Happy Thanksgiving from the CKT!

I'm currently up in Massachusetts stocking up for Turkey Day and who knows what those other scamps have planned, but from all of us here to all of our American readers, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. And for all our British readers, remember that we won. The rest of you, just have a nice day.

The Jewish Justice League

Jewish comic book fans are pretty fortunate when it comes to looking for folks to hero worship be it behind the scenes or on the page. Whereas a kid who loves basketball getting set for his Bar Mitzvah may have somewhat limited options as far as finding an NBA player who can speak Hebrew, in the funny book business we’ve had Temple-goers steering the ship going back to Siegel and Schuster and Lee and Kirby with a fair amount of fictional avatars of the Jewish faith emerging over the years as well.

As a nod to my own heritage—my mother’s Christian but my dad’s Jewish—and in keeping with the example set by Adam Sandler, I decided to assemble a super hero team who could answer the call on Christmas Eve without conflict that those kids who stopped getting presents a few weeks back can look up to.

JUSTICE
Though everybody and their kid sister known Nova was my favorite New Warrior, certainly I also felt a kinship to and affinity for Vance Astrovik, the likable half-Jewish telekinetic who anchored the team. I’d tap Justice not so much for his powers but his leadership abilities, as his early days in the Avengers aside, he’s the type of guy who naturally draws others to his side and inspires confidence. He also rejected Israeli dreamboat Sabra for Firestar, so the guy’s non-denominational to boot.

BATWOMAN
She’s an ass-kicker, she’s ex-military, she’s got toys and she’s a freakin’ female Batman—why would you not want Batwoman on your team? She takes the lead when it’s time for hand-to-hand or street fighting plus we get her dad as our ops guy in the bargain.

MAGNETO
Tremendous powerhouse, obviously, but a wild card in terms of team dynamics as well. It will be interesting to see if his racial loyalty extends beyond mutantkind, but I think the Master of Magnetism is a risk worth taking here.

PRIME
Gets a Superman analogue on the team which provides plenty of power, but with the added wrinkle of it being little Kevin Green wearing that big hero body; with plenty of positive role models around, this would be a good thing for him.

KITTY PRYDE
Every fanboy’s teenage crush, the former Shadowcat is one of comics’ premiere Jewish characters and a shoo-in for this team. She’s got a unique power set that makes her both formidable and stealthy, she’s wicked smart, and everybody loves her!

COLOSSAL BOY
Whenever I’m coming up with dream teams, I like to include somebody from the future for kicks if I can, so Gim Allon gets the nod here over the similarly-powered and also-Jewish Atom Smasher. I also always loved that Colossal Boy’s mom—the President of Earth—had him and his Durlan wife over for Seder dinners.

THE TWO-GUN KID
And if you’re going to have one guy from the future, why not another from the past? Obviously every team can use a cowboy and a dude to take those Hawkeye/Green Arrow long shots, but Two-Gun is also a lawyer, a skill you never know when you’ll need.

WILLOW
I thought about short-lived Doctor Fate incarnation Linda Strauss as my magic user, but then remembered Willow from Buffy counts and she’s a way more rad character with probably a ton more skills to boot.

NITE-OWL
Watchmen’s aging crusader may be a bit past his prime, but he’s got heart—and more importantly a big ol’ owl-shaped spaceship for the team to ride around in.

THE THING
You saw this one coming, right? The ever-lovin’ Benjamin Jacob Grimm, who shares both my first and middle names, proudly lights the menorah and is one of the best characters in comics history. He’s a powerhouse, which is great, but he’s also an experienced adventurer who provides the moral center of the group. And if Magneto gets out of line? You know what time it is…

LENNY KRAVITZ
He was mentioned in Heroes For Hire v2 #6—good enough for me!

So long, 2009!

Happy New Year's from The CKT (and friends)!

2010 is gonna kick ass!

Silent Night, Blackest Night

Another way to know when your wife is awesome: you bring home a set of Blackest Night promotional rings and she comes up with the idea to turn them into ornaments on your Christmas tree!

(Pics by Rickey Purdin)





Happy holidays!

Hark...Holiday Comics

Lo in years past there weren't always trusty collections of holiday-themed comic book stories that could all be found in one place (such as the 2009 Marvel Holiday Spectacular featuring Werewolf By Night in "Werewolf By Eve"--available now both online and in print!). No, in the days before consolidation became hip, tales of Christmas, Chanukah, etc. cheer were instead relegated to issues of ongoing series, weaved seamlessly into a character's tapestry of continuity each December or there about.

Ok, I'm lying; "Holiday Special" type comics have been around since at least the 90's (probably the 80's) and occasionally there is still a one-off issue of your favorite super hero title that takes a month off to dress their lead up as Santa or teach us the meaning of the Menorah. Still, I just ate up two paragraphs pretty quick, didn't I?

Where was I? Oh yeah: holiday comics.

I can't say I've read enough enough comics centered around holiday cheer that I can compile any sort of definitive "Best Of" list, but here are five from my youth or thereabout that I at least remember, meaning that for better or worse they did make an impression.

