DOCTOR FATE versus THE SPECTRE

A Spectre is Haunting the Multiverse! (DC)
Where: All-Star Squadron #27 When: November 1983 Why: Roy Thomas How: Richard Howell

The Story So Far...
While The Atom lies in a hospital bed suffering unknown side effects from absorbing the radiation of Cyclotron, his comrade at arms, Doctor Fate, continues their search for missing teammate - The Spectre!

Using Wonder Woman's electro-magic sphere, the Justice Society is able to witness Doctor Fate's journey beneath the great lakes of Cliffland, where he found The Spectre's mortal host Jim Corrigan suspended in animation.

The magic of Nabu's Helmet and The Amulet of Anubis flow through the lifeless police detective, who rises to point the way through an inter-dimensional portal to a place beyond the sea of worlds where The Spectre stands vigil at the door of a mysterious crypt!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Doctor Fate 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Spectre 7 (Omnipotent)
Speed: Spectre 7 (Lightspeed)
Stamina: Spectre 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Spectre 7 (Unlimited)
Fighting: Draw 3 (Street Wise)
Energy: Draw 7 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Spectre 41 (Omnipotent)

Doctor Fate is Kent Nelson: wearer of the Helmet of Fate and an agent of Nabu & The Lords of Order.

His mystical domain concerns the very balance of reality, and grants him access to ancient magical wisdoms, perception, and spells. This includes the powers of The Amulet of Anubis and Cloak of Destiny, which grants him levitation and physical invulnerability even without his helmet!

Nelson's physical prowess was on display when he withstood battle with Hawkman while wearing a replacement half-helmet in All-Star Squadron #4, and when he absorbed the super-human blows of Ultraman in All-Star Squadron #15.

The Spectre is a divine spirit of vengeance usually bound to a mortal host, Detective Jim Corrigan, but now moves untethered to access the fullest of his powers and fury with total discretion.

Typically The Spectre is a grim force for good, turning bitter ironies against evil doers deserving of vengeance. That which can be imagined is within The Spectre's means, as when he disintegrated Black Hand's offending fist while bound to the spirit of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: Rebirth #1.

The Spectre is also a defender against dark magics, fighting alongside Doctor Fate and the Justice Society of America against the eldritch horror of Morgauth in JSA Strange Adventures #1, and removing the influence of Eclipso from Superman during Superman #216.

These are two of the most awesome and esoteric magical forces in the DC Universe -- how can we possibly hope to quantify their unfathomable powers? The only way to find out is to see what happened!

The Tape: The Spectre Ranking: The Spectre (#100)

What Went Down...

With a simple gesture The Spectre succeeds where words have failed -- suspending Doctor Fate in the gaping void that overlooks the threshold of a mysterious stone structure. He orders his teammate to leave.

Stunned by the ease of Spectre's magic, Doctor Fate relishes the opportunity to learn who is the greater mage between the two.

He breaks the hold, splitting his energy into four fearsome Fates!

This time it's The Spectre's turn to be impressed by the magical display, unable to divide himself and "still retain ectoplasm enough to oppose the real one!"

While The Spectre stands at the door grappling with copies, the real Doctor Fate glides through the stone walled structure to discover the sleeping form of Kulak - High Priest of Brztal!

Fate scans the malevolent mystic's mind, witnessing the horrifying collapse of untold worlds and civilizations -- all ripped apart by Kulak's spells of hatred until The Spectre intervened with the Ring of Life!

The Doctor sees the glowing scarlet ring now on Kulak's hand, but before he can reclaim it -- a gigantic green fist bursts through the wall to seize him!

A giant-sized Spectre pulls his erstwhile friend through the wall and warns him to cease his trespass and return to the mortal world.

"In the world of mere men you are feared -- but here you are only one more worm to be trampled underfoot -- or squashed by a far mightier hand! Swear to depart and never return -- and I shall release you!"

Doctor Fate defiantly refuses to leave, bursting free of The Spectre's grip and mystically matching -- and exceeding -- his titanic size!

The lord of order now grips his opponent in his hand and demands to know if it is truly the will of The Spectre to defy him -- or if Kulak indeed sways his fate.

In an instant The Spectre is free and again facing his old teammate eye to eye, but not as an equal -- or so he claims!

"Equals? Hardly! You are a lord of order, incarnated in the human form of Kent Nelson -- and that is your weakness. I am man's spirit -- freed of all corporeal restraints when I am not in Jim Corrigan's body -- and that is my strength! Do not force me, wizard -- to kill you!"

