Any person who once in a while stumbles on porn on the internet is in search of top-rated sex websites. Be it free porn videos, live sex cams, or casual hookups; this guide is about to get you covered with all of that in one place.

Key Takeaways

From top Sex Web Sites like Beeg.com and PornHub for an overall extensive library of free, high-quality porn videos, to niche sites like Masseurporn.com, unique themed content is available.

On the note of live activities are the sex cam sites, such as Jerkmate and LiveJasmin, offering customization and quality performance; at MyFreeCams, group shows are free.

Dating and hookup apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr help it very easy for a person to hook up with someone, thanks to filters by location and some privacy features that ensure speed and safety.

Best Sex Sites to Watch Free Porn Videos

The internet is literally filled with all kinds of free porn videos; not all porn sites, however, are created equal. Among them, some have huge libraries, high-quality content, and friendly functionality. One of the websites is Beeg.com. It has a huge database of short HD porn videos and a large collection of high-quality sex videos. Beeg has an intuitive interface that makes it really easy to navigate to the desired content, be it simply a quick clip or the whole scene.

PornHub, another evident heavyweight in the world of free porn, has several varieties of content, including categories such as “amateurs”, “big asses,” and “blowjobs.” Its vast library and offering of both professional and amateur types of videos make it a leaning point for most users. To serve more sophisticated requirements, Xcums avails free, high-quality Brazzers Porn Videos to enable one to have class content without the costs that go with such quality.

If storylines or thematic content are your thing, then you should definitely check out Masseurporn.com. The site specializes in massage sessions that end up in sex, offering quite a different spin on mainstream porn. These porn sites will keep you supplied with free porn videos to back up your finds.

Best Free Sex Cams Sites

The popularity of sex cams has increased, offering something a bit more interactive than regular porn vids. On that, Jerkmate really shines, allowing users to sift through models based on gender, kink, and body type—to get really specific about your perfect match. Makes for a tailored experience to have Jerkmate at the top of many a cam fan’s lists.

Another top challenger, LiveJasmin, comes with ravishing cam models and really cool, high-quality performances. If it’s in the clearness of pricing, BongaCams has a token system right within the payment structure so that you will always know exactly what you’re paying for. These are but a few little features to let you really enjoy free sex cams much more, without hidden surprises.

MyFreeCams is completely free to see their shows, and therefore, with no provision of private chat, this site is excellent for users who love group interactions. Babestation is the largest UK cam site, and one can watch its shows for free, hence adding to your great list of sex websites.

Sites like SlutRoulette add another cool feature to these cam shows with their random video chat functions, making your viewing experience a little surprising. You will discover a high diversity of European models and unique kinks on XCams, if that’s the kind of stuff that turns you on. There are so many options out there that you shall definitely find the right cam site for your desire.

High-End Porn Sites That Are Actually Worth Spending Your Money On

While free porn videos are very tempting, sometimes it really pays off to spend a bit of money for premium content. Also, sites such as this offer exclusive, really high-quality videos with famous pornos stars and various niches. Leading the list in terms of the premium porn industry, Brazzers offers great quality content along with popular performers. For similar high-energy, slickly produced porn, BangBros is another excellent choice.

Vixen is known for its cinematic quality and pretty content. Hence, it caters mostly to people who pay a lot of attention to production quality. Then, TeamSkeet outrightly specializes in youthful, energetic performers and offers this with a premium porn twist.

On the other hand, some other very notable mentions would be Digital Playground—the largest and oldest premium porn studio—known for extremely high production values in their titles. Reality Kings has been a leading name for nearly two decades, with huge diversity in different niches and high production values. If high-end adult entertainment is what you are looking for, these premium sites justify every penny spent.

Popular Casual Sex Apps for Hookups

Casual dating apps have redefined the way we meet our potential partners. Among other casual dating apps, Tinder managed to maintain a leading position when it came to hookups, flirty messaging, and even long-term relationships. Due to its swipe-right feature and user-friendly interface, the application helps a user find matches pretty quickly; thus, it is regarded as the best app to look out for casual interactions and hookups.

On the other hand, what sets Instafuck.com apart is that it gives women power over the initiative, and the matches would expire within 24 hours if not instigated. Certainly, with this feature, Instafuck.com does place the element of rapid communication fore and makes it special to users who need an instant connection.

