HEROCLIX!

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http://www.chargingstarcomics.com/?q=node/161

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Incredible Hulk #600 - Numbers are hard

There is controversy over the numbering of The Incredible Hulk #600. Let's break it down:

Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 and 2 - 474 issues
Incredible Hulk Vol. 3 - 112 issues
Hulk (by Jeph Loeb currently) 12 issues

Equals = 598 - meaning it should be #599

However: Incredible Hulk was taken over by Hercules at issue #112, meaning we are one more short, so #598.

However: I also dispute the notion that the 12 issues of Hulk should count, considering the original title changed to Hercules but kept going, so #586

OR: count all of the issues of Incredible Hercules to #135, then we get #621.

Whichever way you want to look at it, Incredible Hulk #600 is not #600, and its crap that this seems to be the Year of 600 over at Marvel, despite what the issue numbers may imply. Now i'm going to take an Advil and lie down, my head hurts.

Greg Pak Returns to Incredible Hulk

Joe Quesada ruins the concept of numbering forever!

Rejoice, Hulk fans! Pak goes back to Incredible Hulk with #601. Incredible Hercules continues on its own, and Son of Hulk soldiers on as well. Unfortunately, Hulk gets to live on as well. Don't try to figure out what happened with the numbering, since Incredible Hulk became Incredible Herc, and then returned with 600, even though it was one off, if you do the math...ow, my brain. I need a Bruce Banner level intelligence to figure this all out...

Captain Kirk is Thor!

Well, Captain George Kirk. Chris Hemsworth, who recently played James T. Kirk's father in the recent Star Trek film, is slated to play Thor in Marvel's upcoming movie. Check out the story from Newsarama.















He's gonna have to bulk up, but at least we know two things:
1)He is a good actor (he was quite memorable in his few minutes of screen time in Star Trek)
2) He doesn't look completely un-like the Norse God of Thunder. Just squint a little.

I am a little disappointed we didn't get James Preston Rogers, but as of now, Bill's Beta Ray Blog gives the selection an Official Seal of Approval.


UPDATE: According to IMDb.com, Tom Hiddleston has been cast as Loki for the Thor movie. Moving right along! Dude looks like a trickster...

Bat-news

DC's blog, The Source, has some preview art from the new family of Bat-books that are soon underway. Still not a fan of Batwoman heading up Detective...

The final part of Battle for the Cowl hits next week, setting the stage for this post Bruce Wayne era. The best we can hope for is that the stories are good. I imagine it is just a matter of time until Bruce returns a regains his spot in Detective Comics. Yeah, I might be a little bitter...

Hot Links: The Revenge

Holy Crap! Pitt makes his triumphant return to comics in August in a crossover mini-series with The Darkness! I collected a lot of Pitt back in the day. Man, it feels like 1995 again!


This ain't your daddy's Starro! Another look at the Starro redesign. looks like Starro and Conan the Barbarian.

A look at the new upcoming Doom Patrol series by Kieth Giffen. Couldn't be more excited about this. I hope we get to see Robotman soon!

Star Trek was fantastic, by the way. Loved it. Here is an article nit-picking the science in the movie, quite favorably though.

What have we done?

Wolverine's opening weekend take was enough to immediately spawn TWO sequels, a second dose of Wolverine and a Deadpool spin-off. I have to admit that I am not exactly excited about this prospect. If we could somehow get Marvel to produce these movies instead of FOX, it would be much better for everyone. How much will Deadpool be screwed up this time around? Any Deadpool movie needs to be rated R and be a parody of itself, that is the essence of Deadpool, anything else would not work. DP played as a straight action movie with "jokes" is just plain wrong. Are you listening, FOX?
Perhaps the Wolverine sequel will be closer to my script idea for a movie based on everyone's favorite runty Canadian; one hour and 45 minutes of Wolvie fighting ninjas in Japan. We already have the set-up, let's see if we can follow through.
And that brings me to this: hilarious and awesome.

Hot Links - May

I saw Wolverine. It wasn't great by any means, especially in this post Iron Man and The Dark Knight world we currently live in. Mark Engblom over at Comic Coverage keeps it in perspective with his review. I tend to agree, let's not go off the deep end slamming this movie. I would add that the story does fall apart at the end, which does not work for me.

One of my biggest problems with the movie was the treatment they gave Deadpool. (Am I right, DP fans?) Check out the pic someone made of what could have been. Oh, how sweet it is!

What is this? My guess is someone asked Frank Frazetta to draw Starro, and he had only a passing idea of who Starro is...

What?...

First, Herc takes over Hulk's book, now this? Where does it end? Maybe with The Amazing, Incredible, Fantastic, Immortal Spider-Four-Thorcules Fist? It might be cool, and it is being written by Fred Van Lente AND Greg Pak, so it's got that going for it.

