George Pérez has died. This one hurts a lot.

George Pérez was my favorite comic book artist. I think he was the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). If not the G.O.A.T., then he's certainly in the team photo. Anyone who knows the industry knows this as a fact.

He retired from the industry in January 2019 due to various health related issues. I got to know him back in the day as he worked with Marv Wolfman to create an epic run of the Teen Titans. Then he worked with Marv again on the fiftieth issue to reboot Wonder Girl with a five-part series Who is Wonder Girl? This is how we got Troia out of Donna Troi.

He also rebooted Wonder Woman. His run on that was epic too and it really cemented the things that I loved about the character. He drew for both Marvel and DC, he created Crisis on the Infinite Earths which is a kind of legendary storyline. He drew Jim Starlin's 1991 limited series Infinity Gauntlet.

Pérez's drawings were beautiful. There's no other way to describe them. Plus they featured anatomically correct people without being overtly sexual like so many of his contemporaries. And the man could draw hair wavy or curly without it looking like a caricature.

George Pérez has died. Oh man...this one hurts a lot. Screw you, 2022.

The dreaded Infinity Gauntlet Easter Egg planted in Thor: the Dark World explained

Art by George Perez (yes he's my favorite comic book artist).
The Infinity Gauntlet has already appeared very briefly in the
movie, Thor (the original).

Warning: Nerd Alert Ahead.

So if you (like much of the rest of the movie going world) went and saw Thor: The Dark World in all its fabulousness, then you probably stayed for the scenes Marvel always embeds at the end of the credits. One of these had Thor's Asgardian friends Sif and Volstagg step cautiously through a room filled with all kinds of interesting artifacts from around the galaxy. They are delivering a box emitting a faint red glow to a being known as "The Collector," who was first introduced in the comics in "Avengers #28" back in 1966.

"The Collector" is one of the Elders of the Universe. These are aptly named because to be an "Elder" you must be one of the oldest living creatures in existence. "The Collector" is also aptly named as he spends his time hoarding archives of various treasures. He has filled up ten entire planets that have been converted into museums just to house all of his belongings.

So what's in the box? Well it's the aether (which you see in full force in Thor: The Dark World).  Since Asgard is already watching over "The Tesseract" (the blue cosmic cube in The Avengers movie) they Asgardians have chosen to separate these two things because its dangerous keeping them so close together.

The aether is one of six infinity stones. Sometimes these "stones" are referred to as "gems," so I'm letting you know that to avoid confusion. Anyway, in the Marvel universe there are six of these stones, and they are pictured mounted on the gauntlet above, which is being warn by Thanos (a super bad-ass villain that wants to destroy half the life in the universe because he wants to gain the affections of Death). Each of the Infinity stones are able to control a different element of the universe: mind, soul, time, power, space, and reality. If you have all of them, you could rule over or destroy all life in existence. Oh the power rush!

In the above series, Thanos defeats many of the universe's most powerful entities. They include Galactus, the Stranger, Kronus, and Eternity. Thanos only really gets defeated because he starts being stupid.

Here is what each of the stones can do in the comics:

1) Soul. Green in color, this one allows the user to steal, control, manipulate and alter souls. It is sentient and has a hunger for souls. It is the gateway to an idyllic pocket universe. This one is owned by Dr. Strange so we can expect it to appear in a Dr. Strange movie!

2) Time. Orange in color, this one allows the user total control over the past, present and future. The one wielding it can time travel, can age and youthen beings, and it can trap enemies or entire universes in a permanent loop of time (think Groundhog Day for everyone). It also grants omniscience.

3) Space. Purple in color, this stone allows the user to exist in any or all locations, move any object anywhere throughout reality and warp or rearrange space. It grants omnipresence.

4) Mind. Blue in color, this stone allows the user to greatly strengthen and enhance mental and psionic power and access the thoughts and dreams of other beings. Backed by the "power gem," the mind stone can access all minds in existence simultaneously.

5) Reality. Yellow in color, this stone allows the user to fulfill wishes, even if the wish is in direct contradiction to scientific laws.

6) Power. Red in color, the power jewel accesses all power and energy that ever has or ever will exist. It can boost the other gems' effects, and allows the user to duplicate almost any physical superhuman ability and grants omnipotence.