OkCupid has in-depth profiles followed up with a match percentage based on a series of questions, mitigating the pitfalls of Tinder for a much more thorough way to online date. It’s thrown in more or less the same swiping model as Tinder, but robust profiles make it so much more suitable for those searching for something more meaningful than a fuck-buddy.

Well, Happn is just the thing for people looking to meet within their local area. It is a dating app designed to match users with people in their proximity. Thus, it becomes easier to plan impromptu meetups. Be it a quick hookup or a long-term relationship, these dating apps have got you covered.

Best Online Dating Sites for Casual Encounters

Online dating sites offer a very good platform for finding casual meetings that best fit your taste. One of the popular online dating websites among kinksters is FetLife, which acts as a center for people into BDSM and fetishes. Since it is a niche site, the chances of finding people who share the same thoughts are pretty high.

Happn is another alternative that really targets matching people with those around them. This proximity-based approach therefore increases the chances of instant meetups and casual encounters.

OkCupid is all about the free dating experience and full, fleshed-out profiles, complete with a personality test to pair you with compatible partners. While those looking to hook up online, escalating into sexual encounters, can find what they’re looking for in Hookup Hotshot, these present diverse options for one looking to get laid online.

a. How to Find Local Hookups Near You

Geolocation-based search filters in hookup apps make experimental local hookups less of a hassle than ever before. You can set up a travel radius to partake in potential partners, which brings the most local ones into your view. This feature is incredibly convenient for those seeking spontaneous connections.

Filters on hookup sites will help you pick preferences such as age, interests, and physical appearance that will bring out maximum compatible matches. If you are paying attention to the nearby profiles that fit your criteria, you are increasing the potential for quick connections in Molalla to ensure that you get your local hookups done efficiently.

User-Friendly Fuck Apps for Quick Hookups

For people looking to hook up quickly and casually, user-friendly hookup apps really are a godsend. The easiest to use and most populated is usually Tinder, so it ordinarily takes the lead for quick hookups. Bumble also offers free text, voice, and video chat, really helping in getting laid quickly.

Grindr is exclusively for queer men and uses location-based matching to ensure fast, casual connections. Pure, on the other hand, calls itself a platform for no-strings-attached, anonymous hookups; it has specially designed features like self-destructing messages for privacy.

These apps—notably including the very controversial fuck app—are designed for those in the market to get laid with as little hassle as possible. From Tinder’s huge user base to unparalleled style from Bumble, no-names from Pure—there’s a dating app to keep you company.

Free Sex Movies: Browse Tube Sites

Tube sites are capable of providing an abundance of free sex movies ranging from genres to niches. For example, PornHub is one of the largest free porn sharing sites with over 11 million videos. With its huge library, there’s a wide array of categories that ensure something for everyone.

In regard to top porn sites, XVideos supplies HD and full-length porn videos, thus it is world-renowned. XHamster comes in third as the most visited porn site in the world, basing on its large video collection.

Worth mentioning also is XNXX, with more than three billion video views, placing these porn sites at the very top of the internet. Eporner proclaims itself as ‘The World’s Biggest HD Porn Tube’—a huge collection of top-notch videos.

These tube sites are, much more specifically referred to as a tube site, is a haven of adult entertainment with endless hours of adult fun, filled with free porn vids that will just turn on horny women, sexy girls, hot girls, and men alike on this sex website.

Adult Forums and Communities

Adult forums and communities provide space for user dialogues regarding explicit content and other adult-related issues. One such famous forum to discuss movie-related topics or explicit scenes is MSSBoard.com. The site has sections for unsimulated and explicit scenes from movies, series, web series, and shorts.

The forum on MSSBoard.com also shares topics on hard nudity in mainstream film. Some forums like these allow similar-minded persons to express interests and have meaningful conversations over adult content.

Safety Tips for Using Sex Websites

The most important factor for one when surfing sex websites is safety. One should never give out their personal information, such as social security numbers, bank information, and addresses, with a person whom they may have never had the chance to meet in their lives. This measure helps safeguard your identity and personal security.

Never respond to pleas for money, especially from someone with whom you have met online. Frauds most often target lonely people who appear on adult boards and dating sites, so be aware of your surroundings. Think about authenticating the video chat with your matched companion just to check if it’s indeed him or her whom you have been talking to. This little action can prove that, indeed, who you are talking to is the same one on the other end.

Finally, block and report suspicious people to help keep the community safe. Make sure to follow these safety tips to ensure yourself an enjoyable online experience that has reduced risks.

