Shadowy metallic hardcore antiheroes The Banner are set to return this December with Greying, the long-awaited full-length follow-up to 2008 crusher Frailty. In honor of the band’s imminent resurrection and well-known affection for the horrific aesthetic, Decibel requested and received the following Halloween week list of frontman JSS’ Top Five Risings From the Dead…
1. Altered Beast
RISSSEEEEE FROM YOURRRR GRAVEEEE
I remember the first time I saw this arcade game on vacation down the shore with the half a human head transforming into a werewolf and my life was fucked hence forth. You’re some bitch-made dweeb who dies but Zeus — Jupiter or who the fuck ever; might’ve been Santa — sees something in you and gives you the command Rise from your grave! and, like, it’s God, so what the fuck choice do you have? Anyway he sets you on this bitchin’ quest — as white beardy gods so often do — and leaves little floaty glowing orbs that turn you into different were-beasts to punch your way to victory. One of those animals was a monster from fucking Golden Axe and Sega’s lazy ass tried to just put it in there like we wouldn’t notice, but I fucking noticed. Unless the Golden Axe and Altered Beast worlds are connected, in which case, Fuck yeah, Sega — that rules!
2. The Undertaker
Dude comes back every time and we always mark out and then he just tombstones your bitchass head through the canvas and that’s that. Unless you know, you’re Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania who isn’t even a full time wrestler so it makes no sense to let him end the fucking streak but I digress…I don’t fucking digress, that shit was fucking wack and I’m still mad.
3. Superior Spider-Man
I’ll keep this short and sweet because you should read it yourself, it’s good. Dr. Octopus was super smart, but despite his adamantium octo-tentacle things, he was a marshmallow bitch. Anyway my boy got his shit kicked in so many times that his body started to break down and die and for a while he was just a pickle shaped thing with a weird little wrinkly head and tentacle arms, that sucks. NAH IT DON’T! My boy overcame his bitchness and beat Spiderman with his brains which were thoroughly un-bitchlike. He did this by transporting his brain into Peter Parker’s body and then just erasing Peter Parker’s consciousness. Then just because he’s such a thorough dick, he said, Fuck it — I’m gonna be Spider-Man now but even better…’Superior’ if you will. Whether or not he was superior I suppose is up for debate but he fucked up a lot of criminals and built a super prison and made all these weird spider bots, it was nuts. Slott knocked this shit out of the park. (Citi Field, Spider-Man likes the Mets.)
4. Frankencastle (The Punisher)
So for a while Marvel was trying to make everyone buy into this Daken dweeb. He’s Wolverine’s son! That’s awesome, right? Fuck no. This bitch got some weird ass mohawk and a third claw in his wrist that makes no sense and just straight up tribal tattoos…Dude’s a nightmare, Suck City. Anyway they decide to put this mort over by having him chop up the Punisher, which he did. It was brutal and shitty. The the good part: Morbius, werewolf by night, and some other monsters down in the secret monster city beneath NYC take the parts and reanimate the Punisher into this giant Frankenstein monster thing with guns. Adventures ensue. It sounds corny on paper but it was bitchin, Tony Moore — original artist of Walking Dead — drew that shit and it was fucking killer. OK but seriously, “Daken”? DAH-KEN? DAY-KEN? How do you even? Ugh, what a herb. Get that shit out of here.
5. The Wolf
I got blackout shit-faced with this dame named…something, I forget, in Prague. Loaded me up with absinthe and mushrooms and bourbon. This chick was unreal, short black hair, blue eyes, freckles, boobs and butt just everywhere, unreal. Anyway I was too much of a walking pile of human garbage to seal that deal so I guess I wandered off? I started hearing colors and counting letters and stuff, talked to my dead grandma for about twenty minutes. Eventually I woke up and we were on tour with For the Fallen Dreams so I was pretty sure I was in Hell. Turns out, no, just my regular shitty life. (JK, boys.)
