A Closer Look at The Death of Superman Part 1

Imagine if you will, that you are a 10 year old boy with a love of super heroes. For your entire life you've believed that Superman is the greatest super hero ever created and that he'll be around forever. Now, what would go through your 10 year old brain when you heard that DC Comics was going to kill off Superman?

I was mad. Hahaha yeah. I remember being mad about it. I had no concept of issue sales or marketing techniques, all I had was my love of a character. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why DC would want to kill off someone as beloved and well known as Superman. I mean, he's probably the most iconic super hero of all time. Everyone knows who Superman is, so why would the powers that be want him dead?

Those feelings didn't stick around too long, because pretty shortly after this I started to ask myself better questions. Specifically, HOW would they kill off a character with the amount of power that Superman has?

That's what I'm going to talk about today. 25 years ago I had no answers to that question, and now I have PLENTY. THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN was my, along with thousands of others, first look at how Superman could be stopped. I had yet to read THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, with it's awesome fight between Batman and Superman, and so I had no idea just what was possible.

The writers of THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern) chose the same route my 10 year old self would have thought was the ONLY for Superman to die. To go down fighting a being of equal brute force.

What I didn't know how to do back then, was build up a character that readers would believe was capable of not only fighting against Superman, but actually hurting him. Until this story, I had never seen Superman bleed, and couldn't fathom Superman being beaten in a fight.

Then came Doomsday. Introduced in the pages of Superman The Man of Steel #18 with a warning. The first panels of the issue are of a gloved fist striking against solid steel wall. With each blow, the glove tears away revealing a hand with spikes of bone protruding from the knuckles. The words of warning telling us that "unrelentingly, unstoppably, and unbelievably... Doomsday is coming." And finally, as the fist breaks through the steel wall, we're told that "Doomsday is here!"

Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Superman is busy stopping monsters (created by the Cadmus Project, a secret government funded research facility located just outside of Metropolis that will add more to the story later. Cadmus is really into cloning wink, wink, hint, hint) from invading the city from the sewers. It's a nice, short little adventure to keep Superman from responding to what is happening a few states away.

What is happening is that Doomsday is running wild! We see him (still under a hood, with one arm tied behind his back) wreaking absolute havoc around the countryside. After killing a few animals and laughing about it, Doomsday finds a populated highway and comes face to face with a tractor trailer truck. The truck is moving to fast to swerve out of the way, but it doesn't matter anyway. Doomsday lands one punch and the truck erupts in flames! Who will stop this monster? Well, the trucks dispatcher decides it's time to contact THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA!

During this time, the JLA didn't have the major players that most of us are familiar with. Example, there was no Wonder Woman, Batman, Shazam, Green Lantern, Cyborg, or Aquaman. Instead it was Blue Beetle (aka, Ted Kord, who was more of a scientist than a super hero), Fire (a Human Torch like character that used green fire instead of traditional fire colors, and also a lady), Ice (had freezing powers much like Iceman, but not encased in ice), former Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Guy is a cool character that was kicked out of the GL Corps. At this point he wore a power ring that was just like the GL ring, except it was powered by "gold energy" which would later be revealed to be a yellow power ring), Bloodwynd (awful name, mysterious and boring character. It was later revealed that he was actually The Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz, but that isn't relevant to this story. Bloodwynd, aside from having a name that sounds like a really painful fart, would "call upon the spirits of the dead" to strengthen him. That strength was comparable to Superman), Booster Gold (a time traveling goofball, which a power suit capable of powerful energy blasts and generating force fields), and Maxima (an alien from the planet Almerac. She has limited telepathic/telekinetic powers, can fly, and is nearly as strong as and as invulnerable as Superman). These characters, while not the classic JLA, still were tough enough to handle most threats to the USA.

How do you prove how strong and dangerous Doomsday to your readers? Well taking out the Justice League all at the same time will do the trick quite nicely!

