Now since Chris Claremont has written so much during his illustrious career it was a bit difficult to decide what should be the topic of this post. Since I have just recently put all the original black and white art in my WOLVERINE and X - MEN folders in order I thought I could do that but then I remembered that way back in 2015 I wrote the first part on the MARVEL VISIONARIES : CHRIS CLAREMONT hardcover . I always intended to write at least one more part but as so often happens on this blog because of other pressing topics on the blog and that annoying life stuff I never got around to do it. So what better time to continue this than Today ?
Doing predictions is always kind of tricky - especially about the future - but as I said in the first part, Disney is actually reprinting the MARVEL VISIONARIES books and indeed they are charging more for them then the first time around. What I didn´t know is that they are only reprinting them as trades. Which doesn´t stop them from charging more than for the original hardcovers - which are oversized just to make things clear. The regular price on the MARVEL VISIONARIES : CHRIS CLAREMONT oversized hardcover for example was 30 US dollars while the price for the new trade is 35. So on top of being smaller and a trade you have to pay 5 bucks more.
So you are probably asking yourself why I am still pimping this book ? Well, aside from the fact that I like to finish what I started the book may be out of print but it´s not unavailable. And yes, you will pay more than the 16 EUROS you would have paid if you had ordered it from amazon Germany when I first pimped it but it´s still available there for less than the trade.
And if you prefer a new copy there are still a few online comic shops in Germany ( like ANDY`S COMIC EXPRESS where I get most of my comic books since you get one FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comic or two HALLOWEEN COMICFEST comics for every 10 EUROS of your order ) where you can get it for 29 EUROS. Which is still less than 33. Not much, but like I said for that you get an oversized hardcover instead of just a trade paperback.
As with the first post I am going over the stories in the order they are included in the book and since we got to the infamous AVENGERS ANNUAL 10 last time ( which is one of the reasons why the price for the hardcover has gone up since the first part as Carol Manvers and everything related to CAPTAIN SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR has exploded ) our next issue is UNCANNY X - MEN 153. Like in the first part I only used material which I already had on the laptop because anything else would have defeated the purpose of writing a quick post. But I made two exceptions : one where I had some original black and white art but not the corresponding pages in color and two where the pages I had were of really bad quality. This is after all a post about Chris Claremont so you should at least be able to read the words he has written. Aside from that I have opted for using pages with the original printed colors because I like to keep things real.
Anyway, coming back to the subject of this post it is not difficult to guess why it was included here. Though it has been reprinted numerous times KITTY`S FAIRY TALE is a fan favorite and while it goes a bit against the premise of not including stories that have been reprinted before ( which is just something I assumed since I have no proof for this ) it is probably difficult to pick one issue from Dave Cockrum´s runs on the title that you can read without context or needing other issues to finish the story. Not that there are not these kind of stories included but we will get to that later. So because this is an in - between issue it is predestined for these kind of collections. Back in the day Chris Claremont would always throw in these quiet issues in - between all the mutant craziness where the team would play baseball or go shopping or get married. It was a nice change of pace and a welcome opportunity for some character developing moments.
Back when the different X - Men members still had different character traits. This story is especially rewarding because Kitty Pryde spins an entertaining story with most of the X - Men turned into fairy tale characters and the art by Dave Cockrum and Joe Rubinstein is gorgeous.
Next up is issue 3 of the first WOLVERINE limited series and you sometimes forget how many groundbreaking and influential comicbooks Frank Miller has worked on even very early in his career. Today people just talk about his political views or how they didn´t like his latest comic project but you cannot deny the gigantic impact he had on comics. From all the issues of the first mini series it is probably the only one that you can include in such an anthology book. Okay, nowadays Disney would totally include the first issue in a NUMBER ONES ONLY omnibus but that is not what I mean.
