PRESS RELEASE: RUBY TUESDAY TAKES A.I.M.

(Tuesday March 24, 2009) Ruby Tuesday, a US-based restaurant chain, has signed a new marketing agreement with Marvel Super-Villain, Ruby Thursday. The promotion - Tuesday Through Thursday - aimed at expanding the franchise's clientele will include half price apps and bottomless basket chili-cheese fries. Doctors will be on site.

The promotion is the first of many Ruby Tuesday plans to cater to the Super-Villain crowd. "They don't even have to be super. Money's money, right?" said Eli Justice, Ruby Tuesday's CFO.

In line with the deal, Ruby Thursday plans to cut the ribbon at the opening of the new Ruby Tuesday in Branson, Missouri this, wait for it, Thursday.

Mark Ivor, president of Global PartnerShips, who directs Ruby Tuesday's franchise marketing initiatives around the world, said: "We are extremely proud to welcome Ruby Thursday to the Ruby Tuesday family. This sort of synergy doesn't come along often. Miss Rubinstein is a breath of fresh air. She's got a great head on her shoulders."

CIVIL WAR #5: COMING TO HIS (SPIDER) SENSES

[A stream of consciousness live-blog]

Punisher is doing bad things. Hey, did his movie even come out in the theaters? Me love Ray Stevenson long time. Oh, Titus... Rome, damn that show was violent, but I miss it.

Okay, opensies...

Sue does not look well. I hope Johnny's given Reed the finger too.

Stupid SHIELD. Seriously, they make me crazazy. So disrespectful. You catch these clowns yet? We're talking half the FF here! Clowns? Oh, I'd like to give that Tom Skerritt circa Top Gun wannabe a kick in the brass.

Nighthawk, I'm still cranked at you for what you said in the alley a few issues ago. We never forget! Who the heck is Stature? Stature? Seriously?

Tony's late. Maybe he fell and hit his head and came to his frakkin' senses.

Oh, no senses coming to.

You tell him Petey!

Btw, if I were one of the heroes who was gonna be carted off to the negative zone, I'd register. I'd get all my friends to register. I'd convince all of the heroes who were in the NZ to register. I'd do everything Tony wanted and then I'd form an army and kick Tony Stark's ass.

Ooo, Tony has the Marvel Crazy Eyes.

I am sooooooooooooo relieved Peter saw the light and is gettin' out, or at least tryin' to.

I'm beginning to think SHIELD is messing things up on purpose. I mean no one is that Barney Fifey all the time.

I still CANNOT believe they are going to use these baddies to hunt down supers.

Spidey better take off that new suit. I'm sure it's bugged, tracked and god knows what else.

I wish some of these Spidey Sewer fight panels were bigger. I needs my bombast.

Wow, a Gwendy reference. I wonder what's up with that. *sniff* Stupid MJ.

Pumpkin pie!

Was that a sword or some kind of ray thingy?

Yikes. Skull face guy is Donatella Versace scary.

Mr. & Mrs. Landau. Couldn't find brother and sister identies? Come on. It is creepy. Now, if it were Pietro and Wanda... I miss crazy Wanda and her shifty brother. God, I love how naive and wonderful the Avengers were when they joined. Pietro put on his best ski sweater and wrote them a letter. A letter! And Thor wasn't a clone, and Cap was slightly crazy wtih his Zemo/Bucky obsession, Hawkeye shot off arrows and his big mouth, but you could count on him, Hank was only a little crazy, Jan wasn't used to being abused, and Tony was a hero. Dang, I miss those Avengers. I know they were goofy, but they were earnest and they loved each other and I loved them. They would never pull this crap on each other. Sometimes making characters three dimensional sucks.

Poor Cap. He's still in tatters... Love and hope and sex and dreams...Are still surviving on the street...Look at me, Im in tatters!

Hulking. I will never get used to that.

Titus Pullo saved Spidey, who also looks not so of the good. Man, this Civil War stuff is brutal.

What a strange panel with Cap screaming for the medic chicks.

Linda? Is that the Night Nurse? I'm gonna have to reread The Oath. God, I loved that. Was one of my first Doctor Strange stories. I'd read a few early Defenders and Michael recommended the Oath... ten kinds of fabulous. *sigh* I think I'll bring Doc a scone this time and surprise him.

Ultra Girl? Oy. It's official, they've run out of names.

Oh, Tigra is texting or tweeting or doing something blackberry bad. Ah, she's calling Tony.

...Big final battle planned with all those lunatic thunderbolts. - Yeah, that's gonna go off without a hitch. Come on, Reed. Rub those braincells together. Write an algorithm to calculate how incredibly stupid that plan really is.

I've got to believe DD was caught on purpose and is going in to break out the supes! Maybe the guards are part of Cap's team. They've got to make a move soon!

Oh, burn. Good one, DD!

Tony's Initiative scares me even more than all this build up. It sounds so organized. *shiver*

That's it for this ish!

COLORFORMS 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Heeee lookey. This is what is left of the Spider-Man colorforms set I had as a kid. You will note that there are THREE, counts'em, three, pairs of yellow slacks for the Generic Robber. Yes they were called slacks back then. And shirts were called torso-mittens.

I love the backdrop. It looks like any street corner in any big city, after four tabs of acid. That's Spidey slapped on there from the exact position I left him in back in '74. The Girl is unidentified but I like to think she is Gwen. I have mentally pasted a headband and go-go boots on her.

The box is cool, huh? That particular Spidey image was slapped on everything from Tricky Trapezes to condoms back then.

I wish I had all the colorforms for this set, and I also wish I had encased it in concrete, because I would get like seventy-seven thousand dollars for it on Ebay from someone who calls himself sexywebslinger217.

