Best time to quit Marvel ? Right NOW !

It´s getting colder again and against my better judgement I´m not lying in my bed and relaxing but hacking away at the keyboard for another post. I really want to increase my post frequency but Yesterday was another day I spent going through the hundreds of e - mails that had accumulated since my last post.

Here in Ludwigsburg it has been rather warm these past few days, more like what you´d expect during a german fall period. At the Stadionbad most of the snow has melted but from now on it´s getting colder again.

Like I said, Yesterday I didn´t get to do much but I placed my monthly order at the online comicshop and I suddenly realized that I´m only reading one monthly Marvel comic : WINTER SOLDIER.

And I don´t have it on my pull list. I also started getting the first issues of the new Marvel NOW series CAPTAIN AMERICA and FF but they are also not on my pull list. With both books I buy them mainly for the art and on Captain America the story is already getting on my nerves. It reminds me too much of the JONAH HEX SPACE COWBOY book.

Anyway, I don´t really expect Marvel to manage keeping Mike Allred and John Romita Jr on the books for more than 6 issues ( 12 at the most ) which will be the time I make my exit stage left.

Now if you have read my posts last month you may find it strange that my recommendation was the big AVENGERS VS X - MEN hardcover which was mainly there to get us to the point of entry for all the Marvel NOW books and now I´m telling you that it´s the best time to drop Marvel altogether. Well, while I did recommend the hardcover the main reasons were that you can get it at a real bargain price at amazon and it´s a big superhero brawl with really good art. Storywise more " connect the dots to the next big event " but in the art departement a real heavyweight. But to tell you the truth I have a feeling that it was the swansong of the X - Men and that there are not going to come many good stories after this. Like most of the actual output by Marvel the franchise has it´s best days of the future in the past.

Which was one of the reasons why I decided to stop getting the floppies of the x - universe. With the last two big events ( X - MEN SCHISM and AVENGERS VS X - MEN ) I have bought the floppies and the hardcover and that really isn´t something I can afford to continue doing.

And with AVENGERS VS X - MEN I was really going to wait for the trade. So now I´m going cold turkey on the X - MEN. So far I always bought the german edition but now they have gone from offering 4 issues for 5.95 EUROS to 3 issues for the same price and that´s just too expensive. Especially if you get only one issue of X - MEN and two issues of some other x - title. Because then you pay 6 bucks for one issue of X - MEN and in my opinion even 4 bucks for one comic is a lot of money for one book. You better make sure that book is one hell of a read when you have to spend that kind of money. And quite frankly, except for the big events the x - titles were a bit disappointing for the last year. Yes, there was WOLVERINE AND THE X - MEN, but I had to jump some issues because of Chris Bachalo´s art and for the proper x - book, reading that was more out of habit than because of a real love for the book.

Okay, you might say that I´m not really going to stop reading Marvel books but it really feels that way. There is still issue 5 of FIRST X - MEN but it´s the last part and I mainly read it because of Neal Adams art. I just love seeing that man doing a monthly title. The story made no sense in this whole mess the x - universe has become. And really, for somebody who started his pull list many decades ago with only Marvel books I have to say that the rest of the current incarnations of the Marvel books are horrifying to read. All the books I used to follow for years and years.

Thor has gone from the best Thor book ever written under the penmanship op Walter Simonson to something that really makes no sense, no matter how you look at it. The whole thing with Asgard being on Midgard makes no sense.

What´s more, I don´t think it´s even possible because Asgard is a different dimension than Midgard and logically can´t occupy the same space without one destroying the other. Not as extreme as matter and anti - matter but almost as impossible. Just ask Walter Bishop or watch a few episodes of FRINGE to get educated.



It´s like trying to cram a big apple pie into a bucket filled with ice cream. It´s not possible without either destroying the pie, destroying the ice cream, destroying both or ending up with half of the pie and half the bucket of ice cream melting on the floor.

And you could see the consequences of that in the AVENGERS PRIME series where the laws of physics ( or magic or whatever lays down the rules in Asgard ) broke down. You know, I really thought they would be done with all that but they still keep on with the Asgard on Midgard thing. What´s worse they change so many things I don´t even know what´s what anymore in Asgard. Like with the Odin.

