Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Starting X - Men Week with John Romita Jr

Initially I thought my next Marvel post would finally be about Spider - Man and the Hobgoblin but after five installments of SPIDER - MAN WEEK I think my readers might be worn a bit out for Spider - Man related stuff.


Truth to tell, I am having a bit of trouble myself getting excited about it so I wanted to post some art from John Romita Jr´s run on UNCANNY X - MEN that I came across while looking for original pages for SPIDER - MAN WEEK.

There are still a few mutant related posts in the pipeline - like my series about the underrated run on UNCANNY X - MEN by Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureiras - so I thought it´s the perfect time to take a brake from web - slinging nostalgia and dive into mutated mayhem this month. Another reason why I´m doing this post is to pimp volume 10 of the MARVEL MASTERWORK library featuring the UNCANNY X - MEN. Now I know what some of you are thinking : why is Subzero pimping a 100 Dollar hardcover ?


And you are right, it does have a hefty price tag. Since my order has not arrived yet I don´t know how thick the book actually is but I remember seeing it at the Comic Con in Stuttgart last year. It was pretty heavy but I didn´t buy it because I thought that at 100 bucks it was a bit overpriced.

I mean, it is within the pricing range of the other MARVEL MASTERWORKS since a regular issue goes for 75 scheckels and has around 250 to 300 pages while volume 10 of UNCANNY X - MEN clocks in at a whopping 464 pages.


That said I didn´t have 100 bucks to spend that day and I also had to be careful how much I bought where the weight is concerned. I don´t want to bring up my health problems in every post but when you are not as spry and physically fit as you used to be the question how many comics you can buy - and especially buy and carry home - becomes very important.

Okay, so I didn´t buy it then but not because I didn´t like the material - I love the material. As longtime readers know I always come back to the same issues and I also buy the same issues over and over again. IF they are good issues. So far I have them in the spanish version - black and white and in color - the german version - magazine sized Hefte and pocket books - and various english language versions - from pocket books to CLASSIC X - MEN to ESSENTIALS, Epic Collections or as part of an omnibus hardcover.


So do I really need them in another version ? Well, not really but I got it anyway. The reason why I´m doing this post is more for my german readers because said 10th volume of MARVEL MASTERWORKS : UNCANNY X - MEN is currently available at amazon Germany not for 75 EUROS nor 65 EUROS but for a laughable 54 EUROS. And that includes packaging and shipping.

That´s almost half price. There may be a chance you will find it some day somewhere for less than that but I would not bet on it. Since I have already written volumes about my lover for this run in numerous posts I won´t bore my readers with repeating it one more time and will instead let the artwork speak for itself. The only thing I want to add is that besides the art of John Romita Jr you also get the famous LIFE DEATH issue by Barry Windsor Smith and the MAGIK 4 issue mini series by John Buscema, Sal Buscema and Ron Frenz plus a lot of other bonus features.


So this is the end of the art by John Romita Jr. from the UNCANNY X - MEN issues collected in volume 10 of MARVEL MASTERWORKS - numbers 176 to 188 - but there are a few more pages I want to add since I don´t know when I will have the next opportunity to do a post about Jr Jr´s X - MEN.


Which is a good point to explain how I selected the art for this post. You might think that I went with my favorite pages or X - Men moments or maybe the most iconic images or the introduction of new characters to the X - Men canon like Forge. But as I said, the genesis of this post is that I came across some original art by John Romita Jr so it all started there.


And after selecting the best original art - which means the ones that had the best quality and were visually interesting - I just added a few more cool looking covers and pages and presto changeo there was a new post.


One final question is where if fits with the other reprints of this material because while we do buy the same books over and over ( at least that´s what I do ) one tries to avoid having too many redundancies. For a while now I have the impression that Disney is very aware of the material that is already available when they are doing their collected editions. Which is why the Epic Collection UNCANNY X - MEN : THE GIFT collects issues 189 to 198. It directly continues from volume 10 of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS which in turn continues directly from the third volume of the UNCANNY X - MEN omnibus hardcover which collects issues 145 to 175. The only thing I find a bit strange is that the omnibus book also contains the MAGIK mini series but I think with all the stuff it collects it´s not that big of a deal.  