In the first issue you set up the premise, in the second you have the build up and in the fourth issue you have the big finale. Call me old fashioned but I don´t think any of these issues lends itself to be read apart from the others. The third issue on the other hand is another transitory issue. We already know the score from the first issue and Wolverine was defeated in the previous issue. It´s another character moment where Logan has to decide if he calls it quits or if he picks up the pieces and fights for the love of his life. It´s one of his defining moments where he decides that he is a man and not just an animal. And while Frank Miller´s art is always solid where storytelling and layout is concerned I think that in this case it´s mainly the inks by Joe Rubinstein that makes you feel Logan´s emotions.
It is probably hard to believe in times where even the most unoriginal characters get dozens of series that are constantly relaunched to keep the non - comicbook - buying SJWs appeased for some reason but back in the day it was quite a risk to give Wolverine his own book ( which is the reason why they first tested the waters with a four issue limited series ).
Despite being the most popular X - Men character amongst comic readers, aficionados and professionals alike it was not clear if Wolverine could carry a book alone. Today it is more important how reactions on twitter are and not how high the sales numbers are but back then nobody knew if Logan was an interesting character on his own and if he had enough stories to tell to keep the comic reading audience entertained for the long haul.
With the next story, SLUMBER PARTY ! from the double - sized issue 21 of NEW MUTANTS I am not sure if it qualifies as an in - between issue.
Because on one side you have the girls going to a slumber party and the New Mutants don´t fight a villain. On the other side you have the first appearance of Warlock ( not to be confused with Adam Warlock who despite multiple rumors did not appear anywhere in the AVENGERS : ENDGAME failure ) who becomes a member of the team in that selfsame issue. Another great issue with some moving character moments although I am not sure if it raises interest in this book since I don´t think Warlock will appear in the upcoming NEW MUTANTS movie. Also by the time it finally hits movie theaters the quality of Marvel movies is probably at its lowest point. I´m not kidding, at the moment I am turned off by every new one and I don´t even bother getting the BlueRay or DVD if I have not seen it before. Anyway, issue 21 of NEW MUTANTS is another classic Chris Claremont moment and the art by Bill Sienkiewicz is a thing onto itself.
Speaking of breathtaking art, we have another Wolverine - centric story with WOUNDED WOLF from issue 205 of UNCANNY X - MEN. Barry Windsor Smith was never one of the regular artists on the title but for a time he at least provided fill - ins like the famous LIFEDEATH issues. In this story he shares plot credit with Chris Claremont and is already using the distinctive art style he would apply for his groundbreaking WEAPON X serial in the pages of MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS. The story teams up Wolverine with Katie Powers from POWER PACK and with all the Marvel movies Disney is churning out I am surprised they have not latched onto this property yet.
I mean, four brothers and sisters who get super powers from alien, magical horse people - what could be more up Disney´s alley than that ? Anyways, this issue has the transformation of Lady Deathstrike into the cyborg we saw in the second X - MEN movie although I doubt this will get any movie goers excited since she was quite different from her comicbook version.
This issue introduces Spiral´s Body Shop ( into which Rachel Summers disappears at the end of UNCANNY X - MEN 209 until her re - emergence in the EXCALIBUR SPECIAL - THE SWORD IS DRAWN ) and it is also the first appearance of the Reavers. Which would be another reason for why the price for this book might go up IF the history of the X - Men in the movies were not a complete disaster. Nobody can make sense of it and the films get worse and worse. I am not optimistic about the NEW MUTANTS movie.
Speaking of Barry Windsor´s brilliant WEAPON X serial in MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS, I know that a lot of my readers love my DEJA VUE posts ( it is how I write it ) so here are a few cover homages to his cover for issue 74, two of them by Darick Robertson who was just featured in our last post.
Sadly I have to take a break here but don´t worry, you don´t have to wait another year to learn the rest of the contents of MARVEL VISIONARIES - CHRIS CLAREMONT since we will continue this right away in part two .
Since I have prepared this post in advance which involved a lot of research I have to give props to all the guys who provided the necessary facts and illustrations without which this blog could not function. Besides the usual suspects Heritage Auction, Comic Art Fans and Grand Comics Database kudos go out to COMIC BOOK DAILY where I found the original cover art for Wolverine issue 3. The post also includes the original art for the covers of Batman 282 by Ernie Chan and Vince Coletta , Sub - Mariner 44 by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito, Captain America 212 by Jack Kirby as well as page 21 from Watchmen 7 by Dave Gibbons, and Iron Man splash page by Gene Colan and Gary Michaels from Tales Of Suspense 75, a splash page from Fantastic Four 23 by Jack Kirby and George Bell, page 11 from V For Vendetta 8 by David Lloyd, plate 4 from John Buscema´s Conan portfolio and last but not least a beautiful Namor pin up by Marie Severin from the Bill Everett eulogy in Sub - Mariner issue 65. So be sure to check it out.
And I´m not sure if I got the original art for the cover of Wolverine 3 from there or from MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s Anatomy Of A Cover post.
They also have a post on the cover of issue 4 and apropos the good folks over at the PENCIL INK BLOG provide the cover and one page of interior artwork from issues 3 and 4 and you can find more From The Private Journals Of Charles Xavier splash pages by Bill Sienkiewicz from issues 21 to 26 of New Mutants on the aforementioned MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s . Even though I have cut a large portion of the cult sirens from this post we still have a considerably long part so before we start with the birthdays we missed since the last post I wanted to include a video about the new X - MEN CLASSIC OMNIBUS which will come up in the second part.
We start off with a comicbook related birthday and Carlos Pacheco on the 14th of November. While I have mentioned him in over a few dozen posts I wrote the first spotlight in 2016 which included my comments about the crazy mind f - word that was the Captain America run by Rick Remender.
One thing that especially bugged me about that pile of crap was an asian reporter who f - worded up Sam Wilson. First she gave him a holier than thou sermon about the freedom of press and then when he cut her some slack she totally abused the power of the press and Sam had to deal with the consequences. I wanted to find out what happened to that reporter because of what she did but it seems that it was her only appearance.
Now back in the day when I was a regular Marvel reader there would have been some kind of fallout from that which shows her learning the error of her ways but that is not Marvel anymore. To make things short I went on a long tangent that turned into a completely NSFW asian obsession rant that I decided to turn it into a separate post . I still have a lot of material from those issues because I always had planned to revisit that particular story - hey, at least the art by Carlos Pacheco is great - but it´s too far in the past by now and the pain I would have to endure to delve into this mess again is just not worth it. So I will probably just delete it all. Coming back to Carlos Pacheco posts, I DID not only manage to write my often delayed post about not only one of his best works but the best Avengers series of all times ( no pun intended ) : Avengers Forever last year, it also is a black and white post. The downside to that is that I used up all of my best material and since there is no quality material either from other series we will have to wait with the next post until I have accumulated enough.
As always the birthdays in this post are my own subjective selection and we cover more anniversaries from November the 10th to the 15th in my post about nubian sex goddess Nicole Murphy and there is a whole slew of birthdays from November the 14th in my Carlos Pacheco post from 2016 .
Usually I use this opportunity to post a Power Girl video but I just came across this incredible BLACK WIDOW vs BLACK CANARY - SUPER POWER BEAT DOWN and I wish the upcoming Black Widow movie was half as hot.
If these sultry sex vixens don´t make you cream your pants nothing will.
Ages ago when I had still the idea that I could post on a semi - daily basis I was planning to do all these cosplay posts and one that might still happen at some point is my TOP 10 BEST BLACK CANARY COSPLAYS post. And Tess Kielhamer who plays Black Canary in the video above is going to be one of the top three contenders with her stunning 36C - 24 - 36 measurements.
It´s a miracle that I haven´t come across her before this since she has also cosplayed as other characters like Cammy from Street Fighter . But I guess that happened after I my COMICBABE BATTLE - FIGHTING FEMMES posts where Cammy surprisingly scored second place only surpassed by Chun Li.
Anyway, if you haven´t come across Tess Kielhamer here´s all the intel I could gather on the interwebs. This woman has done it all from model to stunt woman, actress, choreographer, dancer, martial artist, personal trainer, etc. Tess was born on the 22nd of September1986 - which makes her 33 - and grew up practicing Wushu, Muay Thai and brazilian Jiu - Jitsu.
Besides Super Power Beat Down she has been in Slug Street Scrappers 2, Burlesque, Just Go With It and True Blood and has done motion capture work for games like Call of Duty and X - Men : Destiny. That´s all the info aside from an interview on REMOTE TALK . Also definitely check out her YouTube channel with videos about cosplaying, martial arts or nutrition.
We are staying with femme fatales as I have to mention sultry cult siren Sophie Marceau who celebrated her 53rd birthday on November the 17th.
Longtime readers might recognize her from my very first post of CASTING THE JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE where I cast Sophie as Catherine Cobert.
The french sexbomb is best known in the US for appearing in the Bond flick THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and outside for taking her clothes of in such classics like MES NUITS SONT PLUS BELLES QUE VOS JOURS ( my nights are more beautiful than your days ) or DESCENT AUX ENFERS ( Descent into hell ) - where she appeared in nude scenes with Claude Brasseur who played her father in the romantic hit comedies LA BOUM and LA BOUM 2 which caused all kind of outrage at this perceived incest.
Her first nude scene was in HAPPY EASTER with Jean Paul Belmondo which I have to confess to have lying somewhere and still haven´t watched. She was 18 at the time she made the movie and paid the movie studio Gaumont money to get out of her contract to be able to do nude scenes.
What a trooper. In the movie she´s Jean Paul´s lover but when his wife returns a bit early from her vacation she says she´s his daughter from his ex. Sophie also starred in the horror movie NE TE RETOURNE PAS ( don´t turn around ) opposite Monica Bellucci which is like a dream sandwich.
I always do the super hero casting bit and with her giant - sized melons the mega stacked italian sex goddess italian would be a natural choice for the amazonian princess of Themyscaria. She definitely would have no problem filling out the Wonder corsage with her 37C Wonder Twins .
I put her in the finale of the Hollywood Edition of Casting The JLA Movie series as Wonder Woman but now I´m tending more towards Big Barda.
In the original FOURTH WORLD comics by Jack Kirby - and this definitely changed in the NEW 52 - Big Barda was built like a brick shithouse with the personality of a lady trucker, the muscles of a female bodybuilder, the hot measurements of a playmate of the year and the cupsize of a porn star.
She got that from her mother Big Breeda, the fiercest female warrior on Apokolips who - nomen est omen - was therefore selected by Darkseid himself to breed the next race of warriors. I don´t know if it was because she spurned his advances or if he just thought she would produce the best offspring but it is implied that they used her like a blow up sex doll !
All for the next generation of Akopolips´ finest of course. Now with Big Barda the melons didn´t fall far from the tree and when she began to develop, especially in certain parts of her anatomy that had to do with procreation Darkseid decided to let her follow in her mother´s footsteps and - like mother like daughter - personally introduce Big Barda to the breeding pens to continue the family tradition. So as soon as she got wind of Darkseid´s perverted plans for her Big Barda decided to ditch Apokolips and hitched the next ride to Earth. According to Big Barda she managed to do that before Darkseid had a chance to break her in but maybe she was so eager to join Mister Miracle because she had tasted the Darkseed.
For more on DC´s creepy sex stories with Big Barda - like the time when Superman starred in a porn movie with her and then claimed he could not remember a thing - check out BIG BARDA : DEATH, LIES AND VIDEOTAPES .
Originally I casted Maria Grazia Cucinotta, the italian mega MILF with the giant 39D ( !!! ) melons as Big Barda but keeping in mind her history I may cast her as Big Breeda. Not only to get Maria to do nude scenes that way but also because then I could cast Monica Bellucci as Big Barda and give the Wonder Woman role to british 90s porn superstar Sarah Louise Young .
Yep, she was a big star over here in Germany when I was old enough to rent porn videos. That shows you what an old geezer ( and old pervert ) I am. Also, she was the first one who made porn videos for a price that horny teenagers like me could afford. I mean, new tapes. Because back in those days you could buy used porn videos at the video store but those were watched hundreds of times and only seconds away from combustion.
