Friday Night Fights: Autobio Cartoonist Grudge Match!

James Kochalka is probably best known for his black and white autobio comics, which usually fall under the American Elf title. This Wednesday, he had a new book out, and it was quite a departure from that work—it's a full-color all-ages book about a squirrel entitled Squirrelly Gray.

Jeffrey Brown is probably best known for his black and white autobio comics, like Unlikely and Clumsy. This Wednesday, he had a new book out, and it was quite a departure from that work—it's a full-color book about a race of warring robots that can transform into vehicles entitled The Incredible Change-Bots.

Seeing these two works from these two artists arrive on comic shop shelves in the same week raises an interesting question: If Kochalka fought Brown, who would win?




It looks like Kochalka would win.






Yeah, definitely Kochalka.

If you would like to hear more of their artsy-fartsy discussion of the creation of comics, you'll probably want to check out their 2005 collaboration Conversation #2, available from Top Shelf Productions.

If you would like to see more panels of people punching each other in the face, you'll probably want to check in with Bahlactus.

And don't worry about Kochalka and Brown, they ultimately worked everything out just fine:

Friday Night Fights: Batman abhors killing.

But then, zombies aren't technically alive. Click on the images below to better see how Batman takes advantage of a technicality.





(All that talk of Kelley Jones during Monday's preview reviews made me want to revisit 2000's Batman: Haunted Gotham #2 by Doug Moench, Kelley Jones and John Beatty)

Friday Night Fights: It's okay to punch like a girl...

...as long as you have the strength of Hippolyta.





For more punching, kicking, stabbing and awkwardly phrased battlecries, you know where to go.



(Badly scanned image from Showcase Presents: Shazam! Vol. 1, published by DC Comics. It originally appeared in short story "Secret of the Smiling Swordsman" from 1975's Shazam! #19. Art by Bob Osker; script by E. Nelson Bridwell)

Friday Night Fights: Theirs is not the reason why...

Aliens have invaded earth! After depleting our supply of Element-X, causing the failure of basic chemical processes and thus crippling our infrastructure, they've attacked the human population by mutating half of them and siccing them on the non-mutated half. Only a handful of Justice Leaguers are on-planet to fight off the invaders, among them such powerhouses as Elongated Man and Aquaman.

Facing an eney ship over the ocean, Orin turns to his finny friends for help.

Let's see how that works out for him:



Ooh, not so good for the dolphins. The aliens, however, rather enjoyed the attack. They even watch it again in slow-motion:



You know who else pumps his fist and grins with delight at the sight of casualties in battle? Bahlactus.


(From 1983's Justice League of America #212, by Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler, Paris Cullins and Romeo Tanghal; published by DC Comics)

Friday Night Fights: Batman vs. The X-Men

Another Friday night, another round of comic book character fisticuffs in the blogosphere!

Annnnd here comes the card girl...



Tonight's round of Friday Night Fights features the baddest badass in two fictional supehero universes, Batman! His opponent is-wait, scratch that. His opponents are the entire roll call of the most popular superhero team of all-time, The X-Men!

Don't get too excited, though, it's a pretty lame line-up of X-Men that take Batman on. Wolverine's not even there, and the mutants who do show up do so wearing their costume's from the cartoon. (I don't know why the world fears them, but I'm pretty sure it hates them because of their clothes).

It all went down in 1996 DC/Marvel: All Access #3, the penultimate chapter in the miniseries that dared to find the characters with the least chemistry in both companies catalogues and set them up against the least threatening threats imaginable: Superman vs. Venom, with an assist from Spidey! Jubille and Robin vs. Two-Face! Batman vs. The Scorpion! Batman and Dr. Strange...talking!)

Things get theoretically more exciting at the midway point of this issue, when Batman and Access want to take Dr. Strange back to their universe to interrogate him or something, and the X-Men show up because well, Marvel figured that might be more intersting than Batman vs. Wong, I guess.

Let's see how the Dark Knight fares in a battle royale against the Merry Mutants. (As always, just click on the images to better savor the delicious '90s details on the costumes).

BATMAN VERSUS BISHOP:



Yow, right in the goatee!



BATMAN VERSUS CANNONBALL:





...AND STORM AND JEAN GREY, WHILE HE'S AT IT:



(Although I think Jean technically took herself out of the fight, deciding the best use of her time is to berate Sam while he's still in mid-explosion rather than use any of her awesome mental powers against Batman).


