Classic Comic Review: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1-12
Written by Jim Shooter and illustrated by Mike Zeck
Published by Marvel Comics

I saw a couple of these comics when we were cleaning up and I liked the cover of the first issue with all of the heroes on it and the one where Spider-Man was standing in his black costume. I was going to read them and then told my dad that maybe I could do reviews for some older comics that used to be popular once in awhile and he thought it was a good idea. I don’t know if I’ll do it a lot because this series wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be but if anyone has ideas on what other old comics could be good I might read those.

Secret Wars is a 12 issue comic where a mysterious god type person called the Beyonder grabs a bunch of heroes and villains and takes them to space. The Beyonder separates the good guys and bad guys and tells them that he’s going to put them on a planet to fight each other. He makes up a new planet made up of pieces of other planets for them to fight on, too. The Beyonder says that whatever team wins is going to get any wish that they ask for.

It was weird that Magneto was on the good guy’s team. Even he didn’t know why he was there. None of the good guys wanted him on the team and when everyone gets to the new world Magneto just leaves and starts his own base. The good guys vote that Captain America should be their leader because he is used to being in charge. Wolverine is a bit of a jerk in this one and says that he isn’t going to listen to Captain America and the other good guys all yell at him. Dr. Doom wants to be the leader of the bad guys but he pretty much wants to be on his own, too.

Some of the battles are really cool. I like when Spider-Man is spying on the X-Men and they’re talking about what they’re going to do in the battle and they find out he’s listening so they all attack him. I thought it was pretty cool that Spider-Man was able to beat the whole team of X-Men by himself, but when he was going to tell the other heroes what happened Professor X used his powers to make him forget what he was going to say. I liked the part where the bad guys drop a whole mountain on the super heroes and the Hulk has to hold the whole thing up by himself. He was really, really strong in this book. And I liked how Mr Fantastic asked a bunch of heroes for all of their weapons like Iron Man’s armor and Spider-Man’s web shooters so they could blow a hole in the mountain to escape.

I thought it was really funny that the Wasp gets killed in this story, too. I don’t know a lot about her except that she’s an Avenger but she has gotten killed in three stories that I read this year. I don’t know any other characters who get killed so much, but she has to be the worst hero ever. She does get better at the end of the story when some alien girl helps her out but it still doesn’t change that she was killed again. I don’t know why she was being friends with Magneto anyway. She knew he was a bad guy so it was stupid that she was trying to be his friend.

The part I liked the most in the book was probably when Spider-Man got the black costume. I know Venom was an alien creature but I never read the story of how he got to know Spider-Man. It’s pretty dumb that Spider-Man didn’t check before he went to the machine to get the new costume but I did like how funny and happy he was that he could turn his costume into shorts and short sleeves and stuff like that. I like when Spider-Man just jumps around making jokes and everyone else starts to get annoyed with him.

The parts in the end with Dr Doom going after the Beyonder was okay. I like how Doom thinks he can do anything he wants and cuts that guy Klaw up to make a weapon to try and take Beyonder’s powers and I liked the art when Doom got all messed up and had his arm and legs cut off. The book got a bit boring at the end when Doom was in control and the super heroes really didn’t do anything to try and stop him because he kept blowing them up and killing everyone. I didn’t like how they made Captain America’s shield broken, either. It didn’t look right.

I like how everyone got into teams at the end when they went home and the Thing wanted to stay on the planet by himself. I don’t know why he was going to stay back even if he could turn human because he wouldn’t have any powers but I guess he got back because he’s in comics now.

Some of the battles were cool and it was neat to see all of the characters together on the same teams and battling each other but the story was way, way too long. There were a lot of parts where they kept going over the same things over again. They kept showing the beginning of the book where the Beyonder talks about the rules like 3 or 4 times and they didn’t have to do that. And there were a lot of parts where the superheroes are just standing around doing nothing. If it was going to be a book about a war there should have been a lot more action than it was.

It was okay but not as good as I thought it was going to be. Secret Invasion was a lot better.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Bossy Bear and Just Like Bossy Bear

Bossy Bear and Just Like Bossy Bear
Written and illustrated by David Horvath
Published by Disney/Hyperion Books

I picked up a lot of books at the New York Comic Con and two of the ones I got were Bossy Bear and Just Like Bossy Bear. They’re really funny books that are easy to read.

