Now for those readers who have come here looking for an issue filled with the Justice League sexbombs and Guy Gardner engaging in some adult, not safe for work activities I have to say that I was not joking in my last post about this series. Because while that would have been the best Power Girl story in DC history that is not what happens in this issue.
And it doesn´t help to get obsessed about what could have been so let´s focus on what we get which is a pretty solid issue. Yes, while it would not have hurt to throw in a few pages with our buxom heroines in bikinis or at the topless beach we get to see Wonder Woman and Power Girl drawn by George Perez and Mark Waid manages to show the difference between the two characters. Which is one of the reason why I always liked Power Girl better than Wonder Woman. You know what the other two reasons are.
While Wonder Woman was created in the Golden Age and has always been one of these flawless, godlike superbeings ( there have been various attempts to change this but aside from George Perez´ post Crisis series none of them have been really successful ) Power Girl is clearly a child of the Bronze Age when women in comics were written - or at least they tried to write them - more as independent characters. A clear sign of that is the fact that unlike her female counterpart from Earth One she was not called Supergirl or Superwoman but Power Girl. Just to make clear that she is not only defined through the connection to her more famous cousin.
Then there is Power Girl´s physique that is a plot point in many stories.
From distracting teenagers with her boobs to Superboy regretting being captured in a small prison with Supergirl instead of Power Girl to Power Girl basically whoring herself out to the new Toyman as payment for services rendered. And for me the incredible thing is not that Power Girl has such eye catching measurements or the fact that all the guys are constantly hitting on her. What I always found telling is that this is never or at least very seldom addressed in other comics with female heroes. Let´s be clear here : Power Girl is not the only superheroine who is drawn with a figure that gets men excited. Which is due to the fact that comics are mainly written, drawn and read by men. They are created by men for men. Or at least they were before the SJW pandering that is ruining comic books.
Historically speaking the female comic reading audience was always marginal at best so it was mostly ignored by the comic industry and not much has changed since you can see in every SJW rant that they have never read a single comic book in their life. Anyway, back to Power Girl I always felt it strange that all the other female super heroes were drawn like they just stepped out of an issue of PLAYBOY magazine yet nobody made any remarks in regards to that and no guys tried to bed them.
That changed with Power Girl and other newer Justice League members like Wally West or Guy Gardner which is one of the reasons why the book by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis became such a huge hit. Which brings us back to our current issue. As I said the issue brings readers that are not that familiar with the DC universe up to speed to what makes our two heroines tick and besides such little nuggets like calling Red Kryptonite the alchemical one it has the best use of .... ah, that would be telling.
So if you have faithfully followed my posts let´s join our story in progress and if this is your first time you might want to check out my post on issue 6 since it has the link to all the previous issues. And now it´s time to roll.
There are not a lot of links for this post either but since I posted a picture of Wonder Woman´s biker costume - and I found a lot of material from Mike Deodato´s controversial run on Wonder Woman which might be the topic of an upcoming FRIDAY FIGHT NIGHT post - here are two that I found which might be of interest to readers. Not surprisingly Wonder Woman´s new black BDSM costume does not rank very high on the list of all her various costumes from comics to animation and movies that you can find on ULTIMATE COMIC CON and further Michael Campochiaro at DC IN THE 80s takes a look at Mike Deodato´s Wonder Woman in the Extreme 90s.
Now the main reason why I brought all this up is so I can include a video review of the german edition of the story. There are not a lot of german videos about comics although that seems to be changing lately so I want to include more stuff for my german readers. One thing I must say is that while a lot of them are very enthusiastic not all of them have a really deep knowledge of comics. Which is why you always have to take these videos with a grain of salt. And it´s interesting to see that people in Today´s society are so brainwashed thanks to the SJWs that they feel the need to apologize for having a good time reading a comic just because the women were drawn in a way that appeals to men. I also noticed Mike Deodato changed the cover for the trade collection so that Artemis and Wonder Woman are no longer exposing their crotch area to the reader - which back in the day was kind of his thing and a huge selling point I guess.
The only birthday between my last post and this one that I covered previously is Grant Morrison so we go directly to the list de jour which starts with Gabrielle Anwar who turns 48. Now I recall seeing her first on Acapulco H.E.A.T. but after checking my usual internet sources which confirm that she was never on that show I have to conclude that I only know her from Burn Notice. That is one show that I normally would not have watched because I don´t like protagonists who are just too perfect.