He´s dead, he´s back, he´s dead again, he´s alive but in a seperate dimension from which he can´t come back but suddenly Loki brings him back in spite of that and now he´s back somewhere where he never can get back from - again. I just don´t care. Give me an Odin who´s pulling a fast one of the Asgardians and having his Odinsleep every week anytime. I mean that´s what Odin was always doing in those Jack Kirby comics I used to read. He was always busy with some plan that resulted in f -ing up Thor´s life in one way or the other, mostly robbing him of his powers or diminishing them by half or any other excuse to leave him almost as weak as a kitten so the other superhero who gueststarred had a fighting chance. And Odin was always sleeping the Odinsleep.

Really, in almost every issue I read he was either preparing for the Odinsleep, sleeping the Odinsleep or waking up from the Odinsleep. There´s really not much else he did which might have been one of the reasons his wife was Frigga. You can guess why she was called that. On the other side, ruling a land like Asgard with such pains in the a - word like Thor and Loki can really wear you out so maybe the whole Odinsleep was just an excuse to hit the pot or drink a few barrels of met.

You know, after all those years I finally know how Odin must have felt because, boy, when I get finished with my work at the Stadionbad I sure do feel the need for the Odinsleep coming over me. Or in my case I could call it the Subzerosleep. Although that hasn´t quite the ring like Odinsleep.

But back to the current Thor book Odin isn´t the only one who´s confusing right now. I mean what´s the whole deal with Loki ? First he´s a guy, then he´s a hot chick, then he´s a guy again and then he´s dead and gets resurrected by Thor as a kid. Who writes such stuff and can we ban the substances he´s smoking ? Because they are not healthy. I mean, for all the trouble Thor had to go through the last two years with Loki with the whole SIEGE thing and always trying to kill Thor and destroy Midgard and Asgard. And then what´s the very first thing he does when he finally gets rid of that menace ?

He goes " Boy, I do miss my stepbrother. He sure did lighten things up around here - when he wasn´t trying to kill me, my father, my race, this planet and the whole universe. You know what ? I´m going to bring him back. " like he was abusing some substances himself. I mean Thor never was a big thinker. But so far he never was stupid. No, you really can´t read Thor anymore. I mean I got some issues of the new MIGHTY THOR series at the last Comicbörse in Stuttgart for a buck each - by the way a big thank you from the people trying to make sense of Thor for another relaunch and another Thor book - and it was like I had suddenly crossed over to the parallel universe from FRINGE where they have a Red Arrow.

There are the gods from Broxton or some other british town ( I guess, geography was never my strong point in school ), Loki is running around with his old personality trapped in a raven and Asgard is ruled by three women and is still on Midgard. Now I´m not sure but female leaders were rather uncommon in norse society.

And it just goes on and on with the other Marvel books. I mean ever since BRAND NEW DAY you couldn´t read an issue of Spider - Man with a clear conscience but now they have taken all that´s left and flushed it down the toilet. And I´m not talking about AVENGING SPIDER - MAN which kept getting worse and worse and worse with each issue.

The book has become so bad that I´m not sure which issue is the worst one yet : the one that turned Hawkeye from a confident and strong character into an insecure whiner who thinks he´s worth nothing without his archery skills or the one with Deadpool and the Hypnohustler in the same issue. Or the issue where Aunt May and Peter are so far out of character that it´s like reading about wo totally different persons. No, it´s the same on the regular spiderbooks. I guess Spider - Girl was the only exception qualitywise and Marvel sure tried to shut that book down often enough.

For years you could see that Marvel has run out of ideas for stories ( unless you count bad ideas ) and have capitulated intellectually. Which gives us storylines like SPIDER ISLAND where everybody has spiderpowers.

But now, in the final issue of AMAZING SPIDER - MAN, number 700, they have put Doctor Octopus in Peter Parker´s body and killed off Peter. I don´t know but I have no intention of reading a book with Doc Ock wearing a Peter Parker suit trying to get it on with MJ. That´s just all kinds of sick and disgusting. It´s the whole " The Green Goblin did it with Gwen Stacy " thing all over again.

What is it with Today´s writers that they keep loading crap on MJ ? First she´s not good enough for Peter so Joe Quesada comes up with BRAND NEW DAY, before that she was terrorized by Venom and kidnapped by a stalker. And now Dock Ock is putting the moves on her. I tell you, if Peter Parker ever returns ( and from the looks of the last pages of issue 1 it looks like he´s already back ) Mary Jane is going to need decades of therapy when she finds out she has slept with Doctor Octopus. Okay, Marvel may decide not to go that far but then why start the whole thing in the first place ? Why go down that path if you´re not willing to go all the way ? Not that Marvel hasn´t done so before. They always start something then get afraid of their own courage.

