Trollheart

This

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Ah ****. I cleared out a bunch of my Photobucket pics and apparently just about all the stuff on this journal got ****ed. Well... damn.

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Trollheart

Ah, okay. That explains it then.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Update: Have replaced all the pics that got deleted. That sucked.

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The Batlord

Well, this is gonna be a hard one to give you the backstory on, as Deadpool MAX (like any good Deadpool comic) is weird as ****. First of all, MAX is an imprint of Marvel started to allow mainstream comics to have more adult content (swearing, blood 'n' guts, drug use, boobies, etc), and is separate from the main Marvel continuity. For instance, nobody seems to have any superpowers, there aren't any mutants, and Deadpool's mainstream history has been considerably altered.

The story of this series is that Deadpool is unknowingly working for a rogue CIA operation, and has a handler named Bob (aka Hydra Bob). Hydra Bob manipulates Deadpool into doing missions by getting him to think that they somehow involve Hydra, a nonexistent terrorist group which Deadpool is obsessively fixated on. Multiple times it has been revealed to Deadpool that this is all a sham, but he always forgets, doesn't care, can't accept it, or some combination of the three (Deadpool is particularly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs in this series).

Despite this, Hydra Bob is Deadpool's only friend, and vice versa, but at the end of the first Deadpool MAX series his employers framed Bob for a terrorist attack in Cincinnati that claimed the lives of two hundred thousand Americans, and now they are both on the run from the entire world. And so, even though it's Christmas, Bob is feeling somewhat down...




Deadpool might be psychotic and unpredictable, but he's a surprisingly loyal friend, and he's not just going to sit by and watch his only buddy succumb to the holiday doldrums. So he does what any good friend would do: buys a corpse from the morgue, replaces its blood with two pints of Bob's, burns it beyond recognition, and leaves it for the police to find---not that Bob was aware of any of this, as Deadpool gave him sleeping pills to steal his blood. With the police temporarily thrown off their scent, Deadpool does the next logical thing: takes Bob on a world hopping journey to show him the effect his death would have on the people he loves.

First up is breaking into CIA headquarters and spying on Bob's old boss. You know, the one who sold him out? I think the whole sequence can be summed up with this panel...




Eventually they sneak into the facility and find Bob's ex-boss, Blind Al, and discover that his death has made her very sad. You see, without Bob as her patsy to keep America terrified, Congress is cancelling her department's appropriations bill, putting her secret takeover of the US government in jeopardy.




Now it's time to head from Washington DC, all the way to Kabul, Afghanistan, (and also to change artists for the first of two times) to spy on Bob's on-again-off-again superspy girlfriend, Colleen Lui, who's an actual traitor to America, and has sold him out to one group or another on several occasions at this point. Of course, Bob's an idiot, and still loves her, regardless of the fact that she's currently boning her fellow rogue superspy partner, Cable, who is either crazy, or from the future... and crazy.

As always, Bob is rather concerned about Deadpool's plans, but his charmingly unstable friend waves away his concerns...




This time the subject of stalkery is actually sad over Bob's untimely demise for Bob's sake; Colleen used to think he was just an idiot, but upon learning that he was in fact en evil, mass murdering terrorist, she was heartbroken. And now that he's dead, she becomes so distraught that she must go through several pages of the Kama Sutra with Cable.

But surely his parents must be distraught and not engaging in hate-sex-by-proxy. Well, I'm sure they would be, if the death benefits check from the government wasn't so juicy.




I guess to wash the taste of sad out of their mouths, Deadpool decides to visit his own wife and child at the mental institution. His wife is awesome. She's got... identity issues. When first they met way back in Deadpool MAX #2, she was going by Inez, and pretending to be a psychiatrist, but was secretly luring her patients back to an asylum so that the actual employees could harvest their organs. She became completely obsessed with Deadpool though, and helped to bring the hospital down. Unfortunately, she was even more bat**** crazy than Deadpool, so she was institutionalized and they parted ways.

