I don't know if it is my chivalrous nature, the Liefeldian curves, or the ability of the Dragoness to seduce readers, but I feel the need to defend this pretty little number. If you'll recall New Mutants #94, Cannonball and his squad of the New Mutants has been captured by Stryfe and his Mutant Liberation Front. The Dragoness is put in charge of the prisoners. She alerts them that the plan of poisoning the water of many capitals around the globe begins that very night. Then she makes out with Cannonball. Wait, what? That's right. She goes and lays a big smack on that ol' boy's lips. Boom-Boom gets jealous, but then Cannonball reveals that while he was being smooched upon, he was grabbing the keys to their shackles from the headdress of the Dragoness. Sneaky, sneaky, little guy. Dragoness is made to look like a complete fool. She's not. The reader is the complete fool. Here's a break down:

Another wasted afternoon. And yes, this really happened in one of my social construction classes. All of it. Lady Frost was not impressed.
 
  

The title is taken from the old "Chappelle Show." 
 
Here's a socially defunct villain situation that I made up one afternoon. I wasted the whole afternoon. I'm surprised my wife still talks to me after seeing it...
 
More to come. (Sadly.)
  

A while back, Red L.A.M.P., Pikahyper, and I had a little dialogue about what to do with popular timelines that have story arcs attached to them. Here's a summation of the problem: the story arc pages are supposed to be reserved for the issues in the actual story arc only. These pages list the issues in the arc so that users can see what actually took place during the event. Some timelines, however, prove too popular to remain compacted into the one story arc event. Take, for instance, the Age of Apocalypse. People love that timeline. Marvel knows this and they release supplemental issues from time to time to appease the hardcore fans. And, while these issues may explain a bit further about the events of the story arc, these issues aren't actually part of the arc itself. By users adding these supplemental issues to the story arc, the story arc pages get packed with issues that weren't part of the arc, causing the inquiring web-kid to stop by and see 63+ books they need to get instead of the actual 40 that made up the arc. It's misleading and incorrect.
 
Pikahyper had the idea of making a concept page to cover the extra/supplemental issues for some of these timelines. I stole that idea. I spent this morning beautifying the Age of Apocalypse page. For starters, I made the concept page and did the research to find which issues were a part of the original story arc. Anything that wasn't a part of it I tagged as the AOA concept and removed them from the story arc. (The Hulk traveling to various timelines/dimensions definitely was not part of the original story arc.) I also removed the collected editions of the arc and made an H2 section devoted to collected editions. With all those issues out, the issue list at the bottom of the page reflected only issues that had appeared in the original story arc. I then added the concept to each of those issues so that the concept page boasted every issue that took place within that timeline. Hopefully, any new additions to the timeline will be tagged as a concept instead of the story arc. For instance, the Uncanny X-Force have traveled to the AOA, but their story arc is actually the Dark Angel Saga. (This page has not been made. Go! Me do it? Can't you see how much I've done today already?) We can still place the issues in the Age of Apocalypse, just not the story arc but in the concept. The concept page should then be expanded to include all the new information gleaned about who is revealed to be dying, switching sides, and whatnot. The concept page should have all the information about everything comics have shown about the AOA, not the story arc page.
 
Hopefully this was all easy to follow. The short of it: if the appearance in the AOA didn't happen in the limited run in 1995 then it should not be added to the AOA story arc but to the AOA concept page. (And that page is fairly blank. Go!) Questions or suggestions are welcome. So are criticisms.
 
You can check out the story arc page here and the concept page here.

I'm just posting this here so that I know where to find it in the future. 
 
In New Mutants #91, Rictor has made a big mistake in trying to take on Caliban, especially since Sabretooth intervenes. Just being in the Morlock Tunnels was dumb, but he also ends up being there when Sabretooth is trying to finish what the Marauders had started during the Mutant Massacre. At one point, Rictor is one-on-one with Sabretooth. He's been injured and his powers are weakened. Somehow, someway, Rictor finds the gusto to unleash an assault like never before. He collapses the tunnel and Sabretooth flees. Oddly enough, this new use of his powers also seems to enable him to change his wardrobe. Note the page numbers:

i have very little exposure to Jamie Madrox. I was never a fan of the 90's X-Factor because the characters were all too witty or sarcastic. It was like a superhero version of the Gilmore Girls: perfect statements for every occasion. Regardless, one of my favorite characters does have a history with the man and so I've got some exposure. Siryn and Multiple Man went out when they lived on Muir Island. They went through a lot together: joining the Fallen Angels, fighting Proteus, and fighting the Shadow King, to name the few chronicled events. The two went their separate ways when Siryn joined Cable's outlaw group of mutants called X-Force. During the X-Cutioner's Song, Siryn is arrested and Madrox is one of the key-keepers. He doesn't recall their relationship, only snippets of old memory. I used to hate this. Now I love it.
 
The Multiple Man is an inferential tool. Take the Fallen Angels story, for example. First off, he splits himself up to find Sunspot and Warlock. One of his dupes gets side-tracked, helps an old woman home with her groceries, and then begins to fantasize about a life all his own. Being absorbed back into the whole would seem like death for someone experiencing things on his own. A bit later, the original Madrox feels woozy. He states that he gets that way when a dupe of his has been gone too long or been hurt. A further bit later, the rogue dupe gets hit by a bicyclist. The original gets woozy again, finds the dupe, and gets rejected when he offers to absorb the dupe and share the pain. As the story progresses, the Cerebro unit starts blipping the two Multiple Mans (yup, that's the correct way to pluralize the guy's formal name) as two individual mutants. The dupe must have somehow mutated to be his own person. As proof, a latent mutant negates Madrox's powers when he's got a slew of dupes out. All re-merge with the original Multiple Man except for the hurt, rogue dupe. He must be different. Regardless, the hurt dupe eventually rejoins the original Madrox. This original Madrox, along with Siryn, stays with the Fallen Angels for a time. They eventually make it back to Muir Island to take part in the Proteus and Shadow King adventures.
 
