5 Avengers Who Could Be Great Justice Leaguers

I don’t have to essentially repeat my intro from the other day in reverse, do I? If you haven’t already, go back and read my post on Justice Leaguers who would make great Avengers—or at least the first couple paragraphs—and then come back here.

Done? Ok, let’s rock…

IRON MAN
Yep, right out the gate with a big one, I think Tony Stark and his armored alter ego would be a tremendous asset to the Justice League of America. Iron Man is definitely your classic “feet of clay” Marvel hero rather than your idealized DC type, but if you look at his history, he’s all about rising to both the occasion and the people around him. Tony started out as military contractor, but upon experiencing the horror of war vowed to be better regardless of the personal and financial hits he would take. He may have fought a Civil War against Captain America, but he also has incredible respect for Steve Rogers and has been working overtime to be a hero worthy of standing alongside Cap since he thawed him out of the ice. Being an Avenger has always brought out the best in Iron Man and I believe being part of the Justice League would do the same. Tony Stark is both ultra-competitive and extremely—figuratively—goodhearted. He’d not only want to be on the same level as Superman, he’d want to prove he can be even better; he’d not only need to earn Batman’s respect, he’d have to beat him at being the best billionaire altruist and hero—I bet they’d actually go from a grudging respect to being good friends! He may almost irritatingly competitive, but it comes from a good place, and I believe Iron Man would utilize all his considerable resources to take both himself and the Justice League to untold levels of greatness.

HELLCAT
Nobody ever thought teen model Patsy Walker could make it as a super hero, but she did—she became an Avenger! Ever since, Hellcat has been bucking the odds, whether that means earning her place on a team where Namor was arguably the weakest member, making a marriage with the son of the devil work—temporarily—or coming back from the freaking dead. Bottom line: If you tell Patsy Walker she can’t do something, she will do it. If Patsy lived in the DC Universe, she would march right up to the Hall of Justice or build her own spaceship to fly to the moon and you better believe she would join the Justice League. Hellcat’s just the right amount of sugar and spice to make things interesting for DC’s pantheon of champions. She’s a sweetheart who would probably be a great gal pal to Wonder Woman and Zatanna, make Superman smile and get Batman to loosen up; she’s also as fierce as her namesake and would tell Green Arrow where to stick it, let Plastic Man know to shut it and get Batman to loosen up. Hellcat would be a neat variation on Black Canary—who she’d make a great foil for/confidante to—as an underestimated little lady with the spunk and skills to hang with the big guns.

MONICA RAMBEAU
If there’s one Avenger who doesn’t understand intimidation, it’s Monica Rambeau. She named herself Captain Marvel despite the moniker previously belonging to a legendary universal champion who died surrounded by the great heroes ever and didn’t flinch in trying to live up to it. She joined an Avengers team that included Captain America and Thor and did not just earn her spot but was chosen to be their leader before she’d even really completed her rookie season. Whether as Photon or just herself, she’ll fly into any situation with poise, confidence and skill to ensure the resolution that guarantees the safety of those around her. She has incredible powers that allow her to travel across galaxies in an eye blink or put down the toughest bad guys. There is no quality Monica Rambeau possessed that does not make her an ideal candidate for the Justice League. Picture her and The Flash as two light-fast streaks racing into battle. Imagine what she could do matching energy abilities with Green Lantern. Just think what a master strategist like Batman could do if he knew he had this kind of resource at his disposal. They’d be lucky to have her.

QUASAR
Wendell Vaughn is tagged as a guy with tremendous potential to be a great Avenger, but his sticking point has always been that with his other duties as Protector of the Universe and need to mainly stay in outer space for cosmic adventures, he hasn’t really been able to commit as much time to the team as they’d like. The nice thing about the Justice League is they don’t really mind if you miss a meeting or ten, just so long as you deliver when it counts. Any Green Lantern who has ever been in the League can’t be there all the time because they’ve got a whole sector to patrol, but they make it work. Batman comes and goes as he pleases, but the void gets filled. The Justice League has enough powerhouses that they can afford to be without Quasar one mission and then appreciate his presence the next. Speaking of power, as a member of the recently former Annihilators, Wendell has demonstrated that just as how I described Tony Stark earlier he’s a guy who plays up to the people he’s surrounded by, so being around other super-charged heroes would only raise his game. Quasar’s also just such a nice, even-keeled guy that he’d probably fit in better with the generally harmonious League than the oft-bickering Avengers.

