But the second one will take time to write ( the art is already prepared ) and our last post was a Marvel Comics post so I thought about what I could do. Seeing as Ron Frenz also worked at DC Comics and keeping in mind the title of this blog I have decided to once again take a trip in the way back machine and revisit one of Superman´s most infamous era : the Zap Superman / Electric Superman / Superman Red Superman Blue period.
Longtime followers of the blog may already suspect this because I always tend to like comicbooks and stories nobody else likes and vice versa find some comicbooks or stories that everybody always raves about to be overrated or boring but I LIKED the story where Superman lost his powers and then gained a new set of special abilities. As some may know the Superman books were always titles I followed starting as soon as the german issues of SUPERMAN / BATMAN up until the NEW52 trainwreck.
Solely reading the german issues at first - and whichever spanish issues I could get my hands on because they were always a few years ahead of the german publishers and put out more titles - I finally got my hands on some original american issues soon after the John Byrne restart with THE MAN OF STEEL in the 80s which was also published here in Germany. As I have retold many times in the past at first I only got scattered issues but once I had a monthly subscription more and more Superman titles made it on my pull list and for me the triangle era of Superman was the best of times.
For those that never heard of the triangle era, when I started putting Superman books on my pull list there were two titles written and drawn by John Byrne : ACTION COMICS, which was a new version of a team up book with Superman, and SUPERMAN. There was a third title ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN but at first I didn´t read it regularly because it was drawn by Jerry Ordway and I only wanted to read Superman titles by John Byrne.
What can I say ? My first subscription only got started because I wanted to read John Byrne´s SENSATIONAL SHE - HULK and WEST COAST AVENGERS ( which changed it´s name to AVENGERS WEST COAST when somebody at Marvel realized that it would get the book more brand recognition as well as put it at the top of the alphabetical list in the comic shops ) so yes, at that time I was a complete John Byrne nut and I still am to some extend.
Which is why when I got the opportunity to get the MARVEL UNIVERSE BY JOHN BYRNE VOLUME 2 OMNIBUS from amazon Germany at a measly 28 EUROS I leaped at the chance. But that is the topic for another post.
Anyway, so it took some time before ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN made it on my pull list. The good side of that is that when I bought the MAN OF STEEL trades there was some material in there that was new to me. As it was with the SUPERMAN : THE EXILE AND OTHER STORIES OMNIBUS. Back to the triangle era, with three monthly titles there were already a lot of Superman books for Superman fans to enjoy but at that time Marvel Comics was cranking out titles at a crazy rate so the powers at DC Comics didn´t want Superman readers to spend their money on Marvel books in the fourth week of the month when no Superman title came out. This lead to the creation of a fourth title THE MAN OF STEEL and finally a fifth book, THE MAN OF TOMORROW for those weeks inbetween titles so you had 52 Superman issues every year. Not counting annuals and specials.
One reason why ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN made it on my pull list was that the Superman scribes pulled off the feat of writing a big story over multiple titles where you could read each title on its own without getting the feeling that you were missing something. So you didn´t need to read other titles, it was more like you wanted to read more titles. Later on more and more stories crossed over between books and you didn´t want to miss parts of these big sagas. Also the price of a comicbook was 75 cents and later went up to 1 dollar so you could get four monthly titles for 4 bucks which is what you pay for just one issue of a comicbook Today.
I know this is kind of a roundabout way to explain things but bear with me a little longer. With more than three monthly Superman titles where some stories crossed over all of the books and some not it was easy to get confused about in which order you had to read the books. If you were following all Superman books it was pretty easy because it always said where the story continued on the last page. But sometimes stories were not continued in other titles and sometimes you wanted to know the reading order before opening the comic to avoid spoilers. Which back then happened in the pages of a comicbook instead of on the internet.
What also was different at that time was that the comicbook companies actually cared about their customers and wanted to help them with their reading experience instead of doing everything possible to ruin it. So they put little triangles on the covers with a number and the year so you knew exactly when to read each monthly issue, annual, special or 80 page giant.
