Comic Book Resources

Snark Free Corner for 8/14

Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!

Enjoy!

SNARK BLOCKER

Here's a bit where I tell you about some cool things out there that will melt away any snark you might have by their coolness.

You'll be all, "Snark snark snark snark" then see the snark blocker and be all "Snark snark sna" and be happy.

This week's Snark Blocker is Michael Parkinson's Year One comic strip, which he updates Monday-Thursday.

It is the adventures of kid versions of the Marvel superheroes. Michael cleared the strip legally with Marvel, so it's all good! So don't worry about him getting shut down or anything like that.

Check it out here.

Here are some samples!!

First, here's the latest one, parodying Civil War...

Here are some older ones...

Fun, huh? There's over 300 for you to read!!

Feel the snark melt away!!

FEEL IT!!

SNARK FREE THEME DAY

Today's theme?

GOOD ROBOTS GONE WILD!!

Basically, most good robots in comics have, at one point or another, gone wild.

1. Vision takes over the world. Early in Roger Stern's run on Avengers, Vision was incapacitated. He was healed by help of this giant alien computer. What we DIDN'T know is that the giant alien computer was filling Vision's head with all these crazy ideas about how he had to take over the world to better run it. So the Avengers ended up having to take down the Vision. When he was cleared of the computer's influence, he retired from superheroing. However, the governments of the world did not trust that he would LATER become a threat, so they took him apart during John Byrne's West Coast Avengers run. In any event, many years passed, and, during Avengers Disassembled, the Scarlet Witch used her powers to make Vision go bad AGAIN - leading to She-Hulk going nuts (also due to Wanda) and tearing the Vision apart.

2. The Metal Men have been turned against the good guys on more than one occasion. Once, Lex Luthor messed with their responsometers and changed them all into living kryptonite and set them after Superman. More recently, when Brainiac 13 took over all technology in Metropolis during Y2K, the Metal Men were among the robots he controlled as his soldiers.

3. Tomorrow Woman was the first new member of Grant Morrison's Justice League of America, and she turned out to be an android designed by Professor Ivo and T.O. Morrow!! Luckily, when she was turned against the Justice League to betray them, she managed to eventually fight off her programming and sacrifice herself!

4. The Superman Robots were designed by Superman to help keep a watch on things while he was busy elsewhere. After Superman got caught up in a silly "control the world to protect it" scenario, he scrapped his robots. However, during a crossover between Young Justice and Titans, a Superman robot got loose from STAR Labs and killed TWO Titans! Donna Troy and Lilith Cray both fell to the might of the Superman-esque robot.

5. Indigo showed up during that same crossover, and while she seemed quite evil at first, she soon turned out to be a very important member of the Outsiders. Then, right around Infinite Crisis, we learned that Indigo has always been under the control of none other than Brainiac!!!!

That's my five - see if you can recall anymore!!

COVER HOMAGE

One cool point to the first person who can tell me what cover this Savage Dragon is homaging!

REALLY COOL SCENES

In the 1987 Avengers/West Coast Avengers Annuals, the Avengers first were forced to fight against each other (with the West Coast team winning, in bizarre fashion, with Iron Man somehow beating Captain Marvel). In the second part, they had to fight against a Legion of the Unliving.

At the end, only Hawkeye and Captain America survived, and they were faced off against Grandmaster, who has captured Death. Hawkeye tempts him by challenging him to a simple game of chance. He took two arrows. One with a modular tip, the other without. Grandmaster simply had to pick the arrow with the tip and he would win.

Hawkeye mixed them up and the Grandmaster chose the wrong arrow. His shock at being wrong was enough of a distraction for Death to break free and the day to be saved.

Afterwards, Cap asked him about the fact that he was willing to risk the fate of the universe on a game of luck. Hawkeye told him that the stakes were way too big, so he cheated. He broke the tip off as the Grandmaster chose!

Later, when the Avengers went back to playing softball, Cap warned the others, "Watch out for Hawkeye - he cheats."

Classic moment.

SNARK FREE CHALLENGE

Who would win in a karaoke singing competition - Wonder Woman or Elektra?

Well, that's it for this installment of Snark Free Corner. Hope you had fun!