Marvel Visionaries - Chris Claremont part 1

In my last post about the Marvel Visionaries hardcovers I wrote that it took me five hours to get all the necessary pictures for the post. Well, that was super fast compared to this post because it took me ten days.

That doesn´t mean that I was working non - stop on preparing the stuff for the post the last ten days. There are many other things I did as well.

Like working on my JLA casting posts which I do inbetween normal posts. I usually work on them late at night when I can´t sleep because of the heat and in those cases I really put a lot of sweat into them because I do nothing but. It´s really insane how hot it gets. It used to be that the heat didn´t bother me as much since I always said the hotter the better. But I don´t know what it is now, if it´s the age finally catching up to me or if it´s my health faltering these last months but on some days I don´t get anything done. I can´t sleep all night long, during the day I´m trying to get some sleep but sometimes the neighbours are very loud doing some construction or what not and I can´t catch a wink. Every other day I have physio and on the days I don´t I´m too wiped out to do much of anything.

And so on some days the computer stays off and on some days I just don´t have the brain capacity to work on a real post so I fidget with my JLA posts. Which means I write some stuff, read it a few days later, erase it again because it was not safe for work, add a few pictures, add some more stuff, put up the videos that go into the post, write the text for the videos, now the post is much too long so it has to be split up, then I have to split up the videos, add some new ones, rearrange a post because it was all asian girls, put up header pictures for all posts, look for some comic relevant things I can add, write the intro and repeat it all again.

So I´m not working on one post, I´m kind of working on all of them at the same time which means I can pick the one I´m in the mood for. Maybe one day I want to work on the Janet Jackson post or the post with Akira Lane, the next time I just want to work on the videos while the next time I try to finish the posts where the main text pieces are already done and I only have to go over the video section and the comic book related intro.

There are also days when I am looking for material for my next post and with this post it was because I wanted to do it right. When I write a post the normal procedure is that I look what kind of pictures I already have on the laptop, then I do a quick search for reference on the internet or look for more pictures as the need arises. But I quickly realized that this time that was not going to do it because if I had started looking for stuff while writing the post it would have taken me those ten days to finish the post.

Because there were just a few pictures I had before and when you really want to pimp this book ( which I´m mostly doing for my german readers since you can still get it at amazon.de for 16 EUROS ) you have to show some of the amazing art of the high caliber artists Chris Claremont has worked with during his career like the incredible Barry Windsor Smith. 

Or the often underrated Alan Davis. I can´t for the life of me understand why he is not a superstar artist or why EXCALIBUR was so neglected by fans. Maybe it really was ahead of its time with it´s combination of funny yet serious mutant mayhem and character driven epic adventure stories.

Or how about Bill Sienkiewicz on NEW MUTANTS ? I have to admit I wasn´t his biggest fan when he started out because I thought he was just lazy scribbling all over the place and when I started reading NEW MUTANTS they had already gone to various fill in artists followed by Butch Guice who at that time still went by Jackson Guice. But come on, you have to show a little something something of his artistic genius in a book review, right ?

So I waited with this post until I felt I have enough material together to do it properly and any extra stuff I need I´ll just have to do it on the fly.

Like I said in my last post about the Marvel Visionaries hardcover books these posts are not me trying to pimp Marvel or Disney. The way they are going about right now you can´t even recognize the characters anymore. I´m writing the posts because I think that these books have an excellent comic value for money ratio and if Disney would be doing them right now they would probably go for much more than thirty bucks. And at sixteen bucks that´s an even sweeter deal. Also like I mentioned in the other post most of the guys who jump the comic bandwagon just to be cool may know who Stan Lee is and maybe Jack Kirby but have no idea who Chris Claremont is. But you can be sure that once they find out these books are going to demand the same astronomic prices the omnibus hardcovers are going for right now. So you better buy them while you can afford them.

Like with the MARVEL VISIONARIES - JOHN ROMITA JR book these are all reprints and I have read most of the stories in some form or another but there are also a few I haven´t read before. If you are only interested in the Disney NOW universe this is probably not the right book for you. It also is not very suited to give you a lot of background information since it contains stories from many series divided by decades in some cases. But if you want a nice collection of some of Chris Claremont´s best and best known stories for your bookshelf to take out now and then it delivers.

