The man they call Nomad

Travelling across the United States is a man called Nomad (aka Jack Monroe).  He used to be somebody.  Bucky, former sidekick to the one and only Captain America, (well not thee Captain America, but another Captain America who changed his name to Steve Rogers.  The real Steve Rogers was still frozen.)  This Cap and Bucky duo had kinda gotten the Super-Soldier Serum, but it wasn't complete, so they were a bit crazy.

Bucky got a little better in the head and figured there was no point in being Bucky, so he went with Nomad.  Bright blue wearing super hero (abridged version of origin).  But of course that didn't last.

I don't know what I am, maybe I'll just wander a bit .

I'll be a super-hero again.

Now Nomad got all dark and brooding.  Grew his hair out, got a big trench coat and screamed, "Hey 90's!  I'm here."  And somehow he acquired a baby from some drug addicted prostitute, which he named Bucky.  This baby definitely went through a lot strapped to Nomad's back.  Swinging across buildings.  Breaking through glass windows.  Listened to the soothing sounds of gunfire.

Just swinging across the city

Nomad wandered around, took odd jobs as a "handy man".  He stayed in motels, drank Mountain Dew, and bought diapers.  On nights that he didn't want to bring Bucky with, he managed to befriend locals and they were willing to babysit.  All while being chased by the Government.

A way with words.

With this dark brooding theme going on it became apparent that he needed to have a crossover with some happy-go-lucky characters.  Enter: Dead Man's Hand, or Daredevil and Punisher make a new friend.

"Angel and Devil on my shoulders"

Gratuitous Deadpool appearance

Major crime families were invited to Las Vegas to figure out how best to divvy up the criminal empire in Kingpin's absence.  (Yes, Kingpin was taking a sabbatical.  He falls, he gets back on top, then he falls again, then climbs back up.  That is his unending cycle, similar to Daredevil.)  Bucky has a nice adventure. She gets kidnapped by someone named Bushwacker, gets to meet the Punisher, and gets some quiet time away from Nomad.

Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe there was this event going on called Infinity War.  It was mandatory that all participate in some fashion.  The premise was alien doppelgangers were coming to Earth to take the place of the real heroes.  It seemed, at least on a cosmic scale, that Nomad was small potatoes and had no doppelganger.  But that didn't stop the crossover.

Crazy hair? check! Trench coat? check!
Cool shades?  check!
Mutant power to charge up stuff?  wait, what?

It became a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Nomad needed to take a plane to meet up with Bucky.  It just so happened that Gambit's doppelganger needed a plane to get to Louisiana (because the interstellar travel agent sucks and should be fired).  People in the airport start dying and Nomad keeps telling himself its not his problem, but the super hero in him takes over. Later on he ran into the real Gambit, which made for an awkward conversation.  He also ran into Man-Thing and battled the Hate Monger along his cross country journey.

Cold Hard Steel

While in LA, Nomad also decided to help out during the riots.

In my world, everyday is garbage day.

The series really had a knack for taking on various social issues, including transvestites, Aids, gay rights, cruelty to animals, and white supremacy.  The last of which factored in heavily in the final story arc "American Dreamers."  Quick Nomad childhood recap:  his father was a Nazi sympathizer, as was the majority of the town he grew up in.  FBI was investigating, questioned young Jack, he turned his father in.

With Bucky in the caring hands of a "favor banker" (don't ask), Nomad was ready for a final suicide run and planned to take out the white supremacist senator.  The senator's past and current affiliation was becoming known so he planned to blow himself up along with whoever is at the press conference that he called.  Nomad shows up with a typical 90's style gun.  An explosion happens and Jack Monroe is declared dead....but thanks to an FBI agent Mr. Monroe is next seen in a suspended animation chamber awaiting to be thawed when his country needs him next.  The End.

When the series first came out, I recall finding it cool.  A lone brooding vigilante was traveling the countryside with a baby on his back.  I tried to get every issue when they came out, but I found myself skipping some here and there.  By the time the series ended with issue #25 I think I was missing about 10 or so issues, mostly the latter ones.  So I became determined to collect the entire run and in time I accomplished that feat.