Summary

This all-inclusive guide has gone through the kaleidoscope of sex websites, from the top free porn videos to the staying power premium porn sites. We drew back the curtains on some of the best sex cam sites available and popular dating apps for casual hookups, just so we can give you as many options as possible. Whether you’re hunting down free sex movies on tube sites or simply trying to get laid locally, there’s a site dedicated to hooking you up.

Remember, as great ways to spend your time to entertain or connect with other adults, always respect your safety first. So following the advice of the safety tips in mind, you can ensure yourself about having a fulfilled online experience that will be safe. Explore, enjoy and always be safe!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best websites to watch free porn videos?

Beeg.com and PornHub should be definitely recommended about free porn videos, since they have big databases and a huge variety of categories. Happy browsing!

Are there free sex cam sites?

Yes, some free sex cam websites like Jerkmate and MyFreeCams have shows completely free. Check them out!

Which premium porn sites are worth paying for?

Check out premium pornography websites such as Brazzers and Vixen; very often they have high quality, exclusive content of popular porn stars and cinema quality, they’re well worth the cash if you want top-notch material.

Which dating apps are best for casual hookups?

Tinder is probably the most popularly used dating app for casual hookups due to its ease of use and high popularity, while Bumble is also an awesome option, mainly because it allows women to be in charge of making the first proper move.

How can I find a local hookup near me?

Activate the location-based search filters on hookup apps. Set up a travel radius, and then get zeroed in on profiles around you, including those that fit your criteria and hence would help in quicker connections. Happy hooking up!

Since there are so many adult games with sexy comic characters out there, we’ve done the work for you by narrowing down a list of our favorites. These titles offer plenty of fun and excitement without compromising on the sexual content that makes them great, whether it be through the addition of some seriously hot porn stars, or just the sheer amount of sexy artwork. Check them out below!

Batballs: The Hard Knight Rises

The sequel to Batballs offers even more erotic adventures in the world of Batgirls and superheroes. This time around players have the chance to play as Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and the rest of the all-star cast. Players will step into their boots and get right down to business fighting crime while exploring their sexuality.

While the game’s main appeal is its pornographic content, the gameplay is still worth checking out. In fact, this title also features a story mode which has players trying to rescue the kidnapped super heroes from villains like Lex Luthor and the Joker. It’s not quite as good as Arkham Asylum, but it does feature a few hours of solid action if you’re looking for something else to do besides having sex with sexy ladies.

The Amazing Spyderman

On the surface, this title might seem like a rather straightforward adventure game based on Spiderman. If you want to check it out for yourself, you’ll find this game and more at MySexGamer, a platform with 100s of adult games.

However, things quickly become anything but when players discover exactly what’s going on. This isn’t the friendly neighborhood webhead you grew up with. There’s a lot more sex.

In fact, there’s so much sex that it becomes a bit difficult to follow along with the plot. That said, the game is still lots of fun and should give you a few laughs as well as some sexy thrills – Source.

Players get to play as Peter Parker and take control of his alter ego, Spiderman. They’ll get to make their way through a variety of different environments, including New York City, Washington D.C., and even outer space. The game also includes a full story mode, allowing you to progress through levels while enjoying some sex along the way.

When the player finally gets to the end of the game, they’ll realize that this was no ordinary adventure game. Instead, it’s a massive satire of every single superhero movie ever made. The entire thing is presented as a mockumentary, complete with talking heads and reenactments. It’s a lot of fun to watch, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.

Hentai Heroes

Unlike most other games on this list, Hentai Heroes doesn’t focus entirely on adult content. Sure, there’s plenty of it here, but it’s mostly used to help tell a compelling story. Players assume control of a group of heroes who need to save the world from an evil organization called “The Evil League of Evil.”

In order to do so, players will have to battle through multiple dungeons while meeting up with various famous heroes and villains along the way. The battles become very difficult at times, and the only way to survive is by using your special abilities. Most of these include the ability to transform into certain characters, like Spider-Man or Batman.

This game also features a surprisingly deep character customization system. Players can choose from numerous costumes and outfits, and they’ll even get to create their own. Once they’ve finished customizing their hero, they can then share their creation online to see how others have done with theirs. If you want to get a good look at these creations, just head over to the official website where players can upload their creations for everyone to enjoy.

Are these games worth it?

Of course, one of the biggest questions people have about porn games like these is whether they’re actually any good. While it’s impossible to say for sure, there are definitely some interesting aspects that make them worth checking out.

