A Harmless Necessary Cat

Imagine for one second a world wherein Garfield is the greatest comic strip in history.

Hold this world in your mind, cherish it, caress it. Upon returning to the so-called "real" world, you will find yourself unable to shake this idea.

The idea consumes you. It becomes a fixation. You want, you desperately need to look away, to think of something else - but your momentary glimpse of this strange alternate Earth has warped your perception.

You are trapped.

You now know the truth which has been unconcealed by this thought experiment: this alternate world, with Garfield poised at the pinnacle of achievement in the history of comics, is not a fantasy. It's not an imaginary story. You see through the facade of dreams and petty illusions and you realize that this world is our world.

This is the real world.

This is Garfield's world.

On the Free Table in the Laundry Room

Monday Magic

In which Tim explores the world of Magic: The Gathering one
card at a time, courtesy of Gatherer's "Random Card" button.

Wrath of God (Tenth Edition, 2007)



Wrath of God is one of the game's more famous cards. It was first printed all the way back in Alpha and remained a staple of every core set until 2007's Tenth Edition. It does something remarkably simple: it destroys every creature on the table. Creatures with Regeneration cannot be regenerated - but that's not unusual. Regeneration is a useless ability, by and large - its seems as if half of all direct damage cards circumvent Regeneration in some way. And even when you can Regenerate, it's often too expensive to make a difference. I've played on an off for a long time and I can't actually remember ever using Regeneration once.

This is a very good card but it hasn't seen print in a core set or Standard-legal expansion since 2007. I suspect it might owing to the fact that, despite the card's iconic status within the game, it doesn't really fit with what has come to be regarded as white's color identity. To wit: white doesn't destroy. White removal is less violent: the color does not do direct damage. It prefers to exile creatures or banish them to the bottom of the deck - that is, flavorwise, getting rid of the offending creature without actually killing it. White doesn't slaughter. Which shouldn't be taken to mean that white is typically associated with "goodness," but it is associated with self-righteousness and religiosity, both of which can be dangerous under certain circumstances.

This is not Wrath of God's first art; this was, way back in 1993. The most recent art, introduced in 2001 with Seventh Edition, was produced by Kev Walker. If that name sounds familiar, it should - he's been drawing comics since 1989, beginning his career with 2000 AD:



And then moving on to Marvel, where he is perhaps best known for his lengthy run on Thunderbolts with Jeff Parker:



As well as his run on the controversial Avengers Arena, for which his art was the best part by a country mile:



But he has continued to produce illustrations for Magic, creating a few of the game's most indelible pieces of art.

Geralf's Messenger



Kitchen Finks



Llanowar Elves

SIR

Or, "Hey, didn't this used to be a comics blog?"

X-Force #3



What a strange comic book, reads like someone decided to string a story between random pictures in a Metal Gear Solid game guide.

Thor: God of Thunder #21



I know this should be right up my alley - future Thor with full-on Odin-power throwing down with Galactus on a dying Earth (of course Thor is still completely outclassed, but he's still enough of a shit-talker to make it half a fight) - but I dunno, something about this book is just failing to click with me, even though I've come around to much of Aaron's work on the X-Men books - and the less said about whatever boring shit Thor is up to fighting old Captain Planet villains in the present day the better.

Deadpool vs. Carnage #2



Future Eisner winner, somehow manages to mush together two characters you would have bet money had already fought at some point, but oddly bloodless, which is a reaction I've had to most of Cullen Bunn's Deadpool work - and I'm usually inclined to be charitable to Deadpool based on positive memories of his mid-90s salad days. Amazing X-Men #6



Remember what I said earlier about Aaron's X-Men - he's doing God's work here, getting back to the business of writing X-Men comics for people who have been reading X-Men comics since at least the Reagan administration, but my question is, what the hell is the point of the Cyclops / Jean Grey School schism if they literally get together for clambakes every week?

Uncanny X-Men #20



This is a book where things seem to happen every issue in random fashion, akin to someone who keeps waiting for the spaghetti to finish cooking and covers the wall with half-cooked pasta in an attempt to make something, anything stick - the best that can be said for it, besides some decent art, is that it's completely not written for the trade, and an argument could be made that the series' free-form nature is a callback to the good old days when every storyline wasn't four or six issues exactly - after all Bendis' Avengers work, it's nice to see him taking some of his Ultimate Spider-Man plotting mojo and at least trying to make his mainstream Marvel work more interesting as long-term narrative - but sadly emphasis still far more strongly on "trying" than "succeeding."

What If . . . ? Age of Ultron #3



Despite an occasionally shaky history, What If...? remains one of my favorite Marvel books of all time - silly me, though, expecting a story advertised as being a "What If...?" relating to the Age of Ultron storyline to be a "What If...?" relating to the Age of Ultron storyline, and not some random Nick Fury / Black Widow vs. a dragon thing.

Ms. Marvel #3



Good book, distinctive and very solid art, really nice character work, let's see how fast it drops down the charts because ew girls and why isn't she hot and the art is lame why not Ed Benes and just wait until someone at Fox News gets ahold of this one.

Superior Spider-Man #31



I hope I'm never too old to appreciate a good Spider-Man story - and after 31 issues, that's exactly what this turned out to be . . . I'm not always impressed with Slott's fixation with the super sci-fi elements of Spider-Man's adventures (always with the new action figure designs, er, costumes), or the constant racheting-up of stakes to the point where Spider-Man isn't always the best fit for his own stories ("Ends of the Earth" was pretty generic, brah), but I'll be damned if he didn't pull this one off, to the point where by the end of the run I realized I had become far more invested than I knew . . . the page where the Green Goblin realizes Peter Parker is back is perfect, and the moment at the end where Peter realizes that Otto had been genuinely trying to become a better person and succeeded at least partially in doing so put an unexpected lump in my throat - how old am I , anyway? - a truly great Spider-Man story will always have some kind of "can't win for losing" hook at the end, and the scene with Anna Maria walking away as Peter realizes what she's lost was up there with the best of them.

Hulk #1



Man was that last run a misfire or what - Mark Bagley's pencils improve so much under the guidance of a decent inker - I do have to question the logic of how the Hulk couldn't heal any injury incurred by Banner, since it's pretty well established that the Hulk has the strongest healing factor on Earth, but I'm guessing we may be going in a "Hulk smart / Banner dumb" direction, so we'll see how it pans out.

Ultimate FF #1



Unlikable versions of characters you like doing vague things in the aftermath of a terrible "event" - and has anyone else pointed out that the way the Ultimates beat Galactus in Cataclysm was stolen wholesale from the last episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes?

X-Men #13



After basically shitting itself for a year, I remain to be convinced it can pull out before completely cratering - but I will admit that I am happy to see the ever-underrated Clay Mann take over pencil duties starting this month - if only the book wasn't still mired in the most boring storyline known to man or God.

Wolverine and the X-Men #3



Someone didn't get the memo that Quentin Quire was a private joke on Morrison's part, and now we're supposed to care about the most hackneyed teen rebel character since James Dean took a bad turn with his Porsche.

Wolverine #4



Surprisingly readable, Paul Cornell is putting in a good attempt to make a Wolverine solo book not seem like the definition of useless - but since this is the middle chapter in an umpty-year long saga, so much will depend on the landing that it's almost silly to predict whether he'll be able to stay the course.

Nova #16



Bland bland bland bland oh it's Cosmo and Beta Ray Bill they're cool but the rest of the book is still bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland like sugar-free Jell-O pudding.

The Odd Couple