Saturday Splash Page #136

 

"GUNK", in Spider-Woman (vol. 6) #3, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Javier Rodriguez (penciler), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

Spider-Woman volume 5 ended in the summer of 2015, as part of the mass cancelation of Marvel's line, due to Hickman's Secret Wars. Spider-Woman volume 6 started 3 months later, probably before Hickman's stupid event was even finished.

As with a lot of books around that time, the creative team of the new volume was the same as the prior volume (minus Rosenberg taking the color duties off Rodriguez's hands.) Most of the titles tried to make some status quo change as a result of the undefined timeskip. Deadpool was now rich, famous and beloved. Squirrel Girl was now an Avenger and a second-year computer science student. Ms. Marvel, actually, I don't remember what the difference was for Kamala.

Jessica Drew's big change was being pregnant. Hopeless played cagey with the identity of the father, but that was 8 years ago so I'm just going to spoil it: We don't know who the father is. Jess decided she wanted to have a kid, so she went to a sperm clinic. There, saved you some time.

The birth is out of the way in issue 4. From there, the book remains much the same as the previous volume, as Jess works with Roger (the Porcupine) and Ben Urich on various cases, when one or more of them isn't looking after her son, Gerry.

(Something I only remembered when going through my Spider-Girl comics for upcoming Saturday Splash Page entries is there was a whole storyline about a mysterious new Spider-Man, who turned out to be Jessica Drew's son, named Gerry. Did not expect Hopeless to actually play off that, although this version of Gerry has his mom's venom blasts and that version either didn't, or wasn't using them, to avoid giving away the secret.)

With Spider-Woman not trying so hard to avoid Avengers-type stuff, Rodriguez gets to draw much stranger things than in volume 1. The page above is part of Spider-Woman's journey across a space station set within a black hole that has been taken over by Skrulls. Later on, there's an issue of her fighting Tiger Shark with a lovely page of their battle through a series of flooded sewer tunnels. Rosenberg keeps the colors bright and sharp, making everything pop off the page.

The book does get derailed by events. First, two tie-in issues to another Spider-Verse thing (which I skipped when I hunted this down in back issues.) Then, three issues of Civil War II tie-ins, as Jess is skeptical of this Ulysses kid and his precognition, all the moreso when Hawkeye kills Bruce Banner because of it. The curious thing is that, while Jess seemingly really wants to talk to Hawkeye, that never happens. Instead she has a big fight with Carol Danvers (who was the one touting "Minority Report was a good idea, actually" and essentially tells Captain Marvel to lose her number. Which explains why Hopeless was playing up the friendship between the two so much for the first half-dozen issues.

(Tigra and Spider-Woman became friends at the tail end of volume 1, before Drew ever fished Danvers' comatose husk out of San Francisco Bay, but nobody ever has those two hang out.)

The back half of the book, where Veronica Fish takes over as artist, is focused more on Jess and Roger, as Roger's criminal past comes back to haunt him, and Spider-Woman realizes she has caught the dreaded feelings. The feelings manifest in her beating the crap out of a bunch of villains working for the Hobgoblin. The real deal, Roderick Kingsley version, accept no shitty substitutes. Fish's artwork isn't as fluid or detailed as Rodriguez's, but she's adept at interesting page layouts and knows how to draw action sequences, both exciting and humorous.

(Oddly, the one issue where she finishes over Rodriguez's art - the last of the Civil War II tie-ins - doesn't look great. It's rough and things just look awkward. Their styles apparently don't mesh.)

The book ends at 17 issues, with Jessica having decided she's going to date Roger, no matter how many snippy comments the Black Widow makes. I don't see how a woman who willingly dated Matt Murdock has a leg to stand on about taste in men, but oh well. Natasha gets humiliated by a super-powered infant, so nerts to her.

Saturday Splash Page #135

 

"Cowboys and Arachnids," in Spider-Woman (vol. 5) #9, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Javier Rodriguez (penciler/colorist), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Travis Lanham (inker)

After Jessica Drew's series ended with her death, Marvel eventually introduced a new Spider-Woman during Secret Wars. While Julia Carpenter had a long stint on the West Coast Avengers, and even got tagged as Tony Stark's love interest on the '90s Iron Man cartoon, she never got more than a single 4-issue mini-series, back in 1993.