Now the Zap Superman / Electric Superman / Superman Red Superman Blue - however you want to call it - period falls into the late part of the triangle era when a lot of the old regulars like Bob McLeod, Jerry Ordway, George Perez or Kerry Gammill had already left but there was a new stable of talented artists taking over the art duties with Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Butch Guice, Paul Ryan, stalwart Dan Jurgens and Ron Frenz.
It was also around the time when what is known as THE DINO EXPLOSION happened in Germany. For decades every comicbook company in Germany said that monthly single issues - the so called floppies - were a thing of the past and that you could not make a profit with them. But there was a small company called DINO COMICS that tried its luck with the BATMAN ADVENTURES comics which were a big success thanks to the popularity of the cartoon. Soon they added a monthly BATMAN title and after a while a SUPERMAN book. While I am currently not reading many german comics by the big publishers I have always tried to support german publishers. DINO COMICS had taken a big risk when they started out so I read all BATMAN and SUPERMAN books they put out. At first they only translated two but there came a point when they put all of the various Superman titles into their issues and because I didn´t want to spend money on comicbooks I already had I stopped my subscription of the american issues and switched to the german format. Which is something I don´t tend to do very often.
So that was the backdrop for me when Zap Superman hit the scene : I had switched from the american issues to the german issues, those included all of the Superman titles that came out and as you might have guessed I had been reading Superman comics for most of my comicbook reading life.
Which means that instead of getting angry I was delighted when Superman not only got a new costume but also a new set of powers. I always liked change - when it was story driven and not event driven - and I loved it when Spider - Man got his black costume, Thor got his metal armor or Iron Man got his silver centurion armor. Which for me is still his best armor.
I know that a lot of people don´t like this period or this story but for me it was a very interesting story because like all good Superman stories it asks important questions. In this case it is what makes Superman Superman ?
There are a lot of super heroes in the DC universe - some of them even have similar powers - yet there is only one Superman. What makes Kal - El so special ? Is it his powers or is it his personality ? And would he still be Superman if he had a completely different set of super powers ? For me this story explored these questions at length and while many may think that it found an abrupt ending because of an impending anniversary for which they needed Superman back in his classic costume I think it served its purpose. Especially if you didn´t like the story and are one of those Superman purists that say this was not the real Superman. Because if you really think about it that was the whole purpose of the story : making the longtime Superman fans think about what makes a superhero a superman.
Okay, that was a bit longer than expected but I didn´t want to just throw out that I am a fan of the Zap Superman without explaining why. Because I know the internet and if I had done that there would have been a lot of people who might have thought that I only say that to be controversial.
But no, I liked this era of Superman, I liked the new costumes and set of powers and I liked the artists like Stuart Immomen or Ron Frenz. Ha ! We are back on track so here is more Ron Frenz art. I am just realizing : if I write this much about the Zap Superman, which was supposed to be only a quick post, how much will it be about a topic where I really have to say a lot like The Soul Shroud Saga on THOR ? On the other hand, since I have already written so often about it maybe I won´t write that much about it.
One last thing about Ron Frenz. From time to time I wonder what happens with my favorite artists that don´t get work from the two big publishers for whatever reason. Well, this month I found out that there was a new THOR comic called THE WORTHY THOR in which Ron Frenz had drawn a new story with the Eric Masterson Thor. As longtime readers of the blog know I have always had a soft spot for Eric Masterson ( as must have the makers of the movies since they have basically turned the movie version of Thor into Eric Masterson Thor from the comics ) so I did a quick search at the online comic store where I get those books that are not on my pull list.
Well, picture my surprise when I not only found that particular comic by Ron Frenz but also SPIDER - GIRL : THE END. I didn´t even know this comic existed. How is it that you always are flooded by comicbook news you do not want to know about ? Like certain comicbook creators taking pictures of their various orifices and putting them on the internet. But when there is something really important happening you learn about it years later ?
Also besides THE WORTHY THOR one shot there is a new HULK one shot by none other than the dream team of Peter David and Dale Keown, a new NEW MUTANTS one shot by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz and a new AVENGERS one shot by Ron Lim as well as new one shots of WOLVERINE, ALPHA FLIGHT and two about SPIDER - MAN. I knew that Mark Bagley and Erik Larsen did new Spider - Man stuff with SPIDER - MAN : GOING BIG but I never heard of SENSATIONAL SPIDER - MAN : SELF - IMPROVEMENT by SPIDER - MAN 2099 artist Rick Leonardi. So if you ask yourself : " Where have all the great comicbook artists gone ? " the answer may well be : " To do comicbooks you are not aware of. " What a revolting development.
By the way, I also found out that Ron Frenz is working on a comicbook called BLUE BARON but so far I have not found it at any german shop.
So, post number 1,110 and it´s even a post about Superman. Will wonders never cease ? In any case, before we come to the litany of comic creators, pop culture icons and cult sirens we have a few links. These can pile up so I´m trying to include some even if they don´t relate to the topic of the post. Speaking of which, since I mentioned Jon Bogdanove I thought my readers might be interested in his post on How Did Comic Fans Keep Up With Comics Before The Internet ? over at QUORA . Coming back to The Man of Tomorrow the blog of the comic shop GROBER UNFUG has a lot of reading recommendations from 75 years of Superman history which is more for my german readers if there are still some left. Staying on the DC side CRIVENS ! COMICS & STUFF presents old school art from Secret Origins.
Before the internet and comic shops full with back issues it was very difficult for comic fans to find out the origin of their favorite heroes if they were not mentioned in the story. Today that happens at least twice in every issue but back then when you missed a pivotal issue that was it.
To help their customers with this dilemma DC Comics came up with Secret Origins which first just basically retold the origin stories of the heroes and delivered a lot of important background information. Later they presented the new post - Crisis On Infinite Earths origins of the heroes on the new combined Earth. This was a title that I mostly bought during my holidays in Spain and only when I had run out of any other comicbooks to buy. While these were usually not written and drawn by the top writers and artists a lot of big comic creators started out in these issues so you can find some of their first works here - like Rick Leonardi doing BATGIRL in this case.
It´s been too long since I visited DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND so you might have already read the following posts but in case you haven´t there is one about Freedom Fighters issue 1 , one with three stories with Black Orchid and it seems besides changing the layout of the blog Old Groove is also taking a page out of my book by cramming as much as possible into one post. Which is why this Thanksgiving post features not two, not three but four stories : Marvel Comics Shogun Warriors 1, DC Comics Plastic Man 11, Gold Key´s Star Trek and Charlton Comics All New Ghastly Tales 113 .
Because of a lot of personal life problems it´s been a while since our last post which means there is quite a backlog of celebrity birthdays to get through. Luckily I can split them up between two Superman posts but even with that there are a lot. As usual I am trying not to repeat myself too much so if I have already covered a certain celebrity anniversary in a previous post I will skip it. Like in all of my latest posts I am including the links where I did that and I am really trying to keep to those celebrity birthdays where I can link to older posts. Last but not least, in some cases I may skip a celebrity birthday if the only reason for including them in the past was that I could include some links when you can also find those links in some of my more recent posts. And now let´s get to the bonus section.
We are off to a good start on January the 19th with aptly named double D Dolly Parton a.k.a. the natural viagra substitute who celebrated her 74th birthday. And while I have mentioned the megabusty sexvixen with the titanic twin torpedoes often on the blog she only got her own spin - off post which also featured real life Power Girl Anna Nicole Smith last year.
She is famous for being the original singer of I Will Always Love You which Whitney Houston covered in The Bodyguard and which became a favorite on casting shows since then and holds the Guinness Book world record for a woman with the biggest breasts in a non r - rated movie ( which have been reported to be anything from 38CC up to 48E !!! ) in Nine To Five.
With a first name that is short for blow up sex doll and the corresponding body she was predestined for a career in porn movies ( where her porn name would have been Sex Dolly or Dolly Part´ Em ) and it is all the more astounding that she managed to have a clean and very wholesome image.
If there ever was a woman born to play a whorehouse matron in a musical it´s Dolly Parton and it´s a crying shame she never got to play Power Girl.
Speaking of women who should have portrayed Power Girl, one who is no longer with us is Playmate Of The Year 1993 Anna Nicole Smith who was a prime candidate for my Search For Power Girl series at my old boob blog.