At one point, Doomsday hits Booster Gold so hard that he's sent flying miles into the air where's he's caught by Superman.

Awesome way to introduce Superman to the situation. Booster warns Superman about how deadly Doomsday is, but Superman is confident that he can handle it, especially with the combined might of Superman and the JLA. Superman confronts Doomsday with a determined confidence, which could also be taken as cockiness. The first little reveal of a Superman weakness.

Superman takes a full punch to the gut from Doomsday and just stands there. Impressive, yes, but totally naïve.

A split second later, Superman is caught off guard by a side kick from Doomsday that sends him hurtling through a tree and a house with a Mom and her baby inside. The gas line gets knocked loose and a fire breaks out, trapping the Mother and her baby. A side story going along at the same time tells us that this is the mother of a teenager as well, who doesn't like Superman and thinks he's just a goodie two shoes boy scout.

The Justice League regroup and try to use their energy powers to destroy Doomsday. Fire, Ice, Bloodwynd, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and Superman all blast the monster with everything they've got engulfing Doomsday in flames. Once they're spent, they stop to see if they're successful, but the result is exactly the opposite of what they wanted. Not only is Doomsday still alive, he is completely free of his bonds and tramples over the League as if they were nothing!

Doomsday then leaps into the air like the Hulk, and Superman quickly follows after him. But just as he's about to catch up to Doomsday, he hears the teenager yelling for help about his Mom and baby sister. Instead of immediately rushing off to save the lady and her baby, Superman says a silent apology, deciding that stopping Doomsday is more important. And so he engages with Doomsday, in a short scuffle, that sees Superman burying Doomsday at the bottom of a lake. Superman decides that's good enough for now and flies back to rescue the lady and baby just in the nick of time! This shows us another weakness of Superman. His inability to be in two places at the same time, and his insistence that every life is special. Doomsday existence puts EVERYONE'S life in danger, and so Superman must fight harder than ever before at the same time as keeping as many people from harm as possible. His plate is fully loaded.

So Doomsday escapes from his murky prison, and bursts out of the water to find a military helicopter targeting him. He leaps through the chopper, destroying it, and causes the missiles it's carrying to misfire. Superman, however, returns just in time to rescue both pilots and destroy each missile before they can cause any collateral damage. BUT, because of his rescue efforts, Superman has allowed Doomsday to escape again! This time, the monster lands outside the doors of the Kirby County Police Department. Just before Doomsday can take his wrath out on the Police Chief and his deputy, Superman arrives to take the fight to Doomsday. The battle causes a butt load of property damage. Buildings are knocked down, the street is torn up, and then another military helicopter arrives to "help" Superman. The helicopter only serves to annoy Doomsday, who grabs a street light and impales the helicopter causing it to crash.

Then Maxima returns from getting Blue Beetle medical attention earlier. This could be the real help Superman needs! The fight is ferocious, but in the confusion of everything Maxima goes to use a streetlight as weapon just as Superman realizes they've just taken gas fumes from a nearby gas station are leaking. The broken streetlight creates enough sparks to ignite the gas fumes and all 3 combatants are caught in the explosion!

When the smoke clears, only Superman and Maxima are there. Doomsday, once again, has escaped.

So far we see Superman has his hands full. Not only with Doomsday and the death and devastation he's causing, but also with the distraction of other heroes or military personnel trying to assist him.

Superman is very smart, and almost always aware of his surroundings, especially when civilians are involved. So his strategy quickly becomes, "let's get this monster the hell away from here!" But before he can do that, he finds Doomsday tearing up a Lexmart (a Lex Luthor owned supermarket). And in the cheesiest moment of the story, Doomsday sees a commercial for a Pro Wrestling event in Metropolis. Doomsday seems to take the commercial as a challenge, and growls out the word "Mrrr-trrr-pplsss". Then Superman arrives and punches him out of town.

Check out Part 2 for the FINAL SHOWDOWN!!!!

Movie Challenge

I've been challenged to list my favorite movie that was released in each year that I've been alive.

