Retro repost : cult siren Jamie Lee Curtis

Lately I haven´t done too many posts but since it has been a while that I did the original post about cult siren Jamie Lee Curtis and it´s not in the Top Ten list I wanted to do a quick repost since she turned 56 today.

If you are a loyal follower of the blog you may have noticed that the Top Ten Posts list on the blogroll looks a bit different and one reason for that could be that I haven´t gotten much spam in the comments section lately.

Yeah, it´s weird that I´m complaining about not getting enough spam but it used to be between 50 and 100 spams daily and now it´s gone back to 3 or 5 a day. I guess all the people who tried to get links to their webpages on the blog gave up because either blogger was blocking them anyway or they realized that my blog doesn´t generate enough traffic to profit from.

Anyway, I tried to find another widget for the blog where I can put MY Top Ten posts because the ones in my current list are those that have the most views but are not necessary the Best of The Best. But since I have not found one yet I´m just doing a repost of movie cult siren Jamie Lee Curtis for all those readers of the blog who have missed it. As with most reposts this will be a somewhat shorter version and one of the reasons for that is that blogger now allows for animated GIFs to be posted. So instead of the old post where I included a lot of screenshots of Jamie Lee Curtis´ sexy striptease on TRUE LIES I can just post a GIF. Which is probably a relief for those readers who complained about too much hot babes on the blog. And for those who have no problem with that you can check out the original post with all the pictures . I also did another post later on that had all the screenshots I had found because if I had put it into the original post it would have been waaay too long. I also included some links to animated GIFs because back then I couldn´t post them. Now I could but I don´t want to put them all on the blog because that´s just murder on the upload time for the blog. Maybe I´ll post some of them in the future. 

As with most reposted posts I´ll include some new pictures since I never have enough posts to put all the stuff into them that I want on the blog.

At the beginning of her career the daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis was known for her impressive set of lungs, as one of the best known Scream Queens and her appearances in various horror movies like PROM NIGHT or HALLOWEEN. Another John Carpenter thriller, 1980's THE FOG also featured Jamie Lee and to this day it´s one of the classic horror movies of all time. She reprised her starring role in Halloween II in 1981, a franchise to which she would return in HALLOWEEN H20 - TWENTY YEARS LATER ( 1998 ) and HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION ( 2002 ) .


But Jamie Lee Curtis wanted something more out of life than to star in horror movies ( not that there´s something wrong with that ) and to be more than just an actress known for her screaming techniques. Later on she was still known for her impressive set of lungs .... but in a different context. To be precise : in a 34C - 22 - 34 measurements context. When she finally did lose her " Scream Queen " title, it was in exchange for the name " The Body " ( which is also Elle MacPherson's nickname ) thanks to Jamie Lee´s revealing roles in TRADING PLACES and 1985's PERFECT.


After a string of made - for - TV movies in the early '80s, she turned heads as a prostitute in the Eddie Murphy comedy, 1983's TRADING PLACES ( Soldiers of Fortune in german " DIE GLÜCKSRITTER " - don't ask me why ) , for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. When she went topless she cemented herself a fan base that would last for years. Not only because she decided to disrobe, but because she had a fantastic body, that she was often referred to as " Freeze Frame " ( a nod to all the VCR users' use of the pause button on certain scenes ).


Jamie Lee proved her comedic ability with her starring role in 1988's A FISH CALLED WANDA with John Cleese ( where she proved she still got it ! ) and both worked together again on FIERCE CREATURES in 1997.


She continued on the comedy path co - starring with Richard Lewis in the sitcom ANYTHING BUT LOVE, until 1992 and her role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Series. The rest of the '90s were marked by a slew of movie roles, most notably in 1990's BLUE STEEL, 1991's MY GIRL, 1994's TRUE LIES - which reminded viewers yet again how magnificent her body is when she stripped like a pro for Arnold and garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture and an American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture - and 1999's VIRUS based on the comic series by DARK HORSE. It is a pretty decent movie and at least the Germans didn´t cut out 10 minutes from the opening scene like in the other DARK HORSE movie BARB WIRE. 

In 2001 Jamie starred in THE TAILOR OF PANAMA alongside Pierce Brosnan, who was the lucky guy who got to fondle her and I´m not sure if that was in the original script. You know which scene I´m talking about.


