Friday, May 19, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Boom! - Round 12: The Chase Is On!


The chase is on in tonight's final round of Friday Night Fights: Boom!, where our host Spacebooger special rule is that every fight must contain an onomatopoeia. Tonight's fast-flying fracas comes from Superboy#239 by Paul Levitz, Jim Starlin, and Joe Rubinstein.


Synopsis: Ultra Boy's been framed for murder, and the Legion Of Super-Heroes are arresting him for the crime. Only one problem: U-Boy isn't cooperating. He fights his way through most of the assembled Legionnaires, only to be chased by Superboy and Mon-El.




KEROOOM!


Tonight's Ultra-sonic fight music comes from KMFDM.




For more super-speed slam-bang action, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, May 12, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Boom! - Round 11: Putting the "POW" in "Power Prism"!



Welcome to tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boom!, where the special rule is that every fight must contain an onomatopoeia, and boy, does this fight have one.


Tonight's multifaceted melee comes from Superman#304, written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Curt Swan and Bob Oksner. Synopsis: The Parasite is once again out to drain Superman's energy, but this time he has a new Power Prism to protect him from absorbing too much of Superman's energy and blowing up.


Let's see how things work out for him.




WHOMP!


Tonight's fight music comes from...Prism.






For more power-draining pugilism,click here. And don't forget to vote!



Thursday, May 04, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Boom! - Round 10: Raining Hell(fire)!



After being gone for several weeks, I'm back for another round of Friday Night Fights: Boom!, where the cardinal rule is that each fight must have an onomatopoeia, and tonight's fight ends in one which should sound familiar to Conan fans, even though it's from an X-Men comic.


Tonight's high society hoedown comes from Uncanny X-Men#132, written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by John Byrne and Terry Austin.


Synopsis: The X-Men infiltrate a Hellfire Club party undercover in order to learn about the group that's been attacking them lately. Spoiler: It doesn't go well.




That little shirtless dude is the Hellfire Club's leader Sebastian Shaw. And this round will demonstrate what his power is.




How does Storm's escape attempt fare? Well....






KROM!

Tonight's fight music is by Pat Benatar.



For more X-ceptional altercations, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, March 24, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Boom - Round 4: Swamp Thing, Robot Fighter!




I'm using tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boom!, the bout from Spacebooger where every fight must include an onomatopoeia, to pay tribute to the beautiful art by recently-deceased horror comics master Bernie Wrightson, who passed away this past week.


Tonight's round comes from a comic where Wrightson stepped out of his usual dank horror milieu and tried his hand at a science fiction setting, courtesy of Swamp Thing #6, written by co-creator Len Wein. (This was the second collaboration between the two I'd ever read as a kid.)


Synopsis: Swampy literally falls off a vegetable truck in Vermont and encounters the kindly couple Alec and Linda Holland. Two problems with that: First: Linda Holland is dead, killed in a lab explosion caused by the criminal cartel The Conclave. And second, Swamp Thing is Alec Holland. The pair takes him to their home town of Burgess, a formerly deserted mining town . Judging by the town's name, combined with our story's title "A Clockwork Horror", it's obvious that Wein was a big fan of this 1971 futuristic novel. (So am I, by the way, since reading it during freshman year in college. It's an initially challenging but ultimately very worthwhile read.)


"Alec" and "Linda" take him to Burgess, where Swampy meets town mayor Hans Klochmann, who shares the secret of Burgess: Its' citizens, including "Alec" and "Linda" are all sophisticated androids built by Klochmann himself, the town's sole human resident, using newspaper death notices to fashion his creations names and likenesses, and programming them without humanity's baser emotions.


Unfortunately, Klochmann's idyllic town is discovered by the Conclave, who bring in armed guards and a giant hydraulically-powered robot of their own to attempt to force Klochmann to work exclusively for them. The little old clockmaker refuses, saying he'd rather they kill him first. The Conclave, needing him alive, takes a different approach.




The trauma of seeing "Linda" "die" again pushes the monstrous Holland to seething rage.







RRACK! THRASH!


Eat your heart out, Magnus!


Tonight's fight song depicts another robot-smashing battle courtesy of the Flaming Lips.




For more "feeling the Bern", click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, March 17, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Boom! - Round 3: Skyjacked!



Although I'm jumping in a little late--2 rounds late, in fact--, I'm back for Spacebooger's latest FNF bout titled "Friday Night Fights: Boom!" Our host's unique ground rule: Each fight must feature an onomatopoeia!


When I first saw that ground rule, one name immediately sprang to mind: Marshall Rogers.


To help you understand why, allow me to present tonight's aerial altercation from Detective Comics #467, written by Bob Rozakis, inked by Terry Austin. and penciled by the aforementioned Mr. Rogers himself.


Synopsis: An atomic energy plant just outside of Hawkman's home of Midway City has suffered an overload and is on the verge of exploding, and our Winged Wonder is transporting the one atomic scientist who can prevent the explosion.


Or so he thinks.




I've always felt that the revamp Brad Meltzer gave the Calculator in Identity Crisis was a giant step down. Ol' Calc went from a villain who could use his computer keyboard suit to do--well--anythng....to Oracle's evil counterpart.




The Winged Wonder doesn't quite make it before...




POW!


Now that's what I'm talking about!


The fight music for tonight's flying fracas comes from the Cathy Richardson Band.





For more sky-high skirmishes, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, February 17, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Powerful Punch - Prize Fight: The Final Card!



Tonight is the night for this bout's final prize fight, FNF: Powerful Punch. Our host Spacebooger has given us one rule: Every fight should have a crazy powerful punch resulting in a KO. Well, I'm not sure tonight exactly has a knockout per se, but I did check with our host and he said it would still count (you'll see why shortly).


Tonight's Tarot-based tussle comes from Justice League Of America #194 by Gerry Conway, George Perez, and John Beatty. Synopsis: Old Justice League villain Amos Fortune has learned how to magically animate tarot card images and has used them to attack six JLAers. Each attack has had an adverse effect on one of our heroes: Zatanna was blinded, Black Canary was turned mean, Flash and Green Lantern were both left depressed in different ways, and Elongated Man was turned...giddy. And Superman, apparently due to a hidden fear of death on his part, was transformed into an old man.


Which leads us to this epic showdown:






And now...the powerful Perez punch.






Well, technically, Supes' punch disintegrated Amos' Death avatar instead of knocking it out, but our humble host gave me his blessing.


Tonight's fortune-filled fight music is by Kim Carnes




For more card-based combat, click here. And don't forget to vote!



Friday, January 27, 2017

Friday Night Fights: Power Punch - Round 11: Solomon Grundy Falls On A Friday!



For tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Power Punch it's a showdown between a Man Of Steel and a muck-encrusted mockery of a man, courtesy of DC Comics Presents#8 by Steve Englehart and Murphy Anderson. Synopsis: Solomon Grundy attacks Superman just as he's trying to make time with Lois Lane


Let's see how that works out for him.





Turns out: NOT VERY WELL.


Never interrupt the Clois, Solomon.


Tonight's fight music is this bit of swampy songcraft by the Talking Heads.





For more man vs. monster matchups, click here. And don't forget to vote!