She did get naked in her PLAYBOY videos and the skin flicks Skyscraper and To The Limit but I would have loved to see her giant gazongas in a movie with Dolly Parton. That would have been pure double D heaven. It could have been a spin - off from The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas with Dolly Parton as the Mom and Anna Nicole Smith as the nymphomanic daughter.
The story could have been the usual where they try to leave their lives as prostitutes behind and go to a new town. Then one of their old customers finds them out and blackmails them into becoming the new town whores.
And after a few nude scenes where they are used and abused by drunken perverts in any way imaginable so that you get your full money´s worth of having ultimate blow up sex dolls Anna Nicole Smith and Dolly Parton in the movie by showing every inch of their spectacular bodies they finally manage to turn the tables - which of course includes using their porn star bodies to seduce the bad guys with even more hardcore sex - and escape.
With her 41E - 26 - 38 measurements Busenwunder Anna Nicole Smith was born for porn and daimn, she would have been a heck of a Power Girl !
Which must have been what 89 year old billionaire J. Howard Marshall was thinking when he married the then 26 year old Playmate Of The Month of May 1992 and Playmate Of The Year 1993 in 1994. His family was probably not very thrilled about this since they assumed she only married him for his money which she planned to inherit as soon as possible by having lots of freaky sex with the old guy in as many positions as you can think of.
Of which horny J. Howard Marshall probably was aware from the get - go.
This must be the absolutely best way to go : after getting filthy rich you marry a young and flexible blonde Playmate Of The Month with giant 41E boobs whose only goal in life is to kill you with sex. Who knows to which endurance testing hardcore sex orgies the overinflated living blow up love doll submitted the lucky guy - we only know that it took her thirteen long months to succeed. Man, that was probably the best year of his life !
Now usually I put the birthdays in the bonus part according to the age starting with the youngest but I am making an exception with Joe Staton who turned 72 so that I don´t have a long part about comics followed by another part about comics. This way I have the part with Dolly Parton and Anna Nicole Smith after the comic part followed by another comic part.
Plus I have a good segueway from Power Girls Dolly Parton and Anna Nicole Smith to Joe Staton who worked on a lot of her Bronze Age adventures.
I recently started a new series about one of my favorite artists from my earliest comic reading days and while the first post was all about Joe Staton´s contribution to the GREEN LANTERN ( or DIE GRÜNE LEUCHTE how he was called in Germany and at that time I was reading mostly german comics ) my next ones were all about his version of Power Girl - which I also had to split into two separate posts, the intro and the main post - since Joe Staton not only drew all of the adventures of Power Girl or the Justice Society of America but basically everything on Earth 2.
Some people complain that I am always writing about the same creators but as long as they are still active and there are still comics of them I have not read I see no reason to change that. With Joe Staton one book I know next to nothing about is E - Man but thankfully there´s an article on the series by Benjamin Herman on IN MY NOT SO HUMBLE OPINION . I don´t think there are any trades of the series in the near future but another book on my Joe Staton To Read List is Femme Noir - The Dark City Diaries written by Chris Mills and this one has definitely come out in paperback.
I also want to mention Edgar Allen Poe´s anniversary on January the 19th.
I have mentioned the master of the macabre in a few posts but in 2016 I did a post with two comic adaptions of Edgar Allen Poe stories, The Black Cat by the late Bernie Wrightson from Creepy 62 and The Raven by Richard Corben from Creepy 67 that newer visitors of the blog might want to read.
You can find more birthdays from January the 19th in my THORSDAY WITH ERIK LARSEN post from 2017 and from January the 20th in my second post on Jerry Ordway´s inks on John Byrne´s FANTASTIC FOUR about Malice.
And we are staying with comicbooks as Alex Ross celebrated his 50th birthday on January the 22nd. For the longest time I could only include some scattered Alex Ross artwork here and there but I finally got to do a spotlight post for him in 2018 . Last year I didn´t make one because a. ) lack of time and b. ) lack of good material. I probably could have made one if I did one that was mainly made out of his covers for Geoff John´s run on Justice Society of America ( we will talk more about this in our next post ) or his covers for Astro City but at the moment I don´t want to use up all my good stuff from this great series since I might need it for future posts.