What is really remarkable about Jamie is that she did her best striptease very late in her career in the Schwarzenegger flick TRUE LIES and you can say what you want about the Governator but his taste in women is truly impeccable. Ann Margret, Brigitte Nielsen, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Williams, Gina Gershon, Rae Dawn Chong, Alyssa Milano, Olivia D´Abo, Kelly Preston, Robin Tunney, Uma Thurman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tia Carrere - the list of his female co - stars is like a WHO`S WHO of hot actresses.

Speaking about Tia Carrere : do you remember those tight pants she used to wear on RELIC HUNTER ? I never understood why the series was not more successful since Tia showed lots of skin but I guess it was because the scripts were not that good. Well, that and her assistant / girlie man Nigel, the writers didn´t have the cojones to make an english man cool.

Back to Jamie Lee Curtis, she even won a poll for best striptease in 2007.

Jamie Lee Curtis’ striptease in ‘True Lies’ polled best ever

The ’scream queen’ was followed by Oscar winner Kim Basinger for her ‘ tremendous sex appeal ’ in ‘91 / 2 Weeks’. Spanish star Salma Hayek ( From Dusk Till Dawn ) and Elisha Cuthbert ( The Girl Next Door ) secured 3rd and 4th places respectively, reports Contactmusic. Natalie Portman rounded of the top five, at the fifth spot for role in ‘ Closer ’.

The top six list of best film striptease are as follows:

1. Jamie Lee Curtis ( True Lies )

2. Kim Basinger ( 9 1 / 2 Weeks )

3. Salma Hayek ( From Dusk Till Dawn )

4. Elisha Cuthbert ( The Girl Next Door )

5. Natalie Portman ( Closer )

6. Demi Moore ( Striptease )

Now I´m not so sure about that list since neither Natalie Portman nor Elisa Cuthbert are on my list ( haven´t seen their movies ) and I would even exclude Kim Basinger. If I had to do a top 10 strip list it would be :

1. Halle Berry ( Last Boy Scout )

2. Demi Moore ( Striptease )

3. Erika Eleniak ( Under Siege )

4. Jamie Lee Curtis ( True Lies )

5. Salma Hayek ( From Dusk Till Dawn )

6. Elizabeth Berkley ( Showgirls )

7. Claudia Christian ( The Hidden )

8. Pamela Anderson ( Barb Wire )

9. Kathleen Kinmont ( The Corporate Ladder )

10. Jessica Biel ( Powder Blue )

And one of my goals in life is to do posts on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN on all of the sexy nominees on that best striptease list.

Now I would like to offer you an indepth analysis of TRUE LIES revealing the multiple layers of sociopolitical / cinematoanthropologic multidimensionality of the movie but as always, John Kenneth Muir has already done that more eloquently than I ever could :

TRUE LIES does feel very contemporary in the sense that it accurately forecasts the 21st century ascent of Middle - Eastern terrorism against the United States. And it certainly predicts a powerful, unaccountable bureaucracy in the U.S. Government as the response to such terrorist attacks. Here, that organization is " Omega Sector ", the " last line of defense ". Leading Omega Sector is none other than Charlton Heston as "Spencer Trilby", and once more, his right - wing reputation carries a brand of symbolic power and weight. ( He basically plays Nick Fury. )

Indeed, TRUE LIES works primarily as a kind of time capsule of 1994's cultural concerns, echoing the conservative tide that swept Newt Gingrich into power as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

You can read the full post right here and I´m going to end this post with a picture from one of my favorite parts of the movie that´s right before the striptease scene. Jamie is in her way to the motel room where she has to plant the microchip and seeing herself in the mirror she decides she has to sex up her outfit. Which she does by ripping off parts of her dress covering her chest and pouring water from a vase over her head.


Now stuff like this works only in movies and if you try to do this in the real world you would most definitely totally ruin that dress and I bet if you just pour some water over your head your hair will probably not look like you just came from the hairdresser. But that´s the suspension of disbelieve in movies and we wouldn´t have it any other way.

And before closing the post and letting you re - watch HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, TRUE LIES or any other cult movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis I wanted to mention she´s also a bestselling author of Children´s Books and invented a new kind of diaper. Yes, a woman of many talents.

