One of the reasons why I wanted to make this post - besides reminding people what a great book IRON MAN was and who laid the foundation for everything you see in the movies - is that it has been two years since I wrote my last Bob Layton post. And that was not even an Iron Man post since I took a look at his HERCULES series. So it has been three years since our last Bob Layton ( and David Micheline and John Romita Jr. ) Iron Man post and while I don´t have anything new or especially insightful to say there has been a lot of original art accumulating which I want to post.
As you might have guessed from the title most of the art in this post falls around the famous DEMON IN A BOTTLE storyline and usual I try to find the according color pieces to the original art pages but there are a few unpublished covers here so there is no color version available for them.
I wish I could recommend something to read but the current IRON MAN books are just written so badly and don´t even make sense. I mean, in ARMOR WARS Tony Stark went to any length - even risking killing people - to make sure his technology doesn´t get into the wrong hands but now he suddenly condones the theft of intellectual property and hands over the keys to his kingdom because she´s a girl. Yeah, sounds about right. I guess the only comic books where you can read the real Iron Man is in the Epic Collections or the IRON MAN BY DAVID MICHELINE, BOB LAYTON AND JOHN ROMITA JR omnibus hardcover which longtime readers might remember I pimped heavily when it was offered at amazon for 57 bucks. And I guess all readers who followed my advice and bought a copy are now glad that they did since now the price for it is ridiculous. Anyway, let us return to the glory days when Tony Stark was cool and the only time he went up against Captain America was in the Avengers´ gym to learn self defense moves.
Today we have only a few links but I am going for quality over quantity. First up I have to mention that some of the color splash pages here were borrowed from this post on the always trusty DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND website where you can find more original black and white art by Bob Layton as well as Master Of The Seventh Void, a story with Claw, the Unconquered written by Claw´s co - creator David Micheline, penciled by Keith Giffen and inks by Ricardo Villagran and Oscar Novelle from issue 8. And for more Bob Layton goodness MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s has the original art for the cover of Iron Man 151 by the man and Terry Austin.
Usually I do the birthdays I missed in order of age but since I have already mentioned him in my last post you have probably already found out that this post is not the birthday post for comic book writer Jean Claude - Mezieres who turned 80 on the 23rd of September as originally planned.
He is best known - at least in Germany and Europe - as the co - creator of the bande dessinee Valerian and Laureline with writer Pierre Christin which was adapted as a more or less successful sci fi movie by Luc Besson.
I don´t know but there just seem to be some topics I never get to address in their own posts so it´s a good thing that I do this section because it seems that I don´t have the chance to talk about them otherwise ( and we have a few more examples of this in the section especially where the cult sirens are concerned ). Since I can´t write about it at length here and I do not want to repeat what I already explained in previous posts I went through my posts for those who want to know more about this series.
I think the best place to start is this post where I wrote a bit about the book and how difficult it can be to bring such a classic to the big screen that was groundbreaking in it times - before I had actually seen the movie.
Which I already had when I wrote this post so I could give my impressions of it. And I have to say I really liked the movie. Maybe that disqualifies me as a real comic book fan but somehow I can differentiate here. If you see the movie just as a comic book adaption of Valerian and Laureline then it does fail in great parts, namely in everything that has to do with the two protagonists. The actors don´t look anything like the characters in the comic book, they are way too young ( an unfortunate trend in nowadays is the believe that only young main protagonists are interesting to a wide audience as if experience disqualifies you from being interesting ), they don´t behave like them and they don´t make sense in any way. They even changed Laureline´s background story, if they knew it in the first place.
Apart from that the stories were taken right out of the comic and are told in the way they unfold in the comic book ( which is something american audiences are not familiar with ). So seen solely as a comic book adaption it fails because while it tells the story how it is supposed to tell it the movie fails with the main characters which is the most important thing.
On the other hand if you know next to nothing about the comic book - and I guess 99 percent of the audience did - it´s a very entertaining, fast paced movie with a good story, a few unexpected twists, outstanding special effects that create a fascinating universe ( people like to talk about world building and here it is achieved wonderfully ) that actually looks like the universe of Valerian and Veronique even down to the aliens with actors who clearly had a blast. So I have no idea why the film failed.
Of course I could be a bit biased because not knowing that Rihanna was in the movie I didn´t know about her sexy dance performance beforehand and let me say she is outstanding ( and you can find the first part of her GIFs from this in the post I linked to above plus links to more GIFs and a video of the scene ). Her part alone is reason enough to see the movie.
