Now they have both worked on a lot of different comic books but since they were both part of the creative teams during the latter part of John Byrne´s post - Crisis Superman revamp they had to share a post in 2016.
Another topic I have neglected way too long for a blog called TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN is the post - Crisis relaunch of the Man of Tomorrow by John Byrne and I had hoped to rectify that situation on April the 26th which was Kerry Gamill´s 65th birthday. Especially since I finally bought the Superman - The Exile and other stories omnibus hardcover that continues with the reprints where the Man Of Steel trade paperback series left off.
I know that Kerry Gamill did a lot of work for Marvel Comics - and you can see some of that work like his brilliant issues of Powerman & Iron Fist in my very first Kerry Gamill birthday post that I wrote last year - but for me he is eternally linked to the new Superman continuum. Looking back from a time where nobody seems to get - or care - what Superman is all about it was like the golden times of Superman history for me. Because it was the time when I got fully immersed in the US comics as every new issue and series seemed to be part of a giant story - which in fact it was. The whole shebang kicked off with John Byrne´s Man of Steel mini series followed by Superman and Action Comics by John Byrne and Adventures of Superman by Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway. Then John Byrne left but you had guys like Dan Jurgens and Ron Frenz picking up the slack so in the The Exile omnibus ( which picks up in this interim period of art team changes ) you have a literally Who´s Who of the best comic artists DC had access to with the legendary Curt Swan, George Perez, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell, Brett Breeding and last but not least Kerry Gamill.
Coming back to Butch Guice and Dan Jurgens, it wasn´t all a bed of roses because there also was the infamous THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN story ( which might be the subject of an upcoming post in my DEATH IN COMICS series ) that led to the big speculator boom and subsequentially the comic book crash of the 90s. One of the biggest problems of this whole shebang was that while a lot of people knew of the death of Superman not that many got wind of his return and thought he had just died and they had stopped doing Superman comics. Another case where the marketing guys were caught sleeping on the job. Anyway, THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN was followed by WORLD WITHOUT A SUPERMAN ( which was basically everybody being depressed because Superman was dead ) and THE REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN which introduced not one, not two, not three but four new Supermen, among them the best one - Cyborg Superman. I mean, how can you make somebody like Superman even better ? Turn him into a cyborg.
And this works with almost every superhero - except Cyborg. Obviously. In any case, what a lot of people didn´t realize is that Cyborg Superman was actually a character who had appeared in the series before and whose origin story was based on a superhero from DC´s direct competition .
Another fallout of this whole thing was hippie Superman. Yep, somebody thought it was a good idea to give Superman long hair. Which made sense when he first came back ( those who have read the story know what I mean ) but looked ridiculous later on. So what a lot of people remember from that era of Superman´s history is lots of crossovers and tie - ins, Superman needing a haircut and a lot of gimmick covers. Oh, so many.
Despite the bad reputation this period of the Superman comicbooks have I would really like to delve into this particular storyline again and the only reason why I haven´t done this so far is that the omnibus is still a bit too expensive for me. At 90 bucks ( amazon price ) it is way beyond what I can afford even though the regular price that you pay in stores or online is 140 EUROS. Which seems like a lot but you have to keep in mind that this is the third edition ( which may have something to do with the new DEATH OF SUPERMAN / REIGN OF THE SUPERMAN animated feature films ) and the page count has been upped from 784 pages to 1124 pages and now to a mind blowing 1408 pages. So with my birthday coming up who knows ?
I always get such uninspired presents that I may spring for this after all. It is still an entertaining story with incredible art for the most part and it was an entry point into the world of Superman for a lot of people. And one of the reasons why it led to the comicbook crash was that it held so many people´s imagination and it just kept on growing bigger and bigger.
I think the whole crux of it´s phenomenal success was that it not only killed off the main character ( which happened to Superman in countless issues throughout his entire history even if in most cases he returned to the living at the end of the story ) but there already was a plan - a very big plan - about what was going to happen next. There is also the story above the story which poses the question : what makes up Superman ?
Is it his powers, his looks, his attitude ? In the end you can have four guys who are all like him in a way and there still is only one definite Superman.
Yes, it was totally a 90s comicbook but one of the reasons why I still like it is that it was so unapologetic over the top as only comics from that period are. And like I said, Cyborg Superman. What more reasons do you need ?
And on that note it´s time to wrap things up since this was just supposed to be a short post to outsource some of the celebrity birthdays from the main post. Speaking of which, you can find more birthdays for June the 26th and 27th in this post while we make a big jump to July the 6th, the 69th anniversary of the premiere architect of the post - Crisis Superman .
Which solved a lot of old problems but also created some new ones especially for fans of the LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES because in the post - Crisis DC universe there has never been a Superboy or Supergirl and as all DC Comics from my generation know it was the example of Superboy that led to the foundation of the famous super hero team from the future.
Man, I really expected the part about Butch Guice and Dan Jurgens to be much shorter so I could get into more detail about John Byrne´s Superman but things didn´t work out as planned so we continue with John Byrne in our next installment . Which is all about his UNCANNY X - MEN run with Chris Claremont in general, The Dark Phoenix Saga in particular and Ed Piskor´s X - Men : Grand Design and how it helps Disney to rewrite history.
But this is a DC Comics centric spin - off post so as part of this year´s John Byrne tribute here is a video about the post - Crisis Superman relaunch.