Not only was Sarah Louise Young the first porn actress to agree a fee of $1,000,000 for a single film, in 1992 she also opened her first sex shop in Hannover, named Sarah Young Erotic Markt, and there would eventually be eleven such shops located in various German cities. I think there might have been one in Stuttgart but with all the movies she starred in and the ones she produced Sarah Young was very present in german video stores and sex shops around the time I was old enough to watch her movies. By the time she lived in Spain she also had one of the first adult magazines that were sold together with a videotape. Which in Spain were sold at newsstands next to comics or newspapers. Yes, some countries do not hide their porn under the table like it´s something to be ashamed of.
Coming back to Sophie Marceau, not only does she drop her clothes very often she also shows great cleavage like in THE MUSKETEERS REVENGE ( or The daughter of D´Artagnan like it´s called in Germany ) that has one of my favorite scenes with her. D´Artagnan´s daughter ( Sophie Marceau ) is captured by the villain of the movie to be sold off to a brothel, but only " to the sleaziest one where they waste the whores very quick " as she says. The guy who has to sell her bitches starts complaining that at the price he has to get for her he´ll never get rid of her. At which point the bad woman tells him that in this case he should be glad, ripping open Sophie´s shirt and revealing her gorgeous breasts which shuts him up.
I still have not bought THE MUSKETEER`S REVENGE because for some reason it´s only available on DVD in Germany and priced very high. One might think it could be because of the nude scene but most of Sophie´s movies include some and the majority of them are not very expensive.
Writing this section is always a nice reminder of things that I planned to do and still have not been able to do and I really should get some of her movies. There is always so much to do that some things are put on the backburner for too long. One of these days I should get LA BOUM and the sequel to re - watch, once for the nostalgia but also because it has been really a long time since I first saw them and I don´t remember much of it.
I was probably too young to appreciate Sophie´s emerging teenage sexual appeal or more concerned about comics and I had completely forgotten her astonishing impression of Cyd Charise from An American In Paris.
Which is one of my favorite musicals of all times - and not only because of the spot on depiction of female art students in their first semester who visit Paris ( that´s another candidate for my must - buy movie list ).
But Sophie also had a wardrobe malfunction in Cannes 2005 where her dress slipped off. Some say this accident was faked but what the hey, I don´t care. If she did it on purpose that makes her cool in my book.
And this finally wraps up our celebrity birthday roll call for this part but if you want to know which ones we already covered in previous year there are more from November the 14th up to November the 17th in my first post about all the mega busty Misty ( from Pokemon ) Cosplay babes and just from the 17th in my second post about Jack Kirby´s THOR issue 171 .
Today´s post included a lot of stuff about Wolverine so here is a video about one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the canadian canuckle - head, much bigger than his full name or his forgotten origin. What is up with Wolverine´s hair and how does he get it to stay up that way ?
Speaking of origins, in my last post I included Karel Zeman´s Krabat, The Sorcerer´s Apprentice so here is the origin of the sorbian Krabat folk tale.
We are staying within the realm of folk tales and fairy tales with The Thief And The Cobbler, and it´s thanks to this video by The Nostalgia Critic that I even became aware of the film. The movie has a complicated history ( basically Disney bought the film then killed it because of ALADDIN ) about which I wrote more in detail in my latest KURT BUSIEK / GEORGE PEREZ AVENGERS tribute post where you can also watch the recobbled version.
It´s not always easy to include every important birthday in these posts and this year I have skipped Yvonne DeCarlo´s anniversary who was best known as Lily Munster. She also starred in movies like Buccaneer´s Girl.
We have a folk tale but I don´t know if Reinhard Mey qualifies as a folk singer. In any case he is one of the few german songwriters who speaks perfect high german without any english influences which is a rarity Today and his songs are always thought provoking. Man, I miss the times when you would get the experiences of a lifetime wrapped up in one song.
Bruce Lee´s birthday is in two days but since I think I have a few more videos with him here is an episode of the cult tv show The Green Hornet.
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I´m eight years younger than Isabelle Adjani, three inches taller and I´ve got boobs !
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