Bed Time!

So a few months back a comic collection called "Fearsome Fables" was released by Ink'd Well Comics for a charity called Child's Play. That trade paperback is a fantastic collection of short all ages spooky stories and turned out wonderfully. You can buy it HERE, through Ink'd Well Comics website. You can get a physical copy for $20 or a digital copy for a mere $10. If you haven't bought it yet then what are you waiting for? Do it up!

In that collection me and a good friend of mine, Ricky King, who's art blog full of his fantastic artwork called  "From Earth" (Which can be seen HERE) teamed up to contribute our own little four page story to the cause. If you haven't seen it yet, well then your in luck because here is the whole thing in its entirety. Enjoy!

Don't you love comics?

My Top 5 Worst Spider-Man Villains

After listing off My Top 30 Spider-Man Villains I figured that it would be only right for me to explore the other end a little bit and also list My Top 5 Worst Spider-Man Villains. Spider-Man might have one of the best rogues galleries in comics history (With only Batman's rogues gallery as any real competition to that title) They can't all be hits, in fact there are indeed some real losers out there, I think that these following five are the worse. Somehow "villains" like The Walrus, Grizzly, Gibbon and Kangaroo managed to avoid this list.

 #5 Rocket Racer 

 Real Name: Robert Farrell

First Appearance: Sept 1977's Amazing Spider-Man #172

About: Only mostly a villain Rocket Racer has had most of his run ins with the law as a small time bugler. Has his name would suggest he has a rocket powered skateboard, ok so the skateboard might not be suggested in the name but the rocket powered part is. Although still mostly a villain Rocket Racer unlike most villains has a very strong code of ethics and a deep respect for Spider-Man. Rocket Racer might of been well ahead of his time. Yup you heard that right had Rocket Racer debuted in the mid to late 1990s instead of the late 1970s he could of been a lot more relevant but alas that was not the case. Not helping matters is the fact that he seemed to be the only person to think the Bat-nipples in Batman and Robin were a good idea and stole the idea for his redesigned costume. Awful.

#4 Stegron 

Real Name: Vincent Stegron

First Appearance: March 1974's Marvel Team-Up #19

About: Gotta love Marvel's line of thinking. Hey The Lizard is popular so lets make a new improved version of the same character but instead of merely making him a lizard lets make him a DINOSAUR! Yeah kids love Dinosaurs right? He'll be a hit! Well not so much. Stegron even has a similar origin to The Lizard's. You see Vincent Stegron was obsessed with the experiments that Dr. Conners did that on himself that caused him to become the Lizard and recreated them only with Dinosaur DNA from the Savage Land instead of plain old Lizard DNA. Shockingly (not really) Stegron never caught on despite his dinosaurness since he is mostly seen (and rightfully so) as a Lizard wannabe and why use a wannabe when the real deal is already part of Spidey's rogues gallery.

#3 Hypno-Hustler

 

Real Name: Antoine Delsoin

First Appearance:  Nov. 1978's Spectacular Spider-Man #24

About: Disco was really damn popular at one point in the 1970s and during that time we have gotten great characters like Dazzler and Hypno-Hustler. Wait, what's that? You have never heard of Hypno-Hustler? I can't imagine why hes a guy who uses a guitar to hypnotize people so that he can carry out his petty crimes of robbing the small club owners safe. As if that wasn't enough he also has boots that emit knock out gas. Yup this Disco all star was a real dud.

#2 Big Wheel

Real Name: Jackson Weele

First Appearance: 1978's Amazing Spider-Man #182

About: Now here's a crappy low level villain if there ever was one. Simply put Big Wheel is a giant metal wheel that has spikes, guns, arms and runs over things. Sounds great huh? Jackson Weele is naturally  a crooked businessman who was blackmailed by fellow Spider-Man "villain" and top 5 worse Spider-Man villain, Rocket Racer, and attempted to gain vengeance on the kid by running him over in a giant wheel or something. Spider-Man saved the other would be crappy villain and Big Wheel flew into The Hudson River. Somehow Big Wheel has shown up more then once and every now and then pops up to terrorize skaters everywhere and to be a general non-threat to anybody.

