The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of ROM The Space Knight #0:

ROM's "mitten-hands" were a defining aesthetic characteristic.
Taking those away is like giving Spider-Man organic web-shooters, or giving Iron Man a nose, or Optimus Prime some sweet (re: lame) flame decals, Wolverine some retcon'd bone claws, Captain America a non-round shield  
(I know- his original shield was not round; but round is his iconic one. All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield!)...
I can go on: It's like taking away Superman's trunks, or Wonder Woman's origin story, or casting Keanu Reeves as John Constantine- it's just a bad decision. And in my opinion- no real fan of the character would ever even dream of doing something like that.
And no, this is not me being nitpicky either- they can make ROM as sleek, and skinny, and non-boxy, and Evangelion-looking as they want- whatever- it's a reboot: I understand that.  But when I saw the first picture of the redesign on the cover to issue #0 and it had fingers?: That was a HUGE red-flag for me.
"They're not going to get this character." -I thought.  And after reading issue zero it looks like I was right to worry.  -Because they do not.
And they should be embarrassed to call themselves fans. -Not because they gave him fingers... you're missing the bigger picture if you think that's all that's wrong here. But the fingers are a symptom of a much larger illness.
You know when you're not sick yet- but you can feel a cold coming on? That's what the fingers were for me. -I was hoping I wasn't going to be sick; but I just knew it was coming- and none of the IDW medicine they were Tweeting-out could stave it off.

So, let's go over The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of IDW's Free Comic Book Day offering:

ROM The Space Knight #0

-Rise: The Demon...

~Etrigan the Demon is one of those characters I always enjoy showing up in a DC comic I'm reading... He's great in small doses but, to me, his poetic-speech gimmick wears thin too quickly in his own title. However; if anyone could make it not-so-annoying: It's Matt Wagner.

Issue #22 of The Demon is a one-off story that all begins with a witch's dead cock:

Ka-Zar is kind of a dick.

"-Everything dies... What's the point?  Life... don't talk to me about life..." 

-And then she; Shanna the She-Devil, (and I'm being for real- it's not a joke) proceeds to fuck him. 

-Speaking of Firestorm...

Firestorm isn't DC's only cool "match-headed" character.  -There's also the fuckin' Waverider!  

Things always get awesome when he shows up...

This is Armageddon/Inferno #1 by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, and Tom Mandrake.

Darkhawk is lookin' good, and Nova's gotta go fast!

~Here's some little things from New Warriors #22 that made me laugh.  By Fabian Nicieza, and Mark Bagley.

See, the team is going to use Rage's Avengers-status to get into the mansion and steal a Quinjet for a 'personal' mission... but the important thing here is- LOOK AT THE POSE DARKHAWK IS STRIKING!:

Hahaha- that's amazing!  And SO Chris Powell... gotta try to impress the ladies!  Bagley is SUCH a good artist. -You know this little, dorky character-moment was not in the script.  It's just too bad Firestar and Namorita are completely ignoring him.  In fact- the only one checking him out seems to be Speedball!!!

Don't Fuck With The Phantom Stranger.

Ung! I feel that shit, man!  -I have an interview TODAY!

It's VD!!! -With the Avengelyne Swimsuit Edition #1

Yes, I know the Rob Liefeld cover is a swipe of Niki Taylor from some 1995 Calendar... so what?  I always have defended Liefeld- and as an amateur "artist" myself: I defend working from photographs, "swiping", and even tracing... Know who else does? Legendary comic book artist Neal Adams!

-Listen to him on Kevin Smith's Fatman on Batman podcast as he lays it alllllllll out for you. -It's amazing. I've never heard it put better: http://smodcast.com/episodes/neal-adams-kneel-before-neal/  

It's towards the end of it- if you're just looking for that part specifically... around 52 minutes in.  But if you have the time- this is a gripping three-part discussion with the man about all kinds of things.  Including creating Green Lantern- John Stewart,  helping Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, The X-Men, and of course- his work on Batman.

... 

 

Anyways- on with the subject of today's post: Rob Liefeld created Avengelyne, along with former Vampirella convention model; Cathy Christian- with her also being the model for the character, because... well, because like any other guy who saw her dressed as Vampi back in the day- he probably wanted to fuck her:

CARNAGE Unleashed: The GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

So, I once did a silly video-review of a one-shot called Carnage: Mind Bomb (by Warren Ellis) on the YouTubes. -Because it's a book I've always enjoyed...  I was all set to do another video on the one-shot follow-up, I also owned, called Carnage: It's A Wonderful Life (by David Quinn).  But unfortunately after re-reading it: I found that I hated the ever-living fuck out of it.  I thought it was a hackneyed, pretentious mess- I mean utter fucking over-written garbage!

-Now, while it's way easier to talk about something you despise (why do you think the internet is so full of hate?) I don't want to contribute to that.  You can not like something, sure. -You can share the reasons why, that's fine.  -You can disagree with others, respectfully.  But hate is not helping anyone, and all the sites out there who just hate on, insult, and trash comics and creators they think are bad; with such venom, malice, and vitriol- are NOT helping the industry.  They are part of the problem.  Yes- there do exist some comics out there that are just flat-out fucking bad... no one is going to defend Power Pachyderms, or NFL SuperPro.  But when other books are divisive- and it's a matter of personal taste- these "reviewers" are literally yelling at, and ignorantly insulting fans, while turning other people off of the product in general.  Not to mention they are not helping the way people perceive comic-book-readers. We are not all bitter, angry, unpleasable, nitpicky, over-literal, pretentious, self-righteous assholes.  (NOTE: I am NOT talking about any friends of this site- I am referring to some other "comic-reviewers" out there on the interwebs.)
-Well, I'm a little bit of a self-righteous asshole, I guess.

Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I'm not trying to get up on my own soapbox here... so I'll stop now.  But my point is- I never released that next "review", and that was why...  This brings us to today, and the four-issue mini-series: 

Venom: Carnage Unleashed

-Look familiar?

Steve Ditko: Spaceknight

Sal Buscema is fucking great! 
                             -But that has nothing to do with anything. 

A friendly rebuttal to: http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-emperors-new-clothes.html

Let me explain: I love Sal Buscema's artwork.  Always have.  I have every issue of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man that he drew, and have since a very young age. That's the title I was first introduced to him on.  -And continued to get monthly from there... 

I have every issue of any Spider-Man title he has worked on.  And in my opinion; not only was Spectacular continually the best Spider-Man title, but NO ONE does Spider-Man (or his rogues) better than "Our Pal" Sal!  I'm currently working on getting all of his Incredible Hulk issues.  And of course- I have just about every ROM: Spaceknight issue...  BUT just because I love Sal Buscema's art so much- does not mean I'm going to, or should, hate Steve Ditko's... 

 -Steve Ditko / Brett Breeding, ROM #63

The Little Things In Comics: Malibu Edition!!!

Oh, you know it's the littlest things in comics that will make me laugh... like every single time Smoke says "Toasty!" in Mortal Kombat: Battlewave-

From issue #2:

 (Loved the little 'No Smoking' sign, too!)

Then again in issue #3:

The Fantastic Four Roast #1:

Finally- here are my favorite jokes from Marvel's Fantastic Four Roast #1 from 1982! Hosted (and written) by:

The Whizzer has to... you know......

 

Sorry, Stark- only ONE man can make a cuckold out of Reed!: