Monday, July 25, 2011

Always with the Wonder Woman

Yesterday, while doing the research for my Wonder Woman posts, I came upon a few covers that I wanted to include but since I´m trying to keep my posts shorter I decided could be " their own thing ".


Today I wanted to do a few special thing since it´s a special day for me ( well, and for the entire spanish nation but I´m just choosing to ignore the fact ) but as always things didn´t work out like planned.

First off, I woke up almost suffocating and not being able to breathe and when I had finally managed to get air into my lungs I had the worst taste EVER in my mouth. Have you ever read the phrase " the inside of my mouth tasted like somebody had defecated in it " in a book ? Well, it´s better to read about it than to actually experience it, let me tell you that. I´m not sure what happened to wake me up in this way and I´m not sure I would be better off if I did. I mean, is it possible to vomit in your sleep, then trying to swallow all the vomit and suffocating because of that which ends up waking you ? Best not to think about it.

Right now I´ve started to read Neil Gaiman´s novel ANANSI BOYS and all I can say so far is that it´s hard to put the book down. I really have to force myself to take breaks from reading because I have lost all feeling in my legs and have to stretch them or because I have to eat or sleep.


I have already discovered that I have many things in common with Charles Nancy or Fat Charlie, how the main character of the book is called. I also had a pretty embarrassing father although he only behaved like he was a god and people also call me fat - but for entirely different reasons. I also am not too keen of singing in front of people although I can say that I narrowly escaped my turn at having to do Karaoke at my sister´s wedding by a hair's breadth. I´m also standing in the shadow of my brother sometimes although I do have two of them. So sometimes you can pit them against each other and sometimes you have to stop them from killing each other. But I know the experience of your brother suddenly appearing and completely ruining things all to well.

So maybe Neil Gaiman really HAD me in mind when he wrote that dedication.

Okay, all things aside I didn´t want to make a big thing out of my special day so I decided against sharing this information with my brothers who naturally have no idea which day is Today. Which can be a good thing because I can use the fact that they forgot my special day for blackmail or as a bargaining chip for the time I forget something.


Ah yes, if it´s one thing you can rely on than it´s the fact that family teaches you all the finer nuances of blackmailing and extorsion, something you can always use in real life. But apart from my near death experience this morning ( or imagined near death experience ) Today was a quiet day that I spent with sleeping too much, eating pizza, going to the ice cream parlor and watching the Doctor Who episode THE REBEL FLESH.

And preparing all things needed for this post. On my last posts on Wonder Woman I forgot to mention how much I liked the cover that had another member of the Justice League on the cover who is talking directly to the reader. That´s just SO Airwolf !


Covers really were better then. I mean how can you not buy this book ? It´s got word ballons on the cover which is ALWAYS a sign of a good comicbook. It´s got two Wonder Women for the price of one and they´re kicking the snot out of each other. It´s got the freaking Batman on the cover. And he needs my help because all our lives depend on me. How can you top that ?


Reader....it´s not just this family that´s freaked out ! It´s the whole world - - and I am going to tell you why!

We already know why the whole world is freaked out, Flash. Do the words " Flashpoint " and " relaunch " ring any bells ? Talk about a prophetic cover.


Yeah, really Aquaman, what can even two super - heroes do against the awesome might of Mars, god of war ? Especially if one of them is Aquaman.

I don´t want to dis Aquaman but is he really the first choice if you need backup for going up against a god ? I don´t know if I would call on Aquaman if I was going up against Poseidon as he surely wouldn´t be stronger than the god of the seas. And to call him as help against the god of war ? Okay, they are fighting near water. But I think I´d rather call on Superman, Green Lantern or Batman first. On the other side they might have been busy.

And from the look of Mars´face I´m not sure if he really wants to fight Wonder Woman or if he has planned to do other things to her. Okay, she´s pretty small for such a big guy but as the god of war he´s probably not to squeamish about those things. Or maybe he´s just pissed that Raider is now called Twix but he´s still stuck with Ares instead of something way cooler like Mandingo.