Man, Today there are also no important comic related birthdays or cult sirens of notice since our last post that I covered in previous years so I only have two links before we come to the celebrity birthdays of the day.

This could become a habit but I don´t mind since it makes writing these posts so much easier. But before you surrender to the onslaught of sexy pop culture queens check out John DiBello´s article at 13TH DIMENSION that gives you the run down of all The Crazy Costumes Of Kitty Pryde ( I think only Janet VanDyne a.k.a. the Wasp has more costumes in the 616 Marvel universe ) and for fans of the X - Men´s southern belle NALDZ GRAPHICS has 40 Spectacular Rogue Artworks that will blow your mind.


Because of one of the following celebrity birthdays I have already done a few posts on January the 20th which allows me to skip those birthdays I have done in those posts. Because of that - and a futile attempt to keep the entertainment section short - I am concentrating on anniversaries where I had already bookmarked some videos in advance or where I can link to other posts on the blog. We start with a real cult siren in every sense of the word as the sexsational Rihanna celebrates her 30th birthday.


Now despite Rihanna´s many wardrobe malfunctions thanks to her carefully selected outfits I still haven´t done a cult siren post on her but I posted a lot of GIFs and DJ Khaled´s video Wild Thoughts in this post.



As coincidence would have it we also have a react video in the post which was really hard to concentrate on because of Kennedy´s developing chest.


To keep the tradition it will likewise be difficult to concentrate on the following video because of Busenwunder Becca and her bouncing action.



We are continuing with with sexy females as Gail Kim - or Die Geile Kim like she is called in Germany - turns 41. This literal canadian knockout not only was a big part of the t & a of TNA Wrestling but also put the asian in hasian thanks to her exotic korean descent. Since I was a big fan of female wrestling in general and Gail Kim in particular I wrote my first post about her in 2016 and finally managed to do a second post on her last year . I thought I could do another post on her this year, as I have enough GIFs for at least a few posts but as it is I will have to post pone it for the moment.


Since Gail Kim has wrestled at iMPACT Wrestling and the former WWF ( I still have a hard time calling it the WWE because I don´t care for " sports entertainment " I want to see wrestling ) I am posting videos that serve to illustrate the difference between the companies´ women´s division.


Lately they have stepped it up a bit - at least they did when I could still watch wrestling - but while Gail Kim was there the main purpose of the Diva´s was to serve as eye candy which is one of the reason why they had so many Halloween costume / bikini / lingerie / wet t - shirt / bra and panties / striptease matches. Not that there´s anything wrong with that.


I mean which red blooded potent male doesn´t want to see Gail Kim as a naughty school girl, in a wet t - shirt or wearing her ass in a tiny thong ?


And the less clothes she and the other Divas wear the better. But it was more about the Divas´ stripper skills and less about the wrestling abilities.



On the other side we have - or had since I am not up to date if it still exists - iMPACT Wrestling where we also have incredibly hot sexbombs on the roster like beach hardbody Taryn Terell or blow up sex doll Velvet Sky.


Who was predestined to earn a living by working that pole. I mean she even has a stripper name for crying out loud. But while they can easily compete with the other wrestling leagues in that department they somehow managed to keep it on the back burner and focus on the wrestling. They also seem to take it up a few notches in their matches.



We are taking a short break from all the sex and violence for the faint of heart to return to comic books as Mike Allred celebrates his 49th birthday.


Now because there might be new readers on this blog and I know that we are all lazy I am putting up the links to my old Mike Allred posts for all those who don´t want to use the link at the bottom of my top ten Popular Posts and then go through all the posts via the Mike Allred tag.