A mystic bolt deflects from Spectre's chest as the powerful pair each grab for the other's wrist. Doctor Fate knows Kulak has turn his friend into a killer.

Despite his cold resolve, Spectre confesses a warmth in his unbeating heart for Fate -- even as his awesome magic drives the Doctor to his backside.

Unwilling to concede, Doctor Fate invokes the immortal might of Nabu the Wise: "-- but Doctor Fate is more than a man!"

In desperation he conjures a portal to The Netherworlds, calling forth a hideous green squid-like behemoth to attack The Spectre in his stead!

Spectre bats away the eldritch horror's squirming limbs, but its spiked tail becomes his true concern as it swings dangerously against the tomb of Kulak.

Like a deft hand-to-hand combatant, Spectre swings around the beast and squeezes his arm beneath the creature's head. The tightening chokehold delivers it back to the hellscape it was spawned from.

It leaves only Doctor Fate to stand alone against the death gaze of The Spectre!

The unfettered wrath of The Spectre engulfs Doctor Fate as his stone cold stare unleashes occult forces that would kill an ordinary man. Instead, Kent Nelson is sent tumbling through realities untold -- lost amidst an "infinity of dimensions".

The Hammer...

The magician is condemned to fall uncontrollably through a multiverse of realities to the "end of unrecorded time", likely to return to the world he knows once its reduced to "a dead husk, barren of life and meaning for a billion billion years!"

The Spectre's mildly petulant victory is short-lived, however, as the tomb he's guarding begins to bulge and glow with energy -- exploding behind him to reveal the awakened might of Kulak!

The High Priest of Brztal quickly dominates the vengeful spirit, but that's a fight for another day. For now let us simply take in the stunning defeat of Doctor Fate and the awesome display of supernatural sorcery from the DC Universe.

I tend to think of these characters as more complex and esoteric than they are, but this battle is a nice reminder that for all their awesome powers, they are combatants in the same arena of good versus evil as any other character. They just go about it in a slightly different, more imaginative way.

It won't surprise you to know this has been one of the battles on my desk for quite some time. I've been eager to get to it. Checking off a few other All-Star Squadron issues along the way, but never forgetting this engaging dream match!

As I've waxed in the past: there's an innate "cool factor" with these characters, levied off the back of strong visual designs by original Golden Age artists, and a sense of awe and wonder about the incredible scope of their potential.

The Helmet of Fate is one of DC's most striking images and it's been little surprise that the character has been embraced by moviegoing audiences enticed by the simple visual of Pierce Brosnan's portrayal in Black Adam. I'm not sure why the live-action version lost his eye holes, but at least they got the basics right.

There may be inevitable confusion and comparisons with Marvel's theatrical forebear, Doctor Strange, but as we all know, Doctor Fate predates Marvel's magician by a good twenty-three years, and commands an aura of mystique all his own, with far greater connections to Nabu, and the all-seeing Lords of Order.

The characters do work well as general counterparts. A fact played up with the creation of Doctor Strangefate during DC and Marvel's joint venture of Amalgam Comics: hybrid creations based on an iconic character from each company. 

Otherwise, they're quite different, even if we might see the cinematic Strange borrow a page from Fate, as in the spell to split himself into multiple incarnations, as we saw early in today's featured fight!

If you'd like to find more battles with magic or Golden Age icons you can find them all by diving into the arcane Secret Archive! That's where you'll find a complete index of featured fights in order of publisher, series, and issue!

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Winner: The Spectre
#60 (+40) The Spectre
#353 (-193) Doctor Fate

INHUMANS & VISION versus QUICKSILVER

Spring Fever (Marvel)
Where: Vision and Scarlet Witch #10 When: July 1986 Why: Steve Englehart How: Richard Howell

The Story So Far...
Maximoff family drama returns to the legendary moon city of Attilan when a barely conscious and mortally ill Crystal reveals the terrible truth to her husband -- she has been unfaithful!

A quick temper and super-human speed get the better of Quicksilver as he rapidly attempts to murder the man, his sister's human realtor Norman Webster, and stage a military coup against the Inhuman royal family who chooses to defend his life.

Furious at the perceived betrayals of his wife, the insular Inhuman kingdom, and even his sister and teammates, Scarlet Witch & Vision -- he races for the barren surface of the moon. The Inhumans refuse to leave him with his thoughts of shame and revenge, though. Black Bolt leads a party to bring him back -- but the hot-headed Quicksilver won't be rescued quite so easily.

