Now my last post was a bit of a downer and negative so I thought that I could make this one more positive and fun. I also wanted to put more Superman content on the blog ( what with the name and all ) now that I have gone through my vast picture archive and dug up some really strange covers with Superman where he´s either killing someone
is being killed himself or dying ( oh, the pain )
having some trouble concerning his secret identity
has trouble with those ungrateful and pesky Kandorians
or just generally behaves like a king sized dick.
One of the persons who was on the receiving end of this superdickery ( and I mean really a lot of times here ) was his own cousin, Supergirl who was raised as Linda Lee in an orphanage and had to hide her super powers to the world to be Superman´s " secret weapon against crime ".
Looking back on some of the covers now I´m not sure if that really was the reason behind it or of he wasn´t afraid she would be a better superhero than him. Which may sound strange to comic readers who started reading Superman comics in the Bronze Age - like myself - or later. But during the Golden Age and for big parts of the Silver Age Superman wasn´t as selfconfident or noble as he would become later. So it wouldn´t have been too far fetched to assume he would keep his cousin hidden who has all of his superpowers plus female reproductive organs.
For people of that time it may have been normal for a superhero to go through such elaborate schemes to fight crime but I always found it very cruel that she had to live in an orphanage when Superman had this gigantic Fortress of Solitude. Which basically is vacant when he´s not there and only used for storage. Okay, it may be cold being at the Arctic but I´m not so sure if Supergirl would have trouble with the cold. And even if she did she could always start a fire with her heat vision.
MAS RAPIDO QUE UNA BALA, MAS POTENTE QUE UNA LOCOMOTORA
And speaking about the Fortress of Solitute, is it only me or can you get any more phallic with that giant key. I´m not saying somebody´s overcompensating for something but this cover speaks for itself.
Although there are some other covers out there that make you think how nobody noticed this. And it´s not only american comics. No, Sir, no way.
Here´s a cover from the classic german comic anthology KOBRA that shows you that even an android - or robot in this case - like Archie likes to show off and blatantly flaunt the size of his drill bit. You go, bot !
Another cover with a similar disturbing image shows the other robot of the anthology book, Mytek, although for some reason somebody thought it would be a good idea to give him the appearance of a giant gorilla.
Am I missing something here ? Was the intention to make him more scary or less ? I really don´t see anybody going " Oh my god, we´re being attacked by a giant robot ! We´re all going to die ! Oh, wait a minute, it´s just a giant gorilla. Come out, honey, everything´s gonna be okay now. " Nope, really doesn´t work for me. Anyway, that´s not what I´m talking about so let´s get back to the cover. I´m not sure what is happening here. If he really was a giant gorilla instead of a giant robot I would say he has just discovered the concept of nudity but since he isn´t I can only guess. Maybe even a robot can get certain " urges " and he just happened across this sexy boat. Any ship in a port and hello, sailor.
And speaking about sailors and ships this INVINCIBLE IRON MAN cover really makes me cringe in my man junk. Is Tony on a binge again ?
Man, I don´t know what the people drawing those covers were thinking at the time but it just reeks of a lot of testosterone going on. Manly stuff.
Like the next one where a guy is just trying to catch a giant fish thing - or wrestling it. Or trying to do something else although this might be just a metaphor for man´s struggle with life or the ocean. Or for having sex. In any case I keep hearing the sound of dueling banjos when I look at this.
Here´s another unsettling cover image from KOBRA, again with that robotic rascal Archie, this time molesting a rhino. Must be jungle fever.
But wait, there´s one more. I have saved the best for last and although it´s not a cover this may be the best freudian costume design in the pages of a comic book ever. I mean it´s not enough to put that thing right there, no, with that beanie his head looks like a giant penis. I have no idea who that is ( probably Major Woody or Erection Lad ) but the outfit is so spot on I bet it´s very popular with feminists. Damn chauvinist pigs !
And speaking about chauvinist pigs, let´s get back to the biggest of them all, Superman, and the whole deal with Supergirl as his " secret weapon ".
Back then comic readers were not as sensitive as Today´s audience, mainly because big parts of it were still kids and most probably boys. For which girls were just yukky so they didn´t really want to deal with them. Girls were strange, bothersome and the less you had to do with them the better. Which may be total speculation on my part and totally off base but this way you could rationalize some of things Superman did. I mean kids are cruel and some of the things they do are outright horrific to adults. And if you don´t believe me just ask anyone who works in a Kindergarten or has to deal with children on a daily basis. Not that Superman himself was Mr. Sensitive in those days by current standards of conduct.
I just recently read a story in which Superman travels back in time to become a radio DJ instead of a mild mannered reporter so he doesn´t have to endure Lois Lane constantly trying to expose his identity or getting him to marry her. Or getting him to marry her by exposing his identity. Yeah, I also never could figure out how that was supposed to work. Anyway, in the end Clark´s female co - worker at the radio station started to become his new Lois so he just gave up and restored the proper timeline. When he came back Lois was interviewing a woman who looked familiar to Superman who turned out to be that same co worker form the radio station. Since she was a lot older she also had gained a few pounds and I was LOLing and ROFLing when he thought how lucky he was he hadn´t married her because she had grown " enourmously fat ".
Yes, there was a time when obesity was funny and sold comics.
Back to Supergirl, for her first three years in comics she was normally used ( no pun intended ) by Superman as a secret weapon to fight crime.
In the stories she was a convenient plot device and she was relegated to hide in the orphanage and only come out in secret to do some super feats mainly when Superman was not on earth or otherwise busy with important stuff. She also had to kiss Jimmy Olsen when he was transformed into a werewolf again ( although she had to hide in the dark and Superman introduced her as the mysterious Lady X ) or make out with Superman when Lois´ advances were becoming too bothersome . In short : her role was to do whatever Superman told her to do and not act out of her own impulses because that would lead most definitely to gigantic disasters.
Not that Superman´s cold attitude towards his cousin was the best to prevent any possible catastrophes. I mean, keeping your only living relative bottled up in an orphanage where she only can come out to play when nobody sees it while you are parading around as the big hero showing of you super powers is enough to drive anybody over the edge.
Of course when Supergirl DID finally snap ( I assume ) or just didn´t live up to Superman´s expectations it meant a very quick exit stage left.