Spider-Woman volume 3 was Mattie Franklin's book, the character created by John Byrne and Howard Mackie after the Spider-Man books got rebooted in an attempt to wipe the Clone Saga stink off them. It lasted a year-and-a-half, and then Mattie largely vanished. Volume 4 was Bendis and Maleev writing Jessica Drew after Bendis used Drew in his Avengers run (and revamped her powers so her pheromones attracted people, rather than repulsing them as they did in the first year+ of volume 1.) That book only lasted 7 issues, and that was it for about 5 years, until Dennis Hopeless started volume 5.

The book actually started with 4 issues of some Spider-Verse tie-ins, drawn by Greg Land, which I skipped. They aren't relevant to anything that happens in the remainder of the volume, so feel free to skip them, too. Though that only leaves 6 issues until the book was canceled for Hickman's Secret Wars. Once the book actually gets down to business, Hopeless has Drew return to something like the private investigator era of the Claremont/Leialoha run, looking into odd stories for Ben Urich. The other member of the cast was Roger, the current Porcupine, who Jessica caught robbing a bank in what turned out to be an extortion scheme of a group of low-level super-villains by their exes and mothers of their children.

Javier Rodriguez drew and colored every issue except the final one, issue 10, when the Black Widow drags Jess back into the Avengers to perform the entirely pointless task of co-piloting one of those ships the Illuminati came up with to save a couple thousand people from the end of the universe. Would have made more sense for Jessica to tell the Widow to fuck off and enjoy hanging out with her friends until everything ended. That's what Deadpool did, and for once, he had the right idea!

Where was I? Oh yeah, Rodriguez. The book is gorgeous, as Rodriguez does a lot of interesting stuff with page layouts or perspectives within the panels themselves. Spider-Woman gets a new costume, one of the "practical" look redesigns that were popular at the time. I like the yellow glasses and the jacket is nifty. He uses the shadows to emphasize the logo, or her venom blast, making things pop off the page spectacularly.

It's not a deeply serious book, with Jessica seemingly just wanting to escape Avengers stuff, Urich try to save his paper and maybe help some people, and Porcupine trying to be a better guy. So a lot of the threats are high concept or just silly. Which does give Rodriguez fun stuff to draw, like Hulk cows or an exo-suit constructed from earth-moving equipment.

Sunday Splash Page #308

 

"Big Entrance", in Legion of Monsters #1, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Juan Doe (artist), Wil Quintana (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

A 4-issue mini-series from 2011, a period of time when various writers were really trying to make a thing of there being a vast, underground "Monster Metropolis."

No, not the Morlocks' place. No, not Mole Man's kingdom. Monsters like Morbius, and Werewolf by Night. I think it was introduced during Rick Remender's "Franken-Castle" arc, and used periodically after that. I think Shiklah assumed control of it after marrying Deadpool, but I won't rule out that being an entirely different Monster Metropolis. In this case, Dennis Hopeless focuses on what passes for the police force: Manphibian, the Living Mummy, and the aforementioned werewolf and living vampire.

Enter, Elsa Bloodstone, on the trail of a monster that had been murdering and eating people, and generally being anti-social. An autopsy reveals something had eaten part of the monster's brain, and Morbius realizes a) this is behind the rise in violent outbreaks in the metropolis, and b) he's seen it before. But he's cagey with the answers, so Elsa and Jack Russell do some investigating of their own. This seems to be the start of the off/on whatever Elsa and Jack have that gets alluded to. Makes sense, as I don't think they'd ever been written in a story together prior to this.

One thing I notice between this mini-series and the Werewolf by Night one-shot from last year, is that while writers use the NextWave version of Elsa, most of them sand the rough edges off somewhat. She's not quite as competent, not quite as viciously sarcastic. Here, she does opine that all the citizens of Monster Metropolis are evil and should die in fire, but also allows the monster cops to arrest her and patiently sits chained to a bench until the autopsy is done? She accompanies Jack to some demon gateway and gets in over her head, requiring him to get injured saving her. But she also fights her way into Dracula's castle, in part by dousing her ponytail in holy water and using it like a whip. Or maybe a wet towel is the better comparison.

