A Guy With Some Marvel Cards

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? 

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?

Sweet! Checklist!

Now I can finally start keeping track of all of these. But wait… I don’t want to mark up this pristine checklist card. So now I have to wait until I get another one before I can start checking things off.

Dammit.

Brought back to life by a Moon God. Got that? 

It doesn’t say this on the card, but I swear I remember it being true that Moon Knight’s powers waxed and waned (MOON TERMS) with the phases of the Moon. Moon Knight should fight Captain Britain somewhere outside of England during a new moon and I would totally be interested in that (no I wouldn’t). 

Also, the back of this card has like four or five exclamation points. I think they’re trying too hard to get me hyped up about Moon Knight. 

I can see the pitch meeting where this dude was cooked up. 

“We’ll awkwardly cram together Iron Man and The Falcon then we’ll paint him black. What’s that? You want some Wolverine type claws thrown in? Done.” 

But at least he has a cool origin right? RIGHT? Where are you going? 

“Just an ordinary teenager until he happened upon an abandoned amusement park, young Chris Powell saw his life change when he discovered an arcane amulet in the ruins.” 

Happened upon an abandoned amusement park? What was he doing Scooby Doo LARPing? And this abandoned amusement park was home to some sort of magic amulet? Junkies hadn’t turned that up in what must have been numerous passes through “the ruins” looking for anything of value. 

You’re suspect Darkhawk… SUSPECT! 

This is the sort of thing that I can get behind. Just your average hood from the streets who got experimented on by the government while in prison trying to make good teamed up with a wealthy martial artist. It’s a story as old as time. 

Blaxpotation is cool, right? So are kung-fu, martial arts, and ninjas! Fuck it, slap em together into one AWESOME BOOK!

Wait a minute. In the last picture I had new glasses, but now I’m back to my old ones. This is the sort of continuity error that REALLY pulls you, the poor reader, out of the story. 

Can anyone No-Prize this for me?

Cosmic shmosmic. This guy is a fucking pervy weirdo. 

Sorry dudes (and chick dudes), this offer no longer valid. 

Look I could sit here all day and make “look at this big fat piece of shit” jokes, but the fact is that Slug manages to control a drug dealing empire from his custom made “wheelchair/forklift”. When you do YOUR job from the comfort of a custom forklift go ahead and give me a call. 

Here’s a team-up that makes total sense. 

A biker with a flaming head who fights demons and stuff and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. This team-up in no way reeks of just throwing together a couple characters who were hot at the time. I’m going to guess that they had some differences, but found a common goal or something and defeated a blah blah blah blah. 

Is Ghost Rider even still around? Whatever, I’m bored with this card. Yeah, that’s right. I go weeks without an update and I’m already bored. My fuckin’ Tumblr. Deal with it. 

NEXT! 

RELOAD!

Coming soon…

Did you know that Sauron can breathe fire? 

Neither did anyone else, but Bendis says it’s so, so Sauron can breathe fucking fire ok? 

Fucking mutants (Bendis I mean). 

I’ve probably seen this scene recreated in one form or another more than any scene from a comic that I’ve never actually read ever. 

Does that compute? Because I tried that sentence like eleven different ways and I still don’t think it makes a lick of sense.