1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 - The Dark Crystal
1983 - Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
1984 - Ghostbusters
1985 - The Goonies
1986 - Crocodile Dundee
1987 - Predator
1988 - Die Hard
1989 - Batman
1990 - Total Recall
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1992 - Unforgiven
1993 - Jurassic Park
1994 - Dumb & Dumber
1995 - Die Hard With a Vengeance
1996 - Happy Gilmore
1997 - LA Confidential
1998 - The Big Lebowski
1999 - The Matrix
2000 - Me, Myself, and Irene
2001 - Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings
2002 - Spider-Man
2003 - X2: X-Men United
2004 - Shaun of the Dead
2005 - Batman Begins
2006 - Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
2007 - No Country for Old Men
2008 - Iron Man
2009 - Zombieland
2010 - Toy Story 3
2011 - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
2012 - Marvel's The Avengers
2013 - This Is The End
2014 - Guardians of the Galaxy
2015 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2016 - A TIE!!!! Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Nice Guys
2017 - so far... Logan

Now I challenge you!

The Death of Superman

How do you kill a being that has almost god-like power? Why would you kill off a character that has been popular since the 1930's? How would the death of a beloved character effect a 10 year old boy just learning about story arches and character development?

These were some of the questions that I asked myself in 1991 when the DEATH OF SUPERMAN event was announced. I was 10 years old and comics were just starting to become my obsession. This event would solidify my love of comic books for the rest of my life.

The 1990's were an interesting time for comic books. The campy comic book era ended in the mid-80's, marked by the popularity of Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, the growing popularity of The X-Men, and the world shaking event CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Readers didn't want their heroes to just be catching crooks and stopping bank robberies. The X-Men helped bring social issues to the forefront of comic book story telling, and ushered in an era of Marvel Comics the likes of which had never been seen. The comic book bubble was created.

DC comics was in a strange place. Here they had the most well known super heroes in history but did not have any idea what to do with them! Superman was an unstoppable boy scout who had only recently proposed to Lois Lane and revealed his true identity to her. This was huge! Lois Lane had not known that Clark Kent was Superman for 52 years! But the reveal worked and a true romance was able to be written for Clark and Lois. It also added some emotional weight to the upcoming DEATH OF SUPERMAN.

I remember reading about this event in a magazine or hearing it on the news. Since Superman was so well known, his death was pretty big news. This was also at a time in comic books that characters weren't killed off that often. Barry Allen's Flash had been killed off in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS in 1986 and had yet to return, so the prospect of Superman being killed off was quite extreme to a 10 year old who had no idea what marketing was. I couldn't see beyond the title of the storyline.

This event actually got my Dad into comic books a little bit. I remember him taking me to my favorite comic shop near my Grandma's house when issue #75 dropped...

... (the actual issue Superman dies) and taught me about first printings and buying multiple issues at a time. I still have multiple copies of the newsstand Superman #75 as well as the sealed Collector's Edition (see the 2nd pic in this post) that came with the front page of The Daily Planet, a black memorial armband, a DEATH OF SUPERMAN poster, and a few trading cards. This was a lesson I'd remember forever. Little did I know that I was one of thousands of people learning about this. The comic book bubble was growing at an incredible rate and would finally pop in the late 90's, but DC wouldn't be the loser. Marvel Comics would face bankruptcy and would eventually sell off the movie rights to their most popular characters (Spider-Man to Sony Studios, and X-Men to Fox) in order to stay afloat. To this day, copies of Superman #75 are worth next to nothing, yet people still come to comic book shops hoping to cash their copy in for a big pay day.

Superman's death was both culturally and historically significant. The fight with Doomsday, his death, and eventual return are still referenced in modern day comic books, despite the DC comics canon timeline has been altered multiple times since.