Then she decided she was a terrorist named Domino (yeah, that Domino) and tricked Deadpool into marrying her by telling him she was pregnant with his kid. Instead of giving birth, she went into a bathroom and came out five minutes later with a doll of a baby, which Deadpool was convinced was actually his son. Then she had a breakdown, became Black Widow, left him, banged a bunch of fat guys, murdered the fat guys, and came crawling back to Deadpool, begging him to help her. So, he did the obvious thing and covered up the murders, tied her to a chair, held an intervention, convinced her their child was real, and had her committed again. I should also add that, even though they both believe their "child" is real, they're also aware that he isn't. I don't know either. And now you're caught up...

Upon arrival at the mental institution, Bob and Deadpool discover that Inez has once again lost the plot.




As she is no longer Inez, but "Santa Clawz", she does not recognize Deadpool, and has her elves/brainwashed fellow mental patients tie him up---there's this whole thing with her thinking that he's mocking her by showing up in a dashiki for Kwanzaa, cause last time he saw her she thought she was a Black Panther---and orders them to shoot him... with drawings of guns. Deadpool tries to appeal to her for the sake of their child, but then it gets kinda sad in a stupid/****ed up way...




That's one of the great things about this series. Often, instead of going cartoonishly zany, the joke is unspoken. The pic of the destroyed doll takes itself seriously, and is legitimately disturbing, but it's the nonsensical reality underneath that makes it messed up and hilarious.

Luckily, Bob rescues Deadpool by... pretending to shoot him with a real gun... which distracts Inez/Santa Clawz, who declares that her followers must "Make one billion of these! We leave in ten minutes!"... and for some reason Deadpool is freed. Even as far as Deadpool goes, this is confusing, but I'm rolling with it.

Whatever the case, Inez/Santa Clawz hitches her reindeer/mental patients with crude, paper antlers taped to their heads to her sleigh/chair and prepares to fly out into the night/??? to destroy Christmas. Bob tries to reason with her, which you know... doesn't work, so instead Deadpool gives her a crudely drawn picture of a baby, labelled, "Wade Jr."




You must be asking yourself, what on Earth could Bob have possibly taken from this? The only thing they've learned is that everybody on Earth really does hate him. Well, Bob now realizes that, even if the rest of the world would be better off if he were dead, without him, Deadpool would die. I guess when you're a wanted terrorist you take what comfort you can get.

Well, that's the story of how Deadpool saved Christmas... I guess. And as is traditional at the end of every Christmas story, for no apparent reason our heroes fight mental patients dressed as elves and armed with drawings of guns. Merry Christmas!

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The Batlord

Merry Christmas, oh inferior fudge gobblers. It's almost that "special" day when you will spend entirely too much time travelling to a relative's house for the purpose of a new pair of underwear and eating food that's probably not as good as you're gonna pretend it is. Since it is such a "special" occasion, I've saved something "special" just for you. I'm sure many of you already know this comic, as it's pretty legendary. If you don't, then you can go ho ho to hell. You are not wanted. Well, I tried reviewing the whole thing a few months ago so I could post it on Halloween, but failed utterly, as there's just so much going on with this graphic novel that the few days I'd given myself to do it just weren't nearly enough, so I gave up to preserve my sanity. But this time around, I'm only interested in three pages (Although the second page is actually a two-page spread.) You don't even really need to know what's going on with the overarching plot, as this little bit has nothing to do with it and is just here to introduce the Joker...




Isn't that just the best thing the Joker's ever done? If not, it's still easily in the top ten. He doesn't rack up a body count, or even kill anybody; he just crystallizes everything about himself that makes him great: whimsical, surreal, seemingly random lunacy that only he can possibly appreciate, and horrifying levels of psychopathic violence. Murder isn't at all necessary to make this scene shocking, and would actually cheapen it; the fact that he leaves his victims to bear firsthand witness to what, in his infinitely twisted mind, qualifies as art is far more demented than simply killing them.

