Aberrant Press

I just noticed that Mark Evanier hasn’t posted anything on his site in 24 hours. That’s either a record or cause for worry…

My buddy Cody (aka Crash Test Cody) stopped in the other day to show me his new belt. Let me rephrase that. His new Vegas Championship belt from wrestling promotion VCW! Couldn’t have a better guy repping my valley, so here’s some shots of the pair of us basking in the glory of all that gold…

If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen what the man went through to get that belt, I may have wanted a shot at the title!

It seemed like a typical Sunday. I was trying to reorganize everything from the singing we had the day before (our facebook page, for those who need it), and who should walk in but Joshua Hale Fialkov! He had stopped in purely because one of the people signing the day before, Chris Roberson, told him we were bad-ass! Cool cat that he was, he seemed to agree. He then signed a set of his series Echoes for my co-worker Bobby and took a photo-op with me. I opted to go old-school “myspace”-style and get us both in nice and snug. He commented that we were making it too sexy by getting so deep into one another’s personal space. And how could two chubby, hairy guys pressing up on one another not be hot? I don’t have an answer for that, either. But why force you to merely imagine it when I have the photo right here:

And just for the heck of it, here is a shot of the Echoes set we had him mark up (I would have had him sign a bunch of stuff, but we’ve been selling out of his books!):

The man left us with a smile and I told him to hit up Ralph’s shop as well. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring him back out sometime in a more official capacity!

So we’ve lost the Human Torch (Johnny Storm) and the Fantastic Four is no longer an applicable team name. While we now know that Spider-Man and a slew of others will be teaming up with the remaining members, who have decided to become the Future Foundation, it is clear that the surviving members of the group feel that it’s no longer fantastic with Johnny gone. But what if the brass at Marvel decided to go another direction with this story?

In a world where the Fantastic Four is not just a name but a brand, investor pressure could force Reed, Sue and Ben (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and Thing, respectively) to attempt to keep their public image intact (this assumes that Reed doesn’t privately own the company, which I’m pretty sure he does, but play along anyway). There is a candidate who would be available to step in, after all: the original Human Torch (Jim Hammond).

Heck, he’s even blond like Johnny was! That’d be perfect for cereal boxes and the like. All they’d have to do is say that Johnny grew up to explain how the handsome young man is suddenly just a handsome regular man. Since he’s an android, it would most certainly lead to an A.I.-like storyline when Johnny inevitably returns from the “dead” (I’m gonna put this in quotations because we never actually see him offed), with the possibility of a sibling rivalry/jealousy thing going on. Just think of the dramatic tension when the rest of the team has to break it to him that the robot just does the job better and sells more toys to the coveted 6-13 male market, what with being a robot and all…

Of course, hampering things might be the fact that every time Jim yells out the trademarked “Flame on!” , somebody else will fall upon their knees screaming “OH GOD, JOHNNY’S DEAD!” while he flies off, a constant reminder that their family is shattered…

But hey, at least they’d still be the Fantastic Four!

Diamond Comic Distributors has announced their top-selling products for December and even though Marvel Comics still had a higher percentage of Unit Share (amount of items from the company ordered) with 38.9% to DC’s 36.99%, DC Comics actually beat out Marvel for the top Dollar Share, taking in 33.07% to Marvel’s 32.28%. What this means is that DC is selling more items with a higher retail price than Marvel does. This is doubly impressive when you consider that most of DC’s Comic line is priced at $2.99 (the majority of Marvel books are $3.99).

So way to go on your high-end merch, DC!