See what condition my condition is in

I think it´s time to do another post after my last one - which was very melodramatic - to let my faithful readers know what I have been up to lately especially in regards to my health insurance and job situation.

It´s not something I want to focus too much on but since I already opened that particular can of worms in my last post I have to do the follow up.

And there has not really been a lot of progress since then. What I found out is that not only did the jobcenter cancel my health insurance without noticing me they also canceled my unemployed status. The last guy I spoke to at the jobcenter obviously lied straight to my face because he said they would still pay my health insurance as long as I would need it to keep the job at the Stadionbad. Which I shouldn´t have believed in the first place. Fact of life : the authority lies. They withhold information from you, give you false information or straight up lie to your face.

First you are told that you can get a small job and as long as you earn to up under 450 EURO this is additional money you get. Then you are told that because you earn more in this new job than your monthly allowance from the jobcenter you won´t be getting that anymore. But they will still pay your health insurance because if you earn under 450 EUROS a month your boss is not paying your health insurance. And when you earn under 450 EUROS you don´t have enough for private insurance. But you bite the bullet because you want to keep your job and you tell yourself that at least you are free from all the trouble with the jobcenter and you don´t have to take their crap anymore and those idiots can´t continue to ruin your life. And then one day you find out that the last guy you spoke with at the jobcenter lied right to your face because a few months later he canceled your health insurance and kicked you out of the unemployment statistic.

Now I still don´t know why he did that - well, I know they do everything to get people out of the unemployment statistic by any means necessary.

And like a wise man once said : if you´re not cheating you´re not trying. So all I know is that they did send me a letter which informed me that I would get no further monetary benefits which for me meant that they sent me a letter just to tell me what I already knew : I lost the monthly allowance from the jobcenter. Well, apparently everybody else BUT me would have known that " no further monetary benefits " does also include any payments for health insurance which is something that goes without saying. At least that´s what the woman from the jobcenter told me.

So where they are concerned they didn´t do anything wrong and I can´t expect any help from them. If I wanted something I would have to quit my current job and fill out all the paperwork to apply for unemployment again but keeping in mind the lenghts they went to to get rid of me I don´t think I have any chances in that regards. And I don´t want to quit my job.

Which is what I really feared most. The good news in all of this is that my current boss wants to keep me ( Yay ! ) and is doing anything possible to get me a contract where they cover my health insurance ( Double Yay ! ).

The bad news is that that´s easier said than done because getting back to my old health insurance company is not easy. If all this had happened in 2013 this would have been no big problem since the german government issued a law to facilitate the return to your old health insurance company. So if you were not covered by your old health insurance company or you didn´t have any health insurance you didn´t have to pay for any debts like doctor´s bills, medication and so on that had accumulated during that.

But that was a time limited offer and since it expired at the end of 2013 it doesn´t apply to me. You can call it bad timing or the health insurance companies waiting till 2014 to pursue this but it hit me right in the nads. I have applied for membership again at my health insurance company but the way it looks I´ll have to pay the monthly membership fees from 2012 to now - because accoring to german law there can be no gaps in the health insurance - and pay the medical bills from that period. Which for me sounds like I either have to pay for the same thing twice or at least I´m paying for the period I wasn´t a member without getting the benefit from that. I mean IF I have to pay for all those months shouldn´t I get something for it ? As it stands I´ll have to pay it off in small, monthly installments which should only last until I´m 60 or 70 years. No problem.

So right now I´m still somewhere in - between. Still in limbo as I said in my last post. My current boss is trying to prepare the new contract but it´s not ready yet. Just this morning I made another phone call to my health insurance company to remind them to send a membership certification to my workplace so they can wrap things up on that end.

 
So if all things go well I will still have my job and health insurance starting on the 1st of September. Which just brings us to the next big problem.

My knee surgery. This all started because of my knee problems and those problems are still not over. If I don´t get my knee fixed I can´t work very long for my boss. And if I get it fixed it means that I can´t work for at least three months. Damned if I do, damned if I don´t, my boss gets the short end of the stick. Which is why I´m not sure if they will get through with this. In any case I will probably have to wait until September to find out if I´m back at my old health insurance or not. Then I have to find out if I that means I can get to the doctor again with all benefits or if there is a waiting period. And then I have to contact the clinic in Markgröningen again to find out when the next available date is for surgery. Which I have to arrange with my boss, then there´s the surgery itself and the rehab.

But - as I said - right now nothing is sure and check the mail box daily.