And last but not least you can find more high quality GIFs from that scene ( like the one posted above ) in this post which also has another video of Rihanna´s sexy performance as well as a video all about the original comic and a recount of all my troubles ordering my first volume of the collected edition. So far I have only two volumes but they are not exactly cheap and at the moment I have more pressing concerns. So it will take me a while until I can follow my original plan of reading them all in a row when I have gotten all of them. That said I know that most of my readers won´t bother to check out the links anyway so for all who want to know more about one of the greatest comic books of all times here´s another little video essay.
The second comic book related birthday from September the 23rd is Peter David who celebrates his 62nd anniversary and I have kind of a love / hate relationship with him. Because I hate some of his work, I love some of his work and I hate how he sometimes treats other people. Especially when it comes to writing he is extremely fearful of people who are more talented than him - which means people who can write and draw. I don´t know if he is afraid they will steal the food from his plate or what is happening.
There are too many series that he worked on to mention them all but I was a big fan of his first X - Factor series ( I can´t speak for the latter ones because I have not the money or time to read them ) and I just loved his Spider - Man 2099 series. I can only implore any readers out there who either have only read the new version or are even vaguely interested in the character OR have never heard of him to seek out the original comic books. I think the complete series has been reprinted in trade but no matter if you have to get the back issues from the dollar bins ( and you should not have to pay more for these issues ) read. This. Book. People will tell you how wonderful Peter David´s run on Incredible Hulk is - and it is impressive - or how amazing his X - Factor series is - and it is one of his best works - but if you have not read Spider - Man 2099 you have not read his finest endeavor. Regular followers of this blog already know that my first encounters with Rick Leonardi were not that satisfactory for me as I was not that thrilled to see Marc Silvestri substituted by him on Uncanny X - Men but he made Spider - Man 2099 his own. There are just artists who come on certain titles and define the look and feel of a book and this is what Rick Leonardi did on Spider - Man 2099. They even had some high caliber guest artists like Kelly Jones and they still didn´t look as good as his art. So do yourself a favor and seek out the original Spider - Man 2099.
I don´t think I made a post specifically for Peter David but not too long ago I wrote about Dale Keown´s run on the Hulk which was while Peter David was writing it and I already have all the material for the second part.
His first issues on The Incredible Hulk kept me reading the title and he also had some great collaborations with George Perez in Hulk : Future Imperfect and Sachs and Violens that are a must read for every comic fan.
Our last anniversary from that day is a rather sad one as it is the date of birth of the late great Paul Ryan. And here I have to apologize to all new readers but I am a big fan of his work and I know what you are thinking.
There´s no need to apologize for that. But because I am such a big fan I have written too many posts to link to - even if you just take the FLASH FRIDAY WITH PAUL RYAN posts - so you will have to use the tag. The one post I will link to is one I wrote last year about his run on Avengers since it fits Today´s topic. Apropos, Paul Ryan also did some issues of Iron Man during John Byrne´s run on the title, taking over from John Romita Jr. and you can find the entire saga in the Epic Collection Iron Man - War Games.
As for future Paul Ryan posts since I don´t have any good material from his Flash run left I guess that feature is done. There are a few stories left but they are not very good so I want to go out on a high note. Instead I will introduce a brand new feature FANTASTIC FOUR FRIDAY WITH PAUL RYAN since it´s about time I started posting all those beautiful original black and white pages that have been collecting dust on my laptop. Plus at this pace we will never get to my DEATH IN COMICS - THE DEATH OF REED RICHARDS series ( I´m pretty sure that I can´t or want to wrap it up in one post ).
Bob Layton did a few wonderful mini series on Marvel´s Hercules ( the not gay version ) and on September the 24th another guy who brought the most famous greek demigod to life for a whole generation, Kevin Sorbo celebrated his 60th birthday. Although the Hercules he played in The Legendary Journeys Of Hercules didn´t have much in common with the one we know from the comics or the greek mythology. The only reason for any male to watch the show were the hot sexbombs like Cory Everson.
Now I would love to go into a tangent about the Hercules tv show, Xena, Kevin Sorbo´s really bad King Kull adaption or the sci fi show Andromeda but that is really the topic for a separate post. What I want to mention is that I kind of reconciled with Kevin Sorbo after seeing an interview where he said he never considered to have the body to adequately play Hercules but if all the people around think so and they are willing to give him a lot of money who is he to say no to them ? A mans gotta eat. Right now the seasons of Hercules are around ten bucks and I have toyed with getting the three seasons Cory Everson appears in. I´ll have to put her entry in the Search For Power Girl series ( which was a special reader request ) on the blog as soon as I have had time to make a few more animated GIFs.