Sexorcist Linda Blair celebrated her 61st birthday and she got her own cult siren spin - off post last year which also includes a celebrity birthday from January the 20th and another one form January the 22nd. You can find the rest of the celebrity birthdays from January the 22nd in the Alex Ross post above and a few more in this post from 2016 about which pages from the original issues of THE INCREDIBLE HULK were left out in the issues of the french GAMMA series I bought when I partook in a student exchange.
Longtime readers know that one of my pet pevees on this blog is celebrating all the brave actresses who turn insufferable dreck into bearable entertainment by taking their clothes off or at least show what their Mama gave them and who don´t get enough recognition for that .
So I have to mention two actresses in connection to Linda Blair and the movie Savage Streets , Linnea Quigley who shows that she has real acting chops and is not only good at taking off her clothes which is what she did in most of her later movies ( she also does it here but not in a gratuitous way ) as Linda´s deaf - mute younger sister Heather. The other is Suzee Slater whose topless scene may be short but it´s the most memorable from the entire movie and it will pop up whenever you look for pictures.
Someone who was never on any of my casting lists for Power Girl but who would not have any trouble filling out her magical cleavage window ( he said, making another smooth segueway ) is Tiffany Amber Thiessen who turned 45 on January the 23rd. The buxom brunette who has the best natural breasts in Hollywood - at least according to Howard Stern and believe me he has done some extensive research in that department - has been scorching the tv screen for quite some time with her curvaceous hardbody and her big 37DD Beverly Hills to the delight of males worldwide.
I never was a big fan of the Beverly Hills, 90210 show but that quickly changed when I saw wet Tiffani Thiessen´s booming breasts in a bikini - which was a product of mother nature - and Tori Spelling´s growing boobs - which were a gift of Daddy and the best plastic surgery money could buy.
There was a special episode that got my attention in which Tori Spelling was dancing in a leather hooker outfit while shooting a rock music video.
She really was just shaking her big boobs in the general direction of the camera but that she did very effectively. I never was a big Tori Spelling fan but she really squeezed her huge breast into a tight leather top and just pushed them straight in your face. Now that´s what I call entertainment.
What I find a bit strange is how did such a scene get approved when her father was producing this ? Should I be concerned that Daddy dearest put it in the script or does this say more about his employees. Maybe some disgruntled writers just decided to put his boss´ daughter into a hooker outfit and let her dance for him as payback for sleeping with his wife.
" Okay, Tori, do you think you can move more like a prostitute ? And we need to make the outfit sluttier. This is supposed to be a rock video. "
Those directors got it made, they just go " Okay guys, in the next four episodes Tiffani dresses up as a prostitute. And she has to do at least one striptease and two nude sex scenes in each episode. Which is really necessary for her character. Oh yeah, and send her to my trailer for .... extreme rehearsal. We have to go over the scene ... orally. " Those horny perverts are to thank for that Tiffani was so often in bikinis on that show.
Speaking about hookers, besides appearing on Beverly Hills 90210 Tiffani also was on Saved by the Bell with Elizabeth Berkley who revealed her real stripper nature in Showgirls. The movie was called a flop when it first come out but in the meantime it has become a cult classic mainly based on Elizabeth´s stripper moves which left me no other chance than cast her as one of my alternate choices for the Nympho Supergirl from Earth XXX in my second alternatives post for casting the Justice League movie .
She would get a different origin in which her rocket was bombarded by the radiation of pink kryptonite which turns all female kryptonians into super horny blow up sex dolls. Because of the long exposure to the pink kryptonite the effects would be permanent ( instead of only temporary like usual ) and Nympho Supergirl would have different powers like sex strength, peep vision, erection vision, perv hearing, orgasmic flight, ovaric speed, tantra healing, kama sutra flexibility, olympic stamina, multiple position memory, fellatio breath and deepthroat breath. I would say she also has the power to give all men giant erections making their pulsating dicks hard enough to cut diamonds as soon as they look at her but with Miss Berkeley´s super sexy stripper moves that´s a given.