Now this is an issue every Wonder Woman fan should read. It explains why no man may set foot on Paradise Island in the aptly named story THE DAY HUGH HEFNER SET FOOT ON PARADISE ISLAND. Which really tells you all there is to tell about it.


Now here´s my idea for the relaunch of the Wonder Woman book : WONDER WOMAN, DINOSAUR DENTIST ! That´s jsut so brilliant !

I´m surprised nobody thought of it before. It´s got Wonder Woman. It´s got dinosaurs. It´s got giant dinosaurs. It´s got giant dinosaurs from Outer Space. It´s got Wonder Woman having to fight giant dinosaurs from Outer Space - with tooth ache - on a rampage through major metropolitan cities. And Wonder Woman could so be a dinosaur dentist because she can talk with animals. And the whole Wonder Woman / dinosaur connection is already a thing.


You see ? It´s already in continuity. You can have Wonder Woman find out that " Oh, all those times a giant dinosaur from Outer Space tried to eat me - in reality they just had a tooth ache and wanted my help. " and it totally makes sense. What a fantastic idea. It´s like printing money.


And speaking about ideas for the relaunch i´m not sure how to handle this one. It´s either WONDER WOMAN - SNAKE HANDLER ! or Salma Hayek´s sexy striptease from FROM DUSK TO DAWN gone wrong in the worst way possible ( indicated by mentioning the involvement of Kobra ).


But it can only improve by adding the Huntress to the mix. Especially if it is an attempt at the aforementioned striptease.


And speaking of handling dangerous animals - what the f - word is going on on this cover ? Is Animal Man trying to choke wonder Woman or is this a native african dance or some kind of strange mating ritual ? And is the guy with the rifle trying to help Wonder Woman or trying to shoot her ? And why do I get the feeling this is going to happen in one of DC´s upcoming isues now that both Wonder Woman and Animal Man are getting new books ? Remember kids : you saw it here first.


I know it´s unbelievable but wonder Woman really had weirder dance partners than Animal Man. That´s right : the devil himself and it looks like the Demon has already reserved the next dance in WONDER WOMAN´S DANCE CHARITY GONE WRONG.

And isn´t it so typical ? Time out devil, I know you´re all lord - of - the - flies - thing and that but no tongue on the first date, please.


I know, this is a more recent cover but I want to ask you ? Does this really invite readers to buy the issue ? Right, it´s the issue following the death of Maxwell Lord at Wonder Woman´s hands ( although that has now been retconned thanks to BLACKEST NIGHT ). But there´s really not much going on here. You could put a different spin on it.


Now THAT´S an issue I would buy. Wonder Woman going medivial on a bunch of chauvinist pigs who think they can imprison her. No manmade cell can hold her, you morons. That´s Wonder Woman. She can crush you all like a normal guy snaps a pencil. Boy are you in trouble. I´ll give you a menace to society. Now it´s on, now it´s ON !

And speaking of the relaunch of Wonder Woman : can we please not do this storyline AGAIN ?





Really, at this point ? I don´t care who Donna Troy or Wonder Girl is. Let´s just say she´s got powers like Wonder Woman and leave it at that.

No " training by the gods " or " lost orphan " or " piece of Wonder Woman´s soul " or " magic twin " or " basically a supervillain just wanted to kill you again and again and again " BS. Okay ? I don´t need that much information. She´s a superhero, she fights crime ( eventually she´s hot ).....what more do you need to know ? I can really do without another half - baked retelling of this story. I know it´s kind of a rule that this story comes along whenever there is a crisis or a zero hour or another retcon. But can we please skip it this time ? It´s like DC is planning to publish a BEST WHO IS DONNA TROY STORIES compilation, really.

Okay, that´s all about Wonder Woman I can think of this time.


Wow, I really have managed to up the post quota this month with 8 posts so far. Who knows, I might even go for a new record. Maybe I can manage to get another post in before the end of the month so I can finally start to give away the issues I got at GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011.