Now on one side Superman kept making out with Supergirl - when she was in disguise - and saying things like if he ever got married it would be to someone like her but since was illegal on Krypton to marry relatives he couldn´t. Or it was because she was only fifteen at the time. On the other side the only other occasions where he even interacted with her was to train her to take over his place if he someday died of Kryptonite radiation or such. So the whole relationship was really bi - polar with Superman either indulging in creepy, unsavory feelings towards his teenage cousin or tossing her into the nearest sun at the slightest sign of failure.
Thankfully Supergirl matured and became her own character later on although she did go through some really weird outfits along the way.
At the moment she has two books in the NEW 52 and her solo book is one of the few good ones left at DC. Indeed, it´s one of the best incarnations of her book since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Somehow they never could figure out what to do with the Maiden of Steel after that storyline.
Now IF you have noticed that I said Supergirl was in two books : she´s also in WORLD´S FINEST even if it´s the Supergirl of earth 2. Yes, I know, Power Girl is also Superman´s cousin from another world but it´s not the same. I think my main gripe with DC is that they tried to sell us a POWER GIRL / HUNTRESS book when in reality it´s just a SUPERGIRL / BATGIRL book. Not that there is anything wrong with that. That could also be a really great book if they tried ( okay, being the NEW 52 I really much doubt that ) but I think it speaks for itself that DC felt the need to deceive its readers into believing it was a different book. I don´t think that DC would have announced it as another kind of book if they were convinced they would get higher sales numbers with the book as it is.
But let´s not open that particular can of worms since I want to stay positive in this post. Although I´m not sure how far I´m succeding with all these weird, inaproppiate shenanigans between Superman and Supergirl.
Let me just say that for the moment I´m trying not to get too worked up about the whole Power Girl situation until the REAL Power Girl returns. In the meantime there are plenty of people out there who remember how Power Girl is supposed to look like and I want to use the opportunity to give a big shout out to all the cosplayer who are keeping it real. Thanks !
Speaking of keeping it real and Power Girl ( my, that segueway was as delicate as ramming a rhino with a truck ) here´s a video that probably anybody but me has already seen. But as the proverbial guy who always comes late to the party I just discovered it this week and I wanted to post it in case anybody who is reading my little blog hasn´t seen it yet.
It´s from a tv show called ATTACK OF THE SHOW that I´m sure everybody of my readers in America know but practically nobody of my readers here in Germany. At least I guess so. In the video the super heroine duo of Bustice ( played by Sara Underwood ) and Power Girl ( played by Carrie Keagan ) come in to rescue a submarine in their own inimitable way. It´s very funny, the girls fill out their roles very well ( and Yes, this pun IS intended ) and you can find quite a few of these videos on YouTube.
Another year has ended and it´s time to take a look back on the year 2013 and see how it looks in retrospect while it´s still fresh in my memory. I know the title sounds wrong but for me most " new "things in 2013 made me go back and check out the old things. New in 2013 wasn´t really that exciting especially with the NEW 52 still F - ing things up.
Now some people may say that things are looking up at DC since they have gone back from that abomination that was Power Girl´s new costume and returned her original costume. But the simple reason for that was just that even the guys at DC realized how ugly it was ( nicelyemphasized by artist CallMePo whom you can check out at his DeviantArt gallery , be warned though there is some NOT SAFE FOR WORK content ) and they changed it back before they lost the few readers they still had.
So besides a few cosmetic changes things are still as bad at DC. Power Girl is still just Supergirl of Earth 2, George Perez has definitely left WORLD´S FINEST and DC since they clearly had no idea whatsoever what to do with him, Wally West is still nowhere in sight and aside from the few good titles left such as AQUAMAN, WONDER WOMAN and some of the Bat - titles like BATMAN, BATMAN INCORPORATED and BATMAN AND ROBIN there´s not much you can spend money on and get your money´s worth. It also gets more difficult because DC still has brilliant ideas like axing LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES to start something like JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000. On one side it´s not surprising if they bring in an artist like Kevin Maguire at the last issue. That´s not going to help since the book´s already canceled. Even Kevin Maguire was so confused by the whole shaking and changing at DC that he defected to Marvel. Not that things are much better at Marvel but he gets to do GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY which is going to be one of the big franchises over there once the big blockbuster movie comes out. It helps the career if you do stuff like that.
But coming back to the Legion of Super - Heroes and the possible reasons why it didn´t fly with the NEW 52 ( no pun intended ) it may be the fact that when you look at the basic idea of the series it is pretty optimistic.
1000 years from now there will be teenage super heroes in outer space coming from different worlds who will be working together to fight for good, protect the innocent and oppose tyranny, injustice, racism and intolerance for the betterment and enlightenment of all sentient beings.
It´s really not that difficult to see why that didn´t really gel with DC´s new grim and gritty iMAGE revival they are doing with such things as FOREVER EVIL and such where Superman is mind controled on such a frequent basis that people are keeping counters on the internet of how many days ( let´s be realistic : how many weeks or months ) it has been since we have seen Superman´s normal eyes and not the red ones.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF STEEL ( MOVIE THAT IS ) ?
DC seems to be so hellbent on doing edgy and dark versions of their characters that they have completely forgotten what makes them so great. Is it any wonder that they cannot get it right in their movie adaptions anymore ? Over the holidays I have finally managed to see MAN OF STEEL and the first that that went through my mind was that you have to be exceptionally stupid to get a costume wrong where everybody in the world knows what it looks like. Not that they got the rest right. Okay, somebody in the production team was obviously a comic fan or at least a fan of some superhero tv shows since the scene where Superman steals some clothes is directly swiped from the Hulk tv series. Which was a good series for a tv adaption of a Marvel comic. But Superman is not the Hulk and he doesn´t steal, if he needs something he asks for it. Maybe he would offer to work for the clothes but in any case he would´ve talked to the people. And if he was the REAL deal they would have given him the clothes because he´s the kind of guy you would give your last shirt.
And what´s up with Superman´s Dad getting killed to save some stupid dog ? Which kind of sick bastard comes up with this s - word ?
