Heroes Season Two: "Four Months Later..."

So after the non-finale season finale, what's next?

Here are just a collection of thought from the season premiere:

• Mohinder, a.k.a. Sayid's weaker twin brother, still can't act and shouldn't be narrating.
• Fine ass Dania Ramirez has joined us. Thank you, Mr. Kring. First The Sopranos, now this. She has a great agent.
• The fact that Nathan and Peter are still alive and Syler survived, the finale really was pointless.
• So Matt adopted Molly. Are we to assume she's been cured of whatever disease she had in the finale?
• Sulu has been marked for death by the new Syler...oh wait...the old Syler is still around. Iguess the old Heroes are getting wiped out.
• Isn't Nathan a senator? He won the election, right?
  
• I'm glad David Anders (Takezo Kensei and Alias' Sark) is working again but do we really need some The Last Samurai/Michael Dudikoff in feudal Japan.
• Mr. Bennett works at Kinko's!!! How can he tell Claire to not be a cheerleader when he's back at another paper company?
  
• Parkman and Mohinder are raising Molly = My Two Dads
  

Mr. Mohinder, we'll pay you in goooooooooold!

• Claire's still an idiot.
  
• Mr. Bennett has still got it. I was getting worried for a second that going into hiding had made him soft
  
• "How did you honor your son?" You got served, Mrs Petrelli!
• Maya (Ramirez) apparently spreads a disease when separated. Next week, I'll have a good term for the Anti-Wonder Twins.
• So Mohinder and Bennett are working to bring the Company down? Good call, H.R.G. After spending half the season making a fool of Mohinder (the other half Mohinder made a fool of himself), he's who you trust to bring down your enemies? Good luck,
  
• What's with what Nathan saw in the mirror?
• Of course, Claire's stalker can fly. Has Nathan got another kid out there?
• I wonder what Mr. Sulu's power was?
  
• I don't know how well this show can work with Hiro separated from everyone.
• Those are some awful accents.
  
• Who locked up Peter Petrilli? More importantly, he finally cut off those awful bangs?

All and all, a good setup for the season but I definitely have my concerns. I hope we aren't going to have another Boogeyman villain and Hiro needs to rejoin the rest of the cast sooner than later.

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New Joker PIcture From "The Dark Knight"

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World War Hallow: Weasleys Getting Gully Edition

Lord.

Lord.

Smashathon 2007 took a back seat last week. Last week was all about getting a cup of coffee at 10:30, getting in line at 11, dealing with kids stepping over me until midnight, getting it at 12:15, getting home at 12:30, having a sifter of Henny at 2:30, screaming “DON’T GO UPSTAIRS YOU MORON” at 3, making a cup of dat earl grey at 4:30, crying because she killed SPOILER DELETED at 5:30, making the pot of coffee at 6:30, finishing at 8, being giddy until 9 am, and falling asleep for 3 hours.

And then reading it again. The whole thing. Twice in one day. I defy anyone to fuck with my dork grind.

So in honor of the conclusion of the best series of books of all time, World War Hulk doesn’t get a smash factor this week. World War Hulk gets a Hallow Factor.

Hulk/She Hulk interaction: One Hallow

WWH has contained a lot of stereotypical female behavior. Last episode, Medusa was on some “Don’t Mess With My Man” shit like she was Lucy Pearl. And here comes She Hulk with the “everyone has tried to talk with him, but not ME, I’m SPECIAL, he’ll listen to ME.” The only thing worse than trying to reason with a green pissed off galactic king is when you BITE THAT STEEZ. I’m talking to you, Sue Storm. Bad enough that She-Hulk thought the whole cousin thing was going to help, but why would Hulk care what Sue thinks?

He doesn’t. He doesn’t care what any of the hos think. Hulk has a gaping hole in his heart where his queen used to live, and no words of solace from his puny cousin is going to fix it. For his animal masculine needs, he’s got that Kaifi chick in the golden armor. Which means, in a way, that Hulk is pretty enlightened. Regardless of your race, gender, or religion, Hulk will treat you the same. Hulk will smash your damn body through three feet of road.

Cumulative Hulk Crew Smashing: One Hallow

Man, on the page where the Warbound go through the Avengers, you see Hulk did not bring the B Team back to Earth. The Ambiguous Gender dude with the metal arms plasmas Luke Cage to the Bronx. The guy who looks like the Thing smashes a head. And yet it’s the Brood who cements himself as the Sen Dog to Hulk’s B Real by throwing tentacles and a fiery blast down Ms. Marvel’s gullet. Ms. Marvel is lame as hell, and Brood knew that. Watch and see if Brood doesn’t go straight for the punk in every fight. Brood could take anybody, but punks offend Brood’s aesthetic sensibilities.

