A Guy With Some Marvel Cards

I’ve read a lot of X-Men comics in my time. Like a LOT.

From Uncanny to X-Men to New Mutants to Generation X to X-Factor. I read the fucking X-Terminators mini. I read EVERY goddamn Age of Apocalypse title from the original run (yes, even X-Universe) (But not Gambit and the X-ternals, because fuck that noise. Gambit sucks in any universe). 

I can tell you things about Beast (and Dark Beast), Havok, Artie and Leech, Thunderbird AND Warpath, Cassandra Nova, Senator Kelly, Wolverine (including that period when he didn’t have a nose and wore a bandanna for… reasons), Husk, Bishop, Gambit (know your enemy), Sugarman, Random, Maggot, and about a bajillion others (but if we REALLY get into this topic I’ll probably talk mostly about Mohawk Storm because Mohawk Storm makes me feel feelings about things). 

Anyway, I have a lot of X-knowledge and I still don’t understand how Magik’s powers work. Is she a mutant? Is it magic? I think there are demons involved? Why is she in the X-Men? Shouldn’t she be kicking around with Dr. Strange and Wong? 

I don’t get it. 

And yeah, I probably could have read a Wiki or even flipped the card over (or just looked at the back while I was mugging for the camera here), but what is this a RESEARCH blog about reading? No it is not. 

There’s always that one woman in your life. You know the one. THAT one. 

Maybe it’s an on again/off again relationship or a long distance thing or maybe a “friends with benefits when we’re in the same place we’re together unless we’re not and it’s all really confusing” mess. 

But no matter HOW you define it, when she comes to town it’s never quiet and shit goes DOWN and it’s so fucking passionate and chaotic and crazy and you’re in love, but as great as it is it’s also hella complicated and sometimes tempers flare and you fight and shit keeps getting blown up and there are probably some space pirates or alien parasites or some intergalactic conflict bringing the possibility of the extermination of all life on earth crashing down on your doorstep? 

Yeah, I’ve been in that relationship. At least Xavier gets a hover-chair out of the deal. 

super-graphic:

Storm stats.

Sadly they failed to include the most vital Storm stat of them all: Percentage better (and hotter) Mohawk Storm is than all other Storms: 1,000,000,000,000,000% 

Don’t even question this. I’ve done the maths. 

xcyclopswasrightx:

Just found my favorite Gambit cosplay, EVER.

Anyone know her name?

Ok… This is an improvement. 

But Gambit is still awful. 

Uncanny X-Men in a basketball match by Jim Lee

I can’t even tell you how much I always loved the sports themed issues and scenes from X-Men. Anytime they’d play softball, football, basketball, or whatever it was always great. 

Even if they always followed a similar pattern of “hey we said no powers!” they were still so so great. 

If they sold a collection of all of those I swear I’d buy it. 

(via brianmichaelbendis)

I was on a podcast! Loikamania episode 115 to be exact. 

And I was great! Ok, the other guys were great, but I think I kept up ok. 

We talked about 90’s comics and if you like Marvel Trading Cards (and I assume that you do because you’re reading this, but maybe you just like beard-y guys making stupid facial expressions at a webcam and if so you’re out of luck because I haven’t done a podcast about that… yet) then chances are you’re a fan of 90’s comics.

If you’re not a fan of 90’s comics you’re probably at least AWARE of them (unless you had some sort of of experimental brain surgery to remove all knowledge of 90’s comics from your brain. Which I GUESS is possible, but that seems unlikely and more than a little extreme even if it WOULD scrub all remnants of Maximum Carnage from your brain… Hmmmm… Actually, if you DID get that surgery can you give me the name of your doctor?). 

In any event perhaps you’ll enjoy hearing two handsome and funny gentlemen and also me talking about 90’s comics. I guess it’s also possible (a pessimist might even say probable) that you’ll hate every single second of it. I can’t help you with that, but I am a little curious about the long series of life choices that brought you to this point in your existence where you’re incapable of feeling joy.

I pity you. 

Wherever you fall on the “ability to feel joy” spectrum you should definitely listen to this podcast. For a fun drinking game take a drink every time I interrupt Pat or Dave, talk over everyone else, derail the conversation, or get distracted and forget what I was  

Later, when you sober up (assuming you aren’t dead from alcohol poisoning within the first 18 minutes of the show), you should listen to ALL of Pat’s podcasts and follow him on Twitter because he likes comics and you like comics so maybe you’ll all be best friends forever.

On a personal note, I like Pat. I’m envious of his boundless optimism and steadfast commitment to talking about and supporting things that he likes in and about comics instead bitching about and shitting all over things he doesn’t like. It’s an ugly place where comics meet the internet and it can quickly turn into a wretched hive of scum and villainy where cynical, cowardly, and superstitious fans spend more time talking about what they DON’T like (writers who mix their pop culture references) than what they do (beards). But Pat says “FUCK THAT” (he probably says it nicer than that because he’s SO fucking nice) and commits his time and energy to books, artists, writers, and stories that he genuinely enjoys. Pat’s a pretty great guy (even if he is constantly threatening to destroy me). 

And because I don’t want Dave to feel left out (and because I sort of owe him a solid since I stole the entire premise of this very site from him), you should do ALL of your Christmas and/or Hanukkah shopping at his Lucky Lefty Art Emporium and Discount Speaker Outlet (which may not be what his online shop is actually called, but maybe it should be. That one’s on me Dave. We’re even now.) because he’s a ridiculously talented painter and you or someone you love would be damn lucky to hang one of his paintings on your or their wall (people you hate would probably like his paintings as well, but seriously why are you buying Christmas presents for your enemies? If you’re anything like me that’s going to, like, triple the amount of shopping you have to do). 