So let me get this straight. Superman can´t save his Dad because that would expose his super powers. Superman also can´t save the dog because that would also expose his super powers. His Dad on the other hand can try to save the dog and get killed for it. WTF indeed. Is there something in this scene that I don´t understand ? On one side his Dad would have been okay with Clark letting all the kids in the school bus die to protect his secret. But on the other hand he can´t let one stupid dog die. Come on, it´s just a dog we´re talking about here. He may be the best dog in the world ( although that would probably be Krypto ) but would you really let your father die to save a dog ? No, don´t answer that. If your Dad is even remotely like mine was you´d probably go for the dog. Heck, you´d go for a six pack if you were real thirsty. Okay, not really a good example. But let´s get back to the whole Superman / Dad or rather Superman / adoptive parent thing since his real father would be Jor El a.k.a. Russell Crowe. Who did kick some serious butt in the movie.
Okay, let´s get down to the crux of the whole thing. What exactly is Pa Kent teaching his son here ? Do as I say don´t do as I do ? I´m not sure but in my book Superman would have either saved the dog despite his father´s protests or he wouldn´t have let his father risk his life to save a dog. If he went superfast he could have nabbed the dog without anybody seeing him. Because you can always distract people with the old " Oh, look, there´s Elvis ! " stick if anything else fails. And okay, maybe he didn´t have enough control over his powers to disperse the tornado by flying counterwise at superspeed - but then Pa Kent has no business playing the big hero and expecting his son to do nothing about it.
Now there were a few other scenes that had me scratching my head like the final battle with Zod where I would have preferred to see Superman give Zod a lobotomy courtesy of his heat vision like the Justice Lord version did with Doomsday. That would have been preferably to Superman just killing the guy. Or the overall fight where Superman recklessly laid waste to Metropolis without any regard for any innocent bystander.
But I don´t want to get into much more detail because that´s just too depressing since I learned that thanks to the crap fest that is going to be the next SUPERMAN VERSUS BATMAN movie we won´t see a SHAZAM movie. Because - at least according to DC - they are too similar. Need more proof DC has no idea what characters they got their hands on ?
YESTERDAY ALL MY TROUBLES SEEMED SO FAR AWAY
Back to the comics, like I said I´m reading much more of the older DC stuff now because I find that much more interesting. I´m still reading the SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY 4 and I find the stories just hilarious ( which I think I already mentioned in an earlier post ). And I have to say that even if some DC diehards may call this sacrilege I like the stories by Kurt Schaffenberger much better than the stories by Curt Swan because of the art. Nothing against Curt Swan - I just added the hardcover of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW ? to my DC library - but Kurt´s art can be downright cartoony in some cases. Which is fitting since he always had the wackier imaginary stories. Two Curts doing the art. Or rather one Curt and one Kurt. Sounds like a good german name too. Kurt Schaffenberger. Although it wouldn´t surprise me to find some german ancestors in the family tree of Kurt Schwan.
And speaking about germans, another of my DC " blast from the past " guilty pleasures on the reading pile ( I finally managed to get a reading pile ) is the second hardcover of LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT - JIM APARO where I read some of the stories but only in the german version.
So I´m really happy to have so many stories by my favorite Batman artist of all time in one book - even if big parts of the book are not of the high quality the first volume achieved. Printing wise, that is. You see, for some people Jim was at his best in the early part of his career but I liked him much more when he had already switched to a much less detailed style with slicker lines and a much more elegant flow - if you will call it that. So in this volume we have the change from his beginnings to starting to become " my Jim Aparo ". But for some reason big parts of the book have been reproduced really bad. Now I don´t know if it has something to do with the quality of the originals. Some of the stories in volume 2 have been included in the third volume of SHOWCASE PRESENTS - BRAVE AND THE BOLD BATMAN TEAM UPS and there was no problem.
In the spanish collection CLASSICOS DC - THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD ( about which I did a whole series of posts that I can hopefully continue very soon ) on the
other hand were so many misprinted pages that I just had to skip volume
two and three. So I don´t know if it´s a problem with the originals -
especially since those were in black and white and the new hardcover is
in color - or if the printer just didn´t give as much water on the
printing plates as he should have but I really can´t recommend the new hardcover
collection to anyone except really diehard Jim Aparo fans who don´t have
the stories or who already have them but want to have a nice hardcover
and don´t get bothered by printing errors that much.
It´s really a curse sometimes if you have worked in a print company. At first I thought the problem was just with my copy but when the copy amazon sent me to replace my old copy had all the same errors in exactly the same pages I knew that it had to be in the entire print run.
Anyway, if you are a really die hard Jim Aparo fan then you should get it since it has the usual cavalcade of guest stars from A like Aquaman, the Atom and Adam Strange to B like Black Canary to W like Wonder Woman. Everybody is in here, from more obscure characters like Richard Dragon Kung Fu Fighter, Sgt Rock or the Metal Men on to more arcane and creepy superheroes like the Creeper, Deadman, the Phantom Stranger, hobo Plastic Man or Metamorpho to fellow Justice Leaguers like the Flash, Superman, Supergirl, Hawkman, Green Arrow and Green Lantern.
Speaking of Green Lantern, that´s one of the NEW 52 titles that has finally left my reading list. So far the book was still not as f - ed up as many others because they practically left all of the continuity intact. But I think with the RISE OF THE THIRD ARMY Geoff Johns has finally lost me since it´s not only going to be less Dough Mahnke and more Billy Tan but also the constant one - up - manship with always getting more cosmic and more epic has reached my tolerance limit. Man, whatever happened to the guy who wrote such great stuff on Siniestro Corps War, JSA, Legion of Three Worlds or Superman - Brainiac ? I tell you, whenever I re - read the Thy Kingdom Come hardcovers ( and I have done that at least a dozen times so far ) there are pages where I have to fight the tears. They are so heart breaking. And what´s even more : one of my favorite issues has a guest artist and I don´t mind one bit. Because the issue is THAT good.
So GREEN LANTERN is definitely gone from my NEW 52 reading list for the forseeable future. Not from my reading pile since I just recently managed to acquire both SINIESTRO CORPS hardcovers at a bargain price.
