Panel of the week for 1/27

What comes after this is a thing of beauty, but I love the look in her eyes the most.

I want to be the best!!!

Guys! The Portland Phoenix has a "Best Blog of '10" category for the city of Portland! Let's get me nominated for this category!

Please go to

http://thephoenix.com/thebest/portland/vote/

and vote for Action Chad's Action Blog. You can do this once every day, until they tell you to stop. This would be an amazing accomplishment if all of my readers could help me at leas become nominated.

Thanks!

And the winner is...

The winner of the "Who Do You Want To Be Spider-Man" contest is....

Joseph Thompson!


I picked Joseph for the following reasons...

1) He was first

2) He asked permission to pick someone from the past

3) He referenced the fourth dimension

4) He chose Mitch Vogel

Get a load of that cowboy!

Congrats Joseph! Please email me at chad@coastcitycomics.net in order to claim your prize.

Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll be having more of these in the future, so don't be discouraged if you didn't win this time.

Review of Dark Avengers #13

** SPOILERS ** If you have not read Dark Avengers #13, then do not read this. You have been warned.

Hey! Remember back in a previous issue of Dark Avengers when the Sentry's wife shot him in the face with a space gun and killed him? Remember when in the issue right after, The Sentry was perfectly fine and no one talked about that incident? I do! Well if you read both of those and went "what the heck man!", then this issue is for you.

The issue begins in 1600 B.C. with a dark cloud from The Void appearing over Egypt. It is implied that The Void kills all of the Egyptian first born (Biblical re-imagining -300 points). Am I to believe that The Sentry has tapped into an ancient power that has been around for centuries? Apparently so, let's read on.

The next scene has Osborn offering The Sentry a taste of the original serum that turned him into his current self. The Sentry is flabbergasted by the serums very existence, and quickly chugs it down like a college freshman chugging a red bull after an all night bender. This stuff apparently feels pretty amazing, because it looks like rainbows explode from his eyes and chest after he drinks it (making me think of the song Rainbow in the Dark +500 points). Osborn informs The Sentry that he can make more of the serum. This makes The Sentry very happy. (The Sentry and Norman are friends! Hooray! +50 points).

After that little bit of bromance, we return back to the scene that started several issues ago. The Sentry's wife is standing over his body, holding the weapon she used to blow his head off. She then has a sit down chat with The Sentry's floating robot (where did this robot come from? -300 points) and tells it of The Sentry's true origin! Instead of being a young lad that stumbled upon the super serum, he was actually a drug addict that broke into the lab looking for some drugs. When the cops arrived, he quickly drank the serum. This caused the lab to explode and for him to turn into The Sentry. When the professor who owns the lab arrives at the lab, he finds it destroyed by the newly created Sentry and agrees to make more of the serum to feed his habit (The Sentry is a meth addict! Hilarious! +1,000 points).

The Sentry then awakens(!) and is noticeably upset and also, more noticeably, has a head again. You quickly find out at that The Void has taken over at this point, and it is painfully obvious that The Void is Sentry's alternate personality. This is important because it used to be assumed that they were separate entities. The Void then tries to kill The Sentry's wife, but The Sentry manages to regain control of his body. In an effort to destroy himself, and The Void, he flies directly into the sun.

This does not work as The Sentry is able to rebuild his body as quickly as it is destroyed (brutal imagery of him burning up in the sun +500 points). The Void then tells The Sentry that he should just accept him and let him do what he does best...destroy. An emotionally exhausted Sentry then gives in as we see a dark cloud created by The Void looming over New York City. Just like in Egypt in the beginning! (Nice call back! +5 points).

So to recap, The Sentry is a meth addict, is able to manipulate molecules, has seemingly limitless power, and split personalities. One of those personalities likes to wipe whole cities off the map for kicks. Hows about them apples! (+500 points)

While an interesting issue, I would like to point out the following...

- no bikinis (-500 points)
- no fights (-200 points)
- no Spider-Man (-500 points)

In the end, the final tally is... 755 points! Not too shabby Dark Avengers, not too shabby at all.

I would like to end this with my re-imagining of one panel from this book. Please enjoy this...

He likes drugs!

Joe the Barbarian

Hey guys! My girlfriend was reading Joe the Barbarian and noticed something during this splash page.

If you look closely at the mausoleum, you may notice that the flag for the state of Maine is flying above it. Not only that, but it has the city of Portland inscribed on the sides of the structure. If you need a closer look, I blew up that section.

Why is this important? Well the shop is located in Portland, Maine guys! Having lived here for the past ten years, it's always exciting to see the city used in one of my favorite mediums.

I emailed artist Sean Murphy, to see if this was an artistic decision or if Grant Morrison specifically chose Portland as the setting. Hopefully I'll hear back from him, so I can give you guys an answer.

