Nice to see LeBron reading up on Dwight Howard.

When I first read that ESPN the Magazine had teamed up with Marvel to create a one-time, limited edition comic book for LeBron James, I rolled my eyes and groaned. It was bad enough that Tim Tebow got his own comic book – not sure whatever happened with that – but now ESPN could profess its hot, stinky man love for the reigning NBA Finals MVP and gold medalist across 20-plus pages of embellished artistry. And when I read that the comic was titled “King of the Rings”, I pulled my eyes out of my head, dipped them in acid, shoved them back in their sockets and rolled them again.

But then a funny thing happened – I read the comic. It’s actually not terrible. Sure, in theory it only feeds the league’s greatest, most uncontrollable ego and provides more ammunition for the shallow belief that the Miami Heat can just steamroll the entire league for the next 5 years. I mean, it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but it’s still an obnoxious overstatement. When it comes to pure, comic entertainment value, though, this little book is pretty damn good.

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The most C-Tates picture that has ever been taken.

Actor Channing Tatum has undoubtedly reached A-list status this year, what with all 3 of his films grossing more than $100 million and him hanging out with George Clooney, so he can pretty much do whatever he wants at this point. At least that’s what I assumed was the reasoning for him showing up at Arizona Cardinals practice yesterday and just doing his thing as the hardest workin’, twerkin’, lay it down, flip, and reversin’ it playboy in $how BizNa$$$ty.

But the Magic Mike star was actually there to celebrate his good friend Kerry Rhodes’ birthday, so he figured he’d pop his NFL cherry by taking in his first practice.

“I’ve never got to come to camp before so I figured I’d come out and see what these guys are doing,” Tatum told Arizona Sports 620′s The Big Red Rage Thursday. (Via KTAR news, which I pronounce as keytar)

So how the hell are Rhodes and C-Tates friends? For starters, they come from the same place.

“He’s actually from Alabama too, so we got connected early on and we stayed in touch and we’ve been good friends since then,” said Rhodes. (Via AZ Family)

But according to KTAR, we all know the real reason that anyone wants to hang out with C-Tates. Mad chickens up in this nest, heard?

“It was a mob scene,” Rhodes said. “Literally like on any other day, it’s probably 10 people down there. Today it was quite a few.”

“I made a one-handed catch in practice and I thought the fans were [cheering] for me and I looked back and it was [Tatum] doing some stretch,” Rhodes joked.

Word was more than 100 women were hanging out at the practice facilities once the rumor broke that C-Tates was down there doing his thang. But this got me to thinking. Hopefully, you’re familiar with mine and Vinnie’s fascination with Tatum at FilmDrunk, but if not, just know that we want nothing but the best for C-Tates’ career. So I have a little movie pitch that I’d like to send his way, based on something that I wrote a few weeks back…

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Comic books and sports have had a relationship for years, in which readers of one were shoved into lockers and given swirlies by the participants of the other. However, that doesn’t mean the two can’t join forces in an unholy abomination that makes both parties look absolutely ridiculous. Like if ESPN the Magazine hired Marvel artists to draw fictitious comic book covers for every NBA team, for example. That would be completely insane and stupid.

These events and other highlights are depicted in the November edition of ESPN The Magazine by Marvel artists including Olivier Coipel, Leinil Francis Yu, J. Scott Campbell, Terry Dodson, Kaare Andrews, John Romita Sr., and Marvel Editor-In-Chief, Joe Quesada. Quesada did the honors on the cover of this issue for ESPN. Perhaps not so coincidently, elements of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, all stars of the upcoming Avengers film as well as their own, appear on the cover. –Comics Alliance

You can find screen caps of all the covers over at Comics Alliance and, to be fair, the artwork is impressive. That being said, the last thing in the world the NBA needs is to have its players likened to superheroes. I’m already sick of LeBron’s enormous ego. If Nike puts out a commercial of him leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, I’ll be hard pressed not to find the closest sharp thing I can find and gouge out my eyes.