My brother would say that I keep buying comics I already have ( longtime readers will recall that that was a hypothesis I formulated myself : there are some comics you keep on buying over and over again no matter in how many different forms you already have them and those are the GOOD ones - the ones against which you measure up all the others ) but I still had some of the tie - in issues missing as well as some GREEN LANTERN CORPS issues so here´s my chance to finally read the complete story in the right order. What I really like about SINIESTRO CORPS WAR was that every character was fleshed out really good and had his own little moment to shine. It had the big explosions but also the little, quieter moments and even some humor like Hal Jordan bribing Guy Gardner with his little black book that contains the private phone numbers from all the chicks Hal got lucky with - including the Maid of Macro Mammaries, Power Girl.
Man, I sometimes forget that Hal Jordan is one of the lucky few who
scored with Power Girl. God only knows how he managed to pull that off
but he seems to have that effect on women. I mean underage lantern
Arisia used her ring to get an adult body to have sex with Hal . Of
course this was retconned into the political correct version where
Arisia comes from a world where they age in something like dog years
making her much older than Hal. Thereby turning Hal from a stud into a gigolo.
In any case it´s once again time for me to wrap things up since it´s a quarter past four already and the way the internet´s working Today ( and when I say " working " I mean " not working at all " because every time I have to change something or add something at least five scripts are not responding and I have to wait at least a full minute before I can continue ) it will be five o´clock before I have managed to put all the bells and whistles on it. I would have preferred to write a more positive post for the first post in this new year but as things turn out nothing really changes this year around. I´m sorry there´s just a lot of DC bashing in this post ( if you can call it bashing when it´s actually just speaking the truth ) but maybe we can be a little bit more positive in my next post.
Now before I can put this post to sleep ( and then - hopefully - myself since I´m holding off on that for at least an hour ) there are two things I have to do. The first thing is kind of a request that was uttered in the comments of my last post. It took me a while to find a good picture of the Mistress of the Dark, Elvira herself but I hope this one by CallMePo is OK.
The final piece is the video at the end of the post and on this occasion I´m making an exception because normally I don´t post music videos.
And that´s not only due to the fact that most of them get either deleted by YouTube or GEMA blocks them in Germany. But every once in a blue moon I find something so incredible that I just have to post it. Now my attention was brought to this video by my brother - of all people - which may be one of the few positive influences he has had on this blog like EVER. The video I´m talking about is WILDFIRE by JENI and the reason why I´m posting it is really very selfish. Because I want her to get a gazillion million hits on YouTube. I want her to get so many followers that Facebook crashes and breaks the internet in half. This needs to get viral so you all have to spread the word until she gets a record deal because I need her CD in the store and her songs on my mp3 player. Well, the new one I have to buy because my old ones are finally busted beyond repair.
So here´s the video and I hope you like it and when you do send out the message. And I promise that in my next post I will be more positive - although I might mention why the presents I got this year sucked. Anyway, I hope your new year has a good start and enjoy the video.
I really hate it when I´m right, but as I said in my last post : here is my next post and lo and behold it´s Christmas already. So, in spite of being tired I´m again writing a post to bring the world some Christmas cheer.
And speaking about bringing people some Christmas cheer, the Big Christmas Contest I announced in my last post - where I gave away free comic books - is now finally over. Which is not a moment too soon.
EVERYBODY´S WAITING FOR THE MAN WITH THE BAG
I know that it´s more blessed to give than to receive but let me tell you, it´s a heck more work too. Now I´m not saying that it wasn´t a lot of fun to do the contest. All the participants were really good sports and understanding ( which is why I threw in a few unexpected extras in the end ) but I´m glad it´s finally over and I don´t have to do another one until the end of next year. If I decide to do one next year. I´m not sure if that would be as big as this one since a lot of comics from earlier years have piled up this time. In any case it would be much easier - or at least financially less taxing - if I could find a sponsor. And speaking about sponsors I want to give a big shout out to the guys and gals from ANDIS COMIC EXPRESS who managed to ship my last order to arrive at just the right time so that I could add a few extra books like the ( almost ) 100 page thick WORLD OF ARCHIE DIGEST which I didn´t want to include at first since the cover was damaged from rain. But seeing how high the demand was for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issues I decided to throw it in.
That´s another thing that really surprised me. The issues from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY were much more in demand than the comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG - past AND present. I guess that indicates that there are still a lot of german comic fans out there who can´t get their hands on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics as easy as myself. Which is something I will have to keep in mind for future contests. I will need more FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics and I will DEFINITELY need more AXE COP.
But as I said, that´s something to ponder for another year, right now I´m just glad it´s finally over. Initially I had planned to do a special letter to all the participants with a mindblowing drawing by liddle old moi where I would be very eloquent and generous and witty and whatnot. In the end I decided that as nice as that would be it would really just serve to inflate my ego and the people who had entered the contest would much more prefer to get their comics before Christmas instead. So I spent most of last Friday bagging comics, going through my stuff for old envelopes that I could use, getting all the packages ready and bringing them to the post office in town. I was even lucky enough to finish all that at the right time because they went out the same day. And thanks to the hard working people at the post office ( and I know what I´m talking about since I used to work there myself ) some of the packages arrived the very next day.
Up to this day I have heard from all people who entered the contest but one and all the comics arrived undamaged and everybody seems to be pleased with what they got. I almost got rid of all of them ( there were some comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG where I had multiple copies that weren´t as sought after as I thought ) and most people got all the comics they were interested in so all things considered I would label it a success.
So I want to say thanks to all the people who participated in the contest, I hope you do enjoy the comics and have a wonderful Christmas. And to all the people who didn´t participate or wanted to and haven´t gotten around to do it I have to say : Sorry, folks, it´s done. There are no comics left. Better luck next year - or whenever I decide to give away comics from my own collection for free. How do I know I´m NOT crazy, again ?
BUT THAT WAS LAST FRIDAY - WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT ?
You are of course absolutely right. And I really tried on various occasions to do a new post after my last one but there always was something else to do - like getting some last minute Christmas presents for instance.
Longtime readers of my blog ( all three of them ) might remember that I usually do most of my Christmas shopping at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse that takes place just before the holidays but this year there was none ( for those of you who have been wondering why there have been no posts about this years Stuttgarter Comicbörse ). Which is the reason why getting Christmas presents this year was much more difficult for me. For those who want to know what happened : this year the place where the Stuttgarter Comicbörse always takes place was renovated and apparently the people who usually organize the whole shinding were unable to find another venue for the comic fair - or they just didn´t care and didn´t want to go through all the trouble of filling out papers and work and stuff.