In the last Marvel Visionaries post I went back and forth with the stories but here I´ll do them in the order they are printed in the book because that shows you not only an evolution in Chris Claremont as a writer but also the evolution in the x - universe which is a big part of this. As I have no insider at Marvel I don´t know for sure why these stories were picked but that hasn´t stopped me from speculating before. It´s really hard to know but on the other side it doesn´t really matter because are there really any bad Chris Claremont stories from this period ? What I do know is that a lot of the stories are standalone issues or at least issues that can be read without knowing other stories, there are a lot of fan favorite stories in here and stories that are not reprinted anywhere else. And there are no stories that will pop up in any other Marvel Visionary books.

The first story is DAREDEVIL 102 and as far as I can tell it was included because it was Chris Claremont´s first issue writing for Marvel Comics.

It´s the next issue when things get interesting, MARVEL FANFARE 11, where the combo of Chris Claremont and John Byrne first teamed up. 

Which is one of the reasons why this book might get up in price : it´s got Star Lord in it and ever since the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXIES movie everything with the Guardians or Star Lord in it sells like hot cupcakes.

And this story not only has the original Star Lord in the cool costume - not the Grifter rip off with the facemask he wore in the movie - but it also is his origin story. I read this first in the german edition of Ehapa´s DIE GROSSEN PHANTASTIC COMICS but I could swear the comic was in color.

I have no idea why they chose to print the black and white version - if they wanted to stick to the original or they didn´t have the color version and this is the one comic missing in Ralp Macchio´s Marvel collection - but it is kind of a violent break in the book since the rest is in color.

The next issue is IRON FIST 14 where the creative team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne went next to work their combined magic.

If you can trust the internet gossip - and we all know how accurate that is - there´s an Iron Fist series in the works which together with the Netflix Daredevil series and the Luke Cage series will culminate in an Heroes for Hire series which is another reason why this book might rise in value.

As for the story itself, no disrespecting Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and David Aja but Chris Claremont´s and John Byrne´s IRON FIST series is a thing of beauty. Chris really grabs you with that second person narrative and nobody draws kung fu fighting like John. If you want to do yourself a favor you got to get the ESSENTIAL or MARVEL MASTERWORKS of this.

IRON FIST 14 is one of the most reprinted comics - it even had a Marvel Milestone edition - because it´s the first appearance of Sabretooth. Who was created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. In the story Daniel Rand ( who is not a teenager like in the terrible ULTIMATE SPIDER - MAN cartoon which just shamelessly tries to pander to the non comic reading masses ) and Coleen Wing are on the run, get caught in a blizzard and a snowblind Iron Fist has to go up against Sabretooth which means he can´t use his Iron First power. Which is basically what the readers were waiting for in each issue. You knew that it was just a matter of time before Daniel opened a can of whup ass on his opponents by summoning his chi — the essence of his spirit and strength, channeling its raw power down into his arm, into his hand until that hand becomes LIKE UNTO A THING OF IRON.

Which brings us to UNCANNY X - MEN issue 137, the death of Jean Grey. Can you make a book about Chris Claremont and NOT include this ? His run on the book with John Byrne is still the gold standard, the best stories are The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past and the best issue from that is the death of Jean Grey issue. Even the covers are so iconic that both will be featured in upcoming DEJA VUE posts. Now they could have chosen to reprint the original version from PHOENIX - THE UNTOLD STORY ( if you don´t know what this is I covered it in this post ) but I guess they wanted to stay with the version everybody knows and loves.

I don´t want to comment too much on the issue because I still hope I can do a DEATH IN COMICS : THE DEATH OF JEAN GREY post on of these days but this one has it all. You have the band coming together one more time in a battle against the Legion of Super - Heroes ( which the Shi´Ar´s Imperial Guard basically is ) for the life of one of their beloved members.

The epic battle takes place in the blue area of the moon which leads to Wolverine paying a visit to the Watcher´s crib, you have fastball specials on the moon and Jean Grey making the ultimate sacrifice in the end. It still holds up - even after Jean Grey´s death had been retconned by John Byrne - and there´s a reason why it´s THE classic Uncanny X - Men story. 

Let´s continue. With our next issue in the book we leave the confines of the x - men universe, or better said we go to the point where it connects with the Avengers universe in the famous AVENGERS ANNUAL number 10.

Why is it famous ? For three things. First up it´s the debut of Rogue who went on to become on of the most popular X - Men members. So this also raises the value of this collection for geek speculators. Originally she was slated to debut in MS MARVEL 25 but the series was cancelled so she first appeared in AVENGERS ANNUAL 10. That´s just one of the things I can´t understand. MS MARVEL 24 was finished and MS MARVEL 25 was half done but they decided to cancel it with issue 23. It´s the same crap as with Jack Kirby´s KAMANDI series that was cancelled although there was one more finished issue to be published. Anyway, in 1992 Marvel DID publish the final issues of MS MARVEL in MARVEL SUPER HEROES 10 and 11 and you can check out some of the pages in SCANS DAILY post on the history of Mystique´s and Ms Marvel which fills you in on the events leading up to Rogue absorbing Carol Danvers powers, personality and memories and leaving her basically a braindead vegetable. Which is reason number 2.