Like when they covered up Shanna´s boobies in that Frank Cho series. Boy, who´s still waiting for the uncensored version of that to come out ? I tell you, not as long as Joe Quesada´s around. The only one I really pity with the whole thing is Frank Cho who should have learned his lesson then. But Marvel is devious in that way. They say it was only a mistake and it will never happen again and they throw the big cash on the table to get Frank Cho to work for them on such comics like AVENGERS VS X - MEN 0. And just when it looks like everything´s fine they go and f - up the new SAVAGE WOLVERINE book. You know, we should all boycott the book just out of solidarity with Frank Cho. I always said the next book by Frank Cho with Shanna in it I buy is the uncensored version of that miniseries Marvel f - ed up and it seems Marvel is trying to hold me to it.

And it doesn´t look like the rest of the Marvel NOW books are any better. Okay, we got Ed McGuiness on NOVA but Nova is just a little kid now and if he keeps getting younger with each relaunch we will soon have Baby Nova.

Yes, I bought the new AVENGERS ASSEMBLE book ( never use the word ASS on an Avengers book ) but only because they had Rocket Racoon in it. And speaking of Rocket Racoon : does Marvel have an insidious plan to ruin my life or is there some other reason why no book that has the guntoting space raccon in it doesn´t have good art ? And if not for long. I know that they have a new GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY book because of the upcoming movie. Which I hope they don´t f - up too much. But Steve McNiven is not really one of the guys who gets me to buy a book. And can anyone explain to me why Iron Man is suddenly on the team ? Nope, besides from the upcoming WOLVERINE book by Alan Davis there don´t seem to be that many books by Marvel that I´ll spend money on. Okay, I´ll buy anything that Alan Davis does but as long as the company has five different DEADPOOL books it´s their own fault they won´t get much money from me.

Not that I´ll totally stop buying Marvel comics. There are still three trades of Chris Claremont´s X - MEN FOREVER I haven´t read and with THUNDERBOLTS I´m at least three volumes behind. So I´ll be getting that as well as more of the old stuff like more ESSENTIAL trades or the first issues of John Buscema´s AVENGERS run with Roger Stern. Yes, Marvel does seem to read my blog from time to time as they seem to adjust their publishing plans accordingly. I mean, I write a post about how I really liked the british Avengers poketbook that includes the BRIDE OF ULTRON story and how I think this would be great as a Marvel premiere hardcover and the next thing I know it´s done. I write that I want more John Buscema hardcovers and the next thing you know they publish a new trade with the first AVENGERS issues that were not available until now. Okay, it´s a trade and not a hardcover but that may be next.

One thing that´s bothering me is that now that I have much more hardcovers it seems to me the prices for them have been going up in recent years. I mean one reason why I wanted to tell my readers that amazon is offering the AVENGERS VS X - MEN hardcover at a bargain price was that in my opinion 75 bucks is a bit much for it. But that´s the topic of one of the next posts. For now I just want to say after DC crapped all over their universe Marvel seems to have followed suit. And I´m mainly off the big two and reading much more independent titles. It´s not that I hate Marvel or the characters. Au contraire, I love them.

The only problem is that they have been absent from their own books and I´m not going to waste any money on that. Especially when such great books like CAVEWOMAN and ARCHER & ARMSTRONG are coming back and COURTNEY CRUMRIN is becoming a full color monthly. Combined with such stalwarts like SAVAGE DRAGON, LOVE AND CAPES and USAGI YOJIMBO and such heavy hitting newbies like MUDMAN and BULLETPROOF COFFIN

- or the new DARK HORSE PRESENTS anthology that delivers with each issue - there are enough books that I can spend my money on. And I hope we can talk about all of them in my next post as this one has been a bit of a rant. But you have to do those from time to time to get it out of your system.

Todays video is from Comic Girl 19, as I have promised to post more shows of her in an earlier post. This is the 15 minutes special that tells you all about the death of Peter Parker. I would say it´s full of spoilers but I´m afraid I already mentioned most of them. So that boat has already sailed the haven. Anyway, enjoy and I hope I can post again next week.



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I killed Captain America with a hammer and they made me queen of the world.

Movie rummage table : Time Masters

Because the comments section has been flooded with spam once again I spent most of my internet time Today deleting that. So it´s just going to be a short post this time around. This is kind of a follow - up to my series of Moebius posts that I had to interrupt and which I hope to continue soon. I still have to do the post on the INCAL books.

Anyway, this week I dropped off at one of the stores where I go to look for DVDs after work, to see if I could find the seasons of DALLAS I´m missing ( season three and four which contains the famous storyline where JR gets shot ) but as usual I didn´t find them.

