378. Green Lantern

378. Green Lantern
I didn’t have time to ink this at all. Sorry. I’ve said it before, John Stewart is my 3rd favorite Lantern, behind Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner respectively. Hal Jordan, you’re damn near the bottom.

377. Static Shock

377. Static Shock
I never read any of the comics, but I did enjoy the cartoon quite a bit, and the couple cameos he made in the Justice League ‘toon.

I’ve seen some movies.

The Lego Movie was fantastic and I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t want to talk much about it because it should just be experienced. I will say it features my favorite movie Batman ever.

Her. To be reviewed on Gutter Trash soon.

Cropsey is a documentary about an alleged child killer from Staten Island, New York. It was just okay.

The Asphyx has a fascinating plot, but slow 70s & Hammer-style pacing kinda kills it. It’s about a man in Victorian England who discovers a creature that appears whenever a person nears death, and theorizes that if you can capture it, that person would be immortal. It’d be neat to see a remake.

376. Black Goliath

376. Black Goliath
Only thing I know about this character was that he was Hank Pym’s assistant, and was also once known as Giant Man, or just Goliath. Also that his costume is ridiculous and I love it, but there was one that was even more ridiculous than this. And finally, that he was killed when Thor’s clone blasted a hole in his chest during Civil War because M*rk M*ll*r definitely might probably be a racist, maybe.

The Salon

I wrote this last week and posted it on my other blog from Canada that you don’t know about and have never met.
***
I’m losing my neighbor today.

This is kind of a big deal.

One year ago, my mom had spinal surgery to replace a disc in her neck. It was getting to the point that she was in constant pain and could barely stand. For 40 years, she has been a hair stylist, and she had no intention of stopping. So she got the surgery, took 4 months off work and recovered.

Next week she will turn 68.

Today, she is opening her salon for the final time.

For 37 years she has been in this particular location. For a while in the late 70s, she had a second location but sold it after a few years. Probably had something to do with me? But she stayed at her main location and in turn had a client list that has remained loyal to her for the past 4 decades.

As a child, I was practically raised at that salon. I remember spending at least every Saturday there for a very long time. Her customers would buy me Christmas presents. Her landlord would take me to lunch. My very first “job” was helping my mom clean the shop.

I have paid for a haircut exactly once in my life. The only other time my mom closed the shop was back in 1996 when she shattered her wrist while on vacation in her home island of Puerto Rico. I was with her when it happened. She took a misstep on a sidewalk and went down, throwing her arms out to catch her fall. We were walking in Old San Juan to the fort, El Morro. We did not go the fort. I wrapped her arm in a wet rag and we took the shuttle back to our hotel. My dad was out golfing with my uncle. When they got back, he took my mom to a hospital in San Juan during some sort of parade, so they were gone something like 6 hours. Puerto Ricans are a very festive people. When we got back to Ohio, she discovered the extent of the damage to her wrist and needed immediate surgery and lived for 4 months or so with a giant contraption sticking out of her arm. Other than that and her neck surgery last year, she went to work every day, even while sick. But during that time in ‘96, I needed a haircut, so I went to a Supercuts or something like that. It was weird.

Even when those two breaks came, her customers all came back to her. Sure they went other places during those months, but they were eager for my mom to return to style their hair every week. I should say this, and it may sound mean, but the median age of my mom’s customers – even when I was a kid – was about 137 years old. Her customers are elderly, is what I’m saying. But they are loyal, even in death. More than a few of them have asked her – in the event of their passing – that my mom do their hair for their funerals.

And she has. Numerous times (she also has said, sometimes it’s better when they’re dead because they don’t move or talk or complain). Apparently, that is also a very well-paying job, hair stylist to the dead.

But she and my dad have decided that as she – and her customers – are getting older, it’s time to close the shop. Part of it is a liability thing. Her shop is upstairs, with no handicap access. More often than not, her customers use canes and walkers to get around. Just last year, she watched a customer fall over the handrails on her steps down to the parking lot below. Thankfully, she was unhurt, but still – it’s not a thing you want to see happen as a human being, let alone as a small business owner.

One time, my ex-girlfriend and I were going to visit her and saw a man crawling on the sidewalk, slowly. He had MS, but refused to use his cane, walker, or wheelchair. We asked if he wanted help, and he did. So my girlfriend and I lifted him to his feet and helped him up the stairs, where his wife was waiting in the shop.

But while the shop is closing, my mom is not retiring. In a stroke of luck that I hope I have when I inevitably look for a new job, my mom got an instant interview at the very first place she turned in a resumé, and a week later had a job offer. She will be the stylist at a senior community near her home. She pays no rent, sets her own hours and prices. She has decided that she will work two days a week. She starts next Thursday, but already residents have been trying to make appointments.

For 37 years she has owned and operated her shop from the same location. For my entire life, that shop has been a part of our family. I was practically raised there before I started going to school. I spent my weekends there until I was in the fourth grade or so. Even then, before I got a real job in high school, I’d go there on Sundays to clean. When I went to college, I would eat there during my lunchbreaks. And finally, when I moved out of my parent’s house I moved to the apartment next door to the shop, where I have lived for the past 14 years (the rent is cheap and the place is big).

