A brief moment with Black Widow

One of the biggest complaints I hear about The Avengers movie is how Black Widow’s fairly useless compared to the rest of the team.  And sure, during a full-scale alien invasion, she can’t compete with an actual god of thunder, but Black Widow (real name either Natalia Romanova or Natasha Romanoff) fulfills a very important role for the team.  For missions that require more finesse and less punching, a giant green monster and mechanical suit of armor aren’t going to be able to crawl through ducts.

Natalia has a fascinating back story.  She was brainwashed/trained from birth as a Russian super spy using injections and potions, becoming a Soviet James Bond with more flexibility and cleavage. Eventually, she defects to the good ol’ USA.  But if you want to talk about a character who’s past catches up often and badly, she’s your superhero to read about.  Also, Black Widow’s history has her assassinating as early as the 1950s, making her your grandmother’s age.

Though it takes a while for Marvel to transform Black Widow into Scarlett Johansson.  Quite a while. She first appears in Tales of Suspense #52 back in 1963, written by Stan Lee & N. Korok and drawn by Don Heck.

I don’t know why she’s dressed like an extra from The Great Gatsby.

Even when she started wearing that cool spy outfit and letting the red hair flow, the character we know her as today hadn’t fully formed yet:

That’s from Avengers #111, written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Don Heck.  Look, you can’t blame her for having a crush on Daredevil (half the Marvel universe wants in that maroon jumpsuit), but always remember: Black Widow first joined the Avengers to spite Daredevil spurning her advances.  I’m exaggerating for narrative effect, please don’t judge me.

Today, we’re taking a look at the Fear Itself: The Black Widow one-shot, written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Peter Nguyen.  A large group of Asgardian hammer monsters is currently wrecking havoc on the world, but Captain America has other plans for his best infiltrator.

I should give you some quick back story.  First, French terrorists stole some nuclear bombs.  The baddies in this church know where the bombs are being stored.  More importantly though, Bucky Barnes, Natalia’s boyfriend, has just been killed by Red Skull.  Like an issue before this.

I know Black Widow has no powers.  But neither does Batman.  The non-powered good guys get placed in an interesting story dilemma, where their intelligence and planning plays more into success than the strength of their kicks.  And in the Marvel universe, Black Widow’s the best — I mean, they put her in the movie and everything.

Aren’t wrist guns cool?

In the middle of battle, she makes a joke that hits deeper than any of Spider-Man’s quips ever can. Masculinity insults by attractive women forever sting.  That and a bullet through his chin.  Natalia’s more like Wolverine than Captain America.

Fortunately, the bad guys give up the location of the nukes.  Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of wearing a skin-tight leather suit as her only form of protection.

Remember this scene from beginning of the film?  She’s tied up in a chair while the bad guys think they’re interrogating her.  Then she beats them all up and the audience laughs.  This isn’t that scene.

We know Black Widow’s not dead.  Sure, she was just shot in the head, but now we get to play the game of seeing how the writer had his characters cheat certain death.  Metal plate in the noggin? Gun missed brain by millimeters?  Rubber bullets?

LMD’s a good choice.  Nick Fury uses them so often that characters have to question who they’re speaking to usually within a panel or two of his entrance.  Think of LMDs as remote-controlled, perfect copies of people.  Only detectable after being sliced open or shot in the head of whatever.  An old plot trick definitely, but not with this twist:

And the world’s safe once more.  Though let’s not tell the other Avengers about this.

X-Men vs. Juggernaut, Pt. 2

As we left off on Wednesday, the normal method of taking down the Juggernaut has failed.  Emma Frost’s attempted mind molesting backfired and the unstoppable behemoth is slowly making his way to San Francisco.  To destroy it.  Don’t worry, the X-Men are on it:

We pick back up with the second half of Uncanny X-Men #540-543, written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Greg Land.  The X-Men army marches into battle.

Plan 4’s a bust.  Turns out when possessed by an evil Asgardian god, walking on air gets added to the power arsenal.  But despite many offensive words you can call mutants, quitters isn’t one of them.

To be fair to the X-Men, it doesn’t seem like Juggernaut’s fighting back very much.  Much more of a slow crawl to annihilate the city.  Still, when there’s only 200 mutants left on Earth and half of them have tried to stop Juggernaut, the options are becoming a bit beyond the X-Men’s creativity.

Finally, the half-naked Juggernaut oracle offers a solution:

Of course, she refuses.  She’s a good woman after all, though the offer remains tempting in her private meetings between her own human military commanders.  Time for Cyclops to play with strategies above his understanding.

You know about Magik?  She’s Colossus’ sister and current ruler of the demonic Limbo dimension. Nasty woman, almost certainly a sociopath, and quite possibly the last chance to save San Francisco.

Y’see, Magik’s a demon expert, and Juggernaut’s superpower derives from a demonic artifact.  So one possible way to neuter the unstoppable monster is to remove that whole unstoppable part.  Luckily, Magik’s buddy-buddy with the demon responsible for Juggernaut’s origin.

Juggernaut being possessed by an Asgardian god totally goes against the whole being possessed by a demonic god.  Demons can be so petty at times.  Cyttorak, seeing his avatar cheating on him with another baddie, does the only responsible thing — he strips Juggernaut of his power.  A couple of things to note.  First, Juggernaut’s still possessed by the evil hammer, so his strength isn’t exactly hampered.  Like at all.  And more importantly, Cyttorak needs to have an avatar running around Earth. It’s probably an ego thing.

Well, of the three, who’s by far the most capable choice?

Say hello to Juggernaut Colossus.  Understand this isn’t temporary.  He gets to keep the powers after he’s done pounding the crap out of the last avatar.  Witness Cyclops’ final plan: the one where two enormous behemoths punch each other to death.