AVENGERS ANNUAL 10 is where this pivotal moment happens - not only in Rogue´s life but also in the life of Carol Danvers - that leads to everything that followed like her gaining new super powers and adopting the persona of Binary. As well as hanging with the X - Men for a while before becoming a members of the Starjammers and her long journey to becoming human again and finally returning to the Avengers active roster under the name of Warbird during the AVENGERS series by Kurt Busiek and George Perez.

Kurt Busiek picked up on the clusterf AVENGERS 200 in LIVE KREE OR DIE ! and later on she met another version of Marcus in THE KANG DYNASTY. 

Can you also hear the comic geek chique cash register go KA - CHINK ?

Last but not least AVENGERS ANNUAL 10 is Chris Claremont Sticking Up for Ms. Marvel as the guys from CBR put it so eloquently in their Meta Messages post that also goes over the events of AVENGERS 200 where Ms. Marvel gave birth to the guy who had impregnated her - time travel can be tricky - and the Avengers´ reaction to this was to sent her off with him to another dimension basically to be raped without much consideration.

If this infamous story is new to you ( right now the comic bandwagon hopping hipsters are probably having an orgasm ) check out the link above and you can read the final pages of AVENGERS ANNUAL 10 - which has absolutely gorgeous artwork by Michael Golden - on SCANS DAILY .

And with this I´m ending this post since it would get too long otherwise. Next up is another JLA casting post that oddly enough touches on Frank Miller´s SIN CITY and afterwards we will return to MARVEL VISIONARIES - CHRIS CLAREMONT where we may talk about Frank Miller on the first Wolverine series but definitely about Bill Sienkiewicz on NEW MUTANTS, Barry Windsor Smith on UNCANNY X - MEN and Alan Davis on EXCALIBUR.

Before wrapping up I have to mention two posts, CBR´s Top Five Most Heroic X - Men Deaths which includes the death of Jean Grey and MARVEL COMICS OF THE 80s post on John Byrne´s AVENGERS WEST COAST .

I´m starting Today´s video section with two videos that I should have posted in my DAYS OF FUTURE PAST post but didn´t want to insert after the fact, the first one explains everything you need to know about it.



The second one goes over the two issues that make up the story.



Our next one is an interview with the master himself from THE DRAWN WORD TV where he talks about - among other stuff - writing the X - MEN.



I had to compromise with Today´s cartoon video as it seems that you either have a video with no huge border around OR good quality on YouTube. But you can´t have both. So I opted for better quality and hope you don´t mind the giant border on part one of THE PHOENIX SAGA.



Last but not least here is the trailer for the newest Bond movie which I lifted off Terry Hopper´s COMICBITS ONLINE blog. I made the mistake of watching it and was so psyched I had to re watch SKYFALL. Be warned !



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My JLA movie cast goes native ( american )

It´s time again to gird your loins and prepare the kleenex as another part from my casting for the Justice League of America movie is finished.

This has really turned into a longer series as I thought but the JLA IS one of my favorite subjects and this way I get to wax philosophic about that and post lots of pictures of hot women at the same time. Maybe now you see why I thought so long about IF I should post this on my comic blog.

Today we visit - or revisit as I already wrote about it in a few posts - one my favorite periods on the book : the run by Joe Kelly and Dough Mahnke which never really has caught on with the broad Justice League fanbase. Which is something I never understood because I really liked those issues.

I mean some people say that the best run on Justice League is the one by Grant Morrison, others swear it´s the Post Crisis relaunch by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire and there is a lot of truth to that.

Some like the Justice League with Ed Benes ( I´m not citing a specific writer because there were several of them ), heck I have even heard arguments for the runs of James Robinson and Mark Waid - short as they were - but it seems there is not much love for Joe Kelly´s tenure on JLA.

Maybe I´m biased in this regard but - as I already wrote in my BEST LEAGUE EVER posts - 2 of my alltime favorite Justice League stories, as well as one of my favorite Justice League maxiseries are from that run.