JACK OF HEARTS
Jonathan Hart never really got much of a chance to find his true potential as an Avenger or a hero because his powers were so unstable he had to spend most of his time locked in an isolated room and then when he got out he exploded a lot—right up until his death. The combined brainpower of Hank Pym and Tony Stark couldn’t find a solution to Jack of Hearts’ condition, but for some reason I feel like the DC Universe could. The Justice League is a melting pot of such varied cultures as Kryptonian, Thanagarian and Martian, not to mention the New Gods of New Genesis, all of which have technology even further beyond our imagination than Iron Man’s armor. A city like Metropolis where the future is now doesn’t really exist in the Marvel Universe; the Guardians of the Galaxy don’t visit the present nearly as often as the Legion of Super-Heroes. Bottom line, while the Avengers certainly live in a world where anything is possible, I think the one that surrounds the Justice League is even a bit more far out, and my gut tells me they’d find a way to “cure” Jack of Hearts, who would be so grateful he’d be one of the most committed members their team had ever known.

5 Justice Leaguers Who Could Be Great Avengers

I believe I’ve said it before—been doing this a few years now, folks, hard not to repeat myself—but I do believe and also appreciate that the respective DC and Marvel Universes have distinctive DNAs. This is a good thing. It doesn’t make one better than the other, it just makes them different, and for fans and creators alike, this is a good thing. It also doesn’t mean anything is mutually exclusive, be it a style of storytelling or a type of character or whatever, but certainly I do believe if you’ve been around, you can tell when a comic hits perfectly on what makes either world singularly special.

Anyway, I’m getting into a whole other story—and really not one I have the patience or coherence to write, so just corner me at a con some time and buy Rickey a drink—but I do have a point.

One series that not only illustrated what gives Marvel and DC their respective shines via their apex representatives was a personal favorite of mine: JLA/Avengers by the brilliant Kurt Busiek and George Perez. The story was all about how while each Universe is awesome in its own way, the characters most ingrained in one can’t really cope with how the other does business (the examples Busiek chose to focus on were Superman feeling the Marvel heroes didn’t do enough to make their world a paradise while Captain America was uncomfortable with the level of idolization the DC champions achieved).

But it’s not a hard and fast thing. Indeed, I think some characters who have had distinguished and entertaining careers in the Justice League would perhaps thrive even further or at least show another side as Avengers.

And yes, the flipside also applies, but please, let me milk two posts out of this.

So I thought to myself about who would be the best candidates to make the World’s Greatest--Earth’s Mightiest jump, but before we get to my final five, here are a few who didn’t quite make the cut and why…

Green Lantern (Hal Jordan): He’s certainly got the swagger, but I don’t think the Avengers would be able to put up with his long absences quite as well as the League has in the past (they’ve parted ways with folks all the way up the ladder to Thor because they couldn’t put in the time).

Red Tornado: The Avengers already have The Vision.

Blue Beetle: Honestly, no good reason, he was just number six and I wanted to stick to an even five.

Guy Gardner: I think if anybody could straighten him out it would be Captain America, who possesses far more patience than Batman, but more likely he’d just quit after two issues like The Hulk.

The Flash (Wally West): Too obvious an answer from me, but also, he’s the ultimate team player and would likely work well with any group, so it’s not an interesting selection.

THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER
J’onn J’onzz is a cornerstone of just about every incarnation of the Justice League; it’s inarguable and he’s proven himself time and again. But despite how many aliens, robots, etc. may have joined the League’s ranks over the year, it’s very much a team designed to showcase the epitome of humanity—or at least folks who look human—and while beloved, The Martian Manhunter has always been something of an adopted outsider who must work to fit in. The Avengers, on the other hand, are considerably rougher around the edges, not unlike the Justice League International team on which many would say J’onn most thrived. Rather than struggling to prove himself the equal of Batman or Wonder Woman, MM would probably dig being the calming influence to wild cards from Quicksilver to Wolverine just as he was to Guy, Booster, Beetle and friends. Indeed I could see J’onn as being the glue that holds the Avengers’ menagerie of mutants, mystics and monsters together and becoming recognize as one of the Marvel Universe’s most potent and powerful heroes as he does it, no longer needing to tone down his considerable skill set just so Superman doesn’t feel insecure (c’mon, you totally know he does). On a team where former criminals and guys with bad complexions tend to be the norm rather than the exception, The Manhunter From Mars would find the home he’s long sought.

VIXEN
Despite the fact that Vixen has a strong power set, a fierce personality and some natural leadership skills, she’s never quite broken through to the Justice League’s A-list and a lot of that has to come down to timing. For better or for worse, she’ll always be seen as having cut her teeth in the Detroit Era League, and while there’s really no shame in that—hey, J’onn and Aquaman did time on that team—it seems to leave this lingering “not ready for prime time” feel. On the Avengers, that generally doesn’t seem to be a problem. Cap’s Kooky Quartet of him, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch was basically the Detroit League two decades early, and they all went on to be legendary Avengers. Heck, looking at today’s roster, did anybody but a young Brian Michael Bendis really ever believe Spider-Woman and Luke Cage would achieve the legitimacy they have? While the best of the best tend to shine on the Justice League, the Avengers are more about second chances and extending a hand to could-be contenders, and that sounds like Vixen all over. She’s got the ferocity of Wolverine, the fashion sense of The Wasp and the track record to date of Tigra—the girl was born to be one of Earth’s Mightiest!

