dewline | Entries tagged with comic book trivia

Okay, so I'm re-reading The Marvels now that I have an uninterrupted run of the first four issues. One of the key characters so far is Aero. Real name is Lei Ling, she's based out of Shanghai, and she's an architect in her "regular" job. Specifically created as part of a joint project between Marvel and NetEase, a Chinese tech firm. Some sort of co-op project that was meant to further support Marvel's efforts to get their comics works into mainland Chinese markets.

Does anyone know if architects in mainland China have to have Party cards - or be otherwise ideologically "certified" - in order to work these days? I'm curious about that detail.

Also, I suspect that Aero's involvement with the current incarnation of the Agents of Atlas might see changes, depending on geopolitical considerations.

(Looks at the un-person status now bestowed by the Xi regime upon Grace Zhao, director of the Eternals movie, as well as the reaction to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as symptoms of troubles for distribution of Marvel movies...)

Current Mood: curious

My big question for the night, and I blame the news about the real-universe exoplanets found orbiting 40 Eridani A and Pi Mensae today for asking it anew: which five galaxies does Ta-Nehisi Coates have in mind as being home to the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda?

Since they've gotten into a fight once with the Shi'ar Imperium, I suspect that which galaxy (singular?) the Shi'ar call home might be the key to the answer...

Current Mood: nerdy

Bob Ingersoll had a few things to say about a specific issue of Jane Foster-era Thor a year ago.

It involved SHIELD agents getting a search warrant to investigate connections between Jane Foster and Thor...which was interesting in one respect since she was appointed by the hammer Mjolnir as the Goddess of Thunder at the time, dealing with a prolonged stage three-to-four fight with cancer, and serving as Earth's representative at the Congress of Worlds as convened by Asgardia.

Specifically, the incarnation of SHIELD that started at the end of Secret Warriors v.1, and before they got dismantled yet again as a consequence of not catching "Captain HYDRA" building his Secret Empire right under everyone's nose. So...could SHIELD get a search warrant for anywhere Jane Foster was calling home, inside and outside US territory?

We've got a few issues. Per the ending of Secret Warriors v.1 and the bulk of Secret Avengers v.2, SHIELD is still supposedly a United Nations-affiliated organization at this point, barring the opinions of certain American politicians of various affiliations. They could refer to either the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, depending on the needs of the situation and the interest level of signatory nations. Not being conversant in international law - either the real-worlds variant or the Marvel Comics Multiverse kind - I hesitate to suggest ways and means. We need nerds who are conversant in such things.

SHIELD's jurisdiction to search in Asgardia is definitely problematic at best. Asgardia was not a signatory to any of the treaties that might be useful to SHIELD here, as far as I know. At least not yet. But the Asgardian authorities might have to decided to play along to get Jane out of their hair one way or another given the politics of that particular moment.

Sorry it took me so long to notice this...

Current Mood: nerdy

Marvel Comics locates the Kree Empire - you've been seeing some of their people in Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of SHIELD, and soon in Captain Marvel - in the Greater Magellanic Cloud.

Turns out that Cloud spins like our own Milky Way does.

Current Mood: busy

Maybe this is something for Law and the Multiverse, the Legal Geeks and/or Bob Ingersoll. Or their Canadian counterparts, if such are willing to step up.

Is Laura "X-23" Kinney, the current Wolverine, legally entitled to Canadian citizenship?

Right, so I finally watched that episode. And enjoyed it.

( Some thoughts about the state of SHIELD... )

That's it.

Current Mood: nerdy

I keep thinking there's been a rough map marking out territories held by whom within the Marvel version of our galaxy. That it was published in a book written by Jonathan Hickman, and that it was relatively recent. Within, say, the last five years.

Google Image Search avails me naught.

Anyone? Am I misremembering this?

Current Mood: curious

This is a thing I've decided to start doing for fun.

Angela Chang is in charge of SHIELD AI surveillance/reaction division as of Avengers AI # 1.

Alison "Dazzler" Blaire is on the payroll and part of the task force chasing down Scott Summers' X-faction as of Uncanny X-Men (current series) # 8.

Maria Hill's still bouncing all over the landscape, from Secret Avengers to Indestructible Hulk to Uncanny X-Men.

We have a couple of new Helicarriers, Hercules and Constellation (both sister ships with Constellation as the class namesake), to put next to the Iliad. Thank Paul Cornell over on Wolverine.

Additional note: Hercules is designed to be submersible, so I guess that the Chinese government wasn't willing to hand over the sub-carrier Leviathan on a long-term basis to SHIELD after that business of sending the Hulk after Attuma. And SHIELD likely wasn't counting on such a donation to begin with, either, given lead times on shipbuilding processes.

What am I missing?

Current Mood: nerdy

It's possible that I should leave this to

lawmultiverse to deal with in their own time. But Jonathan Hickman wrote this one up to be set in a city I called home for about twelve years before moving to Ottawa.

( Spoilers after the cut )

More as it occurs to anyone interested and reading this.

Current Mood: nerdy

Something caught my attention in the latest issue of JSA All-Stars. It's something that, if not ret-conned, could provide useful plot fodder for editors and writers across the DC Universe line of comics for years to come. I'd like to share it with you, provided you're willing to allow for a bit of spoiler info...

( Spoilers, theories and maps under the cut... )

Current Mood: nerdy

...since it addresses the homeworld of Justice Leaguer and Legionnaire Mon-El and GL Corpsman Sodam Yat alike, Daxam. So possibly, I need an avatar that incorporates both insignia.

Anyway.

My understanding was that Daxam was in our own Galaxy and therefore in the jurisdiction of GLC Sector 2814. The latest issue of GL: Emerald Warriors is putting Daxam in some other GLC Sector. ~~I can't recall the exact sector number at the moment~~ Turns out to be Sector 1760....which would seem to render Daxam extragalactic.

Anyone have any clue what happened between the Legion and GL offices on this one?

Current Mood: curious

You may recall that since Secret Invasion, the Marvel-616 version of the USA has been going it alone, forcing the breakup of SHIELD and creating its own wholly-owned version of that venerable cloak-and-laser outfit called HAMMER, led by Norman "Uniroyal Head" Osborn. Up to now, Marvel's had no answer to the question of "what does the HAMMER acronym stand for?"

I may have an answer, recently cobbled together by imagination...

Homeland Agency for Metahuman Management and Emergency Response

Marvel is, of course, free to use or ignore this as they wish. HAMMER's their trademark, after all, as SHIELD also is.

What do you think, though? While we're waiting for their press release...?

Some of you may recall my post on SHIELD back in September, explaining why I think it a fun concept to set up heroes and stories around.

I still do. In that vein, I spotted a bit of techno-financial trivia that got my attention about their signature capital ships, the Helicarriers.

( Read more... )