365 Days of Defiance, Day 346: I want your Skrulls / I need your Skrulls

Panels from Black Panther (2005 series) #41 (November 2008), script by Jason Aaron, pencils and inks by Jefte Palo, colors by Lee Loughridge, letters by Cory Petit

365 Days of Defiance, Day 267: No, you stop resisting yourself! Why are you resisting yourself?

Panels from Black Panther and the Crew #1 (June 2017), script by Ta-Nehisi Coates, pencils by Butch Guice, inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Dan Brown, letters by Joe Sabino

365 Days of Defiance, Day 229: Frank Castle, Vampire Hunter

So What If...? the Punisher armed with Doctor Strange's Cloak of Levitation was fighting evil vampire X-Men. What then, huh?


Panels from What If...? (1989 series) #24 (April 1991); script by Roy Thomas, Jean-Marc Lofficier, and Randy Lofficier; pencils and inks by Tom Morgan; colors by Tom Vincent; letters by Janice Chiang
The 1990s! There was no concept too high for that decade to embrace!

Seriously, do spray vampires with holy water.

365 Days of Defiance, Day 130: Storm the Court

Wakanda has been overthrown in a bloody coup (Doctor Doom is behind it all, but that's not important right now). T'Challa the Black Panther has escaped, but his wife Storm (hey! remember when Storm was Black Panther's wife? Remember that their wedding was so important to the universe that the Watcher showed up at the ceremony? Eh, maybe he just came for the hors d'oeuvres.) has been captured and is now on show trial. Is she going to go to her fate without defiance? Ha! If you said anything other than HECK NO, you don't know our Miz Munroe.


Panels from Doomwar #1 (April 2010), script by Jonathan Maberry, pencils by Scot Eaton, inks by Andy Lanning and Robert Campanella, colors by Jean-Francois Beaulieu, letters by Cory Petit
Storm can't use her powers, oh no! So no summoning rain clouds or tornados or low-pressure systems. But she still has her words, her wit, and her never-ending love for the Black Panther to use as her weapons of defiance:

The Wonderful World (-616) of Color

Children of the atom! Students of Charles Xavier! Mutants! Feared and hated by the world they have sworn to protect! These are the strangest heroes of them all: The X-Men! Or, if you're Spanish, Patrulla-X! (That's the X-Men with paella on the side, and your choice of flan!)

Of course, the early overseas editions of Marvel comics occasionally suffered from...shall we say...some odd interpretations on their covers. As exhibit A, I give you: Los 4 Fantásticos!

But even when comic companies publish licensed Marvel Comics and use the original cover art, things sometimes get a little...colorful. May I present a Technicolor look at Marvel's Merry Mutants as seen in Spain: Los Weirdly-Colored Hijos del Átomo!

For instance, here the X-Men face off against the menace of...The Blue Magneto!





And the daisy-colored peril of Yellow Juggernaut!







Not to mention Red Polaris!





Can the X-Men survive The Christmas Sentinels? They'd better watch out!





And this is either The Red Beast or Wolverine with a Suntan! SPF, Logan! SPF!





But none of this can prepare you for the Sensational Character Find of 1980, Caucasian Blonde Storm! She's the mutant superhero even Nigel Farage can love!





Yes, Caucasian Blonde Storm! And her team-mate, Caucasian Blonde Nightcrawler!





And their team-mate, Emerald Colossus!





And they're all fighting against Blonde Jean Grey! Okay, okay, I'll admit this one's kinda pushing the joke. But she's Jean Blonde!





Yes, yes, yes, we laff and laff at Patrulla-X's weirdly colored X-Men. Still, it's not quite as bad a stretch as what Australia's Newton Comics did to the X-Men. Not only is Magneto color-coded by a six year old, but the original yellow-and-blue X-Men costumes have been recolored to try to look like their post-X-Men #39 new costumes! And not only what the Sam Scratch is up with the Beast's skin color, but is that monkey bar really hanging from the Avengers logo?!?





Here's an only slightly better attempt to match the original X-Men with their redesigned costumes. Makes you long for that free inside super color poster, doesn't it?





Yes, Newton Comics: home of Black Light Captain America!





And Yellow Daredevil!





Whoops. Well, here's Yellow Daredevil!





There's a lesson in all of this, and that lesson is: foreign comics sometimes get the coloring wrong, and we should laugh at them for that! Though, to be fair, Patrulla-X did eventually come out in a correctly colored version. Except they set the whole scene on a dirt road somewhere outside Hooterville.





Still, they even colored Samuel L. Jackson as a white man.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." (Martin Luther King, Jr., letter from Birmingham jail, April 16, 1963)

Tonight's feature is a (slightly-expanded) reprint of my post from January 19, 2009.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. While it's a matter of concern on each and every day, today is an especially important day to reflect and act on human and racial rights. Seriously, folks, this is still a major concern today. Don't just analyze the concept as it applies to mutants in the Marvel Universe...


...rather, consider, discuss, and act to work to end the ways intolerance and prejudice affects our little four-color hobby. Yes, we have come a long way in civil rights for many groups since Dr. King's work in the 1960s, and the works of those who followed him, but there's still a lot of prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion in today's society.