So I went through all the DVDs at the rummage table looking for something else that I could buy, and when I say that I have to mention that I´m a little bit like Monk in that regard as that I have to go through all of them and put them in an orderly fashion, although I know they are not going to stay that way for more than fifteen minutes after I turned my back. Now there are some people who sneer at those rummage DVD tables but I have found all kinds of DVDs at them from PEANUTS to BATMAN - THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD to DC´s animated WONDER WOMAN, even cineastic milestones like Andy Sidaris´ FIT TO KILL.


Anyway, I found three interesting animation movies and since I wasn´t sure if I didn´t already have two of them I bought the one I knew I didn´t have. In fact, I was totally sure I didn´t have the movie but I wasn´t so sure if I knew the movie at all. The name sounded kind of something I have heard before and some of the pictures on the back looked familiar - especially the winged creatures - but I really couldn´t recall the movie.

Well, when I re - watched it later on I remembered a few of the scenes but not all of them so it was kind of watching a new movie.

The movie I´m talking about is TIME MASTERS ( HERRSCHER DER ZEIT in german ), a french animation film done in 1982 by Rene Laloux and designs by Moebius which gives the movie a certain flair. The story was written by french sci fi author Stefan Vul who also wrote the story on Rene Laloux animation movie THE PHANTASTIC PLANET during the 70s. I once saw the DVD for that also on a rummage pile but I had no idea at that time what the movie was all about. Back to TIME MASTERS,the movie begins with a strange vehicle racing across some alien dessert

while the driver, Claude, is making a desperate emergency call : they have been attacked by hornets ( which are just gigantic and disgusting ),

his wife Anna is dead and Claude is trying to get to safety with his son Piel of 7 or 8 years. Then the vehicle crashs and Claude ( who is wounded and stuck in the wrecked vehicle ) sends Piel away while he makes a last stand against the hornets. Which the viewer only can guess since you only see it from afar with alien vegetation in the way, gunshots are heard and then there´s a big explosion followed by a lot of smoke. Piel wanders off, all alone on the desert planet Perdide, his only companion a microphone gadget Claude gave him which calls " Mike ".

Through " Mike " Piel comes into contact with Jaffar, a friend of his father who tries to guide him safely through the perils of the planet and hurries across space toward Perdide with his spaceship and his passengers, Prince Matton and Princess Belle who are fugitives because they stole half the treasure of their home planet. It´s never said if they are brother and sister or married although since we are talking about blue bloods it could be both. They also pick up an old geezer named Silbad who has been on Perdide before and knows the terrain as well as two stowaways in the form of telepathic gnomes. Time runs short and not only Piel´s life is in danger as the prince has no intentions of delaying his escape for a kid.

The movie is not really one of the best animation movies ever made but for Moebius it´s still worth seeing it. It´s a big step above most of the animation movies from that time period and especially in Germany it´s one of those obscure movies you hear about but never see. It was on tv a few times during the 80s and 90s but was completely unavailable afterwards until it was finally released on DVD in 2008.

Not really an undispensable movie it´s still quite entertaining for those who haven´t seen it or those who - like me - have seen it so long ago that they have mostly forgotten everything. I bought it for 5 bucks and you can probably find it for the same price at some rummage table or in on of the many " Everything 1 Euro " shops. You can also look on the internet for it and I think amazon has it for 5 EUROS. It´s offered at three different prices but they´re all the same version so look for the cheapest one.

Before closing this post and the new episodes of NCIS and THE MENTALIST are on ( so much for my idea to take a nap before that ) I wanted to mention Todays celebrity birthday babe Stacey Dash, who appeared in such movies like MO MONEY, GETTING PLAYED and ILLEGAL IN BLUE but is best known for starring in the movie CLUELESS and repeating her role in the tv version of the movie.

Stacey is really the only reason to watch the CLUELESS tv series since she busted out on that show but sadly she waited with posing for PLAYBOY until she was 40. She turns 47 on this very day which means that I can safely say that I find her hot without having to fear attacks from the political correctness police.

Now usually I only post one video at the end of the post but this time I´m making an exception. Well, not really, since it´s the same video only in three different versions. Of course it´s the movie TIME MASTERS, first in the german dubbed version which comes in eight parts and has the biggest frame size and good sound. The picture quality is not that good but you don´t have to strain your eyes that much.



The second version has a better picture quality although it is a bit smaller, but not as loud. It´s the full french movie.