"...Guess Who Just Came Down the Chimney!" from UNCANNY X-MEN #143
The final issue of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's legendary run together on the X-Men, and while it has since been reported far and wide by both that they were not getting along by this point, it certainly doesn't show in this classic. Not a shocker that in their last shared tale on the franchise they'd shape for a generation or two, these creators chose to focus on Kitty Pryde, a character near and dear to both. With all of the other X-Men out enjoying their Christmas plans, young (and Jewish) Kitty sticks around the X-Mansion and ends up having to face a N'garai demon with pretty much only her wits. Of course there's a happy ending and the plot is plenty sappy, but it also has awesome action and is beautifully drawn, and really that's pretty spiffy for a comic of this type.

"Funeral for a Friend Part 4: Metropolis Mailbag II" from SUPERMAN v2 #76
In general I thought Dan Jurgens' concept for his annual "Metropolis Mailbag" issue of Superman--in which the Man of Steel takes a break from fighting aliens and scientists and whatnot to fly around fulfilling all the wishes kids send to Santa via the Metropolis mail--was a wonderfully simple and fun one that guaranteed a nice uplifting story with plenty of "Aww" moments at least once a year. However, the most poignant of these unquestionably came the year Superman was unavailable for his task, having "died" at the hands of Doomsday a month earlier, and thus his super friends have to pick up the slack. Thus you've got the Justice League, Captain Marvel, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and even Kiel's beloved Agent Liberty reunitin families and delivering presents, culminating with a picked up thread of the heroes helping to rebuild a house destroyed during the Doomsday fight and the jerky teenage son admitting Superman didn't suck after all. Jurgens is in his prime drawing every DC hero and the cover has Batman releasing a friggin' dove from his hand.

"Rhino Plastered" from INCREDIBLE HULK #378
Once again, we travel back to Peter David's epic tenure as writer of Incredible Hulk, because it was simply that awesome. In this installment, that lovable loser the Rhino opts against robbing a bank when he sees the Hulk is in town and instead steals a Santa suit off a Salvation Army volunteer, planning to scrounge up cash for "charity" then take off. Unfortunately for the horned one, a mall floor manager in need of a last minute Santa spots Rhino and drags him inside to sub in. At first, Rhino goes with the flow, but even this hardened super villain is disgusted at how bratty the kids are, causing him to lose his cool, causing the nearby Bruce Banner to lose his cool...and so forth. Though the visuals of Rhino as Santa Claus fighting the Hulk through a packed mall would probably be enough to make this a gem on their own, but David has a leg up on many writers who awkwardly stumble their way through comedy issues such as these in that he is actually a funny dude and has a knack for this sort of thing. Also, the fact that it's the curmudgeonly grey Hulk as opposed to the dumb green Hulk works wonderfully here. I won't spoil exactly how they get there, but the final page of the issue features Rhino still as Santa and Hulk as the world's biggest elf working together to save one little girl's Christmas; it's awesome.

"What Do You Get the JLA for Christmas?" from SUPERMAN v2 #165
Jeph Loeb pretty much makes sure he gets the equivalent of a nice slow softball right down the middle to hit a holiday home run here by assembling the all-star art team of Ed McGuinness, Art Adams, Ian Churchill, Rob Liefeld, Joe Madureira, Humberto Ramos and Mike Wieringo to draw a story wherein Superman buys Christmas presents for the other members of the "Big 7" JLA, but hey, a hit out of the park is a hit out of the park, and this issue is great harmless fun that also helps advance the series' ongoing plots and gets some clever sight gags in to boot. The story follows right on the heels of Lex Luthor getting elected President with the narrative being driven by Superman getting each of his teammates' opinions on the deal, but the draw here is really seeing what Lois thinks Batman wants for Christmas and Rob Liefeld drawing Aquaman.

"Tidings of Comfort and Joy" from FORCE WORKS #8
13-year old Ben was totally fooled by the seemingly obvious juxtaposition of a giant "X" and the silhouette on the cover to this issue into thinking it was yet another gratuitous Wolverine guest appearance, but that's actually Hawkeye, who shows up in this issue as an invited guest of USAgent to the first (and last) ever Force Works holiday bash. Agent's intent is to reunite Clint Barton with his former West Coast Avengers teammates for the first time since the death of his wife, Mockingbird, but unfortunately Hawkeye's distrust of Iron Man and a sitcom-esque bit of confusion where he watches Tony Stark dissing him during a speech on a video monitor then mutes it before he can hear the subsequent compliment scuttles the deal. Speakin of USAgent, his crazy red, white and blue Sgt. Pepper's get-up is another highlight of this issue, as are the attempts of the various Force Workers and Spider-Woman's daughter Rachel to teach Century the meaning of Christmas. Man, I really owe Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning a pair of cards this year reminding them of this bad boy.

Happy Thanksgiving/Thursday!

As I sit here with a belly full of turkey and stuffing (I totally made the second item and it was phenomenal), I wanted to check in real quick and wish those of you in the U.S. a very happy Thanksgiving from those of us here at the Cool Kids Table (yes, in place of an actual post).

And for those of you who read us internationally, we hope you are having a lovely Thursday.

Regardless of where you call home, we are quite thankful you actually devote minutes of your day to reading our scrawlings--thank you!

And I'd be remiss if I did not plug the Marvel Super Heroes: What The--?! Thanksgiving special. I wasn't lead writer on this one, but I did contribute the Red Hulk joke and besides, it features the dulcet tones of John Cerilli as the Kingpin, which is in no way typecasting.

(Why the Black Talon image above you might ask? Because he looks kind of like a turkey and I didn't want to use the Carlos Pacheco JLA/JSA Thanksgiving image that everybody always uses, beautiful though it is)