So why would they want to kill off a character as well known and popular as Superman? Well, despite Clark Kent revealing his identity to Lois Lane and their engagement being new to Superman stories. Monthly comic sales were not doing very well and writers were running out of things to do with both Superman and (believe it or not) Batman. Around this time, Bruce Wayne would be temporarily replaced by Jean Paul Valley aka Azrael in another iconic 90's story BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL, but that's will have to have it's very own post.

Coming this week! A more detailed look at the story of THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, and that's not all! After that I'll be continuing the story after Superpoop's death and discuss the follow up story entitled A WORLD WITHOUT SUPERMAN also known as A FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND,

then I'll follow that up with a look at THE REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN,

and then I'll tie it all up with THE RETURN OF SUPERMAN!

So stay tuned for the next couple of days or weeks, however long it takes me as we follow one of the most fun and significant Superman stories of all time!

Cable aka The Askani Son aka Nathan Summers aka Nate Grey aka Nathan Dayspring

We all have our favorites, right? Like you have your favorite flavor of ice cream and I have mine. You have your favorite sports team and I have mine. You have your favorite super heroes and I have mine.

We all have our favorites, and most of the time those favorites stay the same forever. Every once in awhile though, I find a new favorite.

One of my new favorite comic characters is Cable. He's not taking Wolverine's spot, or Spider-Man's spot, or Batman or Superman's spot, but he's earned a place on my favorites list.

I spoke about his a bit on the latest episode of The Good Shit Podcast with special guest Kevin Davis now available: https://soundcloud.com/mike-milnes-802160554/good-shit-with-kevin-davis

So why is he one of my favorites now? Well I'm glad you asked...

Cable is one of the most powerful and absolutely one of the most bad ass comic book characters ever. Here's a brief history:

Born Nathan Summers, son of Scott Summers aka Cyclops and Madelynn Pryor aka The Goblin Queen (also the clone of Jean Grey). This wasn't a typical pregnancy, no, it was orchestrated by one of the most evil X-Men villains, Mr. Sinister. Cable was born for the sole purpose of fighting and destroying Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse), infected baby Cable with a techno-organic virus. A virus that attacks organic matter and replaces it with technology. While the subject continues to live, they are completely overwhelmed with the desire to spread the disease.

When Cable was born, his mother attempted to sacrifice him in order to open a portal between the demon dimension and Earth, but was opposed by Cyclops and X-Factor. In order to keep baby Cable safe from Apocalypse and to give him a chance against the techno-organic virus, a desperate Cyclops agreed to have him taken to the future to be raised by Clan Askani, who was led by Cable's half sister, Rachel Summers aka Mother Askani. There, Rachel clones Cable just in case the techno-organic virus can't be stopped. Oh yeah, and his clone turns into his most hated adversary, Stryfe!

The techno virus can't be stopped though. But this just makes Cable even cooler. Ok, so Cable is a mutant right? And all mutants have special abilities. Well, aside from being the perfect soldier, Cable is also one of the most (if not, THE most) powerful mutant on Earth! He has telepathic, telekinetic, and psionic abilities that he uses to fight off the techno virus! Seriously, all of his powers are used to keep him from succumbing to the virus every second of every day.  It's only when he allows the virus to take him that we see just how powerful he is.

Cable is also the PERFECT soldier. Rachel Summers transfers the minds of Cyclops and Jean Grey to the future, in order for them to raise Cable for the first 12 years of his life. There, Cyclops trains Cable to be the man he becomes. He is 100% devoted to whatever mission he's on. Often manipulating those around him into thinking he's working with them while Cable is actually just using them to further his own agenda. He's done this a handful of times, which has made some of his former teammates resent him greatly.

For instance, during the events of MESSIAH COMPLEX (a story about the first mutant born since HOUSE OF M, and it being the possible mutant messiah), Cyclops orders Cable to take the child into the future, raise her, and protect her from everything. In the follow up MESSIAH WAR, X-Force is sent into the future to find Cable and help him protect the child against Bishop and Stryfe who are working together.