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Vision 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Vision 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Quicksilver 6 (Mach Speed)
Stamina: Vision 6 (Generator)
Agility: Gorgon 2 (Average)
Fighting: Gorgon 3 (Street Wise)
Energy: Black Bolt 6 (Mass Destruction)
Total: Vision 26 (Metahuman)

The Inhumans are: Black Bolt, Medusa, and Gorgon, with Vision.

The key to beating Quicksilver is shutting down his speed & mobility and we've seen that done a variety of ways.

Run-ins with the DC Universe have showed there's a limit to Quicksilver's speed and reaction time. The Flash was too fast in his victory in Marvel versus DC #2, and even Impulse kept one step ahead in Unlimited Access #3!

Quicksilver ran rings around Cyclops' optic blasts in an early battle, but Jean Grey used her telekinesis to lift him off the ground -- and literally shake him into severe disorientation. A similar result could theoretically be achieved by Medusa, who's used her tendril-like hair to ground The Wizard, and grapple with Thanos!

Reach and strength played equal roles when Apocalypse used his malleable body to rapidly extend a giant fist into Quicksilver's path and knock him out!

Vision arguably has the best combination of abilities to recreate this method. Increased density gave his punch enough power to rattle Thor, and total intangibility allowed him to impress Thanos with an unexpected ambush.

Quicksilver's own father, Magneto, has proven to be one of his most ruthless opponents over the years. The Master of Magnetism used an improvised spear to pin him down in Vision and he Scarlet Witch (Vol. 1) #4, and the invisible will of pure magnetic force in X-Men (Vol. 2) #25!

Inhuman ruler Black Bolt possesses the nearest equivalent to an invisible, irresistible force that can stop Quicksilver in his tracks. With the slightest utterance his voice can demolish mountains. We saw that demonstrated when he levelled Mt Rushmore and a symbiote-possessed Thor in What If...? #4!

For Quicksilver dealing with these threats is as a simple as keeping ahead of them. If he can use the terrain and get the drop on his attackers he can beat them before they even know what hit them -- but will he? Let's find out...

The Tape: Inhumans & Vision Ranking: Black Bolt (#169)

What Went Down...

Black Bolt leads his royal family across the surface of the moon, guided by heat residue interrupting the electro-magnetic energy field. Through Medusa, he alerts the flying heroes to their approach -- but Quicksilver moves fast to ambush them!

By running rapidly in circles -- Quicksilver creates a spiraling updraft that disrupts the artificial atmosphere and gently jostles the heroes floating through it. A cushioned courtesy he won't extend further if they continue to follow him. Follow they do!

Vision and Medusa try to reason with him, but Quicksilver is hotheaded and too freshly spurned to think of anything but shame and revenge for his wife's infidelity.

He feels alone. Indeed, Gorgon confronts his outsider status amongst the fiercely guarded clan of Inhumans -- and the unique approval he gained within it.

Quicksilver rejects the gesture of acceptance and kinship -- counter-shunting a diving Gorgon with a charging shoulder!

The speedster blasts past his would-be restrainer, racing into the line of the Vision and his "solar beam" laser beam.

Quicksilver's mutant gift of speed proves too fast for even the android's artificial eyes to keep up with! However, the attention the attack draws proves useful for keeping Quicksilver distracted enough to overlook Gorgon raising his knee!

The Inhuman slams his foot -- sending a violent shockwave through the surface of The Moon that  unsteadies the runner's path.

He stumbles and rolls, but returns to his feet in record time and runs a path straight toward the source of his trouble. A speeding punch launches Gorgon hurtling uncontrollably across The Moon!

Quicksilver is too busy admiring his handiwork to notice Medusa creeping up behind him in the cloud of dust.

Long tendrils of red hair suddenly clasp around him, locking his body in the powerful embrace of the Queen's prehensile locks!

For a moment there appears to be no recourse as Quicksilver is completely engulfed by the living strands of hair. He cannot hope to resist the strength of its grasp, but he can spin at such incredible speed he twirls Medusa away!

The cries of his Queen are enough to stir Black Bolt to drastic measure.

Having observed with dismay from the vantage of the craterous battlefield's edge, the silent monarch resolves to bring an end to the conflict with but a word. Such is the staggering power of the Inhuman King's rarely heard voice!

A thunderous sonic blast rips across The Moon causing all within the targeted crater to fall! It is but by the grace of The Moon's otherwise lack of oxygen that Black Bolt's voice did not unleash far greater damage.

