Friday Night Fights - Papal Assassin

One Panel of Pain - that's what Spacebooger has demanded; a single panel only for this round of Friday Night Fights.

This week we leave behind the world of superheroes and head to another world; actually, it's one of another multiverse where the British Empire never fell and the Pope sends assassins to kill the Empress. Surely her guards can protect her?

Ahhh, no, it would appear not!

As Spacebooger says: Don’t forget to stop back between Friday night at 11PM and Sunday night at 11PM to vote for your favorite One Panel of Pain by posting a comment.

This right royal kicking appears in the Heart of Empire trade paperback, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot.

Final Crisis - 1986 Style - Part 5

Here's Part 5 of Crisis Cross-Over by Johnny Lowe featuring Peanuts.

Tune in next Tuesday for Part 6!

Happy Days In May

Power Girl ongoing starts in May!

Does it get any better?  Why yes, yes it does!

Hitman: A Rage in Arkham TP - new printing! I've got the entire series but maybe now DC will collect the rest of the run as well!

Surely nothing else that's coming in May would make me happy?

Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol 4! The reprints are getting to the stage where I've got most if not all the original issues but they're such nice collections.

My local comic shop's going to be happy with my May order!

Friday Night Fights - Now THAT Is Going To Hurt

A new round of fights begins over at Spacebooger and the theme this time is One Panel of Pain!

No more extended scenes building up to something, Spacebooger demands simply one picture with maximum pain! And trust me, not many things hurt as much as this:

It may not look like much but seriously, every guy can empathise here.

And remember, head over to Spacebooger's site and vote, people - as he says himself:

I would like every participant to stop back between Friday night at 11PM and Sunday night at 11PM to vote for their favorite One Panel of Pain by posting a comment. Voting is encouraged and will be open to all visitors of the site and participants of the round. The winner of the round will be posted the following Tuesday with the Pre-Fight Rules.

So check out his post, read the other fights and vote for your fave.

This example of groinal-foot interaction first appeared in Martha Washington Saves The World #3, cover dated February 1998, written by Frank Miller with art by The Almighty Dave Gibbons.

Final Crisis - 1986 Style - Part 4

Here's Part 4 of Johnny Lowe's Crisis Cross-Over featuring The Far Side.

Tune in next Tuesday for Part 5!

Final Crisis #7 Finally Annotated

Well, it's done - the notes for Final Crisis #7 are up over at the Annotated Final Crisis site. That just leaves a handful of tie-ins to write up which I should be able to finish sooner rather than later.

There were a few characters that I couldn't identify in this issue - if you know any of those that I mention below, either drop me a line at jigsawmen [atsign] googlemail [dot] com or simply leave a comment below. Any you can identify correctly earn you a mention in the ackowledgements page on the site - what more could anyone ask for?

Here's the one's I need help with:

Page 13 - Panel 2 From the top down are Starman; what could be Gorilla Grodd or Titano; Frankenstein; probably the Question; Red Devil; Power Girl; an unknown with a green top in front of the OMAC robots; Supergirl again; Iman; and Wonder Woman.

Page 18 - Panel 4 Between Superman and Darkseid are Mirror Master and behind him the Human Flame; over Darkseid's shoulder is Captain Cold; behind him is an unknown woman - any guesses?

Page 30 - Panel 2 After the fighting, life gets back to normal. In the offices of the Daily Planet, Perry White (on the right) holds a meeting with his staff. Left to right are Ron Troupe; an unknown with his back to us; another unknown facing us; Clark (Superman) Kent; Lois Lane; and Jimmy Olsen.

Friday Night Fight - Love Tap Special

Spacebooger has decreed that because tomorrow is St Valentine's Day, tonight will be a one-off special featuring lovers or ex-lovers engaged in the pugilistic arts.

Well, not sure this counts as actual fighting but it's worth a shot . . .

First, a little explanation from the one and only Spider Jerusalem:

That's right his wife, whose cryogenically frozen head has been stolen by the guys in the all-over body suits, it trying to kill him.

Even Spider would admit his ex-wife's probably looked better, but at least he has a solution to the problem:

Yeah, it's not a kicking and punching kinda fight but look - he threw her head into a river from a great height!

Solving problems the Spider way.

This frozen nogging lobbing first appeared in Transmetropolitan #12, cover dated August 1998, written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson.

Final Crisis - 1986 Style - Part 3

Here's Part 3 of Johnny Lowe's Crisis Cross-Over featuring Ziggy.

Tune in next Tuesday for Part 4!

But Wait - There's More!

Even more Final Crisis related spin-offs, that is. According to Newsarama, there's going to be at least four titles in a Final Crisis Aftermath theme:

• Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! about the Human Flame;
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape featuring Nemesis;
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink which follows the adventures of Tattooed Man;
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance dealing with the Super Young Team.

Looks like I'm going to be annotating for some time.

Final Crisis #6 Annotations Complete

Managed to get the annotations for Final Crisis #6 complete at last and are up at the Annotated Final Crisis site; taken a while as I've just been stupidly busy in work lately.

Anyhow, I'll be starting on #7 as soon as I can and then catching up on the handful of tie-ins left to do.

There's one character I've been unable to identify:

Pages 30-31 - Panel 11    Hourman lays on a table being tended to by Dr Light; on the right behind them are the two Wildcats and the speaker is Dr Mid-Nite. Between them appears to be Atom-Smasher and a figure wearing a head dress. Anyone know who he is:

Thanks to Anonymous in the comments he's been quickly identified as Man-of-Bats.

Interview At Geek Force Five

The lovely people over at Geek Force Five got in touch a day or two ago wanting a few words about the Annotated Final Crisis site.

It's a nice little interview and can be found here.

Now if I can only finish annotating the bloody series . . .

Final Crisis - 1986 Style - Part 2

As I mentioned last week, I found a programme from the 1986 Birmingham Comic Art Show which contained a nice comic strip by Johnny Lowe.

Here's Part 2 featuring Hagar The Horrible.

Tune in next Tuesday for Part 3!