Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin

So while J. Jonah Jameson and Morgan Edge were gettin’ sauced…

Mikester — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:01:40 +0000

…and griping about their employees:

…Superman was juggling African tribal peoples to demonstrate his superpowers, while Spidey looks on:

“Boy, our employees are flaky and unreliable, but at least they don’t run around in long underwear and do weird things with the native folks in other countries!”

“I’ll drink to that, J. Jonah!”

from Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man (1976) by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru & Dick Giordano

Well, it’s the day after my birthday…

Mikester — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:01:44 +0000

…and I’ve had a long Saturday, and I’ve got nothing to post about for Sunday, and it’s still my Birthday Weekend, and so I’m taking today off. However, it is my sister Jeanne’s birthday today, so please wish her a happy one.

And happy birthday yesterday to internet pal and fellow Fake AP Stylebook contributor Andrew Weiss!

Thanks, gang, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Sluggo Saturday #45, Birthday #41.

Mikester — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:01:54 +0000

WELL, ACTUALLY

IT’S TODAY

from The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy (1988) – thanks to pal Andres

So anyway, as I was saying three and a half years ago….

Mikester — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:01:30 +0000

Maybe some of you folks out there with the lifetime subscription to Progressive Ruin remember when I put up this post, where I presented an ad for something called the “Evil-Eye Evader.” For a mere $6.66, you could own a lucky charm capable of protecting you from…well, the Evil-Eye, actually. If some jerk you knew was giving you the mystic whammy with his Evil Eye, this charm apparently allowed you to give that sorry son of a bitch what-for.

Anyway, after putting that post up, reader Reggie appeared in comments (near the bottom) explaining that he in fact had ordered the Evil-Eye Evader (and how it took him quite a while to finally get it from the guy who produced it). He popped up again later to let me know that he actually managed to retrieve the Evader from a friend he’d given it to, and that he was going to send me pictures. A comment was left there at the end of ‘08 that he’d sent me the images, but apparently there was a small problem with the e-mail and the attached pictures did not appear. Clearly malevolent magical forces were preventing me from finding the truth.

Well, today is the day Reggie and I have overcome those powers that opposed us, my internet pals. Behold…the EVIL-EYE EVADER:

I like the spookiness of the next image. WOOOOO LOOK OUT EVIL-EYE USERS:

So much mystic might, packed into something barely larger than a quarter. Such is the power of science!

Anyway, by posting these Evil-Eye Evader images on my site, hopefully I’ve warded off any of you folks trying to put your Evil Eyes on me. Take that, you!

Mike’s Lunchtime Update 3012.

Mikester — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:54:48 +0000

I apologize for the brevity of today’s update…it’s been a busy couple of days. Real, actual content should return tomorrow.

Today’s installment of The Rack may be based on true facts that I perhaps made the mistake of relating to the strip’s creators. (In what will barely pass as my defense, I would like to note that I paid little to no attention to the titles of the books, just the volume numbers.)

King Oblivion of the International Society of Supervillains has written a book, Hate You Forever: How to Channel Your Rage into Effective Supervillainy, and has a sample chapter for your evil perusal.

And now, the least-Supermanish Superman images of all time.

Mikester — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:01:34 +0000

…Well, maybe not all time, but pretty close. Frankly, you’d have a hard time beating this.

Sorry to dip into the trading card well twice in a row, but I’d totally forgotten there was even a Return of Superman card set (released in 1993), despite the fact I, of course, have a full set of it here in the Vast Mikester Comic Archives. These images are just reproduced from the comic, so there’s no particular reason why I have to present them from the cards, except that cards are sitting here in front of me and the comics aren’t.

Anyway, get a load of this. Yes, that’s Supes. Surely you recognize him by his flowing steel-blue hair:

Yup, when I think of Superman, I think of “Fury Unleashed!” Okay, I’m not being fair, this all (mostly) worked in context, and the Death/Funeral/Return storyline is, I think, still one of the high points, if not the high point, of the post-revamp Superman comics. But honestly:

…that’s not a look you probably ever expected for Superman.

But one thing I keep thinking…why’d I even buy these cards? I had all the comics. There’s nothing new in the set, expect maybe the shiny foil/chromium/prism/uranium chase cards. Seventeen years on, I can’t even imagine wanting to buy packs upon packs while attempting to put together a full set. Was it just something in the air at the time? Were cards just so closely tied to the comics market that you almost felt obligated to buy the trading cards for your favorite characters, too? Or was it just exploiting that collector’s mentality to accumulate and assemble things, resistance to which was at its lowest ebb during the boom and bust of the ’90s?

I hardly see that kind of card collecting today, except for folks trying to track down the original sketch cards that seem to be the current trend. At least those I can understand…the handdrawn sketch chase cards are usually pretty neat, and each one is genuinely unique. But otherwise trading cards (of the non-collectible card game type, that is) have since been reduced to being a niche market within a niche market. The days of leaving a pile of boxes for the Jim Lee X-Men trading card series by the register as an impulse item for the customers are probably gone forever.

I mean, I even had a set of the Jim Lee X-Men cards. I didn’t even like Jim Lee’s X-Men comics.

