well enough alone.

He's an eighty year old holocaust survivor that was turned into a baby and then re-aged to his physical peak. He has time and again created an isolated mutant paradise and time and again found a way to totally biff it. Fake star head Magneto was felled in part by a man chicken mutant with a serious learning disability. So that's why Magneto is on here: he's not terribly evil all things considered.

#6 - Lex Luthor

While an iconic arch villain of the highest caliber, Luthor, who is oft lauded for his mental adroitness, has generated his own share of monumental boners. As a super scientist who perennially goes up against what is fundamentally a space god rendered as a man one wold imagine that he would be fairly adept with science. That said, one would imagine that he would know of the effects of wearing a ring made out of radioactive space rock for years. That he would know that he would eventually get cancer from it and then have to fake his death to put his brain in a clone body and that he would then have to pretend to be his own Aussie bastard son and speak in a fake Australian accent. After being trapped inside a self made prison of rapidly decaying clone carrion, Luthor would return to the land of the mobile in traditional comic book fashion: pact with not Satan.

After his brief period of demonic supplication, he would make the move that many real world types who have made a pact with Beelzebub-lite would: He would become president. Now what would an effective villain do in a seat of power to truly destabilize things? Would he say launch a global war under false pretenses? Would he not care about black people? Would he eventually get all juiced up on a steroid/kryptonite mix and rampage in the streets? If you guessed the last one you would be correct.

Had a higher approval rating in the power suit than Bush did.

And to top it off Luthor can currently be seen in the starring role of the frankly fantastic Action Comics...banging a robot Lois Lane. It works in the comic although I'm kind of surprised that nobody has made any "Lars and the Real Girl" jokes. Also, he used to reside on a planet called Lexor. This has nothing to do with diminishing his evil quotient; it's just a tad convenient. Oh and as a fun side note he's appeared in slightly more comic books that our very real current president.

Still slightly less evil than real Sarah Palin

#5 - Apocalypse

He's got a giant A on his belt in case he ever forgets his name. More importantly he has had 5000 years to...constantly get beaten. In the future, he gets beaten by a teen Cable. In the 80's, he got beaten by the old school X-Men who were operating as X-Factor at the time (with the help of Power Pack. For those who don't know Power Pack is comprised entirely of super powered 8 year olds.) He gets beaten by a clone of Cable. He mind hops into the body of Cyclops and gets beaten by Jean Grey and then his astral form gets nut punched by an adult Cable. While constantly losing is the hallmark of most malefactors, it's the manner in which most of these happens that places him on here.

However, C is still very much for cookie.

Mainly, he creates his own antagonists. He empowers old timey geneticist Nathaniel Essex into the subtly sobriqueted Mr. Sinister, who turns on him and creates the Jean Grey clone/brood mare Madelyne Pryor who births his arch nemesis Cable. Apocalypse in turn infects Cable with a techno organic virus that necessitates Cable being sent to the future...where he kills Apocalypse. In this future though Apocalypse attempts to transfer his consciousness into Cable's clone Stryfe. This plan goes tits up when Stryfe goes back in time (Sans a sweat ass Huey Lewis soundtrack) and kills Apocalypse...kinda. Most famously, Apocalypse grafted bad ass robot wings to a wingless Warren Worthington and also put Adamantium back on Wolverine's bones. Currently, the two are in the phenomenal "Uncanny X-Force"...trying to kill a child clone of Apocalypse.

If they really wanted to make him suffer they'd take him out after the last day of middle school.

#4 - Darkseid

Simply put for an ageless embodiment of deistic malfeasance he spends a lot of time doing seemingly pointless things on Earth. His ignoble start came in the insane/brilliant 4th world opus of Jack Kirby where he was first featured in the pages of Jimmy Olsen where he was supplying guns to mobsters. The part of this that I find odd is that here we have a nearly invulnerable space God selling guns to mobsters. (although in fairness the Monitor who...uh monitored the multiverse got his start in the same way.)

And that's really the main theme running throughout this waylaying of the character: for a nearly omnipotent space God he spends a lot of time slumming on Earth. The most recent example is found in the criminally underrated "Final Crisis". In the crossover, Darkseid finally wins when the Anti Life Equation is unleashed on an unsuspecting Earth. Before that though Darkseid and his cadre of dark gods survived the unrepentantly assy "Death of the New Gods" by coming back as kinda dated urban stereotypes. Glorious Godfrey came back as Al Sharpton...again. And Granny Goodness came back as Missy Elliott in the "Ladies Night" video (I had to think of a video from that epoch when she was not wearing a trash bag or dressed as Mega Man.) Darkseid returns as Ving Rhames in "Pulp Fiction". Now what do you do when you've cheated death after having your heart ripped out by your son? If your answer was make teenagers fight in a nightclub you are on your way to being a space tyrant.

"You and me are straight but you've lost your New Atlantis privileges Aqualad."

The final reason that Darkseid is on the list at the number four spot is that when he did murder his son with a backward firing time bullet he did it somewhere where Batman could find it which eventually lead to his circuitous downfall. (Don't worry the real villain was an entropic pan dimensional vampire.) In concert with that, his final final plan that also hinged on outwitting Batman (in an entertaining fashion that would be even more convoluted sounding frankly.) Nobody outwits the Batman...even Rainbow Batman.

In the Golden Age he used to say that criminals were a fearful and color blind lot.