Be that as it may, deprived of my usual source of printed Christmas joy, I had to look for other ways to find some gifts. I had already ordered some from amazon like books or shirts, which put a big dent in my budget.
Because normally I just order comics or the occasional DVDs when amazon has one of their " 2 tv series for 20 € " sales. And in most cases you get your ordered items in one package and if it´s books only shipping´s free.
Well, the thing with the t - shirts was that I was looking for some very specific shirts and of course they were at three different shops. Which of course means that you have to pay for shipping three times, they arrive at three different dates and you don´t get a bill which you can pay when it´s convenient for you. Instead they draw the money from your account forehand so that´s the last time I ordered more than one t - shirt from amazon at the same time. Initially I wanted to buy five ( one more for myself and one as a present ) but getting three was expensive enough.
So since I couldn´t find what I wanted at amazon I did what I always do when I need some comics fast and have run out of options : I went to my regular comic shop in Esslingen. In my last post I mentioned that I don´t go there as often as I did in the past or as often as I liked. But whenever I really need some obscure comic, some back issue I erroneously sold or a hardcover that´s long out of print I can always rely on my trustee comic shop. I always say that if you can´t find it there it probably doesn´t exist. I remember how I bought the hardcover of the second volume of Kurt Busiek´s and George Perez´ AVENGERS ASSEMBLE run from a dealer at amazon for 10 or 15 bucks above cover price all pleased with myself to have found this out - of - print gem. Only to find it for the regular price at my regular comic shop two weeks later. In pristine condition to boot.
By the way : please do get the hardcovers from this run. I know that they are a bit more expensive than the trades but they´re worth every cent.
But back to my Christmas shopping. There weren´t many new comics in my subscription box because lately my pull list gets shorter and shorter.
What was even more alarming was that I didn´t find any books outside of my pull list that I could add to my pile of comics to buy. Which was a good thing this time because - as you may remember - I was mainly there to buy some comics for other people. Not myself. Nevertheless it wasn´t a good sign because in all my past visits I found at least a dozen comics to add to my buy pile. But this time there was really nothing from DC or Marvel that was anywhere near interesting. Even worse I was put off getting the issues of Joe Madureiras for SAVAGE WOLVERINE after seeing how the inker and colorist totally butchered his artwork. If you think the final product Marvel delivered when he was drawing his first ULTIMATE work was bad - that stuff was like a painting by Rembrandt compared to what they did to his new stuff. I was ready to take a chance on Joe Madureira´s art again after I saw some of his pencils online but they really flushed this one down the toilet. As they do with most books.
Anyway, you can get every book that´s out there at my regular comic shop - if you can find it. Now that they packed all the trades and hardcovers into boxes because they can´t fit it into the shelves otherwise it´s impossible to just browse for a trade. You have to know in advance what you want or you are going to spend a lot of time there. Not that I mind spending a lot of time at a comic shop. Are you kidding ? I live for that. Especially if it´s a comic shop as big as the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where you can get lost for days in the long corridors and passageways that are filled with huge stacks of comics. And this time I had to go down into the catacombs to look for some Avengers comics from issue 300 onwards.
It´s not the most fondly remembered period in Avengers history but after listening to the CGS spotlight episodes on the Avengers in the Chromium Age ( part 1 / part 2 ) ad nauseum I was craving to re - read some of the comics from that period I still had, especially the Gatherers storyline.
COME GATHER ROUND AVENGERS WHEREEVER YOU ROAM
Well, while I was re - reading the whole storyline ( or at least the parts I kept ) I noticed that there where some huge gaps between the issues. Thanks to the good folks at GRAND COMICS DATABASE I checked all the covers and Bob is my uncle if I didn´t have all those issues without any missing. Avengers was one of the books I had on my pull list and I bought all the issues when they came out. I know that some time back - which might be more than a decade ago now that I think about it - I sold some of them but for the life of me I couldn´t remember anything that had happened in those pages. Which should have been the first warning sign.
If you have read a series for a long time and you can´t remember what happened over a period of - roughly - 50 issues ? Not a good sign. You can bet repulsors against arrows that it wasn´t too memorable. But, always the optimist, I wanted to make sure if the period was as bad as people made it out to be. So I made a list of all the issues that might have been of interest and I checked all the issues out between issue 300 and 375, which is the finale of the Gatherers Saga. And while some of the issues I sold weren´t all that bad most of them were either not that important to keep in a collection or outright bad. Yes, I´m not ashamed to say I had totally forgotten how unoriginal, boring and awful some of the stuff was.
Add to that the constant change of artists, no clear direction of story,
a lot of forgettable and mediocre crossovers like ACTS OF VENGEANCE ( which really has been made into an omnibus by Marvel, talk about totally losing contact with your customer´s demands ), Rage doing a bad and at least ten years outdated impression of Mr T, Spider - Man hanging with the Avengers and then deciding that their adventures were too cosmic and high and mighty for him ( which didn´t really make any sense since he was in all the cosmic confrontations anyway like in the Avengers classic tussle with Thanos where Spidey released the spirit of Adam Warlock from his imprisonment thus basically defeating Thanos ), and of course the leather jackets and you are starting to get an idea why this period has such a bad rep among those of us who have lived the times.
Of course not all of it was bad and if you have listened to the Comic Geek Speak spotlight episodes you know where to look for the nuggets. For me one such big chunk of nugget is as soon as the Gatherer story begins because I´m a sucker for parallel universe stories ever since I read FLASH issue 123, Flash of two worlds ! by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. The story introduced the whole concept of parallel earths to the DC universe and to the comic book world. Everything that happened in the DC universe ever since ( and probably in every other comic company that took the idea of other worlds and ran with it ) has its roots in this one comics. So it´s no wonder it´s so often imitated and copied. Even tv shows like STAR TREK, HEROES, EUREKA, DOCTOR WHO and especially FRINGE owe a great deal to that first comic where two Flashes from different universes were depicted on the same cover for the first time.
I´M STUCK IN PARALLEL WORLDS IT´S SUPERNATURAL
Yes, I love parallel universe stories in any shape or form and the only way to top that is with a parallel universe story in which everybody dies !
