[Caffeine Note: Friend of the Brothers Omega Budrickton is a scholar, gentleman, and frequenter of conventions. He wanted a venue to share his thoughts and but of course we obliged. Hug him and give him a mug of your freshest mead.]

The young nerd’s life is often an unforgiving enterprise. Their trading-card-trading, Pokémon-playing, perpetually chunky and uncoordinated elementary years are just the beginning of a number of roads, many of which run off the edge of a cliff, socially speaking.

These rocky starts for my brethren are usually followed up with a high school life of true class; basement-dwelling, Han-shot-first, ‘virgin-forever’ years function as a training ground for learning how to work an innate and exuberant nerdiness into daily life, and possibly, actually interact with ordinary people!

There’s hope in these years; nerds either abandon their ways in pursuit of socializing, underage drinking, and the holy grail:  losing your virginity before age 18. Or, they go full throttle, and become what they were always destined to be at the place where all nerds unite:

The Con.

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You know the story. Marvel killed off Peter Parker, and replaced him with a half-Latino, half-Black character named Miles Morales. Divisive as fuck. Forced some claim, excellent others exclaim. This week the first issue dropped with him in it, and the question quickly shifted to: is this fucking comic good?

The answer for me? Absolutely.

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[face of a franchise presents two individuals that’ve fulfilled the same role. your task — choose the better of the two and defend your choice in the rancor pit that is the comments section]

Since his debut in 1964, comics fans (especially those that love to exclaim Make mine Marvel, muthafuckah!!!) have been wowie-zowied by the antics of Daredevi, the man without fear! Despite hitting the scene in a costume ridiculous even by comics standards, Daredevil won over fans by   beating all sorts of criminal ass at night while maintaining a successful law practice during the day as Matt Murdock.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Also, the guy’s blind. Which makes his feats even more spectacular. I mean, Ray Charles was cool as hell, but I don’t think he’d handle a trampoline half as well as Murdock.

Also tack on the fact that bad-ass writers seem to gravitate towards Daredevil (historically – Frank Miller/recently – Ed Brubaker), and it’s clear why the character is afforded such genuine respect. The mouthbreathin’, anti-social panel-worshippers that I count myself amongst fucking love Daredevil.

Fortunately, the admiration for this Marvel Knight has been truly honored by the two men fearless enough to portray him in live-action.

If for no other reason, 1989 was a wonderful year because it saw the release of The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, a made-for-TV movie continuing the adventure that began in The Incredible Hulk series. Of course, any time that a Marvel character goes on trial, there’s only one man to turn to for help: Attorney Matt Murdock! The hero of Hell’s Kitchen was portrayed by Rex Smith, the only man brave enough to ride the Street Hawk! Although relegated to a supporting role, Smith’s interpretation of Daredevil as a ninjutsu-lookin’ legally-blind lawyer that helps a green gargantuan is simply chilling.

Whereas Rex Smith’s Daredevil is a one-round knockout, Ben Affleck’s portrayal is a twelve-round slugfest. After blowing away audiences with Reindeer Games, Affleck was given his second once-in-a-lifetime role in 2003’s Daredevil. In this dark vision of the Daredevil mythos, Matt Murdock not only has to fight Bullseye, but the entire Green Mile as well! Proving himself to be a world-class thespian, Affleck navigated his way through playground battles with Elektra, Irish guys with facial scars, and a soundtrack that includes both Nickelback and Hoobastank.

A miracle performance. Nothing less.

So who do you think is the superior Daredevil? The dude from the TV-movie that no one remembers or the dude from the movie no one likes?

Rex Smith or Ben Affleck?

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Pretty funny video out of the Marvel camp. Wolverine has himself some brain dysfunction, but in this skit he uses it to his advantage. Drankin’. Jean Grey slammin’. Stabbin’. I laughed at this. Felt guilty doing it. But I did.

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I’ve been rather  vociferous  in my support for Miles Morales. I had an idea that just the hype (whether you liked the concept or saw it as shoe-horning) would push sales of Ultimate Spider-Man #1. I didn’t anticipate this sort of deluge.

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Marvel has revealed ‘The Mighty’ in advance of  Fear Itself  #7. I’m struggling to figure out how this isn’t a complete rip-off  of Blackest Night.

Hit the jump to see for yourself.

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I don’t want Jeph Loeb writing anything  anymore. I know it sounds disrespectful, but I dread his work. A decade ago I would have swooned at the idea that he’s writing a Cable/Avengers crossover, now I’m just interested in a car crash sort of manner. Cable! He died. Somehow. Cable! He’s back. And he is looking as ludicrous on this side of Liefeld as you could imagine. Just look at the promo. Look at that gun. It’s enormous, and more importantly even disregarding its size it looks dumb. Man I’m cranky and hating.

So what’s the event about?

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David Tran has redesigned the X-Men uniforms, and the dude is talented like a beast. The outfits riff off of the gorgeous Frank Quitely redesigns that happened, what, ten years ago? Great. Much more fun than the Jim Lee redesigns. Though I mean, Tran! Where is the chitin armor? Jesus! And protective neckwear. C’mon!

Hit the jump to check them out.

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The grinding in the temples reminds me that I’ve only slept for three hours in the past forty-eight. The pain in the clenched jaw. Life! Gets busy. How the fuck you doing? This is Variant Covers the column where we dance the dance of funny books, speech balloons, splash pages. And the et cetera. We tell the tale of what we’re buying this week. Quickly! We must do this quickly. The sleep approaches, but as per usual. There’s wood to chop. Always wood to chop.

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Marvel is beginning to excel at using awful, awful teasers to hype up events coming down the pipe. For every dope line of Fantastic Four #600 teasers, there’s putrid ones like this. No seriously, whose kid are they letting intern in the graphic design department?

Hit the jump to check it out.

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