#1 Typeface

Real Name: Gordon Thomas

First Appearance: Nov 2000's Peter Parker: Spider-Man Vol. 2 #23

About: You know your a crappy villain when you make Big Wheel look like hes on par with The Green Goblin but that's just what the pathetic Typeface does. Spider-Man might have some of the best villains in comics but as you have seen in this article hes got some pretty lame ones as well but all of those lame villains take a backseat to this smuck. Basically he writes letters on his face and uses weapons shaped as letters to fight with. Watch out Spidey Typeface just threw a giant lower case "g" at you!

Well there we go that pretty much sums up all of my Spider-Man villains lists, hope you enjoyed them. If so make sure to comment below or share it Twitter,

Electric Superman

Superman was having a hard time in the 1990's. He died, he came back with a mullet, he got married. It seems like DC did just about everything that they could to keep the man of steel relevant at the time and for the most part it didn't work. The biggest shock (no pun intended) though came when DC decided to strip away everything Superman was known for and pretty much start him over fresh. Naturally I'm talking about when he went electric.

 

 Now right away we all knew this was destined to fail. Superman can't be electric, hes The Man Of Steel for crying out loud. Still though I guess you can't blame them for trying something right?

So for those of you who don't know DC abandoned Superman's old powers and look and gave him a bunch of new powers and a fresh coat of paint. With these new powers he could open portals to other dimensions, divide his consciousness into separate entities, absorb and translate energies from any form into any other, merge with computer and other electronic and electrical systems, control the forces of magnetism, and create a solid energy field, manipulate electrons, become invisible or intangible and teleport and finally visually detect the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Well they took away a shit ton of powers but they replaced them with a shit ton of new ones! On top of that he was no longer weak against kryptonite. There was a trade off though, now whenever Superman was Clark Kent he was just a regular powerless human.
 
The sales started off strong, of course they did this was Superman and it was something radically different, people had to check it out. Naturally however this couldn't last forever and before long Superman fans were calling for the man of electricity to go away and the man of steel to return and when the sales started to reflect this then the time came for a return to tradition. A storyline was cooked up were Toyman split Superman into two distinct Supermen, the blue superman that had been around since the change and a red one.

 Both had the same powers but had slightly different personalities. I don't know a whole lot more on it but by the end both Blue and Red Supermen merged back together to bring back the traditional Superman of old, well if you consider the mullet traditional anyways, and they have never looked back since.

 Here's the thing. I actually liked the electric Superman. Sure it couldn't last nor would I of wanted it to but I think that DC shouldn't of wasted so much time and energy on this new Superman, what they could of had out of this was a fantastic new character. I don't care what anyone says that costume was awesome, all they had to do was remove that "S" shield and there you go all new character with an amazing set of powers. He could of been big instead it was just used as another attempt to make people care about Superman in the 1990's.

Senebti Moon Knight

Well that sure didn't take long. Looks like once again Moon Knight is getting the ax. That's right after issue #12 hits the shelves Marvel is going to cancel Moon Knight once again. For those of you keeping count this will be the third Moon Knight comic that has been canceled since 2006 with each series Moon Knight vol. 4, Vengeance of Moon Knight and Moon Knight Vol. 5 ending with a total of 30, 10 and 12 issues respectively.

I guess when you add it all together a 52 issue run isn't all bad but still it isn't a single 52 issue run, its three different runs. Each one of which in my humble opinion has been better then the last. Who knows maybe we will be lucky and Marvel will announce yet another Moon Knight series before 2012 comes to an end. It certainly wouldn't surprise me since Marvel loves their reboots. More #1's do mean more money I suppose. Still weather they bring Moon Knight back for another series remains to be seen though since the current one still has a few issues to go.

Am I the only one who thinks Moon Knight fits in fine with these other characters?

Moon Knight to me is one of those characters that not a whole lot of people care about but those that do care about him love him very much, as you can guess I would go into that category. I guess I'm still waiting for that one writer to come along and really tap into the greatness that is Moon Knight and drags him out of the B or C lists and throw him straight into the A list, I mean seriously is Deadpool is on the A list the Moon Knight most definitely should be. Unfortunately the latest run of Moon Knight was written by Marvels top dog Brian Michael Bendis and if he can get more people to give Moon Knight a chance then I don't know who can.

So it looks like from here on in the only Moon Knight action I will get will be in Secret Avengers a book I was about to drop but now seems as though it will stay on my old pull list so I can continue to get my Moon Knight fix.

So Moon Knight until your next series hits the shelves, hopefully sooner then later, I must bid you Senebti.

Comic Book Review: Spider-Man: The Real Clone Saga

Despite the terribleness that was Spider-Man 3 there was nothing that did as much damage to the Spider-Man franchise over the years as The Clone Saga. For those of you who are not aware of what it is then I give you a spoiler alert but also beg you not to look into reading it.

"Basically" The Clone Saga was a storyline that some how ran in Spider-Man comics for over two years. The gist of it is this. Spider-Man is one of the most beloved comic characters of all time but not just for his super hero alter ego but also his real identity of Peter Parker. During a 1973 storyline in The Amazing Spider-Man the webslinger was cloned by a villain named The Jackal and at the end of the issue both The Jackal and the clone were killed off. Over all it was a great story and the issue became a classic, unfortunately 21 years later that classic issue would become infamous, but not for a good reason.

After all this time it was revealed that both The Jackal and the clone had survived. The Clone felt angry over his existence since he had all of Peter's memories he believed he was the genuine article until the end of that classic issue when he discovered he was a clone. Despite being the clone since he did still have all of the memories of Peter Parker he was also instilled with the same values of with great power comes great responsibility. With that in mind he left New York for good leaving the real Peter to live out his life in peace and to seek his own life under a new name that would combine the name of his late uncle and his beloved Aunt May's maiden name, Ben Riley.

After returning to New York however it is revealed by The Jackal to Peter and Ben that Peter the man we have known for the last 21 years (5 years in the comics time line) was in fact the clone and that Ben was the real Spider-Man.

I won't get into the rest of the crap because it is enough to give anyone a headache lets just sum up by saying after The Jackal was seemingly killed off again and Peter decided that since he was not the real Spider-Man that he would pass the mantel on to The Scarlet Spider, the alter ego that Ben had created for himself. With Peter retired comic fans suffered seemingly forever having to endure the worst retcon in comic history that our beloved Peter Parker had been a fake for all these years while Ben Riley swung around New York saving the day as our new friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, this all continued until, just to throw another twist in there for twists sake, Norman Osborn, the first, best and most evil of the Green Goblins, returning from the dead to kill Ben Riley and reveal that he was the true mastermind behind the clone saga and that Peter was indeed the real Spider-Man. What makes this so crazy is that Norman Osborn had been dead himself for over 20 years! They explained this away by saying that the goblin serum kept him alive and that he had just been in Europe (where else?) the entire time.

Sure it was a shitty ending but the important part was that it had FINALLY ended, Peter was revealed as the one true Spider-Man all along who returns to the role, Ben was dead and Spider-Man's greatest enemy of all time The Green Goblin was back from the dead.

One would think that would be enough clone saga for anyone forever but not for Marvel since last year they decided that it would be a good idea to get the original team behind the clone saga to return to write the mini-series "Spider-Man: The Clone Saga" in which they would tell the story the way it was supposedly originally intended. The funny thing, it was only six issues. It seemed impossible to fit over two years worth of story into a mere six issues. However since I am apparently a sucker for punishment and because I still have a sour taste in my mouth from the clone saga that never quite went away I decided to buy the trade and give it a shot. So the question is, how was it and what is the difference between what it was SUPPOSED to be and what we got.

Well it starts off once again with Ben Riley returning to New York and pretty much the first thing that happens is that Ben runs into Spider-Man, naturally. The two have a fight but when they are interrupted by a car thrown at them by a hiding Kaine, yet another clone, they work together to save the day and Peter comes to the realization that Ben is on the up and up and wants to cause no trouble. By the end of the issue Peter already considers Ben his brother.

I have a bit of a problem with this. In the original clone saga a big thing between Peter and Ben's relationship was that they were "brothers." I can buy this since Ben was around for a very (to long) time back then and you could see the relationship form and build. Here through they team up save the day and we are to assume that they now have that same relationship. If that's the case then Peter should consider everyone he has teamed up with over the years his "brother." That's right folks, Daredevil, Captain America, Wolverine, hell even Deadpool and the members of The Power Pack are all his "brothers" (and two sisters in case of The Power Pack) on that logic.

By the next issue Ben had adopted The Scarlet Spider persona to much ridicule from Peter, mostly because of the name and the fact that he wore a hoodie. Back in the original clone saga Peter was a stand up guy and never mocked Ben for the name or poor costume choice that included a hoodie. However now that it has been mocked for years the writer seemed to decide to make fun of the name and hoodie whenever they got a chance to. Yeah we get it guys we don't need you to beat us over the head with it.

Soon they confront the Jackal and the worse part of this mini happens. The Jackal does the big reveal that Peter is the clone and that Ben is the real Spider-Man. So the problem? That reveal was shitty as could be since it was the main part of the entire storyline. Here The Jackal casually mentions it and both Peter and Ben seem more indifferent to it then anything else. Peter should of been devastated to learn that he was a clone and Ben devastated to know that he had given up his life for nothing and had been living a lie for five years. Here after defeating The Jackal (killing him again) Peter, who had recently learned that Mary Jane was pregnant (yes that's here too!) decides, seemingly on a whim or without a care, that since he is the clone, or I should say IF he is a clone, it was never definitively stated that he was in this mini, they just seemed to go with it with no argument which is nuts, why would they take The Jackals word on this? Anyways he decides that he was going to pass the mantel of Spider-Man on to Ben its rightful owner while he lives the good life to take care of his soon to be family and Ben simply accepts. No anger from either party.

Soon enough its revealed that everything that was happening was because a mystery man had hired Kaine to get The Jackals cloning notes and formulas to clone Spider-Man's greatest enemy of all time Norman Osborn, though it is not yet revealed who this mystery man is.

I'll just skip to the end now then. Ben Riley is Spider-Man, Peter and Mary Jane's baby is born and promptly kidnapped and it is revealed that the man who had cloned Norman Osborn to bring him back from the dead was none other then... wait for it.... wait for it.... HARRY OSBORN!!!

That's right this time around Harry, who himself was ALSO killed, recently before the original clone saga happened was revealed to of not been dead at all but simply laying low and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike! He reveals that Peter is the real Spider-Man to no ones caring and at the end Peter and Ben, who are both in there respective Spider-Man costumes with the aid of the Norman clone, who is soon killed off.... yes another killing, all team up to defeat Harry who flies away on the Goblin Glider and in typical evil villain form, vows to have his revenge another day. Meanwhile Kaine who has had a change of heart returns the baby to Mary Jane.

SOOOOOO at the end of this clone saga, which we must remember was how it was originally intended. Norman is dead again after being revived for roughly a whole issue, Harry is still alive and well as the Green Goblin, Peter is revealed to be the real Spider-Man in a very nonchalant way and is the happy father to a new baby girl, but since he IS indeed the real Spider-Man decided to take up the costume again, since you know, with great power comes great responsibility....even though he had never lost his powers when he gave up the mantle when he thought he was the clone, while a still living Ben Riley hops on his motorcycle and rides out of New York into the sunset to be seen again another day.

So where do I stand on this, is it better or worse then the original? Well that's easy, its MUCH better if for no other reason the the fact that it was 6 months as opposed to two years. My main gripe with it though? Believe it or not is the fact that it was actually to short and to do what they wanted to do with it they should of made it closer to 12 issues worth of comics. Now I know what your thinking. 12 issues? That's a full years worth a comics and the worse thing about the original clone saga was that it was over two years worth of issues! Well your right but if it the original storyline was 12 issues I would of also been fine with it. Thing is back then Spider-Man had FOUR titles a month so with some simple math you can see that this bullshit went on for around 100 issues give or take. 100 issues of that shit!?! C'mon! 12 issues? Sure that's perfect. Six issues? Surprisingly enough, to short.

As for the ending, I am for the most part happier with the original ending. We got Norman Osborn back as The Green Goblin, the baby was never to be seen again, Harry was still dead and Ben was dead. In fact the only thing I liked about the new ending more was that Ben had lived. Yup you read that right. Truth is I always liked the Ben Riley character quite a bit, just not as Spider-Man. Problem is the writers had botched this thing so bad they saw no possible redemption in the Ben Riley character so just wanted to take the easy way out and kill him. I think Ben could of been a unique character and could of carved out a nice little spot for himself in the Marvel Universe as a Spider-Man like but NOT actual Spider-Man character, I guess the best comparison would be that he could of been to Spider-Man what War Machine is to Iron Man.

This mini was a decent read but not great, its source materiel was shit after all, but overall WAS better then what we got the first time around. I give the original clone saga a 1 star out of 10, this gets a 5 out of 10 and with that said here's hoping that I can finally close the book on the shit that was the clone saga once and for all..... I have talked about this more then it ever deserved to be talked about.

My Favorite Comics of 2011

Since 2011 is pretty much all wrapped up now I think its pretty safe for me to name my favorite comics of the year and some that were a little more disappointing. First The Good.

The Amazing Spider-Man:



Yeah no big shock here, I'm a big time Spider-Man fan and if the comic is being written even remotely well then I love it. Thankfully we have Dan Slott writing the book and its obvious that he is as big a fan of the web head as the rest of us. Plus the big Spider-Man event Spider Island didn't disappoint me in the end which most events tend to do.

The Walking Dead:



I may be a little behind here with this book since I buy it in trade but its one of those books I'm pretty sure is safe to say has been amazing all year round even if I haven't read what the later half of the year has had to offer as of yet.

Chew:



Much like The Walking Dead I read Chew in trade but much like The Walking Dead this book has been so great that I find it hard to believe that it would get botched. Its original, twisted and most importantly fun just like any good comic should be.

Daredevil:



For years now Daredevil is a character that has been defined by how much he gets put through the ringer, if its not one thing its another and its always bad. With this latest re-launch however things have been changed up, Daredevil is catching a break, hes happy and hes enjoying kicking the crap out the of the villains. How would of thought in a day and age like this that taking a dark and brooding character and lightening up the mood would be just what the doctor ordered.

The Flash:



I haven't read anything from DC since the whole New 52 Reboot. Its not that I don't plan to but these days with my limited space and not to mention the fact that they don't cost as much, trades are the way to go for me. The relaunch was the perfect time for me to stop buying DC and start picking up the trades. Before the reboot however The Flash was on the top of my pile every week that it came out since it was being better then it had been in years, not to mention looking incredible.

Jonah Hex:


Much like The Flash Jonah Hex was another DC book that I was loving this year before the reboot. Jonah Hex was pretty much a one and done every single issue, you didn't need to read every issue to know what was going on you could pick up any issue at any time and get right into it and if you did pick up a issue I defy you to not be hooked by the pure bad ass that is Jonah Hex, one book would be all it would take.

Moon Knight:



I have always been a fan of this character but he one that's hard to write, basically the guy is a nut case and its pretty hard to write a nut case who is supposed to be the hero of the book as opposed to a villain who would be gone after a few issues. So far Brian Michael Bendis has been able to keep Moon Knight great and has been succeeding where others have failed. Hopefully this keeps up.

Those are the favorite comics of mine that pop into mind off the top of my head, sure I read a lot more then those this year, all Avengers books and Green Lantern books for example. I also read these books that didn't light my world on fire.

Flashpoint:


Flashpoint was DCs big event book of the year that would lead the way into the new DC reboot. I read the whole thing and it had its moments but for the most part it left me flat. Flashpoint felt like a chore to read after a while for me while I was actually having more fun with some of the other Flashpoint books instead like Emperor Aquaman and Citizen Cold.

Captain America:



Captain America had a pretty solid run there for a very long time starting when Brubaker took over the series and did the unthinkable by bringing Bucky back from the dead as The Winter Solider and then blew the book into heights that Captain America hadn't seen in years with The Death of Captain America and having Bucky take up the mantle. It seemed like he could do no wrong but after Steve Rogers came back from the dead it seemed like the book went on auto pilot as we all waited for Rogers to reassume the role of Captain America while the book seemingly did the impossible by both having Bucky-Cap being super awesome the entire time while the book itself got stale and boring. I still don't understand how that works.

Fear Itself:



This is unquestionably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. Marvels big event books have slowly gotten more and more tedious over the years since the massive hit that was Civil War each usually a little worse then the one before it but this one was just awful. I couldn't get into it from day one and have no idea why I punished myself by continuing to read this mess.



So what do you think of my picks? Agree? Disagree? Comment below and let me know as well as telling me what your favorite comics of the year are.