And last but not least, the full english movie, TIME MASTERS. Enjoy !



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In plain english : JR will never sell guns to the indians again.

How to improve your life

Originally started on Tuesday, January the 8th

Okay, maybe that´s saying a lot but one of my readers told me that I need to have more kick - ass titles for my blog if I want to get more page views. So here´s me trying to pander to the masses.

And before you ask, this post will probably not give you the ultimate answer to the meaning in life but it also won´t make your life any worse. In fact, you may really benefit from it.

So Today is one of the days when I don´t work and I should use the day to relax, sleep a little and recharge my batteries. But being the masochist that I am I already went to the doctor to get an appointment for Thursday and went to Ludwigsburg to buy a few seasons of DALLAS on DVD. Mostly because they are at ten bucks a season now which is my limit for complete tv seasons and my Dad never let me see it as a kid. And because there are such hot women that I remember from my youth on the show like Charlen Tilton, Audrey Landers and Victoria Principal, massita !

So instead of doing the things I should do like finishing with my e - mails I´m writing this post. Which I´ll have to finish on Friday since I have to work again Tomorrow and on Thursday there´s the appointment with my doc so I probably won´t get anything else done that day. And on top of that I have been getting the blue computer screen a lot lately.

So I have no idea how long it will take me to finish this post but I will do my best. As always the post will go through some changes and become much longer as they always tend to do.

A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION A LITTLE MORE ACTION

If you have checked out a few of my older posts you may have noticed that I closed the comments on a few of them. Now this has nothing to do with censorship but with keeping this blog working.

I don´t know why but lately this little blog has been flooded with spam and it´s gotten so bad that when I last tried to finish this very post I spent the whole day deleting spam from the comments section. And while I appreciate each and every comment it´s just not worth it to loose the blog for that. So I have already closed the comment sections on the most frequently spammed posts and I will do so on the next few that get overwhelmed. I have no idea why my little blog is suddenly so popular among spammers and what they hope to gain by doing this. I don´t think I have the necessary amount of visitors to really profit from such an attack but while other people may be okay with wasting their time with such crap I certainly am not. So if you want to put a comment on one of the posts and it isn´t possible but you think it´s important you can still write me an e - mail. That also goes for all the people out there who think they can use the comments section to promote their blog by spamming. If you want to promote your blog or do a link exchange then write me an e - mail. And if you do : it really helps if you include the name of your website and the address. Just a small tip.

AVENGERS VS X - MEN : IT`S ON, BABY ! IT`S ON !

It´s been a while since I did any pimping for amazon and one of the reasons why is because most of the bargains I found and wanted to get out there to my readers were gone before I could post them.

So this time I will put it right on my first new post in the hopes that as many people as possible can get it. My tip for Today is the hardcover of AVENGERS VS X - MEN and I know that some readers - or most readers - may already have the single issues. Now the reason why I´m still putting it on the blog is to get the word out to those readers that haven´t read it yet. And my german readers since here AVENGERS VS X - MEN is just starting and the hardcover is on the german amazon website as usual. Usually it´s a 75 Dollar book - it has 568 pages - but amazon Germany is offering it at 45 EUROS and it´s only going to get more expensive the next few days ( it´s at 49 EUROS by the time I´m finishing this so you better ordered your copy already ). Now you just can´t beat that. Like I said, AVENGERS VS X - MEN HC goes normally for 75 Dollars which will cost you around 62 / 60 EUROS at good comicshop or onlineshops and it contains AVENGERS VS X - MEN issues 0 to 12, POINT ONE ( the AVX story), AVX VS 1 to 6, AVENGERS VS X - MEN INFINITE 1, 6 and 10.

Okay, what´s the big deal about AVENGERS VS X - MEN ? First I have to say that I was really close to waiting on the trade - or better the hardcover in my case - on this one but at the last moment I started to buy the single issues. Of course part of the reason for that was the art and it´s really difficult for me to resist Frank Cho, John Romita Jr and Olivier Coipel on a book about the Avengers and the X - Men duking it out.

You know, when I first heard about this I thought the X - Men to have an advantage here since they have an unlimited amount of mutant teams.

But then I realized that the Avengers have the regular Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Mighty Avengers so there´s no imbalance there. You also have to factor in that counting all the people who have ever been part of Earth´s Mightiest Heroes you might get something between 150 and 200. Maybe. So with the mutant population down to 200 - at least officially - and not all of them being in an x - team things don´t look so bleak for the Avengers side.