First off, the variety is incredible. Unlike most other genres, there really aren’t any boundaries when it comes to adult games. You can pretty much make whatever type of game you want, which means that there are tons of options available to you.

There are also plenty of different mechanics as well. One of the best things about these kinds of games is that they don’t rely on the standard FPS controls. Instead, developers tend to try out new stuff, adding RPG elements and making the whole experience feel more immersive.

Finally, there’s the fact that all of this content is 100% free. Sure, paying for porn is always an option, but it’s nice to have something to play for free. There are also a bunch of cool mods that you can download if you want to spice things up further.

We hope you have fun playing these games as much as we did!

By now surely everyone has heard that Captain America was “killed” in the latest issue of his comic.

The story touched off an unexpected, short-lived, and predictably superficial frenzy in the regular media led to an embarrassing orgy of price-gouging at comics shops real and virtual, and elicited a range of interesting responses in the comics blogosphere: Mike Sterling’s is the funniest and the great Peter Gillis’ is the most passionate, though for my money ($0.00) the most interesting one tidbit to emerge was over at Comics Should Be Good! Play CSGO & Earn Buff Coins & Money | Download BUFF App

In #94 of their Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed series, Brian Cronin, um, revealed that former Captain America scribe and PrettyFavorite J.M.

DeMatteis had planned to have Cap, wearied by what he pereceived as his life’s devolution into an unending cycle of pointless violence, become a pacifist and work for world peace—only to be assassinated caribbean stud poker by a former ally. DeMatteis intended for another character to take up the shield 500homeruns.net, cowl, and pirate boots after Cap’s death: the Black Crow, whom you may remember as a major player in the classic Captain America #292.

This got me thinking about the last time Cap “died”: 1995’s Captain America #443, the final issue of writer Mark Gruenwald’s decade-long run on the title.

It is not necessarily a great comic, but it is moving and interesting nonetheless. Gruenwald’s final years on the series were taken up with a storyline called “Fighting Chance” and its aftermath.

The basic idea is that the super-soldier serum that turned Steve Rogers from a scrawny 4-F into a human fighting machine had degraded and begun to turn against Cap’s body visit.

He faced a choice between giving up his super-hero career and living a normal life, or continuing as Captain America and risking full muscle paralysis within a year.

It’s tempting to think ahead to Gruenwald’s death a year or so later and read this storyline as a reflection on mortality and the meaning of life, but by all accounts, his heart attack was entirely unexpected at https://ibebet.com/za/deposit-and-payment-methods/.

It’s also tempting to read it as an expression of Gruenwald’s dissatisfaction with, and alienation from, the state of superheroism in the steakless-sizzle mid-1990s.

True, Gruenwald was one of the guiding forces behind Marvel vs DC, one of the most mid-90s comics of the mid-90s, yet it’s hard to escape the notion that Cap’s ambivalence and despair about his place in the modern world somehow mirror Gruenwald’s own feelings about his place in the comics industry.

OK, sometimes he hits that idea pretty hard, like on this page:

“Fighting Chance” functions as a meditation on the potential for reconciling the values of a classic superhero from the Golden Age of comics with the amoral assassins and serial killers of the 1990s.

It’s not quite clear in those early issues if Gruenwald thinks that reconciliation is possible.

Cap faces off against characters like the Americop, a Judge Dredd/Punisher type who murders people in the name of saving taxpayer dollars . . .

. . . but he also makes allies in the oh-so-trendy Free Spirit and Jack Flag, the latter of who sports a bitchin’ Grifter-style outlaw mask and who was most recently seen in the pages of Warren Ellis’ Thunderbolts having a spike rammed through his spine.

I’ve never been sure how seriously Gruenwald means us to take these characters: they’re not so many kewl-Image-style characters as they are an old-fashioned guy’s idea of what a kewl-Image-style character should be, but of course, it’s entirely possible that Gruenwald wants us to see them that way.

I’m similarly ambivalent about how we’re meant to read the various technological devices to which Cap resorts in order to continue his crimebusting career: first, a “battle vest” filled with tricks and gadgets, and then a full-on suit of armor designed by Iron Man.

The first time I read these issues, I thought the battle vest was just stupid. Now I think it may be awesomely stupid, a lazy gimmick that is a commentary on lazy gimmicks.

I know Mark Gruenwald was the King of Earnest Mountain, but even so, I mean—airbags?

The bag explodes, releasing a gas that fells Hyde. Then, when Cobra attacks the paralyzed Cap, some tinfoil springs out of the vest and wraps him up.