In comics we have the Superman - factor which is when a character is so powerful and perfect that it is difficult to write him. Which is a theory I don´t subscribe to because it is pretty easy to write Superman. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that his limitations don´t stem from his powers and weaknesses but from his upbringing, his own moral code and the fact that he still thinks of himself as a human. I still understand the problem this can be and it makes it difficult to really get into a character like Colt Seavers from The Fall Guy who is just too perfect, never makes any mistakes - apart from giving Howie Munson too much leeway - and you never fear he might get hurt because you know he will find a way to come out relatively unharmed. And to tell the truth a big part of that shows appeal were hot sexbombs like Heather Thomas and Markie Post although the last one didn´t appear nearly as often in a bikini as I would have liked.
Coming back to Burn Notice, while the main character Michael Westen HAS to be a top spy - otherwise the whole story would not work - the show manages to get the viewer invested by stacking the deck against him so high that you think he will find no way to get out of it. Speaking about the main character, I have to give a big compliment to Jeffrey Donovan or how I like to call him The Human Chameleon because he can slip into so many characters with ease. Which makes it all the more believable that he was a top agent because the ability to change personalities at the drop of a hat would make him a very valued asset. The way Jeffrey Donovan can go from sophisticated contract killer to uneducated slob to slimy weapons dealer back to batshit crazy scary guy you definitely don´t want to mess with is mindblowing. No wonder the series has such a huge following.
Which is one of the things about the show I always found strange. It seems that you either know the show and love it or you have no idea what it´s all about. They even had a sketch on Saturday Night Live where contestants on a quiz show tried to guess what the show is all about.
The thing I find weird is that there are a lot of shows that have a much more complicated premise. Take Alias for example : the show is about a woman who is recruited by a secret agency to keep the world safe but then finds out that this agency is trying to rule the world and after they kill her fiancee ( they tell her that she can´t tell anybody that she is a spy and that they have to kill anybody who finds out so of course the first thing she does is tell her fiance that she´s a spy which gets him killed - worst spy ever ) she vows to get revenge by still pretending to be a loyal agent while secretly sabotaging missions to dismantle them from within which gets complicated by the fact that she can´t tell her partner and best friend and that her estranged father also starts working for this company in an attempt to reconcile his past mistakes with her. Now that is very complicated and still 8 out of 10 persons can tell you what Alias is.
So for all out there who do not know Burn Notice : it is about Michael Westen, a top spy who gets blacklisted - the term for this is getting a burn notice - and who then has to take on any job to earn a living and find out who blacklisted him so he can do something about it and get back into the spy game. That´s pretty straightforward now, isn´t it ? Now because he is blacklisted he has no access to his usual spy resources like money stashes, weapons caches, safe houses or anything else from his spy days, he is stuck where he is and he has to work with the few people who will work with him which includes an old spy buddy played by Bruce Campbell and an ex - girlfriend who is also a former IRA terrorist played by Gabrielle Anwar.
Who is not my type of woman - too skinny - but she not only plays the character of Fiona with a lot of depth and humor the chemistry between her and Jeffrey Donovan is one of the things that keep things interesting.
That and a lot of explosions. If you like explosions - and I am talking about real explosions not those you see on other shows that are cgi and which you can just tell are fake - you really get your money´s worth in that department on Burn Notice. It also doesn´t hurt that Gabrielle Anwar looks terrific in a bikini. Speaking of which, not only is she in a bikini in episode 11 of season 5 she stars alongside none other than cult sexbomb Charisma Carpenter who is best known as Cordelia Chase on Buffy and the resulting spin off Angel and shows that she can still deliver the goods.
In Germany only the first three seasons of Burn Notice have come out on DVD and right now I´m halfway through season 2. I´m not sure if I should wait any longer to see if they will do the rest someday or just get them through imports. Now that I´m invested I want to know how it plays out and there is even a spin off with Bruce Campbell´s character Sam. In any case Charisma´s 34D funbags alone are worth the price of admission .
Since we are on the subject of hot bikini babes on Burn Notice one thing that makes it difficult for me to feel sorry for Michael Westen is that he´s stuck in Miami. I mean, really ? Is Miami really the worst place he could be stuck in ? I think whoever issued the burn notice - I´m not sure if I have not yet found out who did it or if I simply forgot - did him a big favor by doing it while he was in Miami instead of less hospitable places like the Bronx, Novosibirsk, the Sahara, England or even Neckarweihingen. Most people pay a lot of money to spend a few weeks in Miami and he gets to live there. And really, is all that sun and nice weather, the tasty mexican food and the cold longdrinks that hard to suffer ? And I´m sure all those young, nubile and scantily clad bikini sexbombs are a hard cross to bear.
