Before we come to the actual issue at hand it is time for a little update on what´s new at the THOR front for me. Making these posts not only serves to let readers out there who only know the new female Thor see how the god of thunder is supposed to be written but it also reminds me why I love the book so much. When Disney is not messing it up with the Social Justice Warrior bs agendas and genderbending nonsense - or most of Dan Jurgens´ writing in this volume - it can be one of Marvel´s best titles.
Speaking of which, after getting volume 4 of THOR VISIONARIES : WALTER SIMONSON at a bargain price from amazon a few months back I decided to close the gap in my Thor trades and ordered volumes 3 and 5. Although I did make a small snafu. Now I have mentioned this before but there are currently two different versions of Walter Simonson´s THOR available in trade and you have to be really careful which ones you order because if you have a few of one version and you order trades from the other version you might have issues missing. The THOR VISIONARIES : WALTER SIMONSON line collects issues 337 - 348 in the first trade, issues 349 - 355 and 357 - 359 in the second trade, issues 360 - 369 in the third trade and issues 371 - 374 and BALDER THE BRAVE issues 1 - 4 in the fourth trade while the THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON line collects issues 337 - 345 in the first trade, issues 346 - 355 in the second trade, issues 357 - 363 and BALDER THE BRAVE 1 - 4 in the third trade and issues 364 - 369 and 371 - 374 in the fourth trade.
The fifth trade of both versions is basically the same collecting issues 375 - 382. I don´t know why Marvel decided to mix things around when they reprinted the issues again but it seems that with the second version they made sure that trades ended before the issues they omitted, issue 356 which was written by Bob Harras, penciled by Butch Guice and inked by Bob Layton and has Hercules telling one of the epic Hercules / Thor brawls as part of Assistant Editor´s Month and issue 370 written by James Owsley a.k.a. Christopher Priest, penciled by John Buscema and inked by none other than P. Craig Russell where Thor follows Loki to the old west where the god of mischief has hidden the apples of Idunn. While I understand why they left those issues out I would not have minded if they had included them since the first one is a very funny yarn and the second one has the legendary John Buscema on pencil which is always a good thing especially if you have somebody of the calibre of P. Craig Russel on inks.
So since I already had volume 4 of THOR VISIONARIES : WALTER SIMONSON I could not get volume 3 of THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON because I would have the BALDER THE BRAVE mini series in two trades and I would be missing issues 364 to 369. Now because the fifth THOR VISIONARIES : WALTER SIMONSON is almost impossible to find for a reasonable price I ordered the version of THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON but I forgot that those are the newly colored version which I already mentioned on this blog. So when I finally got the trade I was appalled by the coloring which totally overpowers the art by Walter Simonson which defeats the purpose of having a special edition dedicated to Walter Simonson´s run on THOR.
Now the reason for this long - winded explanation is that amazon currently offers volume 4 of THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON in their bargain book section and I want to warn my readers before they do something they might regret. IF you have already seen the new colored version of Walter Simonson´s THOR issues and you either like it or don´t care that much for the coloring then go ahead and buy it. BUT if you have not seen it - and you can´t see any preview pages through amazon on this one - better google it online and check out some of the pages before you do.
And speaking of checking out THOR trades, what I do recommend is the upcoming THOR EPIC COLLECTION : IN MORTAL FLESH that comes out in August this year and which collects issues 401 to 418 and THOR ANNUAL 14 from Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz´ highly underrated THOR run. I am going to buy a copy myself because it includes one of the issues I´m still missing in my collection which is a highly sought after issue since it is not only an ACTS OF VENGEANCE crossover but also the New Warriors 1st appearance.
But that is enough introduction for Today as a short preamble has become more time consuming than planned and it´s now seven o´clock. Here I have everything prepared to make a quick post and then I spend hours on reader service for trade paperbacks. So without further ado here is part two of Thor´s face off against longtime sparring partner Crusher Creel.
Now as usual I wanted to add a little bonus to the post and since I know how popular those DEJA VUE posts are with my readers I thought about including a few homage covers to THOR 126 but since I realized that there are some covers that are homages to that cover I totally missed I did a little internet research. Turns out there are more than just a few covers I didn´t know about so that will turn into a separate THORSDAY post down the line but it was another reason why making this post took so long.
So to give my readers that extra ooomph we have to go to the addendum which starts with two more THOR links of interest : Michael Hoskin at SECTION 244 who presents Thor : 40 years of favorite moments which naturally does not include the time Volstagg had a successful Food Network cooking show . Apropos tv shows, our birthday list is kicked off - pun intended - by italian mega sexbomba Federica Ridolfi who turns 43.
So far all my stuff about Federica is on the post about italian Über - MILF babe Simona Ventura since it´s not enough to require a separate post.
I first saw Federica as the front dancer of the ballet of the best tv show about soccer EVER which was the italian show QUELLI CHE IL CALCIO : a sports variety program that was broadcast live from Milan mixing coverage of italian series a soccer in real time with comedy, music and lots of hot women. Yes, in Germany tv programs about soccer are old, balding guys sitting at a table and drinking beer while in Italy it´s all about comedy, movie stars, interviews, music acts, a megahot presenter like Simona Ventura and a dance group with various incredibly hot sexbombs helmed by Federica Ridolfi. Since there is - like I said - not enough to do a solo post on Federica Ridolfi I am just going to put up the link for the Simona Ventura post where you can read more about her. Man, with all the work I have put into these post you might think that this year I don´t have to do a re - post but it looks like I have to do another overhaul on April the 1st. At least the new version will not take as long to upload since I´ve already done a separate post for the Tutti Frutti girls so I can cut that part of it.