But back to what I was saying : when I first heard about this it sounded like one of those cheap marketing ploys to get us poor readers to buy a gazillion books and spend all our money on all those tie - in issues. And don´t let things fool you, that´s what it is. If you are new to the Marvel Universe this is NOT the point of entry for you. In this comic there are dozens and dozens of characters, many of them just dropping by shortly and even as a seasoned pro you need a scorecard because the writers have tried to include everything, even the kitchen sink. There are years and years of backstory that play out here and with a lot of things you will not know what the h - word is going on.

But.

But the reason why I still recommend it is - to quote a certain wrestler turned actor : IT DOESN`T MATTER if you don´t know what´s all the s - word that happens ( and speaking about wrestlers : you´ll never guess who writes the foreword ). This is the Royal Rumble of Royal Rumbles of the superheroes. It´s the knockout slobberknocker headbutt - in - your - face fighting tournament to end all superhero battles.

Not only is this two of the biggest superhero teams going at it full throttle you also have people who have been in both teams like Wolverine, Beast or Storm and who are practically double agents and you have Avengers who also are mutants like the Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver. And you get really everybody fighting against everybody else.

My only gripe with the story is that Gambit doesn´t die a horrible death. Which is totally unrealistic on my part but I think it´s an essential ingredient for every good X - Men story. No, really. I think Gambit should really die in any mutant story that matters and the more gruesome and more often the better. In fact that would probably be my only reason to write an x - book : to kill off Gambit as many times as I can and having each time more horrifying than the one before.

But enough about my obsession with someone who in my opinion really should have lost his mutant powers on M - Day and back to AVENGERS VS X - MEN. Now this could have been just another run of the mill crossover mandateted by big muckamucks at Marvel, and when I say Marvel I´m meaning Disney since they are now the bosses. But what the writers Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Jeph Loeb, Ed Brubaker and Jonathan Hickman did was now that it couldn´t be helped to have the two biggest franchise go to war with each other to go all in : the Phoenix is coming back to earth and this time it´s gunning for Hope.

Which splits up the X - Men in all kind of different camps and of course Captain America thinks the Avengers are the only ones qualified to handle this situation. Which Cyclops is not too happy about since not only does he have different ideas about what to do with Hope and the Phoenix, he´s also not amused with the Avengers butting in.

Especially since in his opinion they never cared in the least about all the troubles mutants had to face over the years. And let´s be blunt : so far Captain America has mostly ignored anything that happened in the mutant corner of the Marvel universe. But with this he just can´t and while he has just the best of intentions we all know where you end up with them.

There are several things that have been boiling unaddressed between the Avengers and the X - Men and even between some of the mutants themselves that are dragged into the open with this battle. Regular Marvel raders probably know what I´m talking about and for all the other let´s just say that in the past few years some serious f - word - ed up s - word has happened like the Scarlet Witch doing some ugly things to the Avengers and her husband in particular before depowering most of the mutants. Part of this was addressed in the superbly written and drawn YOUNG AVENGERS - THE CHILDREN´S CRUSADE miniseries but there really was no real conclusion about what the Avengers or the X - Men want to do with the Scarlet Witch.

Another thing is that there was this entire MESSIAH COMPLEX storyline in X - Men about the first mutant child born after the Scarlet Witch´s mutant reboot called Hope who is hailed by Cyclops as the new messiah who will save the mutant race.

I didn´t read the whole thing because I started reading X - Men again after all this has passed but you really don´t have to know all that. No, really. Todays comic readers always want to know every nook and cranny, and who did what when and where. When I started reading comics nobody cared about those things. For one, you probably weren´t able to get the missing issues because there weren´t that many places where you could buy comics and the ones you got were the ones you got. The other thing was that the only thing that mattered then was the story you were reading, not a lot of trivia or backstory that was really not that important to enjoy your comic. Man, as a kid I would have loved this comic.

I really was totally into those books where I would see some characters for the first time or where heroes were different from how I remembered.

Some of it might be that I always enjoyed elsewhere stories although it might also have something to do with the fact that in my youth the german issues I was reading were decades behind the original issues. So every time I got an american issue of the Avengers or the X - Men there would be totally different members and all the members I knew would have different costumes and it would be so exciting to find out what has happened between the issues. And if I got AVENGERS VS X - MEN as a kid I would have asked so many exciting questions. Why is there a Green Hulk and a Red Hulk ? Since when is Wolverine an Avenger and headmaster of a school ? What´s the deal with the Colossonaught ? And how come Professor Xavier is alive ? That´s one of the things that really showed how confusing the whole x - franchise is, you don´t know who´s dead and alive anymore. And let´s not start on Magneto. He´s a bad guy, he´s a good guy, he´s dead, he´s back, he´s Xorn, he´s Che Guevarra, he´s Adolf, he´s just misunderstood. I think now he just wants a hug. Just kidding.

