Sass

They're still banned as far as I know.

Loss and CWM asked to be banned.

Haaaaaaattttteeeerrr. Hey, whatever works for him. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Besides that, I don't see Chuck losing to Horn here if they stand up. But if Horn takes him down and starts wrasslin around with Chuck, it could be curtains for the Iceman.

Wrestlemania 22: Nostalgia!!!...cuz that's all we have left that's a draw Hulk Hogan vs. Steve Austin The Rock vs. HHH or do an intergender match with Rock/Trish vs. HHH/Steph Sting vs. Shawn Michaels Bret Hart, Mick Foley or Ric Flair can referee one of those matches. Put those 3 matches on the show and it'll do the highest buyrate in PPV history.

I'm moving this to the General chat folder. On that note, with the induction of HHH, things just got a little sadder...

I echo the same sentiments as Ripper. That's my only real complaint. The retro X-Men fight is great. I still can't believe the game had Sentinels in it.

It was Juggernaut but he was wearing his black armor instead of the brown one.

That revamp left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Mine included. Bleh. Plus, I never cared for McG's version of Supes. He just looked *too* cartoonish to me. Plus, he looked like Hulk Hogan's bastard offspring. He had muscles in places Rob Liesfeld would have never thought about.

In 30 years, I could see Marvel doing that with Cap.

I always liked the idea Moore explored with Bizarro in Supes #423... Bizarro: "See, me suddenly realize that me am not perfect imperfect duplicate! Maybe me not not trying hard enough. Example: When your planet Krypton blow up by accident, you am coming to Earth as baby...so me decide to blow up whole Bizarro World on purpose and come to Earth as adult!" Superman: "Bizarro...what's happened to you? I can't believe you've really destroyed your homeworld!" Bizarro: "Ha! That am only beginning! Next, me realize that Superman never kill, so me kill lots of people! Them very grateful! Scream with happiness!" Superman: "Killed people? Oh, merciful Rao..." Superman vs. Bizarro in a Metropolis throwdown, ala Miracleman/Kid Miracleman fight.

Yeah, that's also another reason why using pop culture stuff for guys' origins is *not* a good idea in the long run unless someone wants to revamp the character and their origin. I think it's just lame going back and rewriting the history of characters since it cheapens their back issues. It worked out for Captain America after he came back out of suspended animation but Iron Man's origin will definitely need to be altered from Vietnam-related to something else more modern (which it already has been in the new Ellis Iron Man book).

DC should have let Moore do all of his Miracleman stories in Superman, the 1st series. Holy shit, that would have been *awesome* to read...Lois giving birth to Superbaby Jr., Krypto being used to attack Superman, and Lex Luthor getting thrown down to earth from space would have been great. Oh well...

The Punisher. That's the only Marvel book anyone here needs to read.

WHAT? When did a schizophrenic hippie Thor ever fight the Avengers? When did Hawkeye ever watch his entire family get brutually murdered by a clandestine hit squad? When did the Hulk ever tried and executed after killing hundreds of people? I do not see your point at all. While I agree its annoying, the use of pop culture references is entirely too trivial a thing to distract me from the plot, characters, or art. A few minor references to celebrities isn't enough to make me hate the entire series. Besides, the books are being published in the year 2005 for people in the year 2005 to read. Who cares if parts of it seem dated when you reread it in a few years? Nobody bitches about reference to Reed Richards serving in WW2, Rick Jones being a 1970s folk singer, Peter Parker going to the original SNL, or Flash Thompson getting drafted to Vietnam. People just ignore those parts, and remember the parts of the story they liked. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But, that wasn't really pandering through the use of pop culture. It was part of their origins. At some point though, the origins will need to be "updated" so the heroes don't seem out of place or "too old" for new readers to get into.

Superman #166 was okay with me. I liked Alan Moore's take on Krypton life in the issue where Supes and Mongul duked it out since it made them seem a little more human. You couldn't do that with Byrne's version of what Kryptonian life was like so the storyline possibilities were less varied. Byrne really pushed the "he's from an alien world" angle with the Man of Steel revamp but I did not mind the change with #166.

Maybe. CC is more creative with his Cold Gun...but Freeze is a death march storm trooper who won't quit. Whatever city they fight in will be under deep freeze for a looooonnngg time...

You just summed up why I like the post-Crisis Lex Luthor. Superman #178 was where Lex found out Supes secret identity too. Lame, lame issue, which I remember Wizard touting as the next Amazing Spider-Man #39...