IT`S THAT FAMILIAR FEELING OF FUTURE DEJA VUE AGAIN

Now, since that´s out of the way : last post was supposed to be about the Legion of Super - Heroes but instead it was about my personal problems.

As usual it´s too late to do a full Legion post now but I wanted to include some comic related stuff - links to other blogs - and cover homages. Our first cover is SUPERMAN 8 by with Superman going against the Legion

which is a cover homage by the man himself to FANTASTIC FOUR 249

where he not only re - used the layout but also replaced the characters with their Legion analogues. Most comic readers know that the Imperial Guard from the Shi´ar were created by Legion artist / fan Dave Cockrum as analogues for the Legionnaries so it´s no wonder that Superman takes the place of Gladiator who has the same power set as for Superboy or Mon - El. Furthermore Blok stands in for the also rocky hided Thing, fiery Sun Boy replaces The Human Torch, of course Invisible Boy changes place with the Invisible Girl ( she changed her name to Invisible Woman much later ) and the brains of the Fantastic Four, Mr. Fantastic becomes Brainiac 5.

The great Bob Layton also used it for this ARMOR WARS commission :

HOW THINGS OUGHT TO BE : YESTERDAY´S MAN OF TOMORROW

Since we´re on the subject of Superman, I wanted to post this variant cover by John Romita Senior ( which I found on the always excellent MAN OF BRONZE blog that I don´t visit as often as I used to because all the DC and Marvel news is just too depressing ) which shows why he´s still one of the great masters. Even burdened by the new Robotech suit Superman looks more like himself than since DC started the whole NEW 52 thing.

CATWOMAN GOT YOUR TONGUE ?

My next link is to an article about Adrienne Curry who defended a female Cosplayer from Sexual Assault at the last Comic Con. I wrote about her in this post in 2012 about the whole controversy if she was evicted from Comic Con way back in 2011 because her Aeon Flux outfit was too skimpy.

Going over the post I noticed that it also mentions that she was molested in 2010 after a STAR WARS convention so while some people may think this is a new problem it has been a while longer. I found the link on fellow blogger Terry Hooper´s COMIC BITS ONLINE and while the fact that this particular idiot got his just desert is heart warming it makes me sick that this still happens. When will people learn that Cosplaying in not consent?

EVERYBODY IS KUNG FU BLOGGING

On a brighter note, it seems my MASTER OF KUNG FU MONDAY post that was inspired by Ol Groove from DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND has in turn inspired him to start a new series which is - oddly enough - called MASTER OF KUNG FU MONDAY ( I wonder how he came up with that one ).

All joking aside, since Marvel will probably not reprint these stories in the near future here´s your chance to read one of the best Bronze Age Marvel series of all time. The first issue is MASTERS OF KUNG FU 78 , which starts the storyline that has it´s dramatic finale in the WARRIORS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN epic. Issue 79 just went online Today and Groove has promised to do the full length of this masterpiece ( possibly beyond ). Oh, before I forget, he also posted issue 76 and issue 77 - click the links.

BUT WAIT ! THERE´S STILL MORE BRONZE AGE GOODNESS COMING !

The MASTER OF KUNG FU series is also mentioned as one of the top picks in Comic Geek Speak´s Top Five Comics Based on Licensed Properties episode together with the great ROM SPACEKNIGHT series. Like MASTER OF KUNG FU, it´s probably never going to be reprinted but - once again - thanks to Ol Groove you can read issue 1 and issue 2 on his blog.

And since you´re on Ol Groove´s blog anyway, if you´re as tired from the current Avengers where you don´t recognize anyone anymore and they are constantly swiping Doctor Who ( with Doctor Strange shouting : " I´m the Doctor ! " every other issue, the old parallel earths wiping each other out schtick and now they even include random time travel ) as I am check out the post about WHAT IF issue 3 which is WHAT IF THE AVENGERS HAD NEVER BEEN ? Even as an WHAT IF story it still features the real Avengers and the art combo of Gil Kane and Klaus Janson is absolutely incredible.

We´re staying a bit on the subject of Bronze Age comics. One of the blogs you can find on DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND is the great BRONZE AGE REPRINTS blog. Lately there has been a lot more Marvel Bronze Age comics in my reading pile and most in the trade or hardcover format. Now if you have had the same experience this is the first address for you if you want to buy something besides the ESSENTIALS because not only are the comics rated based on the story and the art, the blog also examines how the reprinted version holds up to the original. It also includes a lot of pictures so you can decide if you want to buy it or if you better skip it.

Last but not least is a totally comic - unrelated post from Ed M Wood at BABBEL about seven of his most favorite german words . Ausgezeichnet !