Not only is Cable successful (spoiler alert) in protecting the girl (Hope is her name), but X-Force is also able to return to the present time line with Cable and Hope, but only because of Cable's own sacrifice. You see, the portal to return to the present fries any organic matter that attempts to cross over. So Cable allows the techno virus to take over his body so that he can cross through the portal and allow Hope and X-Force to return home. Cable's willingness to put his life on the line to protect Hope is pure dedication to his mission. He is the ultimate soldier.

Cable's story doesn't end in MESSIAH WAR however. Of course not! He's a bad ass comic book super hero, they can't stay dead! in X-SANCTION, Cable fights The Avengers and systematically takes them out! It's a really awesome story that I highly recommend and it's only 4 issues!

On top of all of this, Cable is a time traveler. My favorite moments featuring Cable, aren't his solo issues, but when he pops up randomly from the future while on some sort of mission. One of my favorite examples is during the X-MEN: FATAL ATTRACTIONS event. Cable had not been seen by his former X-Force teammates in a very long time, they return home from a mission and feel as if something is off around their headquarters. As they split up to recon the area, Cable immobilizes the team one at a time. This was my intro to how cool Cable is. He gathers the team together and is able to apologize and make things right again. I think he sticks around for a little bit, until X-Force helps him secure the piece of his mission he needed and then he disappears again. I love it.

One last thing. I talked briefly about Cable's clone brother, Stryfe, who is Cable without the techo-organic virus. Stryfe is a really bad dude, so what would Cable be like if he was still a good guy but was never infected with the virus. Well, that person exists, but in a different parallel universe! His name is Nate Grey also known as X-Man! We meet Nate in the AGE OF APOCALYPSE mini-series that took place in the mid 90's. I personally love this series, and have collected almost everything connected to it, incidentally I'm behind on the X-Man issues and so I now have a new mission in life. Anyway, Nate is so powerful that he goes toe to toe against Apocalypse during the final battle and it is nothing short of awesome!

Originally created by Rob Liefeld, Cable has evolved over the years, along with another Liefeld (co)-creation, Deadpool. In his first appearance, Cable was just a mutant cyborg mercenary. His evolution is a testament to how great the ideas at Marvel Comics were in the 90's.

I look forward to finding and reading more about Cable. His motivations and dedication to his mission is greater than almost all other Marvel super heroes.

4 Episodes into Iron Fist...

Ok, so obviously this isn't a full review of the show. 4 out of 13 episodes is, once again, obviously just initial reactions. The show itself is just starting to build up steam so I'm looking forward to what's coming.

For right now though... this is not a great show. Definitely the weakest of the Marvel Netflix series. Finn Jones is... ok as Danny Rand. I don't like how he says his name, and it happens a lot, so there's that.

The action is kind of cool. By that I mean the moves look good, but it doesn't look like they're moving at full speed and for a character that is supposed to be a kung-fu master, this Iron Fist is slow. He's making the moves, and again, they look cool but damn... the hits look weak as balls. Except for the light up fist punches. Those are really cool, and since this is only the 4th episode, I can only hope for more.

The Hand just showed up, so that's cool too.

Anyway, the show itself doesn't have a stylish feel like the other Marvel shows have. I do like that each episode is named after a different kung-fu position. Like episode 4 is titled "Eight Diagram Dragon Palm" and episode 3 was "Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch." I think they're also used in each episode in one way or another. I don't know enough about kung-fu to know. I'm a Jedi, while similar to kung-fu in mysticism and study, it's a totally different thing.

Another difference from the other Marvel shows is the performances of the secondary characters. There's no Cottonmouth in this one, or more accurately, there's no Mahershala Ali or Vincent D'onofrio. And there's no Foggy Nelson character to lighten things up a bit, just the occasional "Danny is a fish out of water" joke. Not bad by any means, but I don't know... not great either.

I guess you could say that so far I am unimpressed but I'm still into it enough to keep going. Like I said before too, it's picking up steam so I hope to see some cool stuff soon.

