Alrighty! Much with the comic book posting. I guess I really am on a roll here as far as the comic books go. In all honesty, I can blame it on my scanner. I now have so much more images to use with my posts that I can't stop myself. So this one is going to be about one of my favorite X-Men stories. The Age of Apocalypse. Can't really give you the story in all the comics, otherwise I would have to scan over 40 comics to do the whole story. But the Astonishing X-Men has the better part of the story.

We can start with Astonishing X-Men #1
Written by Scott Lobell
Art by Joe Madueria



This starts right after X-Men: Alpha #1, which is the introduction to the Age of Apocalypse. Well actually the story started in X-Men #40-41 and Uncanny X-Men #320-321, where Charles Xaviar is killed by Legion, thereby changing the future, where he is not there to form and led the X-Men. So in the AOA, Magneto leds the X-Men against Apocalypse. In Astonishing X-Men #1, Magneto learns that there is a chance to change this future to a much better one for both humans and mutants, when a mutant named Bishop appears, claiming to be from a future where Xaviar is still alive. This of course leds Magneto to send his X-Men on a mission to find out the validiaty of Bishop's claim. Now remember this happens throughout many issues,as the seven X-Men titles all changed for the AOA for 4 issues. So I'm condensing alot into these four issues. That is pretty much the end of #1. Just an introduction to all the charecters, as they are not all the same as they were in the Marvel Universe. Such as Sabertooth is an X-Man and Scott Summers or Cyclops works for Sinister.



Just gotta love this picture Madueria did of Sabertooth's battle with Holocaust. This is where Sabertooth confronts Holocaust in an attempt to hold him and his Infinites (minions) back as the rest of the X-Men help the humans escape the culling. (Pretty much Apocalypse trying to kill all the humans so that mutants can rule the planet.) The battle is awesome and Wildchild, Sabertooth's symbiotic friend, help learn the location of Holocausts Infinite power plant. Wildchild takes off to report to Rogue as Sabertooth battles Holocaust. Once the X-Men learn the location they go to shut it down. But when they get there they find this . . .



Astonishing X-Men #3

This is the battle between Blink and Holocaust. Once Blink discovered what happened to Sabertooth she goes after Holocaust. Sabertooth was the one that rescued Blink from capture by Apocalypse. During one of the X-Men's raids, Sabertooth and Weapon X (Wolverine) found Blink, and Sabertooth saved her and brought her back to Magneto. Eventually Sabertooth and Blink formed somewhat of a father-daughter relationship and were very close. So she was quite angry at the thought of Sabertooth's possible death. So she when solo on Holocaust's ass, and actually did really good. But that dirty fighting son of a bitch got the upper hand on my gal and almost killed her. (Once again, I'm wondering is there something wrong with having a fetish for gals with purple skin and red hair?) But Morph to the rescue.



Astonishing X-Men #4

This is pretty much of a wrap up issue. As it is, Magento has found the answer to changing this future back to a world where Xaviar is alive and leds the X-Men, in a world where Apocalypse isn't destroying the world. So here we go leading into X-Men: Omega. This is the all out issue. This is the AOA's X-Men last chance to change the world for the better. And it ends with one helluva bang. Very good story.

Ahh well, I guess maybe I'd better give yall a break from the comics. I'll try to come up with something better for tommarrow. But as of now, I'm going to head for home and make sure that Coors doesn't get too cold in that refridgerator. Yall take care and see ya later.

May U Live 2 See The Dawn

Okay, I know, I know yall are probably about up to your necks in my comic book posts. Thinking maybe I should start a seperate blog for my comic book posts and this one for other such things that I write about. But then again, I don't know how well I would do keeping up after two blogs, I'm doing good with just one.

Well anyway, I thought this one today would be dedicated to Spider-Man and Typhoid Mary, as depicted below by the awesome Hildebrant Brothers.



This is I believe the first apperance of Typhoid Mary in Spider-Man. Her first introduction was in Daredevil, but I still have yet to add that story to my collection. I'll start the story with Spectacular Spider-Man #213. The incredible art of James Fry really does TM justice. Check it out.



TM has that dual personaility disorder that I'm not going to even pretend to spell. Anyway due to some abuse as a young girl she developed a seperate personailty that could deal with the abuse in a offensive manner. As Mary she was reculsive about dealing with what had happened to her. As my memory serves I don't belive that there were any details given as to what type of a abuse or by whom. Although for some reason I want to think that is anything was said, that it was her father. So being a shy woman, her psychie (haha I know that aint spelled right) created Typhoid, who would go out on the offensive and protect her from unwanted advances by men. Typhoid however actually played the tease, enticing men, so as to turn the tables on them. Many times Typhoid would go out on the hunt to find men, seduce them, so as to pay "revenge" for what happend to Mary. The picture below shows somewhat her intentions when finding a man that she deamed needing justice.



Man: Oh my God . . .
TM: Is that food ready yet?