(An exception to the thing about writers: Si Spurrier's version in the Black Knight mini-series from a couple years ago. Maybe it's just U.S. writers can't summon the caustic quality necessary.)

Juan Doe's art is all exaggeration. Bloodstone's legs seem to stretch into infinity, and the ankles are narrow enough it seems a miracle they don't snap with every step. Monsters with chests and arms that would put Rob Liefeld's Captain America to shame. But there's a consistency to the odd proportions, and combined with the odd features of the various monsters - teeth in strange places or patterns, odd postures or gaits produced by body types - it seems to work. Most of the characters aren't human, so they don't have to move or be shaped like them. Jack, when he shifts out of his werewolf state, is probably the closest to normally proportioned, even more than Elsa, who is a bit of an otherworldly creature herself.

Random Back Issues #57 - Spider-Woman #14

Shower crying: When you want to mask your tears, but can't be bothered to go stand outside in the rain.

Jess is feeling down because she saw her assistant Roger (aka the not-terribly-super-villain Porcupine) get blown up by a pumpkin bomb last issue, courtesy of the Hobgoblin. She's feeling lost, but Carol Danvers shows up, despite their having a big fight over Civil War II. What with Jess having recently dated Hawkeye, and him having recently killed Bruce Banner because Carol was so convinced he was a threat by Future Vision Kid. Goddamnit Bendis, your shit's exhausting. Anyway, she offers to babysit so Jessica can work on the case. 

 

First stop is a little town populated entirely by women who were married to super-villains and decided to get the hell away. I'm unclear on if they allow the husbands of super-villains. Roger's ex, Olivia, is not happy to see Jessica, who she blames for getting Roger killed, and for taking Roger away from his actual daughter. Jess tries to plead innocence, but Ben Urich (her other partner) wisely drags her out of there and explains a few things. Like how she was the only one unaware of Roger being in love with her, and that from his ex-wife's perspective, it's kind of shitty he couldn't bother to do domestic stuff for her and his child, but he's all too happy to fold laundry and babysit for Spider-Woman.

In news certain to give her something to think about other than being a homewrecker, Ben shows her some photos of Roger going to visit a villain bar the night he was killed. A property owned by Roderick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin. So she goes to the bar, and beats the crap out of a bunch of villains. I call foul on her managing to down the Beetle with one venom blast. Actually, what the hell is the Beetle doing there? It's not Janice, the one that's Tombstone's daughter, and I thought Abe Jenkins was persona non grata with the villain set because he embraced the Mach Whatever-version-he's-up-to-now identity.

Maybe Secret Wars undid that. Who knows?

Jess gets distracted by a call from Carol long enough for the Bruin (the other bear-themed super-villain) to throw her out, but it's OK, because some high-tech, no doubt questionably legal monitoring system Danvers has access to picked up the Porcupine robbing a bank. Spider-Woman hightails it over there, and while the Porcupine won't speak and confirm his identity, he does shoot her with a crapload of quills. Only instead of sedatives, they're explosive.

 

[10th longbox, 143rd comic. Spider-Woman (vol. 6) #14, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Veronica Fish (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Travis Landham (letterer)]

Never Research the Fates of Minor Characters

In Random Back Issues #50, I mentioned I wasn't sure what Cammi had been up to since Dennis Hopeless let her go back into space at the end of Avengers Undercover, and that I was a little leery of trying to find out, because Donny Cates probably killed her during his Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Well, I did end up looking into that weekend, and well, Donny Cates didn't kill her in his Guardians of the Galaxy run. She popped up in that Drax series CM Punk wrote, and then in Asgardians of the Galaxy, a book I had blessedly forgotten existed. And then Dennis Hopeless killed her in Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider, which is, when you think about it, Donny Cates' fault, because he created that stupid character.

I mean, a Ghost Rider in space? OK fine, the '90s Guardians of the Galaxy series established that was a thing, and Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider was all about how there were a bunch of Ghost Riders just on Earth. But then you write him as a) working for Thanos, and b) so nutty I thought it was supposed to be Deadpool. Which would at least make sense for a) if you figure those two characters each have a thing for Death.

