To start things off I don´t know if it is because I grew up during John Byrne´s rise to superstardom or because I never payed much attention to the shit storms he caused in social media but I am still a big fan of him.
The most common thing you hear about John Byrne is that his older stuff was better but the thing about that statement is that it seems there are no two comic readers who mean the same with his older stuff - and he has worked on a truckload of comic series over the decades and yes, even the millenia since technically John started his career in the last millennium.
Now you might say that he´s not doing so much work right now aside from his work on Star Trek - which I am not reading - but even though he is still a big part of my daily reading diet. I just finished with the second West Coast Avengers omnibus so the next thing is the Avengers by John Byrne omnibus. Yes, I have read most of the issues before but if I pay money for a book then I want to read it at least once. Not only to see if there are any errors like missing pages or miscolorings but also because his work on Avengers West Coast is as good as it gets where super hero team books are concerned so you can read the stories a few times. And I haven´t read the issues together with the issues of Avengers John Byrne wrote at the same time. So it will be a new experience for me to read it in the right chronological order. Anyway, besides John Byrne´s issues of Avengers West Coast a big incentive for me to buy this omnibus were the Avengers issues by Paul Ryan. Longtime readers of the blog know that one of my pet peeves is showcasing artists or writers who I feel are unjustly overlooked or underappreciated and Paul Ryan is one of them. But I don´t want to get into this subject right now since I have done so in a plethora of posts like my long Flash Friday with Paul Ryan series which I still have to conclude.
Coming back to John Byrne stuff that pops up in my reading diet, last month I found the Days of Future Past hardcover at a very low price at amazon and I could finally add those two classic issues to my collection in a nice hardcover. So far I had the trade with only the two issues which was printed decades ago. Back when Marvel did not do many trades two of them were Days of Future Past and The Dark Phoenix Saga. I have the latter part of The Dark Phoenix Saga as part of the fifth volume of Marvel Masterworks - The Uncanny X - Men but that´s it with the classic run by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. You can´t find any previous volumes anywhere. Probably because Disney wants to sell the omnibus editions.
Now I am not against omnibus editions. In the beginning I complained that those books were too expensive but thanks to amazon I have found more than a few at bargain prices ( the only one for which I paid the full price is the SECRET WARS II OMNIBUS and it´s worth every penny ) and now I own 17 of them with at least 5 more on my " to buy " list. So I could have bought the Uncanny X - Men omnibus books when they were relatively cheap ( most of them were available for 65 bucks at one time or another ) but with the first one I already had most of the issues by Dave Cockrum as part of a Marvel Masterwork and I prefer them to most omnibus books because they are easier to hold. One quick aside since we are on the subject of Dave Cockrum´s run on Uncanny X - Men : because most comic aficionados focus mainly on the John Byrne issues we sometimes forget how incredible Dave Cockrum was on the first part of the new X - Men.
When I bought those Marvel Masterworks I mostly did it because they were cheap and it is where the new team begins but man, oh man, I had completely forgotten how good he was. He did some of my favorite issues of the Legion of Super - Heroes and here Dave was firing on all cylinders.
Now I was tempted to buy the second volume but on one side I already had big part of the issues as a Marvel Masterwork ( including PHOENIX : THE UNTOLD STORY ) on the other side there are a lot of issues not by John Byrne in this. So whenever it was offered for 64 Euros I found some excuse not to buy it and one day it was out of print. It has since been reprinted but it seldom is available for less than 65 bucks anymore. There is the much smaller - and of course much more expensive - X - Men : The Dark Phoenix Saga Omnibus coming out in August but I don´t know if I will get this version unless I find it for a very low price. Rounding up with the Uncanny X - Men omnibus editions I also had the chance to buy the third volume at a low price but I didn´t buy it because I thought it included some of the issues which are in volume 10 of Marvel Masterworks : The Uncanny X - Men. I also bought that one at amazon because the regular price for this sucker is 100 bucks. Okay, this clocks in at a whopping 460 pages which is the thickest Marvel Masterwork but why pay more when you can usually find this for around 65 bucks at amazon ? Anyway, the third Uncanny X - Men omnibus ends with issue 175 which means that volume 10 of Marvel Masterworks : Uncanny X - Men comes directly after it starting with Uncanny X - Men 176. But it contains no Byrne issues and to tell the truth, I don´t feel that the later issues by Dave Cockrum and the ones by Paul Smith are indispensable and as good as they are I already have them in some other form ( I had a bunch of the Dave Cockrum issues in the german version but some of them got dented so bad I had to get rid of them ) and I don´t have such a big budget that I can afford to spend more money on them. Also it does include the four part Magik limited mini series that is part of volume 10 of Marvel Masterworks : Uncanny X - Men.