"My breasts are beautiful, and I gotta tell you, they've gotten a lot of attention for what is relatively short screen time." - Jamie Lee Curtis

Yes, I know, these posts are not so popular as my more comic related posts but they show up more frequent on search engines and somehow I got to bring new readers to the blog. That´s my motto : come for the massitas, stay for the comics. And this was the short version anyway.

Part of this post was about horror movies so the first video of Today´s post is LA TUMBA DE DRACULA, the 1980 anime adaption of the Marvel series TOMB OF DRACULA ( well, kind of obvious ) which is one of the best comic series ever by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.

I really have to do another post about Gene Colan one of these days but in the meantime you can check out this post by our good friend Old Groove that has just lots of great splash pages from Gene Colan´s DAREDEVIL .

What´s so great about Gene is that he could not only do action shots but also quiet scenes and his layouts and page designs were always spot on.

But back to the anime of TOMB OF DRACULA. I heard it´s kind of a difficult find and the only english version I could find on YouTube is in different parts so I chose the latino version, which to me sounds funnier. 



Our second video is a follow up to a video I had in my last post about Jeannie Epper, Lynda Carter´s stunt woman on WONDER WOMAN. This one is from her appearance on The Today Show in 2011 when Lynda Carter was 60 years old. In this case seeing is not believing. She´s incredible !



And as last one a funny clip : IKEA´s brilliant bookbook commercial. 



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Master of Kung Fu Monday - The Return !

Yes, I didn´t get to do a post last week because I was busy with other stuff ( I found a lot of pictures for future posts and I´m trying to put them into order so I can find them when I need them ) and every time I tried to do another post something happened. But I have decided to do another post and return to the days when everybody was Kung Fu fighting.

Over at DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND our good pal Old Groove has been busy continuing the posts from the WARRIORS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN storyline and I haven´t gotten around to the latest installments, issue 84, The Bull and The Dragon and issue 85, The Ram and The Dove .

Now some people may think that I´m just lazy posting all those links to other blogs but the thing is that currently the series is not going to be reprinted so there are no trades or Essentials where you can read the awesomeness that is THE HANDS OF SHANG - CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU.

Your only chance is to find it online because at the moment Disney is not interested in getting back the rights for the characters it used in this series OR in Rom, Spaceknight which also was a kick ass series from the 80s you can read on Old Groove´s nifty blog ( issue 4 just went online ).

But back to MASTERS OF KUNG FU, like I already posted previously I did go to the back issue bins on my latest visit to my comicshop in Esslingen.

But so far I haven´t started reading the issues because they are from the end of Mike Zeck´s run on the book and I want to start in the right order. Also I have a lot of other unread books on my table ( I just ordered four trades from the new Valiant series that will probably arrive Tomorrow ) and I´m in the middle of re - reading the INFINITY books. And when I say " INFINITY books " I mean comics like THE INFINITY GAUNTLET and all of the subsequent titles like INFINITY WAR and INFINITY CRUSADE, not the latest book that came out under the title of just INFINITY of which I have only read the first issue so far but even that was enough to convince me not to spend any money on that kind of crap. Again, that is not what I want to write about in this post because once I´ve re - read all those issues - and probably even before that - this will be covered in a post about THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADAM WARLOCK ! which without any doubt will be just the first of many posts covering Jim Starlin´s cosmic melodramas about Thanos, the Titan in the DEATH IN COMICS series.

So I already did a post where I waxed philosophic about how I came to read MASTERS OF KUNG FU and Old Groove is already posting some individual issues. Right now you are probably asking yourself what I´ll be doing in this post. Well, since I´m not only a big fan of the book but also a big fan of Mike Zeck - a greatly underappreciated artist who in my opinion is sorely missed from Today´s comic book landscape - I want to highlight some of his art by posting a few black and white original pages.

Not only to show that the art looks as good in black and white as in color so it doesn´t matter if you are only doing it in an ESSENTIAL format.

Because let´s face it, unless there is a big budget movie coming out into which this could tie in the guys at Disney are never going to reaquire the rights from the heirs of Sax Rohmer. No, I don´t think we can bring them to do it and since they are only interested in doing big blockbuster stuff with lots of explosions and people running instead of a kick ass martial arts movie which would be way easier and cheaper to produce we´ll have to look elsewhere for someone who´s willing to put any of the comic stuff into a collection. So I thought to myself : " How about an Artist Edition ? "

IDW has done various books with Marvel stuff and even Dark Horse and DC are starting with their own versions of it so they must be selling. So far I haven´t seen many of them available in Germany - in fact I have just started to find some in the last three months at online comicshops - and they are not exactly cheap, many of them going for much more than the original price, but at least it would be available in some degree.

