Spoiler Sunday--Namor Crosses A Line!

Friends, I come to bury last week's Avengers #9, not praise it.

But that involves spoiling the hell out of the issue, so if you haven't read it yet, come back later. The post will still be here.

Spoilers commence after the 5 images of Stingray...

SPOILERS commence now.

Last Wednesday. Jason Aaron tweeted how much he'd wanted to write Namor...

Been wanting to write this dude for a looong time. And this issue is just the beginning of the trouble that'll be raging beneath the waves. pic.twitter.com/YEbJ4NVgKu

— Jason Aaron (@jasonaaron) October 10, 2018

Well, that's nice. And, aside from making him all broody/sexy-Kylo Ren-look-at-my-crotch-area Namor, what did he have in mind for the character?

How about making him a psycho killer?

Sure, Namor's always been a jerk, an ass. Even back in the Golden Age, he couldn't make up his mind between conquering the surface world and just beating up Nazis. That's just a basic part of the character--arrogant prick.

But Aaron has him cross a line.

See, Stingray is fighting Tiger Shark, as brothers-in-law are wont to do. When black leather fetish Namor shows up...

Stingray, fellow Avenger and long-time ally of Namor, tries to talk it out.

 [NOTE: calling out that you're doing the 100th rerun of Namor vs. the surface world doesn't make it any less of a tired cliche. it just makes it a tired self-aware cliche.]

Namor beats the shit out of him. Fine, as we say, Namor is king of the dicks.

But then...

So, yeah, Namor straight up murders Stingray.

Now, you can say that Namor is being controlled, or had too much Ambien, or some such. No evidence of it yet, but as Aaron tweeted, there's a lot of story left to tell here.

And sure, it's possible that Stingray isn't really dead. Maybe the "war sharks" only ate him a little bit, and that "born from the blood of the old" is only metaphorical, despite all the damned real blood we see, and despite the shattered suit, Walt Newell doesn't drown when Namor leaves him bleeding out helplessly deep beneath the waves. But not likely.

Of course, it gets tougher to defend when you see that the "Defenders Of The Deep" that Namor puts together...

...is 100% villains, murderers all.

Why was it necessary to kill Stingray? He was an Avenger. He was often an ally of Namor. Why wasn't kicking the crap out of him enough? Was Namor as asshole not cool enough? Did you have to go full Anakin-killing-the-younglings to make him a credible threat? Because you made him look like Kylo Ren, did you think he had to do something as heinous as killing Han? Was "anti-hero" not trendy enough, so you crossed the line to make him a full on super-villain who feeds former friends to the sharks?

Plus, Stingray had a really cool costume. What the hell, man??

Just watch--at some point in the distant future (because Aaron can't write briefer stories--the "War of the Realms" in Thor is entering it's 6th year!) they'll try to walk it back and have Namor "redeem" himself somehow and all will be forgiven and everyone will be friends again and dance around with Ewoks--and Stingray's murder, like Alderaan, will never be mentioned once.

Hmm, went further than I planned with my Star Wars analogies there...

Bold Fashion Choices--Short Memory!

In this week's Infinity Countdown: Black Widow #1, someone needs a place to put their Infinity Stone!

Wait...what was that, Widow?

Oh, Natasha, what a short memory you have:

You were part of the "pouch crowd," my dear. Hell, you were chairperson during the "leather jackets and pouches" era!!

Still, if I had dressed like that, I would have tried to block memories of the 1990s, too...

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Getting Medieval On The Avengers' @$$es!!

Morgan Le Fay has used the Twilight Sword and the kidnapped Scarlet Witch's powers to transform the modern world into her own medieval playground:

Let's watch George Perez and company give us Arthurian versions of 30+ Avengers, shall we?

Click on this one to embiggen--it's worth it!

Oh, and all of these "Queen's Revengers" had olde tyme names, too:

Gosh I love comics.

Still, Morgan Le Fay, Kulan Gath, etc...why do all of these villains want to turn modern-day into a copy of their home time periods? You'd think that constantly getting their ass kicked back then would make them less nostalgic for home. Plus, indoor plumbing, right?

All I know is, if I were to wake up in say the 26th century and somehow had ultimate power, the last thing I would do is transform everything into an ersatz late20th/early 21th century cosplay fest. But maybe that just proves that I'm not sufficiently evil...

From Avengers #2-3 (1998)

Manic Monday--I've Got Your "Widescreen" Right Here!

The antidote to "deconstruction" in storytelling:

Start with a fight scene per page...

The very next page, double it to two fight scenes...

...then four fights per page...

...and 6...

...and eighteen (yes, 18)!!

...and then 18 plus a giant FWASH!!

That's more action in the first 6 pages then you get in the first 6 issues of many modern comics...

From Avengers #1 (1998), art by George Perez and Al Vey, script by Kurt Busiek.

