Where I still have to explain a few things. Like the 23 pieces of art per post rule and where it originates from. Back in 2006 when I started with TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN my main focus was writing about comics and I only included art because before I started my own blog I visited dozens of other blogs to find out which layout would be the easiest one to read.
One thing I quickly experienced was that it was much easier to read a blog if the text is interrupted by art every few paragraphs. Because otherwise it´s too much constant input and the brain can´t process it very easily.
Pictures speak to a different part of the brain than words so using more than just one part of your brain makes things easier. At first I just used pictures after a certain length of a paragraph - which I still do - to make reading easier. But the easier it got to find good art on the internet the more I also wanted to share that art with my readers. Because no matter how elaborate you are with your words when you are talking about great comicbook art a picture can speak more than a thousand words. Speaking of a thousand words, as regular visitors of the blog can attest I can wax philosophic about a lot of topics without end. So some posts got very long and the longer they got the more pictures I started to include which again made them even longer. Measures needed to be taken so I restricted it to 23 pictures per post. You may ask " Why 23 pictures ? That seems like a random number. " but it isn´t. 23 pictures is exactly the number of pages a normal comicbook used to have including the cover. So if I wanted to post an entire issue I could do that. And if you still think that is a low number I have to mention that in my BLACK AND WHITE posts a piece of original art and the correlating colored page only count as one. So a BLACK AND WHITE post can have 46 pictures. And as I said that is not counting the bonus section which sometimes can get so long that I have to spin it off in its own post. Anyway, there was still a lot of art left that I initially wanted to put into the first part of this and much rather than make another mega long post I decided to bring you two for the price of one.
Now Yesterday we got as far as the first appearance of the Electric Blue Superman but that is only part of the story. Because the whole thing was just a setup for a remix of the old Superman Red / Superman Blue story.
The original Superman Red / Superman Blue story appeared in SUPERMAN 126 and was an imaginary story in which Superman used kryptonite to boost his intelligence so he could solve all the problems in the world. But it not only made Superman 100 percent smarter it also split him into two versions - one with a blue costume and one with a red costume - and at the end of the story one Superman married Lois Lane and the other Superman married Lana Lang. In the new version of that story that is where the evil Cyborg Superman from the DEATH OF SUPERMAN comes in.
Man, I just love Cyborg Superman. Even just typing the words " Cyborg Superman " sends tingles all over my spine. Whoever came up with the concept of a Cyborg Superman was a genius. Anyway, Cyborg Superman devised a machine to trap Zap Superman´s energy form but instead of containing him it splits him into Superman Red and Superman Blue.
In true comicbook fashion both escape the trap unaware of the other one´s existence so they can have a surprise meeting. Superman Red was more impulsive and aggressive while Superman Blue was more logical and thoughtful and for a long while they tried to figure out which one was the real one and which one was just a duplicate. In the end both were real since we are talking about an energy based being here. I mean in theory Zap Superman could have split into a dozen versions of himself even if that would have also reduced his powers. In the end both versions fused into one being which surprisingly - or not depending on how cynic you are about these things - had the old set of super powers and wore the classic Superman uniform we are all familiar with. And that was the end of it.
Although this was not quite the end. In SUPERMAN issue 149 a being composed of electromagnetic energy called Strange Visitor appeared and to stop her from dissolving Emil Hamilton modified one of Zap Superman´s old containment suits. I don´t know why Emil kept the S - Emblem but maybe that is how things roll in Metropolis : you have powers, you get a suit with an emblem. At first this strange visitor had lost her memory but after an encounter with the Parasite she regained her memories and her name Sharon Vance. I am not sure if I read the whole story but in the end she sacrificed herself ( although technically she had already died and this form was just a copy of her consciousness ) in Our World At War to give Superman who had shifted back to the Zap Superman an energy boost.
And that´s all for Today´s post which is post number 1,111 for all those who are already preparing for Fasching. We covered a lot in our last post so we resume things with the celebrity birthdays for January the 25th.