And you can get them at a better price through some online outlets like amazon which is one of the reasons I wanted to write this post last week.

Because amazon.de was offering Dark Horse´s first book of their new Gallery Edition line ROBOCOP VS TERMINATOR at only 50 measly EUROS.

Now I told my brother about this and he didn´t order it because he didn´t like the art in it and he prefered the THOR by Walter Simonson instead.

Which I can totally understand, but first you have to find somebody who is selling that and then you will probably pay more than just 50 EUROS for it.

The regular price on that is 100 US Dollars and the only online shop that sells it in Germany is charging 113 EUROS for it and that´s without the cost for shipping. So I´d say getting a 125 dollar hardcover like ROBOCOP VS TERMINATOR for 50 EUROS is a pretty good deal - and even if it is not his most popular work it´s still The Walter Simonson for crying out loud.

And is there something like bad Walter Simonson art, really ? It´s not something obscure either. With Robocop AND Terminator you have two of the biggest sci fi franchises crossing over so you can also give this as a Christmas present to people who normally don´t read a lot of comics ( hint, hint ). They may not know the Phantom Stranger or Bwana Beast but they are probably familiar with Robocop and Terminator. And the story is much better than in most of the crossovers between some franchises where it´s only there to provide a reason for those two brands to meet.

But like I said, that was last week. Now the price has gone up to 77 bucks and I´m not sure if it will fall to around 50 EUROS again. I mean don´t get me wrong, 77 EUROS is still a lot less than you have to pay somewhere else but 50 bucks is just around the price point where I could afford it.

In any case, I just wanted to mention this on the blog for those readers who were thinking about buying this anyway and who might want to keep tabs on prices on amazon. You never know when it might go down again.

Okay, back to MASTERS OF KUNG FU, while an Artists Edition might be much more expensive than a trade or an ESSENTIAL there would be no need to get the rights back for the Sax Rohmer characters because it would only include original art and not the actual comics. So unless the names of Fu Manchu or any of the other creations by Sax Rohmer are explicitly spelled out on the covers - or the select pages - I don´t think there would be any trouble as far as the copyright laws are concerned.

And even if the name Dr. Fu Manchu is on some of the pages like in the caption box above, Marvel already did a retcon in the comics that it was not the actual Dr. Fu Manchu but rather an impostor who used that name to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies. So they could either put a disclaimer in the book to the extend that it´s not the real Dr. Fu Manchu or they could have some low paid cyber monkey paste over the parts in the original art. And don´t tell me that a company like Disney doesn´t have an army of low paid cyber monkeys - they most definitely have.

And that´s the end of Today´s post if I want to eat something before the new episodes of ARROW and GRIMM start. TV always puts it on one day.

Speaking about tv series, here´s a neat piece of art by MASTERS OF KUNG FU inker / peciler Gene Day, the cover for MARVEL PREMIERE 59.

The Doctor appeared in issues 57 to 60 of MARVEL PREMIERE and later had his own series at Marvel that featured not only the most iconic

but also the following Doctor in a 23 issue series with art by Dave Gibbons, Walter Simonson. Paul Neary, David Lloyd and Steve Dillon.

The issues are probably available as part of IDW´s DOCTOR WHO CLASSIC collections and I guess most of my british readers already have them in one form or another. I think it was published in Germany by Condor but so far all I could find was the three issue series DOKTOR WHO´S REISEN DURCH RAUM UND ZEIT which is the Doctor Who graphic novel VOYAGER.

I guess I´ll have to look for those other Doktor Who comics the next time I´m at the comicshop in Esslingen. Lately I´m picking up more old comics than new ones but is it really a surprise with the state of the industry ?   

It´s been a while since I posted any cosplay pictures and it´s probably old news to most readers but I just came across Silver Shade´s Superboy.

I think it´s a good example that when it´s done right it doesn´t matter if the original character was male or female. You can see more pics here .

Today´s first video ties in with the first video from my last post. Somebody mentioned the stunt double of Lynda Carter on WONDER WOMAN in the comments section and after some research I found out that her name is Jeannie Epper. Here she is on the set with Lynda.

