Wednesday, December 20, 2017

A Marvel Master Mittwoch Double Feature

It´s been almost two weeks since I started my last post ( although only two days that I finished it since it somehow split into two posts ) so I wanted to put the so often postponed Joe Sinnott appreciation post on the blog. Especially since I can also honor another favorite comic artist.


Now back when Joe Sinnott celebrated his 91st birthday on October the 16th I surely didn´t plan it that way and I only wanted to pay homage to one of my favorite periods of one of my favorite comic books. Which is in part due to the fact that it does not get as much attention like Joe Sinnott´s stint on THE FANTASTIC FOUR with the legendary Jack Kirby.


Now don´t get me wrong, I love Jack Kirby´s work but as longtime readers of this blog know that appreciation came after a long time and as a young kid I was not that big a fan of his artwork. It took me a really long time to really " get " his thing so while I read all those classic FANTASTIC FOUR issues as a tyke and remember some of them very fondly ( like who could argue that THIS MAN, THIS MONSTER is the most perfect Fantastic Four story ever written ? ) the time where I really became an ardent fan of Marvel´s first family was when Big John Buscema took over the art reigns. 


Now like I said for most people this was not that interesting a time on the book and if you hear comic fans talk about legendary runs on FANTASTIC FOUR they mostly talk about Jack Kirby´s groundbreaking start together with Stan Lee ( let´s not forget his contribution. While some people say too much credit was given to him which may be true in some occassions he never went out of his way to claim any undue credit and without Stan Lee´s wonderful writing and grandiose hyperbole there may have never been Marvel Comics ) that basically built up the entire Marvel universe or John Byrne´s brilliant run that breathed new life into the FF franchise.


And while you can´t underestimate the impact of the runs by Jack Kirby and John Byrne I think that anybody who dismisses issues 102 to 231 of FANTASTIC FOUR as not that important does himself a great disservice.


For me personally this was a great time to read the book and I gobbled any spanish issues up that I could get my hands on ( as usual the spanish issues of LOS CUATRO FANTASTICOS was years ahead of whatever was published in Germany at that time ) since a lot of the art was done by two of my all - time favorite artists, John Buscema and George Perez.


And since I already have those special folders for more George Perez posts ( yes, I know that it has been a while since I continued the series but I will get back to it eventually ) and only get to write about John Buscema very infrequently this post has mostly FANTASTIC FOUR art by John Buscema.


Although all the inks were provided by Mr. Sinnott. He was the glue that held the book together - at least where the inks were concerned - and gave it a consistent look even if artists changed. He always made them look good. Okay, I have to confess that one of the reasons why I picked the Fantastic Four pages for this post and especially the John Buscema issues is that it gives me a reason to mention THE OVERMIND SAGA again.


Although to tell to truth, I´m not even sure if anybody else but me calls it that. In any case, I´m not going to go into detail about the story because a. ) I don´t want to spoil it for anybody who has not read it, b. ) I don´t have the time as this is supposed to be a quick post ( as basically most of the posts here ), and c. ) for all those who WANT to read about one of the best Fantastic Four stories of all time ( at least in my humble opinion and german comic icon Robi will back me up here ) can do it in this posting .

Which is my cue to shut up and let the master´s work speak for itself but not before adding a few more links to previous Joe Sinnott posts. I tried to write a special Halloween post back in 2015 which turned into my first Joe Sinnott appreciation post talking about all of my favorite series or parts of series he inked. Last year I even managed to do two Joe Sinnott posts, one with a lot of splash pages from german HIT Comics ( which is why I decided to do a post about one series this year since I don´t like to repeat myself ) and a special THORSDAY post which included mainly splash pages from Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz´ run on THOR about which I have written in numerous posts. Now, without any further ado : Joe Sinnott. 


Now since it´s only a few days to Christmas ( or Beebo Day depending on if the Legends of Tomorrow manage to reverse this time anomaly ) it´s a safe bet that I will not be able to do a new post before the holidays so I want to wish all my faithful readers a Merry Christmas, una Feliz Navidad, eine gesegnete Weihnachtszeit, Happy Hanukkah or a Joyous Kwanzaa.


