Do you know what I hate almost as much as Asgardian font?

I hate the fact that not only do you have to write out speech balloons that show characters from the American South speaking phonetically...

...but you also have to show them thinking in a spelled-out drawl, as well.

Seriously, does Rogue actually think "Ah" every single time she she thinks "I"?!? Does anyone?

It's not as though we don't have plenty of other X-Men who doubtless have accents--Kurt, Piotr, Ororo, just off the top of my head--but does Marvel feel the need to phonetically spell out their accents? No, we never hear Nightcrawler say (or think) "ve haff to go to der store." Nope, we'll just get an occasional Claremontian drop of a German word into an other perfect English word/thought balloon.

Also note the relative rarity of "phonetic accents" for other Americans--Boston, Chicago, Gotham, whatever--they are all allowed to speak "normally." Does Kitty Pryde ever get to speak with a Chicago accent (Ditka!!)?

So why the "special" treatment for Southerners? Why only them, and not Russians, or Kree, or Inhumans, or Latverians, or Minnesotans?

A) Marvel believes the reader is too stupid to remember that Rogue and Gambit et. al. are southern unless they constantly rub our noses it in.

B) Stereotypes are OK for southerners, especially when written by non-southern writers. Why give them the same respect we'd give German/Russian/African characters? The foreigners may be able to learn perfect English, but not people below the Mason-Dixon line!

C) Southerners are all just dumb hicks, anyway. Who cares how we make them look?

I'm from Michigan, so I really have no dog in this fight. But it is kind of lazy and borderline offensive, Marvel. Back off.

 Deep breath.

Geez, that kind of came outta nowhere. The reason I really wanted to run that is, it's a house ad in this week's Marvels, and it's (one of?) the covers for Rogue & Gambit #1.

Now, I'm doubtful that those thought balloons will end up on the final cover.  But I think it's significant is that someone in Marvel's marketing believes that thought balloons are not only appropriate in comics, but a better way to sell comics than multi-colored, turgidly written self-narrative captions.

So keep fighting the fight for thought balloons. But, can we do it without the "Ah's" and the "Dis's"?

Rogue and Doombot have a fashion conversation:

You tell them, Doombot!

From Avengers A.I. #8.NOW

Ladies and gentleman, get ready for an old-fashioned butt-whooping, courtesy of Chris Claremont and Walt Simonson.

Let your minds drift back to the halcyon days of 1983. Rogue, who has been nothing but a evil mutant to this point, comes to the X-Men seeking help, as her powers have begun to rage out of control. One problem, though:

Carol Danvers had her memories and powers stolen by Rogue. Carol Danvers is now the ultra-powerful Binary. Carol Danvers is hanging out with the X-Men. Something tells me this is gonna be painful:


How hard was that punch?

Yup, Carol put her into frakkin' orbit!! Still, you can't keep a good mutant down, can you? Or a bad one...surely she'll smack the former and future Ms. Marvel a good one?


Nope. Rogue...stay down. For your own good.

It's ladies' night, because the ladies love Bahlactus!!

Severe beatdown from Uncanny X-Men #171, 1983