"Post No. 646"

Wack-O, Jack-O, Dead-O, 5-0. I'll admit to never being a big fan of Michael Jackson. In fact, I liked his early stuff with The Jackson 5 better than anything he did as a solo performer. His music was geared "somewhere" out there away from my tastes, but I always considered him a decent show man and second to none in obtaining publicity when he wanted it. Still, I hate to hear of the passing of the weird one, especially so young. Jackson always wanted as much fame as Elvis, which he sometimes achieved even to the point of marrying Presley's daughter, and it appears that he went out out this mortal life much in the same way. Now maybe Paul can buy back his songs.

Farrah Fawcett; always such a pretty thing. Iconic, and perhaps not the best actress that's ever lived, but in some memorable roles. A less than sterling perfermance in "Logan's Run". A more brilliant one in "The Burning Bed". Lots of fans cheering her on from remembering her as one of the original Charlie's Angels. Cancer doesn't avoid the famous.

Ed McMann was the true star of "The Tonight Show" at times, being the perfect side man for Johnny Carson. Like many, he didn't have the best judgement when it came to his lovelife, but that only added to the more human side we all knew just oozed from the guy.


And along to other things...


Read some more of those comics I got in a recent lot. One I was particurly impressed with was a copy of DC's Outsiders #3 (2003) where The Joker breaks into lex Luthor's secure house, kills all of his guards and secret service people, then tortures lex trying to get him to tell where some items he'd purchased were located. Seems LexCorp bought the company The joker had been dealing with for some of his gadgets. Takes Nightwing and the current Outsiders to rescue Lex. Wasn't really impressed with later issues #'s 26 & 27 as much as this early one.

Also read the first five issues of the 2001 DC Green Arrow series written by Kevin Smith. Not a bad book. GA is treated with some dignity and handled fairly well.

As yet I haven't read Young Avengers #1 (Marvel), Wanted #5 (Top Cow), or some other issues I have around of such things as Peter Parker Spider-man, or Spider-Woman Origin, but shall within the next couple of nights.

"Post No. 645"

Well...ya never know just what you'll find in ones' garden. While I was pulling up weeds from around one plant close to the edge of the house (where the rain had washed away some of the soil) I found THIS pretty little "bird point" arrowhead. Hard to say what tribe it could have come from since there were so very many which both hunted and battled here in Kentucky. In fact, this point may never have even been used as you'll notice a bottom left piece is gone which could have been done by the person who made it and then discarded it as flawed. Let's just hope that my house doesn't sit on top of Indian burials as there's hard evidence of early settler's burials in my backyard as well and I have enough problems with poltergeist here as it is.

And, remember those two older humor comics I won back at the end of last month? One of them finally arrived, the Harvey Hits #7 (Harvey Comics/1959/1st.solo comic devoted to "Wendy the Good Little Witch") and I scanned it and downloaded it to the Comic Data Base. So that particular issue (which you can see HERE is my personal comic from my collection (Neat!)

And this is one of my rare day's off from work. At least now we do have some extra part-time help so just maybe I can finally have TWO days off in a row for a change. I've already been busy trying to play "catch up" with everything needed doing since I had my last day off, such as grocery shopping for my mom, weeding her flower bed, fixing a leak in her roof, trimming back some tree branches, and trying to straighten up all of the stuff my wife and I crammed into her basement in anticipation for an upcoming yard sale. (While I was moving boxes around in the basement I pulled a short box of comics from those I have for sale in the yard sale that I decided to keep, but probably won't even add them back to my inventory list or bother to bag/board them.)

My good friend Steve brought me a full set of the 1960's Charlton title, The Fightin' 5 which I've been reading back through for the first time in probably 40 years. I bought that title regularly off the stands back there and recall trading with fellow collectors for issues, as well as buying some of them for a nickle each at my Aunt Katy's old grocery in this town. Charlton was always the #3 group after Marvel and DC for me, and I bought a lot of their stuff; not just the super-hero titles, but their monster and humor and fantasy/sf comics, and some of the war and westerns, too. Hercules was always one of my favorite Charlton titles, and not really anything that would fit into any of the above catagories (same holds true for another fave, Jungle Tales of Tarzan). The company certainly had a lot of variety. Most collectors probably remember the F5 due to "The Peacemaker" being in a couple of issues, but one thing that distinguished it a bit from others was, as far as I can recall, the only TEAM title they produced.