Storm, Torch, and Thing Trying Hard: Three Hallows.

Storm threw a hurricane at Hulk. Johnny set about four square blocks on fire. Thing had the utter audacity to try to slug it out. If you’re a citizen of the 616, you can’t ask anymore. If you’re a superhero and you throw a hurricane, you’ve done your job. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the other guy. Barkley played like a beast in the 93 Finals, but Mike was better. No shame.

Hulk CLAPPING ON THING’S DAMN HEAD: One Hallow

Ain’t nothing sweet.

Intermission: One Hallow awarded to WWH XMen 2

Enough people have commented upon the fact that the books affiliated with WWH haven’t helped advance the story much.

To which I reply: “Story? Qua?”

I’ve glanced at a couple of the side issues. People have gone overboard with the Ghost Rider slander, which was only bad the first issue and downright enjoyable in the second. Incredy 107 was fine. Thus far, WWH XMen has contained some of the best smashing of the series. Issue 2 features Wolverine getting pummeled and Hulk not caring that Kitty turned his arms into stone.

End Intermission

Richards: Three Hallows

Reed Richards going out like an absolute punk has to be the highlight of the series thus far. At least Iron Man built a cool suit and tried to fight. Mr. Fantastic built a nightlight.

I was quite pleased to see that the Marvel writers followed the laws of physics. When Hulk put the Macho Man Savage double axe handle on Reed’s head, it properly caused Reed’s body to expand outward, much in the same way that squeezing the middle of a tube of toothpaste will sent Colgate screaming towards both ends. Reed also suffered the further humiliation of the Hulk dragging him through the street. This indicates that Hulk realizes that while all the Illuminati deserve his hate, only one deserves his complete disdain.

General Ross 2 Page Spread: Minus One Hallow

So Issue 3 is going to be Hulk throwing tanks around? What’s so cool about that? Hulk has already taken down Tony, Reed, and Black Bolt. I assume he’s throwing Xavier over his shoulder in the third XMen issue. From a vengeance perspective, all he really has to do is bust into Sanctum Sanctorium and we’ve run out of plot for the last three issues. I don’t care about the Sentry at all, but judging by the Issue 5 cover his fight with Hulk is going to be the climax of the whole event. I’m worried, fam.

Final Hallow Rating: Nine Hallows

Granted, the new Harry Potter got a billion jillion Hallows, but for a comic, you can assume 9 Hallows to be pretty frickin’ sweet.

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An Idiot's Guide to World War Hulk: It's Here (C) Common

Now I know why the Posse needed me. If you go over to okayplayer.com right now, you can hear a lot of fools screaming that this issue gets an infinite smash factor. These are the same people who called Stillmatic a classic. The post-modern devaluation of standards of good and bad has now taken some of the greatest comics minds of my generation. For shame, PtP. For shame.

Figure 1: An Average Album

Not to get all Russian figure skating judge on you, but there are some clear elements of WWH that necessitate mandatory deductions. For one thing, the “puny human” and “smash” talk is overdone. Yes, it’s the Hulk and these are his signature lines. He doesn’t have to say them every page, and his adversaries don’t have to use them nearly so often. Should Ms. Marvel really be saying that Hulk smashed Black Bolt? That’s really her go-to verb in that situation?

More importantly, people need to get their fight standards up, because the fight with Black Bolt was just awesome, not insane, grotesque, over-the-top, the-Hulk-is-back-in-town-and-the-world-is-doomed awesome. Yes, watching Black Bolt’s voice peel back the skin on Hulk’s face transported me to a higher place Yes, the “I want to hear you scream” line was cold. Yes, waving his carcass around for the world to see was gangsta.

But can we please see the actual smashing? I need to know how Hulk got over on Black Bolt. Did Hulk take him down in a fair fight, or did he just get the jump on him with that flying leap and knock him out before Bolt could really get going? If it’s the latter, did he really do anything that cool? I could sneak up behind Liddell and smack him on the head with a 2X4, and I’ve won the fight. I demand this fight be given proper treatment in one of the side books this month, or I demand seeing Hulk throw Bolt around later in the series.

So let’s chill on the perfect smash factor talk.

However…

Man.

Man.

FUCKING A

There was some smashing.

Asteroids got smashed. It’s their fault for chilling out between Mars and Jupiter and not forming a planet like the rest of the rocks in its graduating class. And then Hulk jumped onto the Moon. This may be the underrated moment of the series. Only suckers dock their ship and use the airlock.