BOOSTER GOLD
We’ve seen in 52 and his solo series how great a hero Booster Gold can truly be, but the Justice League has only ever really tolerated him and his antics, not embraced him and tried to make him feel welcome. The Avengers have dealt with far worse members than an opportunistic scam-seeker and kept them around long enough for them to do some good (Quicksilver again, Moondragon, Swordsman, Doctor Druid, USAgent, Sersi, Hank freaking Pym—and I could go on). With some mentors like Captain America, Hawkeye and The Wasp who actually give him a chance and show some patience with him, Booster could really live up to his potential and feel supported while doing so rather than having to be the greatest hero you’ve never heard of (though that does remain a pretty cool angle). He’d also be a pretty natural protégé for Iron Man, who could show him both the right way to manage money as well as the potential pratfalls of wealth—there are honestly few more conscientious millionaires in comics than Tony “Won’t take defense contracts” Stark”—and probably hit it off with Spider-Man as well.

POWER GIRL
She’s led the Justice Society and has enough power—pun unintended, but there aren’t many other ways to put it—to mop the floor with just about anybody, but strangely Power Girl has never really had a seat at the big table as far as the Justice League is concerned. It could be that Superman and Wonder Woman more or less already fill the slots she’d comfortably fit into. It could also be that PG is a bit brash and headstrong for the League’s oft rigid chain of command. Over on the Avengers, they’re not only always eager to load up on heavy hitters—it wasn’t too long ago they had The Sentry, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man and Ares all on one roster with Iron Man to boot—but spunk helps more than hurts. Hawkeye spent years mouthing off to his elders then ended up getting handed his own West Coast branch and becoming one of the team’s most celebrated chairmen. If Power Girl doesn’t fit in straight away, I’m pretty sure her combo of battle savvy, proven intelligence and willingness to stand up for what she believes in would earn the respect of her teammates real quickly. Honestly, I don’t just think PG would be a great addition to the Avengers, I could see her leading the darn team.

MAJOR DISASTER
I can’t think of many former villains who have managed to turn their careers around as members of the Justice League; frankly, the standards the DC Universe, heroes and citizens alike, demand from their standard bearers makes it a tough road to hoe. Across the street, some of the most trusted and respected Avengers started off as bad guys: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, The Scarlet Witch, Swordsman, The Vision, The Black Widow, Wonder Man, Namor and Ares are just some of the folks who started on the wrong side of the tracks and ended up proving themselves worthy of being counted among Earth’s Mightiest. Major Disaster made a solid go at reformation, but whether it was the pressure or Batman shooting him dirty looks, he high tailed it to the black ops squad at the first opportunity and never got another shot at redemption before biting it in Infinite Crisis. With a burning need to turn his life around—his soul belonged to Neron, remember—and cool abilities like being able to create localized earthquakes, Disaster could have been a solid Avenger—or at least a decent Thunderbolt.

Five Comics Characters Who Could be President

It’s Presidents Day! That may mean very little to those of you outside the United States—and frankly very little to many of you inside the United States—but it’s the day we honor those who have served in our nation’s highest office, situated generally either on George Washington’s birthday or between that and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. More importantly, I get the day off from work.

Both fictional and legit presidents of the U.S. have a long stories history in comics. Bill Clinton endorsed the (ultimately genocidal) Cyborg Superman while Barack Obama had a Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man. Captain America famously declined to run for office, while known super villain Lex Luthor got elected in a story my friend TJ swears to me makes total sense.

But what comic book characters would in fact be most qualified and best-suited to run this country? Given my extremely limited knowledge and understanding of politics, I am a terrible person to make this determination, so here are my top five plus honorable mentions.

HONORABLE MENTION: BATMAN
On the plus side, there’s no problem he can’t solve with sufficient prep time. On the downside, he’s a sociopath who lives in a cave.

HONORABLE MENTION: HARDCASE
No real reason other than that as an actor turned super hero, he could basically be Ronald Reagan with invulnerable skin.

5. THE INVISIBLE WOMAN
The spiritual mother of the Marvel Universe could totally be America’s mom as well. She’s already demonstrated her diplomatic skills during Jonathan Hickman’s run writing Fantastic Four, and it’s a safe bet the U.S. could count on Wakanda and particularly Atlantis—though likely not Latveria—for support at those UN meetings. Having the smartest man in the world as first husband doesn’t hurt either.