Today´s video is Wonder Woman´s Guide to Office Safety.



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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Happy birthday Lynda Carter !

This is part 2 of my birthday post for Lynda Carter ( she´s 60 Today ) because Wonder Woman was just a small part of her career and a few of my readers - especially outside of the USA - may not know the following bits of info.


This is the part I enjoy the most while doing the research for the posts because I find tons of things I didn't know like the fact that her name was Lynda Carter and not Linda Carter. Although I watch a lot of tv most of the stuff in this section was news to me which is the reason why I put it on the blog.
She first participated in the 1972 Miss World USA which she won and went on to the Miss World competition where she reached semi finals. Besides playing Wonder Woman she also appeared on Starsky & Hutch.


Here are a few scenes from that episode :



She also starred in a movie called BOBBIE JO & THE OUTLAW in which she had her only nude scene.



She played Rita Hayworth in " godess of love " which you can find on YouTube. I did not include them here because it's in eight or more parts and the post is long enough as it is. And she was in the movie " I posed for Playboy " where she appears in lingerie.



She also did a commercial for Maybelline ( and I´m trying hard to make no puns here that contain the words " moist " or " wet " )



was on the Muppet show and two times on Circus of the stars.



Watching the MUPPET SHOW clip just makes me realize how good the show was. I don't know how the kids nowadays manage to grow up without it. All those iphones and ifis and fyous and not a decent Muppet among them. I really must get some of the Muppets DVDs, if only they weren´t so expensive.

Now aside from all that there was a more recent tv show ( well, recent since they just showed it here a few years ago ) where Lynda Carter played a role which was called HAWKEYE. Sadly this wasn't your bowslinging Avenger who loved to butt heads with Captain America


but rather the original version from whom Clint Barton got his name.



Aside form acting one of Lynda's passions has always been singing. Here she is singing " could this be magic "



Lynda Carter singing " Rock'n Roll " as Tina Turner and in a transparent outfit ( sorry, embedding was disabled ) - watch it here


Here are more recent clips. I don't know how she does it. Maybe she really went to Paradise Island and drank from the fountain of youth but with 57 ( okay, they are three years old, so what ? ) she still looks hot.



high definiton clip no embedding

With that I´m ending this post since I have to sleep some time. If you want more of Lynda Carter there are hundred more clips on YouTube which you can find easily like if you want to watch her on Starsky & Hutch.



I hope that I have included the best of the best here but there may be some that have escaped my attention. I end this salute to one of tv's hottest ladies with the usual link section :


lynda at cult sirens / lynda wiki / lynda at imdb

ultimate lynda carter website / lynda sings


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Happy birthday Wonder Woman !

Today movie cult siren Lynda Carter celebrates her 60th birthday so I thought I should do a post on this as german television will probably totally neglect this. They just bring it on the news if it´s about someone famous in theaters or tv. And tv means tv in Germany.


Lynda is best known for playing the lead character Wonder Woman in the tv series. I would like to say that I first saw it as a little kid and that this experience shot me right into puberty......but that's not true. You know when I was young I didn't watch Wonder Woman on tv because they quite frankly didn't show it. I don't know if that was because of her revealing outfit that could corrupt young impressionable males or that the germans mostly appeared as evil Nazis in the show - fact is there were only two tv stations at that time and none of them showed Wonder Woman.


Again with the Nazi thing, weird isn´t it ? Or maybe that´s just me that I keep on focusing on this Nazie thing. But it is something you will stumble upon again and again in Germany. At least this means that my readership will increase as more people seem to read the " Nazi posts " vs the " Non - Nazi posts ". In retrospect I should maybe do something like " Nazi month " here on this blog.

But back to the original Nazibashing amazon : being a comic fan I watched everything comic related like the HULK series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno or even the awful Spider - Man movies.


I would have loved the Wonder Woman series. But I had to wait till my military service because that was when private tv stations started in Germany. Man, this is weird how the same topics and themes keep popping up again and again.

