Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!

Enjoy!

ODD COMIC BOOK EVENTS

Have you ever seen another example of a comic book having three volumes (not counting series of mini-series), over the course of almost two decades, and EACH new volume was written by the same writer?

Because that's what's happened with Chris Claremont and Excalibur.

1988



2004



2005



Odd, huh?

If someone else can point out another example of this, I'd give her/him two cool points! But you won't find it! As it's just tooo odd!

I LIKED KILLER QUILT

Okay, I don't necessarily like Killer Quilt, but I like the IDEA of Killer Quilt.

Remember when a villain like Killer Quilt was played like a serious threat?

I like that.

I think that takes a certain amount of impressive brashness to say, "Yeah, the guy wears a costume that is essentially a multi-colored jumpsuit, but we're playing him as SERIOUS!"

I admire that.

I think Grant Morrison could still pull Crazy-Quilt off.

Who else could, do you think?

And I mean the same way as he was! No drastic revamp!!!

COVER HOMAGE

One cool point to the first person to identify what comic book cover this is a homage of!



REALLY COOL SCENE

Suicide Squad as a whole was a cool series, and as a result, it had a LOT of "cool scenes" (even for a cool series, it had a disproportionately large amount of "cool scenes").

One of the ones that jumps out to me, whenever I think of the series was the following, which happened during 1988, in issue #18.

First, here is the awesome cover of the issue before it, when Cold first joins up with the team.

Here is the cool cover...



That's the issue where the "Jihad" is formed, which was a group of villains from various countries that want revenge against America. The next issue, #18, is where the Squad faces off against them.

Now recall, this is well before Geoff Johns made Captain Cold cool in the pages of the Flash.

At the time, I thought, "He doesn't NEED to be 'made' cool, because Ostrander did it already a dozen years later!"

Cold is doing just one stint for the team, probably at the recommendation of Squad mainstay (and "friend" of Cold), Captian Boomerang. Just one stint and he gets paroled. This was something the Squad did more frequently in the first couple of years - use notable villains for short stints (like using Penguin early on for his planning abilities).

So Cold finds himself matched up against a fire-themed villain, and all Cold is thinking is just getting through this alive. Heck, he figures he might be able to cut a deal with the guy. However, that wasn't happening. Cold says, "Uh...hi, guy. Listen, you speak English? Howja like to make a deal?"

The response?

"Yes. No." And then he sets Cold's parka on fire.

Cold runs off for a bit, as the villain laughs at how easy this is going to be, but this just gets Cold into it, "You want a fight with me, schmuck? You got it!" and a blast sends the other guy flying.

Now the fight is pitched, leading to Cold to say the utterly cool line while ducking a blast of fire, "Wanta play rough, pally? Okay! But I gotta tell ya somethin'! Hate is cold! Hell is cold!"

And then, as he steps up to blast the guy - "And sucker, I am Captain Cold." He then proceeds to encase the guy in ice, probably killing him (we don't know for sure).

Ostrander sure knew cool.

There is another Squad scene that I will revisit sometime in the future!

SNARK FREE CHALLENGE

Who would win in a game of chess, Lois Lane or Clark Kent?

Well, that's it for this installment of Snark Free Corner. Hope you had fun!