VON COMICSAMMLERN UND GROSCHENROMANHEFTCHENLESERN

Once again it´s time to wrap things up which brings us to the video at the end of the post - or rather videos in this case. I´m not going to post as many videos as I did in my last post but it seems the upwards trend on " clicks per day " continues as we managed to go beyond the 8,000 bar.

Today´s first video is for my german readers and once again it was inspired by COMIC BITS ONLINE. Latley Terry Hooper has posted some interesting stuff about german comics but I´m not going to post any of those. If you want to see them go to his site and here are the links :

the first video is COMICKULTUR - DIE WELT DER COMICSAMMLER , the german version of the COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE episode about collecting comics. Like the title says it´s mainly from a collector´s perspective and a lot of the tips don´t apply for german comic readers but it´s informative if you want to start collecting comics. You can see creators like John Romita Senior and Harvey Pekar in the video but you know that the guys who made the video are not comic fans themselves since they don´t know the difference between Green Lanterns Alan Scott and Hal Jordan or Marvel´s Captain Marvel and Fawcett´s Captain Marvel.

The same goes for PANORAMA - VON COMICS UND GROSCHENROMANEN , from austrian tv in 2012. You can probably find every bad cliche about comic readers in it but it is interesting because of the rare footage about old german comic books and pulps. It also features some famous people who were influenced by comics like Helnwein. One of these days I really have to start with my posts about recycled pulp covers like the one below, GESPENSTER KRIMI Band 474, titled DIE TOTENGLOCKE ( The Death Bell ).

It was later used as issue 455 of SILBER GRUSEL - KRIMI, SCHRECKENSHÖLLE HONG KONG ( Terror hellhole Hong Kong )

but the original from where they were swiped is WEIRD WAR TALES 32.

But as I have said, that is the topic for another post and I should get on with wrapping this one up. Besides the posts I already mentioned from COMIC BITS ONLINE Terry Hooper has already done two posts about Hansrudi Wäscher, one of the primary rocks of german comics ( you may remember that I mentioned it in my second Erlangen convention diary ).

This one with a video about the man´s artistic evolution from the 50s to the 2000s followed by this post that has more information about him. But what I am posting about Hansrudi Wäscher is another video I found on YouTube where somebody went to the all trouble of turning the very first issue of SIGURD " Die Falle " ( The trap ) into an illustrated audio drama.

         
Next is the french animated short ELECTROSCHOCK in which a guy gets super powers and tries to get the girl of his dreams ( english subtitles ).



So that´s all for Today´s collage and I hope there was something interesting in it for you and I can do a more comic related post very soon.

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Letters from Limbo

There have been no new posts on the blog these last days because I was very depressed. The reason for this is that I was just informed on Friday that my health insurance was cancelled by the job center - in 2012.

So I wasted another one of my free days taking the bus all the way to the clinic in Markgröningen and back. I was all prepped to get the knee surgery I obviously need and now I don´t know what is going to happen.

THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT BUREAUCRACY WAS

By the way, now is as good a time as any to tell you of the first time I wasted one of my free days with going to Markgröningen. Lord knows I hinted at it enough and my readers are probably already tired of being teased by me. First I have to say that the clinic in Markgröningen is one specialised in knee problems so they are the best address for that kind of stuff. After I returned to the orthopedist with my MRI pictures he told me that I had to go to Markgröningen and the doctor there would decide what had to be done. So I made an appointment - which wasn´t very early thankfully - and was all set to go there because you can take a bus to Markgröningen. Now the thing is there´s only one bus line that goes to Markgröningen and there´s only one bus every hour. So if you miss the bus you have to wait an entire hour until the next one arrives. Which is not a problem if you have enough time, but taking into account time for going from the bus stop in Markgröningen to the clinic and time to get dressed and ready to leave the house I still had to get up pretty early.

But I thought I had planned it right so there would be no problem. Of course I couldn´t sleep that night and overslept in the morning. Nowadays getting out of bed is a real fight especially when I can´t walk. I guess the days where I could haul my body out of bed even if I was dead tired are over. I´m much too old for that and if I try it my body doesn´t cooperate.

So I can´t get up when I want, I have to wait until my body has rested long enough to work again. Okay, I was already late although not too late. After visiting the crapper and putting the soothing oinment on my knee and getting dressed I went to the bus station where I saw the bus leave just before I arrived. Which didn´t exactly surprise me because that always happens to me lately. Either it takes a long time for the bus to arrive or it leaves right before my eyes. Since I already anticipated this I had some reading material with me - in this case the X - MEN : BATTLE OF THE ATOM hardcover I had just gotten with my last amazon order.