Since this is not the first time since I have written about John Buscema, Joe Sinnott or The Fantastic four you might think that there are no links left for this section - which I hope that somebody reads since there are scarcely any comments about it. Anyway, even with most of my links tied up with some particular posts that I´m planning to do in the future there are still a few I want to include here. Sometimes I just put out random links because there are a lot which I bookmark and never get to post because I never get to do the post I had in mind or they are related to a specific topic that just does not come up. And somehow I always want to give my readers the little extra something something that has become a staple. But in this case they all have something to do with the post.


We start with the always entertaining STEVE DOES COMICS who waxes philosophic on the first meeting of the Fantastic Four´s Human Torch and the original Human Torch whose body may or may not have been used to build the Avenger´s Vision years later ( I am not up to date with the recent developments of the post - Crisis on Infinite Earths Marvel NOW universe and since they ret - conned that Tony Stark built Ultron in the movies I am not sure if any of my Marvel knowledge is still accurate ).


Now I have probably posted this link before but because it has been a very long time since I did that and there have been a few new posts since then I am re - presenting HERR RAU , a blog about a very unusual teacher who likes to read comics. Imagine that. When I was in school all our teachers did with comics was to take them away. Which might have been because they wanted to read them - who knows. Anyway, teachers taking away my comics actually taught me something. Because we were always told that we would get them back at the end of the school year. Well , guess what ?

When I went to the teacher´s office at the end of that year to reclaim all the comics he had taken he confessed that he had thrown them all away because so far nobody of his pupils had had the balls to ask for them back.

What did that teach me ? Never trusts any teacher and don´t get caught reading comics in the first place. Anyway, back to this particular teacher´s blog the reason why I put up the link in the first place is that there is a post about the Fantastic Four with scans from an original splash page by Jack Kirby and the german versions from the BSV Bildschriftenverlag and the later Williams Verlag which might be of interest for my readers abroad.


And last but not least, since I mentioned Stan Lee I want to direct you to Abraham Riesman at VULTURE who explains why his legacy is in question.


So far into the post and I´m only now realizing that I have not mentioned one of the main reasons why I decided to include John Buscema in this post : his 90th anniversary would have been on the 11th of this month.

As longtime readers are aware I´ve mentioned John Buscema many times so I don´t want to put up links to all these posts. Nevertheless as some readers may be reluctant to use the " buscema " post tag - and because I also use it for his brother Sal - I want to include some postings of choice.


The most recent ones are my John Buscema´s Top Ten Avengers Covers posts where I am now down to the top three covers. It seems the further I get to the top the less covers I can include in one post. And in the latest one I only got to do one so maybe I will need two posts for my number three. Nevertheless since I have not gotten any negative comments from readers so far it seems that they rather enjoy or at least appreciate my ramblings so here are the four posts I have done so far : John Buscema´s Top Ten covers for the german Williams Verlag series Die Ruhmreichen Rächer and John Buscema´s Top Ten Avengers cover from his second run on the book with Roger Stern ( numbers 10 to 6 , number five , number four ). Speaking of that run, I also did a post on Avengers 300 - which only took me three tries - and on one of the best but sadly most underrated stories Assault on Olympus ( which is mainly due to it coming hot on the heels of the brilliant Under Siege Saga, probably the best Avengers story ever written ) with the best original art I could find. Apart from that I am sure that I will get back to the topic of John Buscema´s Top Ten Avengers covers ( and my usual deviations on it ) although rather later than sooner.


And with that we are already right in the middle of birthdays I missed in 2017 but covered in previous years. Our next stop is a double billing as Bart Sears and Mark Texiera share the 17th of December as the date of their birth. I want to start with Bart Sears who comes up a lot in my posts because he did the definitive version of Power Girl on the Justice League Europe series from her original white costume with the magical cleavage window to the sprayed on white and gold costume ( well, I think it was white and gold because I seem to remember it being mentioned in the comics but you could not really see it with the coloring of the times ).


Which may have something to do with my fixation on women with big breasts and especially on blondes with big breasts as it must have been around the same time when I read Bart Sear´s version of Power Girl and when I saw Monique´s impersonation of Marilyn Monroe on Tutti Frutti .