Let none of the preceding argument make the reader think that I do not recognize the fundamental coolness of how thoroughly Hulk smashed Black Bolt. Dude peeled back Hulk’s skin, and Hulk was on him three seconds later. My favorite moment of the encounter was cocky-ass Medusa talking up her man before the throwdown. We desperately needed a few panels with her afterwards, because now that he’s got his ass smashed, we all know there’s NO damn way she’s sticking with Black Bolt. After the fight Hulk was probably all like, “Woman, you like inhumans? This is my ace, the Brood.” Brood be like, “Sup darling? The X Men fucked up my thrown world. I gots to go fuck up their mansion, but how bout I holla at you on the way back?” And that’s how Medusa is gonna roll, because she tired of fucking her mute-ass cousin for all these years.

(Oh shit, son. Shelly knows some back story.)

Figure 2: PtP is for the ladies

And then there was the royal dicking Tony Starks receives on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of this book. Please don’t sleep on the feedback loop the Warbound sent straight to Tony’s dome. That’s absolutely critical, since it showed Tony he was not fucking with the same dumb Hulk of years gone by. Tony got his ass whupped so bad that Dr. Strange had to show up and TELL him he got his ass whupped. Damn.

Then there’s the fight itself. Legendary. Down by law. Everything you could expect from this series and more. I’ve got to say, Tony tried. That rocket fist is cool, and the ability to throw the Hulk through several buildings should not be underestimated.

However, two obvious mistakes doomed Tony to quick and brutal retribution. First, Iron Man punked himself with his pompous, Rumsfieldian “I will protect you” speech. That speech made me resolve to finally read Civil War, because I need to know what possible sequence of events could have made a tin can so gassed on himself. The writers deserve all the credit in the world for including the prototypical “bad guy talking shit halfway through the fight and making a really bad mistake in doing so.” I was really glad Hulk didn’t hear that speech, because he would have started laughing, which would have compromised his madness level.

But you really can’t blame Tony for getting himself smashed. The second, absolutely critical mistake that doomed him was not his fault. Right now, open a new tab, wiki “Iron Man’s Armor,” and note where it says that his brand new Hulkbuster Armor MKII has Tony “ready to tackle the Hulk upon his return from space.”

Ha.

Ha Ha

AHAHAHAA!!

“OH HELL...”

Figure 3: Oops

SOME STARKS FAN BOY RAN HIS MOUTH!!! HULK SAW THAT!! HIS SHIP HAS NET ACCESS!! NOW SOME BUSH VOTING STARK FAN BOY IS CRYING!!

Needless to say, Hulk slightly disagreed with Fan Boy’s assessment. Needless to say, Hulk SMASHED HIM THROUGH EVERY FUCKING FLOOR IN A 100 STORY BULDING. If we're honest with ourselves, we can say that WWH can end right now and we can’t complain, because we can't ask anything more than that. He took apart frickin’ Iron Man completely and in mere seconds.

But the folks at Marvel will deign to give us more goodness. Every time I think of that last panel, I crack a little smile, because I think of what Colonel Sanders and the rest of the Love Brigade must look like then they see Hulk coming out of the rubble even madder. They know their time is coming in Issue 2. I imagine this does not sit well with them.

Smash Factor: 4.33 out of 5. It's on.

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Worst Comic I Bought This Week: Uncanny X-Men #487

I spend a shitload of money on comics and while I wish they were all winners, odds are they are a couple of stinkers in the bunch. Every week, I'm going to post about the comic I wish I had left on the shelves. It goes without saying that there will be spoilers.

The Comic: Uncanny X-Men #487

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Artist: Salvador Larroca

Description: The X-Men are back from space! Well, half of them, anyway. The team is shattered, broken and separated. The group that has returned to earth is finding it much worse than how they left it-- especially underground. Attacks in the Morlock Tunnels immediately grab the X-Men’s attention. What do these attacks have to do with the future of the mutant race? Maybe special guest-star Storm can get to the bottom of all this!

Why It Sucked: Now that the mediocre "Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" which after 12 issues really didn't end, it just gave the editors a way to get Professor X his powers back (Once Magneto gets his powers back...or did that already happen...House of M will have been nothing more than an excuse to start three Wolverine origin minis and make everyone hate Brian Michael Bendis even more)...where was I? Oh yeah. This comic made no sense. The Morlocks are back and hatching some plan that involves hurting poor little Leech. Warpath flirts with Hepzibah over knives and Storm takes a break from her other two books (Black Panther - which should be renamed When Stormy Met T'Challa or Sleepless in Wakanda - and The Fantastic Six) because for some reason, Brubaker decides to bring up that old Storm used to run the Morlocks angle. That was the 80's, Ed. What kind of influence would Storm have over the Morlocks? That's like asking Jimmy Carter to end the Iraq War. Anyway, I'm going to pretend that Brubaker didn't write this shit.

Runner-Up: Countdown #47. Sure, Black Adam, murderer of maybe a million people, could hide out in Gotham and Batman wouldn't fucking know! Sure.

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