It´s one of the few good series left at Disney - or Marvel if you still want to call it that - and I think it was the only good thing that day. Because I had missed the bus to Ludwigsburg I was now pressed for time - a little bit - but there was still the possibility to get there on time if the bus driver didn´t go too slow. But as luck - or the gods who are a sadistic lot as far as my personal experience is concerned - would have it the driver stopped at all the stations and wouldn´t you know, I missed the bus.

There are some things that can´t be explained by logic but fall under Murphy´s Law like the fact that the bus you are trying to catch is always leaving on time while the one you have to take because you missed the previous one is always late. So I spent over an hour reading my X - Men hardback at the bus station in Ludwigsburg before I finally could go to Markgröningen. And before you say it could have been worse : it WAS raining that day. It ALWAYS rains when I´m traveling. Not to dwell too much on this I finally arrived in Markgröningen - although now already one hour too late - only to find out that the bus station was not really right at the clinic but rather a very long distance from it. Which is no picnic if you have a busted knee. But I managed to get there eventually and went to the registration desk to deliver my papers. Which is the part where things really got interesting ( and when I say interesting I mean f - ed up ).

So I gave my papers - my health insurance card, the paper with the appointment and the letter I got from the orthopedists office - to the woman behind the desk and she told me I needed an letter of referral. I had already anticipated this - usually I tend to forget these things - so I had paid my doctor a visit the day before to get one. But when I gave it to her she told me that the letter was from my doctor and I needed one from the orthopedist. Since I still have no cell phone - I know, I´m a dinosaur - I had to go take the lift to the bottom floor to use the public phone and try to call my orthopedist so they could fax a letter of referral. Why the woman at the reception desk couldn´t do this is still beyond me.

Anyway, after the walk from the bus station to the clinic my knee was already a bit sore but it couldn´t be helped. I went down to the bottom floor and tried to phone my orthopedist which is like trying your luck at the lottery because the line is always busy and it´s almost impossible to get a connection - which is the reason why most people go there in person even if it´s only to get an appointment. I was even lucky enough to get connected only to find out that I accidentially had dialed the fax number of the clinic in Markgröningen instead of the office of my orthopedist.

To make things worse the phone had just swallowed up my last coins so I could not try again. It was already 2 hours after my official appointment and I couldn´t get to Ludwigsburg, get a new letter of referral and make it back in time to Markgröningen. So the only thing I could do now was to make another appointment ( this one 2 hours earlier so I already dreaded how I was supposed to make it to that one in time ) and go home. Of course I had to wait a long time for the bus to arrive in Markgröningen but I read the complete BATTLE OF THE ATOM before I got home.

So I arrived in Ludwigsburg and although I was really tired and my knee was aching I decided to go to the orthopedist to get a letter of referral so I don´t have to make another trip to Ludwigsburg to get it. But when I spoke to the woman at the desk she said that they already gave me one. She had checked the computer and it said I was already issued one. Then she opened the letter I got from them ( you remember that it was with the papers I gave the woman at the clinic in Markgröningen ? ) and there it was all along. If only the woman in Markgröningen had bothered to actually open the envelope my complete odyssey could have been avoided.

And that is how Subzero spends the days when he doesn´t have to work.

Coming back to my health insurance that was canceled, I have no idea what it means. The plan was to get surgery on my knee on Monday, the first day when the Stadionbad is officially closed. They are shutting down for 4 weeks to do the usual repairs and initially I thought I could use this time for my vacation as usual. Then I was told that I needed surgery and I thought at least it´s on the first day when my work is closed so I should be finished with the first part of rehab. Afterwards there are two to three months of more rehab following until you can work again but at least I can start right away. But now ? I don´t know. First I have to sort all this mess with my health insurance out so on Monday I´m going to the personnel office to see if they can use their connections. That´s one of the perks when you are working for the municipality. And I think it´s better if I don´t speak with the jobcenter directly with the mood I´m in right now.

Right now I feel like Al Pacino in The Godfather : just when I thought I was finished with dealing with the idiots of the jobcenter......

Anyway, sorry that there´s not much comic related content in this post but look at the bright side : thanks to the jobcenter I might have to quit my job so there might be an increase in blog posts in the near future. Or at least until I get my health insurance back and a new surgery date.