The series was written by Fabian Nicieza (whose work I thoroughly enjoy) and the artists tended to change every few issues.  And as time went on, (just like with Morbius, the Living Vampire) the art worsened as it reached its end.  The art got so bad it really took away from the finally story arc.  I think the story was good, but the art!  My god!  (The same thing happened with Doom 2099 as well).  Before the final arc, it was scheduled to be cancelled, so they probably didn't care how the art was.  (Now that I think about, Nomad started to look like Ravage 2099.)  After the series ended, nothing was heard from Nomad until Fabian brought him back in another series he was writing a few years later.  Click here to be spoiled.

So ends this journey of Nomad.  Perhaps I'll visit his earlier and latter exploits, as well as what happened to baby Bucky.

That time Lobo did something outrageous Pt.1

Lobo: Infanticide #1-4 (1992)

So Lobo is a woman-loving, boozing, smoking, bounty hunting fragtastic SOB from Czarnia.  In fact, he is the last Czarnian.  He was bored so he killed everyone else on the planet.

Pretty much every story about Lobo is an off-the-wall, outrageous tale; never to be taken seriously.  He takes everything to the extreme, times a thousand.  He carries big guns, a giant hook, has a pet dog, and rides a space hog (as in a motorcycle built for space travel).  He also has a healing factor. If you think Wolverine has an awesome healing factor, its nothing compared to Lobo's.

Daddy dearest

In this particular tale, all the (supposed) children of Lobo were gathered together under the leadership of his (supposed) daughter.  This combined army makes a plan to kill poor ol' daddy.  Conveniently, Lobo gets drafted into this particular army.  During basic training accidents start happening, and bullets start zooming by Lobo.  He, of course has no idea that the cadets are trying to kill him.  Soon, due to Lobo's stellar expertise, is chosen to lead a team.  It was during a war games style outing when the 'official' plan to murder Lobo was set forth.

There also happened to be an intergalactic empire that has claimed that area of space, watching the illegal occupation going on on that particular moon in their territory.  (Did I mention that this moon orbited Czarnia?)  The two soldiers of the empire that have discovered this are named Chipp and Dayl -the anti-rescue rangers.

I declare a thumb war

The war games were taking place on the desolate barren lands of Czarnia.  The plan was for the two sides to open fire on Lobo with live ammo.  And at that exact moment is when the Brutish Empire launched their assault on the planet.  Chaos reigned that day and Lobo enjoyed every second.

Nice plug for Reed Richards!

With pretty much everyone dead, the two remaining standing were Lobo and his (supposed) daughter.  They went knife to knife, rocket launcher to rocket launcher, gun to gun, and head to head (and thumb to thumb).  In the end Lobo of course was the winner and in typical Lobo-fashion walks off into the sunset in search of his next big adventure.

Live to fight another day

In other Lobo news, back in the day I wrote a Green Lantern story featuring Lobo.  Off the top of my head I don't recall if it was any good, but I think I did actually submit it DC.  If I can find it perhaps I will share it here.

Throughout the series you get Li'l Lobo!

Lobo Solo Leather Boot - Brown (Google Affiliate Ad)

Fantastic Four and X-Men

The year was 2005, in the early morning.  There is a knock at the door.  Open the door and you are face to face with the Fantastic Four.

Morning, sunshine

What would Wolverine do in situation like that. Slam the door shut of course, cuz you know, he's tired.  Thus begins the typical fight before the all important team up.


I must say, I really  did enjoy  this 5 issue series.  It was a well written story and the content was not too questionable (but to kick off the story I really don't see the F4 heading to Westchester in order to use Cerebro to scan a space shuttle for survivors, one would think that Reed could whip something together).  Since Cerebro ends up being a dead end, they are need of a ship.  Since they are already at the X-Mansion they can use their plane.

Oh no she didn't

Unfortunately it is only a six seater so a specific away team needs to be chosen. Since they are going into outer space, Beast suggests that since they will be in a pressurized environment, they would not want any energy emitters.  He excludes Cyke, Human Torch, and Storm but does want Gambit on the team.  (I'm pretty sure he's an energy projector.)  For the muscle they send Thing and Wolverine, followed by Emma and Invisible Woman (along the way they have an interesting back and forth which ends with a Namor burn, if only Sue could see into the future or past depends on how you look at it).  Oh yeah, and Nightcrawler.

Can they even drive?

 As they investigate the shuttle they find the culprits. The dreaded ... Brood! So they fight the ones on board and find the passengers impregnated with the Brood, cuz you know, that's what they do. The moral dilemma then arises on what to do with them. Invisible Woman wants to take them back, but gets talked out of it. Oh yeah, did I mention that there is a cosmic storm on the way so they are crunched for time? Well they aren't quite quick enough and the storm hits them as they crash back to Earth.