Which basically was what the Gatherers was all about. One big " parallel universe in which everybody dies " story, in fact the mother of them all since all the parallel universes get blown up which is where the Gatherers are gathered from. How can you resist such a concept ? Especially when it has some extra stuff thrown into it that seems to come from the writers smoking a lot of illegal substances like the Gatherers using a braindead watcher as their GPS to help them pinpoint possible candidates. Once Steve Epting becomes the regular penciler the show is really up and running and the fecal matter really hits the mechanical environment cooling device, so to speak. There is just one little complaint I have.
Not enough parallel universes dying stuff in it. Okay, you might say how can you do more ? But the thing is that we really don´t see all that many parallel universes which in my opinion was a huge mistake. Don´t tell me how the particular universes of the various members of the Gatherers have died - show me. Don´t tell me what a psychopatic, raping son of a b - word their Vision is. Show me. And don´t tell me that it´s an alternate version of our Vision. Let me think that it´s our Vision and THEN - when I think he has gone off the deep end - make me realize it´s somebody else.
I think that would have really taken the whole story to another level. Anyway, there was some really crazy s - word going on in these days and there always were four or five things going on at once with all kinds of soap opera pining between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro.
Which for me is the part where Schadenfreude becomes a big part of my enjoyment of the issues. Someone once said " Leave it to the Germans to come up with a word for being delighted at other peoples misery. "
Now this has either to do with Schadenfreude being a big part of german society, or just the fact that the germans have a word for everything. The psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when you realize that your own weaknesses are caused
by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and circumstances. The germans have a word for that too, my friend. Weltschmerz. Much shorter, don´t you think ? The germans really have a word for everything. That thing you do with your teeth when you get home from work to read that hardcover that was laying on your comic pile for months only to stubb your toe when you are just about to read it because the hot babe next door was skipping rope topless and you walk backwards into a pie ? I bet the germans have a word for that too.
So why the Schadenfreude you might ask. Because I think Cristal only gets what she deserves since she was the one who broke up with Johnny Storm to be with Quicksilver. If you have read issues 131 and 132 of FANTASTIC FOUR you know that this is one of the worst break ups in comic history.
You know, that would be a great idea for a future Valentine´s Day post : Top Ten worst comic book break ups. Back to my Schadenfreude that the marriage between Cristal and Quicksilver was a real trainwreck during every moment of it, Johnny Storm is the most sympathetic character in this. He really shows grace under fire when he wishes Cristal all the best.
Not that he takes it very good when he finds out she cheated on him.
Which is understandable when you put yourself in his place. At that time Johnny and Cristal were separated because Cristal had to stay at the hidden city since they weren´t immune to the bacteria outside of it.
Every time he wants to get Reed to find the city there´s a crisis which is naturally much more important and when he finally finds the hidden city and flies there to live together with Cristal he finds out she has ditched him for the least likeable Avenger. And then her bogus explanation " Oh, he was injured and while I was nursing him back to help we just fell in love. It was an accident. I just wanted to help him recuperate, I swear. "
SHE ACTS JUST LIKE A NURSE WITH THE OTHER GUY
Okay, am I the only one who missed the part that Cristal has some secret healing powers that nobody knew about ? Don´t they have special healers for that in the fabled city of Attilan ? Where did she get the idea she would be better qualified than any of the guys with special powers ? WTF ? I mean, come on, Cristal. Why WERE you there in the first place ?
Okay, to make it short before I totally go on an off topic rant about this ( although it´s already much too late for that ) : Cristal and Johnny were lovers, oh lordy, how they could love, swore to be true to each other, just as true as the stars above. He was her man, but she done him wrong.
Which brings us back to the Gatherers and the Avengers. And the fact that in the whole love triangle ( which is much more a square than a triangle now that I think about it ) between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro those last two I mentioned get no sympathy from me.
Now there are still a few things left for me to say about the whole Gatherers period, but I´m afraid I have to leave all that - as well as the rest of my recounting of my visit to the comic shop - for my next post.
Leave it to me to start with the Christmas spirit, continue this with one of the worst periods of Avengers history ( although what followed was even worse, but, hey, even this was put into the big THE CROSSING omnibus so Marvel really is getting desperate ) and end up with the worst break up in comics history ever. Only on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN.
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas even if it didn´t snow here in Germany. Nevertheless, we still have pretend snow like in this festive picture of british Big Brother participant Sophie ( I´m always ) Reade that I´m posting in answer to a special readers request. Now if that doesn´t help to cheer up your yule log I really don´t know. Boooing !
Apropos Boing ! , a girl that made a huge BOOOOING ! in the pants of all male movie goers from the 80s is cult movie sexbomb extreordinaire Joyce Hyser who celebrated her 56th anniversary just four days ago and to whom I wanted to give a belated shoutout. And before you ask : you don´t know Joyce Hyser, you don´t remember the movie JUST ONE OF THE GUYS for which she is best known but I bet you remember this scene where
she shows her incredibly big ..... talents. That´s Christmas Spirit !
Back in the 80s your best bet to see some naked breasts were screwball comedies because you knew even if the script was totally worthless and the actors without any kind of talent you were going to get boobage. Joyce Hyser may not be famous and may not have played in the best movies but every prebubescent boy growing up in the 80s saw this movie.
So the thanks of an entire generation of hormone driven boys is yours for logic winning over superstition. Or naked breasts winning
over whatever.
Now before I can finally put the bow on this one there is still the matter of the video at the end of the post. In my last post I included the first part of the three hour long PBS special about superheroes. Sadly the second part has been deleted from YouTube so I hope you watched it already.
I already mentioned their ten part documentary series about American Cinema so I won´t post that and I´ll safe the video about the columbian comic for another post when it´s more appropriate. Now for something a bit more related with Christmas I thought about posting IT´S A WONDERFUL LIFE, one of the indispensable Christmas movies which I haven´t seen so far in my tv guide. But instead I´m posting one of my favorite Christmas movies : ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS with the great, late Jim Varney playing the part of Ernest P Worrell, the role of his life.
Wait, there´s more. Because I have already overhauled this post a few times I want to add more videos. The first one is the Bob Hope Christmas Special from 1967 and the two reasons why I am posting it are that I´m a big fan of Bob Hope and sexbomb Raquel Welch who appears on the show.