That worked out though. Post-Crisis Mr.Freeze made his debut in, I believe, the first issue of the 1992 Robin mini-series and didn't show back up until Detective Comics #670. That's like 7/8 years after Crisis came out and the last time I can remember Freeze facing off against Batman was in the Pre-Year One Batman revamp with issue #400. There was room for improvement. The creators had some room to change or add things to the Mr.Freeze character, who had never been a force in the Bat villains gallery until the BTAS episode came out and made people go, "whoa, this guy's pretty badass but cool" and helped give a 2nd (or 3rd) life to Mr.Freeze.

I don't have a problem with people who hate Smallville being interjected into the DC books. Why? Because Lex Luthor looks like the dumbest motherfucker in comics if he can't figure out Clark Kent is Superman after knowing him for like 15 years or at least since the high school days. Otherwise, Lex needs to kill everyone Supes knows because if a super villain *knows* the secret identity then they need to capitalize on that and take the fight to home. If they don't do anything devastating to the hero with the info they have on them then it was just another Bendis filler plot that doesn't go anywhere and was just a waste to read. Once the villain knows the identity of the hero, he's either gotta die or the hero has to die. That's end game for every super hero comic book since (some) have so much on the line (friends, family, etc.) that they can't risk letting some blood thirsty (and super powered) jerkoff attacking them at their home unexpectedly. Not even the members of the Avengers can protect every member of their respected families or friends during every second of the day. Someone has to die... Or else the villain can get anmesia for 10 years until he remembers everything again (Norman Osborn syndrome). That's still a giant cop out though. Meeting up for the first time when Kent and Luthor are adults gives a lot more leeway (IMO) towards Lex not looking like a goober for not figuring out his best friend is really his greatest nemesis. That's my two cents on the ID revelation "storyline" in comics. Superman #292 is one of the worst issues in the original Superman run that I read. That was the issue where friends Superboy and Lex Luthor became rivals after Super Jr. put out a fire in Lex's lab (while he was getting ready to cure cancer and eliminate kryptonite) that caused Lex to lose his wavy red hair. That issue reset the entire history of the Superman franchise and not in a good way since Lex just looked like a complete chump (since he was supposed to be super smart and all) for never figuring out Supes' ID even though they were boyhood friends. That issue always rubbed me the wrong way since I felt it devauled Lex as this great criminal mastermind who DC always touted him to be. It just didn't make sense.

Pop culture refernces date comics. Dating things in super hero comics is a *bad* thing. Unless it's something like Transmopolitan or their ilk, then leave the dating stuff out of super hero comics. Seeing Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush in comics always looks dumb since the characters don't age even though there's nearly 40 years worth of Presidential terms between those guys. Cap's still an early 30's looking guy even though he saw Nixon blow his brains out on the Presidential lawn in Captain America #175. Peter David's use of Bill Clinton in his early 90's Hulk run was also weak as well and I don't hate many things from his run of books there. I just didn't like how he was dating the Hulk (or Marvel for that matter) the way he did. It just looks dumb to me. One of the funniest and saddest mentions of pop culture I saw in comics was when Mary Jane and Spider-Man got into an argument over *Aerosmith* tickets in Spider-Man #19. This was when Aerosmith got hot on MTV with all of the Alicia Silverstone videos (1993ish) and I just thought it was an incredibly weak attempt at pandering to the masses to show how "hip" comic books can be. Ugh. The Ultimates assessment about Shannon Elizabeth was also dead on. That was just lame pandering. Can't comic book writers come up with and create their Universe's actors and politicians (who they might be able to make more interesting than the real folks)? Is that too much to ask for?

Someone 35 and over. James Bond is an older man/character in the books and stories. Unless the studio decides to "revisit" a younger version of Bond in his early days (please don't...) then the guy casted as Bond needs to be late 30's/early 40's at least.

I hope DC doesn't have any "loose ends" left over after this so they'll need to do another revamp 10 years from now. The cover, as usual with Perez, looks awesome. It looks like Wonder Woman's ass is about to explode too.

Issue #20 is part 2 of the "Wildstorm Rising" x-over so that could be a reason for why that run of issues was not collected in TPB.

Could Morrison make Bruce Wayne a more interesting character than Batman? I don't like Arkham Asylum's art or anyone elses' who resembles that particular style. Alex Maleev can take a long walk off a short pier.

The Joker's right hand man should be... CAPTAIN CLOWN! C'mon, it's gotta happen.