Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

 By Mark Rodriguez I swear superhero teams are like sports line ups. Ever so often the teams get new lineups and a lot of times these line ups include characters that could really use some extra limelight. The West Coast Avengers return with Iron Man, War Machine, Spider-Woman and Firestar forming the team. This time they want to try rehabilitating former villains... and they're start off with Ultron. What could possibly go wrong? The story opens in Mid-Wilshire, LA California, as Tony narrates that he started a new Avengers team with his friend Rhodey. He says it's not the usual roster and if it works there will be fewer villains to fight. There were some fire bombs detonated across the city by terrorists. Two people couldn't evacuate in time so Iron Man sent in his new recruit. Ultron comes in to rescue the woman and her child.  Ultron flies out of the building, rescuing the two survivors. The woman says she thought this was Iron Man but she recognizes Ultron as 'that...

By Mark Rodriguez Over the course of several adventures, the Shredder ended being trapped between dimensions while Krang tries to figure out how to bring him back. Meanwhile the Turtles had recently fought against a new group of villains called The Pantheon. While they returned home, the leader of the Pantheon, Old Hob, ended up stranded on Earth. "Bullion for You" opens with April O'Neil covering a story at a gold depository in New York City. She interviews a man named Ken Ziff who states the gold is protected by his security system which he considers unbeatable. Krang and Shredder watch this on TV as the alien brain surmises that they could use the gold to reinforce the circuits of the dimensional portal. Elsewhere, Old Hob also watches, having been living in someone's apartment while the owner is being held captive. Ken states his security has laser grids, pressure sensitive plates, silent alarms and more. He comments that if a thief somehow got past all of the ...

 By Mark Rodriguez Bruce Wayne is cleaning Gotham up with affordable new housing in the bad parts of town, but there are still problems in the area. Vandal Savage is currently the Commissioner and the Court of Owls seem to be backing a seemingly reformed Riddler. Mayor Nakano was found shot dead in his home, and as Batman want to investigate it turns out that Jim Gordon killed him in self defense. What will happen now? "The Dying City" Part Three opens Thirteen weeks ago at Gordon and Bullock Private Investigators, as Gordon wraps up another case. Gordon feels depressed as all they seem to get are cases dealing with insurance scams or infidelity claims. Bullock says to prepare to get more depressed as he has a new case. This one concerns a woman using and alias and insisting on only speaking to Gordon. Bullock calls him 'Mr. Trustworthy' and forwards him the email. Ten weeks ago , we see Gordon speaking with Ms. Koyuki Nakano over dinner. Gordon says he trailed her ...

 By Mark Rodriguez One of the characters that Lara Croft has bumped into in several occasions is none other than Sara Pezzini, the Witchblade. They both crossover into each other's books and sometimes both of them crossover into someone else's book. While Lara Croft has had several long running comic book series, her first comic book appearance was in a crossover with Witchblade. I was able to get the 'Revisited' reprint, so here we go. "Vendetta" opens with an old woman calling the police over what she believes is a domestic dispute happening next door. Suddenly a giant winged monster smashes its way through the wall, carrying a man in its claws. The monster drops the man right next to the woman on the phone. Suddenly something breaks through the front door as well. Lara Croft appears, aiming her dual pistols at the monster. The monster throws a punch towards what's left of the door, and Lara flips out of the way. She calls the monster ugly and slow and ...

 By Mark Rodriguez Black Canary gets her own mini-series where she will fight it out with none other than Lady Shiva. It sounded like a fun concept so I decided to pick it up. It's always nice to be able to grab and issue one right off the bat rather than backtracking and trying to catch up. "Round One" opens as we get the announcement of a big match at the Emperor's Palace Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. This is a match to determine who is the best hand-to-hand combat fighter in the world.  We see Dinah Lance traveling towards the event as we get the overlay of the fighters being introduced for this epic bout. The first fighter, we get the undisputed master of every martial art that exists and has never lost a hand to hand fight. She is so skilled that when Batman fell and needed a mentor, he went to her. She is Sandra Wu-San, also known as Lady Shiva. The challenger has fought all sorts of opponents, including gods and masters. She had created her own fightin...

 By Mark Rodriguez This was the original 4-part mini-series that was happening during the Blood Hunt event. As I know now, it would eventually become an on-going series (or at leeast a longer running series, it's hard to tell nowadays). The story involves Hawkeye and we'll most likely get to see how this team got together, so let's check it out. "The City That Never Sleeps" opens with Clint Barton hiding in New York as he is still suspected of having killed the UN Ambassador (from the Black Widow and Hawkeye series I really should get back to). The police find him eating at a local diner, and the archer asks how they found him so easily. The cops says all he did was grow a mustache. He comments that growing one takes effort. They call for back up but all other units are busy. Just then the people outside notice that the sun has gone dark. A vampire busts through the window of the cafe, surprising the police. Clint asks if he's still under arrest. Clint doesn...