The flooring cry does not alone achieve the goal of stopping Quicksilver, but it does allow Vision to grab the speedster's arm in a vice-like grip and increase his density to 70 tons. Enough to resist any force that might resist.

The Hammer...

Heavy themes and heavy metal as Black Bolt uses the epic power of his voice to bring Quicksilver to a crashing halt -- and Vision uses synthezoid super-density to make sure the speedster can't escape his android grip!

Bad times for Pietro Maximoff just a year after Vision and Scarlet Witch (Vol. 1) #4 seemingly rounded out his perfect family with the long awaited identity of his true birth father. A hard fall, but not necessarily a completely unexpected one.

Pietro & Crystal were married in 1974's Fantastic Four #150 after a whirlwind romance first revealed in Fantastic Four #131.

The pair had met when the Inhumans rescued Quicksilver from mortal injuries sustained at the hands of Sentinels in Avengers #104. They fell in love while Crystal nursed him back to health -- a fact that didn't sit well with her then-boyfriend, Johnny Storm, when he made an unannounced return to Attilan!

Today's featured issue conveniently recaps these events, albeit glossing over Pietro's status as the proverbial "Other Man" when their relationship began.

Despite his apparent devotion to his wife, and their daughter Luna, Quicksilver's arrogant neglect ultimately plays a significant role in pushing Crystal to seek casual affections in the arms of another man. In this case, the human realtor she met at a party hosted by the title heroes of Vision and Scarlet Witch (Vol. 2) #6.

Does this mean Crystal will always have a wandering eye? Is Quicksilver too much of a raging jerk to settle down? Questions the issue leaves the reader with once Scarlet Witch helps Crystal recover from an overdose of anti-pollution serum, and Quicksilver returns post-battle only to reject his unfaithful wife again, and run.

The pair did reunite a couple of years later in Fantastic Four Annual #21, but the decades that followed would be a rocky road of attempted reconciliations and periodic estrangement.

Fellow Avenger Black Knight was briefly a rival for Crystal's affections. but the final unravelling of her relationship with Quicksilver came when he stole the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist after losing his powers to the Mutant Decimation event.

It's kind of sad that what once seemed like a budding Marvel relationship became such a prolonged exercise in doomed romance, but it's interesting the way it sustained and developed appearances by the characters involved.

It's particularly interesting to track Quicksilver as an early X-Men villain who, along with Scarlet Witch, became an entrenched fixture of the Avengers, only to have a brief blip in the world of the Fantastic Four, and carry on recurring in each.

If you'd like to see more from this episode in Quicksilver's life, and the smoother marriage of Vision & Scarlet Witch, you can find a couple of collected editions that will give you the full issue and more! Avengers: Vision & Scarlet Witch - A Year In The Life focuses on their second mini-series, while Vision & Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision packs in both mini-series, with a couple of extras.

Use the Amazon links provided and you'll not only get yourself a good deal delivered -- you'll also help support the site at no extra cost! If you really like what Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is all about you can also sign-up to the Patreon and receive additional updates & perks as a thank you for your support!

The Comic Book Fight Club has featured well over 600 battles and ranked more than 1000 characters! You can discover them all by exploring links throughout each entry, or by diving into the Secret Archive for a full index in order of publisher, series, and issue number!

Subscribe and follow on Twitter and Facebook to get free daily links to superhero smackdown based on the topics of the day! Today's battle choice was inspired by the live-action Disney+ series WandaVision, featuring Evan Peters as Quicksilver!

Winners: Black Bolt & Vision
#99 (+70) Black Bolt
#141 (+277) Vision
#351 (+6) Medusa [+1 assist]
#606 (new) Gorgon [+1 assist]
#1000 (-1) Quicksilver

SPIDER-MAN versus ELECTRO
The Big X-Mas Blackout (Marvel comics)
Where: Marvel Holiday Special (1992) When: January 1993 Why: Richard Howell & Stan Lee How: Steve Lightle & Al Milgrom

The story so far...
They say Christmas 'tis the season to be jolly, but for Electro, it's just an annual reminder of his many failings as a man and electrically charged superpowered villain.

Not content to see out the holidays without lashing out in an act of senseless violence, Electro storms Rockefeller Centre to interrupt the ceremonial lighting of the tree.
To punish the society that failed him, Electro blacks out the Centre, with the promise of more power drains to come all across New York.

