The Assassins

Oh lawdy, it's my first post! And I'm gonna use it to tell you about Assassins.

No.

Wrong again.

Ah, there we go. Assassins is a comic from the wonderful experiment that was the Amalgam Comics brand. DC and Marvel thought "Well, people love Batman, and people love Wolverine. Why don't we just mix them together?!" and a splendid combination on par with Bacon and Asbestos was born.

Amalgam spawned hordes of characters such as the menacing Dark Claw, the horrifying Bat-Thing, the brutal Thorion and Lobo the fucking Duck. Alas, I digress, for today I'm focusing on Assassins. I promise I will cover more Amalgam stories in future posts.

The issue opens up with Dare(The combination of Daredevil and Deathstroke) and Catsai (The combination of Catwoman and Elektra) slaughtering the poor combination of Deadshot and Bullseye, Deadeye in his only appearance in an Amalgam comic ever. Which is a shame because I fucking love me some Deadshot. First I would like to bring to your attention Catsai's costuming choice.

Her actual costume is, well shitty, but it's the 90's so you gotta roll with the punches. However, what in Satan's unholy asshole is she wearing over it? Is it a forcefield? Is it some sort of magic ectoplasm? Is it Amalgamated D.K.? Regardless, it's pretty retarded, which is par for the course in this book.

This is also the first time you've seen a scan I had to do. My scanner is awful, so suck it up, read it and go blind in the process.

That's our villain, boys and girls. The combination of the Riddler and Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin. And yes, he does call himself The Big Question, which is easily one of the best/worst names in comic history. He's luring our vaguely lesbianic duo up Arkham Tower, which was built on the remains of Arkham Asylum. Now, New Gotham City has the most ruthless city government ever apparently, because instead of moving the inmates to a new Asylum they just locked them the fuck up in the tower. Yes, they essentially created a 100+ story deathtrap for anyone who wanders in. I would absolutely love to sit in on that meeting. "So, Mr. Dent, your request for the Arkham Asylum's destruction and the construction of Arkham Tower were passed. What do you want to do with the inmates? We have buses ready to transport them. Nah, fuck that nonsense, let's just lock 'em up. What? Yeah, let's just lock throw them in the tower, lock the doors and let god sort it out. Worked for Australia."

(This is where we lose our key Australian demographic.)

The Wonder Twins fight the combination of Kraven the Hunter and er..Cheetah, I guess? I don't even know. He throws some knives at them which The omnipotent narrator calls Hunga-Munga Blades. Which Wikipedia says is an actual weapon. The more you know.

Now we run into one Jimmy Urich who is a OH SWEET MARY MOTHER OF GOD

Who the hell let that beast out of the house that morning? Furthermore, who wears a bowtie with anything other than a tuxedo ever? Yes, I know that's Jimmy's thing however, he's grown out of it and look where he is now, in a disastrous company-wide crossover. Good on ya, Jimmy! (PLEASE COME BACK AUSSIES WE NEED YOU) Also, how the fuck is he a news anchor? Aren't they generally, y'know, all pretty like? If my local news starred Bow-tied gingers I would watch it even less than I already do.

BACK TO TOPIC

Our girls stab there way through hordes of unnamed crazies until we get the shocking revelation that Dare's horns and powers were provided by Fisk!

He has a riddle for every situation. Every single damn one. Yes, even that one.

The gals have a run-in with an Amalgamation of Cable and Vigilante, I think, because you can't have a 90's comic without some Cable. They finally get to Mr. Fisk, who reveals that he hired them to kill him, because either they kill him and he dies fighting, not Strangefate's puppet, or he kills them and gets his rep back. Unless people think that Strangefate just planned it all you fucking idiot. Catsai channels Ackbar and discovers it's a trap, and Dare charges the shiny fat man.

Whoops. Bad call, hornhead. She gets her horns ripped out and they leak some kind of yellow goo. I can only assume that she stored this goo in her horns for later use when she was banging dudes. The result would be one freaked the fuck out dude and one amused Dare. She seemingly dies from her wounds and Catsai is nowhere to be seen. Then one of her cats sets a bomb and injures Fisk.


Let me repeat that.

One of her cats sets a damn explosive charge with it's cute widdle paws and blows him the fuck up. He survives, but is then stabbed and left hanging by his feet outside his window for Mr. Jimmy Ohgodkillit to find and put on the front page.