Coming back to John Byrne, there are quite a few omnibus books available by him or coming out very soon aside from The Dark Phoenix Saga. There is Alpha Flight by John Byrne where I was tempted a few times to buy it because even though I have the entire series this includes a lot of other issues I don´t have in hardcover. Plus you can´t go wrong with a price tag of 64 bucks for a 1200 plus pages thick book. Then there are the Marvel Universe by John Byrne omnibus books ( yes, there will be a volume two ) which collect all sort of series but that also is not high on my priority list.
With the Fantastic Four I missed all opportunities to get the two omnibus books cheap but I already decided that I already have all the issues as part of the Fantastic Four Visionaries : John Byrne collection and I don´t need them in hardcover. There is a somewhat more ancillary omnibus which does not contain any Byrne issues but since he was the main architect of the post - Crisis Superman revamp I want to mention the Superman : Exile And Other Stories Omnibus. I love those stories - not only because Kerry Gamill drew a lot of them - and I will keep an eye out if I can get it for a reasonable price when amazon is doing its big sales promotion on the 16th and 17th of this month. Since both - my younger brother and me - are celebrating a birthday towards the end of this month I am looking for presents and this would fit the bill. I don´t think that the other DC omnibus I have a hankering for Justice League : The Detroit Era will be available for less than 80 bucks anytime soon. And if none of these fall into my regular price range until the end of the month I will probably just go with the second volume of Superboy and the Legion of Super - Heroes.
Wrapping up the topic of John Byrne related reading material there are still a few mini series by him he did at IDW that I have to get in trade and there just was a pin up by him in the Epic Collection Iron Man : Doom.
As you can see I could write about John Byrne ad nauseum so it should not surprise you that I already wrote a lot of posts about him, too many to link them all but I want to include a few for my newer readers : the most recent ones are two birthday posts I did in 2016, one about his work at DC Comics and various independent comic companies and one with his work for Marvel Comics and two posts on Jerry Ordway who inked John Byrne on the last leg of his legendary Fantastic Four issues. The first one is a special Valentine´s Day post with the infamous issue where Alicia Masters dumped Ben for Johnny ( which went against the bro code but it was okay because that Alicia turned out to be a skrull which is a subject we will discuss in detail if I ever get to my FANTASTIC FOUR FRIDAY WITH PAUL RYAN series ) and the other one about the birth of Malice who has the second best costume after the special " 4 " - shaped boobie window ( which also first appeared during the FANTASTIC FOUR run by Paul Ryan ).
And last but not least because Supergirl and the Legion of Super - Heroes are finally being exposed to a worldwide audience thanks to the Supergirl tv series my post on the problems in the post - Crisis DC universe because there was no more Superboy or Supergirl , my last post in the series about John Byrne´s Superman revamp and my latest post about cult siren Teri Hatcher who was the antagonist in season 2 of Supergirl and still looks as hot as during Lois & Clark : The New Adventures Of Superman. For me she was the first actress who made it believable that Superman would choose her over other hot Justice League babes like Big Barda or Wonder Woman.
The Teri Hatcher post not only has a lot of pics and GIFS of massita Teri it also goes into detail about her involvement in comic related media from Superman, Supergirl, Legion of Super - Heroes to Tales From The Crypt.
There are a few birthdays that I missed since our last post beginning with Tom Palmer who turned 76 two days ago. Being on of the best inkers in the business it should be no surprise that his work appears on a lot of posts I wrote. And while he did not get a solo post until 2016 got there are plenty of posts for you to peruse. One of his best collaborations was inking John Buscema on Avengers - on both runs - so look no further than my series about my Top Ten John Buscema covers ( part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 ) , my three posts about the Avengers tie - in issues to Inferno that I made so far ( I hope I can continue this series someday because it´s one of my favorite crossovers and I still have a lot to say about it ) or my post about the Assault On Olympus story . Speaking of comics drawn by John Buscema I did two posts on the Ragnarock storyline that ran from Thor 272 to 277. Another highlight of Tom Palmer´s career was inking Gene Colan on such classic Bronze Age milestones like Daredevil, Doctor Strange or The Tomb of Dracula so you might want to check out the post I wrote when he passed away in 2011 or the Gene Colan homage post I did in 2016.