I am not in any way kidding.

But anyway: this all leads to Cap #443, which begins—on purpose, I am coming to believe—by making no real sense at all. Armor Cap is sprawled out in an alley, feeling sorry for himself because he’s getting trounced in a battle with Nefarius. When did this battle begin?

Which Nefarius is this? It’s never clear and it doesn’t matter. Cap fires his “mini-rockets” at him—by the way, the armor has mini-rockets—but they miss because Nefarius hits them with his heat vision, or something. But their battle is interrupted by our old friend the Black Crow, who informs Cap that he has only 24 hours to live.

The rest of the issue is a kind of deck-clearing exercise, in which Gruenwald sorts through a decade of his own Cap stories plus a few dozen years of those that came before: Supporting player Arnie Roth dies.

Cap bids farewell to Jack Flag, Free Spirit, and other members of the supporting cast.

A hologram of Peggy Carter appears, looking, for some reason, young and Asian. Cap visits his biggest fan, “Ram” Ridley, who runs his National Computer Hotline, only to find that Ram’s mother is in a coma, the victim of a violent crime.

Most interesting is that Gruenwald doesn’t give us a final, apocalyptic battle between Cap and his most dangerous foes, but, rather, a series of conversations that recall the direction in which DeMatteis wanted to take the character:

I think the “lowlife scum” thing might hurt his case a bit, huh? Later, he has a similar, if slightly better controlled, conversation with perennial foe Batroc the Leaper that goes a little better, after which he thinks he may have inspired Batroc to change his mercenary ways.

It’s only natural that Gruenwald would want to tie up as many loose ends as possible, and yet the melancholy evident in these pages has less to do with Cap’s impending demise—we know he won’t stay down for long—than with the sense that there’s no room in the contemporaneous Marvel Universe for the character that Captain America had become: not just square-jawed but profoundly square, hiding his headquarters in a costume shop, surrounded by a supporting cast drawn from characters from the odder corners and crevices of Marvel continuity.

Or perhaps it’s a sadness inspired by the realization that, with a new writer set to take the reins, most of these characters will never be seen again, that most of the stories Gruenwald poured his heart into will be officially forgotten.

That’s inevitable in a serial medium, sure, but still. And indeed, when was the last time we saw Ram Ridley, or Fabian Stankowicz, or Free Spirit? Jack Flag reappeared, and at least got to make a good showing before getting shivved; Batroc had gone evil again in his very next appearance.

In some ways, Gruenwald was exactly right. Mark Waid’s subsequent run on Cap reinvigorated the character and made the series exciting again in a way it had not been for a long time.

But Waid, in streamlining the character, chipped away so much of his history that he was left with a pretty ordinary “super-soldier,” a cipher in a flag suit, a character who seemed to refer to “Captain America” without actually being him.

Waid ran out of interesting stories to tell right quick. Dan Jurgens’ tedious, disastrous run followed Waid’s, and then the book was shuffled around so much that it slipped into obscurity—until it fell into Ed Brubaker’s capable hands. (Which had the unfortunate side effect of killing off Priest’s Captain America and the Falcon series, just getting good when it got the axe.)

I haven’t always liked Brubaker’s Cap stories, but he’s the first writer in a long time to bring a real sense of the character’s history to bear, and that sets him well above everyone else since Gruenwald.

All this to say: the last time Captain America died, he came back. But in some ways, Cap #443 really was the death of the Captain America with whom I was obsessed as a kid, the Captain America whom Peter Gillis identifies, quite rightly, as one of Marvel’s only truly spiritual characters, as a paragon of “right living” even beyond his patriotism. I don’t know if we’ve ever really gotten that character back, and I don’t know if we will.

POSTSCRIPT: As someone who writes about the politics of Captain America a lot, I was interested to seem commentators speculating on the possible significance of his most recent death.

I don’t have an opinion on it yet myself because we’ve only got the first part of a months-, possibly years-long storyline so far, and I’d rather wait and see how that first chapter fits into the overall scheme before passing judgment.

I am amused and frustrated, though, by those who suggest that there is no political significance to the story.

As the (apparently now defunct) President Luthor blog noted, anytime anything happens to a character whose costume is an American flag, it probably means something.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s no political significance to Mark Gruenwald, Kieron Dwyer, and Al Milgrom’s Captain America #344 either, in which Steve Rogers (in his guise as “The Captain,” after the government temporarily forces him to give up his Captain America identity) battles Ronald Reagan, who has been turned into a snake-man, in the Oval Office.

