Byrned, but like a Phoenix from the ashes

John Byrne´s complete ouvre would break this post so new readers might want to check out my crash course of some of the series he worked on with links to previous posts like my latest one about his run on Uncanny X - Men with Chris Claremont. Which brings us to the second part of this .

The reason why I wrote the post about this era of Marvel´s merry mutants is that a lot of these original art pages have accumulated and aside from the occasional pages I post every year on Traci Bingham´s birthday I have not written that many posts from this period in the X - Men´s history.

Which is mainly because I am still hoping to do my DEATH IN COMICS - THE DEATH OF JEAN GREY and DEATH IN COMICS - THE DEATH OF JAMES HUDSON posts ( I have already written the ALPHA FLIGHT PRELUDE post ).

But apart from such important stories like THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA or DAYS OF FUTURE PAST there is a lot of material I have just collecting dust which is not an acceptable situation for me nor for my faithful readers.

Another reason is that I have something new to say about the X - Men. I already started to write about this in my latest black power women spin - off post but one thing that is rampant in the current Marvel universe - and one of the many reasons why I mostly stay away from their current output and concentrate on their old stories - is the either total lack of interest for their own history or the almost malicious fervor to twist, change, retcon and retroactively alter it in order to fit their current political and social agendas no matter how many decades of good stories they destroy with it. Not to mention pooping all over the work of comicbook legends.

Initially this was going to be a very general essay about no stories in particular but just Today my copy of Ed Piskor´s X - Men : Grand Design arrived so I have a specific example for how things work now at Disney.

So far I was only aware of Ed Piskor´s work from the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issues of Hip Hop Family Tree which did not impress me much. Besides the unattractive artwork the constant attempts to make hip hop history and hip hop artists look cooler than they really are or were by fabricating the most ludicrous similarities to comicbook characters or comicbook history were really getting on my nerves. Not only because it was so desperate and obvious pandering but also because I have lived in those times and I know for a fact that back then none of these artists would have outed themselves as comicbook fans. But now it is chic and in vogue and cool to have a knowledge about comicbooks or be a comicbook guy - well, unless you are a guy who is actually making comicbooks and not just consuming them or talking about them. Everybody has always been a comicbook fan.

Which was the reason why I never got more issues of Hip Hop Family Tree.

Nevertheless I had an idea who Ed Piskor was when X - Men : Grand Design first came out and after the constant raving of comic readers, comic afficionados, comic critics and comic creators alike I have finally given in and decided that I had to check it out for myself. So far I have read the first issue and the first half of the second issue but I have already come across four instances where Ed Piskor either didn´t do his homework or chose to ignore the real history. Or - what is also quite possible - was told by the higher us at Disney to make certain changes to not contradict the newest retcons or to be more in line with what was established in the tv shows and the movies. Which we all know are more important now - at least to the powers to be at Disney - than the actual source material.

Now before we go any further I want to stress that the purpose of this post is not to trash Ed Piskor´s work, neither as an artist nor as a writer.

While I said that I found his art in Hip Hop Family Tree unattractive and it looks only slightly better to me in X - Men : Grand Design it is very solid, worked through thoroughly and his storytelling, layout and panel design is beyond reproach. With a project like this it can be confusing to see what is happening and who is doing what. That never happens in this comic and you can not only always tell what the characters in this comic are doing but in most cases what they are feeling which is no small feat in itself.

And while I wish they had enlisted an artist who would be better suited for a superhero story from the ranks of veteran comic creators which are readily available and whom I would have loved to see back in comicbooks I know there are two reasons why this didn´t happen. First of all as far as I know Ed Piskor is a writer / artist which means he prefers to illustrate the things he writes and like with other such creators like Stan Sakai or Mike Allred you know going in what you get. Which means you have to accept the art which in the case of Mike Allred didn´t excite me that much at the beginning. Like the great late Jack Kirby it is more of an acquired taste.

Second and maybe more important Ed Piskor´s art looks like what most people think of as the independent comic look and since this comicbook is for the greatest part aimed at either comic readers who don´t read much superhero comics, comic readers who mostly read independent comics or people who don´t read much comicbooks to begin with this is exactly what Disney is looking for. I am not going to speculate how much the possibility of regular comicbook fans buying this explicitly because it does not look like their regular reading material but I´m sure it´s another factor.