4. KARATE KID
Of all the people elected leader of the Legion of Super-Heroes over the centuries, Karate Kid is the only one from Earth, and thus under our current rules, the only one who could be President (actually, Invisible Kid may have had a term as well, but I’m still going with Val). If he can manage a team of hormonal intergalactic teenagers with super powers, surely KK can handle guiding this great nation. He’s got statesmanship experience as Princess Projectra’s consort and his zen calm will be a big help; and when it’s not enough, hello, super karate.

3. CANNONBALL
Sam Guthrie is the perfect melting pot of belief systems and influences needed to boldly lead America. He’s got his Kentucky upbringing amongst a huge family with blue collar working class values. He’s got the pacifist teachings of Professor Charles Xavier to bring to bear when serving as a diplomat. He’s got the more militaristic stance of Magneto to keep in mind in matters of defense. And he’s got the pro-active guidance of Cable to serve him as a world leader. Beneath that, he retains his good ol’ boy charm and loves his country—he’s Jimmy Carter with a blast field.

2. LOIS LANE
Despite growing up with a military whackjob father, Lois Lane seems to have emerged with a pretty healthy balance of liberal and conservative values that have served her well in her role as the DC Universe’s top investigative reporter. She’s been around the world and is no doubt familiar with all the foreign policy one would need to be up on as President and from all accounts has endeared herself to a number of prominent heads of state and business along the way—well, the legit ones, not the crooked one her exposes have brought down. She can be charming but doesn’t take crap from anybody and also has a spit-curled demigod sharing the first bedroom with her if anything really goes wrong.

1. WAR MACHINE
James Rhodes is an experienced and decorated military man, but also somebody who has done his tour in the private sector as the one-time head of Stark Industries. He’s had a taste of wealth and runs in the social circle of his best buddy Tony Stark, but also maintains strong ties to the middle and lower class via his upbringing. He’s worked with the government before as leader of the Sentinel Squad and at Camp Hammond, but also shown he’s willing to question authority during his Worldwatch days and recent actions during Norman Osborn’s reign in power. Rhodey’s got intelligence, integrity, the right connections—hello campaign contributions—and the right skill set to be an awesome President at least in the Marvel Universe. Could he sweep the stuff he did his 90’s solo series under the rug and not be the victim of a smear campaign on his way to the top? If Osborn can do it, I’d say yes.

Five Favorite (Non-Flash) Speedsters

Since I spent some time last week waxing on how awesome super speed would be, it only seems right I now list off my favorite practitioners of said ability in comics, right?

To make things a bit more interesting though, I’m taking my obvious number one, Wally West, out of the—pun intended—running. To make things even more interesting, I’ll also remove anybody called The Flash (or Kid Flash) just because. And finally, I’ll endeavor to make this a list where it’s more about how the characters relate to and reflect the ability of super speed than their overall coolness, but of course the lines will inevitably blur.

Dig? Cool.

Honorable Mention: MEANSTREAK
No real discernibly cool personality, but I always just thought he had a rad codename.

Honorable Mention: JOHNNY QUICK
I like Johnny, but I haven’t read enough of All-Star Squadron to really know him as anything else but the dude from The Golden Age, and one story alone—even a really good one—doesn’t get you on the list.

5. XS
Combine your typical overexcited and oft-insecure teenage girl with the hyper kinetic nature of a person with super speed and you get XS, a bundle of fun from the 30th century. I always got a kick out of how Jenni would be incredibly enthusiastic over everything to the point where she spoke fast than her teammates could hear and then immediately flipped to extreme embarrassment once she realized just what she had done. Very endearing character and I hope she gets some play in Legion soon, as every team can use a good speedster.

4. MAKKARI
The Eternals’ Makkari combines my love of speedsters with my love of mythology in one gaudily-but-awesomely-costumed package. Mak’s the most inquisitive and adventurous of the Eternal bunch as befits an immortal god-type who can run really fast. Rather than cool his heels in Olympia with the rest of the gang, he made frequent incursions into the mortal world, be it to teach Plato philosophy or serve among the Marvel heroes of the Golden Age. Besides just the fact that he’s fast, I’m a fan of Makkari since he’s always on the move, jumping from one thing to the next with a natural curiosity that matches his ability to physically accelerate—he’s the James Franco of the Eternals.

3. JESSE QUICK
They don’t really play it up at all these days, but the era where Jesse Quick was not just a super hero but also a high-powered business executive always seemed an appropriate and interesting use of a speedster character to me. Of course whether they used their powers or not somebody with super speed like Jesse would be ideal in the corporate world where deadlines and innovation are key and of course she’d be a workaholic able to create more hours in a busy day because those are her powers and the environment she likely grew up in given her parents creeping into her personality. Her status as a headstrong female character who in my mind was assertive but certainly not the b-word also made Jesse Quick a favorite of mine during her Flash and even Titans stints.