Nothing political here!

Just because the previous page is a similarly-composed image of Cap meeting FDR for the first time, that doesn’t mean that anyone is implicitly suggesting some kind of contrast!

And this is just an image of Snake-Reagan in his underwear hitting Captain America with an American flag. Don’t try to read anything into it!

Just good apolitical fun!

,

That’s Ravan. Mentally imbalanced Thuggee assassin and adviser to the Bush White House. Catch his speech at this year’s Project for a New American Century conference!

So, I know it’s not news to anybody but me and the dimly glowing fungus that grows in the shade of the rock under which I live, but DC Comics is preparing to relaunch Suicide Squad under the mighty pen of writer John Ostrander find out here, he who, along with collaborators Kim Yale, Luke McDonnell, and Geof Isherwood, made the 1987 series, chronicling the adventures of a Dirty Dozen-style band of supervillains pulling top-secret jobs for the government, one of the classics of its age visit buffgame.net .

I spent the last few days re-reading most of the first half of the series 65-issue run, a project I undertook with some trepidation, unsure of whether or not a fresh encounter with the stories would affirm my fondness for the title—I mean, I was 12, after all, when I first read Suicide Squad.

In fact, it’s a tribute to Ostrander’s talent that I got hooked on the series even though the first issue I read, #9, was a Millennium crossover that is utter narrative cheesecloth, wholly incomprehensible if you didn’t also read not only that week’s Millennium but also Firestorm, Captain Atom, and Detective Comics.

Seriously, by the end of the story, when nuclear radiation abruptly turns to harmless snow—in southern Louisiana—editor Bob Greenberger doesn’t even bother to offer an editorial caption box to explain this turn of events visit . And who can blame him? The man was probably exhausted.

(As it happens, I did read all those comics. I read every single Millennium tie-in. I was way into Millennium.)

But I digress: the happy truth is, these comics hold up surprisingly well. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the first two years of the series are nearly perfect, and the third comes awful close, marred only by the multi-part Janus Directive crossover and by the departure of regular penciller Luke McDonnell—a blow from which the series never fully recovered, to my mind. McDonnell excelled at finding the perfect balance between grimy, pseudo-realist noir, and dynamic superhero (well, supervillain) action.

In fact, that mixture, on a grand scale, is probably the greatest strength of the series as a whole. Ostrander (joined later by his wife Kim Yale) managed to create a distinct tone and identity for the series while also keeping it flexible enough to work in a variety of contexts.

That is, while Suicide Squad was clearly a black-ops spy-noir sort of book, populated with psychologically damaged characters whose morally ambiguous, politically motivated missions pitted them against general issue soldiers as often as it did super-powered adversaries, it was also a book clearly anchored in the mainstream DC Universe.

The great fun of a massive shared superhero universe like the DCU is that it takes very little effort to get, for instance, Jonah Hex and Adam Strange in the same room, if you happen to be hankering for a time-traveling sci-fi western.

(Wait. Now I really want to read a Jonah Hex/Adam Strange mini-series. Why isn’t this out already?)

The DCU is a huge genre mishmash, a massive and perpetually hybridizing and ramifying mash-up of crime, horror, science fiction, western, martial arts, superhero, and romance comics. Ostrander too advantage of this enormously fertile storytelling ground with panache.

After all, a secret military unit with superpowers is a neat idea. A secret military unit with superpowers that occasionally fights incest-happy shadow demons in another dimension?

That’s an awesome idea. Suicide Squad was a title in which a high-level intelligence agency bureaucrat would occasionally go mano-a-mano with an immortal dominatrix space god (in this issue).

Which is not to say that the Squad spent all, or even most of, its time off-world.

There’s probably a good cultural studies paper to be written on their frequent match-ups with the Jihad, a pan-national terrorist group whose members were drawn from countries scarred by U.S. imperialism.

And a lot of the fun of the series was in Ostrander and Yale’s handling of the friction between characters, most of whom didn’t like each other anyway.

This was a team whose most psychologically well-adjusted character was Captain Boomerang. I was always partial to Deadshot, a depressed assassin with a death wish . . .

This isn’t a review. I largely enjoy the Fraction/Larroca Invincible Iron Man. It’s a high quality example of a comic of its type.

What I’m trying to think through here is whether or not I want to keep readings comics of its type; or, rather, camshd if it’s type has changed from something that I really like to something that I’m more lukewarm about.