BATMAN VERSUS ICEMAN:



Oh, Batman. Taken out by Iceman? Like you've never fought anyone who can freeze the floor before?

Bahlactus will be so disappointed in you.



FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:


1.) Why does Bishop carry guns? His mutant power, as I understand it from the panel in All Access #4 in which he explains it to Kyle Rayner while fighting him, is to absorb energy and redirect it as laser beams. So, essentially, he is a living laser gun already, right? So, why does he carry two big mutant-from-the-future style guns? (Not trying to be a smart-ass here, I'm actually curious). Isn't that a little like Superman having twin head-mounted flamethrowers?




2.) Has anyone ever been more wrong about anything than Access was in this panel, when he said the ensuing JLA vs. X-Men fight would be interesting? Or do we let him off the hook for saying it should be instead of saying that it would be?

Friday Night Fights: Casey Jones at the bat

He sure does, Casey. He sure does.

But don't just take our word for it. Ask Bahlactus.



(Stargirl panel from All Star Comics 80-Page Giant #1, drawn by David Ross and Andrew Hennessy and published by DC Comics. Badly scanned images of Casey Jones baseball-batting his way through Foot Clan ninjas to kick The Shredder in the breadbasket from 1987's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #10 by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Michael Dooney and Steve Lavinge and published by Mirage.)

Friday Night Fights: Special World War Hulk Edition

Blackbolt, Medusa and Iron Man couldn't stop the Hulk. A random assemblage of Avengers including such heavy hitters as Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Wonder Man and Ares couldn't stop the Hulk. The combined might of the entire Fantastic Four, even with Storm and Black Panther pitching in, couldn't stop the Hulk. Ant-Man sure as hell coulndn't stop the Hulk, and while I haven't read Ghost Rider, I'm pretty sure he couldn't stop the Hulk either.

Is there no one in the entire universe capable of stopping the Hulk?

No. No there's not.

Not in the Marvel Universe, anyway.

But the next universe over? The DC Universe? They've got some guys who can probably take the Hulk.

Guys like, oh, I don't know, maybe



Despite their residency in two different fictional universes, and the fact that they're both owned by different companies, the Man of Steel and the Jade Giant have traded blows on a couple of occassions, including one that didn't really kind of suck.

That would be 1999's The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman, a co-publication between Marvel and DC that was scripted by Roger Stern, penciled by Steve Rude and inked by Al Milgrom. It's fairly unique among intercompany crossovers in that it is really, really quite good, and almost totally unique among Marvel/DC crossovers in that it's so good.

It's been quite a while since the two companies have crossed-over (since 2003's JLA/Avengers, actually), but there were a few years after 1997's Marvel Vs. DC series where it seemed to happen enough to get totally boring. Batman and Spider-Man, Batman and Captain America, Batman and Spider-Man again, Batman and Daredevil, Batman and The Punisher, Batman's temporary replace Jean-Paul Valley and the Punisher. No one needed to read any of this.

Of course, it was the mediocrity of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and Silver Surfer flying through space together or Superman teamimg up with the Fantastic Four that made the really good crossovers stand out, and chief among these were the JLA/Avengers story, which gets a million points for thoroughness (Kurt Busiek basically just found ways to have George Perez draw every single Avenger, every single Justice Leaguer vs. every single Avenger and Justice League villain ever, guest-starring everyone in both universes), and this Superman vs. Hulk comic.

While Stern's script does a good job of nailing the traditional Silver Age sounding character dynamics and dialogue of the Superman cast, without making it seem overly dated or kitschy, and he manages to weave the Hulk and his characers into the story in a coherent way, it's really Rude's book. He and Milgrom make this truly something special, as he draws the Hulk like the old, original Jack Kirby and company Hulk from the misunderstood monster's earliest adventures, and his Superman seems to have flown in from one of his own Fleischer cartoons.

This book doesn't simply go through the motions of blending the two franchises casts, it actually blends their aesthetics, and rather than featuring the characters as theyw ere currently appearing in their monthly comics, Rude, Stern and company chose high points in their existence during which to blend them (Why does this matter? Well, try re-reading DC vs. Marvel today; it's billed as "The Showdown of the Century," but it's hard to get past more than a page without wondering why Superman has a mullet and Namor a pony tail, or what Spider-Man is wearing, or where Aquaman's hand is, or just who the hell that weird-looking dude with Thor's hammer is supposed to be).

