A Brief Intro to The King of Fighters (Shameless Self-Promotion)

Very recently my band, Zombie Apocalypse NOW!, released a new EP: “ZANVSKOF”. Although it is very short, only three tracks, it is the culmination of over a year of hard work despite numerous setbacks. I’m very proud of this album and feel like it contains some of the best songs I’ve ever written. It’s also the first of what will be a series of EPs coming out by us over a period of time. What’s different about these releases versus our previous ones is that while there’s often been a nerdy tone on our music I had the idea to make full-on themed EPs. Meaning that every EP is inspired by a different subject and, because I’m the biggest nerd I know, they will be pretty dorky ones. I was heavily inspired to do this by the music of Adam WarRock. For those of you not in the know WarRock is a rapper whose song topics tend to cover a wide variety of topics that include comic books, cartoons, TV shows, and even occasionally professional wrestling. He’s pretty fantastic and also a giant nerd so you can guess why I like him. He regularly releases free EPs/Mix Tapes and they usually are based on some top or another (I originally discovered him from his West Coast Avengers and Firefly albums). I loved that idea and wanted to do something similar. Then I remembered that I have a band and I have access to a home studio. So why the hell not?

Anyway “ZANVSKOF” is inspired by the King of Fighters video game series. I had a lot of ideas for EPs but I settled on starting with King of Fighters because I had already written lyrics to a song about my favorite KOF character years before so it seemed like a decent place to start. So now, with the album finally done, you can listen to it from our Bandcamp page and also download it for free (Or any amount. Tips and donations are appreciated).

Twenty Years of sadistically difficult bosses!

But I don’t want to just plug my new album today. It occurs to me that a lot of people, whether folks who frequent this site or even people who like my band, may not know a hell of a lot of stuff about this game series. Thankfully I have a blog and a lot of useless information in my head and therefore I can give a beginners guide to exactly what this franchise is all about.

A brief look at the King of Fighters after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Bumblebee

Not the most intimidating of codenames, but still...

Name: Karen Beecher

First Appearance: Teen Titans #45 (1976)

History: Karen Beecher was a scientist and inventor who had a fairly normal life, at least until she began dating Mal Duncan, a member of the Teen Titans who had gone through several codenames. Worrying that Mal was being overlooked by the rest of the team Beecher concocted a scheme to make him look good. She created a bumblebee themed high tech suit and attacked the team in an effort to prove how valuable Duncan was to the team. Her scheme was effective and she managed to escape Scot-free but soon afterwards she confessed the ruse to Mal. Realizing that her intellect and ingenuity would make her a valuable ally the Titans recruited her on the spot. Under the name Bumblebee Karen continued working with the group before eventually joining Doom Patrol.

Beta Says: Bumblebee is yet another example of a character that was “awesome on paper” but never lived up to her potential. Think about: Karen was a scientist, an inventor while also being a black woman. The black woman was the smart one. That is so rare in superhero teams. You might want to accuse DC of simply ripping off the Wasp. Truthfully aside from both being insect themed heroines who could fly I’d say there wasn’t that much connecting them. Bumblebee was as a scientist and had no superhuman powers; her costume was a power suit of her own design. She did not change in size, which was the Wasps’ main gimmick. Um, well DC altered her so she’s stuck in a small form. Thanks for nothing, guys.

 More on Bumblebee after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Rage

I pity the fool who denies me my chocolate milk!

Name: Elvin Daryl Haliday

First Appearance: Avengers #326 (1990)

History: A small, timid kid thirteen year old Elvin Haliday was often the victim of bullying. One day while hiding from his tormentors he accidentally got covered in toxic waste. Surviving the exposure he fell ill, needing to be nursed back to health by his grandmother. Elvin recovered but was forever changed; he had aged into a body of a man in his mid-thirties and also developed superhuman strength, speed and durability. No longer timid Elvin now possessed complete confidence. At his grandmother’s urging he decides to use his new found powers to fight crime, dubbing himself “Rage”. He almost immediately confronted the Avengers and demanded to be allowed to join, which they eventually allow for a brief time. He would go one to become a member of the New Warriors and find a mentor in Night Thrasher.

Beta Says: I have an extremely strong suspicion that in the creation stage of this guy someone wanted to call him “Black Rage” but was vetoed. Because why else would you call an angry black man superhero “Rage”? Despite being 1990 Rage feels a lot more like the early attempts in the 1970s to make black superheroes. Thankfully Rage wasn’t a criminal, just a kid who suddenly got to grow up. Of course this concept is childhood wish fulfillment (what kid reading comics doesn’t dream about being an adult superhero?) and in that regard Rage is very similar to Captain Marvel. However unlike Captain Marvel, who gains wisdom when he yells “SHAZAM” and ages up, Elvin still possesses the mind of a thirteen year old. I guess that makes him more similar to the kid from the movie Big. Or the movie 13 Going on 30, but probably better acted.