OF PIN UPS, MUPPETS AND BIGGER BOOBS WITHOUT SURGERY

And speaking about important dates, I was so preoccupied with all this stuff that I totally forgot about POPCULTURE ICON BETTY BROSMER´S birthday on the 2nd of this month. It´s the fourth popular post of all times on the blog and the one that gets the most spam in the comments section. The other two are GREATEST COMIC ARTIST EVER : JEAN GIRAUD and THIS WAS MY SECRET WARS with COMICBABE BATTLE ROUND 4 - SPIDERBABE WINNER - PART 1 ( NOW FINALLY FINISHED ) becoming a serious contender. Man, I really gave them some long titles back in the days. Many happy returns and check out her post for a real pin up icon.

Before closing the post for Today I have to mention that the cover at the top of the post is an altered one. But I just found it fitting for my current mood and here is the original cover, LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES 30.

The reason why I had this cover handy is that I was going over my material of the Legion since I have finished volume 10 of the Legion Archives thanks to the many trips to Markgröningen - successful or not.

Originally the plan was to write about some of the really strange things that happen in the Legion stories I read but I guess this will have to wait for another day. Another thing that has been keeping me busy are the many cosplay pictures I have collected for future posts. Some readers think that I have already given up on my big Yaya Han post since I didn´t write the follow up to my intro post but that´s still in the pipeline.

I just don´t know if I want to do that first or a post centering on male cosplayers. In this whole thing that cosplay has become the boys often are forgotten and I have found some that are really awesome or characters you never thought one could pull off. Or both. And I want to give props.

Speaking about the cosplay thing and giving props I´m also planning on a solo post about cosplay sexbomb Jessica Nigri. There are going to be a lot of her costumes involved in the cosplay post about doing female versions of characters - even Marvel is a big fan of that since they are doing it in their comics now - because let´s face it : she really does a lot of those. I know there are people out there who critique her for not keeping it real ( in my opinion an oxymoron in itself ) but since I mostly don´t know that much about the characters in the first place I can´t really comment on that. As long as it looks good ( and Jessica looks REALLY good ! ) and

she´s having fun doing it - which she seems to have - it´s okay with me.

And let´s not overreact here. Some of the costumes are from Pokemon of all things. So you have to take into account that she had to watch ( suffer ) it in the first place and then she was still willing to be publicly connected with it. A cartoon show for kids that´s basically all about souped up cock fights ( yes, I used the words cock and fight in a sentence about Jessica Nigri and it was without any double meaning behind it ). Anyway, here´s a picture of the always astonishing Jessica and to avoid any polemic I picked one where she´s not in a cosplay costume. I think. Massitaaa !!!

So I thought about picking a Jessica Nigri video for this post but right now there seems to be a problem with YouTube and the only ones I have bookmarked are one with the breast moments of her videos and another one that is a 25 minute loop of Jessica exposing her cleavage ( there´s also an hour long version of that available but if you need that long it´s already hopeless, dude ) and you can probably find them on your own.

What I´m posting instead is this video because of all the talk about female cosplayers getting a boob job. Not that I´m against it, I think everybody should decide it for themselves. But before people start crying " boob job " they should think about the fact that there might be other reasons why a female cosplayer´s chest area looks much bigger all of a sudden. They might have seen this helpful tutorial by Stacey Brennan.



It looks really incredible but it´s the same girl on the left side as on the right side and she achieves a huge difference with just a few tricks.

I also want to continue with the Muppet Specials and Today´s video is THE MUPPETS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD from 1990. As someone who grew up outside of the United States I have never been to Disneyworld ( I know that in America you have failed as a parent if you haven´t been with your kid to Disneyworld at least once ) but I have seen most of the movies.

It´s an especially interesting video from Today´s point of view because Disney now owns The Muppets. And Lucasfilms. And Marvel. Some say this is a good thing since certain seasons of The Muppets couldn´t be released on DVD because of rights involving Lucasfilms. While that´s something that might happen I think Disney is pretty much ruining Marvel - at least as an intellectual property - in the comics and possibly in the movies ( I still haven´t seen the latest four Marvel movies to be sure ).

So here are the Muppets paying a visit to their future bosses. Enjoy !



Okay, a few more videos that are more comic related as a special " Thank You " to my readers since we managed to crack the " 1,750 hits per day " mark with this post which is - fittingly enough - my 470th post . If you have listened to the Comic Geek Speak guys spotlight episode on The Fantastic Four in the Bronze Age you might have heard about the radio show episodes that were produced in 1975 in which Bill Murray spoke the part of the Human Torch, Johnny Storm. You can listen to the episodes right here and here is the video of THE COMING OF THE SUB - MARINER. 


Of course there was a Fantastic Four cartoon show before that in the 60s and here´s the episode with the title THREE PREDICTIONS OF DOOM.