Also, Superman and the Hulk fight a couple of times. And it is totally awesome.

It's also the subject of this Friday's fisticuffs. That's right, it's Friday night, and that means it's time for Friday Night Fights. So enough talking, let's go to the scans for some hitting.

Remind me Stargirl, what round is it?



So it's afternoon in Arizona, and a hungry Hulk smells some barbecued chicken on the grill, and crashes the party, helping himself to a couple fistfulls of bird, when who should show up to insult the Hulk's table mannbers but our good friend...





The Hulk shrugs the Man of Steel off. And when the Hulk shrugs something off...



...he shrugs it off all the way into orbit! When Supes finds his way back to the scene of the brawl, the Hulk has already leapt away, their first fight ending in a draw.

A Thunderbolt Ross/Luthor team-up, a fake Hulk robot and a seemingly imperilled Betty Ross later, Superman catches up with the Hulk again...





I'm pretty sure that's the most painful panel I've ever read. My back hurts just looking at it.

Anyway, apparently inspired by being bounced off of every cactus in the county, and seeing Superman headed his way, Hulk does the most sensible thing to defend himself:



He stuffs his mouth with cactus spikes and spits them at Superman hard enough to put the Man of Steel on the defensive.

By this point, Superman's noticed that the Bad Hulk was really a robot wearing purple pants, while as the Good Hulk is clearly wearing blue pants. Clearly their conflict has been a big misunderstanding, and Superman would prefer to cease hostilities to discuss the matter.

Hulk would prefer to beat the crap out of Superman, however, so he attempts to commence with the smashing.

In mid-smash, however, General Ross orders a bombardment of the pair, and they crashland into a truck full of missles. After breifly outlining his opinion on the Cold War arms race in panel three, Hulk forgoes more cactus needles for heavier artillery in panel four, perhaps the greatest image of the entire book:



So Superman punches the Hulk through an army jeep and into a mountain, burying him under tons of rocks. That should be enough to stop the Hulk, right?



Apparently not. As the two titans grapple once again, Luthor convinces Ross to activate the Gamma Gun, a weapon designed by Bruce Banner that hurts them both long enough for the two heroes to compare notes and decide to join forces against Luthor and the U.S. military industrial complex.

So at the Hulk's request, Superman throws him at the Gamma Gun, which he proceeds to smash.

And thus ended the greatest battle between the Hulk and Superman ever. Who would have won if Superman weren't holding back so much there at the end, or if Luthor and Ross didn't cut their battle short with the Gamma Gun?

The world will probably never know (But it would have been Superman).

Sentry, I do hope you were taking notes.

Friday Night Fights: Spoiling for a fight

So what are you doing tonight?

Me? Nothing much. Just, you know, this.






As for Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown...



they're busy training for their all-out assault on the offices of DC Comics, to exact vengeance upon the writers and editors whohave so mistreated them over the past few years.




(From 2002's Batgirl #28 by Kelley Puckett, Damion Scott and Robert Campanella, published by DC Comics.)

Friday Night Fights: When J'onn J'onnz had pupils...

Ted "Blue Beetle II" Kord and Guy "Green Lantern" Gardner step into the square circle to settle their differences, while Batman, Martian Manhunter, General Glory, Fire and Ice watch.

And watching them from a ringside seat beyond time and space, nay, beyond all mortal understanding, is Bahlactus.

That's right, it's Friday night, and that means it's time for...






Just click to better scrutinize J'onn's baby blues...










(From 1991's Justice League America #52 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Trevor Von Eeden and Randy Elliott, published by DC Comics.)

Friday Night Fights: Shadow of the 'Cat

It's Friday night in Blogsville, and you know what that means, right?

Exactly.









You did click on the above images to make them Bahlactus-sized, right?

And because it seems unjust to scan from a Cameron Stewart drawn comic book featuring Ted Grant and not also scan an image of him in his cat suit, here are a few panels of Wildcat and Catwoman beating up some swarthy, scimitar-wielding bad guys:





(Both above squences are from 2003's Catwoman #20 by Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart, published by DC Comics. Check it out for plenty more pages of a cute girl in sportswear boxing and people dressed like cats kicking the crap out of theives, or, better yet, buy the trade, Catwoman: Wild Ride. The Stargirl image is from the same place as the the last Stargirl image.)