More Black Rage after the jump.

Black Superheroes: XS

She's the black sheep of the Flash family*
*(Oh my god, I'm so sorry I said that)

Name: Jenni Ognats

First Appearance: Legionnaires #0 (1994)

History: Born in the 30th Century Jenni Ognats is the daughter of Dawn Allen, one half of the superhero duo the Tornado Twins, and the granddaughter of a time displaced Barry Allen, the second Flash (boooooo). Unlike other members of the Allen family Jenni showed no signs of possessing super-speed. After the murder of her mother and her uncle Jenni was left in the care of her father Jeven Ognats of the planet Aarok (a human colony). One day she and her father were kidnapped by the Dominators, an race of aliens who had repeatedly made trouble for Earth. Knowing Jenni’s heritage they purposely attempted to awaken her potentially latent powers through stress by torturing her father. The plan worked and Jenni’s connection to the speed force awoke, granting her superhuman speed just like the rest of her family. She used her new found abilities to escape with her father. After submitting herself to United Planet scientist to learn to control her new powers. Eventually she was recruited into the Legion of Super-Heroes, the premier superhero team of the 30th Century, under the codename XS. Jenni possesses all the standard powers of The Flash, including super-speed and the ability to vibrate her molecules allowing her to move through solid matter. She also possesses a ring from the legion that allows her to fly.

Beta Says: For all intent and purposes XS is the female equivalent of her cousin Bart Allen, aka Impulse (and…ugh, “Kid Flash II”) in that they have near identical origins except that Jenni was born without powers and had a normal childhood while Bart was born with accelerated aging and had to grow up living in a virtual reality world which severally damaged his ability to function in the real world. By contrast Jenni seems like a pretty normal, if shy, teenage girl. They were created in the same year so it’s a bit strange to note that Bart is MUCH more famous, relevant and popular.

You know, in superhero comics the Summers Family Tree (as in Scott Summers, aka Cyclops) is usually pointed out as the biggest example of convolution when it comes to character relationships but the Allen Family Tree is probably almost as damn bad but no one ever really talks about it. Let me put it this way; the current Flash has a half black teenage granddaughter from the future. And she’s not even the weirdest one.

More on XS after the jump.

300th Blog: Review of Civil War (Marvel Comic)

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 300th blog of Beta is Dead. Four years and countless hours of my life have been thrown into this blog and at 300 entries I’m fairly certain I have enough material for multiple novels. As I mentioned in the last blog today I’ll be celebrating this milestone by reviewing one of Marvel Comics' most important modern crossovers Civil War, which began publication in 2006 and ended in 2007. If there’s one huge problem with today’s comics, especially at Marvel, it’s the seemingly constant stream of big comic events and big status quo altering crossovers. Back in the day these types of things were more spread out and they didn’t always “change everything”. Nowadays there’s at least one big storyline a year (sometimes more!) and when it’s over it they’ve made major changes to the canon only to change everything again by the next one. X-Men: Schism is a fantastic example of this. Schism was supposed to be this HUGE deal, a storyline that divided the X-Men into two warring factions but just a year later all of that was tossed out of the window when Avengers vs. X-Men established a totally different dynamic. Why bother changing up the world if you’re going to just change it again before we get used to it?

Anyway Civil War really is the start of this in the 2000s. It was the next chapter of Marvel’s weird ass agenda of pumping out a bunch of events labeled as one big “epic” saga starting with Avengers Disassembled and ending with Siege. But it was Civil War that really got it rolling as it’s ending shattered the basic foundation of the Marvel Universe (of course most things went completely back to normal a few years later, meaning nothing here really mattered in the long term). For the record this book was written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven.

The question is this: was Civil War a good story? It’s a famous story and a historically relevant and is actually pretty controversial but the quality of book itself isn’t guaranteed. Now the Civil War story was made up of seven issues but there were also numerous tie-ins and side story comics. Since I would have to spend a ton of money to buy all that crap we’re just going to stick with the main miniseries. After all the main book alone should have a complete and satisfying story, right? Right?

Full review after the jump.

[WARNING: There are spoilers freely written throughout this review but seeing as this is an eight year old comic you should probably get over it]

Nerd Rage #16: Road to Marvel's Civil War

Ever wonder who would win in a fight?
No? Too bad

This is my 299th blog, which means two things: 1) Holy shit, I’ve written 299 blogs and 2) the next blog will be #300. That’s a pretty big milestone and one we cannot ignore. A while back, maybe a few weeks or months after uploading blog #100, which if you recall was a rant/review of Spider-Man: One More Day, I was trying to figure out comics that I’d want to review for future big milestones. I decided Spider-Man: One Moment in Time would be appropriate for the 200th blog but there was a comic that I really wanted to review but that I felt deserved an equal amount of attention as those two heinously terrible Spider-Man stories. Then I remembered Civil War, a major crossover for Marvel Comics in 2006.