And I was already out the door at that time. Grant Morrison had ended his run with WORLD WAR III, Mark Waid had also left the book and I had just waited until the last story arc Brian Hitch had started penciling wrapped up to jump ship. His issues were so late. I mean this was as good as it was going to get since really I liked Doug Mahnke and was a big fan of his art on MAJOR BUMMER but how good could this Joe Kelly guy really be ?

So I kicked JLA from my pull list and the first issues of the creative team didn´t generate much of a buzz. But that all changed with the next arc THE OBSIDIAN AGE. I have gone back and re - read my old BEST LEAGUE EVER posts because I thought about pimping them but I decided against it. So I will probably write more about this at length - as well as other significant periods in the team´s history - down the line. Anyway, during OUR WORLDS AT WAR Aquaman and the city of Atlantis had disappeared and AGE OF OBSIDIAN revealed that they had landed more than 3,000 years in the past. During the story the Justice League confronted another team of superheroes of that period ( Raven Manitou was a member of that team ), were killed by them and came back to continue the fight, another Justice League team was introduced in the present day and the story was so big it had to be put into two trade paperbacks. Not bad, eh ?  

But they were only getting started because after the much shorter RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and THE WHITE RAGE came another blockbuster, TRIAL BY FIRE which was basically the Martian Manhunter against everybody.

You might say that´s not much of a story since J´onn J´onzz´ weakness is fire and that is easy to exploit but what if he was not vulnerable to fire anymore ? A lot of people don´t realize this but the Martian Manhunter is one of the most powerful members of the Justice League. Just think : he has all of Superman´s powers PLUS telepathy PLUS shapeshifting PLUS the ability to become transparent and walk through walls. He´s unstoppable.

But to really do this justice it deserves a post of it´s own so let us dive right into my next candidate for the Justice League of America movie :

Rachel McLish as Dawn ( later Manitou Dawn )

I´m not sure why I included her in my list since I´m not a fan of forced racial diversity. It´s not like she spent that much time with the JLA or I have that many candidates who can play a native american woman.

So I went with somebody who had already played the part in RAVENHAWK.



Rachel Mc Lish was one of the main fitness models who did swimsuits and lingerie photos when I was in school so I wanted to include her in the list.

She had a few minor movie roles like in ACES : IRON EAGLE III due to her impressive physique but I don´t think Hollywood was really ready for that kind of movies with - physically - strong females. They didn´t know what to do with her so she never achieved her full potential as an action star.



Since Rachel McLish had been such a prolific fitness model with so many photoshoots under her belt you´d think it would be easier to find some quality pictures on the net but it seems Mr. Weider´s prudeness has its effects even on the internet and it was extremely difficult to find these.

Dawn is the wife of Raven Manitou, one of the coolest League additions from the AGE OF OBSIDIAN, based on SUPER FRIENDS´s Apache Chief.

Raven married Dawn after she was raped by one of her tribe's elders after which she was called the " kicking goat " and declared unclean. Talk about having double standards : this elder violates her and she gets the rap.

In any case, Dawn journeyed with her husband to the 20th century but when her husband started to neglect her Green Arrow, the old horndog, was there to console her. After Raven Manitou sacrified his life to save Green Arrow Dawn inherited his magic powers and became Dawn Manitou.

Coming back to Rachel McLish I think the first Ms Olympia would be perfect as the native american from Joe Kelly´s much underrated JLA run.

And here´s where I end this post because as I have already said, this deserves a way longer separate post. For now I´m wrapping this up and we will talk more about my casting for the JLA movie in the next part.

If I had done this casting call ten years earlier german movie starlet Sibylle Rauch sure would have been a shoo in for the role of Power Girl.

Sibylle played in a lot of the erotic movies that swept Germany in the 80s but her most famous roles were in the israeli series of erotic comedies EIS AM STIEL ( Lemon Popsicle in english ) that were among the most watched movies in Germany at that time. The movies follow a trio of friends on a quest to loose their virginity and as usual hijinks ensue.

Sibylle used that popularity to further her film career and start as a singer ( this was the time when women with big breasts like Sabrina Salerno, Danuta or Samantha Fox became big stars thanks to the predominance of music videos ). She later became a porn actress with one of the biggest german porn companies and her movie BORN TO LOVE even guest starred british porn superstar Sarah Louise Young. But Sibylle topped the success of this with SISTERS IN LOVE where her sister Sylvie Rauch appeared.

Sybille also was the publisher - as well as the face - of the german edition of HUSTLER from 1992 till 1995. She did a lot of cocaine and I thought she had died in 1997 but apparently she survived her suicide attempt. 