Read some of the stack of modern type comics I've gotten in of late. Most impressive was the storyline in DC's The Flash V2 #'s 198-200, where a new version of his old enemy the reverse Flash (aka: "Zoom") almost kills Wally's wife and it takes both the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick, Impulse, and the current version of "Johnny Quick" to help bring down this villian. In the meantime, the Silver-Age Flash, Barry Allen, appears to Wally via his time traveling treadmill and brings along the Hal Jordon/Green Lantern version of "The Spectre", which grants Wally's wish to make everyone forget who The Flash's secret I.D. had been, giving him back some sort of safer more normal life.

Also now read were issues of DC's All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder #'s 2 & 3 where Frank Miller tries to rewrite the Bats' history. Miller disapoints me these days with little over-played scenereos but no real meat to his stories, and even the artwork of Jim Lee (who at times I can appreciate), doesn't do much to help this book.

Eternals #1 of the 6 issue L.S. from 2006 was well-written by Neil Gaiman, and John Rominta Jr.'s artwork was very good. It finally fell back into the hands of someone who was familiar with Jack Kirby's themes (even if The Eternals was just a second-hand version of his "New Gods").

DC's Day of Vengence L.S. 1-3 played very well with some second-stringer-type heroes such as Detective Chimp, The Enchantress, Nightmaster, Blue Devil and Ragman trying to halt The Spectre's current rampage of wanting to destroy all the magic in the world. Spectre was without a human host to ground him, and let a version of Eclipso curb his thinking a bit too much and "The Hand of God" kills many of those with magical powers, leading this team on the quest.

Several issues of V1 of Wildstorm's The Authority were also read, and it's hard to give any issue of this first series anything but good reviews. The Authority , to me, is one of those near perfect team titles.

Read an issue of the Marvel Boy L.S. from Marvel and was not in the least impressed, but was very impressed with the copy of Marvel's Moon Knight #1 (from 2006) with an excellant line up of people working on it such as Huston & Finch.

Sorry there's no deep in depth reviews about any of that; just my personal yeas & nays. (Just too tired this time.)

"Post No. 644"

"Bob" Cat might look like he's soaking up the heat and sunlight today, but this has certainly been the year of the storms and tornados here in S-Central, Kentucky. The evening of the 15th. of this month I was at work, looking out the large front windows when I noticed something peculiar. The area in front of me to the left was as clear as day, but the area to the left seemed extremely dark and windy. Stepping outside between customers onto the porch, I saw what appeared to be a funnel-shaped cloud coming towards the business from the East; it was quite distinct. There was much rotation on the ground with dust and such and it had that unmistakable look of a funnel.

Needless to say, I got back inside pretty quick and watched it from there as it veared off to the left and behind the buildings across the street. I would estimate it to have been perhaps a half a mile from me at that time.

Later, according to the weather radio, it had indeed been a twister and had already knocked out the power to 12,000 people in a close-by town and torn the roof off a couple of warehouses, plus downed power lines and several trees.

When it was finally time for me to go home, I had been previously told that the power was also off there. When I got there, the traffic lights were on as well as much of the downtown section, but the wind had knocked down a utility pole on Main Street leaving my section of town without electricity. It was off for 5 solid hours.

In the lightness of such things, many children were outside playing, rather than having their noses stuck in a pc game or computer, and older folks were sitting on the porches talking with their neighbors and some even cooking out on grills due to not having working stoves (as well as any air conditioning).

My wife and I walked down the street to my mom's and we sat outside in the coolness of the evening for a while, and then I did some yard work since I still had plenty of daylight. After that my wife and I took a walk up to the town square and around and window shopped a little, completing the day. By the time we got back home the power had come back on for a good 25 minutes.

And, speaking of my wife, she was laid off from her job of six years the day before that, and the owners are selling the business. She had worked there, as I said, 6 years, and a good 12 years in a business that was located just across from it that finally also went out. So she went out and put in multiple applications for work. We weren't too worried as something always seems to come up and she has a good work record, (but that just shows that even a small community such as this can be affected by the current economy and not just the large corporations), and sure enough she found a similiar job just a few days later and even within walking distance from the house.