By the way, the Asgardian Serpent god plays it safe.  Of his seven monsters rampaging around the world, he only loses one by the time the final battle starts.  That’s called good management.  Most importantly, the X-Men save the day and San Francisco is safe.

Except for one final detail.  You remember earlier when I mentioned that Mayor Sadie had met briefly with her soldiers to see about possible mutant destruction plans?

I present this moment to you as the finest example between Professor X’s and Cyclops’ X-Men.  Scott Summers may be the professor’s protégé, but the two lead in very different ways.  Plus, Cyclops has a gorgeous head of hair.

Welcome to the new generation of X-Men.  Meet the new boss, who is definitely not the same as the old boss.

X-Men vs. Juggernaut, Pt. 1

Not any Juggernaut, this one:

Y’see, during the Marvel Fear Itself event, seven magical evil Thor hammers fell to Earth.  Each one transformed the respective hero/villain into a way tougher version of themselves.  Also, now with a giant hammer.  Juggernaut got to be one of those lucky seven, but unfortunately the main side effect is becoming the mindless slave of a forgotten Asgardian supervillain.  That’s the breaks.

A few articles ago, I briefly mentioned that when Cyclops assumed leadership of the X-Men from Professor X, he turned it from a school into an army.  That’s not an exaggeration, and Uncanny X-Men #540-543, written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Greg Land, is the perfect arc to prove it.  By the way, if you get a chance, check out Gillen’s entire run on Journey Into Mystery.  I can’t begin to explain how amazingly wonderful it is.  A superb literary achievement.

With a rampaging Juggernaut heading towards the X-Men’s base of operations near San Francisco, it’s time for America’s favorite mutants to jump into action.  Also, I guess to deal with that half-naked oracle as well.  First, Cyclops and the mayor of San Francisco have a combat briefing.  Polite diplomacy and all.

That’s Emma Frost in a cowboy outfit.  Emma being Emma.  Think the power of Jean Grey with none of the vices like modesty or prudence.  As usual, fights like the one about to happen always start off the same.  Cyclops will take his A-team into battle and see how they fare.  Test the waters.  You probably know how this is going to go.

If you ever have any doubt of Cyclops’ awesomeness, you should have all that erased by the end of part two.  Currently, the main X-Men roster consists of Cyclops, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Iceman, Magneto, and Emma Frost.  And honestly, that team alone would be able to pretty easily wipe out the Avengers, much less Magento’s former henchman.

So far, the helmet idea isn’t going accordingly.  Let Magneto, master of magnetism, handle this.

Look, military commanders have setbacks all the time.  It’s how the deal with the next step that makes them great.  And Cyclops is great.  Witness one of the most famous lines in recent comic history:

Plan 2 commence:

Hope Summers, the teenage Mutant Messiah, has the power to mimic any abilities of those around her.  So Cyclops surrounded her with all the mutants.

Mission success!  Turns out a hundred mutant powers at once can rip the helmet off a God-like being. Time to for Emma to be useful and psychically shut the monster down.

Oops.  With that, the second half of the arc and another twenty images will conclude Friday, including a story development that changes one of the X-Men permanently.  How’s that for a tease?

A vacation ambush with Cyclops

I’m a bit sick today, so let’s skip some complicated back story, a melodramatic conspiracy, or complicated love triangle.  Let’s just enjoy a superhero brawl.  Cyclops will do.

As Professor X has been slowly phased out of X-Men leadership the past decade or so, Cyclops (real name Scott Summers) effectively and confidently took up that mantle.  Then he transformed the X-Men from a school to an army.  Bigger threats attacking mutant-kind, I guess.  Before that in 2001, back when he was still with Jean Grey, he received his own miniseries Cyclops #1-4, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Mark Texeira.  Here’s a scene from the first issue.

We all know by now that superheroes can’t have vacations.  A supervillain or robot or parasite will inevitably burst through the door for our hero to rough up.

Cyclops has the odds badly stacked against him.  Juggernaut’s practically invincible and Black Tom Cassidy has similar powers as Cyclops.

Yes, Cyclops can really only shoot eye lasers.  Nowadays, where everybody can fly, lift tanks, and survive nuclear blasts, I guess eye lasers don’t really stack up.  Except Summers has been fighting baddies since middle school.  And while my X-Men knowledge may not be as extensive as other superheroes, I do know that very few characters are capable of out-thinking the X-Men leader.

No one can take Juggernaut in a fist fight (except maybe the Hulk), but his intelligence borders on the pity of sympathetic doctors.  I’m saying he’s dumb.

If you’re confused by Black Tom Cassidy, you’re not alone.  The dude’s a minor bad guy at most. Though he is Irish, which I assume makes for some welcome diversity in the comic book world.  Too bad no one takes the man seriously.

Now things get interesting, right?  If the full force of laser eyes can’t scratch Juggernaut, then him with a hostage pretty much guarantees victory.  Except he’s up against Cyclops, who has been blessed with serious brains to go along with his boyish good looks.

Let’s be fair.  Juggernaut knows the X-Men aren’t killers.  Except for Wolverine.  And Psylocke.  And Nightcrawler.  And Cable.  A few more I’m missing.  Okay, so there’re are a few exceptions.  But Cyclops?  Totally not a merciless killer, but definitely a merciless actor.

And truthfully, Cyclops has been through some crazy stuff recently.  The early 2000s had some crazy X-Men stories.  Anyway, Juggernaut hates losing fights, but he hates losing friends even more.  Giant of a man, giant of a heart.

Battle over.  Next up, the three of them giggle together among hot cocoa and Snuggies.