We´ve had Nazis before, we just talked about the time of my military service in the last post...etc. You know, I think it´s kind of sad that Today´s Youth are not forced to defend Germany with totally useless firearms because - well, not because it´s such a great idea but because I had many life changing experiences during that time. I found my first real comicstore where I discovered most of the american comics I loved later on and cultivated my taste for independent comics there. I saw my first shows of Tutti Frutti, Catch Up, Wonder Woman and many others there.


I think I really wouldn´t be the man I am Today if things would have turned out different. You know, the road not taken......

Back to when I was doing my military service in Munich : before that all tv stations were regulated by the government but then private tv companies started and they sometimes were desperate for content so they showed everything that was cheap and not too new. They emitted around the clock and they had to fill the early afternoons and the nights with something and luckily for me one of the shows was WONDER WOMAN.


If you compare the show to Today's tv series it is kind of campy and naiive and the special effects were primitive but Lynda Carter - she was hot. When I saw the first episodes of WONDER WOMAN I wasn't sure if this was really aimed at young kids. For one part Lynda Carter looked extremely hot. In the beginning she is a bit skinny but over the course of the show she begins to fill out the costume much better.


There are some rumors that she wore an artificial butt - which would explain why it looked a bit weird in some scenes - but here's a clip of her as Diana Prince in a bathing suit that shows that it was probably just padding for the stunt scenes.


And there's some serious bouncing action going on.




In the scene Diana Prince was attacked by two guys who tried to drown her but she kicked their asses to escape then transformed into Wonder Woman - and came back to kick their asses some more.


You just have to love a woman like that. Here's Diana kicking it good :



By the way, I just love it how her hair is instantly dry. This would be a good way to dry your hair : just transform and everything´s okay.

As I said, Lynda Carter started to fill out the costume much better but it looks like it took some time to change the costume because in some episodes she still has the the small top and she´s almost spilling out.


Which was extremely sexy in the scenes of Wonder Woman running.


I guess gazillions of young boys reached manhood prematurely through strange dreams of Wonder Woman Lynda Carter running.


Here is a nice clip of Wonder Woman running that includes a slomo :



More pics of Wonder Woman running :


I guess the producers also caught up to what was the best part of the show because from then there was much more running and jumping.


But that was not the epitome of Wonder Woman exuberance. That was in one of the few episodes I watched at home ( later when we also had cable tv ) where she helped a catburglar steal a diamond or something.


She was dangling upside down from a rope and while she was trying to open a safe or something her breasts followed gravity and slowly slid out


of her top. I waited to see them totally uncovered but every time they


 showed the cat burglar and then zoomed back they were in the top again.


Then they kept on sliding out but in the next shot they were back in.


Damn you, evil tv censorship. Well, despite that it is a really sexy scene.



And Lynda Carter DOES have an incredibly sexy set of gams on her.


Of course as a woman Wonder Woman had to wear the perfect outfit for every ocassion. First there was the blue swimsuit. Now it was just a skintight blue rubber suit but I think it might even be hotter than the usual outfit.




I'm sure she started some boys´ obsession with latex that way.






Then there was motorcycle Wonder Woman which was basically the same blue suit like the swimsuit one but with a helmet. That's right, kids. Safety first.





And speaking of safety notice the padding on the elbows and knees on skateboard Wonder Woman. Like I said an outfit for every occassion.





And let's not forget Wonder Woman's horseback riding outfit.


....and then the doctor said : " If that's my thermometer what happened to my ballpen ? "

Now I don't know what was the reason of the different outfits. Maybe it was that they tried to avoid showing a wet Wonder Woman in her regular outfit. Or maybe they were into marketing and wanted to sell some toys. All I know is that there were some toys of Wonder Woman. And Steve Trevor. And of Nubia - whoever that was........



I think she was in some of the comics as a rival / foe / bitchy chick kind of foil.