And...

I finally emailed the seller of the Funny Folks 6 and Harvey Hits 7(which I mistakenly noted as a No. 6 in a previous post) since they've yet to arrive, but haven't gotten any reply. Hopefully they'll eventually arrive. A lot of modern comics will perhaps make it in before those two older ones (and I just paid for them last week).

I also won copies of DC's Strange Adventures #'s 144 & 156, from the 1962-63 era. Both have "Atomic Knights" app.'s, and the 144 was the only Silver-Age AKs' cover. Actually, I already have a 156, but this one was in the lot and looks like maybe it was a bus station copy, i.e., it looks like it at some time it had a circular sticker over the twelve cent price on the cover. This is pretty much a dead giveaway that it was either sold at a bus station in the 1960's (which sold comic books for fifteen cents each, rather than twelve cents), or came from a vending machine back then (yes; there actually was such a thing as a "comic book vending machine", usually found at "glass houses", which used to be businesses located between the mediums of the interstate highways at various places which also had restaurants and gas stations). Obviously, the seller (or someone) removed it before listing it for sell. I may just keep it as well in my collection of SAs.

"Post No. 643"

50 years ago today we lost George Reeves.

"Post No. 642"

Well...whenever they get here.... I've won a couple of older comics off of eBay auctions this past month. Both are humor titles.

One of them is a copy of DC's Funny Folks #6 (1947), and the other is Harvey's Harvey Hits #6 (1960, I believe).

The FFs features the first "Nutsy Squirrel" cover, and the HHs is the first solo "Wendy the Good Little Witch" comic. (which after a length run as a feature in "Casper", Harvey decided to give her a tryout in her own title).

I'll admit being not even born when the FFs came out; not for another 4 years yet in 1951. DC did many a post WWII/"Roswell" era humor titles back then, even dropping the declining popular super-heroes created during the war and replacing them with uplifting themes (such as "funny animals"). "Nutsy Squirrel" was one of their better features.

And, "Wendy", well...I read a LOT of Harvey Comics' humor stuff back in the days before super-heroes became my main type of diet in the 1960's, what with both Marvel and DC pouring them out. "Stumbo the Giant", "Hot Stuff", "Casper", "Wendy", "Sad Sack", "Little Dot", "Richie Rich", "Baby Huey", "Little Lotta", etcetera, etcetera. Harvey pretty much used a "template" for the designs of these characters making them all part of that company's house style.

I've also ordered a big bunch'a more modern stuff which will be reviewed as it arrives and is read and, as usual, when time allows. It includes:

Flash v2 (DC)198-200, 207, 214-216

Outsiders (DC) 3, 26, 27

Amazing Spider-man (Marvel) 555

Day of Vengence 1-3

Peter Parker Spider-man v2 (Marvel)#'s 31, 32, 44

Legion of Super Heroes (DC)# 274

All-Star Batman (DC)3, 4

The Authority (Image)17,20,22 + annual

The Sentry (Marvel)2, 3

Marvel Boy (Marvel)3

Avengers (Marvel)72, 73

Wanted 5

Spider-Woman origins (Marvel)1, 2

Green Arrow (DC/ 2001 series) 1-5

Moon Knight (2006/Marvel) 1

Daredevil V2 (Marvel)2,5,8,49

Eternals V2(Marvel)#1 - (Gaiman)

Young Avengers(Marvel) # 1


In other things..."

The boss has yet to hire anyone else to help us out in the retail section of the store for the Summer. Instead, they put themselves down on the schedule to work, but, also as usual, find some excuse to ask one of only two workers there (myself as one of those) to work in their place. Therefore I haven't had two days off from work in a row for the entire month. In fact, I'm scheduled for 8 full days I'll have to work that section by myself in June. I was supposed to be off Saturday, but the boss hurt her back and asked me to work that as well, so it's another one of those six day in a row stints where I can never get anything caught up at home. I end up having to do the mowing et all after I work my 8 -1/2 hr. day, leaving me pretty exhasted by the time I DO get a day off. And, of course, by then someone else seems to always have something "planned" for me to do then. (This being the prime reason "why' my blog posts seem to be getting further and further apart.)

"In Memory"

"R. I. P. David Carradine"


...

