As I have mentioned in previous posts I am always working on the blog even if it does not show on my newest post because I have so many unfinished posts and I am always adding new videos or replacing them.
Now a lot of you may ask yourself why I have so many unfinished posts and if it wouldn't be easier to finish the old posts before starting new ones. It definitely would be easier but the thing is that I always have more videos than I can fit into my posts so it always comes in handy to have a few posts where I can add new videos at the spur of a moment.
Because a lot of the videos I post get deleted and then I have to replace them. Which is why I always have a few versions of the same movies saved. And yes, there are some movies that I find on YouTube where I already know that it is risky to post them because they are probably going to be deleted very quickly. But those are always the best movies and I prefer to provide those for my readers - even if it is only for a short time - and then replacing them with something else. Which may not be as good as my first choice but maybe still entertaining. And you never know, it is often a big surprise which movies get deleted and which ones don't. Also with all the videos I post the percentage of videos that get deleted is not as high as you may think. But back to the genesis of this.
The last two weeks I have been working on my post with the complete original art for issue 433 of BATMAN - which is the first part of the three part story The Many Deaths Of Batman written by John Byrne and with pencils by Jim Aparo and inks by Mike DeCarlo - particularly on the part of the bonus section that features real life Power Girl Cindy Breuer from home shopping channel Pearl TV ( I don't know if she still hosts shows since there have been no new videos with her ) and as always when I write about blondes with giant - sized boobs things got a bit out of hand.
As longtime blog visitors know I tend to recycle a lot of what I have already written before but at the same time I also always try to add some new stuff so it's not all just copy / paste. In the case of Cindy Breuer with her titanic teutonic twin torpedoes, full lips that were just made to give men endless hours or pleasure and legs for miles almost up to her chin as well as an ass that doesn't quit she is naturally destined to portray Power Girl in an adult movie even if she has managed through a cruel twist of fate to become one of the biggest pornstar of our times.
In any case I was adding the obligatory Power Girl stuff with the usual trappings but to have something new for my more seasoned readers who have read that part well over a dozen times I added something different.
Which was a possible story for the movie which would allow me to add a lot of neglected DC Comics Busenwunder and I went on a little bit of a tangent there with some of the candidates because on one side there are some I don't get to mention very often and on the other hand I tend to go on a bit of a rant once I get started on one of my favourite subjects.
And as anybody who has visited this blog over a prolonged period of time can clearly attest one of my favourite subjects are underrated, ignored or outright forgotten comicbook runs so when the possibility arose to mention Joe Kelly's run on JLA ( at first I had just used the Power Girl casting call to add more hot babes but by this point I was including favourite stories, comic trivia and links to older posts ) I ran with it.
For me that is one of the best runs on the Justice League of America and back in the day - 19 years ago in 2007 to be exact - I wrote three posts about this in my BEST LEAGUE EVER series : one about THE OBSIDIAN AGE which in my opinion is their big opus, one about TRIAL BY FIRE which is a smaller and more personal story and not as big in scope but mindblowing nevertheless and last but least one about JLA issue 100 and the resulting fallout which was the twelve issue maxi series JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE.
Man, that's one thing that sucks about loosing almost your entire comic collection ( although I didn't exactly loose it but I had to sell most of it at dumping prices as all the comicbook shops were closed because of the corona pandemic so I was practically giving them away for free ), that you don't get to read these wonderful stories again. And I do not know how many times I have read the two OBSIDIAN AGE trades. Because that is the thing with great stories : you can read them again and again and it never gets old. Anyway, DC Comics never did a collection that includes the complete story and as far as I know there are no plans to release the run in omnibus form. I know that the complete run has been reprinted in trade paperback form but as far as I know those trades are currently out of print so you would have to resort to getting the floppies to read them.
Anyway, as usual I thought I had a lot of still unposted material from this run but as always it turned out that my memory had been playing tricks on me so I went to the internet to finish that part ( which was relatively short compared to the amount of time it took me to write it, add the links and pictures but that always happens ) but in the end I had a lot of material on my hands and since I had always wanted to write more about this run I decided to start this month in style with one of my favourite stories by Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke : TRIAL BY FIRE. Which will be two parts because I couldn't cram all that JLA greatness into a single post.
One of the reasons why I like this story so much is that it features J'onn J'onzz a.k.a. the Martian Manhunter who is one of the most overlooked members of the Justice League of America. He has been in almost every incarnation of the league - even the maligned Justice League Detroit - and since most writers don't know what to do with him he is always in the background and taken for granted. A lot of writers treat him like a second rate Superman when he is clearly way above Superman's power level. He has all of Superman's powers plus shape changing abilities.
Oh, and he can become intangible and walk through walls. And become invisible. Did I mention that he is also a telepath and can read minds ?
Another reason why J'onn J'onzz is so seldomly used is his only weakness - fire - seems stupid to some writers. It seems ridiculous that an alien from another planet that has so many super powers is vulnerable to something as simple and easily achieved like fire. But the writers came up with that at a time when Green Lantern's ring was powerless against something as simple as wood. Later on they changed it to anything with the colour yellow for the new Green Lantern. Which for me worked since it gave the Green Lanterns limits and forced them to become inventive.
Coming back to TRIAL BY FIRE what Joe Kelly does in the story is ponder the question why the martians are vulnerable to fire and coming up with a reason that totally makes sense. I won't spoil what it is but that is the sign of pure genius : coming up with answers for questions the readers didn't even know they had and making it look so simple that everybody can't help but wonder why nobody else thought about it decades ago.
Another reason is that because the Martian Manhunter is such a peaceful character the reader forgets what he is really capable of and this story depicts that in terrifying fashion by having J'onn J'onzz tear through the Justice League without even working up a sweat. Going up against a mind reader who knows all of their flaws and vulnerabilities they really are doomed from the start like when they plan to unleash the white martians they have imprisoned to help them against their evil former teammate only to discover that he is already one step ahead of them and has taken this possibility off the table in the most gruesome way.
He even manages to tie up Wonder Woman with her own magic lasso of truth that is just wrong on so many levels and maybe it's just me but I can't help but remember all those old Wonder Woman covers where she ends up tied up or even in chains. And Doug Mahnke draws an incredibly hot Wonder Woman - which may even get a post of its own later on.
And we are almost of the end of this part but before wrapping this part of the post up I have to mention another of my favourite moments of the story. Earlier I mentioned the Green Lanterns and this involves a Green Lantern but not the one you might think about. As longtime blog readers know I was never a big fan of Kyle Rayner even if Joe Kelly managed to make me like him more with AGE OF OBSIDIAN which is no small feat.
But after those events Kyle Rayner takes a much deserved break and is then substituted by John Stewart who most comic fans nowadays know from his appearance in the Justice League cartoons. And let me tell you, he is a great replacement because where Kyle is overconfident John is experienced - at this point he is probably the most seasoned Green Lanter on earth right after Hal Jordan - and where our Kyle is always searching the spotlight John is more wowing everybody with his quiet and reserved deeds not words attitude. So when he is the only leaguer standing who effortless whips the floor with J'onn J'onzz and saves the entire Justice League's ass I was jumping up and down the floor ( which is a clear sign that I was in much better shape when I first read this ).
And this is really where we wrap things up for Today as we leave the big finale of the story - that includes Plastic Man duking it out with the Martian Manhunter for the heavyweight title of the world in a no holds barred match - for part two which will be up as soon as I get to finish the main part of this post. So you get two superb posts for the price of one.
burn baby burn