Or, as "The Man" so eloquently put it:


"Stan's Soapbox" from Marvel comics cover-dated December 1968

Kick in the Crotch Month, Day 23: Wakanda way of fighting you think this is?

Panel from Storm v.2 #6 (September 2006), script by Eric Jerome Dickey, pencils by David Yardin and Lan Medina, inks by Jay Leisten and Sean Parsons, colors by Matt Milla, letters by Randy Gentile

Today in Comics History: The prophecy "The one who will kill his mentor shall fall on the ice" is foretold

Panel from "An X-Men X-Mas" in Marvel Holiday Special 2004 one-shot (January 2005), script by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, pencils by Roger Cruz, inks by Victor Olazaba, colors by Chris Sotomayor, letters by Clem Robins

Same Story, Different Cover: The one where Rogue shoves a grapefruit in Storm's face

Left: Uncanny X-Men #185 (September 1984), pencils by John Romita, Jr., inks by Dan Green
Right: X-Men Classic #89 (November 1993), pencils and inks by Paul Smith

(Click picture to permanent record-size)

Will Power

As we saw earlier in the day, it's the birthday of the man we call the Immortal Bard (despite him dying in 1616): Will.I.Shakespeare! Not to be confused with this here feller:


Panel from Archie's Madhouse Annual #5 (1968), artist uncredited

But that only goes to show just how often Mister Shake appears in comic books. I'm not talking only his plays being adapted into comics (like, f'r instance, here and here, but actual comic book characters (and the real life Benjamin J. Grimm) quoting the Whatchamacallit of Avon (like here). Let's look at some of the many fine comic book characters who know Shakespeare, starting with the Man of the Year, Alfred Pennyworth!

Alfred knows Shakespeare!

Page from Batman: Gotham Knights #27 (May 2002), script by Devin Grayson, pencils by Roger Robinson, inks by John Floyd, colors by Gloria Vasquez, separations by Wildstorm FX, letters by Bill Oakley

In fact, don't forget Alfred was a Shakespearean actor! He was so successful an actor back in those in those days that he could afford a toupee, infuriating his fellow thespian Patrick Stewart. Oh, the squabbles they had!



Panels from Nightwing: Alfred's Return one-shot (July 1995), script by Alan Grant, pencils and inks by Dick Giordano, colors by Adrienne Roy, letters by Albert DeGuzman

Which probably makes it no surprise that

Robin knows Shakespeare!

Panel from Batman #682 (Early January 2009), script by Grant Morrison, pencils by Lee Garbett, inks by Trevor Scott, colors by Guy Major, letters by Jared K. Fletcher

In fact, Dick Grayson had a love for the Bard (and hot girls in diaphanous gowns) even after he became Robin the Teen (Yet Still in Green Shorts) Wonder!


Panel from Batman #216 (November 1969), script by Frank Robbins, pencils by Irv Novick, inks by Dick Giordano

However, that didn't extend to Dick learning that there's no such thing as a surviving play script in Shakespeare's hand.



And it appears that Alfred didn't teach anything about Shakespeare to Bruce Wayne:



On the other hand,

Professor Xavier knows Shakespeare!

Panel from Uncanny X-Men #379 (April 2000), plot by Alan Davis, script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Brian Haberlin, letters by Richard Starkings and Saida Temofonte

And he probably taught it to his students, because

Storm knows Shakespeare!

Panel from Uncanny X-Men #151 (November 1981), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Jim Sherman, inks by Joe Rubinstein, colors by Bonnie Wilford, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Oh, wait: that's not Storm, that's Emma Frost. In Storm's body. Man, she just can't stop impersonating X-Men, can she?

Anyway,

Wolverine kinda knows Shakespeare.

Page from "Follow the Leader" in X-Men Unlimited v.2 #5 (December 2004), script by Scott Killinger, pencils by Rael Lyra, inks by Jay Leisten, colors by Transparency Digital, letters by Dave Sharpe

Nemesis knows Shakespeare!

Panel from "Operation: Overkill" in The Brave and the Bold v.1 #192 (November 1982), script by Cary Burkett, pencils and inks by Dan Spiegle, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by Adam Kubert

(Even though most of us don't remember Nemesis.)


Page from Who's Who in the DC Universe v.1 #16 (June 1986), text and colors by these guys, pencils and inks by Dan Spiegle

Yes, all the most admirable characters in comic books know their Shakespeare! And then that jerk John Wilkes Booth goes and ruins it for everybody:



Panels from The Kents #7 (February 1998), script by John Ostrander, pencils by Timothy Truman, inks by Michael Bair, colors by Carla Feeny, letters by Bill Oakley

John Wilkes Booth. Actor, murderer, bigot, lousy fan of Shakespeare.

So, on his 448th birthday, please celebrate the birthday of William Amadeus Shakespeare by refraining from committing Shakespeare-related crimes, won't you?


Panels from "Enemy No. 1" in Batman v.1 #29 (June-July 1945), script by Bill Finger, pencils and inks by Dick Sprang, colors by Bob McCay, letters by George Roussos

Oh for Pete's sake! Penguin! You're just ruining it for everyone!


Splash panel from "The Penguin's Apprentice!" in Batman v.1 #27 (February-March 1945), script by Don Cameron, pencils by Jack Burnley, inks by Jerry Robinson, letters by George Roussos