"Post No. 640"

"COMIC BOOK REVIEWS":

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (DC) #494 (09/92), by Ordway, Grummet & Hazelwood, finds Supes stuck in outer space confronting an entity called "Kismet" which questions him on various decisions he's made during his career as "the man of steel".

Kismet presents several different scenerios to his actions had he not done certain things over the years, such as saving Lois Lane in his pre-Superman days when she was about to die in a plane crash, the time when Kryptonian villians tried to kill him and become rulers, and an accident which left a fellow schoolmate in a coma when he was a teenager in Smallville. More so, it questions his judgement and ethics due to those given him by his foster parents, Ma and Pa Kent. For a filler issue between various storylines in this title, it was excellant.

JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE (DC) #1 (04/89) was a spin-off title, of course, from the then current humorous type version of the JLA, written by Gruffen & Dematteis and art by Sears & Marcos, and it starred the line up of Captain Atom (as chairman), Powergirl, Animal Man, The Flash (Wally West version), Elongated Man, Wonder Woman, Metamorpho and Rocket Red. This title continued in the (then) tradition of tongue-in-cheek JLA titles, with a cover drawn very similiar to the Justice League America #1 of a group shot and someone making a silly remark.

This group of heroes find themselves located in Paris with Captain Atom trying to decide if he's really capable of being their leader. One of the nicer scenes is of the more pleasant times when Ralph Digby (ala, "The Elongated Man") and his wife, Sue, were still together and happy before she was killed off down the line in more modern DC titles. They confront such hazzards as trying to get their transporter on line (which burns up Animal Man's costume), to a crowd striken with some sort of madness, to finding a dead nazi at their front door. As I recall, this title wasn't "as good" as the regular JLA one of the time (now 20 years past), but acceptable.

MARVEL ADVENTURES (Marvel) #5 (11/2007) by Van Lente, Sandoval, Bonet & Gracia begins with a very eye-catching cover of "Iron Man" by Rafa Sandoval & Roger Bonet. Fred Van Lente's script isn't half bad for this "for all ages" type Marvel title, dealing with Iron Man trying to take down a bunch of pirates in a suit of armor designed for deep water use, and then having these "techno-pirates" actually capture him and steal said armor. They unceremoniously bind Tony Stark and shoot him out one of their torpedo tubes after blowing up a ship, and he gets a case of the bends, which forces him to go back and recapture his armor to keep from dying. I've read a handful of other issues of this title and even though they aren't up to the more adult versions of their super heroes, none of them have been badly done. This issue also contains a nice full page tribute to the late Mike Weiringo (1963-2007).

SALVATION RUN limited series (DC) #2(of 7 - 02/2008) by Willingham, Chen and Wong, continued being a fine series about the DC villians being exiled to a hostile planet, being used as their prison. In this issue, "Hellhound" gets badly wounded and "The Body Doubles", Bonny and Carmen, insist that they take him along rather than leaving him to die. There was an alternative motive for this kindness, however, as they knew eventually the planet's predators would appear, to whom they threw Hellhound to a fate of being devoured by "Lion-Lizards" (nice girls). Then, "The Joker" decides he's had enough of the super-intelligent mouthing of "Psimon", and beats his skull in with a rock (the norm' for The Joker, of course) and takes over that group of villians as their leader. In the meantime, the third grouping of Earth's greatest villians gets transported to this world via the "Boom Tube" which includes Lex Luthor and "Catwoman". Naturally, Luthor has his own agenda as to "who's boss" around there. Next time I'd at a comic book ship where I can pick up back issues I definately plan on completing this run to read.

CODE OF HONOR limited series (Marvel) Book 1 (01/97) by Chuck Dixon with painted artwork by Tristan Shane & Brad Parker is about a black cop working the slum areas of N.Y.C., always being over-shadowed by the heroics of the city's various Marvel superheroes. This follows his beginnings on the police force and various calls, at times confronting super-powered villians and a array of such heroes as Spider-man, the Punisher, The Hulk, Sub-mariner, and others, but the real tale is about the officer himself and the terms he comes to deal with to remain honest to both the city and himself. Very nice piece of work by Dixon of which I wouldn't mind reading following issues. The painted-type artwork isn't quite in the same league as, say, Alex Ross, but darn close.