Speaking of which what exactly is the purpose of this comic ? Well, in the case of Ed Piskor it is very clear why he made it. He is obviously a huge X - Man fan and this is his love letter to their adventures. The reason why there was and still is so much hype about it is that it connects a lot of minutuae detail and throwaway stories from X - Men history to one big picture. We will come to a few of the mistakes in it in a moment but for the most part he achieves what other stories - like Avengers : Earth´s Mightiest Heroes - failed to do : present old, classic stories in a new way that is engaging for old readers as well as educational for new readers .

Which is much easier when you know where you going instead of making things up as you go along which is what the original creators did. It is one reason why the attentive reader can immediately guess the purpose of this comic because a lot of it centers on Jean Grey and the Phoenix.

That was no big surprise with the new movie that failed to bring The Dark Phoenix Saga to the big screen. It may be just speculation on my part but it is very probable that this comic was done to introduce people to the world of the X - Men. I don´t know how successful that can be since like with Avengers Forever there is a lot in here that will go over the head of comicbook newbies but Disney wants something they can put into the hands of people who don´t want to go through hundreds of back issues.

So basically this is a comic for people who don´t like to read comics. Now this is not the first comic that was done to establish a certain continuity - longtime readers may recall The Untold Legend Of Batman ( which also had some artwork by John Byrne ) and we have to see if it will be redundant as quickly as DC´s Legends. Now I said that there are some mistakes in the story and since I am always ready to give people the benefit of the doubt I am not going to assume that Ed Piskor included them on purpose since the changes might as well have been mandated by Disney. Nevertheless I want to point them out for the uninformed who might take them as truth. And I don´t claim to be the biggest expert on Marvel history so there might be more changes but I am addressing the ones I caught in this comicbook.

Already ten pages in we have the first case which is the relationship of Magneto with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. I know from what I read on the internet that somebody had the great idea that Pietro and Wanda are not Magneto´s children thus crapping on decades of stories so this one was to expect. So instead of having two kids Magneto has only one child and his wife is killed and does not desert him to bear two children like it was revealed in the original The Yesterday Quest written by Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant and David Micheline and penciled by John Byrne.

Next we have the backstory of Cyclops´ father from the Starjammers that was altered. In this version his wife is disintegrated while trying to avoid capture while in the original story the pervert Shi´ Ar emperor Dekan used her as his personal sex slave and killed her in front of Corsair after a failed attempt on his life. I´m not sure why they put the kid friendly version in this but I suspect it has something to do with a possible appearance of the Starjammers crew in phase four of the Marvel cinematic universe.

The last and third one I found concerns Namor, the Avenging Son, who did not regain his memory through being dunked in the Hudson River by an unnamed sailor with an eye patch but thanks to Johnny Storm a.k.a. The Human Torch in Fantastic Four issue 4 which every comic fan worth his salt should know. I also don´t remember him encountering Magneto opon his return to Atlantis who makes him an offer to rise up against the people of the surface world together. I am not sure why that was changed but it fits with Disney´s general attitude of ignoring the Fantastic Four in all of their comics or trying to replace them with either the X - Men or the Inhumans.

Like I said, the purpose of this post is not to trash Ed Piskor´s work but rather illustrate how Disney´s marketing is changing their comic book history to fit their current ideology. And why this is off putting for readers like me since it is in most cases totally unnecessary. This is only one comic book and already we have three cases of retroactive continuity change.

As you can see from the title I expected to write more about a certain X - Men storyline but I guess at this point I have rambled on long enough and it´s time to wrap things up. Nevertheless as a last word on misinterpreting X - Men history, now that Hollywood managed to botch The Dark Phoenix Saga - for the second time I might add - there are a lot of videos where the SJWs put their own spin on it to further their political propaganda.



The story was not about diversity or representation or emancipation or female empowerment or any feminist agenda that is now retroactively associated with it. It was not only a story about Jean Grey but about her and Scott Summers and all of the X - Men. It is a story about power and the price we have to pay when we start to loose ourselves and start to abuse this power. Not as women but as humans. Another mistake that is generally made is the attempt to put it all into one movie. The story is much too big for that since The Phoenix Saga - in which Jean Grey first receives the power of the Phoenix - is also a part of it. And last but not least, what most people who talk about this either ignore or don´t know is that John Byrne not only drew the story he was also a co - writer. And like I explained in my post about Dark Phoenix : The Untold Story it was supposed to have a different ending. So go seek out the original story. 