Now for my favorite part of the issue, the letter page.

Y'see, Amalgam's schtick was that it was a fake company that we were supposed to believe had been around as long as Marvel and DC have today. Meaning they had to have fanmail, but alas, they had no fans. Thus the writers had to write letters to themselves by fake fans about fake issues and fake stories. This amuses me to no end. The crowning achievement is in an issue of Dark Claw that I have lying around here somewhere that I'll show you eventually.

Thus concludes my first post. Good Night, and G'day.

COME BACK


PLEASE


I HAVE VEGEMITE

Spider-Man: Death By D.K.

Let's face the facts, mis amigos. The 90's and mainstream comic books were quite possibly the worst pairing off since the oft (and best) forgotten love affair between myself and the country of Liechtenstein. And, coming straight from the adorable little slice of Spider-Man's history known as the clone saga, I give you:

DEATH

BY

D.K.!



Oh snap, Spidey's about to get curb stomped by a turtle made of sperm!? Will his triumphant return be cut shortly? Will Ben Reilly prove to be a viable alternative to Peter Parker as The Spectacular Spider-Man? Will I ever find a good reason for owning this bilious tome of only the blackest bile?

The answer to these questions is no. Oh god, it's a resounding no.



Yes, Spidey, the story we are about to delve into is indeed ill, and there will be pain. That Spider-Sense sure is paying off!

The story of this issue is of the sub-Captain Planet caliber. Apparently, 90's Marvel was not quite content enough with vomiting forth some of the most asinine storylines that insulted every aspect of story-telling in their sheer audacity to exist, they had to tell us all about pollution!

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't watch documentaries that aren't about failure or serial killers, so I did not see An Inconvenient Truth. However, if Al Gore instead put out Spider-Man vs. Global Warming: A Battle No One Can Win, I'd have seen that shit no less than 105 times, and have learned quite a bit. However, Al Gore was not behind this abomination of an issue. No siree, it was some guy called Todd Dezago, who co-created Young Justice. I think of him as taking the Rob Liefield role in the Rob Liefield/Fabian Niecieza co-creation of Deadpool. What I'm saying here is, if this guy is good, he sure aint showing it here

Basically, some environmentally unsound chemical plant head named Sanders kills DK and his brother, only instead of dying, DK becomes a muck monster and swears revenge against Sanders and also Spider-Man is there, too for some reason.



Sanders originally looks like a character actor playing a 1920's gangster. You can tell he's evil because he has the most lines on him. Somehow between this point and when D.K. decides to go a murderin', he loses a shitton of weight. Then again, with art like this:



consistency is the least of your worries. Seriously what the fuck happened to anatomy and his second leg?

Now, D.K himself has some pretty awesome powers. He can dissolve anything with his super pollution. This indeed is useful and makes it so Spider-Man doesn't kick his ass even once in the span of the entire issue, and renders him relatively useless. Then again, it was Ben Reilly Spider-Man, so calling him useless is par for the course.

However, D.K's true power is to create phrases with no meaning forever adding this saying to my repertoire:



I know what you're thinking. We're all thinking it. What the fuck does that even mean? I am no expert on the intricacies of the muck man lingo, but I think it means "time to get a new writer." Pretty sure about that one.

Now, good ol' Ben doesn't want to get outshined by the clearly radical quips of one Mr. D.K on his first outing as The Spectacular Spider-Man, so, when confronting the monster a second time, he lets loose with a most spectacular zinger of his own:



Oh shit. D.K. just got served by the wittiest of witty lines. Surely he has been put in his place.

Honestly, I wish I could go more in depth with this issue, but really, nothing happens. In the end D.K. is defeated by his conscience after Spidey gives him a "don't do the whole revenge deal, it really isn't kosher" talk. This talk is on like the second to last page. I guess good ol' Toddy couldn't think of a better way to end this abortion of an issue, so he went with the whole preaching thing.

As an added Bonus, Venom and The Ultraverse:



Venom, Venom, everywhere indeed

How I miss you, 90's.

What it is, how it do?

What's up, son? You're all gonna be squirting like Belladonna soon.

Except I'm not gonna jam a baseball bat up your ass.

Check back soon.