This man was know for his womanizing and even physical and sexual abuse of the women that he would find. So Typhoid thought it just that this man should be punished for the way that he treated women. It reflected what had happened to Mary. While Mary was far too timid to confront such a shithead of a man, the persona of Typhoid would punish him for Mary's abuser's crimes. And we find that many super-heroes and even villians are most often looking to justify there thrist for vengence on what happened to them or someone that they had cared for. The difference, supposedly was that heroes do not take the lives of their aggresors, whereas villians are out for blood. But really vengence, is vengence no matter to what end you go to acheive your goal.

It brings to mind a thought that I myself feel sometimes. With the possibilty of a daughter on the way, I sometimes wonder what my actions would be if my daughter where to befall a situatuion such as abuse by a man. For me the first thought would be to punish him in ways unimaganable. But does that fix the situation? Most times in abusive cases, unwarranted interventions for the abused person, often end in more aggresion from the abuser. In other words if my daughter where to be in a relationship with an abusive man and I went and beat the ever loving shit out of him, he would no doubt take his aggresion toward me out on her. And it is mostly true of men that abuse women, that it is their insecurites and cowardise that drive a man to take it out on a woman. So a man stepping up to him on the behalf of the woman, most often just makes things worse. And some of that also falls on the woman who is too afraid to leave the relationship for fear of reprisal by the man. But that is how the abuser keeps her in his grasp, through fear.

And so Mary was too fearful to confront her abuser. Typhoid was not. But both personalities were needed to make the whole person. Just look at the following page. After Typhoid had confronted the man when she had gotten his gaurd down, Spider-Man comes to the rescue. But Typhoid sees Spider-Man as the person in her way, as Spider-Man is coming to stop Typhoid from killing this man. A battle insues between Typhoid and Spider-Man, all the while he is trying to reach out and find Mary, inside of Typhoid. When he does, Mary realizes what she was doing.



Spider-Man: We will get you help. We'll put all the splintered parts back together again. You just have to choose health.
GUNSHOT
Mary: What was that? A shot? Oh my God! Is he . . .?
Spider-Man: No. He tried to shot himself, but my webbing keep him from doing anymore than a surface wound. But he did try to kill himself. How Horrible. I wonder why?
Mary: I understand. He simply wanted to get caught. It's a feeling I know . . . wanting to get caught. Oh my God, this is all too much . . . I feel . . . strange.

I know that this might seem a bit ludicus coming from a comic book, but that is the one thing that I have always appreciated about good writers. The ability to entertain as well as try to help people understand what real life is like, through the fiction of comic books and the charecters that they have created.

In this last page. Spider-Man tries to help Mary find a way to get help. To find the real person within all these created personas that are in her head. Take one last look if you the one person that is still reading this, and not bored out of your mind.



Mary: My name is Walker, and when I was a little girl, I was abused. I made myself become four different women. Two of them are very dangerous. One is lost. And I am the fourth one, the only one who knows everything. I must be locked up and monitored. I wish to turn myself in to whoever will help.
Spider-Man: Mary . . . or is it just Walker now? That is very brave of you. We need to get you cleaned up and get you some normal cloths -- do you have any, uh . . . friends?
Mary: Friends? Where's my bag? Here I have a name -- Mary Jane Parker. This is the closest thing I have to a friend, and I don't even know her at all.
Spider-Man: You poor girl.

It's funny how the mind works sometimes. Shutting off certain things in an attempt to deal with them. And when they get pushed back as far as they can, they bounce back up. And when they do, in extreme cases things like this can happen to people. And when they get that far gone, they don't even know how to ask for help. So they do what they can to get attention, until someone takes the time to try and help them with their problem. Scary isn't it?

Well thanks again for listening. And . . .

What would you have done to help Mary?

May U Live 2 See The Dawn

Marvel Fanfare #57

Shanna: The She-Devil. I mean come on what more can I say. Well besides the obvious. You know I never really looked at comics in a different way until I started this blog. Because to me, they were how I precieved them, and I didn't think of it any other way. I don't have but one friend that reads comic books as well. And as far as his tastes go, well let's just say he thinks Batman Begins was better than Batman. I mean yeah the Scarecrow is creepy and all. And the dude that played him from 28 Days Later was good, but better than Jack Nicholson's Joker? I don't think so. But once again the point it alluding me.

What I meant to say was, as far as comics, once I started posting about them, I've collected other people's thoughts and opinions.
Like just as I was looking for something else to post about, I ran across the picture I had saved a while ago. I have the comic at home and haven't read it in quite some time. To be honest I couldn't even tell you who wrote the story. At the time I saw it, it was the cover by Joe Chiodo that jumped out at me.

But Shanna has had quite the history in Marvel Comics. She after all was the companion of Ka-Zar and eventually wife and mother to his son. And Ka-Zar himself has had two well put together series, that if you are into the jungle scene, is very entertaining. I have the second series in it's entirity and the majority of the first series. But it was the third series that really took off, as far as Ka-Zar being out of his element so to speak. Thanos being in it had nothing to do with it. Haha! I funny. Anyway, it was well done, with art by Adam Kubert, although the writers name escapes me.