Okay, I don´t want to say too much about the story since you might not have read it. What I want to say is that if you like those big superhero crossovers with everybody throwing punches and the universe at stake than this is the story for you. If you like multilayered stories with quiet character moments and people learning something about life and subtle nuances - boy, have you come to the wrong party. This is superheroes punching each other out and using the crowbar. The Hornet in the garden with a lead pipe, brother, cranked to eleven if you know what I mean.

Here you get really crazy stuff and not only the main story but also all the fights from the A vs X battles since all the issues are included. There´s just a ton of extra stuff in here even the code for a digital copy if you care for that stuff. I found it fun to read and with such artists like Ed McGuiness, Terry Dodson, Brandon Peterson, Tom Raney, Jim Cheung or Stuart Immomen the bar is really set high ( click here for all the avengers vs x - men previews ). The issues are also discussed at length on Comic Geek Speak. Here are the links to the episodes : issues 0, 1 and 2 / 3 and 4 / issues 5 and 6 / issues 7 and 8 / issues 9 and 10 / issue 11 / issue 12

Now if you want to know more about AVENGERS VS X - MEN and listening to podcasts is not your thing just watch the following video by Comic Girl 19 which is just brilliant but beware since it´s full of spoilers.



Ever since A COMICBOOK ORANGE stopped doing shows I have been looking for a worthy contender and here it is. If you are not totally blown away by this then there´s something seriously wrong with you. And if you are like, totally check out her videos about FLEX MENTALLO and the new GLORY relaunch.

Before closing out I wanted to mention Today´s celebrity birthday : it´s wrestling diva Kelly Kelly who celebrates her 26th anniversary. I whish I could give any last minute information about her wrestling carrer but thanks to german television I have no idea if she´s even still in the WWE.

Man, on spanish tv wrestling is on in the afternoon and here in Germany they almost never show female wrestling. Mostly only if it´s unavoidable because some important storyline. I tell you : you will see 100 naked male butts before you see two athletic women beating the snot out of each other in the squared circle. Thank god there´s the internet were we can find out all actual stuff. So, in spite of the - as usual - incompetent jabronies from SPORT1 Happy Birthday and Many Happy Returns, Kelly Kelly !

And last but not least the video at the end of the blog. I really thought about adding another video from Comic Girl 19 but I think you can find them yourself. And I have the feeling there will be some of them popping up on this blog in the near future - providing I can " ramp up " my posting quota. So instead of something that´s related to Avengers versus X - Men, which took up most of this post, sorry, here´s a hilarious video which I didn´t get around to post so far. I´m afraid it´s only funny in Germany but them´s the breaks.



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 I got news for you, buddy : we´re all Avengers now.

Happy birthday tv cult siren Traci Bingham !

Since it´s her 45th birthday Today I wanted to give a big shout - out to one of my favorite tv sexbombs of all times, nubian sex goddess Traci Bingham ( or Traci Banghim or Traci Banghimhard like I like to call her ).

She is of course best known for her role of buxom 36D hardbody Jordan Tate on BAYWATCH and whatever you say about David Hasselhoff but he sure has an eye for hot babes. On Baywatch we had Traci Bingham

ultimate Power Girl Pamela Anderson from my SEARCH FOR POWER GIRL series ( who was in Playboy most often of all the hot Baywatch babes )

the first Power Girl of the show Erika Eleniak ( also a playmate )

who is best known for her mindblowing striptease on UNDER SIEGE

dancer Carmen Electra ( like Pamela she was in Playboy several times )

the sexy and exotic Stacy Kamano from BAYWATCH HAWAII

the very sexy and wet Vanessa Angel from WEIRD SCIENCE

Krista Allen who played Emanuelle in the tv series

and also playmate and Penthouse pet and pornstar Teri Weigel, Jenny Mc Carthy, Jasmine Bleeth, Donna D´Erico, Kelly Monaco, Brande Roderick, Nicole Eggert ( who celebrates her 41st birthday Today but I can´t do another post Today, sorry ), Mitzi Capture and Gina Lee Nolin among others. Most of them have been in Playboy and other men´s magazines.