And one you might be more familiar which was broadcast on tv in 1978. I picked THE FINAL VICTORY OF DOOM for this one. I hope you enjoy it !



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Life´s like a movie. Write your own ending.

Danger ! It´s Time - Travelling Thursday !

I guess a lot of people visited the blog Yesterday in the hopes of finding a new post celebrating my birthday. Well, as is my usual luck I had to work Yesterday and I got home pretty late so I didn´t go on the internet. But Today I wanted to do a new post - even if it´s a short one - giving props to one of my all time favorite comics, THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES.

Thanks to a lot of appointments at my doctor´s, the orthopedist and at the clinic in Markgröningen ( I´ll have to tell the tale how I wasted one of my free days with that one of these days ) I´ve already finished vol 10 of The Legion of Super - Heroes Archives and am halfway through vol 11.

TRAVELLING BACKWARDS AND FORWARD IN TIME

Since I still haven´t gotten past the first day of my Erlangen travel - logue I should probably cover the part how I got those Legion archive editions first. After the very taxing first day things started out rather quietly. Like I already mentioned I slept very good - even if the pillow was to soft for my taste - which is not always a given when you are sleeping in a hotel room. Since I had already made the acquaintance of the slippery shower floor I was very cautious while freshening up ( also not too long although not as extreme to qualify as a catlick ) . Speaking about acquaintances : during breakfast I had the good fortune of meeting up with Haggi, who longtime readers might already know from previous posts as the artist of the brilliant HARTMUT comics, and who was staying at the same hotel. Sadly that was the only time we could talk quietly about comics and stuff outside of the con since I didn´t get up that early for the rest of the con.

Now on the first day I already found out that my plans would not work out and I did a lot of things I have never done before. Since I had problems with my knee and was towing my trolley behind I was always taking the ramp instead of the stairs. On the second day I decided to leave my trolley at the hotel so this was naturally the day when I got the most and heaviest comics. So I spent a lot of time the day before going up and down that ramp until I decided to check out the dealers booth that was behind the ramp. They had some comics for 1 EURO but also a lot of DC Archive Editions at half price which is a real bargain so I got three.

There were more volumes of the Legion, but even for that price you can´t go crazy or you end up spending a hundred bucks or more for mediocre art and forgettable stories so I stuck to the ones I knew and loved from my comic reading youth, which were drawn by Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell.

I already had seen some of them in my regular comic shop but at full price they were just too expensive. There were some other comics I got there but I´ll go into detail about that when I do the full rundown of the comics I got in Erlangen. The only other thing I have to mention is that later on the same day I spent a few hours going through the " comics per kilo " table of the Sammlerecke ( I was too tired to continue on walking through the convention hall so I picked a table where I could spend a lot of time ) and made one of my luckiest picks ever : MV - Comix issue 23 from the 4th of November 1972. It is like the holy grail for german Legion fans.

Because aside from another chapter from ASTERIX AND THE SOOTHSAYER it also contains the first printing in the german language of ADVENTURE COMICS issue 326 and the story " The Revolt of the Girl Legionnaries ! "

Now the reason why this comic is so sought after by german Legion fans is the fact that it was reprinted in 1976 in SUPERMAN 7. SUPERBAND.

But not only was it reprinted here, since the MV Comics were done by the same publisher they used the same text and even the same layout as one can see as there was some space in the MV Comics they had to fill and they did the same in SUPERBAND 7. And it also was explicitly mentioned that this story had been published four years earlier in MV Comics 23.

So that was unusual as most stories that had been published in Germany before changed comic companies and most often got a new translation.

But SUPERMAN SUPERBAND 7 is a good example how comic stories of certain characters or groups like the Legion were published in Germany. The cover blurb reads " Everything about Superboy and the Legion " and while that is true to some extend it´s also a real hodge podge of Legion stories. Normally I wouldn´t delve further into it but thanks to my new Legion archive editions I know where some of these stories were taken from so I´m going to indulge your curiosity and see if I can track them all.

WHERE ARE MY LEGION DOGS AT ?

The first story " The Origin of the Legion ! " by E. Nelson Bridwell and Pete Costanze was first published in SUPERBOY issue 147.

The cover story is the second story in this book, FLAMMENDE FINSTERNIS in german or " The Final Eclipse of Sun Boy " from SUPERBOY issue 215.

I´m sure various bloggers have commented on the fact that Element Lad should know better than to transmute the cloth of his costume into asbestos. Being from the future he should know that it causes cancer.