One of the reason why I wanted to include John Byrne in this post - even though much shorter than planned - are the other celebrity birthdays for the 6th of June which include action movie legend Sylvester Stallone who turns 73. Besides the successful movie series of Rocky and Rambo he also starred in Tango & Cash where Teri Hatcher played erotic dancer Kiki . I would say " stripper " but a striptease implies taking off more clothes.
Which a then still very young Teri Hatcher did in The Cool Surface . By the way if you name your daughter Kiki you have already predestined her for a life on the pole. For which sex kitten Teri Hatcher definitely had the body.
She played the BEST Lois Lane on tv so far and was the first actress who made it believable that Superman would choose her over the ultimate sex bombs in the Justice League of America like Big Barda or Wonder Woman.
She also was in Desperate Housewives where Teri proved she still looked racktastic . And who could ever forget the " I´m not a stripper ! " scene ?
Check out my last post on cult siren Teri Hatcher to read more about her comic book connections like her appearance in Tales From The Crypt or Tango & Cash where she showed her porn star body and her dancing skills.
On a more comic related note is Burt Ward´s 74th birthday and I probably don´t have to mention that he was Robin on the campy 70s Batman show.
Which was actually pretty close to the comicbooks that were published at that time because Denny O´Neil and Neal Adams whole back to the roots approach with the grim and gritty Dark Night Detective came afterwards.
I haven´t seen much of the tv series because the DVD sets are always too expensive but maybe I can get them at some sale. And if it´s only to check out Batgirl Yvonne Craig. No wonder they couldn´t get a Batgirl in the comics fast enough after feasting their peepers on Yvonne´s curves.
Here´s the lovely Yvonne working on her tan in a clip from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. And before you go through your DVD collection this is from ONE SPY TOO MANY, a feature film version of the tv show that combined both The Alexander the Greater Affair episodes. The subplot and footage with Yvonne Craig was just shot for the film and did NOT appear on television.
You can also see the full clip - as well as many more with Yvonne Craig on such shows like STAR TREK or MY FAVORITE MARTIAN - on this website .
There are more celebrity birthdays for July the 6th in the second part and newer readers might want to check out this post for more anniversaries from that day up until July the 12th. Sometimes I really can´t see the forest for the trees and if you have seen the first drafts of this post you know that the following part was completely different. That´s because I totally forgot the Superlopez movie which not only fits this post like a glove but also my pet peeve of promoting comicbook adaptions that are overlooked by the general public. Well, in this case it´s the people outside of Spain because I am certain it was a big hit there like the Mortadelo & Filemon movies, the Zipy & Zape movies or Anacleto, Agente Secreto.
For those that never heard of Superlopez, he is the spanish version of Superman and I might have mentioned him before because the german Condor Verlag published his adventures under the name of Super Meier ( since Meier is a very common name in Germany like Lopez in Spain ). I always planned to write a big, extensive post on that series since it is super hilarious but since I never got around to do it here are the links that would have gone into said post. First up is the british site INTERNATIONAL HERO which is the only one where I could find an entry on Superlopez in english while my german readers have to rely on his wikipedia entry .
As it couldn´t be any other way the aptly named website DAILY PLANET has a post on Superlopez, there´s an article about Superlopez : Superman made in Spain on SUPERMAN JAVI OLIVARES and you can find the reading order of the issues on EN TODO EL COCODRILLO and an interview with Jan, the writer / artist of Superlopez by Raul Lopez on ZONA NEGATIVA . Anyway, here is the trailer for the movie and at first I had my doubts if you could bring this comicbook to life but Dani Rovira really pulls it off.
There doesn´t seem to be a cartoon but here is a fan made short. Man, these fan films really kick the @$$ of the " professional " movie studios.
I also want to use this opportunity to post more of my newest dream girl, Normani, who simply blew me away when I first saw her. She is just oozing sex appeal and she can make guys hard just by breathing. Which is why the afro - american aphrodite instantly secured herself a spot in my top five sex phantasies and I had to give Normani her own cult siren entry .
From what I have seen online Normani has an incredible body that won´t quit and her milkshakes can go toe - to - toe with Janet´s perfect orbs.
On top of that she also has incredible dance moves and does the splits like a natural born stripper ( I might have to give Normani an even higher pole position in my ranking based alone on that move since I´m not sure if even Janet " the best body in showbiz " Jackson can spread her legs like that ) so I first thought that she earned her living sliding down the pole.
With her incredible 36D ( OMG ! What a Busenwunder ! And it´s all natural ! I call first dibs on this ! ) - 24 - 37 ( Daimn ! Dat Booty ! ) measurements it´s no wonder that she is not only a songwriter and singer but a dancer.
And while Normani doesn´t make her money working the stripper pole like I erroneously first thought she definitely has the flexibility for it thanks to her gymnastics training at a young age and also the perfect body. There are black women ( and I don´t mean afro - american women because I am not only talking about american women of african heritage ) who have a big butt that sticks out ( no pun intended ) from the rest of the body but Normani is the perfect blend of big juicy breasts, long muscular legs almost up to her chin and a chiseled fit torso with an incredible tight bubblebutt.
Anyway, here is bootylicious blow up sex doll Normani putting Beyonce to shame with her fant - ASS - tic performance of the Destiny´s Child song that put that word in the global dictionary on the second episode of season four of Lip Sync Battle which stars all the girls from Fifth Harmony.
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Cachislamar !
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