One thing that happened while I was reading X - Men : Grand Design is that it felt like watching an episode of Comicbookgirl19´s Epic History X - Men only without the cool music and not as thoroughly researched. I have already posted all three parts but because of the release of the new Dark Phoenix movie and people still not being willing to read the original story she has re - released it in nine shorter totally remastered installments. I was thinking about which part I should post and in the end I chose part six because you have a lot of Dave Cockrum artwork in the first ones ( which just illustrates how long this story went on ) and this post is supposed to be an appreciation for John Byrne. Also it´s where The Dark Phoenix Saga kicks into high gear. In any case I am including part 1 , part 2 , part 3 , part 4 and part 5 since you should watch them in chronological order as well as part 7 , part 8 and part 9 for all those that want to know how it all ends.



As you can see I could write about John Byrne ad nauseum so it should not surprise you that I already wrote a lot of posts about him, too many to link them all but I want to include a few for my newer readers : the most recent ones are two birthday posts I did in 2016, one about his work at DC Comics and various independent comic companies and one with his work for Marvel Comics and two posts on Jerry Ordway who inked John Byrne on the last leg of his legendary Fantastic Four issues. The first one is a special Valentine´s Day post with the infamous issue where Alicia Masters dumped Ben for Johnny ( which went against the bro code but it was okay because that Alicia turned out to be a skrull which is a subject we will discuss in detail if I ever get to my FANTASTIC FOUR FRIDAY WITH PAUL RYAN series ) and the other one about the birth of Malice who has the second best costume after the special " 4 " - shaped boobie window ( which also first appeared during the FANTASTIC FOUR run by Paul Ryan ).

One of the upsides of dividing the John Byrne birthday post into two parts ( click here for the DC Comics part ) is that the posts are shorter while one of the downsides is that I have to split up the birthdays which might get confusing next year. Be that as it may we start the anniversary rundown with Kevin Hart who turns 40. Since he´s in so many movies I can´t list them all but I want to mention two. The first one is Ride Along 2 - to which we will come in a moment - and Scary Movie 3. Now I have looked on every internet resources there is but can anyone tell me the name of the body / boob double for Anna Faris in Scary Movie 3 ? She is not mentioned anywhere and I think she really deserves more credit !

And giving credit where credit is due I clearly didn´t give Anna Farris enough because I never even considered checking out The House Bunny.

But from what I have seen in Observe & Report she won´t be needing any body doubles in the future as she has matters and boobs well in hand .

I freely admit that Anna Farris´ cleavage was the main reason I watched the movie because I saw the ad on tv and thought that even if the movie was bad there was at least something worthwhile in it. And sometimes that´s better than the alternative because they show so much crap. We have Anna to thank for the best scenes of the movie : she decided that her character should always show a lot of cleavage since she feels that wardrobe is very important. " When I´d wander around the set with my cleavage popping out as Brandi, people treated me differently than when I would wander around in my pajamas or my baseball cap or whatever. "

And for all those who say that she got a boob job I hate to disappoint you but as you can read in this interview she was wearing a push - up bra that is just enormous. Anna has a big positive impact on the movie and she is totally fearless in portraying her character as shallow and vain. Which makes it even weirder that she had to fight for the role as she freely admits. One of the reasons why she was so willing to do a lot of nudity was she often had to shoot sex scenes which didn´t end up in the films.

She thought the same would happen with the date - rape scene and the sex scene with Ray Liotta in the backseat of a car ( which is the reason why he accepted his role ) but to her surprise it ended up in the movie.

Now the reason why I mentioned Ride Along 2 is that 50 Cent is on the soundtrack of the movie and he celebrates his 44th birthday Today. Even though I don´t have any of his albums I am a big fan of his work and his music videos even if they were only shown after midnight. I don´t watch much music television now but when I did it on a regular basis I waited for his videos with the hot Olivia and especially P.I.M.P. in the uncut version.

Hasians are my kryptonite and the oriental sexbomb with the big double airbags is right up my alley. So far all I know is that her name is most likely Angel Maya and she may be a model. Can anybody deny or confirm that ?



Speaking about busty dreams Geoffrey Rush turns 68 who was not only in The King´s Speech, Pirates Of The Caribbean and played super villain Casanova Frankenstein on Mystery Men he was also in The Tailor of Panama where Pierce Brosnan got to feel up mega MILF Jamie Lee Curtis.