** UPDATE **
Sean Murphy was cool enough to write back to me. As it turns out, it was artistic license. He wrote a blog about it on his deviant art page explaining it more, if you're interested in reading about it.
http://seangordonmurphy.deviantart.com/

Spider-Man 4 Is No More

Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire either left the movie franchise, or were asked to leave the film series by Sony Pictures. This does not come as a suprise to me, because the studio and Raimi have been in disagreement over who the villain would be for the upcoming film. The tension must have become too much for both sides, causing this once amazing partnership to fall apart.

They went through a similar battle with Spider-Man 3, the studio wanted Venom in the film and Raimi did not. They eventually came to a compromise where Venom and The Sandman were in the film, but it turned out to be a total mess. The film was full of plot holes, poor dialouge and Venom felt rushed and stupid. It's considered by many to be the worst of the Spider-Man series, myself included and I love Spider-Man. It would seem more likely that Raimi and the cast would choose not to work on the film anymore, as they probably did not want to churn out another confusing pile of slop.

In this case, I'm fine with the fact that Raimi and the cast will not be making a Spider-Man 4. I'd rather see nothing at all than a repeat of Spider-Man 3. The studio has stated that they already have a script written for a reboot of the movie franchise. In this film Peter Parker will be back in High School and will be dealing with the everyday hassles of a young man that can cling to walls. As you can probably imagine, those hassles are numerous! A reboot is fine at this point, just don't do an origin story! Here are some things that I would reccomend doing for the new movie.

1. Do not do an origin story! It has not been 15 or so years since the original Spider-Man came out. We all know what his powers are and how he got them, just have him be Spider-Man from the very beginning. A short montage is really all you need if you must have an origin explanation.

2. Have Spider-Man be funny! It's one of the best things about Spider-Man. He ruthlessly makes fun of his opponents while he's knocking their teeth out. It helps provide a contrast to the shy and soft spoken Peter Parker. Spider-Man was not funny in the first three movies, and it was always something that bothered me.

3. Have him fight just one villain! More than one villain is too much for one movie. Do not fall into the same trap that the Batman movies did, one is plenty. My personal reccomendation would be The Lizard, but there are still plenty to choose from. Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Electro, The Rhino or The Vulture are all good choices.

4. Keep J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson! This guy was born to play this character! Do not try and replace him with someone else, whoever does the casting will regret it for the rest of their lives.

Those are just a few things I would do to make sure the next Spider-Man movie is entertaining. If you guys have any other ideas, I would love to hear about them. Please feel free to leave a comment below or email me at chad@coastcitycomics.net.

Until next time,
Action Chad

Pinball! Pinball! Pinball! Pinball!

We have pinball now! This has been a very exciting day here at the shop. I'm elated that it's a Star Trek: TNG machine, as I am a huge fan of that show. I think I'm going to e-mail, Maine native, Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) to see if he wants to come in and play it. Now if you will excuse me I have to go separate the saucer section and eject the warp core on this bad boy...and by that I mean beat Tristan's high score.

New Iron Man Armor

The new armor is set to debut in Invincible Iron Man #25. Any thoughts or feelings on the new look? I think it looks pretty rad myself.

Panel of the Week 1/6/10

Awesome War Machine Costume

This is the one guy on the planet that is more excited for Iron Man 2 than me. This is an amazing costume!


You can check out a bunch of pictures of this costume here

The Possum!

Indy Comic Book Week is halfway through at this point, and I hope you guys came in and gave some new books a shot. At the very least, I hope you gave them a quick once over while picking up your copy of Blackest Night #6. Keep in mind that the former is the better of those two scenarios.

I was pretty blown away by the selection we received from a bunch of really talented and independent creators this week. We had everything from giant wolves with tentacle mouths, to gripping stories about life on the skids. Amidst this eclectic collection there was one book that stood out to me personally, The Possum!

The story in this issue starts with our main character, The Possum, depositing a large bag of nickels at the bank. His tedious deposit is soon interrupted by a group of gun toting, luchadore midgets! The luchadores only speak in Spanish, and the author even wrote all of their dialogue in Spanish as well. It's neat guys! The luchadores rob the bank while the Possum is outside, struggling to put on his costume quickly. Once the costume is on, he leaps onto the luchadores getaway car. From this point on, the entire issue is a well orchestrated car chase scene. It has rocket launchers, guns, insults in Spanish, and a lot of explosions. It's pretty awesome and also pretty funny.

The art in this book made me feel like I was reading strips from Mad Magazine. That's a compliment, as I loves me some Mad Magazine. The art is fun and simple, but had a lot of energy and movement. The car chase scene was well paced and had a lot of detail to it. Any complaints about the art style being too simple would be forgotten once they noticed all of the detail in the drawings and the pleasing page layout. It may be simple and cartoony, but it's done well.

What happens when you have a comic book about a guy in a goofy Possum costume trying to stop luchadore midgets from getting away with the goods? Simply put, a lot of fun. Kudos to the Possum!

Stop in and check out the rest of the cool selection from Indy Comic Book Week! If you want to let me know what you thought was cool, then please email at chad@coastccitycomics.net. You can also leave a comment below, I'm not picky. You don't need to have a google account to leave a comment anymore either, so comment away!

Until next time!

-Action Chad