Doom Is Back in B-More! Gallagher Edition!

Dr. Victor von Doom is back in my hometown; terrorizing the unsuspecting citizens of Baltimore with comedic stylings straight from the early 80s. At least we now know that Latveria gets comedy central-cause it looks like Doom spends his daytime hours watching ancient Gallagher specials. I'm assuming he can't spend all that time plotting the destruction of the Fantastic Four; if that were the case you'd think there'd be some results by now. Either way, you haven't laughed at a smashed watermelon in decades! Live a little! Favorite line? "A big bowl of Trix... Because Sue Storm is a Whore!"

Dr. Doom Schools the Fantastic Four Down In B-More

The Scourge of Latveria himself passed through my home town of Baltimore just last week... I'd assume en route to New York from DC on some sort of sinister diplomatic mission. Well, before making his demands to the UN, he tried out his public speaking at a comedy show in Hampden. He's a bit rusty (metal mask pun intended), but who can blame him-delivering nothing but villainous tirades and soliloquies for decades will wreak havoc on one's comedic timing. Also, it's really hard to test your material on Doombots. Either way, when Reed Richards sees this, he's gonna be soooo pissed.

Under the Influence: A Tribute to Stan Lee

Stan Lee and the Excelsiors (Detail)
Jeff McMillan

Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles has opened a show called Under the Influence: A Tribute to Stan Lee. They've got a bunch of the art up at their blog, and you should go check it out. It's a lot of really creative, unconventional superhero stuff. Like fan-art, but done by some people with real skill. I've got some personal favorites after the jump, and if you want to get on my good side I recommend purchasing any of these paintings for me. No prints, originals only, and make sure they're already framed. E-mail me for my address. Thanks a bunch.

Click to enlarge!

Free Doom
Tommii Lim

Hulk Loves Betty
Brandon Steen

moved
Leanne Biank

The Gamma Rays Made Me Do It
Dave Crosland

Attack of the Octo-Venom
Blinky

Via Blog@Newsarama.

Marvel Honchos Reveal Original Civil War Concept

Tom Brevoort has released some correspondence between himself, Mark Millar and Joe Quesada from early on in the development of Marvel's recent Civil War mega-event. There are some significant ways in which it differs from the version that eventually found its way into our hands. For one, it was planned as a 12-issue series, not 7. One of the big reasons seems to be that it would have included World War Hulk.... kindof. From the article:

"I’d really like to see the Hulk attack Earth and bring with him small, five foot versions of the Hulk called Hulk Babies who are just as powerful and dangerous, but the spawn of the Hulk after he’s bedded a hundred thousand alien chicks. They should all look the same and do enormous amounts of damage when they show up with Dad."

A hundred thousand alien chicks! Millar's either a genius or a very lonely man. More highlights after the jump, including Super Stealth Versions of our favorite heroes, Dr. Doom's Throne of Depowerment, and Captain America's original fate.

So apparently in Millar's early conception, the Anti-Registration heroes would go underground and don Ninja garb! Well not quite, but:

"The other side, led by Cap, have formed a new team and they’re all wearing new stealth costumes (redesigns of their original costumes that can’t be picked up by satellite or radar) and their objective is equally simple; they want to perform their superhero duties without being captured by the first time. They’re a secret society. An underground movement."

Quesada has some interesting thoughts on Captain America and the Punisher, in reaction to a dustup they get into when the Punisher blows the heads of some supervillains that want to volunteer for the cause:

"When you really look at these two characters standing side by side, they really are our Batman and Superman. Cap’s almost an alien being, Christ figure while Frank is the man without powers who lost his family and what they share is two wars that couldn’t be more different."

Apprehended renegade heroes were originally fated to Dr. Doom's Throne of Depowerment:

"There’s been talk of some machinery recovered from Latveria after the Secret War and the SHIELD techies are building a half-finished device Doctor Doom was working on which turns super-people into ordinary human beings. The plan is to humanize each and every one of these guys banged up in [the Negative Zone]."

"This is being used on Speedball, the hero who kicked this whole thing off, and we see him stripped of his superpowers on live TV and returned to society. It should be an awesome moment and one the heroes watch with a certain amount of fear."

In the original ending, Cap sacrifices his powers to destroy the DoomTech (they never actually refer to it as a Throne, but c'mon, it's Dr. Doom!), and then shares a touching scene with Col. Nick Fury:

"We close the whole thing with Nick Fury talking to the 97lb Steve Rogers in the closing pages. ...[Cap] admits that, despite everything, he’s kind of excited to get his life back again. He’s heading out to discover America and rediscover himself and Nick smiles. Steve hopes he isn’t being selfish and Nick says no way. 'One Hell of a tour of duty you just had, soldier,' he tells Steve and Steve just smiles. They salute and Steve Rogers, skinny as a rake, walks off into the sunset like all the best heroes should."

*sniff* *sniff* Oh yeah, I forgot mention that they were friends again at this point because all the heroes united to deal with World War Hulk. Didn't see that coming. Is this what we can expect to come out of the current WWH? A clean fix to all the Marvel Universe's problems and a return to the status quo because Hulk mad smash puny humans? I sure hope not, heroes at odds reuniting to face a common threat is the oldest comic cliche in the book.

Anyway, if you're interested at all in this stuff the full post is a must-read. There is a lot of good behind the scenes chat, and many vague references to "that alien invasion we talked about".... Can anyone say Skrulls?

Via Newsarama.