Friday Morning Freak-Out--You Had One Job, Drax!

Time to blow your mind, folks.

It's time for the first battle between Drax The Destroyer--created/resurrected specifically to defeat Thanos--and the Mad Titan himself!

SPOILER ALERT: It doesn't go well for Drax.

You had one job, Drax.

From Captain Marvel #28 (1973)

The Best Cover You've Never Seen--House Of Mystery #281 (1980)

You can keep your Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali.

Me, I'll take...

...Muhammad Ali Vs. a Zombie!!

OK, that isn't Ali, but it is indeed a zombie.

SPOILER ALERT: They both lose the fight.

Jim Starlin drew the hell out of the cover...

Friday Morning Freakout--COSMIC, Bro!!

Who needs coffee to wake up?!?

DUDE!!!!!

From Captain Marvel #31 (1974), art by Jim Starlin, inks by Dan Green and Al Milgrom.

Friday Night Fights--I'm Just A Bill Style!!

Dudes, there are time when certain creators take their pet characters and start to write fanfic. Oh, BLANK is so cool and powerful that they could beat anybody and yada yada. Eventually, the character becomes Stardust The Super Wizard, but infinitely more boring.

Of course, in doing so, they leach away almost all of the potential drama in a character, and have to have him keep getting involved in more and more esoteric and "cosmic" adventures, and pretty but yawn...

Yeah, I'm talking about Thanos. He started out as a tough guy, sure, but he needed the Cosmic Cube to be a real threat, or he had to sneak around "leeching" from Adam Warlock's Soul Gem to make a weapon. And then you give him the Infinity Gauntlet, and you'd think that you couldn't go any farther, but nope--Jim Starlin just kept building and building until Thanos had the power to literally end creation, but was just too filled with ennui to be bothered to actually do anything. (Funny, that ennui bit describes the reader, too)

So for this week's Friday Night Fights, we'll see a guy who used to run from a toe-to-toe fight with Iron Man as the guy who mops up cosmic heroes without a sweat.

Thanos is on some stupid quest for some stupid cosmic doodad that will destroy reality but replace it with something completely indistinguishable except to Thanos, who will brood about it. The Annihilators wish to stop him. Good luck with that.

Beta-Ray Bill is our featured "watch Thanos beat down someone powerful so you'll be in awe of him" victim du jour:

Yawn.

Thanos also takes out Ronan and Gladiator without breaking a sweat.

Spacebooger really hopes that, as compensation for the author-required beat-down, Beta-Ray Bill gets to appear in Thor III.

Another pretty but empty head trip is from Thanos: The Infinity Revelation (2014), written and drawn by Jim Starlin, inked by Andy Smith

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight! Why? Well, if you anger him, Thanos might go on another quest for power that results in absolutely nothing actually happening! So go vote!!

Bare Banner & Hirsute Hulk?

Not to get obsessed about trivial matters...but I'm about to get obessed on trivial matters (again).

Here at Slay Monstrobot, we've been focused like a laser for years on the burning issue of whether or not artists portray the Hulk with chest hair.

Just last month, we had new a new data point to discuss, as Jim Starlin made it fairly clear that he preferred a hirsute Hulk.

But today, we go to new depths heights of investigation, as we tackle the issue: if the Hulk has a hairy chest, does Bruce Banner, too?

Clearly, Jim Starlin (and/or inker Andy Smith and/or colorist Frank D'Armata) believe the answer is...

...no. Hirsute Hulk, but Bare banner.

Thank you for your attention in this crucial matter.

From Thanos Vs. Hulk #3 (2015). By the way, Thanos does not appear in a single panel in this story...he isn't even mentioned!! I guess "Hulk Vs. Blastaar" wouldn't have sold nearly as well...

Jim Starlin's Hirsute Hulk

It's time to update our files, as this week we learned that Jim Starlin...

...is firmly in the "Hulk has chest hair" camp.

Of course, it may have been inker Andy Smith, or colorist Frank D'Armata, who were responsible. We'll keep you updated.

For further discussion of the crucial artist/Hulk chest hair issue, please consult this post.

From Thanos Vs. Hulk #2 (2015)

The Greatest Story Never Actually Written?!?

The early 90s incarnation of Marvel Super-Heroes was an odd duck--a quarterly anthology series with absolutely no theme, no rhyme or reason. Every issue was completely random in its choice of subject matter.

It functioned as a way to clear out the back-files, to publish the previously unseen inventory stories that had been piling up over the years. It also seemed to serve as sort of an ersatz new talent showcase, as lots of names turned up there that were never seen again.

And given the origins, a lot of the stories...well, weren't terribly good. And at one point they printed the skeeviest story in the history of comics books.

But in #8 (1992), they also included a bunch of Jim Starlin pin-up pages. Why? Who knows? They were unrelated to anything else in the issue (which unleashed the blight that is known as Squirrel Girl upon us). Nope, just random splash pages of Warlock and friends, or Doctor Strange wandering through Ditko-esque realms, or Wolverine and Spider-Man fighting ninjas.

And then there was this:

HOLY CRAP!!!

Sasquatch versus Hulk versus Thing versus Beast, with Man-Thing watching on?!?

Was this from some stillborn project? A pitch for the ultimate Marvel Two-In-One tale? Or was Starlin just noodling around?

I've no idea myself, but I'll tell you what--I would read the living hell out of this story!

Is There A Vogon In The House?!?

The splash page of Batman Family #17 (1978):

There's no story attached, no particular reason for this piece--just Batman in a goofy pose, and that...ahem...nice bit of doggerel. An odd way to open an issue, but what the heck, right?

There are no credits given, aside from Jim Starlin's signature in the lower right hand corner. GCD doesn't have any writing credits for this 1 page...it just lists Starlin as pencils and ink. So I suppose we should assume that Starlin wrote the poem, until we get some evidence otherwise.

Which means Jim Starlin rhymed "awesome" with "cross him." Which is too amazing to describe.

But let's take a closer look:

Oh, dear, that's so....special.

Now, this is ten years before the justly famous Batman #425, and before Chris Sims was even born, or else I might have suspected that this somehow his ode to Jim Starlin and "The Single Greatest Comic Book Of All Time." (Although I suppose if a time machine were to be involved, it would still be possible...)

But then I realized that I the answer was staring me right in the face all the time. Take a look at the bottom...when it says "The Batman," that's not a description of the poem's subject...that's the signature!!

Yup, The Batman was writing bad poetry about himself, describing how awesome he was.

Which, I suppose, explains an awful lot about "Zur-En-Arrh."