Why in God’s name do I have a full set of the Bloodlines trading cards?

Mikester — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:01:41 +0000

I mean, I was hardly a fan of this 1993 DC crossover event series. I didn’t hate it or anything, but I didn’t go out of my way to follow it. I didn’t buy the two issue “bookend” Bloodbath series that began and ended this crossover, and the only tie-in annuals I bought were for those series I was buying anyway.

The alien bad guys that were the focus of this event were kind of neat-looking, though…sorta weird and grotesque, like this guy:

As I’m sure some of you remember and are trying to forget, the aliens came to Earth to feed on human spinal fluid or some damn thing, and survivors of the attack were somehow “changed” in the process, getting superpowers and not excruciating headaches or blurred vision or anything.

Here’s one hero, Gunfire (shown here with Deathstroke during his “anti-hero” phase) resplendent in all his Nineties-ness:

I’m not even sure what the hell is going on here:

Hey, this is cool: Hitman trading cards!

The bonus cards featured the four post-death Superman stand-in characters (you know, Cyborg Superman, the Eradicator, Steel, and Superboy) and a fifth “exchange” card that, if memory serves, you had to mail away for. Well, guess who mailed away for it:

It’s a foil card, so Superman’s metallic blue chest doesn’t appear as shiny in the scan as it does in real life. And it’s embossed, which means you can drag your filthy, filthy fingers over the molded features of the card and gently caress the outlines of Supes’ big red S and his mighty Kryptonian super-mullet. Not that I’ve ever done that. Or am doing it right now as I type this.

So, anyway, Bloodlines cards…yet another thing I bought and held onto for the better part of two decades for no real good reason. Well, aside from blogging about it, I suppose.

And then there was that time the Absorbing Man turned into cancer.

Mikester — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:01:14 +0000

So young Jeffrey, distraught over his father’s bout with cancer, heads over to the Avengers Mansion to ask Thor for help. After getting the brush-off from the Avengers’ butler, Jarvis (which, I don’t know…I have a hard time with Jarvis not at least inquiring as to why the kid was so upset), Jeffrey manages to sneak in, and, one thing leads to another, and he gets in the middle of a battle between Thor and the Absorbing Man.

It’s at this point that Jeffrey’s pop shows up, looking for his son, and sees that his boy is in the thick of things. I mean, really, check this out:

That kid’s totally dead. But no, he’s just concussed.

Anyway, Pops charges in to defend Jeffrey, and Absorbing Man pulls not one of his brightest moves:

“Say, I’m in battle with a super-strong Norse god…lemme take the risk of trying to absorb an unknown superpower from this totally ordinary-looking guy and possibly leaving myself defenseless.”

Absorbing Man quickly learns his mistake, with a spectacular comic book facial expressions:

Luckily for him he had that fresh, clean New York air he could “absorb” and undo the previous transformation. And you’ll be glad to know Jeffrey’s dad’s cancer went into remission, which neither Thor nor the Absorbing Man had anything to do with, and the kid recovered from his apparent concussion, so everything worked out in the end.

That was a lot to say, considering all I intended to do was show you that panel and say “whoa, he turned into cancer,” but for once I thought I’d give you some context. I must be getting soft-hearted in my old age.

images from Avengers Annual #20 (1991) by Michael Higgins, Ed Murr & Mike Bair

Stuff other people did, and a terrible thing I did.

Mikester — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:01:13 +0000

So someone took this terrifying Sluggo Saturday post of mine and, somehow, someway, made it even more terrifying.

More Sluggo comes our way via Paul, who sent me a link to Kaz’s site for this perhaps Not Work Safe rendition of a cerrtain Mr. S. Smith.

Close, personal internet pals Comfort and Adam (who will always hold a special place in what remains of my withered, bitter heart for their Swamp Thing vs. Wildcat drawings) are still producing their comic The Uniques. Issue #9 was just released, and you can purchase downloadable digital copies of every installment for cheap, and the Luddites can get their Print-on-Demand copies for just slightly less cheap. Solid homegrown superhero stuff, and worth checking out.

Speaking of comics, which, as it turns out, I sometimes do here, I’d like to remind you all that Awesome Hospital started this past week, and (having, perhaps, being privy to some future pages) this comic truly does live up to its name. Brought to you by Chad Bowers, Chris Sims, Matt Digges, and Josh Krach. comics’ awesome-est power team.

Hiatus week at The Rack means guest-artist pin-ups! Ming Doyle, David Lentz, TJ Kirsch, and Rusty Shackles are taking care of the place while Birdie and Church are away.

So that list of 100 Best Comic Book Covers being put together over at Minor Henchman has wrapped up, and you can see the fourth and final part right here. (And here are parts 1, 2, and 3.)

“So,” asked pal Dorian when he dropped by the store, “where’s your pick of the week?”
“Whoops!” said I. “I’d been busy, and I forgot to put the ‘Mike’s Pick of the Week’ tag on the new comics shelf. I shall correct this problem immediately!”

And there was much rejoicing across the land.

Sluggo Saturday #44.

Mikester — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:01:51 +0000

FOUR MORE

THAN TOBEY MAGUIRE