1974 WAS AWESOME

In 1974, when I was nine, my Mom bought me some frikkin' AAAAAAWESOME Marvel stickers. Spidey. Cap. Thor. The Falcon - pre-wings!

My mom, bless her heart, assumed I would stick them on my schoolbooks or the chest that held my comics. I promptly stuck them all over a kitchen cabinet, much to her dismay. Italian families don't believe in decals. I believe the Pope decreed them to be unclean and a gateway to homosexuality and the drugs.

Anyhoo, thirty-five years later, that cabinet is still in my childhood home, in the basement, where old furniture and paint cans go to die. I took some pictures because after all this time, the stickers have not aged a day. I think it has something to do with John Romita's artwork. That man channelled the gods. Those drawings still radiate life and energy. If I was an old kitchen cabinet, I would be honored to have these stuck all over me.

"IN SEARCH OF" HOSTED BY A PICTURE OF LEONARD NIMOY

Tonight we explore the mystery of Oreo Cakesters.

They are not cake. They are not cookie. More like co-akie, whatever that might actually be.

Oreo Cakesters can be traced back to ancient Babylon. Unearthed friezes and statues tell the fragmented tale of Orayo, hermaphrodite bastard son/daughter of Queen Semiramis, who reigned over his own hidden shadow kingdom in an effort to avenge himself upon his mother for his bi-sexed physical makeup. Condemned to a life of being neither fish nor fowl, Orayo's shadow court of alchemists and sorcerers dedicated their black arts to combining dark chemicals and foodstuffs until they were unrecognizable as food of any kind. Such combinations would confound the masses to the point where their search for answers would lead them to insanity, a life of quiet desperation, or directly to the ancient black arts responsible, thus increasing recruitment and providing the master sorcerers with the psychic energy needed to continue their enchantments.

Join us next week when we explore why hot women always fall for assholes.

NEW AVENGERS #24: MELAMINE, NOW AVAILABLE IN COMICS

[A stream of consciousness live-blog]

Sidd "Sentry" Hartha

Zen and the Art of Retcon

Even though it's an audacious marketing ploy, I love the idea of the Sentry.

It really bugs me that the Inhumans are so darn uppity.

Why are T'Challa and Storm the ONLY ONES trying to put an end to it all? Makes me nutty. Don't even get me started about Doc. Again.

Maybe this issue will explain it to me. And maybe AIG will give back all that money.

Did Bob eat some peyote? Did I eat some peyote?

Maybe it's the mists? Maybe it's that Arby's Beef & Cheddar I left in my car all afternoon then ate anyway.

Maybe the Inhumans are just dillweeds.

Impurities? Ugh. Now they sound like Nazis. I don't understand it. I've really liked Blackbolt in the bits I've read. I know Crystal was ok, even though she blew off Johnny for Pietro. But, really, I don't know anything about them. And what I'm seeing here. Not liking. Not heroic. Not Scandinavian. Just icky.

Bob is polite. See, now, Bob, I like.

Ok, we get another recap. *sigh*

The art is lovely, but... let's pick up the pace here, people.

Oh, Crystal gets around. She's not Black Widow, but...

Isn't Bob married?

Ah-ha! Lindy! See.

Ugh. Iron Man. I used to be so excited to see him. Almost the same thrill as Cap. And now, my stomach just sinks. I know I'm going to get a fistful of rationalization and ego-cententric moralizing. I'm sure it's different when you have to wait weeks between issues. When you read them so quickly, like I'm doing, damn it's the same notes over and over like a Miley Cyrus song.

Ohhhh, killing Cap. I admit that I know Cap dies. Don't know any details, but the fact that he is no mas is kinda hard to miss. I'm absolutely dreading getting to that. I can't quite believe it and part of me hopes I'm just wrong and that it's all an elaborate hoax to fool lil ol me.

The reflection of Bob in IM's armor is creeeeeepy.

His righteousness is sooooo tiresome. I would consider myself an Iron Man fan. Granted, I've only read a small percentage of the issues, but they're just killing this character for me. I've lost all traces of the hero I adored. Where is the man? He's just some rhetoric spewing automaton now. Maybe he's a clone gone wrong like Thor or a skrull or part of my regretful trip to Arbys.

I know. I'm so impatient. And, I guess they can have fun redeeming Tony at some point, but the waiting will kill me. It's not that I want him to be perfect. I want them all to be flawed, it's far more interesting, but this is beyond flawed, it's a different, to me, character completely. I barely recognize him. If here weren't in the armor, I wouldn't. I hope they have a few humanizing issues with him. He's got to be sooooo tormented, but they're not showing me. Dagnabbit, show me!

Hmmm, maybe the Inhuman uppitiness will be useful here.

Or not.

I hope Bob goes back to earth and kicks Tony in the repulsor ray and heads off to fight with Cap.

That was a gyp. Truly, that was a scene from a book not a whole book. That's two "filler" issues in a row. I blame China.

I hope they get back to making hay again soon.

THE DVD BOX FOR "THE PUNISHER: WAR ZONE" REVIEWS "THE PUNISHER: WAR ZONE"

Christ on a cracker, get this unholy thing out of me!!!

How many "Punisher" movies must DVD boxes endure? Didn't we just do this dance in like 2004 with Thomas Jane and John Travolta literally chewing the scenery? Didn't they also try to polish this turd in 1987 with Dolph Lundgren, the Teutonic Easter Island Statue from "Rocky IV"? "I must break you", indeed!

If you are going to stick a DVD inside me, buy me dinner first, and then talk a little dirty. I'll close my eyes and pretend it's chocolate.