The Only Blog Not Talkin' About the Watchman Movie Premierin' Friday!

That's right. I haven't seen a movie in its first run since Unforgiven. Or maybe it was Addams Family Values. Anyway, I don't watch movies until the second run, at best. In a case like Watchmen, it'll probably have to be on DVD because the violence level may be too much for Beloved. As you know, I'm still in the dog house for Sin City. I suspect Friend Kyle will see it and give me the rundown next week.

Meanwhile, let's talk Avengers!

This right here was the first Avengers comic I ever read:


I remember my sister picked it up for me when I had taken ill at my grandmother's. She also brought an issue of Tarzan, which had zero appeal for my "if it ain't got super-heroes, it ain't worth reading" brain (which I still suffer from to a great degree).

I remember thinking that was a really cool name for a super-group, but this issue didn't make me a reader. I liked the Beast and the Vision, but Thor's long hair turned me off, Iron Man seemed boring, and I couldn't make heads or tails out of why a guy named after an insect was growing out of control. So, I chalked it up as an okay comic, but not worth adding to my already-huge reading list. In retrospect, I realize how awesome it was to have the Vision enter the body of Henry Pym, after Henry had done the exact same thing to him years earlier.

But if I had stuck around, I would have realized that big sis was pointing me towards a great comic in the midst of a great run. Check it out:


It's very fortunate that we have the Squadron Supreme Sinister in today's post, because they were a thinly-veiled Justice League, just like the Watchmen are based on a bunch of B-list Charleston characters. Frankly, if DC had used the Charleston characters instead of Moore's made-up counterparts, I think Watchmen would have been ten times more interesting.

But sometimes, you've gotta do what you've gotta do, and if we couldn't get a JLA/Avengers team-up, which we wouldn't for decades, this was an okay substitution. Can you figure out which characters are which? If you can't, I'm sure someone will be happy to tell you in the comments, but prepared to be berated.

But aside from an appearance of the always-entertaining (to me, anyway) Squadron Supreme Sinister, this was a great time in the Avengers because the Beast was there to give us some desperately needed levity on a team that took itself way too seriously up to that point. Here, we see Patsy Walker (the future Hellcat), follow-through on her efforts to blackmail the Beast:


Yeah! Eat that, Patsy!

And you say you're going to get righteous on the Beast? I don't think so:


Y'see, Cap, anyone who ever encourage Rick Jones to stink up a comic can just siddown and shaddap. Go, Hank!

All this, and a smackdown with the Squadron Supreme:


Ok, make that Squadron Sinister Supreme. Seriously, let's pick a name and go with it.

It's the start of some good stuff in the Avengers! Yay!

See you Monday!