And from italian MILFs and Chin Chin girls we make the jump to Bond girls : Yesterday was Javier Bardem´s birthday who starred together with Daniel Craig in Skyfall ( or like I like to call it the last good Bond movie ) who in turn has his 49th anniversary Today. To top things off Yesterday´s post was in honor to EC Comic visionary William Gaines and Daniel Craig also starred in the episode Smoke Wings from the Tales From The Crypt tv series.
According to my brother Daniel Craig will not be in the next Bond movie and going by the huge drop in quality between Skyfall and Spectre I can´t blame him. I mean how do you go from a movie that does everything right to one that fails miserably on all levels ? It wasn´t Daniel Craig´s fault - he was brilliant like always - but if you can´t make a villain played by an Oscar winning actor with the caliber of Christoph Waltz scary you need to go back in and fix things. As it is the only good thing about Spectre - aside from providing another huge paycheck for Daniel Craig because a man has to eat and pay bills which in this case is mainly the Doctor´s bill - is The Writing´s On The Wall another great Bond song written by Sam Smith.
Since I don´t know when I will have another opportunity to write about female wrestlers ( it seems I only get to do that once a year on hasian rubber sex doll Gail Kim´s birthday ) I absolutely MUST mention wrestling MILF Debra Marshal formerly known as Debra McMichael´s 57th birthday.
It´s no surprise that the Texas raised sexbomb with the huge hooters was a cheerleader as well as her school´s homecoming queen and Debra always catered to the sexual fantasy of doing it with the horny CEO with the porn star body or your nymphomanic boss with the perplexing puppies you could never drill. She always used her spectacular boobs to distract the opponent or the referee - whatever was more successful - and her ridiculously skimpy outfits come in every color of the 36DD rainbow.
Coming back to comic books, Mark Evanier turns 65 who started as a production assistant to Jack Kirby and is best known nowadays for his collaborations with Sergio Aragones on the creator owned Groo the Wanderer. Dang, every time Sergio Aragones comes up I am reminded that I still have not gotten around to purchase the Conan vs Groo mini series.
Besides his numerous works in comic books which are just too many to list Mark Evanier has also written for tv shows like Welcome Back Kotter, Scooby - Doo and Scrappy - Doo, Garfield And Friends, The Plastic Man Comedy / Adventure Show, Richie Rich and Thundarr The Barbarian.
Coming from science fiction cult cartoons to science fiction cult shows Gates McFadden celebrates her 68th birthday who is of course known as the best reason to report to sick bay with a case of priapism for oral treatment, Doctor Beverly Crusher on Star Trek - The Next Generation.
Although she does not have her own post yet there is plenty of Star Trek centric content on this blog as I just did a re - post of cult siren Jeri Ryan.
She played cybernetic blow up doll drone of Borg Sex with Nine on Star Trek : Voyager and in three days Jolene Blalock who played vulcan Pon Farr nympho T´Pol on Enterprise celebrates her birthday and I´m afraid I have no other choice than to do a new re - post of her cult siren entry as well.
Since I have to save the cartoon video for the finale of this post ( and because the episodes I posted from the Star Trek cartoon have already been deleted ) here is The Crier In Emptiness from the Power Records.
Now german actress Uschi Glas who turns 73 is probably not regarded as a cult siren but she has appeared in everything from SOKO to Winnetou und das Halbblut Apanatschi and she started her career displaying her then booming body in the movie Zur Sache Schätzchen ( Go For It Baby ).
Which was a stroke of luck because otherwise unbelievable Uschi would had continued in her career as a secretary or accountant. When I saw the movie for the first time I was surprised how subversive it was compared to the actual tv content and as far as I could ascertain it was a big hit when it came out because it perfectly captured the Zeitgeist of the youthful protest against the german establishment and the loosening morals in the wake of the sexual revolution. Of course part of the big draw was the hot ( but sadly interrupted ) striptease at the police station by Schätzchen Uschi - how she was quickly nicknamed by the german yellow press.
Uschi also tried her luck as a short lived Schlager star during the 70s and even recorded the album Wenn dein Herz brennt with Giorgio Moroder.
We start our Dearly Departed section with cult siren Jennifer Jones who is sadly one of the world´s most underrated Academy Award - winning actresses. Over the course of her 30 year career she starred in over 20 movies of which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette over Ingrid Bergman nominated for her work in For Whom The Bell Tolls. Jennifer was furthermore nominated for an Academy Award for her roles in Since You Went Away, Love Letters, Duel In The Sun and Love Is A Many - Splendored Thing.
My last birthday shoutout goes to Dr. Seuss and it is a bit weird that while I am from the generation that is more familiar with his work from the cartoon adaptions rather than his books there is a whole new generation out there who don´t know the books or the classic cartoons and their first contact with his material are the new awful 3d movies like The Lorax. I guess you can´t but fail if a money hungry company like Disney tries to convey a story with and environmental and ecological message at its basis.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best
A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.