So I’m losing my neighbor. More than that really. I am losing a significant part of my life. I spent a lot of time in that shop. Even as an adult, before Netflix, etc. I would go over there and watch TV (she had cable, and then eventually Direct TV) at night, I would bum cleaning supplies and snacks and things. I even once helped my girlfriend color her hair using the equipment in the shop. But also, it was just good knowing that on the other side of the wall was my mom, and anytime I wanted, I could just go over and say “hi”, get a hug when feeling down, borrow money when feeling broke, get a haircut when feeling like a dirty hippie (the past couple years, I’ve taken to shaving my head on occasion. She won’t do it, so I’d sneak over at night and do it myself using her tools).

I’ll still see my mom, of course. I go to the house at least once a week. But there’s a new emptiness now, knowing I’ll never see her car in her parking spot again, never having her customers reminisce about how little I was when I was a kid (I was never little, it’s a damn lie) and watching them all graciously thank her for making them feel beautiful for another week, providing conversation and friendship.

Goodbye, Olga’s Hair Boutique.

375. Angel

375. Angel
The second Angel, from Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men, played by Zoe Kravitz in X-Men: First Class, and one of the weakest parts of an otherwise excellent movie.

374. Night Thrasher

374. Night Thrasher
I dunno a thing about this character. Skateboard! 90s!

373. Cyborg

373. Cyborg
My list for this month is a little Marvel-heavy, so I’m trying to break it up with other characters when I can. Cyborg was a character I first “found” from the Super Powers cartoon back in my childhood. I always liked him, Firestorm too. Eventually I discovered Wolfman & Perez’s TEEN TITANS and continued to enjoy him as a character. The less said about Cyborg in the New 52 and as a member of The Justice League is for the best. I think you can guess which version I prefer.

DC Comics. Ruining everything since 2011.

372. Nick Fury, Jr.

372. Nick Fury, Jr.
This may be the one character I draw this month that I actively hate. Classic Nick Fury is awesome. Even Ultimate Nick Fury is awesome. Samuel L. Jackson as Movie Nick Fury is double plus awesome (I just listened to the 1984 audiobook). But holy crap is Nick Fury, Jr. a turd and a half.

1st of all, he is a character in a genre where space aliens are a thing, dudes get bitten by radioactive animals, or folks become gods via gamma radiation. I have a massive ability to suspend my disbelief, and for one second do I not buy the origin of Nick Fury, Jr. Classic Fury’s illegitimate son – Marcus Johnson – who, after discovering his heritage, gets the exact same wound as dear old Dad, shaves his head, grows a goatee and changes his name to Nick Fury, Jr. after, what? 30 years of the having a different name? All so that the 616 (original flavor) Marvel Universe can have a Nick Fury that matches the wildly popular movie version?

Ugh.

Listen, I totally get why Marvel wants a Sam Jackson-y Fury playing around in the comic neighborhood. Absolutely I do. Holy shit, though. The hoops that they had to go through to be able to reach the sloppy level of corporate synergy to get there is fucking horrendous.

Hell, bring Ult. Fury to the regular universe. Have him team up with Classic Fury, Classic sacrifices himself to save Ultimate, and unfortunately in the process destroys the way back home for Ultimate who is now stuck in 616. OR, clone Ult. Fury and have his doppleganger travel to 616. The possibilities were endless!

Yay corporations.

371. Michonne

371. Michonne
If I had any foresight, I would have saved Black Panther for today’s entry. 20 years ago today, we lost Jack “King” Kirby, creator of B.P. (originally Coal Tiger). But I didn’t, so I decided to go against type and put up my one non-superhero entry for this month, Michonne from The Walking Dead. I’ve given up completely on the show. Not that I think it’s bad, I just… lost interest. I’m certainly keeping up with the comic in Trade Paperback format. I still enjoy it. And of course, Michonne is awesome in both versions (I will admit this: there’s a scene in the third season where Rick – after Lori dies [spoiler]- goes nuts and clears out an entire wing of the prison full of zombies with nothing but a hatchet. Basically, the one defining moment of the comic that Tyrese had – before Tyrese had even been introduced into the show. It kind of pissed me off that TV Rick “stole” that one badass moment. It may have influenced my decision to not watch the show anymore).

370. Chapel

370. Chapel
So I made this list of black superheroes with help from my friend Jason. When we were brainstorming characters, he kept asking who the guy from Youngblood was. Jason is – shockingly – a huge Rob Liefeld fan. I kept saying “Chapel”. He kept saying “no, the other guy”, as if he was dismissing Chapel altogether, the most Rob Liefeld-y Rob Liefeld character ever. The only thing that would make him more Rob Liefeld-y would be if he was old and white. I was honestly stunned that he kept disregarding Chapel – the first character to be featured in a key crossover role amongst the original Image Comics. The character that basically “created” Spawn! And then the pouches and the guns! What is wrong with you, Jason?!

So anyway, here’s Chapel.