I also found a video on YouTube from CBS in 1979. Being a stunt woman was apparently extraordinary enough to be featured on tv ( a lot of female actors still have male stunt doubles in some scenes like Jennifer Lopez ) even though Jeannie comes from a family of stunt persons.  



Since we just can´t have a post without a cartoon video here´s another interesting find : PRYDE OF THE X - MEN from 1989. This was a pilot for a show that was never made and according to wikipedia Marvel went back to the drawing board for 1992’s X - MEN. Funding for this pilot actually came from the budget for ROBOCOP : THE ANIMATED SERIES. Instead of making a 13th episode of ROBOCOP, Marvel Productions decided to use their funding to have Toei Animation produce the animation for this pilot which is specifically influenced by issues 129 - 139 of UNCANNY X - MEN.

At least where the part about Kitty Pryde being the new member is concerned. The rest of the stories from issues 129 to 139 was the Dark Phoenix Saga which obviously is not in the pilot. Back to the wiki entry.  

Shortly after this pilot was delivered, Marvel started having financial issues ( New World Pictures, who purchased the Marvel Entertainment Group or MEG from Cadence Industries in 1986, sold MEG in January 1989 to the Andrews Group ) and stopped work on just about everything but MUPPET BABIES. This pilot effectively marked the end of the Marvel animated universe created by DePatie - Freleng Enterprises / Marvel Productions, which began with FANTASTIC FOUR ( 1978 ) and continued with SPIDER - WOMAN ( 1979 ), SPIDER - MAN ( 1981 ), SPIDER - MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS ( 1981 ) and THE INCREDIBLE HULK ( 1982 ). The X-Men themselves had previously guest starred in several episodes of SPIDER - MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, although that particular series isn't necessarily in the same continuity as " PRYDE OF THE X - MEN ".

I have to say I like the catchy theme song and I hope this is not how Wolverine sounded in the later produced X - MEN cartoon. The horror !



Now since this post has been about MASTERS OF KUNG FU, here are two real martial arts masters going at it, Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris from WAY OF THE DRAGON. I think it´s appropriate since the character of Shang Chi was visually based on Bruce Lee. I have already posted the Bruce Lee documentary HOW BRUCE LEE CHANGED THE WORLD in my first MASTERS OF KUNG FU post which I later on substituted with the Bruce Lee documentary I AM BRUCE LEE when it was deleted and which in turn now has likewise been deleted from YouTube. I´m not replacing that one with a third documentary that will probably also be deleted. Sorry !



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I´m back among the living and it feels great

Sounds ominous, I know, but since I mentioned all the trouble I had since July I should let my readers know when things are improving. That is only fair and it also gives me a chance to address a few things in one post.

So first things first, I finally got notice from the jobcenter. They sent me a letter and as wonders never cease I´m now officially unemployed and I don´t even had to get to court to get what is rightfully mine by the law.

I guess now I have to go by the ALZheimers to drop them a little present since they were extremely helpful with my application for unemployment assistance. And when I say ALZheimers I mean the people from the ALZ in Ludwigsburg which is short for Arbeitslosenzentrum, kind of the UHC the Unemployment Help Center. You know, UHC is a really awful acronym. Who wants to go to the uhc people ? How about HUGO instead which stands for Help for Unemployed Grunts Office or just Help for Unemployed Grunts which would be HUG, and wouldn´t that be nice ? Come on, who doesn´t need a hug from time to time ? Or how about Headquarters for Out of Work Individuals ( HOWIE ) or Laid Off Logistics which would become .... LOL ? .... okay, I´m giving this acronym thing way too much thought. 

What all this blabbering means is that I now will get money from the state and that I´m now officially unemployed. At least until the end of January 2015 which is how long this lasts. As I turned in my application around August that´s the month when it starts and since you apparently only get unemployment assistance for the following six months I guess I will have to make an application for the continuation of it. I just have to find out when the earliest date is so I can submit the necessary papers in time.

On Monday I will have to pay the offices of my health insurance company another visit to find out if I´m now officially receiving health care again.

The trip down there is very taxing for me because of my bad knee but it is easier to get results than if I try to do that stuff over the telephone.