Pierce gets a good handful. Jamie was not always a sex symbol and started out in horror movies like Halloween and The Fog ( which also starred cult siren Adrienne Bareau about whom you can read more in this brand new spin - off post ) where she quickly became very famous for her impressive set of lungs as one of Hollywood´s premiere scream queens. Although she later became quite literal famous for her impressive set of lungs as her boobs had busted out and she quickly got the nickname " freezeframe " because her scenes in movies like Trading Places or Perfect became the most paused on the vcr thanks to her sexy 34C - 22 - 34 measurements.

She is best known for her incredibly hot striptease on True Lies, the best striptease in movie history - at least according to a poll conducted in 2007.

Which is all the more impressive if you keep in mind that Jamie Lee Curtis was 36 at the time. So she did her best movie scene when her body was in remarkable shape - she exercised every day for this - and I cannot even begin to imagine how epic it would have been if she hadn´t kept on her underwear and gone full monty frontal nudity. Because James Cameron had seen her in A Fish Called Wanda and wrote the role of Helen Trasker specifically to see her nude body. A lot of other actresses auditioned for the role and while I could definitely see Demi Moore in that part ( who is the number one in my Top Movie Stripteases thanks to her spectacular performance in Striptease ) or even Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, Geena Davis, Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, Jennifer Jason Leigh and possibly Lea Thompson or Sharon Stone I thank God that it wasn´t given to Emma Thompson, Melanie Griffith, Debra Winger, Anette Benning or Joan Cusak.

I have already done a number of posts on JaMILF Lee Curtis : the original post which mostly contains pictures with links to animated GIFs , one post with all the pictures I could find , a re - posted version with a few GIFs added and the post I did on her in 2016 which has lots of spectacular GIFs.

Speaking of spectacular GIFs, the reason why I am mentioning Demi Moore - besides the opportunity to feature her - is I wrote a new version of her cult siren entry ( part 1 / part 2 ) with more GIFs of Demi girating her booty than you can shake .... okay, I´m not going to finish the sentence.

Now Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of actress Janet Leigh best known as the lead role in Psycho she also would have celebrated a birthday Today.

But coming back to Geoffrey Rush he was also on Frida with Salma Hayek who .... no, she doesn´t have her birthday Today but it is Frida Kahlo´s anniversary. I haven´t seen the movie yet because despite the prospect of seeing Salma naked there is too much drama in the movie for my taste. At the moment my quota of " all evil in the world comes from men and that is why we women have to suffer " movies for the month is full. And to think that Salma Hayek is one of the women who complained the most about Harry Weinstein and what she had to do to get Frida made. A film nobody wanted to produce and which would not have been produced if Harry Weinstein hadn´t insisted on the nude scenes. Which are the only reason anybody watched the movie. Is it just me or do women nowadays expect men to realize their dreams and showering them in tons of money without giving anything in return ? Anyway, thankfully there are movies which are not as drama filled where you can see Salma Hayek get naked.

Coming to a totally different subject I didn´t have to think twice about which music video I would include in this post. Especially since it has been quite a while since I posted a blind audition from The Voice of Germany.



I don´t know if this was the push up that Anna Faris used in Observe & Report but this could be helpful for all the women out there who want to improve their cleavage without having plastic surgery. For a strange reason these UpBra videos also seem to be very popular among my male followers.



Since I mentioned Namor in this post here is a rare find from the original cartoon series. Yes, the animation was minimalistic but at least it was based on the original artwork. These days they have all the technical resources at their disposal but in most cases they won´t even make an effort to have the art look like in the comicbooks like in the recently released Gotham By Gaslight which doesn´t look anything like Mike Mignola´s brilliant artwork. Which made up at least 60 percent of the mood. That it can be done differently can be seen in the ( rightly so ) oscar - winning Spider - Man : Into The Spider - Verse animated movie.



Okay, An American Christmas Carol may not fit the season but with the current heatwave that is hitting Germany the sight of a bit of snow may help you cool down during the hottest summer in decades. Also I don´t make that many posts around Christmas time and there are just too many versions of Charles Dickens classic to possibly fit them all into the posts I manage to do. And I really would hate to see this one fall to the wayside.

While I don´t like it when they do an adaption and feel it necessary to make some changes this is one where it really works. It´s a nice change of pace to have the story set in America and I bet it didn´t hurt that Henry Winkler a.k.a. Fonzy played the role of the american Ebenezer Scrooge.



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

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Jean Grey, a man named Scott Summers.They were young. They were in love. They were heroes.

Alyssa Milano´s long lost pulp version post

Have you ever heard the expression " Out of the frying pan and into the fire. " ? Well, I should be finishing a completely different post ( I am not saying which one that is because that would only make things even more confusing ) post but while going over the things left in my draft folder I stumbled upon this finished but never posted Alyssa Milano birthday post.