Ka-Zar went to New York. Yeah the jungle man and his sabertooth tiger went to New York. Damn I can't remember the tiger's name. That's going to irritate me. Anywhoo . . . the villian (guess who . . . scroll up) transports the Savage Land (in Marvel Universe it is an island in the Antartic that time has not touched and is still in a prehistoric setting) right into NY. Hey that conveient for Ka-Zar! So Ka-Zar goes about trying to find the villian and stop NY from being overrun by dinosaurs and the such. Well the cool thing was, tiny hints the writer made toward the villian, gave it away to me. I had Thanos pegged before they ever showed Thanos to be the villian. It was a really cool story and it was most unexpected. Since Thanos, whose conqured the entire universe using the soul gems (The Thanos Quest #1&2, Infinity Gauntlet #1-6) is fighting Ka-Zar, armed with a knife and a sabertooth tiger. It was really innovative.

But back to Shanna. They recently did another series about Shanna, but much different then the prevoius comics she had been in. This one was written and drawn by Frank Cho.



In this series they have a team of scientist going to investigate an abandon German base. When they arrive there, among genetically engineered dinosaurs they find a woman in a tanker (you know like the thing that they keep people in stasis, like Luke was in Empire when Han brought him back from the snow monster). So the lead scientist names her Shanna (although I forget what the signifgance was to him as to why he named her that). Anyway they come to find out that during WWII the Germans had engineered a perfect solider (much like what USA did with Captain America) expect they used a woman's body instead of a man. Of course during an attack by Raptors, Shanna is broke free from her stasis and they have the obligation to take her back to camp. As they find out what happened and learn what she is, they feel the obligation to try and teach her right from wrong and how to be a person. Much like you would a child. So they help her and she helps them ward of Raptors and a biochemical disease that the men were exposed to when they were in the German base. Not bad of a story. Much different then what I expected for Shanna. But if anything, the art is well worth the money. Frank Cho is an excellent artist.

Well that's about it. My fingers are getting crampy and I'd better get back to work. Thank you all for reading and take care. Hope to see you all soon.



May U Live 2 See The Dawn

Okay, now I have something to talk about. Every once and a while, I get to where I don't know what to talk about and that's when I fill in with posts about comic books, or one of my many comic hottie pictures.

I got the idea, or I should say the spark for this discussion from one of Miss Terri's posts that I read just a few minutes ago. It was an article from Good Housekeeping. In this article, or the way Miss Terri posted it, you start reading about all these things that women can do to make a man fell comfortable when he has returned home from work. To be honest, as I was reading this, I was thinking -- that would be really damn sweet if my home was like that when I return home from work. But I kept reading on, of some of the other things that they had listed

not ragging on him for being home late
don't tell him about your day, ask him about his, his is more important
keep a clean house
make sure there is a hot meal when he gets home

Things like that. Well I at first glance took that to be true. I thought 9 times out of ten, my wife has a hot meal waiting for me when I get home, or is at least cooking it when I get home. But then I thought about how I do a lot of the other housework around the house. And it is not because she won't do it, I just do. I'm really anal and organized when it comes to how my house looks, especially if I'm going to get company.

From there that reminded me of how things have changed throughout time. How men's and women's roles have changed and even intertwined. Many women hold a secular job, even if they are married and their husband works. How some men, as I do, help a woman with what is considered her "responsibilites". That brought to mind the Women's Liberation, in the 70's I believe. How much that changed the way men and women live, whether it be alone or as a couple. Many would say that they wouldn't put up with that "shit" as mentioned above. They are liberated past what a man wants and needs. They are not going to cater to his needs, they are their own person. Now I know that they are always extremes in every example. For instance there are still men who will not do cleaning chores around the house because it is not their "responsibility". They think that their wife should do it all.

It seems that no matter how much men and women's roles change throughout history that the extreme example is always the one out in front. I don't expect my wife to cater to my every whim at the expense of her as a person. Just as I won't let her make a decision that I think would affect the family for the worse, just to respect her "liberation".

The problem is not that women have an inferior role in a marriage. Or that a man has an extreme position of power. Both are to work together to make each other happy. So if that means that a woman does what her husband asks of her without complaint, then that should be so. And if it means that a man needs to get up off his ass and help his wife do some of the housework, instead of watching football and drinking beer all weekend, then that should be so, as well. It is a working relationship that both must work at, to make it a happy one. Women have their place and men have their place. Once we, as both genders, accept what our place is in the marriage, then it will benefit both. And so without gearing this anymore closely to hateful comments from women, I will leave it alone. But men, we should be mindful of what has changed. Women are just as important as men are in society. Neither are more important than the other.

But still, I think I might have enjoyed it then. That article was written in 1955. Things have changed, huh?

What will you as men do?
What will you as women do?

May U Live 2 See The Dawn

I forgot way back when I posted "The Coyote Gospel" I couldn't find some of the images I wanted to use in writing the post. These two pages are two of the most impressing pages to the story. So if there is any interest for you, check out the post again and this will explain some of what the Coyote Gospel was all about. Okay, I'm going home for sure, now. Yall take care.



The next one is after the preceding picture, obviously. The above picture depicted how the coyote was regenerated every time he was meant to be killed. His curse was to walk earth forever carrying the sins of mankind.

The next picture is the closing page. Speaks much religously. Tell me what you think.



May U Live 2 See The Dawn