Comic writer Geoff Johns celebrated his 47th birthday and I wasn´t sure if I should include him because I used to have a love / hate relationship with his work which has now turned into this love / hate / love relationship.
Because on one side he has written some of my favorite comics like Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and the Justice Society of America books that followed. As longtime readers know anything which gives us more Power Girl is okay in my book and Thy Kingdom Come is one of my all - time Justice Society of America stories . He also had a great run on Flash - which had most of its momentum stolen when Scott Kolins took over the art - his Teen Titans restart not only brought a lagging comic series back from limbo but also cemented Mike McKone´s cult status and for the longest time he steadily churned out instant Green Lantern classics like the Siniestro Corps War.
Not to mention his force de work Final Crisis : Legion of Three Worlds where George Perez went totally nuts and drew every frigging person who was ever a member which is so awesome that I had to post all five issues ?
On the other side his Green Lantern stories got more convoluted and dark and negative until I left the title and apart from such short glimpses of his former glory as on the Aquaman restart I´m not a big fan of what he has written for the New 52 or the general direction in which he has lead the DC universe since becoming the new President and Chief Creative Officer.
And then there are shows like Smallville, Arrow and The Flash on which he has worked and which I absolutely love. I don´t know, I watch these shows and I ask myself if I am seeing the genuine love he has for these characters or if it´s only because there are also other writers involved who balance him out. Because every time I look at his recent comic book I see none of that love. It´s just full of disdain and negativity. Like being a hero is a bad thing and he´s trying to persuade us to not think positive, not to care about things and not to get involved or try to help others.
In any case, he has written some of my favorite stuff and everything else is not that important. Like somebody said : in comics you get to decide what is part of the continuity and what not and in a few years we won´t even have to pretend that the New 52 never happened because DC will find a way to explain that it was some parallel world or just a bad dream.
Speaking about dreams, french actress Florence Geanty turned 54 and she is best known for her role on the tv soap called Sous Le Soleil ( Under the Sun ) or simply St. Tropez in german and one of the few episodes in which she appeared was La Fin D´Un Réve which means The End Of A Dream.
Florence Geanty was perfectly cast as she plays the ex - stripper Marie ( Marion in german which made it a bit difficult to find infos on her ) whom the ex - cop of the series tries to reform. It´s not hard to see why and he even ends up marrying her but like in all soaps it has to end in tragedy.
Now very often women in soaps don´t look like they could really do the job they have on these shows - like Kyra Sedwick who in real life couldn´t scare a mouse - but Florence Geanty really has a porn star body that could have launched her into a very successful career as a striptease super star.
So far I have only bought half a season of ST. TROPEZ - for some reason they have divided all the seasons into two parts - because the other one with the best episodes of Florence Geanty is going for an obscene amount of money at amazon right now for obvious reasons. But I´m not getting any younger and I really don´t know what exactly I am waiting for here.
You can find a much more extensive list of birthdays from January the 19th up until the 25th in this tribute to Gene Colan´s dynamic DAREDEVIL run from last year and just from January the 25th in this spotlight post on the spanish comics I read in my youth or my post on the first issue of Geoff Johns and George Perez FINAL CRISIS : LEGION OF THREE WORLDS series.
We continue in the real of comicbooks on January the 26th with Sal Buscema who celebrated his 84th birthday. He was one of my favorite artists growing up and even though I was not as excited to see his art as I was whenever his big brother did an issue he brightened many issues of Die Ruhmreichen Rächer - how the Avengers were called by the publisher Williams Verlag. It is something nobody in Germany seems to remember.
Coming back to Sal Buscema he did most of the issues of Marvel - Team Up when I started reading comics so in most cases he did the first version of a lot of super heroes I saw. Throughout the years there have been many books he illustrated that I came to love like his fabulous Rom, Spaceknight series where I have a lot of the issues ( not all of them ) and still hope Marvel finds a way to reprint them so I can buy - and read - them all over again. I mean they managed to put Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu into four nice omnibus hardcovers so the least they could do would be a few Epic Collections. Speaking of Rom, Spaceknight that is one of the two issues missing in the Secret Wars II omnibus together with Micronauts because both of them are licensed properties where the print rights had expired.