Back to Traci Bingham I always hoped they would cast her as Storm in the next X- Men movie since there were rumors that Halle Berry wouldn´t return to the role. I guess I´m probably the only one on the whole wide world who would cast Janet Jackson as Storm. Okay, I get that Hollywood.

You think she´s not the right one but how about casting her as Storm´s lost sister ? Come on, work with me here. With all the useless changes you have done in comic movies so far, how about doing some good ?

I was really hoping that they would cast Traci Bingham as the next Storm in the black " swimsuit with leather boots " outfit which she would own

or maybe even the yellow bikini she wore in the Savage Land storyline. Boy, that John Byrne guy really knew how to draw some hot babes.

Okay, here´s Traci´s version of the yellow bikini :

I bet Traci would look really terrific wearing an outfit like this.

Or maybe even less if the producers were willing to do a scene with her skinny dipping. I mean in the comics she always wanted to swim nude.

Alas, but so far that has not come to pass. And now that Halle Berry has announced she will reprise her role of Storm for the next X - Men movie I´m looking at it with - like the germans say - one crying eye and one laughing eye. The crying one because once again we won´t get to see Traci showing her naked hardbody all wet on the big screen and the laughing one because we get Halle who still looks terrific in a bikini.

Okay, that picture is more than one year old but have you seen her rack - tastic appearance on the Jay Leno show this year ? Man, at 46 she made all them eyes pop with her sexed up see through top. Nice puppies, Halle !

Even the yellow press was all worked up about her appearance on The Tonight Show with headlines going from HALLE BERRY FLAUNTS MAJOR CLEAVAGE to HALLE BERRY´S CLEAVAGE STOLE THE SHOW to HALLE BERRY´S CLEAVAGE PROVES DISTRACTING FOR JAY LENO to JAY LENO CAN´T HELP BUT STARE AT HALLE BERRY´S CLEAVAGE and finally JAY LENO CAN´S STOP STARING AT HALLE BERRY´S CLEAVAGE. Some quotes :

Halle Berry certainly isn’t shy. The buxom star managed to attract a lot of attention when she stopped by The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - although she didn’t have to say a word ! Instead, she let her plunging mini dress do ALL the talking, while her exposed chest certainly stole the spotlight - in fact, Jay Leno‘s gaze kept wandering down Halle’s killer cleavage and sideboob. The 62 - year - old host looked like he was having a hard time ( and getting harder by the minute ) concentrating and couldn’t help stealing glances at Halle’s ample assets - and who could blame him?

It's no secret that Halle Berry oozes sex appeal. The Bond girl can leave men in a dribbling state of awe simply by flashing her smile -- so you can imagine the effect she had on Jay Leno after showing up in one of the lowest necklines we've ever seen. For her appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" last night, the 46 year old donned a skimpy physics - defying, cleavage - bearing dress by Reem Acra with silver trim and an incredibly low neckline . The sheer mesh bust line was on the low side, but it also featured a slit down the middle all the way to her belly button !

Needless to say, Jay had a tough time focusing on the topic at hand ( I don´t know, but it seems to me that Jay did an admirable job because anybody else would have been staring at her boobs all the time since it looked like her ripe melons could pop out of her top any moment ).

There’s no denying that Halle is in amazing shape and looks better than stars half her age - and she loves to show it off every chance she gets!

The silver trimming along the middle cutout and top of the frock only added to the alluring appeal of the seriously sexy get - up. Black patent pumps and earrings completed the ensemble - although it was Halle’s killer cleavage that was her best ( or should I say breast ) accessory!

Halle Berry, appearing as a guest on Monday’s edition of The Tonight Show, had host Jay Leno in a trance in her extremely low - cut strapless dress with generous amounts of cleavage. Jay clearly doesn’t mind Halle’s provocative style, complimenting the star on the plunging Versace gown she wore to the 85th Annual Academy Awards last month, adding, “ I like this dress better .” constantly staring at the Oscar winner´s chest. Her black and silver mini just might be her sexiest " fuck me " dress ever.

And after all that talk here´s the best quality clip I could find on YouTube.



Anyway, Happy birthday Traci Bamghim and many happy returns.

As usual I wanted to post a clip of sexy birthday babe Traci that showed why I wanted her to be Storm, but I just couldn´t find a good one, just lots of bad ones from Celebrity Big Brother. Instead I´m posting a clip from another hot Baywatch babe I mentioned : it´s hot Erika Eleniak and her megasexy strip from the Steven Segal movie UNDER SIEGE . I had found a clip on YouTube where her naked boobs are not covered up / scrambled but that has been deleted so I had to go elsewhere.



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