But no! Cosmic Ghost Rider is actually Frank Castle. Yes, the guy who kills murders and drug dealers for killing or even just preying on people works for the guy who killed half the people in the universe. Because he decided he couldn't kill him, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Which sounds so entirely contrary to Frank Castle, I'm not sure where to start, but it makes me think Donny Cates and whoever lets him write for a living should probably be ostracized (in the Athenian sense of being exiled for 10 years.)

And from what I can tell looking online, Cammi let her soul be sent to Hell to save Frank's (wasted effort there), and then when he got her out, her soul was devoured by some other thing, and now it runs around in her body.

So, Hopeless offed her so Frank can. . . be angry about someone who got killed and want to kill the one responsible? Frank Castle's already like that, all the time. It's his entire existence, killing people because he's mad his family got killed. He doesn't need more deaths to be angry about.

Back when Avengers Arena came out, I knew I would've been one of the folks angry with it if Hopeless had offed one of the characters I really liked. Meaning either Cammi or Darkhawk. They dodged that bullet, but when you're a third-tier character or worse, it's always just a matter of time before somebody offs you for cheap dramatics.

Random Back Issues #50 - Avengers Undercover #4

Even for a guy who wears an '80s aerobics legwarmer over his head, that armband is tacky as shit.

So, for our big 50th Random Back Issue we got, the follow-up series to the much-derided Avengers Arena. Not much-derided by me, but the larger critical consensus was it was terrible. Which gets you a coffee at Starbucks, assuming you have five bucks on you.

 

The previous issue ended with Hazmat seemingly killing Arcade for what he put her and the rest of them through in that prior series. Even as a huge, huge fan of Arcade, I can't find fault with that act. Only problem, they attacked him in the middle of his new set-up, where people get to pay to slaughter others (or be slaughtered), while other folks pay to watch online. Meaning a whole bunch of people watched them commit murder.

Cammi's the only one thinking straight and suggests they run, but SHIELD naturally shows up and arrests them. For killing Arcade. It's no big, I'm sure they've got Logan locked up somewhere nearby for the 375 Yakuza guys he murdered earlier that week. What's that? Logan is being given a free pass for his frequent murders? Right, right, I forgot. 

 

Amid the rest of them having awkward greetings with anyone who bothers to visit, Cammi and her mom have a heartfelt conversation where Cammi tells her mother she should give up on her, because mum just got herself shit together, and trying to protect her daughter is only going to drag her down.

I already liked Cammi quite a lot from Annihilation, but Hopeless really cemented it. I have no idea what she's been up to since this series, and I'm a little terrified to look it up. Donny Cates probably killed her in his Guardians of the Galaxy run or something equally stupid.

The kids are magicked away to the fictional villain harboring nation of Bagalia thanks to Daimon Hellstrom, who is in full shirtless villain mode here. Hopefully Patsy Walker doesn't show up. if she sees him like this, she'll probably make another horrible decision. Then Zemo makes a sales pitch for them to join up with what he's got going. Stop worrying about using your powers altruistically, and use them for your own benefit. OK, I'm listening. He does say no one is asking them rob banks or 'man their moon base death ray.' Which implies he has a moon base death ray and if I'm going to be a villain, that's where I want to be.

Besides, less chance of being eaten by Galactus if you're stationed on the Moon.

The kids spend the next issue looking around, and decide the only way to clear themselves is do a big heroic thing. Meaning pretend to join the villains, and bring them down from within. Yeah, no possibility that will go horribly awry, but they're traumatized teens. Their judgment was going to be shit no matter what.

[2nd longbox, 102nd comic. Avengers Undercover #4, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #58

"Live From Bagalia, It's The Arcade Prison Special!', in Avengers Undercover #7, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

The follow-up series to Avengers Arena, where the teen heroes who survived have to deal with what happened during Arcade's little horror show. Made worse by the fact Arcade naturally recorded all of it and posted the footage on the Internet. So the whole world knows all the bad decisions they made.

After making another poor choice to seemingly kill Arcade, and getting "rescued" by Baron Zemo, they decide their only chance to redeem themselves is to pretend to work for him and then bring him down. Because 7 teen heroes were going to pull that off when Zemo had an army of hundreds of super-villains.