In the old comics artist Wally Wood kept making Power Girl´s breasts bigger and bigger to see how far he could take it. Or at least that is the urban legend. Speaking of Wally Wood´s version of Power Girl, if you want to see for yourself if there´s any truth to the claim that he supersized Power Girl´s boob you can find the original art for the 17 page story from All - Star Comics 65 at the private collection of James Halperin and you can see them at an even bigger resolution at HERITAGE AUCTIONS . Well, in regards to Power Girl´s gigantic breast size ( let´s not loose track of what is really important here ) fact is that the artists after Wally Wood drew her with normal proportions .... or what is considered normal for superheroines.


Until Bart Sears took over the character, buffed her up and returned her signature breast size - at least until the whole NEW 52 fiasko / retcon.


When I started to read american comics the DC universe was brand new thanks to the Crisis on Infinite Earths fallout and I grabbed all the series I didn´t know which included the two fisted combo of Justice League by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire and Justice League Europe also by Giffen and Matteis, art by Bart Sears and inks by Pablo Marcos whom I knew from his work on Defenders. I don´t know if it was fate but the very first issue of Justice League Europe I got was issue 4 in which Power Girl, Flash and Animal Man share a hotel room as they go to Bialya on an undercover mission. I re - read the issue a few times and I always wondered if these more human - and more horny in the case of Flash - heroes didn´t spend the dull waiting time in a more adult way.


Well, I was young, in my sexual prime and had a lot of spare time in the barracks ( we were three in one room but the others went home after duty so I had the black and white television set with a lot of TUTTI FRUTTI and PLAYBOY LATE NIGHT episodes all to myself which didn´t exactly help my situation ) so I re - read the issue a few times imagining what could have happened if Animal Man would have gotten Power Girl under his control with pheromones. Ah, all the things I would have done to her.


For me Bart Sear´s version is still the definite version of Power Girl and now that DC is back - paddling with their Rebirth initiative and restoring many things I am of course curious to find out what that means for Power Girl. As far as I know she has not yet appeared in the all new DC universe continuity so there might be a return to her former glory in store for her.


Speaking about the best Power Girl of all times in Justice League Europe, last year I finally managed to do another post about Darick Robertson in which I mentioned the BREAKDOWNS storyline that introduced Power Girl´s famous coconut bra costume. And I just want to say that I still have not given up on a Yaya Han Power Girl coconut bra cosplay ( with the tiniest coconut shells you can find although compared to her huge 40D oppai all coconut shells probably look small no matter how big they are ) as she has already shown that she does a terrific Power Girl cosplay and she certainly has no problem filling out the magical cleavage window.


Coming back to Bart Sears, I feel like he has gotten the better end of the deal since I did two posts on him in 2015 - one about his work on Justice League Europe and one on everything else - and he shared a post with Mark Texiera in 2016 . Granted, Mark Texiera did get a solo post in 2014 but I spent most of the time explaining how Marvel got me back reading The Mighty Thor with one of the cheapest sales gimmicks in history EVER.


It was issue 430 written by Tom DeFalco, drawn by Ron Frenz and inked by Al Milgrom ( sadly Joe Sinnott had already left the title at this point ) and it guest - starred none other than everybody´s favorite flaming skull on a motorcycle who Marvel put into as many books as possible - Ghost Rider - and it was the beginning of the epic Soul Shroud Saga that would go on for months without end. By the way, to all the comic newbies who think a guy with a flaming skull in a car is cool or scary : it´s neither. It just hasn´t the same kick, in the best case he comes across as ridiculous while in the worst case he probably ignites the driver´s cabin. Anyway, the next post regarding those two artists will therefore be in favor of Mark Texiera.


Now those readers who remember the first draft of this post may wonder what happened to the picture of Yaya Han cosplaying as Psylocke and the thing is I had intended to add something about her. But then I realized that I had already posted her best pictures from that and there also is no video left with her as Psylocke. And I already mentioned her anyway. So I left the picture with Yaya Han as a place holder until I could replace it with a good picture of another hot asian cosplayer : Linda Le Vampy Bit Me ( what a mouthful, try saying that five times fast ) who did an awesome Psylocke cosplay in 2013. Once again, the plan was to put up a picture of her as Psylocke but since the post is already far too long I will leave that for another time. The important thing is the video and that went up first.