Such experience would endear any man and woman to each other. It makes total sense that Siryn feels hurt when Multiple Man doesn't remember their relationship in the X-Cutioner's Song. The reason is that Madrox got bored on the island and left a dupe in his place before the Fallen Angels incident. The two didn't bond until after the second team of X-Factor started, way after the experiences of Siryn and the now-deemed fake Madrox.
 
Here's what I don't get: Multiple Man has the ability to feel when a dupe has been out too long or gets hurt - so, when the fake Madrox gets creamed by the bicyclist, or the Shadow King warps the dupe's mind, or any other malady that surely comes with being a Muir Island X-Man, why didn't the real Multiple Man think: "Gee, seems like I'm getting my butt kicked on a regular basis; I better get back and see what the fetch is going on." Nope, he just keeps chilling. Also, if a dupe being absent too long makes the original woozy, why wasn't Madrox in a constant state of nausea? Also, why didn't the rogue dupe hit by the bicyclist duplicate? Also, if the rogue dupe had mutated from the fake dupe, how could they re-merge with each other? And this is why I'm okay with Siryn having to move on: Madrox was a lame, inconsistent character. I don't know where he went from there but I hope that his powers have been regulated. Regardless, despite the inconsistencies (as many retcons seem to have), I am A-OK with Multiple Man leaving the Siryn picture.

Last night I dreamed that I was visiting Comic Vine as a real community. It didn't exist as a website of fake names; I was really Renchamp. The first person I met when I arrived at the community was Pikahyper. I've never met this Viner, but in my dream he was a portly little Asian guy with a red and white striped polo shirt tucked into his jean shorts. I also understood somehow that he was very good at basketball. He and I noticed that parts of the community were fading. ( This is probably where this comes from.) He had notified a tech person and I helped show how the upper corners of the community were the wrong color. After some time, the techie had it all figured out and the community was once again fully functional.
 
Leaving Pikahyper, I met Castleking. He was busy beating the crap out of a punching apparatus. It wasn't a punching bag. I don't know exactly what it was, but in my dream state I fully understood that whatever it was, it was for punching. Castleking was doing a great job.
 
I then needed to use the bathroom. I walked through the many corridors of Comic Vine until I noticed the Men's Room. For some reason, a hot girl opened the door for me. It appeared to be her job. I entered and saw that there were no exposed urinals. They were all in stalls. I soon learned why. The urinals were actually non-existent. You simply peed on the wall and a spray of water would wash it down the drain. This, my friends, is the only reason I remembered this dream. What the what? I refused to pee on the wall and left for the day. (Or woke up, whichever you'd prefer.)

There are three things that I blog about on the Vine: 1) Comics and comic related topics. 2) Topics relating to the Comic Vine Community. 3) Completely unrelated crap. This one falls under category three.

This past weekend I flew out to visit my mother in Oklahoma. As is my wont, I perused the Sky Mall magazine in search of those ridiculous products that only old people and the gullible succumb to purchasing. This time, however, there were a few oddities that went beyond commercial use. The first is an advertisement for a smart way to outsmart a cheating lover.

Gallery

Unfortunately, outsmarting them comes with misspelling “spouse,” which is not smart. And that is irony.

The second ad was for a brand of running shoes.

Gallery

Yeah, whose idea was it to make the trademark a life essence? Sperm? On shoes? Ludicrous. Someone’s marketing team really messed that one up. Even worse, someone will buy those shoes.

The previous blog should be read first. Go. Now.

Now that you are back, I have further thoughts on the Deadpool MAX situation my chronic collecting habit placed me in and I find a bit of anger. (Don’t you fret, friends: this won’t be a tirade, rant, or drunk dial.) Why did the makers of that lame comic place Domino’s likeness in the book? For saps like me that just have to lap up every appearance of every favorite character. Back to music, there are some people that love the band Cartel. I’m not one of them. But, these people were probably excited to get that song from “City of Angels” (“Iris”) when it was redone by New Found Glory (whom I really, really love). But how disappointed where they when the singer from Cartel, Will Pugh (the man with the most unfortunate last name ever; then again, some people have the last name Butts…), simply sung the song exactly like the original by the Goo Goo Dolls frontman John Rzeznik (you know, the guy that looks like Bon Jovi)? I’m sure it was tragic. Ninety-nine cents done the drain, plus tax. It’s all business, though. Why did New Found Glory get Will Pugh to sing on their record? Because Cartel fans would at least want that one song, if not the whole album. It’s a similar mentality with comics. Domino was placed in Deadpool MAX so that suckers like me would stray from our normal buying habits and try something new. Does that mean they did a great job with one of my favorite characters? Hardly. Not at all. No chance. But they made that four dollars, plus tax. (She was so horribly displayed that I’m relieved that she wasn’t actually Domino.)

Speaking of misuse of characters (for business purposes or otherwise), visit the What’s Worse forum started by the Dark Huntress. Also, per the instructions/pleading of .Mistress Redhead. I will be linking my blogs, too. Retrospectively, even. Lastly, go buy the self-titled album by Say Anything. Sonic gold, squares.