Continuing with the topic of hot sexbombs we come to the first celebrity birthday of September the 25th with a PLAYBOY playmate. Now people ask me how I decide whom I include in this section because there is probably at least one playmate birthday every day and my criteria is simple : only the ones I know and where I have something to say about them ( and hopefully some picture that is safe to post on the blog ). If I have to look her up that means I don´t remember her and she won´t be mentioned.
That´s definitely not the case of Kerri Kendall, PLAYBOY´s Playmate Of The Month for September in 1990 who turns 48. Besides her nude pictorial she was in 30 PLAYBOY special editions, numerous videos - especially in the Wet & Wild videos - and she was one of the few who got her own videocassette. I bought it at the Karstadt in Stuttgart because they had a different selection of videocassettes than in Ludwigsburg together with a few movies and when the guy in front of me saw the videocassette he said " Daimn, I should have bought that instead of " well, whatever movie his woman made him buy. I´m positive he came back really quick to get it.
It´s back to 90s tv with Will Smith who celebrated his 50th birthday. He has been in movies with superheroes based on comics like Suicide Squad and movies with superheroes not based on comic books like Hancock ( although the costume he wore was literally Black Lightning´s costume ) as well as in movies based on obscure Marvel Comics series like the Men In Black movies. He became famous all over the world when he played the lead role in the mega successful sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air.
Of course a big part of that show´s success and continued appeal around the world ( there are probably only a few people on the face of the planet who can´t recite the lyrics to the title song in their sleep ) is Tatyana Ali who grew from a cute little girl into an incredible sexbomb over the course of that series and who got to show her musical skills.
Much to the chagrin of the show´s producers she really bOObed all out in later movie appearances like The Clown at Midnight or Fall Into Darkness .
I know you expected another video with Tatyana Ali but since I ran out of Will Smith videos and I haven´t addressed Jimmy Fallon´s birthday on the 19th of this month yet here is a special opener for The Tonight Show.
We are staying with nubian sexbombs as the first celebrity birthday of Today is a literal cult siren since Christina Milian who turns 37 sings like an angel and is absolutely hot with seductive on stage moves that would make most stripper pros blush and a perfect body that just won´t quit.
Christina is one of those cult sirens where I always think I have written something somewhere about her but when I check there is nothing there.
I had a few posts about Christina Milian at my old boobblog and I thought I could fall back on those but after checking them out I realized that it was mostly pictures so I have to come up with something new on the spot.
For me Christina Milian was one of those singers who is always below everybody´s radar and I think the first time I actively sought out her albums was when I read somewhere that she did the title song of Kim Possible which is a show I mostly watch because of Ron Stoppable.
Anyway, I got a few CDs of her way back when I still listened to music on a regular basis which was not easy since she is not well known in Germany. I like her performance in most of her movies I have seen although she is in a lot of chick flicks or teen comedies like Bring It On. She also was in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past where she is uncredited for some reason which is a real shame since her part - which I happen to see through the wonders of the internet - is spectacular ! I really should get that movie because while it is another chick flick that lays all the blame in the world at the feet of men there are a lot of hot sexbombs in it like Lacey Chabert or Rachelle Wood.
Coming back to Christina Milian, like I said I always think I have already posted something about her because I have a lot of bookmarks for her and I even made a special folder for her best pictures. But each year I have to postpone it for some reason or another so this year I have decided to include something about her even if it makes the post that much longer.
There is an almost endless supply of fantastic pics of Christina because she´s one of those women who makes all the other celebrities look bad. In every papparazzi shot she looks like she just came out of the gym and the pictures from her live performances are even better. I can´t even begin to describe how gorgeous she is on the pictures of her various photoshoots.
September the 26th 1981 must have been a great day for singers who grow up to be real sexbombs since Collien Fernandes was also born on that same day. Besides being a starlet, vj and tv host the german photomodel who has to thank her portugese, indian and hungarian roots for her exotic look used to be a singer. Although she does not like to be reminded of that because her shortlived career as a pop star had less to do with her singing voice than with Collieen´s erection inducing 34C - 24 - 34 measurements.
Her hardbody was also the main reason that she was hired as a vj for the first german music channel VIVA where she got the highest ratings when she was wearing a deep cut cleavage or reporting live from Spain in a tiny bikini. Sadly there are no clips from that show available in good quality but there is a video from one of her most famous episodes of the call - in show interaktiv where her huge boobs are almost completely visible in a deep plunging cleavage and her pokies are pressing through the thin fabric.
