Superhero comics: What insane story/character developments do avid followers take for granted but would blow the minds of anyone only peripherally aware of them?

"Remember the bubble-gum chewing Jubilee clone from X-Force? Well..."

To be fair, Boom Boom was around well before Jubilee. Just sayin'.

I was gonna say, if anything Jubilee was Boom Boom + Kitty Pryde!

Oh yeah, right! I forgot.

First off, I wanna say it was really hard to figure out the exact words to search for to bring this thread back. Damn.

I haven't even read this, but apparently the Punisher had his head cut off by Wolverine's long lost son, then got brought back from the dead and is now some sort of undead Frankenpunisher on a superhero monster team with Morbius, Man-Thing and Werewolf by Night.

Someone tell me they've read this!

I have. Frank Castle is as confused about it as you are.

It's got to be less perplexing than that time he turned himself black

Where did that happen?

In the "I am murderous, black" storyline.

okay I might read about zombie Frankenstein Punisher

I haven't enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. Figure it's just a way to eventually rejuvenate Frank Castle by giving him a new body -- a Vietnam vet would be way too old to go around committing slaughter in 2010. Or have they already explained that one away? Did he get a dunk in the same stuff that makes Nick Fury never age?

have we mentioned Psylocke (i.e. Betty Braddock, Captain Britain's sister) being kidnapped and turned from an English woman with mild pscyhic powers into an Asian martial artist?

no one mentions Psylocke due to the risk of yr head exploding Scanners-style as you attempt to explain her entire back story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psylocke#Fictional_character_biography

I mean, large chunks of this oscillate wildly between "o_O" and "O RLY?"

Looking at that - makes a little sense, at least US-wise, since she only appeared for three years here (ten years after her first UK appearance!) before the bizarre ninja transformation, so that original poofy haired incarnation didn't have time to set too long in our minds. But it was still pretty damn weird.

all this punisher stuff has to be ennis, right?

No, the Frankencastle thing is Rick Remender.

Where did that happen?

in "The Punisher," a comic book about the comic book character The Punisher

all this punisher stuff has to be ennis, right?

nah, apart from him having been gone for a couple of years before Frankencastle, the I Am Punisher (Black) thing was early-90s. Make sure to read the alt-text.

oh i how i loled.

jeeeeeezus

don't they explain the Punisher's age (or lack thereof) the same way they do Iron Man's, by pushing the war onvolved forward? At least in the main Marvel timeline; pretty sure Ennis's Max stuff kept it as Vietnam and made Frank appropriately crotchety.

Cold lampin'!

not a comic book dude, didn't read the whole thread, and a whole lot i read was inside baseball to me, but my mind was still blown several times, good werk.

Nightwing being the son of Zod blows my mind. I didn't know the name had an origin in the Superman comics at all.

The one from a few years ago that is pretty high on the yuck factor is the idea that Gwen Stacy, Spider-man's girlfriend who died in a battle with the Green Goblin in the early 70s in a recent story had that re-written that Gwen was sleeping with the Green Goblin and had had twins by him and that Mary Jane knew about it the whole time. That has to be one of the bigger WTF things I have come across since starting to read these things a few years ago. I guess it was all just a precursor to the idea that Spider-man would make a deal with the devil (or Mephisto--hope you remember my name) to get his secret identity back and save Aunt May.

All I can say is if you love Spider-man comics, in some ways you are just better off not knowing what has been going on the last 20 years or so. I don't even really want to know what that whole clone thing was about, it seems too weird.

Oh yeah, Catwoman had a kid, but not with Batman.

Gwen was sleeping with the Green Goblin and had had twins by him and that Mary Jane knew about it the whole time.

That's just gross.

Yeah, that was exactly when the JMS run went sour. Such a shame, because before that it was pretty good.

http://i45.tinypic.com/jgtkj5.jpg

damn, i'm glad i don't follow canon anymore

from Rob Liefeld thread:
"The link says it's Kaare Andrews. I think he's the guy who wrote and drew that weird Spider-Man dystopia story, where Mary Jane was killed by Spider-Man's radioactive sperm.
.
what
.
yes, it happened"

Definitely NOT taken for granted; it was not in continuity, and all the comics fans I know were all WTF? when it happened. Thankfully ignored/forgotten for the most part, unless you want to elicit groans and or laughter.

oh! apologies all around!

Don't apologize - it is always good to mention that it was an actual, sanctioned, Marvel product that involved Spider-Man having RADIOACTIVE SPLOOGE. Someone, somewhere, thought that this was an idea worth sharing with the buying public.

Seriously, it was awful. Making a Dark Knight Returns-inspired geriatric Spider-Man story was already a bad idea, but that particular bit was the worst of it.

Now I kinda want to read it. :-/

Isn't that the way it is though...

This was mentioned in another thread, but it really needs to be included here too.

http://www.savagecritic.com/brian/i-have-read-the-worst-comic-i-have-ever-read/

And, of course, Superman is about to walk across America in order to draw attention to the plight of the family farmer.

Race. To. The. Bottom.

Rulk turned out to be General Ross btw.

waht

And She-Rulk is the alive again Betty Ross.

Why the hell are you reading the Loeb HULK to begin with?

I read the first two issues (utter trainwreck), then have been reading discussions of it on other boards. Sadly, it's currently crossing over with real Hulk in this Fall of Hulks/World War Hulks fiasco, so I kind of have to be aware of it to understand the story.

Shameful admission: Ed McGuinness is the perfect artist for that book. And his stuff looks soooo good in b/w before it gets the candy-color treatment.

And I read the first issue off the Marvel Comics digital store 'cause it was free. I can't imagine following that mess.

How did World War Hulks turn out? I tried to read some of it, but the issues of it I did were nothing but Hulk foe history to get you up to speed on the story that you were supposed to be reading.

I cut it loose when Herc died, but for some reason the LCS put the reveal week in my slot.

Just read the Fall of the Hulks prelude trade. The artist on the last issue in the collection, where She-Rulk stabs Rulk with the sais, gave me bad '90s flashbacks. Ugh.

I think Marvel has plotted itself into a corner with all this Green Hulks-Red Hulks crap. It's horrible. The characters are too powerful to interact with the rest of the M.U. On the other hand, I agree that McGuinness' stuff looks good.

What in the name of sweet fuck is a Rulk?

For some reason (read: he's an idiot), Jeph Loeb decided to come up with a new way to say Red Hulk.

Sadly, though they introduced the Rulk and She-Rulk, they didn't do Roc Ramson. Missed opportunity.

Man, almost forgot they made Rick Jones into the new Abomination, called A-Bomb.

Loeb hurts my brain.

Ruh roh.