Since I mentioned Marvel Team Up, Sal Buscema also did his share of world building in the webbed corner of the Marvel universe and last year I did a post on his amazing 100 issue run on Spectacular Spider - Man . Which I also would like to see in trade. I got the Spider - Man : Tombstone trade but that came out three years ago and I would like to continue reading.
The post also includes links to earlier Sal Buscema posts for new readers.
There is a tribute post about all the different books he worked on that I wrote in 2015, another post I did in 2014 where I talked about his run on The Incredible Hulk - ( which lasted 10 years ! ) where I also mentioned other favorite periods in the Hulkster´s history, a second Hulk post where I listed which pages were missing in my french issues of Gamma and a Hulk post to pimp volume 7 of the Essentials which was offered for just 8 bucks at amazon. Last but not least I posted issue 1 and issue 2 of Amazing Spider - Girl where he inked over Ron Frenz and in 2017 I did a special Thorsday post about one of my favorite Mutant Massacre crossovers .
Originally I wanted to save the following links for my next Sal Buscema HULK post but who knows when that will happen so I am including them here. I wanted to do a spotlight on the two - fisted combo of Sal Buscema and Joe Staton on the classic story Incredible Hulk : Heart Of The Atom but all those comic afficionados who don´t want to wait can check out RATCHET`S HULK COLLECTION , DEM`S GOOD READING and also MYTH UNDERSTANDING or you can get the complete lowdown from the ever faithful guys at SUPER MEGA MONKEY`S MARVEL COMICS CHRONOLOGY .
No longer with us to celebrate his anniversary is Paul Newman whom I always got mixed up with Steve McQueen. Probably because when I was growing up you got either one or the other in all the good movies. Of course now I don´t confuse Paul Newman with other actors because he´s the one in the movie Cool Hand Luke ( known as Der Unbeugsame - The Unbending in Germany which is the same title The Natural with Robert Redford got here ) with real life Power Girl Joy Harmon´s famous car wash scene. Never underestimate the effect giant, wet boobs that are pressed tightly against glass can have on the memory. Just ask Simona Ventura .
And since such a short animated GIF - no matter how good the quality - is ill suited to adequately show the full dimensions of Miss Harmon´s over - proportionate developed talents here is the best version of the scene.
Comic legend Frank Miller celebrated his 63rd birthday on January the 27th and there are two things you automatically think about when you hear the name Frank Miller. Now I haven´t done a post about BATMAN - THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS but I already mentioned Frank Millar in this post in 2015 that was an overview of the DAREDEVIL series and my post from 2017 was all about DAREDEVIL issue 181. Since I don´t like to repeat myself and I tend to throw my readers a curve ball from time to time my Frank Miller post from 2018 was all about his work on the Spider - Man related books and we returned to DAREDEVIL last year with a BLACK AND WHITE post.
You can find a few more celebrity birthdays from January the 26th, one from January the 27th and one from January the 30th in the intro for my first post on Joe Staton´s Power Girl , just from January the 26th in my THORSDAY WITH SAL BUSCEMA AND X - FACTOR post from 2017 and just from January the 27th in my Frank Miller DAREDEVIL post from 2017 .
We pick up things on January the 29th as Marc Singer a.k.a. Beastmaster turned 72. I wrote a spotlight about that in my spotlight post about Peter Krause , the penciler of Jerry Ordway´s brilliant THE POWER OF SHAZAM ! series from 2018, and especially Beastmaster II : Through The Portal Of Time since it starred none other than sci fi cult siren Kari Wuhrer who really knows how to scorch up the tv screen with her fantastic funbags.
Kari is best know for her role of Maggie Beckett on the sci fi cult show Sliders. She was put on the cast as the boner guarantee for the male audience and they got more than their money´s worth in the Wild West episode where she´s almost spilling out of her snug saloon girl corsage.
She also was in Hot Blooded, a really bad movie that doesn`t even have full frontal nudity. Nevertheless it´s one of my favorite movies with Kari because she looks really hot in this one. You get to see a lot of cleavage and boobs and in the first sex scene on the bed you can see her sexy ass.
And because one scene where she´s at a gas station and pulls down her leather top to make the desk clerk horny. She´s really pulling it in all directions so you get to see her full boobs. I have no evidence but I swear I can see some nipple. I bet Kari had to do this scene a hundred times as the crew was sabotaging all takes just to see her boobs again and again.
In any case, I had this scene on a video tape on a loop and I must have heard the words " This material just doesn´t breathe ! " a hundred times.
Like I said there is no full frontal nudity in this cineastic masterpiece but you get a bit of sideboob in a scene that was heavily cut on german tv.
They cut parts from when she´s using a whip to get into the mood and pours hot wax on his body. They also cut some parts from where she´s on top of him which I didn´t know until I found the movie on the internet.
Damn you, german tv for keeping Kari Wuhrer´s sideboob away from me !
Since it was a belated birthday post you can find more celebrity birthdays from January the 30th in my Frank Miller Spider - Man post from 2018 and we go right to one of the comic greats with Grant Morrison whose 60th anniversary was on January the 31st. He has written some of the best comics to ever see the light of day which makes it unforgivable that so far I have not done a proper post about him. I skimmed his vicinity with some posts like the one I did in 2017 , a short best of the best post which also includes some links to his issues of The Flash I posted. Longtime readers might remember that for a long time FLASH FRIDAY was a regular feature.
Another noteworthy comic book Grant Morrison wrote is of course the brilliant All Star Superman on which I wrote a post way back in 2008 ( I´m not sure if I ever managed to do the follow - up post ) as is Animal Man where Brian Bolland did the covers and I made a post for Brian Bolland with some of his best covers last year. Man, am I the only one would would love to see Brian Bolland do some interior work ? It doesn´t have to be an ongoing series, just a nice comic book once a year, that would be nice.
Absolutely check out his new GREEN LANTERN series. Liam Sharp has done lightyear leaps from when last I saw his art and Grant crams more trippy ideas into one issue of GREEN LANTERN than other writers in six issues.
Since I already did an extensive rundown of Yesterday´s celebrity birthdays in last year´s Ron Frenz tribute about his run on AMAZING SPIDER - MAN and my WEBSLINGING WEDNESDAY WITH RON FRENZ post from 2017 and I have nothing important to add I am leaving you the links to check all the busty birthday sexbombs and apropos ( and a - popos ) ...
We come to the realm of pop music with our only candidate from February the second as colombian rumpshaker Shakira celebrates her 43rd birthday who became world famous for her instantly boner inducing fertility dance.
So far I haven´t done a proper cult siren post on Shakira which might be for the best of everyone involved since I had to cut her part in my Casting The Justice League movie alternates post - where I cast her as Supergirl - several times because it got out of hand and became waaaay too sexual.
But what can you expect with a born for porn latin sex goddess with a body made for love, moves that make professional strippers blush and a name that´s short for Shake Yer Ass ? So it was to be expected that the same happened in this special Star Trek sexbombs spin - off post which includes the rest of Today´s birthdays. You can also look them up in my THORSDAY : WHOEVER HOLDS THIS HAMMER post on the first appearance of Eric Masterson as Thor and here´s Shakira proving her hips never lie.
I know you probably expected a Superman related cartoon in this post but since we had the Super Friends in our first part I want to include a callback to a very old post. I don´t know when I wrote my last Moebius post but I just fixed my MOVIE RUMMAGE TABLE : TIME MASTERS post so you can watch the movie in german ( for my german readers who are not sure if they want to spend 10 bucks on the DVD ), english or french.
Now I´m not including Time Masters in this post because if you want to watch it you can just click on the link above so I am posting another movie by Rene Laloux who did the animation on Time Masters. It´s called Gandahar and it´s in french but there are also english subtitles available.
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What about me, Anti Monitor ? You promised me a world I could reshape. My emotion - controlling powers were going to be strengthened so I can finally turn Power Girl into my personal sexual plaything.
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