What’s so important about Civil War? So important that I would sit on reviewing it for years? Well it was a major game changer for Marvel Comics that set a particularly dubious status quo for Marvel both in narrative and the way they conducted business. The effects of this book, as far as the storyline went, lasted for the rest of the decade up until 2010’s Heroic Age. In my opinion Civil War is likely the most important storyline from Marvel Comics during the 2000s (House of M would be the other logical choice).

So next time I’ll be reviewing the main Civil War book, which was seven issues. However today I’d like to talk about important points that lead up to this crossover so that we are all on the same page when I review it, much like I did with One More Day and X-Men Schism.

More useless information after the jump.

Kickstarter Weekends: Water War, Robot Heart

It’s been about a month since the last Kickstarter Weekend which by my calculation is the proper amount of time to do another one. Today we’ll only be looking at two new projects, both being particularly quirky ones. But before we get into them let’s look back at our three previous projects and check on their status. 

Michigan City Vandals Album Project: Funding Pending

Final Earnings: TBA 

Unfortunately my friends in MCV have not been doing as well as I’d hoped with their new project. They’ve only accumulated just over one grand of their $5,000 goal. This sucks because they are a really awesome band and in the time since the last KSW a ton of shitty bands with much larger goals have gotten their shitty albums funded. The Michigan City Vandals deserve to have their album funded too and that they haven’t really makes me a bit disgruntled.

But there is still time because the funding period is still in progress! If you have not yet done so you should pre-order their album on their Indiegogo page and help make this thing happen. I have heard that they will settle for $2,000 and , if true, they’re just a few pledges away from that (remember that Indiegogo will let them keep what they've raised). Tell your friends, tweet the link, share it on Facebook. Too often good bands get ignored so let’s all work together to make sure this isn’t one of those times! [Link]

One Nation - Out of the Darkness: Funding Pending

Final Earnings: TBA

Like the previously mentioned entry One Nation’s funding period is still in progress. They’re doing pretty good though they have yet to reach their goal. I feel pretty strongly that they’ll be able to do so as they have over two weeks left on the clock. [Link]

Low Budget Ethnic Movie: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $20,561 ($20,000 Goal) 

Of all the projects I talked about last time this was the one I was most worried about. However it would seem that it just barely made it to the finish. Which means this intriguing and potentially important film will see the light of day. I’ll be keeping my eye on this as I’m pretty goddamn gung-ho about watching it. Maybe a review down the line…?

Two new projects after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Triathlon/3D-Man II

There is zero subtlety in that costume
They might as well call him "Black Man"

Name: Delroy Garrett, Jr.

First Appearance: Avengers #8 (1998)

History: An Olympic athlete in track Delroy Garret was shunned out of the sport when it came to light that he had been taking steroids. At his lowest point Garret joined the Triune Understanding, a religious organization that helped him get through that dark time in his life. In fact the group’s leader Jonathan Tremont was able to grant Garret superpowers. Garret now had three times the physical attributes of a person at their physical peek, as well as enhanced senses. Believing at the time that Tremont had simply unlocked his inner potential Garret becomes the superhero known as Triathlon and becomes the Triune Understanding’s celebrity spokesman. After several encounters with the Avengers Garret was asked to join their team mainly as a way to counteract recent accusations the team being racist and religiously intolerant (which were actually set up by the Triune Understanding in smear campaign). Hostile at first Triathlon went on to become a valued member of the Avengers.

Beta Says: I remember very clearly when Triathlon joined the Avengers. I, being about thirteen or fourteen at the time, recall there being something of a big deal surrounding the character’s creation, which was during Kurt Busiek and George Pérez’s notable run on the Avengers. Now the thing I remember the most about it was how much everyone seemed to think Triathlon sucked. I mean I recall Wizard Magazine and others really not liking the guy at all. He showed up on several “Worst Avenger List” alongside the likes of D-Man and Starfox (and Starfox may or may not be a rapist, so that’s pretty damming company). At the time I didn’t really know why people hated him so much since I wasn’t reading the book back then but if I were to guess I’d suggest it may be that Marvel thought that introducing an “awesome” new character that only joins their premier hero team because he repeatedly told fans their favorite characters were racist assholes would somehow endear him to the readership. Plus the whole "Affirmative Action" thing is a very big hot topic with a lot of people and perhaps it was not handled particularly gracefully in the comic. Also I don’t think he’s very interesting. That might be the main one.

Also is it just me or is the Triune Understanding supposed to be Marvel Comic’s equivalent of Scientology?

Three times the black superhero after the jump.