Bread and Circuses
Quick post today to remind everyone that BIRDS OF PREY #21 and IT’S JEFF: JEFF WEEK are out today. And ALSO to allow us to wrap up the X-MEN: WAR finale, which in a bold and possibly reckless last minute decision, I have decided to leave open to ALL readers. Typically only paid subscribers can vote, but this one is gonna be a free for all.
First up though, new BIRDS OF PREY this week by me, Sami Basri, Vincente Cifuentes, Adriano Lucas, and Clayton Cowles. Here’s one of my favorite moments from that issue to tempt you, Oracle being her badass Oracle self:
Also, if you’re a secret (or not so secret?) INQUE fan from BATMAN BEYOND, you’re gonna want to be reading BIRDS OF PREY for a bit. ;D
Also out today is the THIRD collection of my boy Jeff’s webcomic — this one includes everything from “Season 3” of the webcomic IT’S JEFF as well as the 5 “Jeff Week” shorts written and drawn by Gustavo Duarte. It’s about $6 and it looks like this if you’re searching for it in your shop (by Gurihiru) :
Also on the docket today. The FINAL FINAL of X-MEN: WAR. You can read about the OG game here and the beginnings of this current game, here.
We have slowly whittled this battle down from some 54 characters in 27 original matches, all the way down to these final two. Who takes all in the X-Men War final!?!
THE FINAL: JEAN GREY v STORM
There’s no way this isn’t a crazy tight fight that could go either way on any day. As most any final battle with this many powerful characters would be. I think with power levels this high and experience this intense (and balanced?) a lot of it comes down to just who you think has the stones… which in this case also feels particularly close? Like these women have been THROUGH IT.
So maybe it just comes down to who you like more? Who you WANT to win? I dunno what the right answer is, I just know my personal answer is Storm.
We must each look inside ourselves and find our own answer. (Dramatic!)
Thanks for playing, guys. It was nice bit of fun. I sometimes wrestle internally with creating things that are distractions from, well… *gestures at everything* because we really DO need to be paying attention and getting involved in serious ways (and it’s so serious now in part because most of us have been shirking that duty a bit). But we all also need a break from time to time — to be kind to ourselves, to engage our brains in a different way, to remind ourselves of all the simple stupid pleasures that we’re actually fighting for, and for all the reasons I can’t even think of — and so if I can provide even some of that outlet, that feels good. And I think I can feel okay about that.
Take care of each other, build community. <3
Kelly
thanks again for running this! it’s been a lot of fun. i went with storm because i figured this will happen at the speed of thought. jean tries to take control of storm’s mind but can’t do it immediately due to her training to resist psychic attacks. storm calls down a lightning bolt during the attack. jean dies. while jean could certainly attempt other attacks such as using telekinesis, none are faster than lightning. now if we were talking phoenix rather than jean, i might have a different answer. also, i just like storm more (she’s been one of my favs since the 70s), so that gets factored in ;-)
I voted for Storm because she has a great regular name and a great code name.
“Nice to meet you, Jean Grey. You’re a X-Man, huh? Wow, that’s so exciting. What’s your superhero name?”
“Jean Grey.”
“Oh. Um. Cool.”
Also, thanks for doing this. Particularly now with *gestures at everything*. It truly is a nice break from the sorry state of things and a way to have fun, recharge, then get back into doing whatever we can.