I’m going to be up front here. I’ve failed you on this one. 

I wanted so badly to write something clever about Boom Boom and the era she came from. Something about X-Force and what they were all about. How they represented, for better or worse, a sort of changing of the guard for Marvel and the entire X-Universe. Maybe even some REALLY stretched thing about Boom Boom’s vapid personality and ability to create brightly colored flashy time bombs and how that’s totally a metaphor for the shiny, explosive, but ultimately empty flash that was comics in the 90s. 

I set out wanting to do ALL of that. 

But when I look at this card and I see her name all I can hear in my head is a big fat kid filling his diaper and saying “UH OH! I MADE A BOOM BOOM!”. 

So that’s what you get. 

I’m so sorry. 

Shatterstar is just SO Shatterstar-y. There’s really no other way to describe him.

You could go on and on about Liefeld or the scourge of the 90s and how headgear and bad hair and shoulder pads and belt/thigh/arm/cock pouches endeavored to DESTROY ALL COMICS.

How gimmick covers and BIG SHOCKING (ultimately meaningless) deaths and 22 pages of splash page pin-ups were acceptable substitutes for plots and character development and good writing. How character development meant giving a character a bigger gun or making him “gritty” and “real”. You could look at Shatterstar and legitimately argue that he’s a walking embodiment of ALL of that. 

But somehow Shatterstar transcends. He takes all of that stuff to the next level SO FUCKING HARD that you can’t help but just sit back, smile, and say “damn… Shatterstar is just SO Shatterstar-y”. 

Also, he has a sword with TWO blades side by side. How you gonna fuck with that? 

Ha HA! Do you see what I’ve done here? I’ve used a pen to write a question after the name of W.H.O. to indicate that I have no idea WHO (GET IT!?!??!) these guys are. This is the absolute HEIGHT of my comedic abilities. Seriously, it is. This is all I have. 

Surprise, they’re associated with Excalibur or something. I’m so sick of those guys. I swear I’ve been reading comics for over 20 years and there was NEVER a time in my life when I cared about Excalibur and yet if these trading cards are any indication they were a BIG DEAL at some point. 

(Also, please spare me your emails, tweets, messages, threats, etc extolling the virtues of any version of Excalibur past, present, or future. I’ll never care. I promise.) 

Question: Who’s more 90s? 

Bishop has the hair (and for an AWESOME write-up about Bishop’s hair check this out) and the big gun, but Maverick has the belts and the ammo and the headgear/mask thing AND the mysterious backstory and shady links to Wolverine’s past (you guys have heard of Wolverine, right? He has a mysterious past in case you didn’t know. At least he did in the 90s). 

Use the ASK PAGE or chime in below. 

The question is: WHO’S MORE 90S?

daveloves90scomics:

Lobo’s Back!

Where I bought it: I didn’t!

Where I read it: At my friend’s house

 

What I thought/think: Lobo was a revelation. I can clearly recall the 1st issue of the Last Czarnian mini hanging behind the register on the Expensive Back Issue Wall at my childhood comic book store. The cover was dark, foreboding and a little behind my comprehension. It looked more like an older cousin’s heavy metal album than a comic book cover, with one really confusing wrinkle- the DC “bullet” logo. DC Comics was Superman and Batman, and Wonder Woman, not this scary dude with blood coming out of his mouth. The comic was out of my price range though, so it took another year or so to find out what this Lobo dude was all about. 

After school one day I went over to a kid on my school bus’s house  to read comics. We sat and basically read Lobo out loud, due to us repeating every line that made us laugh, and that was a lot of lines. “Feetel’s gizz!” “Bastiche!” I had never read a comic that was so gleefully maniacal and brutal. Lobo’s Back was about Lobo dying, and then killing his way through both Heaven and Hell until he got reincarnated to eject him out of the afterlife. 

Lobo was my first exposure to Keith Giffen’s writing (along with Alan Grant) and the sinewy powerful art of Simon Bisley. It was my first inkling that comics weren’t just the monthly patrols of super-heroes fighting crime. This was subversive, violent, sacrilegious, and hilarious. It was wonderfully immature in its maturity. It lead me to checking out some of those other weird DC books- like Swamp Thing, and Sandman.

Bee Tee Dubbs, if you enjoy all the comics of yesteryear nostalgia that A Guy With Some Marvel Cards brings and you want to see someone do it a LOT better, more frequently, and on a wider variety of topics You MUST check out Dave Love 90s Comics. 

It’s so good it almost makes me want to just give up on whatever it is I’m doing here. 

He made his own X-Men jean jacket for fuck’s sake. How can I compete with that? 

A lot of things during this era of comics got “grim and gritty” and much of it was needless posturing to try to make comics hardcore and cool and adult. So much of it was incredibly lame and obviously trying too hard. They just made everyone ANGRY. Sometimes for no reason. 

But I don’t care if that’s where this version of Archangel came from because he’s TOTALLY awesome. Trading in your feathery wings for razor sharp tools of death and oh by the way your skin is now blue? Upgrade I say. 

Plus since his wings are all mechanical or whatever the fact that he could fold them up and hide them inside his clothes or that backpack or whatever suddenly made a lot more sense. 

C’mon… The secondary color of his costume is PINK and he’s still fucking hardcore.