My first post was in 2006 about the X - STATIX presents DEAD GIRL mini series and the fact that it looks much better in printed form than in the previews you could see online. In 2007 I did three posts about the main X - Statix series which I guess were pretty popular with the readers since the third one of the series ended up in said top ten of popular posts. And last but not least there is my obligatory big Madman comic extravaganza post .


One reason why I like going through the birthday lists is that this always reminds me to check if the latest Silver Surfer trade is already out yet or anything else Mike Allred is working on. Right now he is doing a lot of stuff for DC and I have read his issue for Doom Patrol. I liked it well enough but I don´t know if I will read the regular title since Mike Allred is not on it.


There also seem to be some great series going on with Jack Kirby´s Fourth World - which is long overdue if you ask me - but like the Mister Miracle series and The Kamandi Challenge I´m waiting for the paperback of Bug !


Now while Mike Allred is probably best known as the artist of Madman - which turned him into an independent comic icon - I have selected a video ( in spanish, sorry non - spanish speaking readers ) about his Silver Surfer series with Dan Slott that should appeal to all Doctor Who fans because it takes a lot of tropes from that show. What I never could wrap my head around is Dan Slott´s ability to write fantastic stuff on Silver Surfer yet suck so completely with everything that involves Spider - Man.



Speaking of icons, Today is also the anniversary of movie maker Andy Sidaris but since I just did a post on Dona Speir a few days back - just like last year - I am not going to make a special post since I already did one and I don´t think that there is anything I haven´t covered in previous posts.


Andy is probably THE BEST director of action movies for adults. And his cast reads like a WHOS´S WHO of playmates : Roberta Vasquez , Ava Cadell , brunette Cynthia Brimhall, Dona Speir , Pandora Peaks, Julie Strain , Suzi Simpson, Samantha Phillips and Julie K. Smith to name just a few of them.


Longtime readers may be already tired of this but it seems that nowadays I can´t write a new post without mentioning hot sexbomb Becky Mullen .


Besides appearing as Sally, the farmer´s daughter on the first season of Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling and various guest appearances on every major tv show ( of which her most memorable is an episode of Married with Children opposite Pamela Anderson - see GIF above ) Becky starred in various erotic midnight movies including Sinful Intrigue. With all that said german audiences know her best from taking her clothes off on Tutti Frutti . Her biggest contribution to american culture however is Hard Hunted and there are two other actresses from Andy Sidaris movies who appeared on Tutti Frutti , Sandra Wild and Carolyn Liu. I wrote more about this in my special Andy Sidaris edition of Casting the JLA movie post .


Becky Mullen´s post is a spin - off that used to be in one post with Janet Jones Gretzky , best known for appearing in a white swimsuit in Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach and real live Power Girl Leslie Easterbrook who had the most famous scene in Police Academy 4 - Citizens on Patrol in which she emerges from a pool in a wet t - shirt .


The post also included 80s cult siren Monique Sluyter and the Tutti Frutti girls but that part got too long and I had to give it a post of its own which I re - posted in 2016 in a new and better version . I cast her as Fire a.k.a. Beatriz da Costa in the aforementioned Casting the Justice League movie special post and before getting her solo post she was regularly mentioned during the annual re - posts of italian mega soccer MILF Simona Ventura .


We are staying with busty sexbombs in b - movies with the next candidate in our Dearly Departed section with Brion James. The name will probably not sound very familiar but you will recognize his face immediately since he has been in all kind of movies from what some people may call trash to mainstream and even a few cult movies. On the lower end of the spectrum are films like Hear No Evil with Tom Cruise´s ex - wife Mimi Rogers who has the biggest real breasts in Hollywood ( a whopping 38D ! ) and the no less busty Russ Meyer muse Raven De La Croix ( 36F ! ) who starred in such classics like Up ! and The Lost Empire. I wrote more about Raven ( and posted two videos ) in my first Justice League Casting Alternates post .


