Marvel Madness - Day 9 and other things too for a change

Pre-Season Countdown:

10. Wisconsin Badgers

Okay, now into the top ten, we have some real football to talk about. The Badgers look to take a small step back this year after graduating arguably the two best offensive linemen in the country last year and four year starter at QB. The losses on defense are few but substantial, especially because of the loss of first round NFL draft pick J.J. Watts.

Thanks to a plethora of scandals and investigations that look to have left Ohio State in chaos for at least this current season, making the Badgers the easy pick in their division, and because of the recent laughable history of Nebraska in big games, should also make them the favorites to contend for a second consecutive Rose Bowl appearance.

If you look at the names and numbers that left from offense after last season, one would expect a big fall off, but this is Wisconsin. Every year giant linemen come from nowhere to fill in any holes on the offensive line and the running game will return to stars in James White and Montee Ball, along with WR Nick Toon (yep, thats his name) should compete for all conference honors. The key to this team though is the decision of QB Russell Wilson to decide to transfer to Madison, he brings a lot of skill and experience and should actually be an improvement over Scott Tolzien.

On defense, with the exception of Watts, the team looks pretty similar. No big names, just big bodies, and in a Big Ten that looks largely devoid of offensive firepower, the Badgers have more than enough strength to shutdown most opposition.

Prediction: 11-2, Big Ten champions, Rose Bowl.

Comic Corner

In some exciting comic news, Fear Itself #5 will hit the stands tomorrow and for any comic fans out there not reading this, I highly advise you change that. This has been the crossover most fans hope for when the hype starts up every year and I think a big part of that is that someone other than Bendis has been allowed to shake things up and make big changes his way. Matt Fraction has put together a masterpiece so far with new villians, old villians, heroes being heroes, major characters dying, and Juggernaut being a turbo bad-ass. All comic fans should be reading this.

On the opposite of the comic universe, bigger things are supposedly going down in the DC universe. I wanted to add a few books to my pull list at the comic shop a few weeks ago and the clerk advised me it was a good time to do so because DC was rebooting the entire universe. I replied with what I considered to be a very reasonable "what the hell....?" Turns out that what is happening is exactly what it sounds like, everything, I repeat EVERYTHING is being rebooted with apparently the exception of two changes over the last sixty. When I heard this I had three reactions instantly.

1. Wow, now that is delivering on hype to "change everything" as a result of a crossover.

2. Wow, now that is a big slap in the face to everyone who invested themselves financially and emotionally into the last 60 years of stories.

3. I'm definitely still not going to add any Superman or Batman crap to my pull list.

This is definitely big news, but I'm curious about how people who actually care about the DC Universe feel about this? I'd love to hear thoughts in the comments.

Spider-Island, a highly hyped Spider-Man crossover also starts tomorrow, my feelings on the story are mixed based on the previews but everything Spider-Man has been gold for about two years now and I am curious to see how this goes.

61. Paibok

vs.

4. Kang the Conqueror

36. Pyro

vs.

29. Dr. Bong

52. Shadow King

vs.

13. Enchantress

20. Wizard

vs.

45. Fixer

60. Captain Reptyl

vs.

5. Apocalypse

28. Shuma-Gorath/Sattanish

vs.

39. Chameleon

12. Sandman

vs.

53. Maestro Hulk

21. Bastion

vs.

44. Xorn