I'll be back with more thoughts as I continue the show.

Who is Iron Fist?

2017 is chugging along, LOGAN got us started quite nicely with a huge opening weekend for a totally kick ass, best Comic Book Movie ever kind of way. While the next CBM isn't due for release until May 5th (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2) or POWER RANGERS on March 24th (that doesn't really count as a CBM though), NETFLIX is set to release all 13 episodes of their latest Marvel series... IRON FIST!

Iron Fist will be the 4th member of the Defenders team that will unite later these year for their own show. If you've been following the shows on Netflix, then you're probably already familiar with those characters. They started with DareDevil, then Jessica Jones, then DareDevil season 2, and the last series was, of course, Luke Cage.

These heroes are all "street level" characters. Meaning, for you new readers, that they handle the problems that are associated with their immediate neighborhood. DareDevil operates in Hell's Kitchen, Luke Cage in Harlem, Jessica Jones moves around a bit more, but mostly in Manhattan and soon enough we'll see where Iron Fist fits in.

So, who exactly is Iron Fist? Well, everyone is familiar with the billionaire-turned-superhero theme that tends to occur more often than not. Iron Fist is one of those, but his powers aren't anything like Batman or Iron Man or even the current version of Spider-Man right now in the comics (Peter Parker is a billionaire with his own company).

Danny's story begins during a trip to Asia with his parents Wendall and Heather Rand, along with their business partner; Harold Meachum who are searching for the mystical city of K'un L'un. The family and Meachum are hiking through the snowy mountains, when Danny loses his footing and falls over the side, pulling his mother down with him. Meachum, who is in love with Heather, actually pushes Wendall to his death and attempts to help Heather and Danny, but Heather refuses his help, and manages to get herself and Danny to safety.

Now, hurt and trying to run away from Meachum. Heather and Danny discover a makeshift bridge that appears out of no where. Before they can make it across, they're attacked by a pack of wolves. Heather throws herself on the pack to safe Danny, just as archers from K'un L'un appear and attempt to save her. They take Danny with them to meet their ruler, Yu-Ti, whom Danny expresses his desire for vengeance.

Yu-Ti hands Danny over to apprentice for Lei Kung The Thunderer, who teaches him martial arts. Flash forward a number of years and Danny has become a master of kung-fu and a prized pupil. He conditions his fists by plunging them into water, rock, sand, and gravel. At age 19, he's given the chance to attain the power of the Iron Fist!

In order to do this he must fight and defeat a dragon! Yeah, a DRAGON! Named, Shou-Lao The Undying! Shou-Lao guards molten heart that was taken from his own body. Figuring that the heart is the source of the dragon's power, Danny notices a scar on the dragon's chest and throws his body on it, severing the connection between the dragon and it's heart. He holds on until the dragon dies, and a dragon tattoo is seared onto his chest!

Now that the dragon is dead, Danny plunges his fists into the molten heart left behind and the power of Shou-Lao fuses with his body; the Immortal Iron Fist is born!

Just in case the first season of the show is based on his comic book origins, I won't reveal what happens after, but I'm sure you can imagine where the story goes. His actual powers, aside from the mastery of martial arts and the fists of iron are mostly related to his chi; the spirit energy that supposedly flows through all of us. Iron Fist has complete mastery over his chi and add that to the mystical power given to him by Shou-Lao, Iron Fist can focus all of his energy into his fists and/or an overall enhanced physical attack. He can also heal himself by focusing his chi, PLUS he can telepathically fuse with another person or creature's mind!

Iron Fist would go on to team up with Luke Cage as Heroes for Hire, and even sub in as DareDevil after Matt Murdock's secret identity was released to the public. He's been a member of The Defenders, The Thunderbolts, and The New Avengers at different points in his career.

