Hello one and all, and welcome to our latest edition of…
As I mentioned before, my comedic synapses have been firing like mad lately, so I’ve been looking all over for shows to be a part of, and try out some new material…and before we got started with the comic book-y goodness, I wanted to let my fellow New Yorkers know of my next show coming up.
On Saturday, April 18 I will be part of a Rising Stars Showcase at the EastVille Comedy Club – I’ll be an opening act for the evening’s headliner Todd Barry…
An Eastville regular, you’ll probably recognize him if you watch a lot of COMEDY CENTRAL PRESENTS; he’s also got more than a few movie credits to his name, including appearances in two recent box office biggies in THE WRESTLER & SEX AND THE CITY. So there’s something for ya right off the bat – depending on tastes, you’ve got at least one thing to cheer…and one thing to heckle!
That’s the EastVille Comedy Club, located at 85 E 4th Street, between 2nd Ave & Bowery. Showtime is at 8pm, and you can call (212) 260-2445 to make reservations. Tell’em you’re coming to see Greg Manuel, and I’ll hope to see some of you there!
And with that, we’re going to draw open the curtains to KNEE-JERK REACTION THEATRE, and take a look at some of the teaser imagery that’s been popping up this past week. First up is an announcement from the Emerald City Comic Convention, of a Marvel limited series being spun from the pages of THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST, simply titled THE IMMORTAL WEAPONS. Coming to us in July, it looks like we’ll be kicking things off with the origin of FAT COBRA, written by Jason Aaron.
NEWSARAMA: What story are you telling in this one-shot issue, Jason?
JASON AARON: It’s pretty much the origin of Fat Cobra, which we haven’t really learned anything about previously. We don’t really know much about these Immortal Weapons. We’ve only seen them in glimpses over the course of [Ed] Brubaker and [Matt] Fraction’s run and now Duane’s run. There’s a lot of stuff to play with there.
NRAMA: Does the issue just jump right into that past? Or is there a story that frames the origin?
JA: Well with Fat Cobra, the idea is that he’s a guy who’s lived a very long life. And over the course of that life, he’s drunk vast amounts of intoxicants. So at present, his history is a bit of a haze. He can’t remember all the details of it. So he’s hired a writer to research his life and write a book about it. So Fat Cobra can sit down and thrill once again to his own forgotten glories of the past. That’s where we find ourselves at the beginning of the story: This writer has finished his book and he’s showing up to present it to Fat Cobra.
The problem is, as the story starts to unfold and we learn about his birth and his upbringing and the mystical city where he was born and his struggles to become that city’s Immortal Weapon, we start to see the dark underbelly of his story. And Fat Cobra comes to realize that maybe there was a good reason he had forgotten these events over the years. They don’t all stir up great memories.
MY KNEE-JERK REACTION: NICE!
I remember first being introduced to Aaron’s writing in the form of JOKER’S ASYLUM: PENGUIN last summer, and from the sound of this interview this is going to be a LOT of fun, and you could do a lot worse than to kick things off with the most entertaining of Danny Rand’s fellow Immortal Weapons. The next one in this series will star Dog Brother #1, as Newsarama reported…
…but there does seem to be the question of whether or not Iron Fist himself will be returning after the limited series concludes. “the five one-shot IMMORTAL WEAPONS issues will take the place of the Immortal Iron Fist series for five months directly after IMMORTAL IRON FIST #27,“ the article says. “While Marvel didn’t confirm that Iron Fist would restart after IMMORTAL WEAPONS ends, [editor Warren] Simons said, ‘We have some pretty crazy plans line up for Danny once the Immortal Weapons series ends. Stay tuned.'”
KNEE-JERK REACTION #2: Eep.
I realize that these days there are always going to be titles that cannot sustain perpetual publication, but I am not ready for THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST to go anywhere just yet – especially considering that the storytelling engine that Brubaker and Fraction created here can sustain this comic for years. Naturally, however, that’s if Marvel wants to keep publishing it. Maybe, if anything, Iron Fist will wind up going to the web alongside Spider-Girl, so as not to be cast completely into limbo. But of course, it’s way to early too start speculating on that point so we’ll see what we see on this front.
Here was something I noticed in one of my Marvel purchases last week…
Does it seem to anybody else that July’s going to be a busy month?
Newsarama.com looks at a number of pending factors that all seem to point that Marvel is ready to bring back Steve Rogers, and they even throw up a poll to see how the readers feel: are we ready for Steve Rogers to cheat death and take up the shield anew?
MY KNEE-JERK REACTION: HELL yeah – let’s do this thing!
I’m hoping this is all leading up to the return of Steve Rogers, and I don’t think there could be a more perfect time. For one, I feel as though CAPTAIN AMERICA, the title itself has lost a little steam since Bucky defeated the Red Skull and his cronies. The following story centered around Chinese scientist Professor Pandemic’s plot to use the Original Human Torch’s body (I didn’t even know he died!) as the basis for a virus to wipe out some 40% of the world’s population, and while it was a perfectly good story, it was nowhere near as exciting as the title had been ever since Ed Brubaker first started, what with Sin and Crossbones running amok, and Johann Schmidt and Aleksander Lukin fighting over the same body. I still want to know what Arnim Zola planned to do with Doctor Doom’s time machine, don’t you?
And in the larger sense, there couldn’t be a better time for Marvel’s guiding light to shine on down. Perhaps this is a larger point that is starting to emerge since CIVIL WAR. Without Captain America, arguably the moral compass of the Marvel Universe – Marvel’s answer to Superman, if you will – everything has been falling apart. Suddenly the Skrulls manage to come the closest they ever have to taking over the world. Tony Stark is a fugitive on the run from Norman Osborn. “Dark” versions of their most well-known teams and heroes are popping up like a rash. And if this teaser image is any indication, we could have some Dark X-Men on the horizon…
…which I find to be a little peculiar, because…
…well, aren’t these guys supposed to be the dark X-Men?
But anyway, what I’m wondering is – are we gearing up for the return of Captain America? And if so, will it signal the end of the black (I just couldn’t say d— again) clouds that have been forming over our heroes since CIVIL WAR? I guess we’ve got a few months before it all comes to light.
AND NOW, JUST CUZ I FEEL LIKE IT…
Trippy, isn’t it??
And with that, we wrap up this week’s edition. Be sure to check in with us at ComicsNexus.com in the course of next week, as my fellow Nexus brethren are going to review THE FLASH: REBIRTH, and next Wednesday I’ll have my own two cents to add to the subject. Til then – I’m Greg Manuel, and I’m just sayin’ is all…