 Thing and Invisible Woman emerge from the crash unscathed. The others, not so much. Introducing the new Fantastic Four: Wolverine with the powers Mr. Fantastic, Gambit the new Human Torch, Emma Frost, as the Thing, and Nightcrawler is the new Invisible Elf. Beast deduces that the change is elemental in nature and with Reed's help they can revert them back. Which of course they will, because this is just a limited series and will have no lasting ramifications.

 While the remaining F4-X-Men corral the new F4, the Brood invade Earth. Of course Wolverine is the last to be captured, because he is the coolest and is the bestest fighter in the world. Alas, eventually falls to the might of Cyclops and Thing.  Now that they are captured, Beast and Mr. Fantastic can begin working on the cure (which of course won't work on the original F4 because the mutant's mutant gene has different effects on the body.  Yet again Reed has failed to cure his good friend Ben). Once the X-Men are cured, Emma used cerebro to launch a mental attack on the Brood. She projects the image of Galactus and Phoenix preparing to battle.  So of course that is going to scare any invading force away.  The End

Quite the sight

Fear the Scarecrow

A character runs full circle.

Scarecrow got his start as a contortionist name the amazing Umberto and was first introduced in Tales of Suspense with the invincible Iron Man.  He helped Iron Man catch a petty thief and thought to himself, maybe he could do that full time.  Instead he went on to be a criminal and tried to rob Tony Stark.





After a few B & Es he started hanging out with the Porcupine, Eel, Unicorn, and Plantman, and they managed to capture the X-Men for Count Nefaria.  Then went solo again and started feuding with Captain America.  Slowly his mind started to dwindle and some of his past was starting to be revealed.  It was unsure what exactly was true.  He even had a chauffeur...who was his brother.  That was odd.











At this point he didn’t have any special powers.  He was naturally flexible and used trained birds.  Yes, he was quite gifted.


Things started to take a darker turn for Scarecrow when he was featured in the Captain America/Ghost Rider graphic novel.  It seemed like he was being positioned to transfer into Ghost Rider’s cadre of villains, which was what happened.  Now Scarecrow was starting to take a supernatural turn.

He kinda died a few times, but rebuilt and given the power to emit fear pheromones which in turn gave him strength.

He fought Ghost Rider pretty steadily and was beaten and battered pretty regularly.  Even had all his bones broken and healed in crooked form, but he got better.  He then showed up in Hell and hung out with Blackheart.  Here his spirit returned to Earth and he started body jumping until he got control of Dan Ketch’s body.  He also had control of Dan’s sister’s dead body (Barbara) as well.  (It was a very traumatic time for the Ketch’s matron.)  Eventually that plan was foiled when the Ghost Rider took over Barbara’s dead body and saved the day. Blackheart was a little disappointed in Scarecrow and left him to rot in the pits.


Then the next thing you know Scarecrow is back, depowered.  Not sure if it was ever explained.  Now that he was back doing “regular” crime you would expect him to battle Captain America, but nope, he first runs into Falcon.  Close enough

More Morbius - He Found a Cure!

I was going to move on to a different character/series, but I felt compelled to continue on with some Morbius chronology.  Especially since after many years of being a ‘living vampire’ he finally found a cure.  All it took was getting struck by lightning (during a battle with Spider-man).  Although he was now in human form, he still had a thirst for human blood.

While in police custody, he was allowed to continue his research for a cure.  This led to a run in with Jennifer Walters and an attempt to help her affliction (you know, turning into She-Hulk).  Well that didn’t work.  And in the end Ms. Walters actually agreed to defend Morbius during his trial.  

Morbius was found guilty, but was not in control of his actions at the time.  So he did serve some prison time and at one point Reed Richards sought out his help for the birth of his second child.  (The child not make it.  But don't worry the child did make a comeback many years later and that my friends is a tale for another day).

Next up Morbius becomes a vampire again due to some voodoo woman looking for vampire blood and he starts hanging out with Dr. Strange and Strange’s brother, whom Stephen accidentally turned into a vampire many years ago by improperly reciting a spell.  Whoops!

After a few months of hanging out at Strange’s house, good ol Morbius takes off and is next seen in the brand new Spider-Man series by Todd McFarlane.  There Morbius is living in the sewers and feeding off “bad people” that are brought down by the simple/inbred dwellers living in the underground realm.  Spidey tracks them, finds Morbius, they fight, Morbius learns what the simpletons have been doing, Morbius feels regret and flies off.