Another sex icon from my misspent youth is Ingrid Steeger who also played in a lot of erotic comedies of the 80s although she became best known for staring on the german variety / cabaret cult show KLIMBIM.

I remember the show was must see tv ( not only because Ingrid wore really skimpy outfits and sometimes even went topless ) and it´s really indicative of the kind of tv program we have Today that a show from the 80s has more political commentary and social critique than most german tv productions from Today. You can find some episodes on YouTube but since it´s been over 30 years since I watched them I have no idea which ones are the best. In any case here´s a short clip with Ingrid Steeger.



Ingrid was never quite happy with her image as a sexbomb / jokester girl but I have to say that being sexy AND funny is no small feat to pull off if you consider how many of Todays young actresses try at this and fail.

Anyway, Ingrid most stuck to what she did best and she did not only bring a godgiven natural sensuality but also a kind of naiivitee to her roles.

One of her most famous series was ZWEI HIMMLISCHE TÖCHTER ( Two Heavenly Daughters ) with co star Iris Berben who played the straight girl to Ingrid´s crazy girl. If you don´t know Iris Berben, she is one of those actresses who don´t seem to age as she looked like 20 when she was already 50. Anyway, it´s a funny series that has some famous german actors on it like Dieter Hildebrandt and if you watch it Today it´s hard to understand why it was only on tv after midnight. So I wanted to post the episode EINE PRINZESSIN NACH HOFTENSTEIN where Ingrid plays two roles and Dunja Rajter appears in a black dress with an awesome cleavage.

But - as seems to be the case with almost any video I want to post from YouTube - it has been blocked. Maybe that´s for the best since there may be some topless scenes with Ingrid in it which could have been trouble.

Instead I´m posting EIN SARG NACH LEECH which is more of a horror episode. I remember this one fondly but not so much for Ingrid Steeger´s exciting curves but because of Der Pfeiffer ! The video looks a bit strange but that´s because the episodes were shot in the old 14 to 9 tv format.



Due to my busted knee I´m having physio therapy twice a week but if my instructor looked like this I would go every day and twice on the weekend.

I have no idea who she is but I think she would be a good Power Girl.



To close this part of the post I decided to add a cartoon video. I struggled a bit with this since these posts are the only one where I can post all the sexy videos but I´ll just have to put the prank video with the hot women eating a banana in public in the next post. So here is the first episode of the Justice League of America cartoon from Lou Scheimer´s Filmation studio. There are a few more which I am going to post in the next weeks.



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Der devil made me buy Marvel Visionaries

It´s been a while since my last JLA casting post with Lindsay Lohan and even longer since we touched on Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr´s run on DAREDEVIL. Well, I guess you expected me to continue with the INFERNO CROSSOVERS but as always I´m going for something a bit different Today.

Recently I bought three of the MARVEL VISIONARIES hardcovers and one of them ties into Ann Nocenti´s Daredevil so I thought this would be a nice intermission before we go back to the INFERNO CROSSOVERS storyline.

And as money is always a question where comics are concerned I wanted to spotlight these books as they are not too expensive. I got the books about Roy Thomas, Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr and this last one is the one I want to spotlight Today. I´d like to write about them all at length but as it has already taken five hours to prepare all the necessary material for John Romita Jr I have to do the other two some other time.

I guess the whole thing started on my last visit to the Sammlerecke comic shop in Esslingen where I was looking for some new hardcovers since at that time I was still counting on getting my new shelf porn this summer. As it is now I can count myself lucky if I get it as a late birthday present at the end of this month. Anyway, as I have mentioned a few times before the omnibus hardcovers Disney puts out are becoming more expensive at amazon, some of them demanding ridiculous prices like multiple times their original price and not all of them are available there. So I was going through all the various hardcovers when I came across these old MARVEL VISIONARY hardcovers. Okay, not that old since these books came out around 2005 / 2006, but I never paid them much attention since they contain just reprints. But since my reading tastes go more to old comics lately I paged through them and if I didn´t have a busted knee I would have probably bought some right there. These books are all oversized, like the AVENGERS ASSEMBLE books that contain the run by Kurt Busiek and George Perez and are a real treat for longtime Marvel comic fans.

Now these books cost between 30 ( like the John Romita Jr book ) and 35 bucks regular price ( for the Roy Thomas book ) but they clock in between 330 and 370 pages. That´s only 10 bucks more than a regular hardcover.