Another video I wanted to add is the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL which most people have heard about but only a select few have seen. I didn´t think I would find this since George Lucas has tried everything to erase it from existence but the embedding is disabled so you must watch it here .
Christmas and the Peanuts go together like peanut butter and jelly ever since the first Christmas Special that set the standard for all Christmas Specials to come. I couldn´t find the original one nor Charlie Brown´s Christmas Tales but here´s It´s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown.
I always try to include the more eclectic stuff that you don´t find on other blogs so here is the Christmas episode of CASPER, the friendly ghost.
Now the last one belongs more into the " I can´t believe they did that ! " category but there really is a He - Man & She - Ra Christmas Special.
It´s been a long time since my last post, in fact so long that Christmas is right around the corner. So, since I can´t put it off any longer it´s time to announce The Big 2013 Christmas Contest of Tales From The Kryptonian.
And when I say " contest " I mean just a convenient excuse for me to give away free comics. Yes, I must be crazy to do so but, hey, it is Christmas ( and when I say " it is Christmas " I mean " I´m so busy with stuff right now that when next I have the time to do the next post or check my e - mail it WILL be Christmas " ) and how do I know I´m not crazy ?
So right now you are probably thinking about all those fantastic comics and trades and hardcovers I´m handing out, which will be gazillions and the newest stuff and just beyond cool. But you can hold it right there buster. As longtime readers of this blog know, all the comics and trades and hardcovers I review on this very blog ( although there haven´t been that many reviews lately ) I have to buy from my own pockets. Except the comics I get sent by the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS ( and when I say " the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS " I mean " One man band Terry Hooper " who, in his infinite kindness, not only sends me these comics for free - and which I don´t review as often as I should - but also never tires of plugging this blog ) I don´t get any comp copies so there will be none among the comics I´m giving away.
When I said that I will give away free comics that´s exactly what I will do. Meaning that instead of hoarding all the free comics I get from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG and the likes, I´m giving away all those comics I don´t want to keep. I always saw those events as chances to check out series I don´t know or to remind myself of the great comic series we often tend to forget with all the super hero drama and reboots and relaunches and new 52s. So unlike other comic readers - especially in Germany - I don´t have to get ALL the comics of GRATIS COMIC TAG or FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, just the ones I find interesting.
Not that there´s anything wrong with those guys who want to have them all. Hey, any comic reader who doesn´t understand the primal collecting instinct should give away his comic club membership card right away.
Because collecting comics is what we all do, right ? It´s just the kind of comics that we collect where we differ. But back to the free comics : every year I intend to do a post ( and when I say " a post " I really mean " a series of posts " because I can never fit it into a single post ) about all the free comics I DO get and more often than not it doesn´t work out. Now, unlike some of the other comics I review, the comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG have kind of an expiration date since you probably don´t want to read about last year´s free comics.
So once the year is over that ship has sailed the port so I don´t have to keep them any longer in the hopes that I will review them later. Even if I did, nobody would want to read it anyway. This year I have been lucky enough to get almost every comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG I wanted to check out and since I have already chosen the ones I´m going to keep, I will give the rest away. Now you are probably asking yourself where I get my free comics that I can pick and choose and even afford to give some away. Well, for GRATIS COMIC TAG I have my regular comicshop, the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where they always have all the issues and they are always kind enough to reserve the ones I want. I also got a lot of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics from them the first time I participated ( the final post of that years series on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY is still the most popular post of this blog ) but the second time was when they moved the entire shop and some of the issues I wanted got lost and it took a few months until I had a handful.
So I´m not doing the whole list thing since I don´t go there as often as I used to which might have something to do with the quality of current comics ( and when I say " the quality of current comics " I really mean " all that crap that the big two are publishing " with all the constant Marvel NOW restarting and renumbering and the whole NEW 52 s - word that for the most part is so horrible I won´t even go into detail how bad it is ).
My, how the times have changed. Just the other day I was reminiscing how I used to take weekly trips to my comic shop ( the one where I used to buy my comics before the German Customs Authority drove it out of business ) to get all the new comics. It was the highlight of my week after a lot of work and sometimes I would even make another trek during the week. Now I´m down to one trip every two or three months because my pull list is getting shorter each month. But back to them free comics.
There are a lot of comics that I read that are not on my pull list - for various reasons - and for all those plus the comics my comicshop misses I go to an online comicshop ( ANDIS COMICEXPRESS ) where you get one free comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY or GRATIS COMIC TAG for every 10 EUROS of your comic order. Now I don´t order crazy amounts of comics there so I get dozens of copies of free comics. But I order there anyway and if I get two or three free comics with each shipment that makes a nice bundle of them. Mind you, for years I did order my comics there without knowing that you can get free comics without doing anything special. It´s not like I have to pay extra to get those comics so I don´t have any problem with giving them away once I´m done with them.
Which means that I read all the comics and - except a few exceptions where I ordered two copies - they are not in mint condition anymore.
It´s not like I used them to build a dam or kill a wild beast either it´s just that some of them might not be in the best condition and I´m only mentioning it because I know that some people are peculiar that way.
Okay, you´re probably already bored by all my ramblings and your next question would be what you must do to enter this Big Christmas Contest .
The answer is : nothing. Or not much.This is the third time I´m doing this contest and the first time I gave my readers a small assignment which didn´t go over to well. So the second time there were no strings attached, readers just had to sent an e - mail or contact me on the forums where I´m going to post similar announcements. Now my brother thinks I should give my readers herculean tasks that they must perform in order to qualify for this contest. And it should be really hard too and if it doesn´t help the entire comic industry or at least helps promote this blog I shouldn´t do it. Which - at least in my opinion - goes against the very idea of giving away free comics without any ulterior motive. Because it´s Christmas, remember ? Or at least it will be when I do my next post.
So you don´t have to do more than write me an e - mail to the address you can find by clicking the " about me " link. Or, if you are one of my german readers you can contact me via the forums. And if you can´t figure out how to do that just use the comments section but don´t put any links in your answer because the it will be flagged as spam automatically. Of course you may not want to put your address in a section that everyone can read so you might not want to use it.
Forget I said that. Bad idea. Don´t use the comments section. Not good.