It’s about a blue bear who bosses people around. He wants things to be done his way all the time. I like his list of things to do because it just says do what I want to do and take me where I want to go and to hurry up. And then the rest of the book he’s just telling people what to do. He tells someone to make his room and he’s pointing and the other guy is just sitting there with a dumb look on his face. He gets really mad when he’s in a long line for the movies and he just tells everyone to hurry up and they all look at him scared.

A couple of people ask if he wants to play and Bossy Bear says he’ll play only if they play by his rules but they don’t think that’s fair and leave him all alone. Then Bossy Bear meets a turtle and the turtle says that he’s very bossy but he doesn’t have to be. Bossy Bear becomes his friend and gives him the same kind of crown that he wears.

In the second book the turtle is acting just like Bossy Bear. He’s watching Bossy Bear be very bossy and then he starts being bossy too. They’re at a party and there’s a piñata and the turtle has a big stick and says that he is going to get all the candy himself. Bossy knows that turtle isn’t being good so he starts being polite to people and wishing that they have good days and telling them to be careful and stuff.

I think Bossy Bear set a good example by realizing he wasn’t being very nice and started to do nice things for people.

The book is really funny. Bossy Bear is funny when he is being bad and I really like how the pictures are drawn. The characters all look really funny and I like how each page is drawn with a different color but only one color so it’s very bright. I like looking through the book and seeing which characters show up on the different pages. It’s an easy book to read because it’s short and the words are written big. I definitely want to read more Bossy Bear books.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #48

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #48
Written by Todd Dezago and illustrated by Jonboy Meyers
Published by Marvel Comics

This book is about Spider-Man having to fight Scorpion and Electro at the same time.
Scorpion tried to rob a truck full of money and Spider-Man stopped him. I thought it was funny that when they did the pictures of how Scorpion got his powers one of guys who helped with his powers looked like Albert Einstein. It’s weird how they made that happen. Scorpion nails Spider-Man in the face with his tail and Spider-Man crashes into a pole. Then Spider-Man rips a sign down from the street and nails him in the gut. The driver of the truck is drowning because his truck is filled with all this water from the street hydrant and Spider-Man has to save him so the Scorpion gets away.

Later Spider-Man is swinging around on patrol and sees that Electro is in a museum trying to steal some expensive jewels. Spider-Man breaks in to stop Electro and they fight in the museum. Electro zaps Spider-Man a few times with his powers and gets away.

The next day Peter Parker is very mad because he got both pictures of Electro and Scorpion on the front page and thought he was going to get double the money but his boss was really cheap and said it only counts as one picture. That wasn’t fair but Peter doesn’t do anything but get upset and leaves.

Then every time Spider-Man is swinging around on patrol Electro and Scorpion keep attacking him. He’s not catching a break and he starts getting afraid to go out because he knows he’s going to get attacked by all the bad guys. Spider-Man sees that a building is on fire and swings up to rescue a kid. The little boy asks Spider-Man which bad guy is stronger and tells Spider-Man that when his older brothers pound on him he gets them to fight each other by getting them to see who is stronger. Spider-Man thinks it’s a great idea and makes Scorpion and Electro come into a trap. He gets them to battle each other over who can beat Spider-Man better and the bad guys just fight each other until they’re tired and take each other out and Spider-Man wins.

I really like how Scorpion and Electro ended up fighting each other because you don’t always get to see bad guys fighting each other. I like how Spider-Man got that kid’s idea and used it to beat both bad guys. I also really liked when Spider-Man ripped the sign off the street and nailed Scorpion in the gut. It was cool to see him using his strength powers in a street fight.

It was weird that the cover looked nothing like the art that was in the book. The cover was a more real Spider-Man and the stuff inside was more like a cartoon. The art in the book was good, too. I liked the picture of the building that was on fire and how they showed the tower falling into the building and tearing the windows and sides of the building down. I like the details on those pictures. It was a good book with Spider-Man getting to fight some bad guys that are really popular but that he doesn’t get to battle a lot in other comics.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

The Dan Slott Interview

The Amazing Dan Slott

Dan Slott, one of the main writers of Amazing Spider-Man, let me interview him at the New York Comic Con.