2. MAX MERCURY
This is the flipside of my number one, but there is of course the aspect of super speed that allows you to live each moment as if it stretches a lifetime, so the idea of a “zen master of speed” such as Max Mercury both appeals and makes a lot of sense to me. After you pass the just running fast period of being a speedster, you’re going to get bored, and while frustration is one response, it’s cool that at least one guy took the road less traveled and spent the extra time his power affords him learning as much about it as he could. It’s neat the way Max has a better intuitive understanding of stuff like the Speed Force and also how he counters pretty much every other person with a similar ability set by having also learned near infinite patience and becoming the ideal mentor figure (though Impulse forced that “near” qualifier pretty well). There’s also a lot of untapped potential in Max Mercury as far as his crazy origins and not-fully-explored traipses through time, so an appearance by him is always welcome.

1. QUICKSILVER
In the years since Pietro Maximoff was introduced and then fully fleshed out and then further fleshed out as a character, there have been other speedsters who do the “I’m a total dick because I’m perpetually frustrated by how slow the rest of the world is” routine, but none as well, and of course inarguably none who innovated it. Quicksilver is a great character because cool powers aside, you really do have to find a reason to root for him; sure he loves his family and does generally save lives, but he’s also a former terrorist with a superiority complex who tends to lose his mind every so often. Probably no writer did him a great service than Peter David in X-Factor when he established the idea that Pietro isn’t a tool for no reason at all, he’s really just annoyed for the rest of us to figure out how to work an ATM machine. Kurt Busiek also had the great bit in JLA/Avengers where Quicksilver finally meets somebody faster than him in The Flash and rather than embrace him immediately becomes jealous, insecure and obsessed with winning a race. Quicksilver isn’t the most likable character and never will be, but he’s wonderfully layered and, more than that, probably a pretty realistic depiction of how most folks would handle super speed once the initial buzz wears off.

My Five Favorite Martian Manhunter Artists

I said it a couple months back, but The Martian Manhunter may be the most underrated character in comics.

When I was a kid, I barely knew who J’onn J’onzz was. Most of my childhood comic book fandom came long after the original Big Seven era of the Justice League, just following Justice League International and prior to Grant Morrison coming in, so J’onn was more or less a non-factor; just that dude who pretended to be Bloodwynd and then led the Justice League Task Force.

However, as I grew up and became a more sophisticated comics fan, I came to appreciate The Martian Manhunter to the point where he’s become among my favorite characters. He occupies a unique place in the DC Universe a living hub for so many facets, he’s incredibly versatile as far as the potential to transcend genres, he’s got a rad power set and his whole warrior poet persona is just plain cool.

There’s a great Martian Manhunter ongoing or anthology book out there just waiting to happen, and I give Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi credit and appreciation for getting the ball rolling with detective story/sci-fi mash-up they’ve been weaving in Brightest Day.

That said, as much potential as J’onn has, it can all be scuttled by the wrong artistic portrayal. The Martian Manhunter has a unique design to say the least, one that gives artists a lot of room to play and create either something incredible or something laughable. I mean, those criss cross suspenders alone can be a pitfall waiting to happen for even the most seasoned of pros.

So here are five guys who have made J’onn J’onzz look good—and two more for good measure and honorable mention.

BRYAN HITCH
He only spent a few issues really on JLA before making his way over to The Ultimates, but during his short tenure, I’d say Bryan Hitch perfectly captured the raw power as well as the defining tragedy of The Martian Manhunter.

TOM MANDRAKE
I’m pretty sure nobody has quite the tenure on J’onn J’onzz that Tom Mandrake does, having drawn his one and only ongoing series for nearly three years. I can’t say Mandrake’s take was necessarily my personal favorite, but he did lend the character a regal majesty and in many ways defined his modern look.

5. SAL VELLUTO
The 90’s were a crazy time where pretty much every iconic super hero got at least one iconic makeover, be it a mullet or a leather jacket; Martian Manhunter more or less kept his traditional costume, interestingly enough—I mean the guy does wear a red harness and blue pirate boots—instead hitting the gym a bit or the dealer behind the gym a lot and putting muscles on top of his muscles on top of his muscles. That said, Justice League Task Force artist Sal Velluto made the roided up Last Son of Mars look pretty damn awesome, accentuating his buff bod with a focus on facial “acting” that could range from goofy to intense.