And then I completely forgot about it. Anyway, since this post is already finished and I haven´t done a re - post for Alyssa Milano since 2016 - I have decided to finally put it on the blog. Now I COULD program this to go on the blog on her next birthday which is next month but I have made so much changes since this version went online that it would feel weird. So I am going to date it for her birthday last year because then I only have to do a few touch ups here and there. Anyway, that´s enough talk for now.

Originally written ( probably ) around December the 19th in 2015 

Today I´m taking a break from writing about Bart Sears ( two posts should be enough to celebrate his anniversary ) to bring a birthday salute to one of tv´s hottest ladies, Alyssa Milano, who turns 42 Today. Alyssa´s one of the tv cult sexbombs I should have done a post about long ago.

She´s best known as the most charming, sexiest and all around greatest of the Halliwell witches, Phoebe Halliwell on the cult tv show CHARMED.

Before that she starred in the tv hit WHO´S THE BOSS ? where she grew up in front of the national tv audience. I vividly remember SELLING SAM SHORT ( season 8, episode 4 ) in which puberty has already hit certain areas of her body in particular her chest. Alyssa is at that delicate threshold young women reach when their breasts are already fully grown but the rest of the body hasn´t had time to catch up. She is wearing a green top that is straining heavily under her grown up breasts. I found the episode on YouTube but the quality is too bad to make an animated GIF.



Anyway, speaking about animated GIFs I started preparing for this post four or five days ago but because of the improvised Bart Sears posts I haven´t quite finished. Thankfully I found a lot of usable GIFs online but there are still a few I had to make myself. Sadly when I had finally added most of them I had to realize that the strain all the GIFs put on the post prevented it uploading completely so I had to cut the part about ALYSSA MILANO´S BEST SCENES ON CHARMED and put it in a separate post.

But back to Alyssa Milano. During her time on WHO´S THE BOSS ? she produced and starred in her own workout video called TEEN STEAM, which ( despite its quasi - raunchy title ) was an exercise video for kids -- and was absolutely never used as an entertainment piece for guys in their parents' basements. I´m sure nobody used this tape of Alyssa´s tight and fit teenage body stretching, flexing and bending for recreational reasons.



After that italian - american actress Alyssa Milano got our italian beef swelling as she was trying to get away from her good girl image, slutting it out and getting naked in a few movies like POISON IVY II  where her male co star got to live out every horny Samantha Micelli fan´s sexual fantasy .

But my favorite is the vampire movie. I´m saying the vampire movie because here in Germany it´s called EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE, KISS OF THE VAMPIRE or PASSION OF THE VAMPIRE depending on which tv station shows it. Alyssa who had played Tony Danza's daughter, teaching viewers the joys of watching a young girl develop, then buy a bra to handle her blossoming charms, and finally lose her virginity lost the bra and her massive talent spilled over onto the big screen. In this erotic direct to video classic she embraced more than gothic occultism, but lesbianism with a nymphomaniac Charlotte Lewis and threesomes too. Alyssa´s body in this one is incredible and she has her breast nude scenes in this one.

In the same year Alyssa starred in an episode of OUTER LIMITS where she didn´t leave much to the imagination thanks to the lower restrictions of the Sci Fi channel. She was well on her way to become a sexsymbol .

After that she went on to star in CHARMED where her 36C - 23 - 36 measurements got the better of spoiled brat Shannen Doherty who left the series to be replaced by Rose Mc Gowan. Anyway, none of the other Halliwell sisters really did much for me where sex appeal is concerned.

According to some interviews she gave later she wasn´t so keen on some of the sexy outfits but Alyssa was the main reason why guys watched the show, it was all to see her shaking her hips as a sultry belly dancer with her tits hanging out or an almost naked mermaid . Also Alyssa was busy taming male co - stars Julian McMahon and Brian Krause as her personal sex slaves.

And that´s not counting all of her appearances where she just squeezed her huge overdeveloped XXL porn boobs into impossibly tight corsages.

When Rose McGowan joined the cast she and Alyssa entered a weekly competition to see who could wear the skimpiest outfits, wear a bikini more times and generally display their nipples or showcase their boobs.

Since Alyssa knew that her body is the reason why people watch the show, this continued even after she took the reigns as a producer.

Happy male viewers were treated to boobage, sideboobs, cleavage, buttocks and nipples from both women for an impressive eight years.