Finishing out the list of celebrity birthdays I covered in previous years is Alyssa Milano who turned 45 on December the 19th and is best known as Phoebe Halliwell. The main reason why guys watched the show was to see her girating her hips as a sultry belly dancer or an almost naked mermaid.


Before she starred in Charmed Alyssa appeard in an episode of Outer Limits where she didn´t leave much to the imagination thanks to the lower restrictions of the Sci Fi channel. She was well on her way to become a sexsymbol but of course we wanted to see more of her. And male viewers got their wish when Alyssa got her freak on in Embrace of the Vampire where she did her breast performance going full frontal.

I did a re - post of Alyssa Milano´s cult siren entry on her birthday last December which you might want to check out ( I also did one post with Alyssa´s best Charmed outfits since I couldn´t fit it all into one post ).


Which brings us to Today´s list of birthday babes starting with the most popular glamour model in Britain, Lucy Pinder, who celebrates her 34th anniversary. I have to confess that I did not know that much about her since I cut down on looking for pictures of hot babes which has mostly dwindled down to research for posts. So I did what I always do - go to make an offering to the almighty gods of the interwebs - and I was a bit surprised to find that there is more information in her BOOBPEDIA entry than in her wikipedia page. I´m not going to list all her various jobs - from tv program host to advice columnist to charity ambassador - or anything else you might find on BOOBPEDIA. As the perfectionist I can turn into when writing these posts I only want to provide my faithful readers with the best material so after deeming GIFs on my laptop inadequate for the occasion I did another internet search that led to the desired result. Of course it was only after I had done the internet search that I stumbled upon a picture of Lucy Pinder that was not only safe to post but which is perfect for the upcoming holidays. I even had it in the respective folder so I should have just used that which would have saved me a lot of time.


Now when I do the " babe of the day " routine - as a reader once called it - I try to find out the exact measurements but in the case of Lucy not even BOOBPEDIA is certain. Her chest size seems to have changed a few times over the years from a whopping 32GG to a still impressive 32E and back. I´m not sure what size she is sporting below but to me it looks just fine.


We make a slight detour into nerdculture with Nicole De Boer who turns 47 and is best known as Ezri Dax on Star Trek - Deep Space Nine which is the best Star Trek spin - off ( although the godawful Star Trek - Voyager gets special points for borgasmic sex android Sex with Nine played by the very hot Jeri Ryan and Enterprise has THE hottest Star Trek alien ever, Pon Farr addicted sex vulcan T´Pol by cult sexbomb Jolene Blalock ) at least in my humble opinion. Which may be the reason why her work on The Dead Zone - where she plays Sarah Bracknell Bannermann - may be overlooked sometimes. Which is not very fair because that series has my utmost recommendation and not only for Stephen King fans or horror fans.


Some people are not very happy with the last season and I have to admit that there were some things that I was not thrilled about but overall it´s a solid written series with good characters. Which is gets me interested in a show and I am always disappointed when the general idea behind a series is interesting but then the writing falls flat. Speaking of series, the reason why I mentioned Alyssa Milano´s Outer Limits episode is that Nicole also appeared in one although I don´t think she showed as much as Alyssa. There is however Prom Night 4 where you can see Nicole in lingerie.


It´s back to women who take their clothes off in magazines with Wendy Hamilton who celebrates her 50th anniversary which means that I can hit on her without coming off as creepy since we are the same age. Or at least not creepy because of any age differences. She might still find me creepy for other reasons. Wendy Hamilton's statuesque five foot ten inch frame was featured in the December 1991 issue of Playboy magazine.


She's since followed in the footsteps of her predecessor Pamela Anderson by acting in straight to video sextaculars that feature, among many other things, her incredibly long legs ! Being a former playmate, Wendy has been nude in just about every film she has been in. Guess she's typecast as hot and naked, which is a good thing. A highlight is Ski School 2 but you have probably guessed that my favorite movie with Wendy Hamilton is The Dallas Connection a.k.a. Deadworks by cineastic mastermind Andy Sidaris .


I also want to give a shoutout to one of the biggest movie cult sirens of my youth : sexbomb Joyce Hyser who celebrates her 60th anniversary.