#3 - Sabretooth

Precious few like the character Sabretooth as much as I do. Every time I meet a blond I stand in front of her, snap my fingers, and yell out "Birdy!" If she does not proceed to pull out an excessively cumbersome machine gun that shoots out three slow moving square bullets, I move on with my day. Ridiculously outdated in-jokes aside; Sabretooth is on this list for one reason: he's a fucking Highlander and he once lost to Power Pack. Yes the litmus test for super villains is whether or not they are bested by a group of juiced up 8 year olds. If you can think of better criteria, I'd like to hear them. (Also never do a google search for images of Power Pack. Just trust me on that one.)

The worst part in all of this is that the only thing on this cover you'll never see again in a Marvel comic book is the lit cigarette.

Now onto the Highlander portion of this - It's been revealed that Wolverine and Sabretooth belong to some subset of wolf people. They're not mutants, and they can only be killed by getting decapitated by a magic sword that's forged from a shard of Wolverine's soul. Now if that sounds like the premise to some sort of Highlander themed Kingdom Hearts then you and I are on the same page as sad as that is.

It doesn't help that he also started dressing like an extra from "Hair" at the end of it all.

The other reason that Sabretooth is on here is that well he's kind of a bitch. He's been a lackey for Mister Sinister for much of his career and in his solo efforts he's often getting taken out by everyone from Ms. Marvel to Iron Fist. He was represented as being borderline exceptional (read the R word) in the first X-men film. And his Ultimate incarnation was adroitly referred to as a budget Wolverine. Also, he's mainly famous for killing regular ass people on the side while doing some super villainy. And when he was unceremoniously decapitated was when he was seeing a bit of a revitalization in Mike Carey's run on X-men adjectiveless.

#2 - Mephisto

Now while a lot of the uninitiated may be scratching their heads as to why a villain they've never heard of is on here; let me make this simple: He's Satan...kinda. And they don't get more iconic than that. Besides, all the fanboys know why he's on here: One More Day.

It is actually sillier than this. I shit you not.

In One More Day, Satan pretty much erases Spider Man's marriage because comic book fans could relate to a man with Spider powers but not one with a banging ginger wife. So he saves Aunt May's life and totally change the status quo in exchange for the love shared between Peter and MJ, and he's Satan. If anything you'd think that if he was trying to create true suffering in the world he'd prolong marriages indefinitely. (Snare drum and comment about the pepper steak to follow)

"Fine." - Spider-Man as played by 1 out of 2 married Americans.

Aside from that, it's the standard case of creating his own enemies (Ghost Rider), being fairly ineffectual at Satan-ing (See above), and possibly being an evil cave mutant that mutated into the concept of Satan as some sort of inborn mutation that is triggered by man's natural place in the universe guarding the asexually reproduced fetus of a race of space Gods that take eons to gestate and mature. (It's totally out of continuity..maybe)



#1 - Dr. Doom

While he may lay down the sickest rhymes, he still tops this list due to myriad reasons. For the sake of brevity only the key ones shall be discussed. First among them: he's the biggest "mama's boy" in all of comics. In fact, without his near zealot levels of mommy need he wouldn't even be Dr. Doom in the first place because he never would have constructed the Hell viewing machine to communicate with his dead mom. He has also gone as far to travel to the realm in attempts to rectify the situation.

Just because it's awesome dammit.

When he isn't engaging in sense shattering oedipal action, he's busy saving Christmas. Long story short Doom shoots down Santa and is then tasked with completing his rounds of gift giving and cookie thieving. Which is actually the antithesis of evil. For an encore, he and the Black Panther examined the true meaning of Kwanzaa.

Fought Hannukah Harry to a standstill though.

This one may be kind of a low blow given that he is a fictional character and as such occasionally serves in a misguided metaphorical capacity, but this bears examination due to the inanity of the proposed rhetorical impact: He cried at Ground Zero. Now, it's certainly the most resonant moment in modern American history, but he's a cartoon murderer/ terrorist. He spends much of his time attempting to destabilize regions with little care for collateral damage. Pretty much, it's yet another attempt to ham fist current real world events into a stylized and fictional world. When handled in such an awkward fashion, it trivializes these very real events because it renders them within a realm of very unreal consequences; as this is a universe in which death is merely a hiccup. From a character standpoint it makes the sovereign of Latveria kind of look like a bitch all things considered because as Kanye West would put it "HE'S FUCKING EVIL." If taken as in continuity, I feel that his interactions with Norman Osborn in their cabal would have read as such:

Dr. Doom - Norman given our position of unparalleled power I feel that this vendetta you're carrying out against Spider-Man is little more than a schoolyard skirmish or bathroom wiener measurement contest.

Norman Osborn - Of course you'd say that. you were after all featured on CNN crying like a bitch. Would you care for Ms. Hand ordering you a wahburger and french cries from Five Guys? Or would you prefer that instead of taking out Spider-Man we take out Dr. McDreamy for toying with Meredith's emotions for the past few seasons?

It gets me every time. She remembers who she is for just a second after they read that notebook. Be strong Doom. Be strong...

And in closing there's the fact of Dr. Doom's most embarrassing losses. The first one is the case of Doom stiffing Hero for Hire Luke Cage out of about $800. Granted this was the 1970's and Cage may have needed tiara polish. Anyway, the plot of the issue is that Luke Cage borrows the Fantasticar, raises hell through the sleepy fake nation of Latveria, and gets his money without choking nary a bitch and fighting Doom to a relative standstill. The reason that I mention this is that he could also use the money to pay his nanny Squirrel Girl...who also bested Doom once. And is like Aquaman, but she talks to squirrels. She's an ideal foil to the dogs from "Up" I guess and has a tail and gigantic teeth. That is all.

Quake with fear!