Next up is STAY SMALL OR DIE, a six page story from SUPERBOY 214. In the german version the " Legion of Super - Heroes " blurb was erroneously changed for " I was with Sunboy " which was part of the previous story.

Following are 2 pages of character profiles from the " Lore of the Legion " section contained in SUPERBOY 202 with art by Dave Cockrum. These pages - and the ones following later - are where I learned the real names of the various Legion members since I read them at least a dozen times.

THEY CALL ME MISTER TYROC !

Following is one of the most infamous Legion stories " The Hero Who hated the Legion " from SUPERBOY 216 which introduced Tyroc

the black Legion member with the most " deus ex machina " - esque super power ever created. He could do whatever the story needed by screaming very loudly which was kind of fitting since he always reminded me a bit of the late Bobby Farell, front man of the 80s disco band BONEY M which was very popular in Germany. They always topped the german charts.



A lot of the Legion costumes were very disco. Or at least very skimpy.

I guess when I first read the story it made more sense since I was very young but looking back at it it from Today´s viewpoint a lot of the things in the story become really strange and bizarre. For those readers out there who still haven´t read the story, the Legionnaries visit the city of Marzan where they are met with outright hostility by the populace and their champion Tyroc, who is your typical " angry black guy with a chip on his shoulder " - much like John Stewart in the Green Lantern comic.

According to Mike Grell he had tried before to introduce a black member into the Legion ( there are differing versions out there which story that was ) and this was the final, more or less successful try. Tyroc and the people of Marzan are not on good terms with the Legio of Super - Heroes because they feel neglected by them and Tyroc refuses to be held down by the man. But in the end all their problems are neatly resolved because the " racial profiling " Tyroc accuses the Legion of doesn´t hold up due to the fact that Legion members have " blue skin, yellow skin or green skin. "

While the idea that a society 1,000 years in the future is above such things as racial stereotypes and skin color is very comforting and nice - and I guess that is what writer Cary Bates was going for - it is kind of strange that all black people are living in one city that is cut of from the rest of the world. Also Karate Kid´s skin wasn´t really colored yellow. But in later issues Mike Grell drew him very much to look like Bruce Lee.

Tyroc became a very difficult member not only because of his powers and so he first was used very sporadically and then Marzan was turned into a Brigadoon - like city that could only be accessed every thousand years. In the end the black brother gets the short end of the stick once again.

BEST OF THE REST

Next up is a double page spread of the Legion headquarters from ADVENTURE COMICS 403 followed by " The War of the Legions ! " by Jim Shooter, Curt Swan and George Klein from ADVENTURE COMICS 355.

This is a bit strange because it was the second part of the story " The Adult Legion ! " from issue 354, which was never published in Germany.

Up next are two more pages of character profile pages by Dave Cockrum from SUPERBOY issue 202 and the already mentioned " Revolt of the Girl Legionnaries " story with a text insert between the first and the second part about Superboy and the Legion. Then we have another Dave Cockrum character profile page and the second story from SUPERBOY 216, " The Private Lives of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel ". In the story Bouncing Boy has lost his powers and has to prevail against a gang of hooligans. This was a good example how strict the Legion code was : Bouncing Boy had lost his powers so he had to leave the Legion. Of course he bounced back from this setback ( pun intended ) by getting hitched with Duo Damsel.

The SUPERBAND ends with two more Legion member profile pages, this time by Dave Cockrum and Curt Swan and taken from SUPERBOY 205.

Now while the selection seems very arbitrary you have to keep in mind that the available material was limited by the fact that a lot of the Legion stuff had already been published in Germany in issues of SUPERMAN / BATMAN or SUPERBOY. So the comics that were chosen for this SUPERMAN SUPERBAND were not of a certain period but rather seemed to fall into the category of important stories or at least stories that brought across infos or certain aspects of the Legion and it´s member like an early version of the Legion Oath. Together with the profile sheets - and the fact that the SUPERBÄNDE were album sized and of a more sturdy paper - it was an invaluable resource for german Legion fans so it was a part of almost everyone´s comic collection. I still got my battered and worn out copy.

LEGION LINKING EXTRAVAGANZA

So, as usual this post has become longer than intended but I think I have said all I wanted to say about SUPERMAN SUPERBAND 7 and if there´s something I forgot I´m sure to include it in one of the following Legion posts. Before closing for Today I have to give kudos to the websites that have helped to make this post a reality beginning with this THE DORK REVIEW post which provided the profile pages from SUPERBOY 202 and 205. BRONZE AGE BABIES has an extensive post about SUPERBOY 216 and this edition of COMIC BOOK LEGEND REVEALED examines the two stories which Mike Grell cites as his first attempts to introduce black characters.

