Iron Fist

This is from Heroes for Hire #1 in the late 90s, after the whole Onslaught crossover took place. Iron Fist is kind of a crappy superhero; if you couldn't already guess, he can make his "fist like iron" by focusing his chi through it. He's sort of a generic ninja dude. BUT... his real name- Daniel Rand- is kind of cool, and I think he's visually awesome.

Exodus

Wolverine vs. Archangel

This little gem is from Uncanny X-Men #272. Jim Lee is on pencils here, and it's his art that really made Wolverine famous. Look at him! He looks awesome! I'm slightly afraid, but who wouldn't be of a short hairy man with unbreakable claws? This took place during the X-Tinction Agenda crossover.

"Baby It's You!" part 1

So, because I'm such a good friend, I applied for a special Bloggers' Night celebration for a musical my friend Jen wants to go see. What is a Bloggers' Night? Well... I actually have no idea. But you can bet your booty I'm going to go... and then blog about it. Anyway, as a preview of said night... here's a little YouTube preview of the show I'm going to see tomorrow night (Did I mention it's for Free!? ::insert jealousy here::)

The OTHER Name for Murder

Check out this classic panel from X-Force #29. This is my man Arcade. He's so badass he was never even given a real name; just a bowtie and platform shoes. Pretty much the best villain in the history of villains. He should be used more.

The Big Crunch

Remember the X-Men game for Sega Genesis? Also known as the best game ever? Well, the second to last level was called "Mojo's Crunch." This was based on three issues of Wolverine in the 90's written by Larry Hama. I just bought two of the issues this week to read the story (I never had before). Here's an awesome panel of Spiral.

Forgotten Comics: X-Men Unlimited #14

For a new series on this blog, I am going to be highlighting some of my favorite lesser known comic books, individual issue-style.

First up is X-Men Unlimited #14. For those unfamiliar with X-Men comics... they are basically my favorite. Many of the stores that are going to be dealt with this for this series are going to be X-Men, and they are going to be from the '90s when Marvel was over saturating the comic book market with 'em. In my opinion, it was also a creative high point in X-Men history. Many great stories took place. In 1997, this rare gem was published.

Without going too much into the convoluted history, the X-Men had just been more or less betrayed by their founder, Professor X. Tainted by Magneto's evil influence, Xavier had become an amalgam of himself and Magnus to form a villainous entity known as Onslaught. It also created what big comic companies love: a gigantic crossover, where you have to buy a lot of titles to understand what the heck is going on. Basically, Onslaught was such a threat pretty much the entire planet was in trouble. Hence, not only the X-Men banded together to stop him, but the Avengers and the Fantastic Four as well. Since this is an X-Men story, I'll skip to the end and tell you that our merry mutant band survived. Avengers? Fantastic Four? Not so lucky. Onslaught apparently kills them.

I'm About to Cross the Line

I realize I'm playing on the book title's pun, but bear with me readers... this one is a bit more serious.

I'm reading a book for SLJ that would come under the topic of LGBT bullying.

I'm about halfway done. I just got the book early this week, so ... obviously it's pretty readable. I can't decide if it's making me mad in it's portrayal of a quasi-gay high school student or proud. Maybe a little bit of both even. The character, Alan, has basically been bullied the whole book. In the chapter I just read, he showed up to school wearing lipstick.

Although not the same thing, a student in my high school came to school one time dressed in what I can only describe as a "rainbow jumpsuit." While in the library, he would approach people he did not know and ask them if they had a problem with him. The story was something I got secondhand, but I did actually know the student. There was a kind of gay/straight alliance at the school that we were both a part of. When I heard the story, I knew at least the majority of it was probably true.