Counting Comics - Part 3

Thanks for watching my video/checking out my blog, let's go into more depth and count and talk about the comics on this week's show.

Justice League of America (80-Page Giant)

This is a cool book from November 2009, I think it was a kick off for Vol 2 of the League. In this book the team are split up and spread through time by Epoch a time-travelling villain when they prevent him from killing a child who is destined to grow up as his enemy Time Commander. Each story of the time hurled heroes is told by a different creative team. I love this sort of story, they are a lot of fun.

DC Universe Decisions 1 - 4

Created by Bill Willingham, Judd Winick and Rick Leonardi this 4 parter from 2008 tells the story of what happens when ouspoken liberal Green Arrow openly endorses a political candidate in the presidential elections. An interesting idea that really makes you think outside the normal, punching criminals box, as it explores the repurcussions of this action in interesting depth.

Justice League - Cry for Justice 1 -7

Written by James Robinson and drawn by Mauro Cascioli this 7 parter has Hal "Green Arrow" Jordan and Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen head up a spin-off Justice League seeking to take a more pro-active stance against the villains of the World as a reaction to the 'deaths' of Batman and Martian Manhunter during Final Crisis. This was originally planned as an on-going but changed to just 7 issues.

Booster Gold 1 - 25

This is the 1st run of Michael Jon Carter aka Booster Gold, created in 1986 by Dan Jurgens. As stated in the video he stole tech from a museum in the 25th century including a Ledion of Superheroes flight ring, Braniac's forcefield belt and he used Rip Hunter's time sphere to go back to the 20th century where he saved then President Ronal Reagan's life and got known as Booster Gold when he got tounge tied and fluffed his name. His nickname from his football career was "Booster" and "Goldstar" was the hero name he actually wanted to be known as. I joked in the video about maybe Rip Hunter arresting him for time violations but in a later Booster Gold series (2007 - 2011)they team-up and it's revealed that Rip is Booster's son!! Time travel eh? It gets a bit messy doesn't it?

The Power Company

Witchfire 1

Manhunter 1

Josiah Power 1

Skyrocket 1

Striker Z 1

Sapphire 1

Bork 1

The Power Company 1 - 18

Created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett this team of professional heroes for hire 1st appeared in JLA # 61 before starring in their own 18 issue series. The series of one-shots introducing the cast were called Power Surge and had them team-up with existant heroes and act as origin stories for the team. Josiah Power although the strongest meta of the Company, and the man who brings everyone together, rarely fought alongside the team. This is not the 1st hero-for-hire team from DC, there has been The Conglomerate, Captains of Industry, Hero Hotline, S.T.A.R Corps and the ill-fated Blood Pack, heroes created by a Bloodlines alien's bite, who in line with my rant of the video were mercilessly killed off during one crisis or another!

Adventure Comics presentsDial "H" for Hero 479 - 490

Well this is cool, I was only just talking about these books last week when I found the H.E.R.O. books in the 1st box I peeped into. Rather than just repeating myself here is a link to that blog for you to check out HERE

Ambush Bug

Son of Ambush Bug 2

Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer (1985)

Irwin "Ambush Bug" Schwab was intenttionally created by Keith Giffen as a silly character and 1st appeared in DC Comics Presents #52 in 1982. Apparently both Bug and Lobo were created by Giffen from an old character Lunatik who he created whilst in high school. Does that make them brothers!? Ambush Bug has the power of teleporattion and was inititally an annoying supervillain for Superman before deciding to become a good guy. His origin is disputed but one story is that when the planet Schwab was doomed one of it's inhabitants, Brum-El, desperate to save his wardrobe sends his clothes into space where it collides with a radioactive space spider and only Ambush Bug's suit and an angry sock with a Doctor Doom complex named Argh!Yle! survive. The sock is Bug's evil nemesis. He is considered to be suffering with mental illness and often breaks the fourth wall, I think he predates Deadpool in this regard but I'm not sure. HERE is a cool list of 4th wall breakers for you to check out!

Ms Marvel 1 - 23

Over the years there have been 4 series of Ms Marvel with the 1st two starring Carol Danvers and the others with Kamala Khan. This run from 1977 is the 1st ongoing series she starred in. As Carol Danvers she 1st appeared in Marvel Superheroes #13 (March 1968) as a non-superpowered United States Airforce officer. In Captain Marvel # 118 (November 1969) she was caught in an explosion with the Captain which caused her DNA to merge with his and ended up giving her super powers. She started fighting crime as Ms Marvel in her own book quite some time later though in January 1977. 

Over the years she also had the names Binary and Warbird before taking on the mantle of Captain Marvel in 2012 after the original hero died and Captain America told her that Mar-vell would want her to have it. "The Death of Captain Marvel" from 1982 is Marvel's 1st ever graphic novel. 

Although only Carol and Kamala had runs of Ms Marvel books there have been 2 other women to use the name. There was Sharon Ventura who was an Unlimited Class Wrestler and love interest of Benjamin "The Thing" Grimm, who also was a member of the Fantastic Four for a time. Then there was Karla Sofen aka the villain Moonstone who was a member of Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. As for the Captain Marvel name that's a whole another story, you can go and check that out HERE as I think this week's blog is long enough already!! 

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I looked into the book and found that it only ran for 23 issues so I do have all of them! I have no idea why it says at the end of the book "Next Week: Sabretooth" when there is no #24!!

So that's 76 DC comics and 23 Marvel comics in the tally this week, making the totals 164 DC and 23 Marvel comics so far. That is still the tiniest sliver of the tip of the iceberg so come back next week for some more counting.

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