Those first two pages are simply fantastic. He's downright jolly in the first: unselfconsciously singing a Christmas song with his legs pulled up like some merry frog. Yet in an instant that cheer turns ugly for no apparent reason. But the Joker is far too calculating to lose control like that, implying that this is merely an act to terrorize his victims. I like to think that since these poor unfortunates haven't yet been revealed that he's almost breaking the fourth wall, his unnerving gaze boring into the reader with naked malevolence.

It hasn't yet been explained just what the **** the Joker is even doing. The paper he's reading is about a serial killer currently plaguing Gotham, but why the Clown Prince of Crime should be concerned with this isn't clear. Turn the comic's page and his purpose becomes as clear as it is baffling: he's stealing a family's Christmas, seemingly for no other reason than the simple joy of ruining this most happy occasion.

I absolutely love the flow of the pages and panels. From the slow reveal from the first page to the last, to his exit from the house on page three, it's as if the story is being told in reverse, forcing your imagination to fill in the missing sequence of events. Beginning on page three we see the Joker with present and Santa sack in hand, followed by the terrifying revelation that he's taken this family hostage, all the while reciting a cherished holiday story, turning a scene of visceral horror into a warped illusion of an idyllic Christmas.

But the panel under that is pretty much god. The front door, hacked to pieces, battle axe embedded in the splintered wood, is funny as all ****, but at the same time, I can just imagine the Joker, maniacally cackling as he tears that door to smithereens. And I just know, in my bones, that when he finally smashed it open, the family gaping in stunnedhorror, he said in perfect Jack Nicholson, "Here's Joker!"

So, his mayhem complete, he calmly walks out of the house, toy sack thrown over his shoulder, into the kind of perfect, white Christmas usually seen only on postcards. I can't think of very many scenes that so perfectly encapsulate the Joker. That idiosyncratic sense of humor. That violence bubbling just under the surface. It's just perfect.

So to all of you, I have nothing more to say except...

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The Batlord

Alright, I think that picture is pretty convincing. You can't make a face like that in real life and still be of any use to humanity. Seriously. Ugh. If you don't know who that dude is, Rob Liefeld is to comic books what Manowar or ICP are to metal and hip hop: an embarrassment whose main purpose in life is to be ridiculed. He's become a hated symbol of the self-consciously gritty artwork and grim, style-over-substance writing of the nineties. Equally damning, he co-founded Image Comics. And I don't think I've ever heard of a comic book artist whose ability to actually draw has been lampooned as much as Rob Liefeld. Seriously, people pretty much talk about him like he's the sequential art Antichrist. Some guy on the internet wrote two of the funniest articles I've ever seen, which just completely tear everything about his art and writing to pieces. They're epic stuff. Apparently for the longest time they were the first thing to come up when you Googled "rob liefeld". Now they're merely the second.

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings - Progressive Boink

40 MORE Of The Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings. - Progressive Boink

Now, I haven't actually read much Liefeld, and what I have was in the late nineties/early '00s. But even reading his Captain America series as a kid I was struck by how weird some of his stuff was. Now, I shall see just how awful he truly is, starting with X-Force #1.

P.S. I shall also end each entry by tallying up the number of feet that he's drawn. Apparently that's a thing with him. He can't draw feet. At all. I'll compare the totals with the number of feet drawn in All-New X-Men issue #1, just cause (31 feet, just FYI). I have no idea if its number of feet is representative of comics in general, but whatevs.

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The Batlord

Alright, I usually don't concentrate on art as much as some people, but I'll make an exception for Rob Liefeld. A few things. Why does Shatterstar (the samurai/musketeer with the boxing training headgear) have a sword with two blades? What purpose could that extra blade possibly serve, other than to make the sword heavier and less capable of actually cutting things? I can only assume that Rob was shaving one day and looked down at his twin-blade, disposable razor. Looked up at his reflect in the mirror. Looked down. Looked up. "I'VE GOT IT!!!" Also, note the gun in Cable's hand. I've heard it said that Rob Liefeld often haphazardly adds weapons to his characters' hands after the fact. This is clearly one of those cases. If you look closely, you'll see that the trigger guard on Cable's gun is disappearing into his hand. It's not being held between his fingers either. It's going right into his knuckles, as if there has just been a horrific Star Trek transporter accident. Rob Liefeld clearly drew a fist and just added that gun at the end without even trying to make it look believable. On a cover. I could note many other things that look awkward here, but that would take far too long. I'll just add that I haven't counted any feet, as they are all covered up by an arbitrary dust cloud. I don't think that I am going to enjoy this...

Good lord, where do I start? First of all, if I'm picking up issue #1 of an entirely new series, I should be able to actually understand what's going on. Apparently X-Force is picking up where the New Mutants series (which ended to basically become X-Force) left off. Like, without skipping any sort of beat or giving a single sentence to recap what's happened up to this point. This issue starts off with the team (Cable, Domino, Warpath, Shatterstar, Cannonball, Feral, and "Boom Boom") attacking some base in Antarctica with almost no context. Apparently this "Mutant Liberation Front" is doing... something, but what exactly this is Rob Liefeld doesn't even attempt to explain. Afterward it cuts to two completely random guys I've never even heard of, who don't appear to be anywhere near Antarctica, doesn't explain who they are, doesn't explain their relationship to X-Force, and doesn't even really tell you what the **** they're doing. They're just kinda of fighting some training robots, and then they go into a board meeting of what I assume to be a company that they run. You could have taken it out and the main story wouldn't have been changed in any way. Okay... That's pretty much all that happens.




Real talk, except for the fact that the Mutant Liberation Front's leader is some guy named Stryfe, who's dressed like a Power Rangers Megazord, you've pretty much been given all the information that you're gonna get. I have found exactly no reasons to give a **** about the "plot" of this issue. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. Good job, Rob. You're an inspiration to blithering idiots everywhere.

Of course, I've read some poorly written comics in my time. Just give me some good characters, though, and I can deal. Good thing X-Force #1 doesn't just give us characters whose only real dialogue other than boring, uninformative exposition consists of sub-Schwarzenegger one-liners. Oh wait...




How do you turn that in and still get paid? That's pretty much the high point of the funny too. And actual character development? Rob Liefeld is clearly above such populist nonsense. If you can't appreciate his characters for their wooden, two-dimensional dialogue, then you're clearly a Philistine and would be better off reading drivel like War and Peace.

Gah. There's nothing else really to do except to count the number of feet that Rob actually drew... Alright, **** it, I stopped counting. He actually drew a lot of feet. Terrible feet, that look like something you would dig holes with to plant Azaleas, but they're still feet. I don't know if the legend is partially a myth, or whether he was just really trying in this issue, but for now, he drew some feet. The real story however, is the eyes. Rob Liefeld never draws eyes. There are literally two times in this entire comic where he drew pupils. Most of the time the characters don't even have any white in their eyes, and it just looked like X-Force was trying to be nice to the Mutant Liberation Front by fighting with their eyes closed.




Aside from... nothing, the only redeeming thing about this comic is the return of Black Tom and his shillelagh---who you might remember from when I covered the Phoenix Saga back when I started this journal.




But yeah, other than that, there is absolutely nothing that makes me want to read issue #2: don't give a **** about the characters, don't give a **** about the plot, and I don't give a **** about the innumerable pouches on display. How is this the second-highest selling comic in history? Seriously. It sold five million copies. This sub-mediocre pantload sold five. Million. Copies. I know there were trading cards, and alternate covers, and ****ing hologram ****, but how many idiots could there possibly be on Earth? Don't answer that.

Well, on to the next birdcage liner. Toodles, folks.

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Unknown Soldier

Are you going to feature Batman Knightfall, a lot of people don't like it but I was always a fan?

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

No. Rob Liefeld wasn't involved with that storyline as far as I know.

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