Now after the fiasko with the CHARMED DVDs around Christmas last year I bought all the remaining seasons in one order when they were available for a much cheaper price. When I started watching the show I expected to have to wait until maybe the third or fourth season to get to the good stuff because I knew some of my favorite scenes ( seen farther above ) are in the fifth season but Alyssa steals the scene from the get go.

After the third season Shannen Doherty leaves the cast ( her character dies in the series ) and Rose McGowan comes in as a long lost half sister.

CONAN`S DAUGHTER : " I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH DOCTOR DOOM ! "

This changed the dynamic of the show considerably because Shannen´s character Prue had been the oldest sister, a role which Holly´s character Piper had to fulfill now. And Alyssa´s character Phoebe, who had always been the plucky and irresponsible youngster of the group became kind of a mentor for Rose´s character Paige trying to get her to avoid all the mistakes she herself made. Like the regeneration on DOCTOR WHO the show gained new life and went on to become a world wide success that is still in reruns which makes it difficult for a new version to compete with.

So while the departure of Shannen Doherty may have been for the best it´s difficult to find out the real reason for this. There are stories that both did it with Julian McMahon who played Cole but most sources say that while Julian WAS with with Shannen Alyssa was dating co star Brian Krause. I tried to unravel this as best as I could but keep in mind that as somebody who was not there when it happened I have no inside intel and have to rely on outside sources. So this is probably not the whole truth.

Somebody compared CHARMED to CHARLIE´S ANGELS and in that scenario Holly Marie Combs is Jacklyn Smith ( stayed thru the duration of the show ), Lisa Rom is Farrah Fawcett ( left the show and probably regretted it later ), Shannen Doherty is Kate Jackson ( hated the sexy one and got fired by Aaron Spelling. Also, the one nobody wanted to see in a bikini ), Alyssa Milano is Cheryl Ladd ( the sexy one ) and Rose McGowan is Shelley Hack / Tonya Roberts ( the forgettable replacement ). If the shoe fits.

Now I found the following on a chat so I don´t know how accurate it is.

CHARMED started out as CHARLIE`S ANGELS with witchcraft, and a vehicle for Shannen Doherty. Spelling assured Shannen that none of the drama surrounding BEVERLY HILLS 90210 would affect the show and her star status. And that the production would make this her vehicle. Spelling was a master at promotion, everyone turned in curious to see a Spelling show with Shannen at the helm. Holly was a new actress with small credits, having been a supporting cast member on Picket Fences. Holly was brought in as a friend for Shannen, upon her request. Shannen´s input was asked in the earlier stages of development, including the casting process for her sisters. Then the last minute replacement of Lori Rom ( who quit after shooting the pilot ) by Alyssa threw everything off.

Shannen's lead status slowly changed according to the viewers who tuned in to see Alyssa and her big tittes ( not my words ) after a few seasons. 

It was then retooled to give Alyssa the love story and other plots to keep male viewership, and Shannen felt her suggestions and requests for storylines and direction was minimized because Alyssa " popped " and production took advantage of her sex symbol status. Shannen felt her contractual agreements weren't being honored and her courtship between Spelling had waned. She felt the three actresses should work towards a less " soapy " alternative. Earlier episodes show this transition from a crime / supernatural drama into a camp soapfest. Shannen felt that her time on the series was at an end, and requested to be let go from her contract. She felt the show wasn't as good as it could´ve been.

Now there are two conflicting stories. In one version Shannen went to Spelling and said that he either fired Alyssa or she would walk which resulted in Shannen leaving the show. In another Alyssa was the one that gave the ultimatum. The crew was not overjoyed with Shannen leaving because while they didn´t love Shannen, they preferred her over Alyssa.
 

Alyssa and Holly were at odds over what they should do. Alyssa felt the show was fair at giving storylines and wanted to keep the trajectory of the viewership. Holly felt obligated to and a sense of friendship with Shannen Doherty and wanted to ban together to work towards a mutual ground with production. Because of this tension, there were some hard feelings around, mostly between Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano.

Alyssa's contract of course had been renegotiated as well as Holly's and that is why the two stayed longer. Rose came around this time, and CHARMED survived the shake up with all cast feeling happy about that.

Shannen left with her rights intact to receive royalties and percentages from the show, and she didn't care if they let her go. She had money still coming in from the series run, and the DVD sales. So in all, she made a lot of money. Also, her reputation remained intact as well, she felt that her time on CHARMED showed that she could be professional.