I mean unless you use the bargain section at amazon or other big chain bookstores you pay 25 EUROS for a regular hardcover that is smaller and has only around 112 pages. Especially since Disney started putting five issues into the hardcovers for the same price. Which is their way of slow price increase. At the moment DC is still putting six issues and more into their hardcovers but it´s only a matter of time before all their books get thinner too. So you can either pay 25 bucks for a regular sized 112 page hardcover or pay 30 to 35 bucks for an oversized 330 and more page hardcover. I know what sounds like a better deal to me. Okay, all of the material in the MARVEL VISIONARIES books are reprints. You will not find any new stuff in here unless you haven´t read these stories before. If you have been reading comics for as long as I have you have read most of this material in one form or another but if you are a newbie to Marvel comics - and there are a lot of those hipsters around right now - like the saying goes : the oldest story is new to someone who hasn´t heard it before.

Which is another reason why I´m pimping these books right now. At the moment the Marvel omnibus books are in such high demand because there are all these new comic geek chique guys jumping on the comic bandwagon. They have seen the movies of the Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Thor or Iron Man and so they go for these big books. And since everybody wants them the price keeps going up. Now while there are thousands of them out there they are not really that much into comic books and more interested in the status you get as a certified geek.

Which is totally legitimate. Not everybody has to be so totally immersed in comics to enjoy the movies and let´s be honest, we all have watched James Bond movies but how many books by Ian Fleming have you read ?

So not everybody who likes movies checks out the source material they are based on. Which is okay. BUT if you do that you deny yourself the best thing. Because as good as the new comic movies are ( and some are not since for me the best Fantastic Four movie is the one who never made it to cinemas ) it´s only an adaption. And one thing most people forget is that there are a lot of things you can do in a comic that you can´t do in a movie. Also you compress storylines that go on for years into a few hours and you can´t tell me that the quality doesn´t suffer because of this.

But back to the comic hipsters, while they have seen the movies most of them are not familiar with any of the names - except maybe Stan Lee - so a book about guys like Roy Thomas, John Romita Jr or Chris Claremont is not of much interest for them. If you tell them that Chris Claremont wrote X - Men they probably go : " Did he invent Wolverine ? Maybe Nightcrawler, Storm or Cyclops ? No ? So he´s not important ? " because that´s how they think. Chris Claremont did not invent the all new, all different X - Men, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum did that. But together with John Byrne he turned the UNCANNY X - MEN into the number one comic book - not only at Marvel but in general - and he wrote all the famous storylines like THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA, DAYS OF FUTURE PASTS or the first Wolverine mini series that Hollywood is milking. He wrote ALL X - Men related books between 1975 and 1991 , NEW MUTANTS and all the specials and annuals and graphic novels and whatnot. So the man has a huge mountain of work in the x - universe and for the most part it´s solid with a few clunkers.

But I will write more about Chris Claremont in another post at length because while he did not invent any of the new X - Men, he co - created Rogue, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde, Mystique, Moira MacTaggert, Emma Frost, Jubilee, Madelyne Pryor, Sabretooth, Captain Britain and sadly Gambit.

I personally could have done without the last one. Anyway, back to the MARVEL VISIONARIES, as I said before I didn´t buy any of them when I last visited the comic shop in Esslingen. Because with my bum knee it is difficult enough to go to the comic shop even if I don´t have to schlepp a lot of heavy hardcovers. But I had a chance to see what is in the books and for the most part the reproduction was not bad either. After a few bad experiences with the Marvel Collection from hachette that is currently sold in Germany I´m much more sensitive in that regard but here it was all good. So a few days later I was looking through the books amazon always recommends and there were some of the MARVEL VISIONARIES books among them. Now normally I try to avoid buying outside of amazon with the amazon marketplace as you never know what other people define as in good condition but after I had ordered a few that arrived in almost pristine condition I was willing to chance it. Especially since three of the books were sold at 20, 18 and 13 bucks. Okay, with the added cost for shipping that´s 23, 21 and 16 bucks but that´s still less than 30 bucks which is the lowest price you pay for these books at your comic store.

Now before we come to the MARVEL VISIONARIES JOHN ROMITA JR book I have to say there is one thing I didn´t like : the wasted pages. While I understand that if you are doing a collected edition there are certain skip pages you have to insert to get double page spreads right and such there is no excuse that a company as big as Marvel comics should waste pages. Especially if it´s a collection dedicated to a certain artist or writer.