In the 90’s he finally hit the big time and got his own ongoing series as part the Midnight Sons group.  The group consisted of Ghost Rider, Blaze, The Nightstalkers and The Darkhold Redeemers.  These misfits dealt with everything supernatural. Even though Morbius was a vampire created with science he still fit in with the group.  His series lasted a miraculous 32 issues!  And towards the end you could definetly see the decline in the storytelling and artwork.

   

Morbius #2 (1992)

30 issues later Morbius #32 (1995)

The series did reintroduced the lovable scamp Simon Stroud.  This time around the 70s banter was gone and Stroud was crazy.  Apparently he never worked for the CIA, or maybe he did I’m not sure.  He became delusional in his quest to capture Morbius. 

Martine, Morbius’ ex-fiance was also brought back into the scene.  And then killed.  And then brought back by Morbius using a page from the Darkhold.  So of course she was then evil, but later cured of her evilness and remained undead.  In a way her evilness did continue because she constantly nagged Morbius to find a cure for her undeadness.  She nagged him to the point that he had to kick her out of his place so he could “move on”.  She later started shacking up with Morbius’ good buddy Werewolf by Night.

Throughout this series Morbius worked on a cure and was able to temporarily cure himself during the day. Thus allowing him to get a day job at a local hospital.  And since Michael Morbius was declared dead, he created the name Morgan Michaels.  He also took the vow to never drink the blood of an innocent and only preyed on criminals.  

One character that I really enjoyed out of the series was Vic Slaughter.  He started as a crazy, ruthless, sociopathic (and rather psychopathic) mercenary hired by Stroud and became the “son of Morbius”.  His team attempted to take Morbius down, but Morbius bit him, broke a bunch of bones in his body (like when Ghost Rider broke the bones of Scarecrow that one time) and buried him alive.  

Snap, Crackle, Pop
Rice Krispies Treats, Original Marshmallow, 1.3oz Snack Pack, 20

Slaughter crawled his way out of the grave with life renewed.  His vendetta with Morbius did make for some interesting tales.  Of course like most “crazy” characters from the 90s, Slaughter fell out favor and was soon forgotten about.  Much to my surprise, he had a profile included in Dark Reign: Files, so I had hopes that he would soon return.  Then I finally got around to reading Wolverine: Best There Is. Lo and behold, Slaughter is back!

Troll on crack?

When Morbius’ series ended he was back to being bounced around a few other titles.  He had a couple run-ins with Blade and then in a few Spider-Man tales Hydra wanted Morbius and he under went some genetic manipulation.








So closes another chapter in the world of Morbuis.  When next seen he is involved with some.... zombies.....and the Punisher(?).


X-Men Origins: Wolverine For Nintendo Wii

What I'm reading: Morbius- the early years

You've come along way!

90s

70s

   
In the early 1970s, Morbius splashed onto the scene.  He was the ‘living’ vampire; made by science, not supernatural.  His craving for blood tormented his soul and whenever the thirst came over him he always screamed out and brooded over his victim.  “Why?!”  

From his first appearance in Amazing Spider-man #101 (1971) (you know the one where Peter had 6 arms!!) Morbius grew in popularity and got his own feature in Vampire Tales.  (Vampire Tales is an interesting comic.  They had a couple vampire stories and in between they had essays about vampires in literature and movies.) There he traveled to San Francisco and battled hippies and satanic cults.

Next up, Morbius began some adventures into Fear.  And what followed were a demon sorcerer and thousand year old aliens trying to fix Earth.  In the final battle, the sorcerer is revealed to also be an alien and allies with his alien brethren in hopes of destroying Morbius (and a little girl who the aliens created).  He also happens upon his fiance, Martine who was under possession by the sorcerer.  The storyline was very strange, in that Morbius got transported to various ‘worlds’.  One was a land of cat people who had found peace and kept breeding to the point of overpopulation.  They brought in Morbius in hopes that he would start killing some of their kind.  He ended up getting tossed into a river which transported him to Arcturus IV, where he met grotesque mutants (who also wanted to die) and robots.  Turns out they were created by the aliens that Morbius had met.  One of the mutants had a spaceship so they were able to get back to Earth.  After it crashed back to Earth, Morbius ran into Blade.  Since Morbius isn’t a normal vampire, crosses don’t work, so Blade needs to use his wooden stakes. Also Morbius doesn’t believe in real vampires.  Go figure. Morbius gets away and needs finish his objective of destroying the aliens.  Once this debacle finished up, he and Martine relocate to the east coast.  