Brion James is really the king of b - movies and I could write an entire post alone based on all the celebrities who ended up in a movie with him. It seems that every time a big star made a bad decision he was there. You can find him in Steel Dawn with Patrick Swayze, Red Scorpion with Dolph Lundgren, Silhouette with Tracy Scoggins, Nemesis with Gary - Hiroyuki Tagawa, Time Runner, Brain Smasher A Love Story with Andrew Dice Clay and Teri Hatcher, Scanner Cop, Hong Kong 97 with Terminator turned FBI agent Robert Patrick and Marvel´s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ming Na - Wen, Indecent Behavior III with Shannon Tweed and Playmate Of The Month Of June 1986 Rebecca Ferrati, Foolish with Baywatch sexbomb Traci Banghim , Dirt Merchant with David Faustino and porn star Jenna Jameson and Snide And Prejudice with Rene Auberjonois from Star Trek : Deep Space Nine and Claudia Christian from Babylon 5 who earned an entry into the annals of Hollywood sexbombs with her mindblowing striptease in The Hidden.


But Brion James also appeared in such cult movies like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Blade Runner, 48 Hours, Another 48 hours, Flesh & Blood, Silverado, Enemy Mine, D.O.A., Red Heat ( the action movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi not the skin flick with sexorcist Linda Blair ), The Player, The Fifth Element, American Strays with MILF Jennifer Tilly and the one movie that came instantly to my mind Tango & Cash again with Teri Hatcher who does an incredibly sexy erotic dance .


With his brutish features Brion James was perfect for the role of tough guy / bad guy / dimwitted henchman / evil gangster boss and so appeared in a venerable plethora of television series like Gunsmoke, Roots, The Rockford Files, Mork & Mindy, Galactica, C.H.I.P.s with Erik Estrada who also appeared in a few Andy Sidaris movies later in his career, The Dukes Of Hazard with Catherine Back inventor of the famous daisy dukes, The A - Team, Amazing Stories, Dynasty, The Hitchhiker, Miami Vice, Hunter, Renegade with centerfold material Kathleen Kinmont. Silk Stalkings, M.A.N.T.I.S., Highlander, Walker Texas Ranger, Millenium, The Sentinel and most importantly The Fall Guy with sexbombs Heather Thomas and Markie Post who wasn´t nearly as often in a bikini as I would have liked.


80s Power Girl Markie Post is probably the best known cult siren on the entire blog because not only have I done many re - posts of her original post I also keep mentioning her in other posts and her original post is in the Top Ten Posts widget that appears on every post. Since I have done so many different versions it is not so tragic that I did not do a re - post last year even though I did the last version of her cult siren entry in 2016 .

Brion James also appears on two episodes of the cult 80s comedy series Sledge Hammer : If I Had A Hammer and the best episode ever Model Dearest where Dori Doreau has to go undercover at a model agency and Anne - Marie Martin gets to show off her mindblowing playmate qualities in a bikini. She must have been around 29 when the episode was shot !


To finish things out Brion´s comic related credits include The Incredible Hulk, Tales From The Crypt, Spawn, Batman : The Animated Series and Superman : The Animated Series as Rudy Jones a.k.a. the Parasite.



Speaking of animated shows, thanks to a Teens React video I know that there are kids out there who only know the X- Men from the movies or X - Men : Evolution and have no idea that there already was an X - Men cartoon in the 80s. As always there are no complete episodes in good quality on YouTube but I found a clip where the team goes up against Apocalypse and the animators gave Rogue the mother of all booties. Dang.


I would have given up my plans of conquering the world right there in favor of conquering dat ass ! Rogue´s physique in general was very appealing and I am sure that together with her raspy voice and that southern accent a few young boys were shot into puberty prematurely.

Speaking of accents there are a few funny ones on the show but Gambit was just annoying. Of course he had all the little girls swooning. A few years ago the complete series was offered at amazon at a bargain price but I didn´t have the necessary money. Now it costs you an arm and a leg.



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