I mean if it´s in the middle of a story like the 9 - 11 Spider - Man issue with the black cover I can understand that. But apart from that there should be no black, blank or pixilated pages in these books. There must be - what ? - hundreds or thousand of pages of art and covers that could not be put in these books and you couldn´t just pick any of them to fill up those pages ? That´s weak, man. Our POWER FREAKS comic was made by two guys and we did not put any blank pages in there. I even did some extra artwork just to have no blank pages in there. And this was our first comic so we really didn´t know what we were doing. But even we knew that you don´t put pages without content in a book people pay money for.

So that´s just a minor complaint but in my opinion that´s just sloppy.

But let´s get to the Daredevil stories by John Romita Jr in this collection. The first one is issue 253, called MERRY CHRISTMAS KINGPIN written by Ann Nocenti (  even if the cover says MERRY CHRISTMAS DAREDEVIL ).

As the title suggests this would work much better as a special Christmas post but since when do we do things in the normal way around here ?

The story works on various levels as it incorporates the usual holidays story tropes but also offers insight for the readers into how certain people of the supporting cast tick. There is firstly Wilson Fisk a.k.a the Kingpin, who wants to stretch the reach of his criminal empire for whom Christmas is just a day like any other. He plays the part of the Grinch who is so annoyed by Christmas that he even forbids his employees to mention it.

There is Eightball who wants to be like the Wild Boys or Daredevil or Matt Murdock - he´s insecure about himself and just wants do the right thing. 

With Darla and Ralph he is part of the trio of little kids who hang around with Daredevil that has kind of the role of the many companions in Doctor Who : they are there to question things and to give readers exposition.

Like most boys his age he doesn´t care much about girls - like Darla -

but he tries to get into the holiday spirit and to make sure somebody else has a great Christmas Day by giving away his most prized possession.

Then there is the main character of the book and while Daredevil DOES wear a red suit and sure has the whole " knowing when people have been bad " schtick down to pat I´m not so sure if he really plays the part of Santa Claus in this story. Like Jim Roeg writes in his excellent post ON CHRISTMAS : AN ATHEIST READS DAREDEVIL 253 , the story is not so much about the religious aspects of Christmas but about what the holiday means for a community like Matt Murdock´s legal help clinic entourage.

After the events of Frank Miller´s BORN AGAIN it took Matt Murdock a long time to recover but through his free legal advice clinic he has found a way not only to still work within the legal system without having a lawyer´s license and provide those who could not afford it with enough counsel to defend themselves - but also to be part of this community. 

Which is something the Kingpin can´t wrap his head around. Where the reader experiences the real meaning of Christmas he sees only a washed up has been lawyer who´s just one of humanity´s dregs living among all the other junkies, bums, snotty kids, prostitutes and working class stiffs.

It will be quite some time before Wilson Fisk finally learns the right way to break Matt Murdock / Daredevil and Typhoid Mary makes her debut.

But let´s get back to  the Daredevil issues in the MARVEL VISIONARIES JOHN ROMITA JR hardcover. There are also the first two issues of Frank Miller´s MAN WITHOUT FEAR mini series. Or was it a mini series ?

With all the hype about anything Frank Miller does a lot of people forget that this came out during the 90s, the worst period in comics history.

At least according to some people. I have always said that there was also some good stuff published and I already did various posts on that. Back to Frank Miller´s MAN WITHOUT FEAR I don´t want to say it´s not a good comic but initially it was announced as an original graphic novel. Then somebody at Marvel must have realized that they could make loads of cash if they publish it in single issue form instead with gimmick covers . 

You can still see that it was supposed to be a graphic novel by the fact that it is impossible to say where the first issue ends and the second issue begins. In comics that are planned as singles there are cliffhangers and splash pages that clearly show the beginning and the end of an issue but you have none of this here which is why they had to put two issues into the collection, otherwise there would have been no complete story.

There are however a few things that bug me about this comic - not graphic novel. IF Marvel had not published it in single issue format first ( the collected edition was announced when issue 4 hit the newsstands to the delight of all fans ) this would be a graphic novel. So it´s a collection of previously published material and therefore NOT a graphic novel. And if you hear anybody talk about the MAN WITHOUT FEAR graphic novel by Frank Miller you know he has no f - wording idea what he is talking about.

Second while the art by John Romita Jr in this is really excellent it does not by far surpass anything he has done during his run on DAREDEVIL with Ann Nocenti. But this gets hailed as the non plus ultra Daredevil story while one of the best runs gets ignored just because it´s not by Miller.

And last but not least, if you want to know which comic the producers of the NETFLIX Daredevil series read to come up with the fugly costume - look no further true believer. That´s also the legacy of Frank Miller.

