Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - Midnighter: Armageddon #1

Today’s Batman homage is one I really don’t know much about: Midnighter. Midnighter aka Lucas Trent (if that’s his real name) first appeared in Stormwatch back in 1998 for Wildstorm. He has the dark suit motif and can kick buttloads of butt. That’s where the similarities more or less stop though. He does have superpowers like enhanced strength, speed, and durability. He also has the ability to know what a person is going to do before he does it. He also normally kills his villains which is something Batman doesn’t tend to do. Lastly, he’s known for being of the more prominent gay superheroes. For a time, he was actually married to Apollo, a Superman homage that I looked at in September.

I did have one issue of his (Midnighter #10) that I was going to look at but I honestly couldn’t tell what the heck was going on in it. Seriously, I didn’t get what was going on. Instead, I found another issue that I picked up in the cheap bins months ago. Midnighter: Armageddon #1 tied into an event that Wildstorm was going through back in 2007. Essentially, Void from the WildC.A.T.S. was going around to different heroes and showing them a horrible future that they had to prevent. Christos Gage is the writer. Pencils and inks were done by Simon Colbey.

Midnighter: Armageddon #1

Writer: Christos Gage

Artist: Simon Colbey

Colors: Wildstorm FX

Letters: Travis Lanham

Editors: Kristy Quinn and Ben Abernathy 

Tale From The 50 Cent Bin! - Green Arrow #1 and #2

Next up on “Wanna-be Batman Month” (which isn’t a good title since most of these guys aren’t wanna-bes) is a guy who actually started out as a copycat: The Green Arrow. He first appeared in More Fun Comics in 1941. He was obviouly influenced by Robin Hood with the get-up and skills. Mort Wesienger (his creator) even pulled stuff from a movie serial called The Green Archer. The Batman part comes with everything else. He was a rich playboy, had a kid sidekick, and had a lot of crap that was based on his name. Let’s see, there’s the Arrow-Cave, the Arrow-Car, and the Arrowplane. If he also had some Arrow-Shark Repellant and we could call it a day.

He got retooled in 1969 to be more of his own character. He lost the money, grew a cool goatee, and became one of those annoying liberals you try to get away from. By the way, I also run away from the annoying conservatives because I’m just that guy. Anyway, this new attitude and look stuck with him for the longest time until the New 52 where… I don’t know what going on there. All I know is that his book (like most books these days) tends to have rotating teams.

After the Crisis On Infinite Earths, Green Arrow was reshaped into a grittier version of himself by Mike Grell. Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters started that shift. In the mini, Oliver and Dinah (Black Canary) relocated to Seattle, WA and serious stuff happened. His new series after that mini-series kept Oliver in that direction. I picked up the trade Green Arrow Vol. 1: Hunters Moon some time ago. Today’s issues are from that trade. Green Arrow #1 and #2 were written by Mike Grell. Pencils are handled by Ed Hannigan and inks are brought to us by Dick Giordano.

Green Arrow #1 and #2

Writer: Mike Grell

Pencils: Ed Hannigan

Inks: Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin

Colors: Julia Lacquement

Letters: John Costanza

Editor: Mike Gold

TV Talk - Daredevil Season 1

Today’s double dose of Daredevil ends with a small look at the first season to Netflix’s Daredevil. When I heard they were doing the show, I was interested. Still, it actually took me a few months to completely watch the show. Hey, there is so much stuff out there for a man to see, so this got put on the backburner. I haven’t even watched Jessica Jones yet. I actually re-watched the show this week in order to give it all another look for this post. Thankfully, the show was so good that another re-watch was something I needed. Oh yeah, I’ll  spoil a couple of things, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go see it. I’ll wait…

Anyway, the show looks at Matt Murdock as he’s building his law firm and vigilante life. He’s not in the standard red costume yet. He’s all decked out in black with a mask covering most of his face. The whole season revolves around him trying to stop the crime and corruption in the New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. All of his crimefighting starts to ruffle the feathers of the one who’s controlling all the crime in Hell’s Kitchen: Wilson Fisk. While Matt is off doing his thing, others like Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, and Ben Urich are doing what they can to help.

Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - Daredevil #159

Next up for this weird Batman month is a character that’s pretty cool: Daredevil. While I like the character, he’s not one of my favorite characters. I always thought he was cool though. He is also a Marvel mainstay and has been around since the 60’s. He’s also the reason Frank Miller is/was a name. For those who don’t know, young Matt Murdock went blind when his eyes were doused by chemicals in an accident. While he can’t see, the chemicals strengthened his other senses in a major way. He learned to hone his abilities and body to do awesome things. As an adult, he’s a defense attorney during the day. At night, he is Daredevil, a red-wearing vigilante who delivers a certain sort of justice to evil!

His similarities to Batman are few but they are there. They both lost a parent to crime, they experienced tragedy at a young age (going blind isn’t fun), they honed their bodies into fighting machines, and they dress in tights… or armor. Take your pick. They also try to do some good in their civilian lives. While Bruce puts his money towards his fight against crime, he does try to use his money to better the city. He is a philanthropist playboy after all. Their lives also tend to be very crappy though Daredevil takes the cake. One wonders how he has made it this far. The only major difference is that Matt has powers.

Today’s issue is Daredevil #159. I had gotten the first volume to Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller a long while back and this is one the issues in it. I was curious on Frank Miller’s start on the title and I was listening to Dave’s Daredevil Podcast at the time (I need to catch up with that). The writer is Robert Mckenzie. Pencils are provided by Frank Miller. This was actually his second issue on the title. Klaus Janson provided the inks, Glynis Oliver Wein does the colors, and Jim Novak provided the lettering.

Daredevil #159

Writer: Robert McKenzie

Pencils: Frank Miller

Inks: Klaus Janson

Colors: Glynis Oliver Wein

Letters: Jim Novak

Editors: Mary Jo Duffy and Allen Milgrom

Tales From The Library! - Black Panther Vol. 1: Who Is The Black Panther?

I wanted to start this themed month off with a character that I’ve liked but haven’t read a lot of: The Black Panther. He was introduced in Fantastic Four and has been around since then. He’s been a part of the Avengers and has had a few series during his time in the limelight. He was even married to Storm which could have been cool if Marvel did anything cool with it. T’Challa may be the Marvel character who is most like Batman in a lot of ways. He’s rich (Royalty, man!!), he’s a master at fighting styles and tactics, he’s pretty smart, he uses an animal with the name, and he’s lost family members to crime. There are differences of course. His world is much more expansive than Gotham, the Black Panther is a title given to him, he has no secret identity, and he will cross the line in ending his enemies permanently.

Earlier in the year, I looked at a Panther story from the 80’s. I’ve wanted to look for more stories but really haven’t yet. For this character, I decided to once again visit the library and I found something. “Who is the Black Panther” was the arc that revamped the character for his series in 2005. The trade contains the first six issues of Black Panther. It was even adapted into a kind of lackluster animated series/motion comic. At least it had good voice casting. Hollywood director and former BET Pres. Of Entertainment Reginald Hudlin handled the writing duties for the series. Coming in on art duties are John Romita Jr. for pencils and Klaus Jansen with inks.

Black Panther Vol. 1: Who Is The Black Panther?

Writer: Reginald Hudlin

Pencils: John Romita Jr.

Inks: Klaus Jansen

Colors: Dean White

Letters: Randy Gentile and Chris Eliopoulos

Assistant Editor: Cory Sedlmeier

Editor: Axel Alonso