Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #58: Baby Wildebeest

They grow up so fast.

Babies are many things.  They can be cute, gooey, smelly, and the apple of their parents’ eyes.  They also tend to be fragile.  Babies are the things that we may want to protect the most in any given situation.

So, what if the baby in question actually somehow becomes a superhero?  To answer that question, we come to Baby Wildebeest.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Case Files#50: Feral

Just try and put your body into this position and see how benevolent you are afterwards.

There was a time when Marvel’s X-Force was one of its hottest properties.  As drawn by Rob Liefeld, the book chronicled a group of hard-hitting mutants who believed in preemptive strikes against the bad mutants of the world, and likewise for not being so gentle and leaving them to walk away.  The original line-up has gotten a lot of mileage at Marvel, with many of the characters appearing in various X-books since the team first premiered in 1991.

So, what went wrong with Feral?

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #48: The Sentry

“Look, up in the sky! It’s an expy of Superman!”

Writer Paul Jenkins and artist Jae Lee had a surprise hit with an Inhumans mini-series when the “Marvel Knights” line launched, so there was some anticipation for their follow-up.

That would have been a character they said was a long forgotten Marvel hero that predated the Fantastic Four.  They said his name was the Sentry.

Bento Review: Youngblood Volume 1: Focus Tested

One of the most popular articles on Gabbing Geek is Jenny’s Geek Box Rankings.  I took advantage of that to try one or two for myself, and the Comic Bento box appealed to me.

So, what did I get for my first box?  Well, four graphic novels, all tied to the theme of the past.  I’ll be reviewing them in the order the card in the box had them listed in…which is about the only way I’d ever read a Youngblood volume first…or at all.

Review after the cut.

Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Secret Wars 43

The end is near for Secret Wars (well, there is still a month to go), but not for my write ups.  Sigh.  So much to do.  Anyway, last week finally saw the release of Secret Wars #7 Part Two aka Secret Wars #8.  I believe that only leaves the following for this long, long event:

Ultimate End #5 – December 16th
Secret Wars #9 – January 13th, 2016

After the break I’ll take a look at that penultimate Secret Wars issue as well as play some catch-up with the following books: Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars #3, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #3, Red Skull #2, Silver Surfer #15 and X-Men ’92 (Infinite) #6

Be sure to check out our latest Secret Wars Power Rankings, which also features links to the other parts of my read through.

Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Secret Wars Part Sixteen (X-Men ’92 Edition)

Much like they did with superhero movies in 2000, X-Men: The Animated Series showed that you could tell relevant and interesting stories without it being a camp fest.  (Ok, in fairness, Batman: The Animated Series began airing a month before X-Men to much critical acclaim, but that doesn’t help my intro.)

The series featured an X-Team similar in roster and look to the work Jim Lee and Chris Claremont were doing in the X-books at the time.  Namely Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, Jean Grey and Professor X.  It featured mostly original stories, but did adapt some popular comic storylines such as “Days of Future Past” and “The Dark Phoenix Saga”.  X-Men and the also excellent Spider-Man animated series even crossed over for their own version of the original Secret Wars.

Um…yeah…so this is the Beyonder in that story.

I previously looked at X-Men ’92 #1 in Part Seven of this series, and after the break I’ll continue with X-Men ’92 #2, X-Men ’92 #3, X-Men ’92 #4 and X-Men ’92 #5.  These are all the Infinite Comics versions of these books as the print editions are much slower to come out.

Also, if you are like me and haven’t read all of Johnathon Hickman’s Avengers run leading up to Secret Wars, be sure to take Tom’s Road To Secret Wars course at gabbinggeekuniversity.com.  The reading materials are online here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7.

And that course is a prerequisite to the other parts of this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

18 New Geek Monthly Mystery Box Subscriptions To Check Out

Welcome back to our Geek Monthly Mystery Box subscription round up! For anyone new to this concept, mystery subscription boxes are mail order boxes filled with “stuff” that you pay for on a monthly basis. The catch is that you have no idea what is going to be in the box month-to-month. You have to go on faith that what is being delivered, will match the value of the monthly subscription fee.

And if you’ve been following Gabbing Geek for a while, then you’ll know we did a 22 box review: Mystery Geek Box Monthly Subscriptions: The Good, The Bad, and The Geeky not too long ago. But since that post, the Geek Mystery Box market has added a few more contenders to the race!

Want to know how the new additions stack up agains the old trusties? Read on!

Pucked From Beyond The Grave

Wrong Puck!

Wolverine is somewhat renowned as, among other things, a short superhero.  Most adult male Marvel heroes that aren’t Spider-Man easily get to be about six feet tall, minimum, while Wolverine is a measly 5’4″ tall.  To make Wolverine look tall, his onetime sorta Alpha Flight teammate Puck is needed.  Puck absorbed a mystical sorcerous swordsman and managed to have his body condensed to half his regular size, so he generally appears to be, like, 2 feet tall.

Oh, and he was killed in an offhand, offscreen manner early in Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers run along with most of Alpha Flight to make a bad guy look tougher.

Slightly Misplaced Comics Heroes Case File #3: Sleepwalker

And he’s the good guy…

90s era Marvel comics have a reputation.  The guys who founded Image Comics were cutting their teeth there, and the characters they worked on seemed to take on many of the sorts of things fans today bemoan but which must have been selling back then, hence the reason for so many of them.  They were massive guys with guns, pouches, and bad-ass names and powers.  Bishop.  Cable.  Ghost Rider.  X-Force. Venom.  I think the Punisher had three separate titles going at one point.  Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man series showed the Hobgoblin going nuts, thinking he was a real goblin, finding religion, and ripping his own face off.

Then there was Sleepwalker.