4. HOWARD PORTER
As the initial artist on Grant Morrison’s JLA, Howard Porter was tasked with restoring the Justice League to a glory they hadn’t experienced in some time, which he did admirably by tapping into what made each character a legend in the first place, brought it to the visual forefront, and put a coat of polish on to bring them into a new era. When it came to The Martian Manhunter, Porter took the tested approach of using J’onn’s musculature to show he was a bad ass super hero, while conveying emotion through his face, be it that furrowed beetle brow or seemingly endless ruby eyes. Howard Porter proved that classic costumes and looks don’t necessarily need to be reinvented to make them great, just treated with reverence and enthusiasm.

3. DARWYN COOKE
In his classic DC: The New Frontier series, Darwyn Cooke brought The Martian Manhunter to the forefront of his tale of the DC Universe breaking into the Silver Age, paralleling his arrival and emergence on Earth with the birth of a new age of heroes. Cooke took great pains to not only give J’onn the depth needed to take the lead in such an epic, but he did so in every step of his evolution, from bizarre alien invader to frightened captive and finally to virtuous champion for justice with a stop as hardboiled detective along the way. As I’ve said, what makes J’onn such a great character is how many varied sides he has to him and how many worlds he walks in; Darwyn Cooke took incredible care and added such delicate craftsmanship to each facet of the Martian Manhunter that he demonstrated not just one phenomenal portrayal, but several. It’s not easy to make the squinting, grinning J’onn J’onzz of the Silver Age look as cool as he does in New Frontier, but Cooke more than pulled it off.

2. KEVIN MAGUIRE
People tend to forget, but The Martian Manhunter spent years as a cipher and unsung hero really until the birth of Justice League International, and while Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis deserve tremendous credit for infusing him with personality, Kevin Maguire should get perhaps just as much for helping that newfound character shine through. Like I mentioned with Howard Porter above, Maguire felt no need to make any drastic—or really any—changes to J’onn’s costume, he just accentuated the strong points that made it stand out to begin with, and then played to his own biggest strength, that being his status as perhaps the best comics artist ever when it comes to faces and expressions. Maguire had a lot of fun playing Jonn’s oversized cranium for laughs, conveying sadness in his eyes or putting a grimace on his mug that let you know this was one pissed off Martian. He may have been an eight-foot-tall green dude in a weird unitard, but Kevin Maguire’s Martian Manhunter also felt look he could be the guy next door (in some bizarre universe).

1. DOUG MAHNKE
I’m a little disappointed that the only piece by Doug Mahnke I could find on the entire freakin’ Internet has J’onn not in his classic costume or even normal form, but on the other hand, I think it backs my case that the current Green Lantern artist can at least lay solid claim to being the best Martian Manhunter artist of them all. Just look at those eyes: Mahnke packs a soul into J’onn J’onzz’ eyes, making him incredibly distant and otherworldly, eerily compassionate and unquestionably mysterious just with those two little orbs. Mahnke uses caricature just as effectively as detail to bring his characters to life, and from his JLA run on, he has adopted the Manhunter From Mars as one of his signature darlings; it makes perfect sense, as J’onn possesses that quirkiness Mahnke loves to twist around and create beautiful art from, but also a powerful and pure design he pays homage and respect to each time he draws him. Mahnke drew one of the very best Martian Manhunter stories in Joe Kelly’s underrated “Trial By Fire,” he was the perfect choice to lay him to temporary rest during Final Crisis, and any time he gets his pen on the character it’s a haunting and memorable visual treat.

Cruel Summer Finale: Five Underrated Bad Guys

Over the course of the last couple months in my Cruel Summer series, I’ve had a good time picking apart and analyzing some of my personal favorite comic book villains, as well as bad guys I thought called for a bit more scrutiny.

Well, all good things and all that, and with this being the last day of August, it’s kinda the end of summer in my eyes, so I thought I’d finish off with quick hits on five baddies I think get the short shrift and deserve more exposure and/or recognition.

AHAB
Based on appearance alone, Ahab freaked me the heck out as a kid. I was just thumbing through back issues at a store or something, came across Days of Future Present, and this guy just looked horrifying. I gathered bits and pieces over the years and the fact that he was basically the end boss of Marvel’s nastiest dystopian future and that he could reduce heroes like Cyclops and Invisible Woman to mindless “hounds” just upped his creep factor. Having actually read the event that introduced him now, I think all the pieces are there for a really memorable X-Men villain, but also that his best stories are still to come. I also think one of the cooler things done in the waning years of Excalibur was to introduce Rory Campbell as a young idealist, then slowly and agonizingly drag him down the path to becoming Ahab that he knew was his destiny but so desperately hoped to avoid. Great-looking villain and neat personal connection that make for a character who shouldn’t be sitting on the shelf.