Now in Boston, life for Morbius is turning around.  He has his gal, they have a house, he is being hunted by an ex-CIA agent and he continues getting thrown into other dimensions/worlds.  There also seems to be a theme going on about characters who are eyeballs.  The mutant who had a spaceship had an eye for a face.  Then in another dimension he battled a creature with a thousand eyes. Can you guess his name?  Helleyes!  I kid you not.

 

The banter from ex-CIA agent Simon Stroud is some of the best 70’s dialog.  His nickname for Morbius is “leech”.  They became fast friends in their battle with Helleyes.  Afterwards, they fight real vampires and Morbius is dumbstruck by this.  And then his fiance gets turned into a vampire.  Then cured.  Then Morbius almost kills her by sucking her blood.  Life is too much for him so he takes off.

For additional interesting Morbius tidbits on this time in Morbius’ life check out this blog I happened upon.  
What kind of hijinks will Morbius get into throughout the 80’s?  Stay tuned...

The Time Colossus Had A Threesome

What happens in the Savage Land, stays in the Savage Land.  While the X-Men were in the Savage Land (Uncanny X-Men #115  /Classic X-Men #21, after Magneto's Antarctica base exploded, they found themselves fighting the Petrified Man.  As well as dinosaurs.  In the backup story of Classic X-men, Colossus was on walkabout and found 3 female villagers.  Amidst the battle with a t-rex 1 female lost her life.  As part of the mourning process, the surviving females brought Colossus to the site of the battle.  Turns out the dino had not yet met its demise.  More fighting commenced and Colossus was finally able to transform into his steel form and best the mighty beast.  The females found his fighting spirit to be a great asset to the village and wished to mate with him in hopes of creating an offspring.  A great time to be Colossus!

I'm not sure if anything developed from this plotline.  It would be nice to look into it.

X-Force '99 Annual

Shatterstar and Rictor go to Mexico (then to Colorado, then Germany).  Fabian Nicieza brings a wonderful tale featuring Shatterstar and Rictor.  Nicieza has been the go-to 'X' writer for many years now.  'Star and Rictor are in Mexico taking out Richter's family business, gun smuggling.  They are met by a 'mysterious' person who offers them an opportunity to make some money by battling.  Around this time mutants were still everywhere.  If you needed a new character or some side characters, mutants were the choice.  Heck, even scientists were trying to create mutants or increase latent mutant powers.  Anyway, this story also brings back Martin Strong, from X-Force Annual #2 which featured one of my favorite new mutants, X-treme (Adam-X, the true 3rd Summers brother, god I hate how they created Vulcan as the 3rd brother).  So 'Star and Rictor fight some girl with prehensile arms that stretch and have spikes coming out, then her half-brother shows up to rescue her but accidentally kills her.  Turns out at least 8 people were created, same mother all different fathers.  Different powers, some are dead already, so the trio head to a different laboratory to find out what is going on.  There they run into Martin Strong and Neurotap, who called Cannonball, Moonstar, and Warpath for backup.  Once they figure out the real villain, its off to Germany.  Apparently Rictor's powers allow him to fly/ride logs (interesting mode of transportation, never knew he could do that).   Big battle with the 'mother' who turns out was trying to kick start her own mutant power.

Overall, a good story.  Shatterstar is still trying to find himself, now that he has 2 personalities floating around in his head.  That whole Benjamin Russell thing gets a little confusing, but hey it's comics.  

This is my comic book collection

Here I will post random selections of my vast comic book collection.  I've been collecting since the late 1980s and my all-time favorite comic has been Fantastic Four.  My older brother had the subscription first, while my  subscriptions were from the Marvel Comics imprint Star Comics which included Heathcliff and the Get Along Gang.  The oldest FF comic I have is #67, 1st full appearance of Him (aka Adam Warlock).

My collection is also comprised of some DC Comics as well, mostly Green Lantern, Lobo, and some Batman.  I have some Image Comics; Savage Dragon, Shadowhawk, and some Spawn.  There are a few Chaos Comics too.

Some comics may even be for sale.  If interested please contact me.

Enjoy!