The Kid: Why did you want to write Spider-Man?

Dan Slott: Well they asked me and I said ‘yes’. You can never say no to something like that. You don’t say ‘oh let me think about it’ or ‘no give it to someone else I don’t think I want to do this’. You beg them and say ‘yes, please let me work on Spider-Man!’

Kid: What super powers would you want to have?

Dan: You know what? I’ve dedicated many years thinking about this very question. When I was younger it had to be flying. I always thought it would be so cool to be able to fly anywhere. Now that I’m older there is no question that I would want the ability to read and control people’s minds. If my boss told me my script is due at the end of the week I would use my mind to tell him ‘I need more time. I need two weeks’. If I want to go see Slumdog Millionare and my friends are saying they have to do laundry or something I’ll will them to put the laundry away and see the movie with me.

Kid: What super hero would you want to be?

Dan: I think Captain Marvel is really cool. He has all these great powers and at the same time he turns into a different person. No one would know who he was. I wouldn’t have people bothering me asking me to start their car in the morning or to get their cat out of the tree. After I was done my super hero stuff during the day I’d switch into Billy Batson and go about my day. Martian Manhunter is very cool, too. I mean, he has all the powers. He has super strength. He can fly, shape shift. He even has Martian vision. You know what that is?

Kid: No

Dan: Neither do I, but it sounds like it has to be really cool.

Kid: Who is your favorite super hero?

Dan: When I was younger it was Spider-Man. When I was a teenager I really liked Moon Knight. Moon Knight is the Marvel Universe version of Batman if Batman goofed up all the time. I thought it was so cool to have this really tough guy who was trying to fight crime and beat up the bad guys and he was always kind of screwing up. And who wears white when they’re going to fight crime at night anyway? And now it’s back to being Spider-Man as my favorite. I loves me some Spider-Man.

Kid: What sidekick would you want to have?

Dan: A superhero sidekick or any person?

Kid: Superhero first

Dan: She-Hulk.

Kid: Really?

Dan: Yeah. She Hulk is awesome. She’s tough and she’s cool. And she’s not all crazy like her cousin. She’s not going to get mad and start punching me for no reason.

Kid: What about real person?

Dan: Um, probably Michael Phelps.

Kid: Who?

Dan: Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer. He seems cool enough and like he’d know how to handle himself.

Kid: Who’s your favorite villain?

Dan: Mr Mxyzptlk. Ha, try and spell that one! You might need to Google it or something. I just think he’s a great character. He can do all these crazy things and it’s always funny how Superman tries new ways to get him to say his name backwards. I always thought there was such an easy way for Superman to get him to say his name backwards. Wanna know how?

Kid: How?

Dan: Knock Knock

Kid: Who’s there?

Dan: Mister Kltpzyxm

Kid: Mister Kltpzyxm who?

Dan: Ha. Gota ya. See how easy that is! I think it’s fun to try and get different ways for Superman to trick him into saying his name backwards. Maybe he could sing about it. You know, I once wrote a Superman musical.

Kid: What?

Dan: Yeah. The DC people were very happy with it. It looked like we were going to be able to do it. I had everything written, including the songs and when it came time to animate it the guys who were going to be doing it all said, ‘nah, we’re not doing this. It’s stupid.’

Kid: What weapons would you use?

Dan: I’m a cheap guy so I’d probably pick a boomerang. That way it always comes back to me when I use it. Guns are okay but then you always have to buy more bullets. Throwing stars are cool but then they get stuck in the bad guys and you lose them. With a boomerang you only have to pay for it once.

Kid: What kind of costume would you wear?

Dan: I’m in the Marvel Universe so I’d probably have to go with the traditional red or blue. Maybe black. It can’t be green and purple. Those are bad guy colors at Marvel.

Kid: Seriously?

Dan: Yeah. Think about all the bad guys who wear purple and green. You have Green Goblin, Mysterio, Swordsman. That’s probably why everyone gives the Hulk such a hard time.

Kid: What kind of mask would you wear?

Dan: I think Iron Fist has the coolest mask. He’s got half of his face showing and the Spider-Man kind of eyes. It’s very cool.

Kid: He was walking around here earlier.

Dan: That’s cool.

Kid: What villain would you fight?