FOREVER MAELSTORM limited series (DC) #1 (of 6 - 01/2003) by Chaykin & Tishman, Lucas & Barreto. Quirky type of artwork that almost set me off from reading it, but sort'a grew on me as I got into the story, which is about a time traveler named "Forever Maelstorm" and his companion, a talking timber wolf. He gallops around time visiting all sorts of historic people, such as Ben Franklin and the early Revolutionary War crowd (and the like), only to finally end up in one alternate current reality where most of life had ceased in 1964. Not one of Howard Chaykin's best creations and probably nothing I'd care to finish reading unless I just happen to run across other issues at a very cheap price. This first issue contained a preview of the Superman: Metropolis comic, but DC, at that time, published such previews so reduced in size (2 pages to one) that they're difficult to read and enjoy and get a true idea to the product. This comics' one really redeeming point to me is that it had a "Beatles mention" (pg. 8, panel 3), and that's been listed on my "Beatles & Bizarros" blog (unabashed plug w/link in the top right column).
DOCTOR STRANGE SORCERER SUPREME (Marvel) #'s 88 & 89 (04 & 05/1996). In this two issue storyline right before the last issue of the series, Dr. Strange's friend, Wong, blames Stephen for the death of his true love. Thus Strange takes Wong on a journey into the neather area between life and death, where spirits of the departed linger and rest for their final destination, and ponder the events of this corporal life and lives that are to come. Wong is reunited with his lost love and fully understands her departure and finds peace with Strange, only to discover that he's now alone in this dimension. In the following issue, Strange reappears after Wong is nearly drug on into the existence of "things that no longer are alive on Earth", and they return to their corporate building, "The Tempo". But things aren't always as they seem.

Wong is not with Dr. Strange, but an entity called "Afterlife" which feeds on souls and it has taken over Strange's body. Fortunately, Dr. Strange is powerful enough to free himself and Afterlife escapes to continue feeding, but in the end. he, with his friendship bond with Wong, are able to not defeat this entity, but release it from its false persona, revealing an angel that was trapped in the form. This was a pretty good tale from J. M. Dematteis and Mark Buckingham's artwork suited the story very well.

NIGHT FORCE (DC) #1 (2nd. DC series - 12/96) is the continuing tale of "Baron Winters" and his companions battling the occult, and once again, written by Marv Wolfman. This time we have Brent Anderson & Will Blyberg doing the artwork in a very purposely-drawn Gene Colan style. And the tale begins in a mid-eastern country where an execution is about to take place. Those who wish to stop this are too late to do so, and the story continues here in the U.S. where children are being possessed by something murderous, all chanting in Arabic, and all born with a strange symbol on their necks.

I'll have to admit, that even though I've always been a Marv Wolfman fan, I was never much for this series even in its original concept. I'm sure there's probably a huge fan following of these characters, therefore I feel I have no right to give an unbiased opinion. But it was interesting enough that I wouldn't mind reading other issues.

THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN limited series (DC) 1-6 (06-08/2006). To quote "Wikipedia":



