PLANET OF THE CAPES:

This picture actually makes me swoon. 

I remember it like it was yesterday… even though it was really like twenty-seven years ago. It was a Saturday, I was visiting my local comic book shop… local being a relative term since the place was about four towns up the line and required bus fare and a couple transfers to get to. But that's neither here nor there and not important to the story. Forgive me for even bringing it up. You're not gonna forgive me, are you? Just gonna hang on to this and hold a grudge like always? Just like that time I forgot your birthday. Fine… whatever. 

I was hitting the shop with a buddy of mine, Rob was his name and also in attendance was a guy Rob knew named Brian whom I'd briefly met once before. But this was my first time being properly introduced to Brian and it was a pretty cordial affair right up until we walked into the shop. The shop in question was a place called Galaxy Comics in Norwalk, CT, long gone and very missed by now, much like its owner Fred G. (R.I.P. dude.) Anyway, we all walked in together to the sight of the new comics displayed on segregated shelves, all new offerings from DC Comics (home to the likes of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) to the left and the offerings of their esteemed competitor Marvel Comics (producers of Spider-Man, The X-Men and that fine bunch of folks pictured above) to the right. Or actually, that might have been the other way around, Marvel might have been to the left. I mean really, twenty-seven years dude, I'm lucky if I get the names right at this point.

But what I do remember clearly was immediately leaving the pack and making a beeline for the DC side as Brian did likewise toward the Marvel section. And in a moment neither of us will ever forget, we looked at each other from across the room, saw the obvious joy and excitement we each had for the heroes and fictional universes being put forth by the two very different comic companies. Both of us had made a silent statement, pledged our fanboy allegiance to our respective favorites and in that shared moment we simultaneously had the same thought: "He likes THAT shit? What a loser." Been best friends ever since.

Well Brian's a west-coaster these days but he's still my boy, we're still emotionally close, he's still my brother (wipes a tear) and I think about him almost every day. Especially over this past weekend, right before this happened to me*.

*Not a depiction of actual events, since I would never wear a 
tie with a Double Windsor Knot. Also, I'm not a white dude.
And most importantly, headless corpses don't write blog posts!

Well that's what it felt like anyway when I went to see Marvel's The Avengers at my local multiplex. (Ooohhhhhhh!) Sorry, swooned again. Sat there in the theater and had my mind-hole f@%ked by the massive cinematic rod of awesomeness that Marvel unzipped before my eyes. (A totally unpleasant but fairly accurate description of the sensation.) And my boy Brian was right there with me in spirit. His was the little voice in my soon to be exploding head whispering: "Where's your DC Comics now, loser?"

Damn him and his spectral self, he was absolutely right. The Avengers raked in close to $207 million dollars domestically in its opening weekend. And Marvel did it with characters that only six years ago were not nearly as recognizable as DC's big guns. 

I'm sorry, who the hell are you again?

I don't think it even matters what The Dark Knight Rises does in theaters later this summer. The end of Chris Nolan's epic Batman trilogy might get near the $200 million mark, but probably won't do it in the first weekend. I'd love to be wrong about that, I really would, but I mean The Avengers had… EVERYTHING!

Now I've read a couple of reviews that have urged DC to follow Marvel's lead, to get on the stick and finally make a Justice League movie a reality. For those of you who didn't spend your high school years extracting yourselves from lockers and pulling wedgies out of your crack, the Justice League is THE comic book super team. Or at least they were before today. 

Sure, you all look like a nice bunch of well-adjusted folks. 

But it would just be kinda like the space race at this point. Remember what the Russians did after America beat the them to the moon? Okay, most of you are probably too young to remember that but basically they just said: "трахните это!" (That's Russian for f@%k it!) No use being second to the moon and planting their flag next to ours, walking around in Neil Armstrong's footsteps. America got there first, peed all over it and claimed it as our own so why bother? Maybe not totally the same thing here but… kinda. 

"That's one small step for man… one giant reason for Russia to SUCK IT!"

I know there's distribution rights and copyrights and a whole lot of other legal reasons the Justice League hasn't happened yet. (F@%king lawyers!) But there simply has to be a way to work through that junk and by not doing so DC blew it, big time. Of course, it's not like they never tried with the Justice League before. There's been several successful cartoons and animated movies. There was also that time back in 1997 when CBS made a pilot film for a possible JL TV series. They just couldn't use Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman because… you know, legal reasons. So instead they had to run with a bunch of B-listers and unknown properties. Kinda like Marvel just did. How'd that work out back in 97? In a word… not well. Okay, that's really two words but I'll only charge you at the single word rate. You're welcome.

At least the masks made it easier for the actors' parents to 
lie to friends about what their children did during the 90s.

And it looks as if the Marvel hits just keep coming as The Amazing Spider-Man swings into theaters this summer as well which I'm sure will just add a few hundred more piles of money to the Marvel coffers. Then waiting in the wings they've got Captain America 2, Iron Man 3, there's another couple of X-Men movies in the works, possibly a third Hulk film, and of course, a just announced Avengers 2 in the next few years. Over at DC? Well let's see, Dark Knight Rises is the last Batman film for a while. Got the new Superman movie Man of Steel coming next year and if they at least get the costume right then it's already guaranteed to be better than the crap sandwich that was Superman Returns. I mean… 

Wait… THAT's the outfit?
Son of a bitch! 

AW SHUT THE HELL UP, BRIAN!

But never one to miss a perfectly good bandwagon… here's this week's strip.