With his night out with Mary Jane ruined: enter a red garbed hero with a Christmas miracle! The spectacular Spider-man's making a list to check twice, and Electro's front and centre on the naughty list, but will it be coal for the villain, or will it be an early present and lights out for the wall-crawler?

Previous Form:
Spider-man (#1): Holds victories over Kraven, Scorpion, Green Goblin, Shocker, Rhino, & Lizard.
Electro (#345): Was defeated by the Avengers as one of the Sinister Twelve.

Tale of the tape...
Strength: Spider-man 5 (Super Strength)
Intelligence: Spider-man 5 (Professor)
Speed: Spider-man 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Electro 5 (Marathon Man)
Agility: Spider-man 5 (Cat-like)
Fighting Ability: Spider-man 3 (Street Wise)
Energy Powers: Electro 6 (Mass Destruction)


- For embittered electrician, Maxwell Dillon, a simple power line repair would turn out to be a life altering event. When struck by lightning, Dillon underwent an inexplicable mutagenic change that saw his body become conductive and charged with the electrical energies of the storm!

Able to generate, store, and absorb electricity, Dillon lashed out at the world as a super powered petty criminal called Electro!

Dillon's inferiorities would soon see him somewhat fixated with his major Manhattan foil, Spider-man. It would be their on-going feud that would allow him to further hone his powers to varying degrees, allowing total mastery over electricity and electrical charge. At his most powerful this can go beyond projected bolts, to include levitation, and various electrical phenomena, such as limited magnetism.

- A bite from a radioactive spider should have killed highschool nerd, Peter Parker, but instead it would irradiate his own blood, granting him extraordinary powers.

Spider-man possesses the enhanced strength, speed, and agility of a spider. Adding to his arsenal, a precognitive spider-sense that warns him of pending danger, and self-made webshooters, which have since been replaced by a further mutation.
Unlike his previous mechanical build, Spidey's organic web-shooting ability has been shown to be nearly endless, likely reliant upon biological factors.

The Math: Spider-man The Pick: Spider-man

What went down...
Just as the Rockefeller tree lights up the city, and tree, plunge into darkness. From within the gloom emerges the crackling visage of the green and yellow garbed villain -- Electro! From high atop a building he delivers his decree.

Fortunate for the folks below, Spider-man leaps to the rooftop to confront his old foe. Electro has a disgruntled yuletide greeting for the web-slinger in the form of a massive electrical bolt he narrowly leaps away from.

As Spidey disappears into the night on a web-line, Electro boasts over the crowd that Spider-man's bravado was little more than a show. While he decrys Spidey's cowardice, the wall-crawler does some climbing inside the giant Rockefeller Christmas tree, giving Electro time to work himself up into a frenzy of over-confidence. Then, from within the tree, he launches his attack!

A hail of over-sized baubles puts an end to Electro's pontifications, but his silence proves to be a symptom of his growing rage! Charged up to maximum power, Electro unleashes his energies on the tree, blasting wildly in an attempt to flash-fry Spider-man!

With nowhere to hide, Spidey leaps through the rain of electrical bolts, and connects with a double-boot to the face! Pumped up on the electrical juice of the city, Electro proves unphased by the physical assault.

Spider-man dances around his opponent whose power seems only to continue to grow, swirling into an electrical storm that sounds both of them.

Electro blasts at near point blank distances, promising to put an end to Spider-man's superheroing career once and for all.
Doing his best to distract, Spider-man throws a steady stream of his trademark quips. Unable to close-in on his opponent, Spidey desperately throws a web-line toward the Centre tree, hoping to snare a weapon: which he does!

As Electro builds to cosmic levels of energy, Spidey swings the world's biggest Christmas ornament from the top of the Rockefeller tree, bringing it crashing down atop the Christmas villain!

With Electro out cold; Spidey leaves him char broiled for authorities, returning to his beloved wife. Together they enjoy the cheer of the Christmas tree lights as power resumes in the city of New York, and the people return to their merry times.

The hammer...
Your winner, and still holiday season champion, Spider-man!

As much as I'd love to exchange in lengthy pleasantries (and probably will, anyway), I've got to bang this one out, because by Infinite Wars time it's a little late, and we've got a special deadline to meet -- because it's the last week in this round's Friday Night Fights, brought to you by he who hungers, Bahlactus!

For anyone wondering about the Infinite Wars schedule over the holidays, we'll be doing our best to make sure there's plenty of content prepared ahead to pepper across the month. That will include all the regular features (described in the menu), as well as December's Fantasy Fights fun times!
Speaking of the aforementioned fun times, be sure to scroll back up to the top of the right-side menu to take part in the frivilous fun of a poll! Revel in pointless interactivity, brought to you by Secret Wars on Infinite Earths!