Dan: You know what, I’ll put it all on the table. I’d fight Galactus. Yes I would. And when I was through with him he’d never bother the Earth again.

Kid: Who would you rather fight: my dad or that guy over there (points to a con goer in a yellow and green 28 jersey?

Dan: Hmmm. I’m going to have to say your dad.

Liam laughs

Dan: Yeah, but you know what? Me and your dad would be fighting a long time and in typical superhero fashion we’d make up and then we’d team up to go after that guy (points to now perplexed man in green and yellow 28 jersey)

Kid: If you were a bad guy, who would you rather fight: Captain America or Deadpool?

Dan: Deadpool. I couldn’t fight Cap. He’s such a good guy. Even bad guys probably feel so bad when they have to fight Cap because he’s so nice. Everyone loves him. No one likes Deadpool.

Kid: I like Deadpool.

Dan: Sorry

Kid: Would you rather be 20,000 years old or 30,000?

Dan: Definitely 30,000. If I’m going to grow old I might as well go all the way, you know? But I’m definitely going to have to floss a lot if I’m that old.

Kid: What kind of store would you rob as a villain?

Dan: I once had a character I created called La Pinata who only robbed candy stores. He would cosume all the candy and then after one punch he blows up and candy explodes all over the place. One thing I would never do is rob a camera store. No way. Everyone would know what you look like! But you know what? I would rob from a crook store. That way everything I take is something that was already taken by crooks. How’s that.

Kid: How would you like to die?

Dan: I want to drown in a giant vat of chocolate. Mmmmm chocolate. Then you’re dead. It would almost be okay.

Kid: Would you rather be toilet paper or a toilet plunger?

Dan: Toilet plunger. The paper could be used.

Kid: Yeah but I didn’t say if the toilet plunger was used, either.

Dan: That’s a trick!

Kid: Which super hero would you rather marry: She Hulk or Ms Marvel?

Dan: She Hulk. She Hulk is smart and strong and funny. She Hulk would be great. But if I really had to make a choice I’d marry a Skrull. Honey, today can you make yourself look like Angelina? It’d be great.

Kid: But then you’d be marrying a boy?

Dan: What? No.

Kid: Yeah. Skrulls are boys.

Dan: Trick question. You never said the Skrull was going to be a boy. I’d pick a girl Skrull. Not a boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Kid: What if you were a girl?

Dan: That’s another good question that I never thought about. If I was a girl I would marry Dan Slott. Because he’s handsome and dreamy. I’d also think about Starhawk. Cause half the time he’d be a girl.

Kid: If you could turn into any animal what would it be?

Dan: That is an excellent question. I’m going to say a goldfish.

Kid: A goldfish!!! (laughing)

Dan: Yeah. Of course. What’s wrong with that. Being a goldfish would be awesome.

Kid: No it wouldn’t.

Dan: Look, if you’re someone’s pet it’s not like you’re going to be going out for Italian food every night. At best you might get table scraps once in awhile. Usually you’re going to get that gross canned or dry food. That’s disgusting. And sometimes you’re going to have to eat garbage or something gross like that. But goldfish are really, really stupid. Yeah. A goldfish forgets things like 15 minutes after it happens. So sure I’m going to be swimming around in my own poop a lot of the time but 15 minutes later I forget all about it and life is great again.

Kid: What kind of pet would you have if you could have any?

Dan: I’d go with a monkey. It’d be a helped monkey, though. He would be able to do things for me kind of like a monkey butler or something…even if it’s just turning on the TV. I have cats now but they don’t do anything for me. I feed them. They don’t like me. At least the helper monkey could help out with dinner, even just taking something out of the microwave.

Kid: What if the monkey turned evil?

Dan: If my monkey turned out to be a villain!?

Kid: Yeah

Dan: Then I’d have to do the right thing and turn him in. I’d make sure that he went to monkey jail.

Kid: Thanks for doing the interview.

Everyone should go read Amazing Spider-Man and Mighty Avengers because they’re awesome.

Blog of the Week

Blog of the Week!

I found out today that my reviews were named as the site of the week by the Funny Book Fanatic site. I think it's really cool that so many people read my reviews and especially that my review site was picked as the best for the week. That was good news.