And that´s all for anything else you have to consult the CHARMED FAQs .

BEYOND THE CHARMED LIFE : OF MISTRESSES AND HACKTIVISTS

Since the bonus part of this post will be all CHARMED I should probably cover the other series she was in . After WHO´S THE BOSS she played Jennifer Mancini on MELROSE PLACE which I initially watched because of all the hot babes like Daphne Zuniga, Marcia Cross ( she had a storyline where she went crazy which in tv terms means " nymphomanic ", what a performance ! ), Stacy Haiduk or Lisa Rinna ( her lips are sexier than Angelina Jolie´s ). Later on I watched it because of Alyssa and her brother Dr. Michael Mancini on the show whom I always called Wylie Coyote because he always had very elaborate plans to get what he wanted.

In those shows the guys and girls are always trying desperately to get together with a certain partner only to loose interest and start betraying them with somebody else as soon as they have accomplished their goal. In any case, the life lesson that I learned from Wylie is that when you start lying you stick with it. Because even if you would tell the truth people would not believe that now you are telling the truth and what you said earlier was a lie. So even if they find out you lied you have to say you didn´t. Because if you were not lying but it looks like you are lying because there is some proof against you what would you do ? You would say that you are not lying. Which is the only thing you could do. And in the end lying is always better than telling the truth. Ask any politician.

Speaking about politicians on SPIN CITY she played Meg, the daughter of New York mayor Randall M Winston Jr who was always causing trouble for Michael J Fox´s character who was the mayor´s chief political adviser. 

I would have liked to see more episodes of the show but in Germany it was shown closed to the public by putting it in ridiculous time slots.

First it was shown at two o´clock after midnight and then at five o´clock in the morning when nobody could see it. Later on it was shown in the afternoon during the weekends. They always do that with american hit shows like NORTHERN EXPOSURE or SEINFELD so that they don´t get good ratings and later can proclaim " Those shows may be a big hit with the uneducated americans but we germans are much more sophisticated than these stupid cowboys and not so easily entertained. " And then they go and copy every american show there is and do a horrible version of it.

Anyway, Alyssa reprised her role in 2001, the mischievous little minx.

Alyssa was on MY NAME IS EARL but since I didn´t watch many episodes ( my mother can´t stand it ) I can´t say much about it. I found the initial idea interesting - somebody trying to fix his bad karma by making a list of all the people he wronged and then putting things right - but the show is just too " redneck " for me. In lack of a better term. I know that some people get off on this kind of comedy but as someone who comes from the lower levels of society I know that just because you are poor doesn´t automatically mean you are uneducated or stupid. Was she Earl´s wife ?

 
Another sitcom with Alyssa I missed was ROMANTICALLY CHALLENGED . I´m not even sure if it was shown on german tv. Either it ended up the same way as SPIN CITY or it was shown on one of the cable channels you generally don´t watch like Comedy Central. It lasted - what - 6 episodes ?

The same goes for MISTRESSES . Except the six episode part, they had at least two seasons. But so far I have only seen some clips with Alyssa from the show via the internet so I don´t know anything about the quality.

Before we come to the link / video section there is the comic connection part we have to do. Yes, there is a comic part since this is still a comic blog - appearances may be deceiving. The obvious ones  are that Alyssa played the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger in COMMANDO ( which was called PHANTOM COMMANDO in Germany ) and Arnold also played Robert E. Howard´s CONAN who was adapted as a comic by Marvel comics which was for the most part illustrated by the incomparable John Buscema . 

Also her love interest on CHARMED, Cole, was played by Julian McMahon who also was Doctor Doom on what are now considered " the good " Fantastic Four movies and whom I first saw in this Danii Minogue video.



SIMON SAYS : DANNII MINOGUE WAS MY SEX TOY, MY BLOW UP SEX DOLL

The stacked Minogue sister with the built in pair of bongos was actually in the music business first and had a big career before Kylie ever sang her first note, which most people forgot for a long time. Which of course changed when she became a judge on The X - Factor where she got the highest points from the audience on the show and Simon Cowell in the bedroom who used her as his blow up sex doll. Dannii has officially denied being Simon´s sex toy but that doesn´t contradict that he banged her brains out. I mean, if I was sitting next to a wet dream with such huge melons all day I would definitely put her pornstar body to the test, this is a total no brainer. Simon even campaigned to get her back on the show and made no secret that it was mainly because of her incredible breasts.