Good Gravy, I Hate Sliding Time-Scales

From this week's Avengers #1 (don't worry, no story spoilers here):

Superbowl XL was February, 2006. 

Which means Cap was revived after that.

Which means that Cap slept through the Cold War.
And Vietnam.
And Watergate.
And disco.
And that he wouldn't understand any of the references from Happy Days or That 70s Show.
Cap slept through Rodney King and O.J. Simpson.
He slept through Calvin and Hobbes.
He slept through 9/11.
He slept through Tupac and Biggie.
He slept through Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise.
He slept through Sean Connery and George Lazenby and Roger Moore And Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.
He slept through William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton and John Pertwee and Tom Baker and Peter Davidson and Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston. And Peter Cushing, too. He may have been unthawed for David Tennant's first season.

Why oh why do they have to tie these things to specific dates? 

P.S. This means the Avengers were formed in 2005 or 2006, giving you a starting date for the Fantastic Four of roughly 2003-2004. Which at least probably fits with the recent Marvel Two-In-One that showed Reed & Ben & Von Doom in college together in 1998...

Friday Night Fights--Toom Toom Toom Style!!

Sometimes Friday Night Fights takes us to stupid, better-off-forgotten alternate universes.

Like the Heroes Reborn universe, where someone is knocking at the door of Avengers Mansion...

Oh, sucker punch!!

Spacebooger is fairly sure that no matter what reality, Wonder Man's costume will always be terrible.

Marvel leased out it's legacy in Avengers #7 (1997), by Rob Liefeld (plot), Jeph Loeb (plot & script), Ian Churchill (pencils) and Lary Stucker & Jon Sibal & Norm Rapmund (inks)

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Well, actually, you probably shouldn't. I mean, Heroes Reborn--what was I thinking? Still, go and vote!!

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--The Old Order Changeth ...QUICKLY!!

Reminder...

...at one point this was the Avengers line-up. Yeesh.

It is perhaps telling about how short-lived that line-up was that this pin-up didn't appear until months after that line-up had been shuffled offstage. Oops.

Also telling is that Jackson Guice had absolutely no idea what to do with Gilgamesh, so he just gets buried in the background. No wonder he was the Forgotten One!!

As for the idea of Reed being a hammock for sun-bathing/cheesecakey Sue, well, the less said the better. I'm pretty sure, from that look on his face, that Cap doesn't approve, either.

From Marvel Fanfare #45 (1989)

The Magic Of Reading Comics Written In 1977!!

Hank, Jan and special guest Nighthawk have just stopped the Porcupine--yes, the Porcupine--from robbing one of Jan's fashion shows...

Oh, yeah!!



Man, that never got old!!

From the same issue...

"People beeper."

The Avengers--always keeping things topical!!

From Avengers #167 (1978)

Manic Monday--Thor's B.R.S. (Beast Retrieval System)!!

The Guardians of The Galaxy have, without warning, bopped their massive space station back in time, to 1978!

The Avengers go to investigate! The Beast and the (classic) Guardians don't recognize each other, so fighting ensues!!

How to stop this?!?

Whoop indeed!!

That was one heck of a bit of aim there, Thor--throwing Mjolnir so that it would perfectly ensnare Hank's foot (while he was in motion!) in it's handle!

I wonder if he could do that to, say, fetch the remote control from the other side of the room...

From Avengers #167 (1978)

Friday Night Fights--Armor Wars Style!!

Sometimes the best Friday Night Fight is one that didn't actually happen...in Marvel-616, at least.

Yeah, the Watcher is breaking the rules by telling all of us about one of them there alternate reality thingamabobs.

Long story short? On this Earth, when Hulk quit the Avengers (in Avengers #2 (1963), natch), Thor also quit, because he thought Tony Stark was being a jerk--go figure. So Giant-Man and the Wasp quit, too, because without Thor and Hulk, they think "'the Mighty Avengers' is a joke!"

Ahh, but Namor and the Hulk still team-up to conquer the world, and still need to be stopped. So like a man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail, Stark "fixes" things by making suits of armor for Rick Jones & Pym & Jan.

They're reluctant, so Tony super-charges his own armor and goes off to face the terrible twosome alone. He puts up a good fight, but ends up getting beat badly.

Fortunately, the others come to their senses, and come to help. But are they too late?

Take that, Hulk!!

Just as in "our" world, the Avengers manage to break up the alliance. But in this world, the cost is higher...

Awwwww...

Spacebooger wants the next Marvel Event to be Tony making armor for literally every hero.

Mark Waid's favorite Avengers story is from What If? #3 (1977), by Jim Shooter (writer, co-plot), Gil Kane (pencils, co-plot) and Klaus Jansen (inks)

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Consider the cruel outcome in an alternate universe where you voted for someone else!! So go and vote!!