Despite a whole stack of regular features, we're trying to keep things free flowing in the holidays. Electro's one of those characters that's been begging for representation for quite some time, so this Christmas themed short story from Marvel's 1992 Holiday Special seemed like the perfect time to go there.

I'm not sure there's any great philosophy or essay to be derived from Electro.
Hideously unlikely costume, reality-defying powers, two-dimensional characterization. He's really the quintessential example of the 1960's Stan Lee recurring supervillain. There's a thin layer of psychological turmoil that typically binds villains like these, and while this 90's script plotted by The Man never outright describes Electro's motivations or thought processes, we've inflected a little with our own take.

Looking at two of the most prominent rogues galleries of villains - Batman and Spider-man's - I think you can observe a study of quality vs quantity. Sure, both have lengthy lists of zealous enemies, but examples aside, Batman's villains are much more deeply entrenched in psychological motivation.

When writing The Kirby Martin Inquest; which has been noted in reviews as an ambiguous superhero book; I approached the character of White Ghost with a philosophy of the modern superhero. In the same way I intend to propose wealth and will as contemporary superpowers; I think the Bat-villains celebrate the idea of a similar level of social liberation, and mental illness as the dark side of superpowers -- the [contemporary] enabling counterpart to being doused in chemicals, or bitten by a radioactive spider.

Conversely, Spider-man's villains succeed, I think, largely on the basis of excess. As much as the two groups share commonality of gimmickery, the lethal foes [of Spider-man] represent brightly coloured exercises in building around a superpower. Whereas, the bat-villains seem more grounded in building around the human disfunction, and not surprisingly draws influence from the pulp genre that Batman was born out of.

I suppose, if we're undertaking a one-sided conversation, we could suppose that this is an example of the distant effect of Superman; whose adventures coloured the superhero genre for decades to come with it's success in perpetuating brightly coloured costumes, more than anything else.

Ultimately I think both sets of antagonists supply a reader/writer with plenty of ammunition for the kinds of stories we spend a lot of time talking about. Amidst the many requisites and rules of comics writing, the ability to logically bring characters back is a must, and it's wriggling into satisfying logics that derive their fiction from the conceits of the past that makes characters like Electro so effective -- even on the level of defeat/imprisonment/escape.

I'm assuming we're about to see this theory realised well in Ed Brubaker's Daredevil, where the series appears to be turning against some of our previous criticisms, to showcase more of the urban criminal element. Characters like the Wrecker and Razor Fist not only service this ideal, but pay eerie homage to things we've discussed in the past -- like shifting the Wrecker to this corner of the universe, away from his usual association with the Thors and Avengers.

And hey, if you want to see more stories like those featured in the Infinite Wars, why not make a Christmas donation to the PayPal? Ooohhhh, see what I did there? Yessir. Smooth operator.

Jokes aside, you can also find links to my work in The Kirby Martin Inquest at Nite Lite Theatre, where ComixPress are ready and waiting to receive your online order for the first issue. I'm hoping we can have the second issue ready early in 2008, while I've also been working on a three-page short story starring supporting KMI character, The Russian Man.

The short explores more about the mysterious villains, exploring his feelings about the home he's made for himself in America, whilst pitting him against a terrorist. I think it's an interesting study of the character, but it's hard not to have reservations about people's reaction to something like this.
Exactly how the short will be released is uncertain at this point. I've got a lot of ideas about printed collections, but these things tend to be at the whim of other contributors, so you might see that as a webstrip, or KMI back-up. If you have an opinion there, be encouraged to make it known.

In the meantime, one last shout out to Comic By Comic, where Rich unwittingly inspired a bit of Photoshop distraction. This is my thanks for his thanks for the banner I tooled together. Glad he likes it, and Rob didn't shiv balls nasty.
Maybe one of these days I'll make myself a better banner. :-p

Happy holidays folks, and stay tuned for a little Sunday Street Fighting!
(And remember to vote in the poll!)

The Fight: 3.5 The Story: 3.5

Holiday Specials tend to have a stigma for being sub-par stories, and while this one probably does little to change that trend, I can't help but take note of panels depicted here. Lightle's pencils fluctuate between the mediocre, to the graphically inspired, probably benefitting from Milgrom's finish. Be sure to soak in the delicious contrast of the blacks used in yellow/white panels above!