He wanted the channel to splash out millions to secure a deal with Dannii Minogue and told ITV boss Peter Fincham : " Bring her back to X - Factor and everyone will tune in to look at her tits. "  In his biography Simon Cowell admitted that he was in love with Danni Minogue for years. " I had a crush on her. It was Dannii´s hair, the sexy clothes and the tits. I was like a schoolboy. She was foxy. She was a real man´s girl. Very feminine. "

On the DC side of things Alyssa has done the voice of Aimee Brenner on DC SHOWCASE PRESENTS : THE SPECTRE and SUPERMAN / SHAZAM ! : THE RETURN OF BLACK ADAM and Poison Ivy on an episode of YOUNG JUSTICE.

She has also created a comic called HACKTIVIST which was published by ARCHAIA and which has returned for a second volume because of the big success of the first story. Now more and more actors do their own comic book and in the case of Alyssa Milano she had an idea but didn´t want it to be diluted by a tv studio so she went to a comic book company instead. Which in my opinion is way better than when comic book companies bring writers who are successful at writing tv shows in to do monthly comics. Only to have those writers realize that writing a tv show is nothing like writing comics. Anyway, Alyssa co - writes the book with Jackson Lanzig and Colin Kelly and the art is done by Marcus To and Ian Herring. The " Hollywood pitch " for the series would be What if Anonymous was just one guy who tried to change the world through social media in secret ?

Some comic people are bugged when actors or people from the world of television make comics but it is understandable and you hear from most that they do it because it´s a freeing experience and a change of pace.

Which makes sense. When you do a tv show everybody and the janitor´s dog tries to get involved because they all have such big egos. When you make a comic you have much more control over your idea because it´s shared by a relatively small number of people. Somebody compared doing a comic to writing a movie, then shooting it and acting in it. But I would say it goes even beyond that. Because when you are making a movie it ends with the casting, the lighting and the set decoration. You can choose the camera angles but that´s about it. With comics that is where it starts.

Doing comics is not only like shooting a movie but also deciding if it´s in black and white or color, if it´s shown in a theater or on tv or on a wall with forty monitors. You can have hundred artists draw the same scene and it never looks the same while if you have the same actor play the same scene a hundred times the differences will not be that great.

Also the budget is not a problem. If you can draw it that´s it. You can draw one spaceship or an whole armada the only difference it makes is that it takes more time to draw an entire armada. Unless you use the old " copy paste ". But in comic books your imagination is the only real limit.

Making comics is easy because when you boil down to it all you need is a pencil and paper. So that´s pretty low maintenance compared to all the things you need when you are making a movie or tv series. Granted, the regular life of a guy who makes comics is less than glamorous, just ask Terry Hopper about it. But those actors already have the glamour part so they want to get the part where they can express their ideas unfiltered.

For more on HACKTIVIST you can read this to learn what it´s all about , check out the interview with COMIC BOOK RESOURCES or go to this article which includes videos. One of them is short and you can find the long one in the bonus round which will include more videos about HACKTIVIST.  

To start off the video section of the day here´s the first part ( thanks to the restrictions on YouTube ) of the unaired CHARMED pilot episode with Lori Rom. After seeing it I´m not sure if the show would have had any success without Alyssa Milano and I´m glad they got rid of Detective Prettyboy. If you want to compare the performances of both actresses here´s the link to a video with scenes from both versions of Phoebe.



I posted the link to the article about Alyssa´s HACKTIVIST comic with the videos above because I knew I would need all the slots in this section for Alyssa´s appearances on late night shows. This one is from the JIMMY KIMMEL SHOW where looks absolutely stunning in this green dress.

This was on the 15th of April 2010 so she is promoting ROMANTICALLY CHALLENGED. Like our first clip you can find this on YouTube in parts.



Here is Alyssa with a nice window on ARSENIO HALL on the 4th of December 2013 as one of the judges of PROJECT RUNWAY ALL STARS.



I kept the best for the last as Alyssa is almost spilling out of her top in this video. Too bad the poor girl is freezing so much she has to cover herself up with a bunny - and no, that´s not a set up for a lewd joke.

We all knew that THE LATE LATE SHOW with Craig Ferguson was low budget but apparently they can´t even afford to pay their heating bill. So my hat´s off to Alyssa who was a real trooper and held on. To the bunny. 



With all the posting and putting the post back into the draft folder then splitting it up and reposting it I have lost all orientation if it´s now the turn of a girl or a guy from the casting shows so I chose this one to express my true feelings for Alyssa Milano. Happy birthday, girlfriend.



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