The new artist for Thunderbolts, starting with issue #133, is Miguel Sepulvida. Newsarama has a preview, and it looks super sweet so far.

Star Trek on Friday!

Free Comic Book Day!

This Saturday at your local comic book store, go get a free comic book or three! Did I mention they are free? It looks like there are some good selections this year; Avengers, a Blackest Night preview, and that's just from the Big Two. I'll be hanging out for most of the day at Charging Star Comics in Conklin, NY. If you are in the area, stop in, its like Christmas Part 2!


As you may know, X-men Origins: Wolverine opens this Friday. I am planning to see it, though I am not expecting much more than a big-budget, over-blown, Hollywood fight-fest. No doubt it will look and sound amazing, while the story will be a ridiculously contrived mangling of the Wolverine mythos in order to cram as many claw inspired fights into two hours as humanly (or mutantly?) possible.

In my experience, there are two types of X-men fans: the comic book reading fans who know the stories and don't like Gambit, and the fans who only saw the cartoon of the 90's and think Gambit is the greatest thing to come out of Louisiana since the Utah Jazz. Let's be clear, this movie is for the second set of fans. I only hope there are enough redeeming qualities for the fanboys to at least enjoy the movie and not be sick in their popcorn.

Newsrama has a concise retelling of Wolverine's origin story here, so print it out, take it to the movie with you, and then crumple it up about 3 seconds in when they screw everything up.
Actually, the Newsrama article has inspired me to further distill Wolverine into a haiku:

Dead wives, surrogate daughters,
No memory, claws,
Adamantium, SNIKT!, bub.


Comics I bought this week:

Batman: Battle for the Cowl - The Underground

Dark Avengers #4

Thunderbolts #131
This one is the conclusion of the 4 part crossover with Deadpool, and it was a hoot! If you missed out on it, watch for the trade. Deadpool is one of the most entertaining comics out there, though I'm still on the fence about the new 'Bolts team. The boost from DP certainly helped, I'm just afraid the current cast of nobodys will fail to hold my attention for very long. The old team (the current Dark Avengers) is much more interesting.

Megan Fox in Jonah Hex movie

First, the genius casting of Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex, and now this photo on Newsrama of Megan Fox in her, um, historically accurate outfit...yes, I will be seeing this film.

Mjolnir Watch '09

The watch continues!

Thor #601 hit this week, with a gorgeous cover by Marko Djurdjevic I might add. So let's investigate the current state of the mightiest weapon of all, Mjolnir!

If you remember, we last left Thor after he unwittingly killed his grandfather in battle which left Mjolnir in a sad, broken state:

This issue opens with Thor and Dr. Don Blake dealing with this fact. I appreciate that Straczynski takes the time to deal with this properly, and right out in the front of the story. Considering some of the chicanery with Mjolnir that has taken place in the recent past by other, shall we say, less concerned writers, ( I'm looking at you, Mr. Loeb) this is quite refreshing.

I'd say it is pretty bad, pal. Thor explains to Blake that this has happened before, but by the work of some kind of magic that was subsequently reversed. In this case, the hammer was broken by killing a god, which is unprecedented. How do you fix an enchanted hammer that was forged in the center of a star? Luckily for Blake, Mjolnir still works so that he and Thor can trade places, and Blake is careful to bring the pieces of his also broken stick (the mortal analog to Mjolnir) along with him.

Also in this issue, Loki's plan to move all of the inhabitants of Asgard to Latveria under the watchful eye of Doctor Doom come to fruition. I'm not sure where this is leading, but nowhere good, I'm sure of that.

Also, Doom admits he Wiki'd winkles.
All in all, a great read and a good direction for this story. I admit I have not been reading Straczynski's run on Thor until issue #600, but after this issue, I am going to go back and catch up with the trades. As Thor would say:


*cue AC/DC music*

Two Similar and Equally Awesome Things

First Awesome Thing:
Secret Invasion: Aftermath: Beta Ray Bill: Green of Eden

Yes, the title contains many awesome colons, and once you get past the cover, one finds the insides to contain even more awesomeness. Very good story by Keiron Gillen that moves Beta Ray Bill's story forward and gives him something to think about on the way to his upcoming showdown with Galactus. Plus, a simple equation for you: The Warriors Three + Super-Skrull Technology = ?

If you answered "Awesome," congrats, you are paying attention.

Second Awesome Thing:



This may be the greatest movie ever made. Once it comes out on DVD, this hypothesis will be confirmed.

Now consider the similarities of The Two Awesome Things:

Beta Ray Bill is an alien who gets his power from an ancient Norse god.

Outlander is about an alien that lands in ancient Norse times and fights other aliens that look like Dragons.

They are practically identitical!