expatNERD

Author: Marv

  • Justice League Quarterly #5

    I am going to take a page out of Frank’s book and recommend something from the past, inspired by Comic Book Ninja. This week it is Justice League Quarterly #5 and in particular a beautiful story written by Mark Waid and drawn by Mike McKone called Be Careful What You Wish For, which is the lead story. As you know from Comic Book Ninja Part I, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis had a very successful run on Justice League International. During this period two titles spun off from it, Justice League Europe, and Justice League Quarterly, which was a comic book that came out every three months and had around 80 pages.

    Be Careful What You Wish For is extremely touching. I implore all of you to dig up this issue and I know you can probably find it in a lot of dollar bins out there. I do not want to spoil it, but the story focuses on Ice and her insecurities. Professor Ivo sends his Amazo robots out into the world and they steal powers from specific super-heroes for a specific reason. Again, I do not want to spoil it but it is extremely well written, well drawn, and there are a lot of fun moments. I will give one away, Ice ends up using Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern ring at one point…

    It’s just a great comic. Additionally, Mark Waid is still going strong and pretty much runs the D.C. line at this time of writing and he has used Professor Ivo quite a bit in World’s Finest and other places, so it does seem like he really enjoys writing the character.

    Cheerio

    -Marv

  • 14 – Comic Book Ninja II

    14 – Comic Book Ninja II

    Everyone loves a good flashback scene. And everyone loves a good origin story. So why not combine the two? Behold! The secret origin of Comic Book Ninja! The ultimate arbitrator that allows everyone to see reason and come to their senses. And last I checked he does not even carry a ninja sword to do so! I mean, if someone in a ninja costume suddenly appeared in front of you and told you to behave, I think you would have no choice but to do so.

    And this is a true story. Armageddon 2001 was frustrating. It took you on a path, introduced a new character called Waverider, and just when you cracked your knuckles and were about to revel in the big reveal, it was taken from you. And it was very obvious what they did.

    Also, if you were a Captain Atom fan at the time and you saw it going where it was supposedly going, I can imagine you were also a bit upset. Whether Captain Atom would turn to the dark side was already explored in his own book by John Ostrander who took the book to its end. Captain Atom literally battled against a dark Captain Atom and won. Or maybe he did not, because I guess you could say the ending was a bit open-ended. But I think good prevailed against evil there.

    But hey, that is comics. And I think the real moral of this story is that you definitely had to be a prick in real life if you had the ability to be rude and call people names to their faces. Now everyone can hide behind their fake names and fake avatars, which gives everyone the ability to be pricks. So why not use your real name when conversing around the internet? I know I sure do!

    I hope you enjoyed the comic and I really think Franka outdid herself with this one.

    -Marv