But double jointed Elizabeth not only licks the chrome off your steelhard pole she has the all important " pumping pelvic thrust " move down to pat. I bet that comes in handy with that portable casting couch she allegedly has and I would not mind being at the receiving end of that a few hours .
Since I know that my readers love Top Ten lists here are 9 other movies besides Showgirls that flopped at the box office but became cult classics.
I also had to include a video with titti - lating trouser - snake tamerTiffani Amber Thiessen and the girl still got ginourmous gazOOngas. Good gravy !
Speaking of grade - a casting couch material, on January the 24th we had one of my all - time crushes Tatyana Ali who celebrated her 41st birthday.
She is best known as Ashley Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air where she was a big part of that show´s success and continued appeal around the world ( there are only a few people who can´t recite the title song in their sleep ) and grew from a cute little girl into an incredible sexmachine.
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 .
Now Will Smith has gone on record that the relationship between him and the insanely do - able Tatyana Ali has always been like the relationship between a big brother and his little sister but I don´t believe that he never put her booming tireless teenage body to the test not even once.
Either that or the relationship between a big brother and his little sister and what happens between them at night behind bedroom doors ( or in the shower during the day ) is a lot different where Will Smith grew up.
The only other explanation is that whenever Tatyana Ali got Will hard enough to cut a diamond he vented his pent up sexual energy on one of the other blow up sex dolls on the set like dicktamer Yunoka Doyle. She played Ashley Banks´ bosom buddy Keesha - with a big emphasis on the bosom part - and probably spent the rest of the day after the shooting had ended screaming at the top of her lungs as Will banged her brains out.
Tatyana Ali still looks terrific ( she has one of the breast natural racks in Hollywood - period ) as you can see in the following interview and since we are on the subject of nubian sex goddesses my re - post of Tatyana Ali´s cult siren entry from 2018 includes another celebrity birthday from January the 24th which is none other than sexsational afro - american aphrodite Kenya I Want Moore Sex whom I mentioned in this post.
After this quartet of silver screen sex goddesses it is back to comic books with the legendary John Romita Senior who turned 90. Once again I have to drop a few links for new readers. I did a post on John Romita Sr. in 2016 which is all about the Marvel Visionaries : John Romita Sr hardcover which I really can´t recommend enough, I posted issues 108 and 109 of Amazing Spider - Man and in 2017 I did a post on Amazing Spider - Man Annual 16 where he inked his son John Romita Jr´s pencils. The latest one is another post on his excellent Amazing Spider - Man run I did in 2018 which also includes more birthdays from January the 24th and you can also find a few more in the post about the Marvel Visionaries : John Romita Sr hardcover.
We start our Dearly Departed section of this post as Russ Meyer muse Haji´s day of birth has another anniversary. I went over the post I did in 2016 and since there is nothing I could add at this point here is the link .
Speaking of Russ Meyer movies, one of my favorites is UP ! starring Raven De La Croix. She looks like a real life Wonder Woman and it´s a shame there never was a Wonder Woman movie with Raven in the lead role. The former blow up sex doll template practically played the role of überbusty amazonian princess in the 1984 Jim Wynorsky skin flick The Lost Empire.
I wrote a bit more about Raven De La Croix in my first Justice League Casting Alternates post and you can find more about the Russ Meyer movie UP ! in this post about Alan Davis´ mini series SUPERBOY`S LEGION including some new GIFs of born for porn actress Janet Wood who tried to bang homosexual co - star Robert McLane straight again in the worst way.
As a last word on Russ Meyer I have to mention my entry into the Boob Hall of Fame for Tura Satana which I re - posted in 2016 which is mostly about Faster Pussycat ! Kill ! Kill ! ( The Devil Women of Tittfield in german ) although it touches on her other movies and has her full bio.
For Today´s Superman related post I wanted to pick a special video and as usual I am killing two birds with one stone because this episode of History Of Comics On Film is not only about the mythical Super Friends cartoon - about which it is always difficult to find videos - but it also explains what the last scene from the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover was all about.
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
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice .....
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