"Following the Chemo disaster, the President declares a state of emergency and erects a wall around the city, as it is a threat to public health. Since Chemo was only chemically toxic, the nuclear fallout present in the city is a mystery. A new government-sanctioned super team codenamed "Freedom's Ring" (an apparent spin-off of the Force of July ) takes charge of Blüdhaven, and orders the Teen Titans and all other metahumans to leave the city. One year later, "The Wall" has become a permanent structure, and displaced citizens compare the immediate area to the Gaza Strip . Many live in refugee camps that have sprung up around the wall while the superhero Monolith helps to keep the peace.
Within the city, Father Time the supervillain commands American forces, ordering his men to shoot and kill any heroes (referred to as insurgents ) who enter the city. His forces also erect internment camps in which experiments are conducted upon American citizens. Also active in the city are the Atomic Knights , who run an 'underground railroad ' in an attempt to smuggle citizens out of the city. The Society dispatch the Nuclear Legion (Geiger, Professor Radium , Reactron , Mister Nitro, Neutron ) to discover the nature of the radioactive leak inside the city, but in a conflict with Freedom's Ring and the Atomic Knights, one member of the Legion is killed. The Society sends the Nuclear Family to assist, and they locate the leak, but engage the Atomic Knights under the city in a struggle that merges into a larger battle between the Titans and SHADE agents.
Increasingly concerned by the developments, Robin leads the Titans back into the city. The Black Baron, once a drug lord who was mutated by the blast, now styles himself as the leader and ruler of the inner part of the city. In a fight with the Titans, Monolith and Firebrand , the Baron is punched into the next state by Monolith. SHADE agents engage the Titans and Lady Liberty is killed by Ravager, who then defeats the SHADE officers sent to retrieve the Titans. The Green Lantern Hal Jordan arrives to square off against Major Force , and Major Victory tells Force to stand down. Force refuses and beats Victory to death using Victory's own arm, after which Force's subordinates and some of the SHADE agents refuse to stand by him. Monolith is shattered in the fight and Firebrand escapes, following a voice that urges him to come to the Mississippi River .
The Atomic Knights place Captain Atom in a containment suit designed to limit his radiation output, similar to the armor worn by Monarch . Atom kills Major Force by draining all of the radioactive energy out of him and delivers a warning, telling anyone who wants to live to evacuate the city. After the evacuation, Captain Atom unleashes a nuclear explosion, destroying what is left of Blüdhaven and leaving a radioactive crater in its place. Meanwhile, the Atomic Knights retreat to an underground bunker known as Command-D. Later Brother Eye , in pursuit of Karate Kid , Una and his creator, the scientist Buddy Blank , claims Blüdhaven for himself, activating a new OMAC Army."

'Can't say that I was a "big" fan of this series, probably because of the way DC now portrays various characters originally created in The Golden Age Quality Comics' hero line. Nor do I feel that DC has ever really given a decent treatment to any of the Charlton Comics heros (especially "Captain Atom"). It was interesting enough, and "The Teen Titans" played well into this series, but overall it was just another dark and gritty DC series of which sometimes I grow bored. However, it was really nice to see "The Atomic Knights" back into action again as they have always been one of my favorite Silver-Age teams from this company having read many of their stories back years ago in Strange Adventures.

"Post No. 639"

Speaking of George Reeves, I recently rewatched the first Johnny Weismuller "Jungle Jim" feature, made in 1948, a good three years before Reeves would ever star as "the man of steel". Rolicking good fun, but Ghad! So cheesy were the (and I hate to refer to them as such) special effects that they were laughable even in the standards of that time.

The plot to the first JJ flick was a female scientist employing him to take her to find this proverbial "lost city" due to a vial of poison Jim found on a native. The poison refined and in small doses, however, was a cure for infantile paralysis. Reeves hears of this and decides to trail the safari after discovering the vial was of pure gold, and thus thinking the city contained other treasure.

Naturally, he being avillian in this flick, tries to kill Jim several times with everything from an elephant stampede to pushing bolders off a cliff towards him, and even shoving Jim off the side of a cliff.

But the topper to this corn was when the female scientist was swimming and what was supposed to be a crocodile grabbed her with its tail! That's right! Crocodiles in that part of Africa had prehensile tails, "Arf! Arf!" And the extra cream to this was that it wasn't even a rubber crocodile but some dime store lizard used in the scenes. So very obvious was this that my wife, not a big fan of special effects, even commented on how fake it all appeared (and she wasn't even paying half attention to the movie).

Natives, by the way, all go down with just one punch and obviously when thrown into fire are highly combustable! And lions being animals of tall, grassy regions? Forget it! They all prowl in dense jungles. Oh yeah...the native girls are all white-skinned as well.

(*sigh*)

Reeves must have really needed the work.


"If I haven't read it then it's NEW To Me" Dept.:

Picked up the following comics which are slated for reviews:

The Adventures of Superman (DC) 494, The Battle for Bloodhaven limited series (DC) 1-4, Code of Honor limited series (Marvel) 1, Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme (Marvel) 88, 89, Forever Maelstorm limited series (DC) 1, Justice League Europe (DC) 1, Marvel Adventures (Marvel/2nd. series) 5, Night Force (DC/ 2nd. series/1996) 1, Salvation Run limited series (DC) 2.

Actually, I have already read some of these some years ago, but got them in a lot and have decided to re-read them all, and will post said reviews as time allows.