I went to the New York Comic Convention on Saturday with my dad, brother, pop pop and uncle and it was great. I got to sit at the Del Rey booth and Tommy Lee Edwards and do a lot of sketches for people and even made some money. There were a lot of people who told me that they read my reviews on the computer.

I also bought a lot of cool toys, books and art and took a lot of fun pictures. I even got a cool wooden sword that's awesome. I'm going to write more about that and put pictures up later. My favorite part of the Comic Convention was interviewing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott. He was soooo funny! I asked him a lot of questions and he answered all of them and made me laugh a lot. I'm going to have the interview up on the website in a few days, too.

It was a great Convention and finding out that I was the blog of the week is really cool.

http://funnybookfanatic.wordpress.com/

NY Comic Con Saturday: Meet 'The Kid'

I’ll be spending time at two different places this Saturday at the New York Comic Con.

Del Rey Booth
12-12:30pm
4:30-5pm

http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

Tommy Lee Edwards and the Blvd Boys in Artists Alley
2-3:30pm

http://www.theblvdstudio.com/

Anyone who likes reading my reviews can come over and say hello. I think it will be cool to meet people who read my reviews and like them.

I’m also going to be drawing pictures to sell at both places. I can try to draw whatever anybody wants but my 3 best are drawings of Spider-Man, Batman and Crazy Bunny (a character I created). Drawings will cost 3 dollars each.

And if you are a creator who wants to come and say hello that would be cool, too. I want to try and do some interviews while I'm there.

See you at the con!

New Avengers #49

The New Avengers #49
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Billy Tan
Published by Marvel Comics

This comic is basically about Luke Cage still looking for his missing daughter. Norman Osborn is helping him because they made a secret deal in the last issue where Osborn was going to help Cage if Cage helps out Osborn and his guys.

In the beginning of this comic Cage is with Osborn and Venom and they go to a secret prison where a lot of Skrulls are prisoners after they lost Secret Invasion. The Skrulls aren’t telling Osborn where Cage’s baby is so Venom grabs one of them and bites his head off and there’s all this green goop. Osborn is torturing the Skrulls and wants to know where the Skrull Jarvis is that took the baby. He says that Venom can eat the other Skrull is he doesn’t tell him what’s going on so the Skrull tells them where Jarvis is.

Luke Cage goes to the special meeting place where the Skrulls go because the one Skrull told him that Jarvis Skrull would be there. Jarvis shows up and Cage asks for his baby back and says he’ll let him live if his baby is okay. Once Cage gets his daughter back Bullseye shoots the Skrull Jarvis in the head and kills him. I really like the picture the artist drew of Bullseye with his rifle. I think it’s cool that it shows the smoke coming out of the gun and all of the details that he puts in like the Chinese food box and chopsticks. Luke brings the baby back to the Avengers base and lets his wife have the baby. His wife takes the baby and she goes back to the other Avengers and Cage stays behind.

I like when Cage grabbed the magic crowbar and started beating on all the bad guys. Bullseye was eating breakfast and Cage smacks him with the crowbar. Venom tries to help Bullseye but Cage uses the crowbar and smashes Venom and his costume splatters all over the house. After all that Cage threatens to hit Osborn with the crowbar and Osborn calls him a liar because he is breaking the deal. Cage gets really mad and chucks the crowbar out the window and then jumps out the window too and crashes on the ground.

Then Cage goes back to the fort where all of the good Avengers are hiding out. I like that Spider-Man was playing with the baby. Wolverine asked Cage why he didn’t take Osborn’s head off and said that he would have. That was a cool part, too. The Avengers are all hanging around their base and talking and watching TV and then they see Osborn’s Avengers on TV. It’s showing the last part of the comic where Osborn puts together his team of bad Avengers. All the Avengers are really mad and Ronin puts his mask on and says that they’re the real Avengers and they need to go get Osborn’s team and beat them down and get their name back.

This book was a lot of fun. I like when Venom is torturing the Skrulls and how Cage ended up smashing him with the crowbar. I like the part where Cage threw the crowbar and jumped out of the widow on the ground and there was the big crater in the ground. The only thing that bothered me about the book that there were a bunch of guys on the cover that weren’t in the book. And I don’t know why Ares is on Osborn’s team since Areas is supposed to be good and Osborn’s Avengers are full of bad guys.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10