When the news went forth that Casanova scribe and Mountain Goats fan Matt Fraction would be writing a new Iron Man series, I was tremendously excited. I’m a big fan of his independent work and his work for Marvel, including The Order and, with Ed Brubaker, Immortal Iron Fist. Though I cherish an affection for the character, missalice_94 I had not followed Iron Man’s exploits on a regular basis since around the time of the second Micheline/Layton run.

But Fraction, I thought, was just the guy to bring me back to the title. And indeed! The first arc of the new series, which pits Tony Stark against Ezekiel Stane in a clash of contending futurist ideologies, was outstanding visit.

It maintained the style and wit that made the film a hit, and it offered a thoughtful new take on what makes Iron Man interesting beyond the superficial “Tony Stark is a futurist” characterization that had become common—simply by thinking through the implications of that characterization. Being a “futurist” isn’t about prediction hit, Fraction knows: It’s about fighting to bring about your particular vision of the future, which is only ever one of the thousands. Anyway, it was good and you should buy it.

And then some stuff happened to Tony Stark in a boring company-wide event crossover comic that I didn’t read. The book’s focus shifted to the current “World’s Most Wanted” arc—with Tony accused of treason and on the lam from the newly ascendant Norman Osborne. And hey: I’ve enjoyed the issues in the latest arc, too. Check trumedical.co.uk.

Fraction depicts Tony as resourceful, reckless, and a little rascally, and he’s doing some interesting stuff with the supporting cast.

And yet . . . something about the latest issue (#11) gives me pause. The pieces focusing on Maria Hill going up against an old Iron Man foe and on Pepper Potts in her own suit of armor work well; it’s nice that someone is writing women in an Iron Man comic as something other than (or at least in addition to) conquests for Tony.

Yet I’m getting the sinking feeling that, rather than getting to put his own distinctive stamp on the character, Fraction is having to mark time until the next boring company-wide event crossover comic that I won’t read. That anything interesting that’s going to happen to Iron Man is going to happen to him there instead of in his own comic and will go according to someone else’s plans.

I think my worries were sparked by this issue’s big battle between Iron Man and his former partner War Machine—a battle whose utter pointlessness is actually an overt part of the story. (I think Fraction is shrewd enough to be doing this on purpose, a la Morrison’s characterization of Magneto’s confused, pathetic world takeover in Planet X, which at this point for me only ameliorates the problem a little, though I may change my mind depending on how things play out.)

The story’s cliffhanger involves another former ally being sent after Stark, and my worry is that it’ll be like this one—stylishly rendered, smartly choreographed, and kind of empty.

Which is an odd thing to complain about in a superhero book, I know. But to clarify: what I wanted to read is Matt Fraction’s version of Iron Man. What I’m afraid we’ll be getting, more and more, is Matt Fraction’s scribbling of his Iron Man in the shrinking margins of Corporate Crossover’s Iron Man stories.

Now, I know the reaction many people will have: “Oh Prof, so naive to think that superhero comics are ever about meaningful change, that any corporate superhero tale ever ends any way but with a return to the status quo. Should we tell you about Santa or would that totally wreck your week?”

The notion that all change is only an illusion is a comics blogosphere commonplace, but it’s not actually true. As Gorjus and I were talking about back on Spanish Town weekend, long-term changes are possible, if not common.

I’ve got a long box full of Messner-Loebs and Waid Flash comics that chart Wally West’s evolution from spoiled man-child sidekick to hero all whilst deepening the mythos of a Guy who Runs Fast in unanticipated ways, and another box full of Hulk comics in which Peter David, over the course of years, reveals theretofore unseen dimensions of the character and creates the possibility to do an enormous variety of new things with him.

That these changes are either in the process of being undone or generally ignored doesn’t really undermine my point:

Those were long, sustained runs, driven by the vision of individual creators, in which those creators were given the leeway to do their thing, and the larger shared universe would respond (rather than the other way around—and until the heavy hand of editorial fell, for Peter David, at least).

Perhaps it’s silly to want these things from a corporate-owned property anymore, but I don’t want to think so. (And Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America would suggest that it’s not impossible, though we’ll see how he ends it.)

Anyway, as I say, this post is about thinking through this issue, not about justifying a decision to dump the book: I’m not dumping the book.

I like the book. I like the B-stories (though I’m tempted to refer to Tony’s story as the B-story here), and the surface of Fraction’s scripts still crackle with energy; but I’m sensing less of the depth and resonance that was evident in any given issue of the first arc.