And before you ask : you don´t know Joyce Hyser, you don´t remember the movie Just One Of The Guys for which she is best known but I bet you remember this scene where she shows her incredibly big ..... talents.

 
Back in the 80s your best bet to see some naked breasts were screwball comedies because you knew even if the script was totally worthless and the actors without any kind of talent you were going to get boobage.


Joyce Hyser may not be famous and may not have played in the best movies but every prebubescent boy growing up in the 80s saw this movie.

And to think she almost didn´t do it. Joyce had a no nudity clause in her contract and was against showing her wonder twins especially after a female friend told her : " Honey, WITH THOSE BREASTS if you GO TOPLESS in that scene, NO ONE you meet will EVER look you INTO YOUR EYES again ." Thankfully Joyce Hyser shot the scene showing her breasts and without showing them and in the end decided that the scene didn´t work if she didn´t go topless. This is what I call " poetry in motion ".


So the thanks of an entire generation of hormone driven boys is yours for logic winning over superstition. Or naked breasts winning over whatever.

We are staying with cult sirens as Jenny Agutter turns 65 who appears in such cult movies as Amazon Women On The Moon, Darkman, An American Werewolf in London and most prominently Logan´s Run. By the way, sorry for the poor quality of the GIF but it was the best where Jenny´s costume is not covered by text. I also want to mention that there are a few GIFs from the movie where she is naked so don´t get out your pitchforks yet.


As longtime readers know I have done several posts on Logan´s Run, the first one in 2011 where I covered everything from the movie to the tv series and the many comic book adaptions. And speaking of comic book adaptions as a big fan of George Perez I posted all five issues of the series he did for Marvel as well as the final two by the criminally underrated Tom Sutton ( on whom I did a post this year ) just to finish the series. I don´t post entire issues very often ( although that may change depending on if the Jobcenter gives me a break in 2018 ) and when I do it is always with good cause. In this case I wanted to give the issues more exposure since I have not seen them on any other websites and I´m still hoping that the powers to be at Disney will some day make them available as a paperback.


I know there may be difficulties getting reprint rights but they somehow figured that out with Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu and there is a remake in the works which should be reason enough for these money grubbing bastards. Which already was announced when I wrote my first post on Logan´s Run back in 2011. Now they want to do a new version with a female lead and I have to say I am not surprised. Back to comics we have a deep cut because with all the posts about Logan´s Run and the different comic adaptions I somehow failed to include episode 5.2 of A Comicbook Orange that has a review of the series from Bluewater. I have pimped A Comicbook Orange since day one but I may be forgiven for this oversight since there were no new posts when I wrote my post. I was so sad when they closed up shop because they were one of the pioneers of comic book tv. They were ComicbookGirl19 before there was a ComicbookGirl19 so I´m glad that I get to mention them for the newer generation of comic book readers who may never heard of them. They are in the blog roll but I am not sure how many of my readers actually go through that list. So here´s the episode and you can also watch it - as well as dozens of other cool episodes about everything that´s comic book related - on their website



Before we forget that this is a comic blog I want to include this video about John Byrne´s run on Fantastic Four for my spanish speaking readers.



For this post´s music video - or rather music video section - we are once again descending into the realm of k - pop idols and since I have very often written about their ultra sexual stage performances that are so hot that there is a list of dance moves that are banned by the government I thought it´s about time to include some. You can see this as a special treat for all my readers who like their girls rather naughty than nice or another attempt not to get too obsessed about cosplay queen Yaya Han.


Now I wanted to include various k - pop bands and especially some I have not featured before. Like Brown Eyed Girls and their performance of Sixth Sense. I could not find any mention of the girls having trouble because of their dance moves and the only controversy that is documented is that some critics said that the political and social message in the song may be overshadowed by their sultry performance. And while they have gotten no rebuke because of their on stage moves so far I must say that I´d like to spend an some quality time with the talented girl who does the splits .