So, without any further ado because I want to finish this post which is longer than expected as it is ( since blogger is on the fritz again and doesn´t show the pictures right so I probably have to correct this later as restarting without add - ons and clearing the cache history didn´t help ) here is the list of the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics of 2013 :
VALIANT HARBINGER WARS, VALIANT MASTERS, THE STRANGERS from Oni Press, MOLLY DANGER / PRINCELESS from Action Lab Entertainment, KELLERMAN / L´AMOUR from Villard Books, FUBAR from Alterna Comics, INFINITY, STAR WARS / CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT / AVATAR from Dark Horse, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL, RAMAYAN RELOADED from Liquid Comics, MARBLE SEASON from Drawn & Quarterly, GRIMM from Dynamite, WORLDS OF ASPEN and ENDANGERED WEAPON B from Markosia.
Now because I didn´t get around to do this contest last year all the comics from that are still in the pot but not in separate sections for each year, especially since there are a few where I don´t know from when they are. So even more FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics : VALIANT 2012, TOP SHELF KIDS CLUB 2012, HALLOWEEN COMICFEST 2012 BATMAN ADVENTURES / SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU FLIP BOOK, PEANUTS / ADVENTURE TIME WITH FINN AND JAKE FLIP BOOK, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL / SPONGEBOB COMICS FREESTYLE FUNNIES FLIP BOOK; MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, WORLDS OF ASPEN 2011, THE DARKNESS : CONFESSION, FRACTURED FABLES, WELCOME TO RADICAL UNIVERSE, GREEN LANTERN ORIGIN / FLASHPOINT SPECIAL EDITION and CYBER FORCE 5.
There are also Halloween mini comics I´m giving away, but keep in mind that as mini comics they are smaller than the other comics : AXE COP, HOT STUFF THE LITTLE DEVIL, BONE and TOYS IN THE BASEMENT.
And for my german readers - which are the ones who will most likely benefit from this contest since it´s cheaper for me to send these comics to people here - here are the comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2013 :
BEFORE WATCHMEN : ROHRSCHACH, BENNI BÄRENSTARK - BENNI MACHT DAS RENNEN, SUSKE UND WISKE, MONSTER ALLERGY, KOMA, DOPPELTES GLÜCK MIT DEM ROTEN AFFEN und WELTEN DES SCHRECKENS. The issues from 2012 are EWIGER HIMMEL, PIRATENGOLD, DON QUIJOTE, COSA NOSTRA, ZOMBIES, THORGAL, BONGO COMICS FÜR UMME, SWEET TOOTH, DONALD DUCK, DER VAMPIR VON BENARES, COMIC GIRLS, FRÄULEIN RÜHR MICH NICHT AN, DIE PAUKER / DIE ZAUBERSCHULE FLIP BOOK, DIE WELT DER SCHLÜMPFE, DIE KATZE DES RABBINERS, ZUCKERFISCH and HORRORSCHOKER. From 2011 BLACKTOWN, ICOM and CANARDO, and from 2010 HORST, COURTNEY CRUMRIN, CUBITUS, AMELIA IST DIE GRÖSSTE, DONJON and ZWERCHFELL A - GOGO. Quite the list.
So that´s it for the Christmas Contest and I hope you find something you were looking for. I will be doing reader´s requests which means that I will do another order before the end of the year and I will go to my comic shop where I might be able to find a copy of a book that´s not on the list.
The last time I did the contest the deadline was around Christmas but since I only managed to announce it shortly before this year there will be no deadline for now. I will start sending the comics out as soon as I have some participants and we´ll see how far we come with the comics I got. You can ask for as many comics as you like and if nobody else is interested in the comics you want you´re home free but keep in mind that other people might want some comics too so don´t be too greedy. Yes, I want to get rid of them all eventually but we can all share now, can´t we ?
BEFORE THE YEAR ENDS AND CLOSING TIME
I haven´t been as active as I wanted to be this year due to some things that interfered as always. I´m not sure how many - if indeed any at all - posts I can manage before the year is over but in any case I wanted to enter this picture for EL BLOG DE JOTACE´s annual BIG CULO DAY ( which is a wonderful tradition ). As usual I have no idea who the woman with the spectacular backside is but we need more booty on comicblogs.
One thing I managed to finish are the episodes of DOCTOR WHO I was missing. There was one serial THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMAN that was too big because it was 4 episodes in one but I managed to solve that problem.
Right now I´m in the middle of the Tom Baker episodes and when I´m finished with all the classic episodes I´m going to backtrack to the William Hartnell and Patrick Throughton episodes I haven´t seen yet. I wanted to watch the colour episodes because I was a bit tired of black and white and I didn´t want to wait until I had all the serials where so many episodes were either reconstructed or animated. So I started with the first Jon Pertwee serial SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE and am binge watching forward until I run out of colour episodes. And DOCTOR WHO specials.
As for the 50th anniversary special THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR I didn´t like it on my first watching which - as I found out later - does have something to do with the german dubbing because the guy who speaks the Doctor ( or the Doctors as in plural ) is really bad. It was much better on the second viewing in the original language and hearing Matt Smith, David Tennant and especially John Hurt in their original voices adds SO MUCH to it it´s not even funny anymore. So if you ask me I loved it and I will probably watch it again before the year is over. Because the one brother who is also a DOCTOR WHO fan hasn´t seen it yet ( he bailed on the DOCTOR WHO marathon FOX was showing before the anniversary episode so he´s also missing the last two episodes of the season ) but even when I can´t persuade him I´ll probably still watch it - alone if I must.
Today´s video at the end of the post is not related to Doctor Who or free comics. Instead it´s a documentary about superheroes from PBS.
It´s the first part of a 3 hour special on PBS about superheroes. I don´t know if there is anything that wasn´t covered in previous documantaries but the fact alone that a tv station is willing to do a 3 hour event about superheroes - hosted by Sabretooth Liev Schreiber - does my heart good. It´s a really entertaining and informative documentary and you also can find part 2 : GREAT POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY and part 3 : A HERO CAN BE ANYONE on YouTube. Right now I´m watching AMERICAN CINEMA, a 10 part series about - you guessed it - the american movie industry which is also terrific and which can also be found on YouTube.
So here is the first part : Truth, Justice and the American Way. Enjoy !
