By George ! The Brave And The Bold - 3

The last few days I had some problems with the stomach and if that was not enough I have been feeling a bit under the weather ( which is very cold in Germany ) so I couldn´t make the promised FLASH FRIDAY post although I had already prepared all the necessary material. It´s true, I have done a few posts after they were scheduled to appear but since it was already Sunday when I finished my last post´s link section I decided it was too late and opted to go for another series I have neglected far too long.

Yes, if you check the blog archive you will see that I posted issue 2 way back on September the 21st so you might want to re - read that post. In this issue we have Batman teaming up with Blue Beetle and it´s one of the most entertaining issues. When Jamie Reyes was first introduced I was not happy - which had a lot to do with how the DC guys got rid of the previous Blue Beetle. But after a few issues the character won me over and they really paid tribute to the legacy of Ted Kord in the book. It turned into a really great read and if you want to know more check out the post I did on the series. This version has my highest recommendation.

I don´t know how things are with the NEW 52 version of Blue Beetle but it´s not like that version really counts in the big scheme of thing. And after the whole DC REBIRTH initiative it probably won´t matter anyway.

I don´t want to come off like I think I know everything but I didn´t like the whole NEW 52 from the beginning since I never understood why DC deemed it necessary and now that it´s hopefully over it seems like it was their version of New Coke. I mean, just the other day I was reading my brother´s newest issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE and they were full of quotes about how great the DC REBIRTH titles are and all the great ideas they have about bringing Green Arrow back to his roots as a urban vigilante with a social consciousness and Dick Grayson as Nightwing and so on.

Pardon me, but is that not how they are SUPPOSED to be written ? But like with New Coke DC has been feeding the fans just cheap crap and now that they are back to the original concepts because they finally realized they had to do something if they didn´t want to devaluate the stable of intellectual property forever critics are raving as if those are novel ideas.

Back to the issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD at hand, for me as a Legion of Super - Heroes fan it is a special delight that the main villains in this issue are The Fatal Five. Although things really kick into high gear with more Legionaries than you can throw a stick at - okay, not that many since that happened in INFINITE CRISIS : LEGION OF THREE WORLDS ( which I posted here : issue 1 / issue 2 / issue 3 / issue 4 / issue 5 ) - but you get the idea of what takes place in issue 5. In any case, back to our story :

Yesterday was Marshall Rogers birthday so I want to start the fun section with a few links from DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND : there is The Man Who Melted Manhattan by Marshall Rogers and Don Newton from Batman Family 13, a gallery of his Batman covers - one of them being for the 1978 Batman Spectacular which had three Batman stories including Hang The Batman by David V. Reed, Mike Nasser and Josef Rubinstein - and Eclipse from Mister Miracle 20 by Steve Englehardt, Marshall Rogers and Vince Coletta. There is also a great post with George Perez´ best FF covers .

For more Batman - related goodness THE THOUGHT BALLOON PRESENTS offers Secret of the Sphinx Sinister from Detective Comics 508 by Gerry Conway and Don Newton, for another classic Batman story BLAH BLAH BLAH has Where Were You The Night Batman Died ?  in four parts ( part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 ) and the LONGBOX REVIEW podcast has a post with a whole plethora of Robin costumes. And because Supergirl had a short cameo in this issue ( she will take over the main story in our next issue ) I want to add SUPERGIRL : THE MAIDEN OF MIGHT with its post on Supergirl´s first visit to our time, the 21st century from Action Comics 255 and TOO DANGEROUS FOR A GIRL with a post on Adventure Comics issue 401 that features the NEW Supergirl in a trippy new costume with gloves !

Since I have already covered Today´s most important birthday - fastlaning sexbomb Tiffani Amber Thiessen - in a post I wrote in advance and I don´t have videos for any other celebrity birthday candidates all the videos will be selected freely by yours truly. But before we come to that there are two birthdays Tomorrow that I want to mention Today as I will probably still be busy with finishing this post. The first one is comic icon John Romita Sr. who turns 87. I did a post on him last year which was mainly about the MARVEL VISIONARIES - JOHN ROMITA hardcover book so if I do not get around to do a new post you might want to check out that one .

The second one is from our Dearly Departed section as Russ Meyer muse Haji´s day of birth has another anniversary. I went over the post I did last year and since there is nothing I could add at this point here is the link .

I want to start things off with another react video and despite what the title says the real challenge of the next video is not to look at Emily´s cleavage, something I failed miserably at even though the makers - fully aware of the hypnotic power of her oppai - did their best to cover them up in her best scenes. She definitely needs to get more screen time.

As for the official challenge of the video, I would probably fail right from the start because I am a guy who always sings along to songs no matter how out of tune I am - much to the chagrin of my brothers. Which makes the constant attempts by my brother to get me to play any instrument twice as weird. I mean, it used to be he couldn´t get me to shut up fast enough and now he wants me to join his band. What ? And while I still enjoy music and documentaries about music I barely listen to it - mostly when I´m writing my posts - nowadays. It´s really strange how things that were a big part of your life can fall completely to the wayside. Just a few weeks ago I was participating in an online thing where you list ten albums that influenced you as a teenager and through going through my mental playlist I found out that there were new albums by Kate Bush and Suzanne Vega that I never heard about. Anyway, back to the singing along thing, even if I knew that was the challenge I would probably have a hard time.



Everybody loves a top ten list so here are some good Batman stories not so much for Bat - afficionados who have read these but for newcomers.



And I´m saying some good Batman stories as I have to disagree with them on the No Man´s Land train wreck which for me not only is one of the most uncharacteristic Batman stories of all times ( it reminded me of a story Ralph Macchio told where he rewrote a Batman story for an issue of Captain America and his editor told him that Captain America acts too much like Batman ) but also a big waste of artistictalent, time, definitely of paper and money. The whole Batman as a family person period where he´s running around with Tim Taylor´s tool time belt instead of the Bat utility belt and Batman breaking down and crying for Alfred to give him strength is best forgotten and new readers should avoid it at all costs.

And I mean all costs because this is a huge crossover that goes on forever and will cost you an arm and a leg. If pre - NEW 52 Blue Beetle is my recommendation for the day No Man´s Land is my anti recommendation.

Speaking of recommendations, Tomorrow the second season of Supergirl finally continues and if you haven´t been watching the series or didn´t pick up after the first season here is a little teaser to wet your appetite.



Since I´m not bound to any birthdays I can get to all the videos I didn´t get to put into previous posts so here is the trailer for Helge Schneider´s secret agent satire / spoof 00 Schneider - Im Wendekreis der Eidechse.



Likewise this was supposed to go with one of the many Christmas posts I had envisioned but I guess it still fits with the weather outside. I just love those old, handmade children´s cartoons. If I owned a television company one channel would only show that kind of movies 24 hours on every day.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

There are two rules for success in life. One : never reveal everything you know.