He May Not Be "Into It" . . .

. . . but there's no reason Booster Gold wouldn't hit a woman if he had to.

This week's Booster Gold #20 sees our time hopping hero come up against Task Force X, the 1950's Suicide Squad and, within moments of arriving, he's confronted by Karin Grace who attempts to take him in quietly. Booster, never the most subtle of heroes, suggests he just flies away:

Grace calls him on that decision, challenging him by raising the point that he'd have to hit her which duly gives Booster pause:

and he reluctantly goes with her. After all, it's better than hitting a woman, right?

But as we're dealing with a time-travelling hero, what say we wind the clock back some twenty odd years, back to the late 80's when Booster was still a relatively new character. With the Justice League having been revamped, Booster was brought in to audition for membership in Justice League #4. While he was rejected at first, he ended up battling the Royal Flush Gang, earning a place on the team and even winning approval from Batman.

The Royal Flush Gang was made up of the Ten, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of Spades. Having dispatched most of them, Booster went looking for Ten:

Yeah, Booster, you wouldn't hit a lady, would you? You know, one that isn't attacking you or even armed?

Actually he would because in the future "equality of the sexes is a given so we can hit anyone."

Now I'm not saying Booster should have smacked Grace and high-tailed it out of there, but he shouldn't have agreed to go with her just to avoid hitting a woman.

And the even more annoying thing? Both stories were written by Keith Giffen!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #36

A quote heavy Cocktail this week:

• The Boys #30 - "Off Iceland, actually." - now that's how you get rid of a problem.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #1 - "It ain't just nipples, buddy!" - Willingham and Sturges; I love these guys!
• Justice Society of America #26 - "He ate the candles too." - ah, that Starman . . . he's just crazy.
• Marvels: Eye of The Camera #5 - "Storm. With the hair, the outfit." - can't imagine Halle Berry with a white Mohican, somehow.
• Power Girl #1 - "Work on getting me a doorknob." - this was so well worth the wait!
• Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye #2 - "You weren't eight months pregnant when you left this morning!!" - my brain hurts!
• Strange Adventures #3 - "Bad guy down. End of story." - oh, Comet, you're so naive at times.
• Trinity #49 - "What... makes the end of the world like a... Damn... got nothing..." - well I wasn't expecting Krona to do that.

And while there were several things that made me smile or laugh out loud this week, it's got to be Power Girl:

Friday Night Fights - Fist Fight!

To this day, Garth Ennis and John McCrea's Hitman remains one of my favourite comic series of all time. The wild swings between touching, heartfelt stories and laugh out loud moments liberally sprinkled with violence made the series a joy to read month after month.

For tonight's Fight, though, I wanted to feature one of the short lived characters Ennis and McCrea produced: Nightfist! He will hit you with his fist!

Oh yeah, that's One Panel of Pain right there!

Head over to Spacebooger and make sure you vote on your favourite.

This prime example of "does what it says on the tin" was first seen in Hitman #5 cover dated September 1996, written by Garth Ennis with art by John McCrea.

A Little Research Needed

Back in the late 80's, well before the success of 52, Trinity or *cough* Countdown, DC's experiment with weekly comics wasn't as well received.

Action Comics, the one that launched Superman and could be said to have started the whole superhero thing, took their main character and, between #601 and #642, squeezed him into a two page spread while the remaining pages were filled in an anthology style with stories starring other characters. Oh, and they published it weekly.

Action Comics Weekly was an odd title - it had it's minus points like the time when Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show; or there was the laboriously plotted and dreadfully illustrated Black Canary tale Bitter Fruit; but it also had some plus points.

One of them was the gorgeous Mike Mignola cover of #614 shown on the right but there was also that time when Deadman met D.B. Cooper  (who turned out to be the Devil/an alien astronaut); it had Blackhawk doing what he does best (flying planes and trying to pull anything in a skirt); and had Catwoman frame Holly Robinson's husband for the murder of two security guards which she threw out of a hotel room window to their deaths, all in retaliation for him killing Holly.  That's right - Holly died and Catwoman killed people.

Re-reading them recently, though, I did come across something that made me chuckle. I've picked up the woeful attempts of American writers to come up with believable British dialogue before in the Cor Blimey Guv'nor posts and while this isn't speech, it's the same sort of thing:

That's Speedy and Nightwing rushing to save the life of an ambassador who's attending a rally for the Labour party. That's Labour party.

See, over here, we spell that L-A-B-O-U-R.

Don't even get me started on using the Union Flag as a symbol of Labour . . .

Who Is Batgirl?

I don't read the Bat-titles so I've no real idea what's going on over there except when big events - like Batman: R.I.P. - intrude on the DCU. When I saw this over at The Source:

I admit I was a little intrigued. I know about the Oracle: The Cure mini series that's happening (though not what's happening in it) and kinda hope that Oracle doesn't return as Batgirl. She's such a good character as she is that it would be a shame, I think, for her to go back to her old alter-ego.

Is it going to be Cassandra Cain? Don't think so - too easy. So who does that leave?

My completely uneducated guess is it'll be Spoiler. I've no evidence, no grounding, no inside (or outside) information - that's simply a guess.

Of course, not reading the Bat-titles, I won't know if I'm right or wrong!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #35

After last week's miserable haul, I'm certainly glad I went in to get my comics yesterday:

• Battlefields: The Tankies #1 - Garth Ennis and Carlos Ezquerra united once more: does it get much better?
• Blackest Night #0 - why do I think the perfect snack to eat with this comic is a bag of Skittles?
• Final Crisis: Legion Of Three Worlds #3 - didn't Final Crisis finally finish months ago? Crap, that reminds me I have to update the annotations. Still, least we got Conner Kent back, eh? (highlight to read)
  
• Green Lantern #40 - who's joining the Orange Lantern Corps next? The seagulls from Finding Nemo !
• Masquerade #3 - Fighting Yank was a right bastard, wasn't he?
• Teen Titans #70 - more gratuitous butt shots than a year's worth of Ed Benes comics.
• Trinity #48 - Krona gets his ass kicked once more.

And what made me smile this week:

PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER! Oh yeah!

Now let's see if Caleb  borrows this picture! ;-)

A Eunuch's Gotta Do . . .

What's worse than getting shot by an Italian hitman who's recently been made into a eunuch?

Getting shot in the balls by an Italian hitman who's recently been made into a eunuch. That's more than a little spiteful, not to mention ironic.

Still, that's what you get when Spacebooger  demands One Panel of Pain.

Remember to head over there and check out the other fights and vote on your favourite.

This blood soaked bullet in the balls comes from the pages of Preacher #21 cover dated January 1997, written by Garth Ennis with art by Steve Dillon.