Working our way through the back archive of the Adult Siblings Versus...continues. This episode, we looked at the the 2002 Spider-Man film and discuss the singe greatest portrayal of a superhero character in film:
J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson.
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| "Get me pictures...PICTURES OF SUPERMAN!" ".....I mean 'Spider-Man'. Sorry everyone." |
More details after the jump.
As I continue to dump out the old episodes form the past quarter, today we look at the episode of Adult Siblings Versus...where we looked at the fourth most famous movie by 90s rap duo Kid ‘n Play; Cass Act, where in at no point does a house party occur.
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| Their movie career is like a dark, alternative universe path that Will Smith avoided |
More details after the jump.
Alright, I will try to catch up to the actual podcast, as we are quite behind.
In this episode of Adult Siblings Versus...we looked at Project A-ko, which in a way was the patient zero of our anime obsession when we were kids.
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| If you're only ever going to watch one sci-fi, lesbian school girl anime Make it this one! |
More details after the jump.
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| Step 1: Make him black. Step 2: ??? Step 3: New readers, somehow! |
First Appearance: Battle Scars #1 (2012)
History: Marcus Johnson lived a relatively normal life. He was raised by a single mother and entered the army out of high school, where he eventually became an Army Ranger. While serving overseas in Afghanistan, he was informed that his mother had been murdered. Returning the Untied States for the funeral, Marcus was ambushed by assassins and the super criminal mercenary known as the Taskmaster, the same people who killed his mom. While he was rescued by SHIELD and Captain America, he was deliberately not told why he and his mother had been targeted. Soon Johnson was attacked again only to be saved by the man revealed to be his long-lost father, none other than former Director of SHIELD Nick Fury. In the ensuing adventure, the two teamed up, got captured, Johnson lost his eye during torture (and it just happened to be the exact same eye his father famously is missing), and the two managed to defeat the man behind the whole plot; Orion. Afterwards Johnson agrees to join SHIELD as its newest agent, taking the name that is revealed to have been his birth name: “Nick Fury, Jr.”
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| Haven't seen the marketing team this power mad since the Clone Saga |
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| I don't know why she's naked in her powered form Seems kind of weird for a teen hero |
Name: Jennifer Pierce
First Appearance: Kingdom Come #1 (1996); Justice Society of America (vol. 3) #12 (2008)
History: Jennifer Piece is the youngest daughter of the legendary protector of the Suicide Slum, Black Lightning. As with her older sister Anissa, she was born with a dormant metagene that emerged in her adolescence. Despite this, Black Lightning made it clear that he would not allow either of his children to follow in his footsteps as a hero. Where Anissa gained to ability to control her density, Jennifer instead gained powers similar to their father; the ability to generate and control electricity. In addition she gained the power to fly and to generate an electric aura that came in the form of a golden and spiky appearance. The day she graduated college Anissa, defied their father and became the hero known as Thunder. Over the next few years Black Lightning watched his oldest daughter struggle to find her footing without his help and it made him second guess his decision. With Jennifer, who was having a hard time controlling her abilities, he decided to take the opposite route and make sure she was trained properly in the use of her powers and in fighting crime. To that end he had Jennifer join the Justice Society of America so that they they could give her the mentorship she needed. Soon after she became known as “Lightning.”
Beta Says: If she, along with her sister, hadn’t appeared in the CW Black Lightning show a few years back I’d be certain that Jennifer would be forgotten. In the comics it has been quite a long while since we’ve seen the second daughter of Jefferson Pierce. Hell, the last time we saw was I think at least two reboots ago, so I’m not even sure if she still exists in the current DC continuity. I would say that she is a whole category below Thunder in relevance in the DC Comics, which is a bit annoying considering she debuted with a bit of hype. It’s interesting that she fell in the background, as Jennifer is actually a much older character than you’d think, because the character actually debuted twelve years earlier in the fantastic and historically relevant miniseries Kingdom Come. Sort of. I shall explain.
More on the golden child of the Black Lightning clan after the jump.
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| "Some motherf@#$ers are always trying to ice skate uphill!" |
First Appearance: The Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973)
History: Tara Vanessa Cross-Brooks, who was in labor, sought
shelter at a brothel in London, England. A doctor was called in after she
started experiencing complications, but it turned out that it was a vampire in disguise:
Deacon Frost. Frost drained Tara of her blood before being chased away. Sadly, Tara
did not survive the incident. Her son, Eric Brooks, who was still in the womb
when she was bitten, lived despite odds. Because of the circumstances of his birth,
Eric was born with a natural immunity to vampire bites and an innate and deep
hatred of all vampires. He was raised in the brothel for a few years before he
came under the tutelage of veteran vampire hunter Jamal Afari, who trained him
in his profession. Over the years Eric became an Olympic-level athlete, a top
notch fighter, and a master of weapon combat, though he was especially skilled
with knives and daggers which earned him the nickname “Blade.”
Blade would become one of the most prominent vampire hunters
in the world, with clashes with the legendary vampire Dracula to his name and
teaming up with other famous hunters. However, his life took an unexpected
turn years later when he encountered Morbius, the Living Vampire. Morbius bit
him and, likely due to his significantly different nature compared to other
vampires and possibly because of Blade’s unique physiology, the British hunter had a sort
of mutation that granted him super strength and more obvious vampiric traits
(including fangs and a bloodlust) but an immunity of sunlight and other
weaknesses. With his training, years of experience, and his newfound powers, the
“Daywalker” is the most famous, skilled, and feared vampire slayer in the world.
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| Blade is the only one capable of stopping Morbin Time Well, Blade and Box Office returns... |
Beta Says: Wow, I cannot believe that I’ve been doing Black Superheroes Month since 2011 and it took me all this time to remember to write about Blade, who was the goddamn most famous comic book character in America for a bit. I think it’s two reasons: 1) I feel like I kept pushing Blade back saying “I’ll do him next year” in favor of a character I found more interesting and 2) I sometimes forget Blade exists, as he’s actually not all that popular in the comics. He’s a C-tier character at best and yeah, every few years Marvel will try to give him an ongoing, but they always end up canceled. It’s crazy to think that Blade is kind of ho-hum in terms of comics prevalence, considering he single handedly saved the concept of superhero movies.
More on the weird dichotomy of Blade after the jump.
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| I uh...I'm not sure who everyone in this picture is Well, this is embarrassing |
For the uninitiated, there is a common misconception that there are not very many black heroes in superhero comics, so every year (…mostly) I
write a series of blogs about various characters to showcase that there are
actually a lot of black heroes around, but most of them are horribly underutilized.
This year, unless something goes wrong, I will be writing three profiles throughout
the month of February. All my previous articles can be found here.
This year I struggled to pick who to talk about, partially because
I have way too many male heroes to choose and way too few female heroes to pick
from (there is actually a deeply concerning lack of black superheroines out
there, sadly). Originally, I was going to make Sunspot of the New Mutants my featured character
this year, as the last few years (and the last forty years actually) there has
been controversy over whether or not a character who was depicted as Afro-Brazilian
in his early appearances should be drawn with dark skin or be played by a black
actor, and I’ve gotten f**king sick of it. However, a different character I should have thought
of earlier came to mind whom I realized I had to do ASAP and since the third character this year is non-negotiable as well it was either Sunspot or a profile on a female hero, and
since I don’t like the idea of this being an all-dude month I’ll talk about all
my very angry thoughts regarding poor Roberto next year.
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| Later we learn his secondary mutation is "White Washing" |
Next time instead will look at a character that is overdue being looked at on this blog, as for a brief time they were the most famous and popular comic book hero in all of pop culture.
