CSBG Archive
Snark Free Corner for 6/18
Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!
Enjoy!
COOL COMIC CHARACTER
One of the standouts of Mark Waid’s acclaimed “Return of Barry Allen” storyline was the introduction of Max Mercury (ostensibly a reinterpretation of a Golden Age superhero, but really, this was a brand new character), the Zen master of speed.
Max was a speedster who traveled through time, and was content to live in the present as a normal person, even though he had all sorts of great lessons to teach people.
The coolest aspect of Max was that, since he had no history, Waid was free to do what he wanted with him, so his personality could be done any way Waid wanted it, which would be impossible to do with established characters.
After a couple of years of being an interesting supporting character in the ever-expanding Flash cast of speedsters, Max moved over to the Impulse title, as the mentor of the title character.
That was a very smart move on Waid’s part (or whoever came up with the idea, if it was not Waid), as it gave him (and future writers) a separate main character to
A. Be the straight man for the wacky Impulse to play off of, and
B. Act as a second main character to give plots to.
It was a great set-up for a spin-off book, and I still honestly do not understand why Max was put into limbo in Impluse (granted, Impulse was soon effectively nullified as a character in the pages of Teen Titans and then Infinite Crisis, so I guess it would have been moot anyways).
Now that Mark Waid is back on Flash, I hope we see the return of Max Mercury.
In fact, there’s already a published cover we could use!!
Max Mercury – a cool comic character
COVER THEME GAME
As always, here is the game. I show three covers. They all have something in common, whether it be a character, a trait all three characters share, locale, creator, SOMEthing. And it isn’t something obvious like “They all have prices!” “They all have logos!” “They all feature a man!” etc.
In addition, please note that you must have some familiarity with comic book history to correctly guess these comics. You cannot guess the connective theme just by looking at the covers solely, you must have some knowledge beyond just the covers.
Good luck! A cool point to the first person to figure it out!
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SNARK FREE CHALLENGE
Lots of heroes can run fast or fly or use magnetism or teleport – but what is the super power that is not as common as these but should be?
THE COVER GAME
This week’s game is as follows…
Name me a cover that features a member of the World War II Howling Commandos OTHER than Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan that shows the character POST-World War II (and remember, only one cover per commenter).
Good luck!
WHO IS IT?
Remember, tell me who it is and what number clue gave it away!
1. This character is married.
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2. This character has a child.
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3. This character works for a Homeless Shelter.
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4. This character is related to Lois Lane.
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5. This character took Clark Kent’s job when Kent was presumed dead after Doomsday attacked Metropolis.
Who is it?
Well, that’s it for this installment of Snark Free Corner.
Hope you had fun!
31 Comments
Pedro Bouça
June 19, 2007 at 2:27 am
Cover game:
Difficult one, but Gabe Jones appears on the cover of
Nick Fury and His Agents of SHIELD #2:
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=26148&zoom=4
Steranko cover, even!
Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)
fanboy d
June 19, 2007 at 2:39 am
SNARK FREE CHALLENGE
Spider-sense, obviously not SPIDER-sense but a sixth sense for danger anyways
Denn
June 19, 2007 at 3:37 am
Nothing to add but the fact I find “Not Even Remotely Part of No Man’s Land” hilarious.
Sean Whitmore
June 19, 2007 at 4:22 am
The “Who Is It” is Ron Troupe, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t get it until the 5th clue (though I suspected him by the 4th).
Rob M
June 19, 2007 at 4:24 am
Cover game: There was a Howling Commandos reunion in Captain America #273, with all of them on the cover. Wa-hoooo!
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=36663&zoom=4
Anthony Strand
June 19, 2007 at 5:43 am
I’ll tell ya what superpower is underused these days – exploding fists.
acespot
June 19, 2007 at 7:02 am
Howsabout true invulnerability? The only two I can think of are Luke Cage and Unas.
The Mad Monkey
June 19, 2007 at 8:20 am
acespot…
If you meant to say Unus, then you’re incorrect about his power. He had a force field that was nearly impenetrable, but he didn’t have true invulnerability.
That is, unless Marvel retconned his powers…
DanCJ
June 19, 2007 at 8:36 am
I can’t think of many powers less common in superheroes than Magnetism. In fact off-hand I can think of about three villains, but not a single hero with magnetic powers – other than Booster Gold’s sister who’s been dead for about 20 years.
minestrone
June 19, 2007 at 9:08 am
Polaris and Comic Boy come to mind . . .
minestrone
June 19, 2007 at 9:10 am
hee hee . . . Comic Boy . . .
Now that’s a super power that should be more common: Super Humor!
I meant Cosmic Boy of course.
Ian
June 19, 2007 at 10:17 am
I think telepathy should be up there before magnetism. All I can think of are over-used powers, I can think of very, very few UNDER-used powers.
Richard
June 19, 2007 at 10:25 am
“Lots of heroes can run fast or fly or use magnetism or teleport – but what is the super power that is not as common as these but should be?”
The power to heal others. Yeah, it sounds hokey, I know, but for all the good that super heroes are supposedly doing, nobody (or very few) has the ability to heal.
-r-
buttler
June 19, 2007 at 10:37 am
All 3 covers feature former headliners of Marvel Spotlight:
Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, and Spider-Woman.
Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman both first appeared there, and Son of Satan narrowly missed doing the same, appearing in Ghost Rider one month before his 12-issue run of Marvel Spotlight.
Patrick
June 19, 2007 at 10:58 am
I think we need more superheroes who can eat any kind of matter.
Billy F
June 19, 2007 at 11:11 am
Cover theme:
They’re all really Skrulls! Right?
lauren
June 19, 2007 at 11:57 am
how about changing the elements – Element Lad and Metamorpho are the only 2 I can think of.
Or shapechanging- beast boy, Chameleon lad
The Mutt
June 19, 2007 at 12:48 pm
The ability to wear a pointed helmut and get shot out of a cannon?
I was going to make a “talks to fish” joke, but then I realized there are a good number of heroes who can talk to the animals. Even Hawkman used to talk to sparrows.
acespot
June 19, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Earth power! Like Geo Force! Yeah!
Will
June 19, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I have no idea what the cover theme is, but – is that Angel with the Avengers? Warren Worthington? What the hell?
Brian Cronin
June 19, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Correct-a-mundo!
Brian Cronin
June 19, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Shooter used that issue of Avengers to tie up old Ghost Rider plotlines, and Angel was there due to his former Champions connection to Ghost Rider.
James
June 19, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I think that Skids (a minor X-Factor/New Mutants character) has a terrific power that hasn’t been developed to a full potential. She creates force fields (not unlike Sue Storm’s secondary power), but she can glide on them, moving rapidly “on air” (something I don’t remember Invisible Woman ever doing, though I’m sure it probably happened in some stories). That combined with the usual uses of a force field makes for some interesting powers.
Bill Reed
June 19, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I need to get that Avengers comic simply for the scene where Ghost Rider bike-kicks one of the Avengers in the face. Iron Man? Thor? Someone.
And yes, Max Mercury *is* cool.
Ron Troupe in five. Should’ve got it earlier, but I’m dumb.
Apodaca
June 19, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Yeah, Skids had a cool power.
I’d like to see the power to have a layer of kinetic energy that replenishes and strenghtens itself through activity that creates kinetic energy. Movement, impact, etc.
I like characters who can just hurl themselves into battle (literally) and mess things up. Like Cannonball.
I’d like to see more offensive personal force fields, basically. Cecilia Reyes was on her way there, but they wrote her as not wanting to be a superhero from the start, so she was kinda doomed to fade away.
Scavenger
June 20, 2007 at 9:35 am
I like Gambit’s kinetic charging powers…not enough folks using that kind of thing.
Good Luck (Hazzard, Longshot) is also unused.
And super-eating! Matter Eater Lad and Calorie Queen are the only with that!
Richard J. Marcej
June 20, 2007 at 9:58 am
Isn’t Eros and the Mandrill the only characters that have the ability to make woman want them?
I’m surprised no one’s brought that power up yet….
Lothor
June 20, 2007 at 3:16 pm
“hee hee . . . Comic Boy . . .
Now that’s a super power that should be more common: Super Humor!”
Not exactly his super power, but Captain Ultra’s dayjob/secret identity was stand-up comic.
Kelson
June 20, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Random trivia: The golden-age character that max Mercury was based on was named… Quicksilver. Yep. A speedster who wore blue and white, back in the 1940s.
felgekarp
June 21, 2007 at 2:48 am
Wasn’t Max Mercury supposed to be Quicksilver?, didn’t he enter the speed force and pop out some time later and then change his name to Max Mercury, I’m sure I’d read that in one of the Flash stories.
Brian Cronin
June 21, 2007 at 2:56 am
Yeah, he was supposed to be the same character as Quicksilver, but in name only.