From what I've read so far, the Netflix series doesn't go too into his backstory and may not even feature Shou-Lao or K'un L'un. Which is fine, if they can tell a good story without certain elements of his origins, it'll be ok. I'm with-holding judgement until I've seen the whole series. Early reviews haven't been good, but also seem to be coming from critics who have no idea of Iron Fist's actual comic origins and also have only seen 1 episode.

MARVEL'S IRON FIST premieres on Netflix just in time for St. Patrick's Day on Friday March, 17 2017! Have a great day, interweb-slingers, until next time!

Fan Question! Could He-Man BEAT The Hulk?

I have a buddy. His name is Conor. He's 5.

We got to hang out a couple of weeks ago and we played a lot.

We climbed on the playground and got lunch from a food truck.

At the end of the day Conor's Dad made a fire and we talked and laughed and played some more.

It was a good day.

That's how I probably would have described the day if I were 5, like Conor, who's the son of my cousin Tina. A couple of weeks back we visited Tina and her family (Conor, her husband Ken, and their son Kenny) for a fun day at the local winery. Conor really is my buddy, and I play with him every time I see him. That day he was really excited for me to get there, and to show me all the things he likes to do while at the playground. We played all day long while enjoying the beautiful weather at the Laurita Winery's Winterfest. It was almost 80 degrees in February!

Conor is a great kid, who's also incredibly smart and funny. Around the fire that night, Tina asked him how old he thought we are. He thought I was 12 (same age as his big brother Kenny), his Dad was 30, his Mom and my wife were both 20. Hilarious, adorable, and very insightful. Conor saw me, a grown man the same age as his Dad, as a child. I wasn't surprised. I talk about super heroes, Star Wars, and comic books ALL THE TIME! I have a Darth Vader hoodie where the hood zips up into the mask that I wear EVERY DAY. I have Superman, Batman, Captain Phasma, BB-8, and Star Wars logo socks that I wear proudly. I can talk about cartoon characters and movies that Conor and Kenny are just now seeing for the first time. Earlier in the day, Conor and I had a long and detailed conversation about the Transformers, their movies and the cartoons. For like 20 minutes. With a 5 year old.

I love it.

Now, something else happened that day that led to what I actually want to write about today. I introduced Conor to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The original He-Man and She-Ra cartoons are now currently available to stream on Netflix. Knowing that Tina and Ken were already fans of both shows, I only had to mention this and knew Conor would be watching it later. I was still there after he had seen his first episode. He came to find me to tell me about it.

"Mike, I watched the He-Man. I don't weally wike it."

"Oh ok, bud, that's cool."

"I'm gonna go watch anudder one."

A few days ago, before I went on a berserker Wolverine binge, Tina left me a facebook comment with a question from my buddy Conor. "Conor wants to know if He-Man or Hulk would win... it's 5:30 in the morning." I responded several hours later, of course, and told her that the answer was more complicated than a simple facebook comment. So here ya go, Con-man:

He-Man would absolutely beat The Hulk, but how he would do it is the hard part. For those that don't know, He-Man is the most powerful man in the universe and The Hulk, as in The Incredible Hulk, is the strongest one there is. The thing is... He-Man is the better fighter, with more combat skills, and battle experience PLUS a magic sword that could cut The Hulk! The Hulk, even if he had his alter-ego Bruce Banner's intellect, wouldn't be able to handle He-Man.

The fight itself would be epic though, with both men giving all they've got, with the climatic scene looking something like the two squaring off in the middle of a crater; the result of a major part of their battle, trading punches back and forth like prize fighters. The blows would have such force, that any trees around them would shake, sending birds into the air. Finally with a last burst of enormous power, He-Man would knock the Hulk into space, through a moon and out the other side! Having used so much energy, He-Man would revert back to his alter-ego Prince Adam, while the Hulk drifted in orbit.

That's just one way it could go, but regardless of how it ended, the victor would remain the same. He-Man for the win. He-Man's strength is on the same level as Superman, and his magical abilities plus battle experience would give him the edge.

I don't think Conor is going to pay attention through all of that, but maybe he'll appreciate it when he's older.