Besides doing lots of photoshoots for the kind of magazines girly men buy who are too embarrassed to buy real wank material like MAXIM, HQ and other Collieen was never in PLAYBOY in spite of being one of the hottest german celebrities. What a gip ! She also was on various tv shows like Maxim Tv where she often wore nothing more than a bikini or the german version of THE SIMPLE LIFE which was much better than the original show because with Collieen Fernandes and her best bosom buddy Gülcan ( who put a really big emphasis on the bosom part ) it had twice as much boobs.
Collieen also tried her hand at acting like in the horror movie Night of the Living Dorks where she was completely miscast. Let me tell you one thing : there is no way in hell a sexbomb with a centerfold body like Collieen would ever hang out with the kind of nerds that were in that movie.
What confirms this theory is that in real life Collieen seems drawn to alpha males or at least people that are successful to some degree which is the only reason I can think of why she married german douchebag Christopher Ulmen. Or maybe it´s true what they say : women just prefer @ss#0les !
Lysette Anthony celebrates her 55th birthday and she is the only reason Dracula - Dead And Loving It will be remembered in the next decades !
A spoof of Coppola´s Dracula movie it didn´t do much financially and the only reason why it´s still on tv in reruns are the hot vampire babes in the movie. I mean female vampires have always been sexy but Lysette really takes it to a new level the way she squeezes her big talents together.
Holy motorboat, Batman ! I´d let her suck me any time she wants - as long as she doesn´t drink my blood, if you know what I mean. Although, for a chance to do her I would even give a pint of blood. Damned, indeed.
Besides her appearance on Dracula - Dead And Loving It Lysette Anthony played in a plethora of movies where she sometimes displayed incredibly huge boobs. But she really gets it on in Murder In Suburbia. Her breasts have the size of big melons and she wears a dress with a huge cleavage !
Sorry for the bad quality of the GIF but even the video I found of the scene doesn´t have very good quality. But it´s still worth it to see Lysette´s incredibly huge cans. This woman is just unbelievable !
A final shoutout goes out to the late Julie London whom I think I only saw in the western Man Of The West with Gary Cooper. Full blooded - and full bodied - ( 37C !!! - 24 - 36 ) cult siren Julie plays the role of former saloon girl Billie in what could otherwise be the stereotypical woman in western.
Even though the fates don´t have many good things in store for her her captivating performance lifts the quality of the movie at least one level.
You can find a plethora of pictures and posters from that movie ( as well as everything else you would ever want to know about Julie London ) at JULIELONDON.ORG and one reason why she was made for playing a saloon girl is that she already had a successful career as a singer under her belt.
While she worked as an actress for 35 years Julie´s music career spanned more than 40 years. She became a very popular pin up girl during World War II and was a sex symbol of the 50s / 60s because her album covers were very risquee for that time. They are still very sought after collector items.
One of the problems of writing for such a long time on these posts is that things can change while you are trying to finish them. Sometimes you can go back and fix them but sometimes you can´t so we have a little callback in this post. You may remember that in my last post I mentioned Audrey Landers who was a cast member of Dallas and who together with her sister Judy Landers was one of the hottest commodities of that time.
I had written more about the Landers sisters but because that part got longer and longer I turned it into a spin off post which you can find here .
Anyway, while writing this post I chanced about the 1989 horror anthology movie Freakshow where Audrey Landers plays a reporter in the framing sequences. Now I thought about adding this to the aforementioned post - especially since the video with Judy Landers that I posted disappeared ( I always say watch them as soon as they are posted, you never know how long they will last ) - but I already have a video about a horror anthology in the post. Namely the full movie Creepshow 2. Now if I go back to the post I have to not only take that video out I also would have no reason to have Stephen King in the post. So I either would have to take the part about Stephen King completely out of the post or find another video about him that is not a horror anthology nor a movie because I don´t want to repeat myself in the fun block. Which is just too much work. So I am posting Freakshow here. Okay, I could wait with this until my next post but who knows when I can find the time to write it ? Plus, as I already said, you never know how long these things last on YouTube and while I have not seen it yet myself I gather from the comments that this is a rare find.
Since we have so much stuff from the 90s in this post I want to end this with another episode from the 90s Iron Man cartoon show. It´s the second part of their version of Armor Wars and I hope I haven´t posted this yet.
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