KANTO
There are a lot of New Gods villain who are vastly underused and underrated—I’m not sure if Orion’s mother, Tigra, really counts as a “villain,” but it sure seems like making her one would be a neat way to have a short-term Darkseid stand-in—but my favorite may well be Kanto, the guy so bad ass that the ruler of Apokolips, who can pretty much kill anybody any time they feel like, employs him as the official assassin of the most evil planet in the galaxy. I also love that rather than be the typical tough-talking, scraggly-bearded cliché you expect from such a job position, Kanto is this dashing dude dressed like a fop who insists on maintaining his sense of style while running around trying to get Mister Miracle in a death trap; more of this fellow, please.

TOYO HARADA
I never read much Valiant as a kid, but I did get the re-release of Harbinger a couple years back, and one of the many things that impressed me about the book is just how scary Toyo Harada is. For one thing he’s immensely powerful; for another, he truly believes he’s the good guy and that he’s saving the world by taking it into his capable hands, which always makes for more interesting villains. In many ways, Harada is a lot like Lex Luthor in his immediate post-Crisis incarnation as the beloved businessman of Metropolis only Superman and a few others really know as a scumbag, but with off-the-charts telepathic abilities rather than just money and gadgets. The thing that really got me with Harada though was how he never would tip his hat as far as exactly how much of Sting’s life he was manipulating, which just added a sinister edge; he was evil and powerful in a way only Pete truly understood since the potential for both was in him as well, and to me the burden of knowing the world’s most benevolent man is a wolf in sheep’s clothing being solely on a kid is such a perfectly terrifying scenario.

COUNT VERTIGO
In many ways, one could see Count Vertigo as a Doctor Doom knock-off of sorts, sharing the standing as European nobility as well as the arrogance and contempt for anybody not him. On the other hand, where Doom is a self-made man who clawed his way up from poverty and sports the literal scars to prove it, Vertigo was born with the silver spoon in his mouth and never had to strive for anything until years later. The missed opportunities I see with Vertigo is that here’s a major player with extremely substantial powers and impressive pedigree who for some reason spends most of his time bugging Green Arrow and Black Canary. Sure there’s some novelty to this pampered royal being taken down by an archer and a girl in fishnets, but wouldn’t he be better served going a few rounds with Superman or The Flash? I’d hone in on the stuff that made Vertigo’s best Suicide Squad appearances, specifically his need to prove he can indeed earn things on his own, and work that into a self-loathing of his underachiever status in villains and renewed motivation to take on the big guns.

MISTER HYDE
Here’s a character who not only appears pretty regularly throughout the Marvel Universe but also has a pretty solid pedigree of decent stories; and yet, he’s really only ever been a random bad guy who switches dance partners every time he shows up, where I think he’s got the potential to be a great consistent foil for some hero. Hyde’s got a brains and brawn combo gimmick that reminds me of Blockbuster during the halcyon days of Chuck Dixon’s Nightwing, but he both predates that run by far and also has a not-yet-fully-tapped elegance and depth I feel beyond his DC counterpart as well. I thought of him for this list in large part because of his recent appearance in the first two issues of Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger. If you need even more reason to check out that book (which you shouldn’t), that kick-off story is the perfect blueprint for elevating Mister Hyde to prominent status in Marvel pantheon of evil. A schemer and kingpin who can also be his own muscle as well as a character conflicted as the one he takes his name from, Hyde could do great things if given the chance.

My Five Favorite NES Games

Due to personal circumstances, I may be the only dude in the geek universe who didn’t get to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World this weekend, but I’m super-psyched to get to the theater hopefully next weekend. So as not to feel completely left out, however, I thought I’d bust out a list of my five all-time favorite video games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, many of which influenced big chunks of both the Scott Pilgrim series and film.

I was the kid who was always about a generation behind when it came to video games. When everybody else had an NES, I had an Atari; when I got my NES, other folks had moved onto Genesis or Super Nintendo; I finally got an N64 in like 2003 when my buddy Matt got bored with his and let me take it to college. None of this ever really bothered me, though, as I had plenty of friends who had the latest goods and it was fun to head over to their houses and check out the latest (even though it always sucked when their moms would yell at us to get some fresh air).

By the early-90’s when I did pick up my first NES, I already had a bunch of titles I wanted to grab myself or borrow from pals. Later on, in college, my main man Jordan brought his system to school our sophomore year when we were (practically) neighbors and he had about a zillion games, so that was a whole new renaissance. From both those eras of Ben’s gaming, here are the five elite jams (and my memory is crap, so as soon as I publish this I’ll remember a dozen others I loved; I’m already wondering if I should have included Nintendo Golf, Double Dragon, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six…).

5. BUBBLE BOBBLE
This was a crazy little game I used to play with my little sister in one of our major sibling bonding experiences of our early years.

You and whoever you played with (it was definitely way better as a two-player game) were two little dinosaurs who could blow bubbles (hence the name) and then use your noggins to move said bubbles around or pop them, solving puzzles and defeating bad guys. There were hundreds of levels to wade through and tons of neat variations that made for a fun lengthy gaming experience and a swell way to kill an afternoon.