Well, one aspect that made me doubt that the Wonder Woman tv show was for kids was the costume but after all Lynda Carter couldn't help it if she was hot. Another thing was that Wonder Woman was constantly tied up or put into chains. Now either they took that right from the old Wonder Woman comics - in which this happened a lot -





or someone on the show had a rather kinky taste.






And speaking of kinky stuff Wonder Woman was also very often manhandled by thugs who she would overcome very easily. Now I think that they all knew they had no chance against Wonder Woman.


Everybody with half a brain knows that. No, what they tried to do was grab her and trying to britzky her ( private expression ) or rubbing themselves against her body. That's like the dying man's last wish. If they had to go to jail at least they tried to take this memory with them.



There were some changes in the tv show from the original comic book which I just recently discovered because of some episodes I hadn't seen before. On most days I would just switch through the channels but on Sundays I watched the two episodes of TALES FROM THE CRYPT and one episode of Wonder Woman. Watching Wonder Woman in spanish has it's own charm because when it is shown on german tv everybody speaks german but on spanish tv only the Nazis do. That's like a bit of home sweet home right there.


One of the first episodes I saw was with Wonder Woman's sister Drusilla which I didn't know she had. I also didn't know that Wonder Woman's sister was Debra Winger and that she was quite........gifted as a young woman. Holy wonderbra, Batman.


There are some clips of this on YouTube but for some strange reasons the embedding has been disabled.

Another new fact I discovered was that Wonder Woman's braceletts were made of Amazonium ( or was it Feminum ? ), a special alloy only known to the amazons. In the comics they were just given to Wonder Woman by the gods and could deflect bullets because of magic. But since the gods never appeared in the tv show they needed another explanation. The episodes with Debra are really quite funny because of the clash of cultures and Wonder Girl's fixation on ice cream. One of my favorite scenes is when Wonder Girl is amused by the idea of Wonder Woman taking orders from a man. " He tells you what to do and you do it ? " Another plus of the episodes is seeing John Saxon as an evil Nazi masterspy. And he could SO be an evil Nazi masterspy although he would probably be called Johann Sachs instead of John Saxon.


Other changes were for example that she needed her magic belt to stay strong when she was away from Paradise Island. Of course this was an easy way to sap her strength whenever the bad guys got the jump on her - they just had to take away her belt and they could start again with the ropes and the chains.


And speaking of ropes : naturally she also used her magic lasso to bind the villains and force them to tell her the truth.


I guess that also sparked some fetish phantasies among young viewers.


But Wonder Woman was not only beloved by kids worldwide. Even animals liked her. I don't know if that's something that was also in the comic but in the tv show she could communicate with birds.



But not all her dealings with animals were of such a peacful nature. There was one episode I saw in which a gorilla named " Gargantua " is trained to attack and kill Wonder Woman and of course a woman had to come up with that plan.


Useless men. In the end even the gorilla couldn't resist Wonder Woman's charm - who could ? - and Wonder Woman helped him to return to his jungle but before that they really got it on.


" Steve ! This is not what you think ! "



Who never got it on - at least not with Diana Prince - was Steve Trevor who was so fixated on Wonder Woman that he never realized he had a classy woman right next to him.


Of course all the other men in the show had no such problems and always tried to score with her which made the whole situation even more unbelievable. For me this was always the realistic part because that also happens in real life. It's the whole " Lois Lane - Clark Kent " thing. I think that's one of the reason why they gave her this huge glasses because without them she was often hotter than Wonder Woman.


" My, Diana, I never noticed how big your........glasses are. "



All in all I think the show was great. In fact Lynda Carter was so successful as Wonder Woman that she is still associated to that role by most people and Hollywood hasn't managed to find a replacement for her. Which is the reason there hasn't been a Wonder Woman movie since.


Right now Joss Whedon is rumored to be working on one but like with all rumors I'm waiting for the finished product. Here is a clip with the all time Wonder Woman Lynda Carter so all them Hollywood types can see what´s it all about :



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