On July the 14th we have a birthday for my german readers as Martina Hill celebrates her 44th anniversary who is best known for displaying incredible deepthroat skills ( AND comedic talent ) on Knallerfrauen.
She later joined the cast of Switch Reloaded where she became the impersonator of Heidi Klum, Daniela Katzenberger, Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Bones tv series but her best role is the Jessica Rabbit of tv news sexbomb Tatjana Ohm, who is in a constant battle with Daniela Elger for the title of biggest boobs on german tv. Martina is almost better than the real thing and while Switch Reloaded is a matter of taste I have to thank Martina for bringing Busenwunder Tatjana Ohm to my attention.
Speaking about women who can triple the circulation numbers of adult magazines, Jeff Jarrett turned 51 and he won most of his matches due to two things - well, really three things - El Kawong and Debra Michaels´ big puppies. When he wasn´t busy sending her back for showing too much skin. Debra always pulled off the look of the big titted boss you could never nail / the slutty secretary you wish your wife would let you have.
It´s no surprise that the Texas raised sexbomb with the huge hooters was a cheerleader as well as her school´s homecoming queen and Debra always catered to the sexual fantasy of doing it with the horny CEO with the porn star body or your nymphomanic boss with the perplexing puppies you could never drill. She always used her spectacular boobs to distract the opponent or the referee - whatever was more successful - and her ridiculously skimpy outfits come in every color of the 36DD rainbow .
I have just started to get back into wrestling on german tv and I don´t even know if there still is Impact Wrestling. It surely is not on german tv and I haven´t had time to check out the interwebs. Here´s hoping it still is out there in some way, shape or form because I really miss Gail Kim.
Originally I wanted to include a video with a wrestling match of Gail Kim but then I came across this one where she looks beyond stunning. Daimn girl, talk about a knockout hardbody that makes other celebrities jealous.
Yesterday was also the 60th birthday of Leon Boden who also was on the wildly successful Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast but for me he was Johnny Roland on Die Rote Meile. The series was named after the red light district of St. Pauli in Hamburg and was a sequel to The King of St. Pauli. It followed the lives of strippers, prostitutes and their pimps but they were all portrayed like regular people not like in american tv where people from this walk of life are always portrayed as bad people. Anyway, I watched every episode of Die Rote Meile because they had a very easy concept : one strip in every episode which was not interrupted by commercials. I don´t know if they could do that Today as they put them into everything.
Even if they did not go totally topless - sometimes they had pasties on - I was glued to the tv watching such hot sexbombs like Yasmina Filali above. Daimn, that girl really has the prototype of the heart shaped ass. Now longtime readers know that one of my pet peeves is giving credit to the unsung actresses who upgrade movies and tv shows by getting naked on camera and there were sure some among them on Die Rote Meile as I found out when I tried to find the names of my favorite strippers. Yes, only the " real " actors are mentioned in the cast meaning those with a speaking part which tells you which place some women still occupy in Today´s society. So if anybody out there knows the name of the living blow up sex doll with the huge melons below put it in the comments.
Anyway, one of the best strippers of the regular cast is Sylvia Leifheit who has a secret identity in the series as she plays the typical devoted wife by day, secret stripper by night. Sylvia made me realize two things : firstly, while I usually don´t go for skinny chicks she is just oozing so much sex appeal that I would do her in a minute. And second, hair color can really make a difference because her character in the series is actually a blonde and despite having the same figure as a blonde she´s kind of - meh - looking while as Luna with the black wig she´s a real firecracker !
A few years back I got the complete first season of Die Rote Meile on DVD at amazon at a pretty decent price and I´m glad I seized the opportunity because it really goes for ridiculous prices now. I can really recommend this show and Sylvia Leifheit alone is worth the price of admission.