And I have a good excuse to leave the house. Then, IF I´m health insured again and IF I can go to the hospital without any further complications I have to get in contact with the clinic in Markgröningen and find out if I can just make another date for surgery or if they have to do all the x - rays and MRIs all over again since more than four months have passed since I did the last ones. After I have sorted that out there´s surgery and then rehab which will probably be about three months and in between I´ll have to send a notice with the date of the operation and how long I will be incapacitated to the people from the jobcenter. And even if I can get a new date for surgery quickly I will have to send the papers to continue receiving unemployment assistance somewhere in all this stuff. So that´s another big mountain ahead of me - or rather a few mountains - but at least I managed to climb the first one and it´s about time. No kidding.

Speaking about time, it has been quite some time since my last post so you might want to know what I have been up to. It´s not as if I haven´t tried to do a new post this week but every time I was ready to do so either the internet connection was not working or it was already too late and I would not have gotten any sleep. Which is a nice segueway to what I did all Monday because I went down to the cellar to get my old matress.

Now a few weeks back my Mother insisted on buying me a new mattress based on information provided by my brother  - unbeknownst to me. It seems that he told her that my old mattress was a mess and that I needed a new one. I have no idea how my brother came to this solution or how he had this insight into my personal life which I obviously missed since I had the impression my mattress was fine. That shows you how much I know.

The next time I want to know something about myself I´ll just have to ask my brother : he´s obviously better informed than me in that regard.

Anyway, we ordered the new mattress ( yes, the internet is facilitating our lives a lot ) but the new mattress is a bit too small for my bed and too soft. When I sit on it I sink in a lot and if I´m laying on one side it´s like lying on an inclined plane. It´s almost like a water bed but without the water. Let´s just say that I haven´t gotten a good night´s sleep ever since I got the new mattress so on Monday I finally decided that enough was enough, I went down to the cellar and got my old mattress back.

Which is the reason that I spent all day cleaning up my room since I don´t clean the place where my bed stands very often. And putting new sheets on the bed. My Mom is now using the new mattress, she sleeps very well on it and I have spent a lot of this week catching up on missed sleep.

Speaking about catching up, two posts ago I mentioned that I´m trying to catch up on ARROW and I have finally finished with all the new episodes. So not only am I caught up on the episodes airing now here in Germany but I´m several episodes ahead so I know what´s coming. But I´m glad that I first saw the episodes in the original version because a lot of the german voices sound very bland compared to the originals, especially Slade Wilson who has a very manly and distinctive voice - being australian secret service - sounds very dull here. Now when I first saw his costume on the tv show I instantly knew where DC´s main focus with the NEW 52 went. Because the costume looks good on the show and it´s basically the same one as in the comics but in the comics that costume sucks. Sorry, but when you look at the original design for Deathstroke, The Terminator by George Perez it´s one of the best costumes in comic history EVER.

But the one he has in the comics now, looking at that abomination is just painful. So I´m going out on a limb here and saying that when the NEW 52 was planned the main focus in designing the costumes was that they look good in movies or on tv shows - or even as toys - and forget the comics.

Another important factor seems to have been to pay as few as possible to the heirs of the original Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. I guess the phrase " and any distinctive likeness " is the key operating term here because otherwise I don´t know why DC has systematically changed everything about Superman from his looks to his history to his supporting cast and now even his powers. I think it´s a sign for creative abandoning that only three years of the new version they feel the need to give him new powers and a new look. Now that might be because their efforts to revamp the character into something they don´t have to pay for has so far proven unsuccessful in court but it also might just be the guys at DC running out of ideas since giving Superman a new costume is not exactly a novel idea and I´m not talking about Zap Superman or Supernova here.

Not that the guys from Disney are trying any harder to come up with new stuff. So far the whole TIME IS RUNNING OUT deal is kind of ridiculous when they constantly announce new projects for 2015. Or old projects.

I mean so far they announced SECRET WARS, CIVIL WAR, HOUSE OF M, AGE OF ULTRON, PLANET HULK, ARMOR WARS, INFINITY GAUNTLET, OLD MAN LOGAN, AGE OF APOCALYPSE - none of these are new stories. What comes next ? ACTS OF VENGEANCE ? ATLANTIS ATTACKS ? THE CROSSING ? THE CLONE SAGA ? Okay, Dale Keown did the teaser picture for FUTURE IMPERFECT but I would be really surprised if he also did the interior work.