So there you have it: the dreaded Infinity Gauntlet Easter Egg planted in Thor: the Dark World explained. I know I just made your day now, didn't I?

The Incredible George Perez

When I was a teenager, I started collecting comic books. One time in Moscow, Idaho in the late eighties, I walked into this  place called Safari Pearl. The lady that owned the comic book shop started to talk to me about George Perez. Up until this time, I mistakenly thought that all comic books were essentially created equal. Boy was I wrong.

The Incredible George Perez.
I bow to your greatness good sir.

There were actual artists behind these pulpy magazines. And what she pointed out about George Perez was absolutely correct. The guy was a modern day Michaelangelo, and he became my favorite comic book artist of all time. That has never changed even though there are many great comic book artists like Alex Ross and Todd McFarlane. I think George Perez brings a level of detail and dedication to any project that he does that is so good, it sets the bar for my enjoyment of a comic book.

So, with comic book movies being all the rage this summer (talked about on P.T. Dilloway's blog and many others), with "The Dark Knight Rises" destroying the box office that was left in tatters by "The Avengers" and with talk of Joseph Gordon Levitt possibly being cast as Nightwing for his own series (a classic Perez character), I wanted to tell you a little about the great George Perez because he's still alive. He's getting old, and I honestly don't know how much longer he'll be around. I have a goal to meet this guy and hopefully, my wish will come true someday at a comic book convention.

George Perez is a Puerto Rican-American born on June 9, 1954. Above and left, I've included a picture of him. He started illustrating Marvel's The Avengers. The first time that I really noticed his artwork (but didn't pay attention to who he was) was when I started reading "Crisis on the Infinite Earths". If you don't know what this series was, it was a landmark DC series that destroyed all of the various Earths that DC had created in one huge storyline to kind of get a hold of their plotlines which had gone in so many directions that they could no longer keep track.

Here is one cover from the series. I want you to pay special attention to this because it is CLASSIC George Perez. He has detailed a gazillion characters in this cover and each one is carefully drawn down to their eyeballs. I also want you to note the team of Wolfman and Perez. That to me is the sign of "excellence". Whenever I saw those two on a comic book, I knew it was going to be incredible.

This is the cover Perez did to reboot Wonder Woman. Yes, he drew and detailed
all of those warriors on Paradise Island standing behind Wonder Woman.

The very next time that I saw this combo was on the "Who is Wonder Girl" series on the reboot of the Teen Titans to the New Titans. So yeah, I bought into that. But Perez only stayed with it to reboot and then went to work on rebooting Wonder Woman so I followed him to that magazine. Wolfman and Perez owned Wonder Girl and Crisis on the Infinite Earths basically destroyed her origin because a crucial character that saves her as a child is no longer around to save her and DC just went for years after this event, never touching on the fact that Wonder Girl shouldn't be around. When Perez finally returned to the New Titans to redo Wonder Girl's origin, it was nothing less than spectacular.

The story of Wonder Girl's new origin was amazing. And the detail on each and every subsequent cover put out in this series just got better and better. That's Nightwing front and center carrying Wonder Girl. To the right is Starfire (a character that only Perez seems to be able to draw correctly because her costume is asymmetrical), and to the left is cyborg. Behind and rising above the others is Raven who returned in a white cloak after she went missing for many issues following the Trigon the Terrible plotline. Raven was my all-time favorite character in the DC universe. She basically had the powers of a demigod, and she takes on the ultimate bad guy in this series and it's one of the best combats I've ever seen drawn on paper.

Anyway, if you aren't convinced of George Perez's spectacular talent then I'm going to include some other pictures of his for your enjoyment. Again, I'd like you to just take a look at the level of detail that this guy goes to when he does his work. It blows me away every time. I'd love to have a couple of signed prints that I could frame just to hang in my house.

I think Perez has drawn every character in the DC universe here.
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The Avengers as drawn by Perez
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This is a poster of the Avengers that shows them in
 every single costume ever worn. It blows my mind at how
detailed George Perez gets with his artwork.
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So what do you think of the great George Perez? If you didn't know about him, are you now a fan?

Have a great weekend.