Our next candidates are Tayeon & Tiffany and their version of Lady Marmelade and in this case they got problems because of everything : their dance moves but especially their outfits. Which in my opinion is completely bogus because what did they expect ? Female singers all over the world have been slutting it up to this song for decades now from such midnight program strippers like Marlene Mourreau to  full blooded ( and full bodied ) singing divas like Lil Kim, Mya, Pink and Christina Aguilera ( I´d like to see an european all - boob - star cast like Marlene Mourreau, Sabrina Salerno, Federica Ridolfi and Monica Naranjo or a soul sexbomb quartet with Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Tatyana Ali do an x - rated music video of this song ). I mean the woman in the song is a prostitute and the chorus is Do you want to have sex with me tonight ? 



Troublemakers Sistar earned an entry in the anals .... I mean annals of banned k - pop sexbombs with their steamy performance of So Cool on the 31st broadcast of the KBS Musik Festival Show. They really knew what their target audience wants and the song instantly went viral thanks to their very short dresses, incredibly long legs and soft, juicy bubblebutts.


Good things never last long so the next day Starship Entertainment made them change the choreography by eliminating the so - called tail dance ( which apparently evolved from their butt dance ) for being too sexually suggestive. I tried to find a video of their oversexed performance but all I found was the GIF above and this slo - mo clip . In addition the girls also had to change the outfits from short skirts to pants although I´m not so sure if that even made a difference since their spectacular butts may even look better in those tight tight pants - as you can see in the video below.



Now I have already posted about girl group Ace of Angels before but since it was just one video and not five - like it has become a habit with k - pop - I think it´s okay. And they really belong here as AoA - as they are called in short - are no strangers to getting complaints as their stage wardrobe contains a plethora of colored tight leather pants and there are a few performances and / or videos were their dance routines were deemed too hot like with their hit Miniskirt. But the main reason why I wanted to include them here is their song Confused since it is such a good example. In this case the couch had to be removed from the stage show because the girl´s antics on it were obviously more than a normal man can bare.



I have to say I´m glad there was such a fuss about it because it made me focus on Jimin, the group member who climbs on the sofa who otherwise might have slipped my attention. Which would have been a crying shame since this purrfect sex - kitten has the best behind in the entire group !


It´s too bad that she does not get more attention but she often gets overlooked because of sexy group member Seolhyun ( which is quite understandable ) who also does have a fantastic backside ( man, who hasn´t in this group ? ) and can gyrate her body like there´s no Tomorrow.


It was extremely difficult to narrow it down to two videos but I think I managed to pick the ones which were most representative. And just to be sure I included all the other performances of the song via the links in this very text. I hope I did not overdo it as there are so many in this post.



I´m going to end this topic with Laysha undisputed champion of anything banned who have the raunchiest stage shows thanks to their pro stripper moves, skimpy outfits and constant wardrobe malfunctions. What´s more, band member Goeun is notorious for not being very fond of underwear especially during live performances - much to the delight of the male fans.


Like with Lucy Pinder it was a bit difficult to pick one GIF but I decided on one of band member Hyeri who obviously has a different attitude towards underwear as Goeun. I tried to find out more about the individual girls but I could not find a wikipedia page for them. There is one page that looks kind of official but there is almost no information on it and another page I found that has more details doesn´t look very official. And since I don´t like to link threads I can´t put up the link to the only website that has 17 pages of everything you ever wanted to know about them but I´m sure you can find The Official Laysha Thread on ONEHALLYU through google.


Now you can´t say that I have chosen this video because Laysha is the one k - pop band where you have too many videos but also not enough - at the same time. I didn´t have the time to go over all seventeen pages in detail but it seems there are hundreds of fancam videos with individual group members but almost none where you get the performance with the full group. Also most of the videos where you can see the group are filmed from so far away with a fancam and it looks like Laysha has never been on a tv show. You can always look for their fancam videos on YouTube but since I only found two fancam videos with Hyeri from the performance above I´m including the only group video I found with a decent quality.



You don´t have to be psychic to know that I won´t finish this post before Christmas Day comes around so I want to end with a cartoon that fits the bill, and what could be better than He - Man and She - Ra joining forces ?



Well, only the all - star cast of another Julie Andrews Christmas Special which I am including as a special bonus and because I might have already posted the He - Man and She - Ra video. I put one of these in an earlier post but this is a different one. We won´t see each other again before next year ( I´m finishing this on the 30th of December and I probably have to clean up all the picture material the next two days ) so have a nice New Year´s Eve and we´ll see what 2018 brings. Happy holidays !



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