We start Today´s birthdays with venezuelan tv personality, model, actress Aida Maria Yespica Jaime or Aida Yespica in short who turns 34. She´s not very well known in America or Germany but she is pretty famous in Spain through Supervivientes, the spanish version of Survivor. She began her career at beauty contests where she became the press favorite despite loosing the competition thanks to the fact that despite her average 5`8`` height she possessed a 36D - 24 - 36 figure. She went on to appear on italian tv as a model and showgirl where she quickly rose to fame.
Aida appeared on magazines like Maxim and CQ, did four nude calendars in Italy and tv commercials for Braun, Campari and RAS with Sean Connery. She became a tv star, a movie star and was involved in a few scandals.
More comic related celebs as Brian Austin Green has his 45th anniversary and he played Metallo on Smallville. He was on Desperate Housewives with Teri Hatcher who played Lois on Lois & Clark - The New Adventures of Superman, Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Saved By The Bell : The College Years with Tiffany Amber Thiessen with whom he was later romantically involved - on and off screen - in Beverly Hills 90210.
Boy, I would have schtupped her too and she was like a real life blow up sex doll back in those days. Besides taming Tiffany he also dated Tori Spelling who did a freaking fertility dance in one of the episodes. They said it was to shoot a music video in the plot line but maybe it was just foreplay and Brian plowed Tori´s brains out in the trailer afterwards.
She really was just shaking her big boobs in the general direction of the camera but that she did very effectively. I never was a big Tori Spelling fan but she really squeezed her huge breast into a tight leather top and just pushed them straight in your face. Now that´s what I call entertainment.
What I find a bit strange is how did such a scene get approved when her father was producing this ? Should I be concerned that Daddy dearest put it in the script or does this say more about his employees. Maybe some disgruntled writers just decided to put his boss´ daughter into a hooker outfit and let her dance for him as payback for sleeping with his wife.
" Okay, Tori, do you think you can move more like a prostitute ? And we need to make the outfit sluttier. This is supposed to be a rock video. "
Those directors got it made, they just go " Okay guys, in the next four episodes Tiffani dresses up as a prostitute. And she has to do at least one striptease and two nude sex scenes in each episode. Which is really necessary for her character. Oh yeah, and send her to my trailer for .... extreme rehearsal. We have to go over the scene ... orally. " Those horny perverts are to thank for that Tiffani was so often in bikinis on that show.
I never was a big fan of the Beverly Hills, 90210 show but that quickly changed when I saw wet Tiffani Thiessen´s booming breasts in a bikini - which was a product of mother nature - and Tori Spelling´s growing boobs - which were a gift of Daddy and the best plastic surgery money could buy.
Speaking about hookers, besides appearing on Beverly Hills 90210 Tiffani also was on Saved by the Bell with Elizabeth Berkley who revealed her real stripper nature in Showgirls. The movie was called a flop when it first come out but in the meantime it has become a cult classic mainly based on Elizabeth´s stripper moves which left me no other chance than cast her as one of my alternate choices for the Nympho Supergirl from Earth XXX in my second alternatives post for casting the Justice League movie .
She would get a different origin in which her rocket was bombarded by the radiation of pink kryptonite which turns all female kryptonians into super horny blow up sex dolls. Because of the long exposure to the pink kryptonite the effects would be permanent ( instead of only temporary like usual ) and Nympho Supergirl would have different powers like sex strength, peep vision, erection vision, perv hearing, orgasmic flight, ovaric speed, tantra healing, kama sutra flexibility, sex olympics stamina, multiple position memory, fellatio breath and deepthroat breath. I would say she also has the power to give all men giant erections making their pulsating dicks hard enough to cut diamonds as soon as they look at her but with Miss Berkeley´s super sexy stripper moves that´s a given.
But double jointed Elizabeth not only licks the chrome off your steelhard pole she has the all important " pumping pelvic thrust " move down to pat.
I bet that comes in handy with that portable casting couch she allegedly has and I would not mind being at the receiving end of that a few hours.
80s sex symbol Brigitte Nielsen turns 55 Today and I already mentioned her in the first post about italian pop sensation Sabrina Salerno. She was one of the busty centerfolds who tried to turn her notoriety into vinyl gold.