And let´s face it, the reason why FUTURE IMPERFECT is such a great comic is the writing of Peter David and the art of George Perez, and while Peter David is currently working for Disney George Perez is doing his SIRENS stuff so you won´t see pages like this on the new version.

Another thing that Disney has already announced for 2015 is X - MEN ´92 which seems to be a rehash of the X - Men from the year 1992. So what ?

All the good titles like X - MEN FOREVER or ALL NEW X - MEN had already been taken ? Although basically there´s nothing all new about this from the look of things but rather this would be the ALL OLD X - MEN which doesn´t exactly have the same ring of excitement about it. And what will this be all about, anyway ? With X - MEN FOREVER Chris Claremont wrote the X - Men series he initially wanted to write before Jim Lee took over, although I´m guessing the whole killing of Wolverine thing was something new because they would have never let him kill off Wolverine back then. We all know that Logan is one of the biggest cashcows for Disney and they would have to be really desperate to even try to pull such a stunt because no comic reader will believe they are really going to kill him off for good. Which means those mouthbreathers are now desperate enough to do it.

But that´s not the worst of it. I can take Storm´s old costume, in fact it´s one of my favorites, I can take Rogue´s weirdo bodysuit and Jubilee not as a vampire ? That´s a good thing. But why the Gambit ? Always with the Gambit. He´s lame, he sucks and while some people think that it was harsh that the X - Men left him stranded in Antarctica when they found out that he was one of the main architects behind the Mutant Massacre I think he got off lightly. The X - Men should have terminated his ass for good, especially Logan. Wolverine should have ended the guy. But he didn´t which cost us decades of suffering and when I say " we " I mean me. I guess Gambit´s popular with Disney so again with the Gambit.

With Disney going back to all those old stories I decided to do the same and I am currently re - reading the INFINITY stuff I mentioned two posts ago. Which means I have finished with the WARLOCK reprints and am still reading the SILVER SURFER issues before starting on INFINITY GAUNTLET.

So THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADAM WARLOCK will be the topic of one of my upcoming DEATH IN COMICS posts. One of the main reasons why I wanted to read this stuff again ( besides the fact that it will be covered in am upcoming movie ) was to decide if buying the INFINITY GAUNTLET omnibus is worth it. Initially I thought George Perez had quit in the middle of issue 3 but he did finish that issue and also the first pages of issue 4. So there is more George Perez in there than I thought. It also is one of the bigger omnibuses with over 1200 pages which is the least you can expect for a 125 dollar book. Now is it just me or has Disney gone crazy with the prices for their omnibuses ? I mean a lot of people are bashing amazon but let´s be realistic here for a moment : who can really afford to pay 125 bucks for a comic ? I´m not sure that without places like amazon where you can get such a book for 75 bucks - at a good day - they would not sell that good. And they have to sell or disney wouldn´t make so damn much of them. I mean if they put ACTS OF VENGEANCE TIE INS and ATLANTIS ATTACKS in an omnibus they will put anything in an omnibus.

And it´s not only the omnibuses that have gone up, all hardcover prices have increased. I mean the X - MEN INFERNO CROSSOVER and the AGE OF ULTRON books are both priced at 75 bucks but while the first one has 600 pages the second one has only 500 pages and when I look at them on the shelf porn the INFERNO book is twice as thick since it has better paper.

Right now I´m thinking about getting some new omnibuses as it seems I have to buy my presents for my saints day and my birthday myself since it looks like nobody else is going to do it. Or at least get me a decent one.

But for the moment none of the ones I have my eye on like SPIDER - MAN BY ROGER STERN, UNCANNY X - MEN 2 or the before mentioned INFINITY GAUNTLET omnibus are at reasonable prices. So I´ll wait a bit since there is enough on my plate I still have not read : hardbacks 2 to 4 of BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE INFINITY RELEVATION ( although I might wait with that until I have the THANOS ANNUAL which comes before ), the finale of AVENGERS ACADEMY ( here I also have to read the two hardcovers before this ) and I haven´t even started on AVENGERS ASSENBLED by Kurt Busiek and George Perez or the IRON MAN or NEW TEEN TITANS omnibuses.

