Riddler is the best

I'm pretty sure I physically recoiled when I saw this wall of text staring at me. Then I was like, "...is this Bendis?" Yes. Yes it is.

THIS BEAR WILL HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES FOREVER OMGOMG

This is my favourite issue of Gotham City Sirens because Riddler is nonstop awesome, but I really like this panel because HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Sure, he saved the girl from an explosion and then he kept the bad guys talking (except...I'm pretty sure he would have done that anyway since he was pretty much talking about how smart he was) and then Batman came in and apprehended the killers.

And he totally does have a Batsignal in his cane.

They even sort of have matching outfits

So I'm reading New Avengers and there's this page with a crapload of Marvel characters and I'm squeeing over my favourites: "Thor! Herc! Howard the Duck???"

There is nothing about Luke Cage's solo series from the 70s that I don't love. NOTHING.

I have a somewhat shameful secret: I totally ship Wildcat and Catwoman.

I wasn't even aware they knew each other until this JSA comic where Ted gets beaten up and Catwoman nurses him back to health. Apparently he trained her (something else I noticed: does Ted exclusively train attractive vigilante women?) and they're buddies (he shows up in Gotham City Sirens and they spar). Anyway, after this issue, I was totally sold on the match. They evidently like each other, they're both rough around the edges, he's still totally smokin' for a, what 60 year old man? Plus they both have a cat motif. It's a match made in heaven, I'm telling you. I think they're so cute together. Plus, I already HARDCORE ship Batman/Wonder Woman and this very conveniently removes Catwoman from the picture. Much like my Batman/Wonder Woman ship, I don't have a WHOLE lot of basis for the match, but it just seems right to me, somehow.

ETA: Possible Wildcat/Catwoman phone sex. I want this ship to be canon so bad.

Vic is alive in my mind, along with Barda and Ted and Luke's old wardrobe

Much like a lot of stuff with Lobo, I feel kind of bad for laughing at this, but come on.

Okay, I love the Black Marvel family (at least until SPOILER Isis and Osiris get killed by Sobek the talking crocodile and Adam goes on a bloody rampage). As said before, I'm a sucker for bad people who get redeemed through the power of love. I SHOULD think this proposal is sweet but HOLY CRAP WHAT'S UP WITH HIS SMILE??? I hope it's the artist's intention to make it as damn creepy as possible, because holy crap.

PS: The main reasons I was reading 52 were a) Booster Gold, b) the Black Marvel storyline, and c) The extreme awesomeness of Vic Sage. As of issue 45 or so, Booster only shows up sporadically; two thirds of the Black Marvel family are dead, the third is killing people willy nilly in a bloodlust fuelled rage, and Sobek the talking crocodile - formerly my favourite character - is crazy evil; and Vic is dead! So I've kind of slacked off in reading 52. Not even Lobo as a space-priest with a space dolphin sidekick can keep me reading. Plus there's the fact that at any given moment I have no damn idea what is going on or why everything is related. I had the same problem with Trinity, except the Dreambound, Gangbuster, and Hawkman were sufficiently awesome to keep me reading.

Yes, Canada needs superheroes because YOU KILLED ALPHA FLIGHT OFF PANEL, BENDIS! Dammit.

As a side note, how AWESOME would it be if Luke and Jess relocated to Toronto permanently and fought crime there? Rhetorical question: it would be super awesome. Squirrel Girl could join them as a live in nanny and maybe Iron Fist could branch out his business internationally and move to Toronto. Maybe the Daughters of the Dragon could join them, restart their PI business, taking Jess on as a partner. Best comic ever.

They join Shulkie/Aquaman on my list of ships that will never happen

This is hands down my favourite panel of 52 ever, and this is a comic that has Lobo followed around by a space dolphin. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had the opportunity in real life to hear "This is Sobek, the talking crocodile. He's my best friend." Brilliant. I also appreciate Gar's and Raven's shocked looks. You'd think with all the crap they've seen, a talking crocodile would be nothing to them.

I love love love the Black Marvel family and I absolutely cannot explain why. I think I'm just a sucker for bad people redeeming themselves, especially if it involves the power of love.

Background: the Avengers go to the ghetto and just stand there, and everyone's like, "wtf?" Luke explains for the cameras that sometimes police will send squads to bad neighbourhoods and just kind of stand around in order to scare off thugs, and this is what they're doing. I love the dramatic leadup and then the kind of anti-climactic conclusion to his speech though: "We are going to come to your neighbourhood! And we are just going to stand there!" Luke, that doesn't sound as epic as you think it does.

I confess, for a split second when that chick on the left mentions setting Dick up with a Tabitha, I had a brief moment of "BOOM BOOM???" I now ship those two, FYI. So wrong, and yet SO AWESOME.

It's an MC2 Kinda Day

Lately I've been reading a lot of MC2 universe. It's an alternate universe in Marvel set 15 years in the future and mainly features second generation superheroes.

This gentleman's name is Freebooter or some such, but my mind knows him as Batroc because of his weird little French mustache. That's J2 in the back there, the son of the Juggernaut (bitch) and some kind of annoying Quicksilver clone.

Here's a conversation I had with my brother.

Me: I hate Franklin Richards.

Jonas: So does the rest of the world. It's okay.

Franklin hasn't really done anything to make me believe he's a huge tool...it's just his whole FRANKLIN RICHARDS persona. He has this mullet and he always looks really smug. And his superhero name is PSILORD. Like, please, Franklin, be a little more narcissistic. Supposedly he's a heartthrob in the MC2 universe and May AKA Spider-Girl has a crush on him. OBVIOUSLY THE BUZZ IS A BETTER CHOICE.

This is Rina AKA Wild Thing AKA the daughter of Wolverine and Elektra, which is SO RANDOM. Anyway, I love her character design. Her hair, which is definitely reminiscent of Wolverine's but still works for her is the best part. The resemblance to her father is subtle, but still there.

I also really love her costume. I mean, aesthetically, I think it's kind of ugly. As an amalgam of Wolverine's and Elektra's costumes though, I think it's really well done. The yellow bodysuit is very her but the yellow comes from Wolverine's costume. She also has those shoulder pads/epaulettes that Wolvie has. The two masks are also similar. However, the red ribbons come from her mom's costume. You can see where each individual piece comes from, but together they make a costume that's purely hers.