Now before wrapping things up I want to mention a few things. I don´t have the time to go into detail about all the other issues at length but here is what is also contained in the collection : John Romita Jr´s very first comic work for Marvel, a Spider - Man story from annual 11 and issues 229 and 230 of AMAZING SPIDER - MAN where he goes up against the Juggernaut. It´s one of his most fondly remembered Spider - Man stories so it has to be in this collection. As well as the 9 / 11 issue.

There are two Iron Man issues in this book, one is - of course - issue 128, Demon in a Bottle, the culmination of the historic storyline of the same name that won numerous awards and turned Tony Stark into an alcoholic.

The other is issue 256 with Iron Man on Tony Stark´s new space station where he gets trapped under a huge pile of metal debris. I always liked that John Romita Jr drew the new Iron Man armor which was really heavy and bulky so you could believe there really was a man inside the suit.

This is an issue I was looking for without knowing it because I remember the scene where people think Tony Stark is going to fire an employee because she went against regulations but then he gives her two plane tickets for a vacation. I had no idea from which issue that was and then I bought the MARVEL VISIONARIES - JOHN ROMITA JR and there it was.

The reason why they picked this issue - at least the way I see it - is that it´s a good done in one issue that shows Tony´s character as a boss and his resourcefulness as Iron Man. It also leads directly into ARMOR WARS II for all those who want to check that out. And I guess I don´t have to point out which famous cover by Steve Ditko is hommaged in the splash page.

The collection also contains PUNISHER WAR ZONE 1 , a title that may´ve been created with the sole purpose to give him a Punisher book to draw. 

Speaking about first issues, STAR BRAND 1 is one of the issues I didn´t have in my collection. Jim Shooter was clearly ahead of his time with his NEW UNIVERSE and I still kick myself for not buying it when it came out. 

The rest of the book are two issues of HULK and here I´m not so sure what the rationale behind this is. In my opinion they could have picked issue 25 OR 34 but I´m not so sure if it was really necessary to pick both.

I would have liked it better if they had included another series of the countless John Romita Jr worked on. And last but not least two issues of UNCANNY X - MEN and since he has worked on that title for such a long time it´s impossible to narrow it down. They picked issue 183, another good done in one issue ( god, am I the only one who misses these stories ? ) with some heartbreaking moments between Kitty Pryde and Colossus.

It also continues the theme of heroes going up against the Juggernaut after the two AMAZING SPIDER - MAN issues as the stories are not ordered by the different series but rather in chronological order. Which works better in such a compilation since it lets you see the progress the artist has done over the course of his career. Which may be the reason why the other issue is issue 309 : another standalone issue and not only can you see a clear difference to the earlier story the layout is also very different and you have to turn the whole book sideways on a few pages.

So is it a perfect book ? No. I would not have chosen some of the issues and as I said the wasted pages bring me out of it. Is it a good book ? Most definitely. With John Romita Jr´s most famous stories collected here - and in chronological order - it gives you a good overview of his progress as an artist and you can spend a few hours reading this. The reproduction value on this is really high, also, for 21 EUROS this is an absolute steal.

Linking time. For more Daredevil related stuff THE REAL GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE discuss Daredevil 269, in which Daredevil goes up against X - Men´s Freedom Force and our trusty friends at SCANS DAILY have posts on Daredevil clubbing Ultron to death with a tree branch , a comparison of the Kingpin´s origin by Frank Miller and Tom DeFalco and one in various parts about the long relationship between Daredevil and Spider - Man .

David Robertson at FRED EGG COMICS blog has a post on the Daredevil Christmas stories that includes Daredevil 253, to read more about STAR BRAND check out CBR´s post Meta - Messages - The Time John Byrne nuked Jim Shooter´s Hometown , CBR´s 365 Reasons to Love Comics archive has John Romita Jr listed as number 127 and a shoutout goes to Harry Candelario for the inked splash page of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN 256.

Since this is a Marvel post that mentions the X - Men I finally get to post ComicbookGirl19´s EPIC HISTORY : X - MEN volume 1, the first of many. 



Another I wanted to post for quite some time is this documentary about Stan Lee from the Latino history Channel. Naturally it´s in latino. I tried to find the english version but couldn´t find it on YouTube. Sorry, guys.



Another sojourn into the vault of bad tv entertainment here is the GENERATION X pilot that clearly shows why there never was a series.



And talking about tv entertainment Today´s cartoon feature is from the animated Hulk series. The episode features She Hulk and Abomination. 



The last one is a dust of the cap to fellow blogger Terry Hooper, sorry for the bad quality but this stuff is like beyond ancient. Dinosaurs and stuff.



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