Speaking of George Perez, another comic I thought about buying was the DC COMICS CLASSIC LIBRARY hardcover of his Justice League story and the only reasons why I haven´t is that  for some reason DC put it out in two parts and they are both highly overpriced at 40 bucks for a book with less than 200 ( in the case of the first one even less than 180 ) pages. Now I regret not buying the spansih edition since it was one volume and only cost 35 EUROS. I´m also thinking about getting volumes 4 to 6 of the CRISIS ON MULTIPLE EARTHS trades since there is also George Perez artwork in there and a crossover between the JLA, the JSA and the Legion of Super Heroes but right now I´m not sure. The reviews at amazon are less than exited and I´m not sure if the nostalgia factor is big enough to tide me over the bad writing and art in most of the issues collected here.

Before finishing ( it´s already almost one o´clock ) I want to get back to the tv series I´m watching because there are a lot of comic related ones.

Like I said I have finished with the new episodes of ARROW and I have also seen the first four episodes of the THE FLASH and the pilot episode of CONSTANTINE. I guess I have to swallow that the Flash in the series is not Wally West since DC does its best to ignore him but aside from that the series is really good and they have the original tv Flash John Wesley Ship playing Barry Allen´s Dad. I´m not so keen on the whole retroactive having his mom killed by the Reverse Flash but that´s the new backstory they come up with in the comics to make Barry Allen interesting so that´s naturally what the NEW 52 inserts in the tv version. With Constantine they could have made him a bit more badass but ever since Hollywood did their parallel version of it I have been waiting that somebody does the real version since none of that appeared in the Keanu Reeves movie.

And since we´re on the subject of tv series I wanted to mention that I pimped the post about Wonder Woman Lynda Carter back in 2011. At first I was just looking for a certain animated GIF to add since I can´t find where I put the disc with the clips from the Wonder Woman tv series. But then I found lots and lots of GIFs and pictures and it took really long to finish the post ( I think it was around six o´clock this morning since the internet connection was acting up for hours just after I had started it ).

I haven´t done a new post on her the last few years since I didn´t have enough material but now there just might be a new post on the horizon.

And in the meantime you can check out the old repimped post about CULT SIREN LYNDA CARTER as Wonder Woman. You know, with the Hollywood version of Xena Wonder Woman appearing in the new Superman vs Batman / Justice League movie it might be a good time to do a post, since Lynda Carter is still the iconic Wonder Woman for so many people.  

There are no links for this post but I should post the original version of the black and white cover by Arthur Adams, JUSTICE LEAGUE 148 which is one of the issues in volume 4 of the Crisis on Multiple Earths trades.

Now since I ended the post with Wonder Woman Lynda Carter the first video is a clip from the episode I was talking about earlier. I tried to find the series on DVD but all I could find on amazon were imports and since they are not verified by the german FSK there might be some problems.

Now the clip is from the episode THE QUEEN & THE THIEF from season 2 where Wonder Woman helped a cat burglar 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.

And here´s the full clip in the best quality I could find :



I mentioned the Silver Surfer and the Infinity Gauntlet and one of the tv series I´m watching is the animated Silver Surfer series which I haven´t watched before. I don´t know if I wasn´t interested at the time it aired in Germany or if I just missed it but it´s not as bad as I thought and the theme music is really catchy. Of course like all adaptions by a tv studio they changed a lot of stuff and they also omitted the Fantastic Four.

So things haven´t changed that much since then - but the art looks like it´s inspired by Jack Kirby. Since I only found the first seven episodes I´ll have to watch the rest on YouTube like this one, the final episode in which Thanos appears who is one of the Silver Surfer´s main adversaries here.



The last video is one where I´m probably the last one at the party again since I found numerous posts on this. It´s been a while since I did a post on cosplay, mainly because every time I start preparing my stuff for the big Yaya Han post I get too worked up to keep the post SAFE FOR WORK.

Not that the video of Bianca Beauchamp cosplaying as Harley Quinn is any less dangerous. But I wanted to post it in case readers haven´t seen it.

I must say that I never was a big fan of Harley Quinn in the comics ( liked her in the cartoon ) since the first thing they did when they gave her her own series was to change everything about her but Bianca has won me over. I have seen a few versions of Harley cosplay but this is be the best.

Like I said the full video is not something I could put on the post but at least here I can post the censored version. There is also the uncensored version on YouTube but you will have to find that one for yourself. What I am posting is this link to the video on vimeo where you can download the clip in different formats and sizes. Sorry, but it´s the censored version. 



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