And if I haven´t given you enough reasons to give this series a chance here is the trailer for the first season - I don´t want to spoil too much.
We are staying with gorgeous ladies on screen with Tom Tayback who celebrates his 67th birthday. Okay, he´s not a gorgeous lady and he only starred in four movies but the reason why I instantly recognized him is that one of them was Greg Hyppolite´s Undercover Heat with über bodacious Athena Massey as sex starved undercover cop Cindy Hannen.
Even if the story is nothing new - a female cop has to go undercover as a callgirl to find a serial killer - Undercover Heat is one of the best erotic movies I have seen because it has the perfect blend of crime, suspense, erotic and humor that few directors of this genre achieve. It also has a nice pacing of five minutes of story development followed by five minutes of erotic scenes and so on. But the biggest reason why this movie is so entertaining is the stunning Athena Massey and her spectacular body ( of which you can find more NSFW GIFs in my post about Elizabeth Berkley ).
The character Athena plays is a somewhat repressed woman who never had much time besides her police work to explore her sexuality but as she goes undercover she makes up for that in spades. The plan going in is that her superior will send her clients so she can keep her cover and give him regular status reports. But as they sometimes come too late - to their appointments that is not as in relayed ejaculation - the sex depraved bombshell is already busy sexperimenting with the other potent studs.
There is even a threesome with a client and his big breasted wife so this movie has it all. So this is my recommendation for the day and if you haven´t seen it yet you definitely have to check out Undercover Heat.
I really didn´t plan this but Today Pepa Flores - better known to her fans as Marisol - turns 70. Since I just wrote about her last week here is another clip from Ha Llegado Un Angel that I did not get to post on that occassion.
We have definitely arrived in the more safe for work area of pop culture with Frank Zander who celebrates his 76th birthday. He is the bedrock of german Schlager and pop songs with such unforgettable hits like Der Ur - Ur - Enkel von Frankenstein, Ich trink auf dein Wohl Marie, Oh Susy ( der zensierte Song ) or Hier kommt Kurt the very first german rap song. And for those interested in obscure trivia I might add that starting in 1978 he had various hits under the pseudonym of Fred Sonnenschein und seine Freunde. His friends in this case were golden hamsters and like with Alvin and the Chipmunks their voices were altered electronically. Now one of those hamsters was voiced by Hugo Egon Balder who later was the host on Tutti Frutti alongside Monique Sluyter who might be the reason for my obsession with Power Girl with her impersonation of Marilyn Monroe .
Regular readers of this blog already know that I cast her as Fire a.k.a. Beatriz da Costa in the Andy Sidaris Special of my popular Casting the Justice League of America movie series and I also kept mentioning her in all kind of post like the annual re - posts about italian mega soccer MILF Simona Ventura until I decided to give Monique and the Tutti Frutti girls their own post which I re - posted in 2016 in a new and better version.
Coming back to Frank Zander, he also wrote the anthem for soccer club Herta BSC, since 1997 he does personalized birthday CDS singing a special birthday song with your name and since 1995 he gives a Christmas dinner for the homeless in Berlin. His trademark is his raspy voice which is due to a tonsilitis he got in the beginning of the 70s. He also worked as an actor on such cult comedy shows like Bananas and has done voice acting on everything from Asterix to The Last Unicorn. Although my favorite song from him is the german title song for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which for me is still the best cartoon adaption of the comic book heroes. Is it just nostalgia or did we have the golden age of cartoon series in the 80s ?
And because the intro is not enough - and to school all those kids out there on what they are missing out - here is the first episode in german : Die Grünen kommen. Which has nothing to do with politics I might add.
Speaking of sending people to school for those comic readers who live under a rock here is a little Power Girl crash course to get you edjicated.
Sometimes I have a little Adrian Monk inside of me which means that I don´t like an uneven number of videos when I have more than five. Therefore our tenth video is a bit longer than the previous ones. In my last post I included a Narnia series from the BBC and here we have another classic The Canterville Ghost which has been adapted numerous times. The best known versions seem to be the ones with David Niven or the one with Patrick Stewart and Neve Campbell but I found one with John Gielgud and a very young Alyssa Milano that is also a major fan favorite.
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
When a gentle girl can win a prayer from out the lips of sin, when a child gives up tears and the barren almond bears,when the silent chapel bell sounds the ghostly sinners knell then shall all the house be still and peace shall come to Canterville.
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