speedball

Kenny Keil is one of our long-time favorite artists here at ComicsAlliance. He first grabbed our attention a few years ago, when he published a series of drawings mashing up superheroes and classic Hip-Hop album covers to incredible effect, and since then, he's gone on to co-create and illustrate the all-ages sci-fi/rap comic Rhyme Travelers, provided the art for Big Boi's Mash-Up Mondays series of releases, become one of Mad Magazine's "Usual Gang Of Idiots", and been a regular contributor to our series of "Celebrating Comics History" posts. And recently, he's once again melded the iconography of music and comics in creative and unusual fashion, and begun to release a new series of images that casts comic and cartoon characters in a giant dance-off, taking famous moves and routines and pairing them with appropriate heroes and villains (with plenty of in-jokes along the way for continuity and pop music fans) – some are single panels, some are sequential, some are delivered in animated gif form for maximum comedic effect, and all are wildly entertaining. The full ongoing series can be viewed on Keil's tumblr, but we've decided to showcase a few of our favorites, and provide some annotations for good measure!

Time to get some Speedball back into your life. Marvel is relaunching New Warriors next month under the guidance of writer Christopher Yost and artist Marcus To, and at least three of readers' old favorites, Speedball, Nova (though presumably not the same Nova) and Justice, will be part of the team. New additions include Sun Girl, Scarlet Spider, and Hummingbird.

Hey, remember when Speedball was sad (so sad) because he played a tangential role in blowing up Stamford, Connecticut and sparking a superhero Civil War, so he decided to turn from a happy, colorful teen superhero into a fetish-infused freakshow by putting on a pain suit that constantly raked his flesh I guess as some form of penance...

With all the chatter about DC's "Brightest Day" and Marvel's "Heroic Age" coming up this spring, it's looking like mainstream super hero comics' comparatively darker days could be trending downward. But aside from Conan O'Brien's ending his "Tonight Show" run with remarks denouncing cynicism, where should creators and fans look for inspiration as they enter this new p