The series only lasted 10 issues, and you can tell Hopeless kicks things into overdrive to tie things up the last few. My guess is he was originally hoping for 12-18 issues for this. The general idea is sound, to follow-up with these characters and see how they're dealing with what happened. If you're going to put characters through the wringer like that, you really shouldn't just walk away and leave someone else to deal with your mess (that's called pulling a Millar). Plus the fact they think there's going to be some magic move that can fix all this, but they haven't thought things through remotely well enough for their plan to have any chance of working.

There is, however, the significant issue that these kids are thrown in cells by SHIELD for killing Arcade. Who you will recall was a successful hitman even before he started building homicide-themed amusement parks and torturing kids. Are we really supposed to believe SHIELD thinks these kids are now super-villains because they killed Arcade? 

I pointed this out at the time, but Wolverine kills like 50 dudes every week. Not even people that experimented on him, just random criminals and thugs he runs into while motorcycling through the Canadian wilderness (or Japan.) I don't see SHIELD throwing his butt in jail over the fact his body count is higher than some small wars.

Kev Walker draws most of the issues, and his work is still very good. The expressive faces and body language, and the way Bagalia is this bizarre patchwork of like a shantytown and Las Vegas' seedier twin. Beaulieu's colors pop off the page in the action scenes. I love that shade of purple he uses for Nico's powers. The other artists, mostly Tim Green II, aren't nearly as good, which is a bit of a disappointment. Especially since I liked Green's work quite a bit on Annihilation: Conquest - Star-Lord and some of the other cosmic stuff he did with Abnett and Lanning.

Sunday Splash Page #51

"That Was the General Critical Response, Yes", in Avengers Arena #14, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler/inker), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

There wasn't a full-page splash, at least not one in a Kev Walker-drawn issue I liked. But I didn't want to pass over this series entirely, so here we are.

I don't actually know what the overall critical response to the series was, either. Only that the few people whose stuff I read at the time weren't fans of it. I get the complaints. If you were a big fan of Avengers Academy or Runaways, you weren't going to be stoked about characters you liked being potentially tossed in a meat grinder. As a New Warriors fan, I've been there. Although the group that sustained the most damage was the Braddock Academy kids Hopeless created specifically for this series.

(I read once his original plan had been to have a book focused on those kids. Introduce them, flesh them out, then they get abducted into this mess. I don't know if it would have involved all the pre-existing characters once the abduction happened or not, though.)

But I generally enjoyed it. I wasn't a fan of Arcade being more invested in winning than just having a good challenge, but I could rationalize it that nobody enjoys losing all the time. And especially nobody enjoys hearing themselves shit-talked at their own birthday by friggin' Constrictor. I thought we got a lot of time seeing the different approaches all the characters were taking. The ones who were holding out hope they'd escape versus the ones gearing up to kill. The ones scheming versus the ones being manipulated. The alliances and the petty rivalries. The poor decision making under stress, with Arcade trying to ratchet things up from time to time to make it worse.

I was only really worried about Cammi and Darkhawk surviving, and they both made it. Cammi even got to be frequently badass. I was on-board with that. I really enjoyed when she knocked Chase the hell out. Never was much of a fan of Chase.

Kev Walker managed to hold up fairly well under a 3 issues every two months pace. At least once or twice, Hopeless seemed to work in issues away from the main action for the fill-ins. Like an issue where Molly Hayes goes to Hank Pym because she's worried about her friends being missing. Walker's work is less busy here than it was in Annihilation: Nova. He inks himself at least some of the time, so maybe that's part of it. He drew some pretty good fight scenes, and Beaulieu's color work was really excellent at times. There's a fight where Nico comes back from near-death and just wrecks Katy/Apex, where I thought the purple shade for her magic was really great to contrast a fight in a snowy forest.

What I Bought 7/31/2014 - Part 4

Since it's Friday, let's step over to the wrong side of the law for these reviews. Get a little rowdy and such. Teenage rebellion, nefarious deeds, and all that.

Avengers Undercover #7, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (penciler), Jason Gorder (inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I would question making out with someone right next to your own tombstone, but Alex just got out of Hell, so I guess any place is an improvement.

Nico trying to hone her control of her powers with some instructions from recently back from the dead ex-boyfriend Alex. Except Alex' teaching method is mostly to flirt with her. Then she finds out Chase was shot, and though she heals his injuries, he won't wake up. Frustrated with that, she decides it's time to make bad decisions, and makes out with Alex. Also, Deathlocket didn't mention she shot Chase. That's going to be awkward later. So the guy Zemo's crew attacked AIM to get is the person who designed basically all of SHIELD's security and systems. AIM couldn't get anything out of his brain, but that's because they relied on science and super-powers. Hellstrom has magic, so yeah, that's bad. Perhaps SHIELD should do something, but as Hank Pym's discovering, Maria Hill has no intent of invading Bargalia, and certainly isn't worried about the kids. Oh, they killed a man who tortured them! So leave them in the hands of super-villains. Brilliant! At least Pym cares. Too bad he stole Buffyverse Spike's hair, and got his head shrunk in the process (that first panel he appears in, his head is much too small for his shoulders. Rare misstep from Walker).

Good news, though, Cammi's alive! And trapped in a cell right next to Zemo's living room! And Arcade's in a cell next to her! So nobody really died! But I guess my theory about the bad guys actually working for the good guys and testing the kids is going down the toilet. Plus, I think Hazmat may have thrown in full-scale with Zemo. Some young girl with long straight black hair was there sharing drinks with the baddies. Can't be Cammi, Nico was occupied, Deathlocket only has half a head of hair, kind of just leaves Hazmat. It would tie in with her being the one to seemingly toast Arcade. I guess I'll have to see if Hopeless and Walker can tie this whole thing together in the 3 issues they have left.

Nice touch, having Nico's pupils disappear early in the issue when Alex starts winding her up, and having it get progressively worse throughout. By the end, it looks like she's burned out her eye sockets, and magic is just pouring out through her eyes constantly. Not a good sign, but it definitely looks cool (though I wonder how she sees where she's going).

Superior Foes of Spider-Man #13, by Nick Spencer (writer), Steve Lieber (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - It's the Shocker stumbling around in the Rhino head that gets me. That or Speed Demon dumping the Gwen doll. Sick, but funny. Surprised Boomerang went with Kraven's get-up. Does he really want to emulate the guy who celebrated his greatest success by blowing his brains out? Though I guess Fred could be about to find out getting what you always wanted can be hollow.

Boomerang, Overdrive and the Beetle made off with the (fake) painting of Doom's face. I don't know if that means there's never been a real painting, or if this is a forgery of the real painting. Boomerang called the cops, but one of the poor saps that got drafted into his Sinister Sixteen called Mach 7, so now he knows Fred was leading an attack on the Chameleon's headquarters with a bunch of criminals. The Chameleon's not pleased with Fred, and since the Owl apparently knows he got double-crossed again, neither is he. If this doesn't end badly for Fred, I'm going to be stunned, because I still can't believe he's smart enough to talk his way out of it. But our intrepid villains make their way to a safe house in a stolen taco truck, and meet Speed Demon along the way. He and Fred have got something going they aren't telling the other two, and Fred is not doubt preparing to betray Speed Demon at any moment. But someone else is also in the safe house - the Shocker, with Silvermane's annoying, old man head, after they were forced to flee Hermann's apartment to get away from Hammerhead.

I have no idea what Boomerang's plan is. At this point, I'm not even sure what things are and are not part of it, other than he wasn't counting on the Shocker showing up. I'm not criticizing Spencer for this, he's done pretty well so far at putting the pieces in place, then bringing them all together. Just saying, I can't even make a guess at the end game here, 'cause all Fred seems to do is be making enemies, and that's the sort of thing best reserved for people with the power to get away with it. Dr. Doom or Kang can piss off a bunch of villains, because they can incinerate anyone who gives them any lip about it. Boomerang may be punching above his weight class here. But it's nice to have goals, I guess.

I can't figure out what that little "X" Lieber draws on Mach 7's right shoulder is. It honestly looks like a couple of Band-Aids, but surely Abe could afford a better patch job than that. He's looking at freaking buttercup yellow couches and scented candles. Fix your super-suit! Unless it's an insignia. Is Abner a member of the X-Men now? Well sure, why not? They won't let Deadpool in, but accept the guy who doesn't even have powers! I'm sure that's not it, but I don't know what it is.