A story I didn´t get to mention in this post is " The Legion of Super - Executioners ! " from SUPERBOY 205 which mostly stuck in my mind for the scenes where Timber Wolf goes on a rampage and binds Superboy with his own cape, Lana Lang as Inscet Queen stinging Ultra Boy in the back - but mostly because of the way Mike Grell drew Lana Lang in her tight sweater, ( one of the reasons why it took me so long to do this post was that I tried to find a picture of that but only found these inked pages ). I don´t know if I can get around to do a post on that issue but you can find post about it on EIGHTEEN WITH A BULLET , PRISM COMICS and also on Dave´s SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES blog.

More Legion goodies : BRONZE AGE BABIES also has entries on SUPERBOY 197 , SUPERBOY 208 , SUPERBOY 231 and SUPERBOY 233 and Dougie from the MATERIOPTIKUM blog waxes philosophic about SUPERBOY 204 which contained two stories : " The Legionnaire Nobody Remembered " and " Brainiac 5´s Secret Weakness ". STARS AND GARTERS has two Legion entries in its FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS - FEET OF FURY series, one from SUPERBOY 205 and RAGING FANBOY examines The Miracle Machine .

PULP AND DAGGER has a post about The Madness of Brainiac 5 Saga while THE COMIC TREADMILL takes a look at ADVENTURE COMICS 307 to 309 and issue 500 and MAJOR SPOILERS examines ALL - NEW COLLECTORS EDITION 55 , the tabloid sized treasury edition of the Legion. And if you want more Mike Grell art our fellow blogger Old Groove at DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND cover his most famous series WARLORD in these posts about the first story in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 8 , WARLORD ISSUE 1 and MAKING A SPLASH : MIKE GRELL`S WARLORD part one and part two .

And last but not least I wanted to post this drawing of the Mighty Crusader´s  Shield by Steve Rude for fellow blogger Terry Hooper Scharf.

BONUS LEVEL : POP, FRAGGLE ROCK AND ROLL ( AND MUPPETS )

After such a long post my faithful readers deserve something special, so since I already put a Yaya Han video in my last post here´s a street performer doing a wicked rendition of SULTANS OF SWING. Enjoy !

         
Okay, maybe one video is not enough after such a long post and since the weekend is approaching - and I probably can´t do another post before Monday - here´s a little something extra to help you bridge the time.

Some readers might be curious what " Die kleine Kneipe " by Peter Alexander is ( and if not I´m posting it anyway ). I don´t like all of his stuff - like when he walked around in women´s clothing in his movies - but that´s one of song I like, even if I´m not the biggest Schlager fan. It´s a song about the little pub at the end of the street where people used to meet and which have vanished almost entirely in our modern society.



Now since this is more for my german readers I wanted to also include a few videos for the rest of my followers. One of the things I´m enjoying right now is THE MUPPET SHOW as I recently acquired the first three seasons on DVD. Usually they are very expensive but amazon had a sale and I grabbed the opportunity. Maybe there will even be a new post about The Muppet Show in the future ( I already wrote about Roger Langridge´s excellent Muppet Show comic in one of my Gratis Comic Tag 2011 posts ).

But for now I want to post one of the really excellent musical numbers they do on the show : Billy Joel´s wonderful " New York state of mind ".



Right now I have started with the third season of THE MUPPET SHOW and when I´m finished I´m going to rewatch all the episodes - but in german.

You see, when the show was dubbed in german not only were all the spoken parts translated there are also different people singing the musical numbers in german so it´s like watching Earth 1 and Earth 2 versions of the same show. Except for the Swedish Chef. I´m watching him in german already because in the english version you can´t understand a word he says - which in itself might be funny but I prefer it better when I can understand him. The only negative thing with the german version is that they have the same finale every time. And I have the sneaking suspicion we german viewers are missing out because you can hear the guests and the Muppets continuing in the background.

It´s even more obvious with the third season because they changed the music and now it´s a bit out of synch with the old finale. Anyway, I also wanted to include a longer Muppet video so here is the 1987 special A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS. Not only is it a really wonderful Special it also served to introduce Jim Henson´s new show FRAGGLE ROCK.



Now the only reason why I knew this pop culture tidbit is that the guys at COMICGEEKSPEAK mentioned it in their Fraggle Rock spotlight and if you have now a nostalgic feeling and want to revisit those familiar stomping grounds again - or if you are a new visitor to it - here is the first episode.



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