So she wanted to cash in on that popularity and tried her luck together with Falco from Vienna best known for his worldwide number 1 single ROCK ME AMADEUS. They sang BODY NEXT TO BODY although Brigitte Nielsen´s real contribution to the video clip was shaking her enourmous moneymakers in a little black shirt that was barely bigger than a napkin. I remember staying up late at night way beyond my bedtime to secretly tape the video because they didn´t show it on tv before midnight.
As we all know Brigitte starred in Red Sonya which was even worse than the second Conan movie but she almost got the role of She Hulk as New Line Cinema had her pose for pictures. The movie never came to pass which was probably for the best as was a tv pilot where they cast Gabrielle Reece as She Hulk and Mitzi Kapture as Jennifer Walters.
In my last post we had Michelle Rodriguez who was on Lost and we have cast members Matthew Fox who celebrated his 52nd birthday Yesterday and Terry O´Quinn who celebrates his 66th Today. Terry was also on the cast of Alias, The X - Files and JAG with Catherine Bell, a.k.a. the juggs of J.A.G. by her fans and so far I haven´t gotten around to do a solo post on her but she has been a candidate in my Casting the Justice League of America Movie series, this time as Catwoman in the Hollywood edition.
Terry really lucked out with female co - stars with korean knockout Grace Park who strutted her stuff on Hawaii Five O after playing the toaster every guy would love to use for breakfast in bed on Battlestar Galactica.
One thing I never understood on Battlestar Galactica was why the cylons fought such a long war with the humans when they could have just mass produced such hot sexbombs like Grace Park and Tricia Helfer and drown humanity with them. In a few weeks they would have made all men their obedient sex slaves and they could have taken over without casualties.
At the moment my daily schedule changes constantly but for the past three weeks I have started watching Hawaii Five - O again after I learned that neither Grace Park nor Daniel Dae Kim will be on the new seasons.
Usually I don´t go for skinny chicks but I would love to get Grace Park on the casting couch for a long weekend auditioning for Nymphomanic Ex - Nun With A Lot Of Sexual Catching Up To Do. She got the whole asian persuasion thing going for her and I don´t want to use racial stereotypes but asian girls really do have the best bubblebutts in the world. I doubt there is any male alive who can resist Grace Park wiggling her whotsit.
We really cover a lot of my favorite tv series in this post ( I´m almost tempted to give the video section its own post because it just keeps getting longer and longer ) and we couldn´t forget Airwolf which really should be part of the english vocabulary. The main lead was Jan - Michael Vincent who must have had one of the most incredible tv names ever as Stringfellow Hawke. He played opposite the late Ernest Borgnine as Dominic Santini and turns 74. Earlier I spoke about actresses who don´t get enough credit so I want to give a shout out to Helene Phillips, who played the exotic dancer who gets killed so Belinda Bauer is brought in ( she´s an exotic dancer, not a stripper because she doesn´t take her clothes of ). Now some people take the fact that Helene´s character gets offed as reinforcement that women with big breasts only get roles where they get killed off quickly while the flatchested girls have larger roles but Belinda´s character also gets killed. Okay, she has more screen time than Helene. Anyway, props go out to my Stringfellow but mostly to Helene.
We are staying with exotic dancers with Christina Milian who would fit right into a bar of ill repute thanks to her african and spanish cuban roots.
She is one of those stars who makes other celebrities jealous because you never see a bad paparazzi video with her and all her bikini pictures look like she was just on her way to shoot another of her music videos. Which is why she has been on at least 40 different Top 100 Sexiest Women lists.
From cult sirens - in the literal sense of the word with Christina Milian since she not only has a body that makes pornstars envious and learned to do the splits like a cheerleader at the tender age of 3 but also sings like the greek mermaids who would lure the horny sailors to their deaths with their hauntingly sexy voices - we come to cult tv shows based on cult horror comic series with Tales From The Crypt. This is another show I have to look for in Spain since I have only seen the censored german versions.
Since John Byrne did a lengthy run on Fantastic Four I want to include a video from the 70s cartoon show and in honor of Christina Milian a.k.a. Christina Flores I chose the spanish version. Also because I love the latino intro music and the spanish names for Marvel´s first super hero family.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best
I'm not too hard on myself about dieting and exercise. Some stars are a little too bony for me. What happened to the booty ?