4. SUPER MARIO BROTHERS 3
There’s no way you can chalk up the weirdness of the Mario Brothers franchise to just Japanese culture or whatever. Super-powered plumbers in a land of evil turtles who get special powers from mushrooms and flowers? I’m sorry, but there’s definitely more than meets the eye to all that, and some day I hope there’s a tell-all on where the heck it came from.

But regardless, pretty much every game in the series from the 80’s to today is a winner and great fun to play. Especially in the early games—the even-weirder-than-usual second one aside—there was a pretty consistent formula of straight ahead challenges and kinetic fun that carries through to the most recent installments.

Super Mario Brothers 3 is the one I most fondly remember with crazy stuff like the raccoon suit and the sprawling level maps; definitely a prototype of many great games to come.

3. ZELDA II: THE ADVENTURE OF LINK
Years later, I’d whittle away countless hours of my life playing A Link to the Past in my friend Matt’s basement for Super Nintendo, but Adventure of Link was the first Zelda game I really dug and one I’d rediscover years later as a college student.

Most Zelda games appeal to my love of mythology and appreciation for puzzles and other challenges that made you think beyond just jumping on mushrooms or punching bad guys. I never really appreciated the first Zelda because the bird’s eye view was a bigger knock for me than it probably should have been, but this one was mostly side-scroller, so I was all good. I also really liked being able to upgrade my different attributes as Link by beating different levels, something that wasn’t commonplace in games back then.

The other cool thing about Adventure of Link was that I turned out to be insanely good at it when Jordan and I popped it in, so I earned my amigo’s respect.

2. TECMO SUPER BOWL
Football has always been one sport I really enjoy watching and part of me would have loved to have played, but I was both too scrawny and pretty terrible at it, so instead I ended up a wrestler since there you’re always up against guys your own size no matter how tiny you are.

However, football video games have always been the refuge of “love-but-can’t-play” types such as myself, and Tecmo Super Bowl (not just Tecmo Bowl, there’s a difference) remains for me the bar by which all others are judged.

Even back in 1991, most football games were already starting to adopt the QB’s eye view look, but as an avid side-scroller man, I appreciated Tecmo stacking the linebackers on top of one another and keeping it looking like Mario playing football. It certainly made it easier for me to perfect my “run all the way back out of the Shotgun and throw a Hail Mary” strategy as Jim Kelly that I still use to this day playing Madden. TSB allowed crazy junk like that as well as 50-yard field goals and more.

TSB was also one of the very first game to actually work with the NFL to license team and player names, so you didn’t have to ID your guys by just numbers and suffer through generic colors to label your squad. It also made it much more satisfying when you could knock Phil Simms out of action on a nasty blitz. The regular season mode was ahead of its time and you could also pull lopsided trades to create dream teams and enjoy awesome cut scenes whenever you notched a touchdown.

1. MEGA MAN 3
I had the sort of bizarre relationship with Mega Man 3 only a 9-year-old with the beginnings of future anxiety disorders can have with a video game.

It was prominently displayed for months at Wellesley Video (my local video store pre-Blockbuster Invasion) and I wanted to play it in the worst way, but I didn’t have a Nintendo at the time. When we finally got an NES, my parents got me Mega Man 3 as a Christmas present (I think) and for some reason I got really scared and didn’t want to take it out of the package. So it sat in my attic or something for weeks and we ended up giving it away to one of my cousins or something—to this day I have no idea when 9-year-old me was thinking or why this went down the way it did, but oh well.

Down the line, I ended up renting the game, as despite the weird trauma, it remained my holy grail of gaming (clearly my parents were very patient people). I spent hours navigating its extremely tricky challenges and somewhat sluggish controls (man jumping was hard), but it was super-rewarding when I finally got the hand and started taking out Robot Masters.

Years later, Jordan and I would go nuts trying to blast our way through the entire Mega Man series anew, and again I remember the third game, with the debut of Rush and Proto-Man, plus some truly great bosses like Spark Man, Gemini Man and of course Hard Man, standing out.

Even though it could be frustrating as hell, I definitely dug on the fact that Mega Man was more difficult to win than a lot of other NES games of the time. I was also grateful that it was among the first to have a password function—basically the first iteration of a save feature—so you didn’t need to beat it all in one sitting (which would have been nigh impossible, but most early video games did indeed demand just that). I also loved the cartoonish yet cool look of the characters—very comic book-y and indeed very Scott Pilgrim these days—as well as there being a back story I could latch onto with Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, the mysterious relationship between Mega and Proto, et al.

So it took a bit of a lengthy and strange path to find its way to me, but I would say Mega Man 3 is probably my favorite NES game of all-time.