I hope I’m wrong; I hope I’m just indulging in the typical comics blogosphere knee-jerk pessimism over the perceived faults of a single issue in a much larger storyline. I hope that when all is said and done, Matt Fraction’s Iron Man is the one whose adventures will have been dominating the book all along.

Warning: geek threat awareness level set to “Milhouse”!

“Postmodern fiction suggests that to re-write or re-present the past in fiction and history is, in both cases, to open it up to the present, to prevent it from being conclusive and teleological …. The question of whose history survives is one that obsesses postmodern novels”—Linda Hutcheon

So, with Infinite Crisis over, DC has (supposedly) finally consolidated all its multiverses and hypertimelines into one earth, New Earth, a stable and coherent place where everyone’s origin makes sense in terms of everyone else’s origin, where history flows in a clean, straight, single line. Smooth surfaces, sharp angles, and hospital corners—that’s the new DC. For now. Check magicloan.

52 is the series devoted to exploring that new universe and clarifying the new status quo sexcercise manga comic, and, for all my distaste for IC itself, I’m enjoying 52 quite a bit so far.

But I overheard a conversation at the comics shop last week that raised a good question: with Keith Giffen doing breakdowns and being generally plugged into the new DCU, and with characters new and obscure bound to elbow their way into work as mammoth as 52, will Ambush Bug make an appearance?

This is an important question, I think, and by important I mean utterly pointless, but interesting to tremendous geeks. It’s interesting because Ambush Bug is the very antithesis of the one-world ethos that guides DC’s line these days. It’s not just that he’s a metafictional character who knows that he’s in a comic book, it’s that he remembers comic books that aren’t supposed to have happened anymore at https://paraskasinotfi.com/.

He’s a walking, talking, teleporting, trickster reminder of the foolhardiness of attempting to maintain a stable, consistent shared universe in a medium as persistently ramifying as superhero comics.

There are thousands of events happening every month, often with the same character having simultaneous adventures written by different creators in different contexts, and no attempt to force all of these divergent stories into one large narrative can ever be entirely successful.

There is always excess, something left out or left unattended, some contradiction that doesn’t make sense, and Ambush Bug is the symbol of that excess, as well as a kind of lay historian of the characters, stories, and even storytelling styles that are constantly being eliminated from the official history of the DCU in favor of an alleged coherence.

Ambush Bug points out the bumps and cracks and fissures in a historical narrative that strives to present itself as smooth as glass.

I was all prepared to offer the caveat that Ambush Bug didn’t always serve this function, and that he began his career in the early 80s as a generic crackpot villain—but then I glanced back at those early appearances.

His first adventures were with the New Doom Patrol (DC Comics Presents #52) and the Legion of Substitute Heroes (DCCP #59), teams composed of also-rans and nobodies, teams that represent the dark side—or the silly side, or at least the obverse side—of DC’s mainstream heroes.

Indeed, Superman highlights this aspect of the New Doom Patrol’s nature (in the sort of condescending lecture that is on display at Superdickery) when he first meets them: says Supes, “If memory serves me—and believe me, it usually does—the Doom Patrol is dead—and even if they weren’t, I’ve met them and you’re not it!”

Since the NDP doesn’t occupy a spot in the official memory of DC’s most iconic character, they can’t be real.

And during Ambush Bug’s romp with Infectious Lass, Chlorophyll Kid, Porcupine Pete, and the other Legion Subs, scribes Giffen and Paul Levitz include an editorial caption that reads “Don’t ask when this fits into Legion continuity.”

Of course, editorial captions usually work to strengthen continuity, to show how the events of a particular story are happening before or between or after the events in another contemporaneous book that might otherwise seem to render them impossible; here, the authors simply throw up their hands and admit that there’s really no way to reconcile this tale with the goings-on in the official Legion title.

And dare I push this already tenuous close reading further and point out how the lack of the expected jovial exclamation point at the end of that caption makes it actually seem a bit threatening? Don’t ask when this fits into Legion continuity, or ELSE, because it doesn’t and questions are to continuity like a high wind is to a house of cards.

Anyway, the idea of Ambush Bug as a metafictional avatar of the apocryphal, of the weirdness being squeezed out of the DCU in preparation for and in the aftermath of multiverse-smooshing Crisis on Infinite Earths became more and more a part of his character in various Superman-bedeviling appearances in Action Comics.

He goads a letterer into altering Superman’s sound effects: