It was no Secret War, it was an Armor War !

Like I predicted in my last post to honor Bob Layton´s birthday we get to continue our look on his work on IRON MAN with the ARMOR WARS II story line that reunited him with artist John Romita Jr exactly one year later.

Even if Bob Layton only wrote the first issue - IRON MAN 256 - and then handed the writing reigns over to John Byrne it´s one of John Romita Jr´s best IRON MAN stories so I wanted to include it here. But before we come to that there are some things I have to address first concerning my last Bob Layton birthday post on this and another post where I mentioned this.

I don´t know if you remember this post but I posted links to Andrew Porwitzky´s series of posts on the ARMOR WARS ( or ARMOUR WARS if you read the pocket book from Panini UK ) he did over at SIDEKICKCAST for all those who haven´t read it yet and the rest who want to relive this fantastic story line. Well, I only posted the first three chapters because at that time that was all but in the meantime Andrew has finished the series and if you want to read part 4 , part 5 , part 6 and part 7 use the links.

Now the other thing is that a lot of readers might want to check this out with a more hands - on approach which means they want to get their hands on actual issues but not all of them want to go hunt back issues.

Which I can understand. Under normal circumstances you can find these issues easily in back issue bins since they should not be in high demand.

Those issues are old and even if a lot of people have fond memories of them you should not pay more than a buck an issue. Yes. Under normal circumstances. Now if you read Terry Hooper´s COMIC BITS ONLINE blog which you can find on the blogroll to the right ( which you need to read religiously to get all the trends and movie intel months BEFORE the " big " comic / movie news websites post it as " hot news " ) you know that the comic market is kind of crazy right now and some comic dealers may charge you an arm and a leg for these comics because they are " hot " , " in demand " and because it will surely " be in the next Iron Man movie " - it won´t. They may also try to talk you into the newest dreck Disney paddles as Armor Wars and I can only warn you not to fall for this crap.

Now the cheapest way to read these issues is to get the pocket books from Panini UK but there are only two out from this period collecting DEMON IN A BOTTLE and ARMOUR WARS. If you live in the UK you can get those in comic and book stores, if you live outside the UK you´ll have to get them from amazon or Thalia like me. The format is smaller but at least you don´t have to bear with a sub - par translation. DEMON IN A BOTTLE is also available from Hachette´s Offical Marvel Collection in german but since I already own the IRON MAN by David Micheline, Bob Layton and John Romita Jr Omnibus AND the regular hardcover edition I didn´t buy it so I can´t tell you how good the translation on this one is.

Now besides the pocket books DEMON IN A BOTTLE is available in trade and hardcover in good comic shops and it´s also in THE POWER OF IRON MAN, which is the copy I have. It´s a rather old trade and doesn´t include the covers but if you can´t find it any other version this one is good too.

The next collection is of course DOOMQUEST which collects issues 149, 150, 249 and 250, again in trade and hardcover. The next ones are not listed in many databases and are a bit less sought after. First up is THE MANY ARMORS OF IRON MAN - as the name implies it is centered around the first appearances of Tony Stark´s new armors like the stealth armor, the space armor, the underwater armor or the silver centurion armor.

Therefore the issues included here are a bit hodge podge but to round up your library of the IRON MAN dream team David Micheline, Bob Layton and John Romita Jr it´s a worthy addition. The trade collects issues 47, 142 - 144, 152 - 153, 200 and 218. Some of you may remember that I said I didn´t have issue 200 in my collection but it seems I read it and then forgot. You might also want to check out issue 46 of the third volume of IRON MAN ( which is also numbered as issue 391 of the first volume ) which is a 100 PAGE MONSTER and reprints issues 78, 140 and 141.

If you see a 100 PAGE MONSTER you have to grab it because they always give you a read that´s your moneys worth and there are always issues which are hard to find or haven´t been reprinted before like the last two in this comic which come directly before the ones in THE MANY ARMORS OF IRON MAN. It´s a shame Marvel didn´t make more of these issues.

Speaking of IRON MAN 200 you can also find that issue in the IRON MONGER collection which includes all the issues from number 193.

And now we finally get to ARMOR WARS - well, almost. There exists a ARMOR WARS PROLOGUE book which contains issues 215 to 224 which should be available in trade and hardcover. As is the ARMOR WARS book which has issues 225 to 232. I don´t think there is a collection that falls into the issues between this and the ARMOR WARS II trade / hardcover which contains issues 258 to 266 of IRON MAN but I could be wrong. As I mentioned in my post about the MARVEL VISIONARIES : JOHN ROMITA JR hardcover it reprints the first issue of ARMOR WARS II, IRON MAN 256 as well as issue 128 - which is the last part of DEMON IN A BOTTLE story.

There is also a trade called IRON MAN - ARMOR WARS that does not reprint the classic story - except issue 225 - but rather the IRON MAN & THE ARMOR WARS miniseries by Joe Caramagna and Craig Rousseau. I have no idea about the quality of the work since I have never seen a copy but if you are looking for the classic ARMOR WARS stories this is no it.

And last but not least there is THE DRAGON SEED SAGA paperback with art by Paul Ryan which almost finished up John Byrne´s run on the book. There was a two part story guest starring the Black Widow after this.

Now you might say : " But what about the new Epic Collections from Disney, SUBZERO ? There are four with Iron Man already out and two of them collect stuff from this period of the title. What about them ? " 

Well, if you have read my latest posts you know that I really can not recommend them with a clean conscience. Not because of the quality of the material in them or the quality of the reproduction but more because of the low production quality. 35 bucks is a lot of money for a trade where I have to be afraid of breaking it every time I read it because there is not enough gutter to open it properly. So far I have only three of these trades and all have the same problem. And I don´t think I can say much more on that unless Disney wants to send me some free review copies. So far I have to pay for all my comics out of my own pocket and I´m not willing to chance 35 bucks on a trade that might self destruct from just reading it.

Having said that now that the ESSENTIALS have been canceled the Epic Collections might be without alternative - like Angela Merkel is so proud of saying - so there might be no way around it. At least they picked some stuff that wasn´t reprinted before like issues 158 to 177 in THE ENEMY WITHIN which continues right on from the IRON MAN by David Micheline, Bob Layton and John Romita Jr Omnibus and has Tony Stark´s descend into alcoholism and James Rhodes taking up the mantle of Iron Man. From what I read in reviews people like the material but the collection ends in the middle of the story and with the Epic Collections presenting the series out of order the customers are not too happy about that. Maybe Disney should have bent the rules a bit on this one. There is also STARK WARS - now that Disney has bought Marvel AND Lucasfilms they can go back to using the original title - which has issues 215 to 232, which is from the return of David Micheline and Bob Layton until the end of ARMOR WARS. 

Here Disney clearly does a better job of assembling a package of issues that can be read in one satisfying sitting as it does with the WAR GAMES trade which collects John Byrne´s complete run on the IRON MAN title.

Okay, it doesn´t include issues 256 and 257 but since I already have the first one somewhere else that wouldn´t be a too big of a detriment to buying it. They have even announced DUEL OF IRON which continues the James Rhodes as Iron Man stories from issue 178 to 195 which closes the gap to the IRON MONGER trade. As for the omnibus your best course of action is to buy them at full price at your local comic shop if they have it because the prizes at amazon are between 200 and 250 bucks. Like I said, comic prices at the moment are totally out of touch with reality !

And that´s all for Today. I didn´t get to write that much about the ARMOR WARS II story itself but I had to sleep a few hours because I spent the last night re - working my post about Sabrina Salerno for her birthday this year. Yes, I know that was in March but what can I say ? The night before I had really bad stomach cramps and that´s what I do to relax. So I didn´t really get to celebrate Bob Layton´s birthday Today - even my brother did not let me watch the first IRON MAN movie - but better luck next year.

Only kidding, I hope it doesn´t take me another year until I can continue this. Although with the way things work out around here - who knows ?

Well, what I DO know is that next up is another part of SUBZERO´S EDITION of CASTING THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA MOVIE which this time includes Krista Santoro, Kari Wuhrer and asian all stars Akira Lane, Jasmine Mai and cosplay goddess Yaya Han. The post with 80s porn star Sarah Louise Young should have been next in line but I just put a lot of work into this one by adding a lot of animated GIFs I made by myself so I want to post it as long as the videos from YouTube are still working. 

Now before we come to the video section I want to include Darren´s really extensive review of the IROM MAN omnibus by David Micheline, Bob Layton and John Romita Jr on THE M0VIE BLOG. I don´t think I have posted it before and it is really helpful if you think about buying this.

After his work for Marvel Bob Layton was one of the main founders of VALIANT COMICS who created such great comics like X - O MANOWAR, SHADOWMAN, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, BLOODSHOT and HARBINGER which have all been resurrected in recent years. This video is from the third anniversary of the original Valiant company and like with CrossGen I think the people involved only knew what they had after it was gone. The best part is Bob Layton´s hair - if you wonder where Moebius´ inspiration for Gary Oldman´s haircut in THE FIFTH ELEMENT movie comes from.



Since this is a birthday post - kind of - a birthday serenade is in order but instead of the usual " Happy birthday to you " song I chose one of my favorite songs. When James Rhodes catches fire in the Iron Man suit he´s on his way back from an outer space station so I thought the RAH Band with their 80s smash hit Clouds Across The Moon might fit the bill.



Since I could not find a good comic related IRON MAN video here´s a BBC comic documentary that I had bookmarked ages ago and almost could not find. THE SECRET OF DRAWING - STORYLINES takes a look at telling a story with pictures in american comics, mangas and political cartoons.



One of Bob Layton most beloved comic series is HERCULES so here is a Hercules movie with the actor who played Marvel´s Hulk in the successful tv series. Now I didn´t know he had done two Hercules movies because I only saw the first one which had sexbomb Sybil Danning as the villain.

Of  course that´s not the Hercules movie you can find on YouTube because you can only find bits and pieces of it like the original trailer from 1983.



Here´s the german Filmvorschau of Herkules - with a k - and while the special effects were state of the art back then they look a bit cheesy now.



When I watched the movie the first time it didn´t bother me that much which might have had something to do with the hot Sybil Danning. I never understood why Lou Ferrigno didn´t like her and went for that boring looking princess instead. Today I know the kind of paycheck that comes with marrying a princess but I would let Sybil have her way with me.



Anyway, here´s the Hercules movie I DID find and since I can´t say much about it I will just quote the very generous guy who posted the trailer :

Wow ! Even without the benefit of Sybil Danning's boobs, this poverty row sequel is quite possibly better than the first " Hercules " movie ! And by " better " of course I mean incalculably worse ! The Amazing Lou Ferrigno - who makes his first appearance here posing in the middle of outer space wearing nothing but disturbingly flesh colored bikini briefs - is once again summoned by Zeus, this time to help locate Zeus's seven lost thunderbolts and thus prevent the Moon from smashing into Earth. ( I didn't get it either. ) Along the way, Hercules must battle ninja - flipping bigfoot creatures, energy men, a tribe of slime people, and an inordinate number of villains possessing the power of cheap animated eye - lasers. During the big finale ( again, in space ) Lou actually turns into a crudely drawn cartoon gorilla ! This is the type of movie where lines like, " Sweet Oracle of Death, help me to reach the little people " are delivered with a deadpan Shakeperean seriousness. In other words, a definite must - see. 



To balance all this out a bit here is the original not bi - sexual classic Hercules with bodybuilding legend Steve Reeves. He owned the role.



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JLA casting : The SUBZERO Edition begins !

Just when you thought we had finally finished with casting the Justice League movie I´m back with the special SUBZERO edition. Bwa - ha - ha !

If this is your first Justice League movie casting post you read on this blog - where the f - word have you been ? No, really. I have already done eight of these and one of them ( JLA movie casting : ANDY SIDARIS SPECIAL ) even was from this edition instead of the Hollywood edition.

Okay, if you haven´t read any of those posts you´re probably confused so I think I should explain again where these posts come from. Back when I had a boob blog besides my comic blog I did a series of posts casting the female members of the Justice League. This was not meant to be for a real movie but rather it was just a selection of who I considered to be the hottest women on the planet which explains why Beyonce, Janet Jackson or Halle Berry are in it. After I finished compiling my list of candidates I realized that I had too many candidates for one casting call so I split them into two categories. The first one was christened the Hollywood edition and I put mostly actresses in there who had starred in many movies and the big productions. The second one was called the SUBZERO edition and this is where I put the candidates who had starred in smaller movies, tv series, maybe porn actresses and swimsuit models. There are even some where I just had a picture and thought they would look good in their part.

Those were then split into two parts each but of course the number grew exponentially when I decided to put them on this blog. Here´s part one :

 Nicole "  Coco " Austin as Power Girl ( Kara Zor El )

With her incredible 39DD - 23 - 45 measurements I couldn´t give her any other role than the ultimate wet dream of the male superhero community.

To tell the truth, the wife of rapper Ice - T with the ass that don´t quit was my choice for Power Girl from the get - go. But as the number of possible candidates grew she went further and further down line.

But somehow most of the other candidates ended up in the Hollywood section. And since I have decided not to repeat any candidates from the previous cast she´s back in the number 1 position. She looks like a real life version of Bart Sears´s Power Girl - which is still the definite version for me - and she got freaking huge knockers so she´s perfect for the role.

This edition doesn´t care about the acting ability or the probability of the candidates ever being in a movie - although Coco had a cameo on LAW & ORDER : SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT and starred in ANGEL BLADE, DESERT ROSE, THE DIRTY MONKS and THINK LIKE A MAN TOO ( still have to watch it ). With that Coco has enough movie cred to get cast as Power Girl.

I just have to include a scene where Power Girl loses her memory and Guy Garner convinces her she´s a stripper - because she has the right body for it. Of course Guy uses the situation to turn her into his private blow up sex doll. And I think the blue bikini would be a good costume for her.

Coco Austin - also known as Coco Marie Austin while her original name is Nicole Natalie Marrow - is a famous dancer, glamour model and actress with incredible body measurements. Her figure is an extreme example of the hourglass body type : large breasts and buttock with a slim waist.

She is known to have breast surgery and there were rumors she had butt implants, but she did a supervised ultrasound test to prove otherwise.

You can say what you want about Ice T but he managed to get married to a real life blow up sexdoll who is also the wet dream of every black man : a white woman built like a sister. You have to give him props for that.

Born March 17, 1979 in Palos Verdes, California, her parents were actors who met on the set of BONANZA. She has Serbian ancestry through her maternal grandparents who were born in Serbia. Austin also has a younger sister Kristy Williams and three younger brothers. As a small child, her sister would mispronounce her name, saying " Cole Cole " or " Co - co " in place of " Nicole ". Eventually her family began addressing her as Coco.

She grew up as a tomboy, riding quads and playing football and began dancing ( jazz, tap and ballet ) at the age of 6. Coco started her modeling career at early age of 14, as she began specializing in swimsuit, lingerie and body modeling. She entered in swimsuit competitions and modeled for calendars, catalogs and videos. At 18, she won the 1998 Miss Ujena contest in Mexico. In 2001, at age 22, Austin worked for PLAYBOY for six months, working their events and parties at the Playboy Mansion and was later featured in a layout in the March 2008 issue of PLAYBOY magazine.

Austin played the lead of Bo Peep in the Las Vegas revue PEEPSHOW from December 2012 to September 1, 2013, replacing Holly Madison in the role.

With her husband Ice - T she starred in the reality tv series ICE LOVES COCO which premiered on June 12, 2011, on E!. The show ran for three seasons and ended in February 2014. After the show's cancellation tabloids reported that Austin and her husband were preparing to launch another reality series under Ryan Seacrest's production company.

Darlene Silva as Dawn ( later Manitou Dawn )

Darlene Sliva a.k.a. Tyra Lex is a Mannheim based brazilian bikini model, born on January 17th, 1975 and her measurements are 34DD - 24 - 34.

Okay, it´s a bit of a stretch, but tell me you wouldn´t put a total knockout like Darlene Silva in the movie. Dawn has men falling all over her and even one of the elders used her teenage body for his perverse urges.

With the right costume and a bit of make up it could work. In her first interaction with the JLA, Dawn offered herself sexually to Superman and he was possibly one of the few guys on the planet who could said no.

I mean could you if she looks like Darlene in the picture above ?

Darlene is a real latina beach babe born in Rio de Janeiro. Her mother is brazilian, and her father is from Lisbon Portugal. Having grown up in a warm climate by the sea she loves exercise, beach volleyball, is quite an exhibitionist and likes to show off her sexy body with massive boobs the size of coconuts in tiny Brazilian bikinis not only in front of the camera but also in real life, which " gets her into all kinds of exciting situations ". She has appeared on magazine covers in both Europe and the Americas.

Miko Lee as Batgirl ( Cassandra Cain )

If you have read the Hollywood edition you might have guessed that I´m not that big a fan of the ninja Batgirl. But I just had to include her in my list so I could cast asian rubbergirl and human vacuum cleaner Miko Lee.

 
Being one of the top experts at giving head in the adult movie business made the task of finding pictures of oral suction pump Miko Lee a.k.a. The Men Milking Machine - also known as the Dude Juicer - that looked good but were still safe to post a bit difficult but I found some where she´s not engaged in any unsavory practice. What was I thinking ?

Well, I know with which part of my body I was thinking and since the JLA movie casting was only meant as a mental exercise there didn´t need to be a practical side to it. Miko had stopped doing movies when I first wrote this or she got out of it soon afterwards. She did appear in a new video in 2011 so maybe I could get her after all. Most of what I wrote can´t be posted here I used ye olde " let´s post her biography " schtick :

Miko was born as Connie T Chang in San Diego on March the 30th, 1980 and is of vietnamese and chinese descend. She began her career as adult model around 1999 / 2000 when she started to appear in various adult picture layouts, which were distributed through various adult websites. 

Her career as an adult actress began in 2000 as she started to appear in mostly asian themed adult flicks. In the beginning of her career, she was known for being a buxom figured asian oral nympho with a round face. Later she went through a dramatic transformation in terms of her entire appearance, with a more slender body, a leaner facial structure and blond dyed hair as well as getting her boobs blown up to arousing proportions. This is also around the period when she developed a special friendship with her fellow co star Lexington Steele and the two went on to perform in many flicks. Her scenes with Lexington Steele are still regarded as some of her best as well as her scenes in HEAVEN SENT, HOT WHEELZ, RED DRAGON and her best scene EVER in LECHEE NUTS. Miko has also made several virtual interactive flicks, interactive movies produced to give the viewer the impression that they are experiencing the scene.

Miko was the voice of Natsuno in the hentai anime Desert Island Story X. There are reports that she will appear in the film A Talent for Trouble in a non - sex minor role. After Fornic - Asian in 2009, Miko disappeared from the porn business for several years but she re - appeared in 2011. In 2012 her movie company MIKO LEE PRODUCTIONS made SPARTACUS MMXXII : THE BEGINNING in which Miko Lee also appeared. The movie won an AVN award in 2013 and was nominated for eleven more as well as for two Sex Awards, fourteen XBiz Awards and two XRCO Awards. Her latest movie is THE HUNTED : CITY OF ANGELS from 2014 which co stars Katsuni.

Not much is known of her life outside the business, although she´s been pretty outspoken about her personal life in various interviews. Miko speaks fluent Chinese and has a predilection for bisexual relationships. 

She also claimed planning to pursue a degree in law. Contrary to this statement, a source from IMDB suggests that she is pursuing a degree in computer science. Authenticity of this information is in question.

According to adult star Mika Tan Miko initially concealed her porn career from her parents, claiming instead to be working as a grocery clerk. But the secret was revealed to her parents when Miko's disgruntled former manager mailed her layouts to her parent's house.

Many who have worked with Miko have claimed that she has a very down - to - earth personality and is very easy to work with. Veteran director Bud Lee has stated that " ...I love Miko Lee. She's one of my favorite, favorite stars ever...She comes extremely prepared. She brings tons of clothing with her and so forth. Just a real good person to work with."  

Her down to earth personality is also apparent in Behind The Scenes footage, where she is often seen goofing around with her costars.

Since I can´t copy / paste anything from my original post here ( there would be not much left if I cut out everything that is inappropriate ) I´m just posting an animated GIF I made just for this special occassion.

And that´s the first part of my special SUBZERO edition of casting the Justice League movie or rather the first part of the first part because I had to cut it a bit - actually a lot - to keep the post length manageable.

Of Today´s three candidates the last one I was expecting to have something on YouTube that was safe to post was Miko Lee but Lo and Behold here is an interview where she is wearing an interesting outfit.



Because I came up with zilch for the other two hot babes in this post I decided to post a few videos with the sexy AND funny Sofia Vergara.

I didn´t get to put any videos with her in the Hollywood edition so I´m rectifying this. The first one is a monologue from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.



Confession time : a lot of these videos are put up for selfish reasons since I have fallen behind on my talk show watching. I haven´t seen any of the clips with Sofia Vergara like her appearance on the LOPEZ TONIGHT show below. This show is big in the latin community and I think the host was the star of a very successful sitcom ( I have never seen an episode ).



Our last clip with Sofia Vergara is from the David Letterman show.



Because our first candidate was cast as Power Girl who was a member of the Justice League International AND the Justice Society of America here is a video from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD where both groups meet. One of the aspects I liked about the tv show was that it embraced the same quirky, weird and strange parts of DC´s universe I was especially fond of.



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Lost in translated Fantastic Four issues

After two posts for which I take no responsibility at all and blame it all on sleep deprivation and other health problems I did what I often do before writing a new post : reading what I had written in my last post. Since I had mentioned FANTASTIC FOUR 51 I thought it would be a good idea to make another of my popular IT´S THAT OLD FEELING OF DEJA VUE posts.

I really hadn´t put much background info about why FANTASTIC FOUR issue 51 is such a beloved and iconic issue in the post so I did a quick research but when I wanted to add some links the internet kept breaking down so I decided not to change my last post and put it into this post.

Most comic afficionados probably already know this so if they want they can skip this next part and enjoy the nice pictures. For all others we have to take a trip with the Way - Way - Back Time Machine to June of 1966 which was more than a full year before Yours Truly would even be born yet. Yes, I´m that vain that I put everything in relation to my personal timeline. Anyway, on FF Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had just wrapped up the Galactus Saga trilogy in issue 50, which was their biggest story to date. A really cosmic story wherein the Fantastic Four gambled for the highest stakes against a cosmic entity so powerful most world´s just give up when he appears. As soon as they catch sight of him they are all like : " Okay, that´s it, I´m outta here. I´m done. " I would point out that the story also introduced such classic characters like the Silver Surfer and Galactus but Lee and Kirby introduced dozens of characters every issue.

So Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had just done THE superhero story to end all superhero stories and the big question was how can you possibly top this?

Short answer : you can´t. And you should not even try. Instead they went back to a smaller scale and told one of the most personal stories of the Fantastic Four´s history centering on the heart and soul of the team, the idol of millions, Aunt Petunia´s favorite nephew, the ever loving blue eyed Thing. You can see that right from the first page which characterizes the Thing on one page and sets up the mood perfectly for all that is to come.

This is very much the ultimate Ben Grimm story, where we look into his relationship with the team and with Alicia, and his feelings about being the Thing. Ben is always the most fascinating member of the team, as well as the most visually interesting, so any story with a lot of Ben is going to be a good one. taken from THE JACK KIRBY WEBLOG website.

If you don´t mind spoilers you can read the usually detailed post from SUPER MEGA MONKEY`S MARVEL CHRONOLOGY on the issue and for an even longer version read WHAT I THOUGHT OF FANTASTIC FOUR #51 :

This Man, This Monster is the template for every single superhero story that follows where a character seeks redemption of some kind. This is the best single issue of Lee and Kirby’s still impressive Fantastic Four run that featured some impressive issues that to this day still provide much of the bedrock that the modern Marvel Universe is built on. Stan Lee is performing at his height but it’s King Jack Kirby’s experimentation with his art not to mention the way he’s got every panel bursting with energy.

You can also find the final pages on COMIC BOOK RESOURCES´ Silver Age September post , Fantastic Four 51 is mentioned on this post by Mike Huddleston on COMIC BOOK DAILY about the most important runs in the Silver Age and Jason Serafino at TECH TIMES includes it in his list of 7 Essential Fantastic Four Comics To Start Your Collection . I´m not so sure about the Ultimate Fantastic Four or the Unstable Molecules miniseries as I haven´t read them but the rest of his list like THE TRIAL OF GALACTUS, UNTHINKABLE and SOLVE EVERYTHING are really suited to get a foot into the Fantastic Four universe. And I would have probably suggested more ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR book than the expensive omnibus hardcovers but I guess that´s just a matter of taste and wallet. I have to warn you about the TECH TIMES website though as I believe it´s responsible for my browser constantly crashing. So you might want to read this one quickly.

This post by Bob Leeper on NERDVANA also does spoil a few plotpoints of Fantastic Four 51 but it´s more about the total lack of the latest movies to do an adequate adaption of The World´s Greatest Comic Magazine.

Now the title of this story, THIS MAN . . . THIS MONSTER ! has been used and re - used in various forms by Marvel and other comic companies and if that alone doesn´t tell you how iconic this story is here´s the cover of issue fifteen of Los Cuatro Fantasticos by mexican publisher Editorial OEPISA ( sorry for the bad picture quality, it was the only one I found ).

Which - as far as I can tell from the covers I´ve seen - seems to be their modus operandi. Now don´t get me wrong, there are some covers that are the same as in the original US version. Although they added Johnny Storm´s torso and a lot of hair for Medusa on the one below. As for the Mole, that´s the mexican name for the Hulk who is called La Masa in spanish. The Thing on the other hand is La Cosa in Mejico and in Spain.

But OEPISA had all kinds of wild and crazy fun with the cover design, sometimes just putting their favorite Fantastic Four panels together.

Or they gave the team members new costumes or as is the case with Medusa - who is called miss Galaxia here - not much of a costume at all.

Yes, changing costumes happens quite often on spanish language editions as you can see by this cover from one of the editions by spanish publisher Ediciones Vertice where the Impossible Man sports a new stylish outfit.

They also gave changed his skin color to pink, something they got right in the mexican edition from Editorial OEPISA which used the original cover.

Now I said that the cover with the miscolored Impossible Man above was from one of the editions by spanish publishers Ediciones Vertice which published the Fantastic Four from September 1969 to December 1980. The thing is ( no pun intended ) that they had three different series with different covers sometimes reprinting the same comics. In some cases you can see where the cover artist used some of the original cover art.

If you know the covers of the original Fantastic Four issue it´s easy, although they did get rid of World War II veteran Sergeant ( later Colonel ) Nicholas Fury of The Howling Commandos. Yes, he´s the white one.

Now this is another cover for the same issue and you need a bit of detective work and at least you have to know what the issue is all about.

Again, Editorial OEPISA used the Jack Kirby splash page as the cover.

Back to the spanish editions by Ediciones Vertice. You might say that the ones above are not that difficult to correlate to the original covers. How about we make things a bit more difficult ? Can you guess the issue ?

As a small hint here´s another spanish cover for the same issue.

And here´s the original cover although in the italian language version.

Okay, it gets a bit more difficult to guess the issue with this next one.

And this spanish cover for the same issue isn´t much help either.

Because they don´t look even remotely anything like the original cover.

You could think our next issue is about the Watcher but the words Contra La Patrulla X indicate that the Fantastic Four go up against the X - Men.

It gets a bit clearer with this spanish cover for the same issue.

Still it doesn´t give you the slightest hint what the real cover looks like.

Finding the original for this cover was also a really tough nut to crack.

It does look a bit like this cover which has almost the same title although Daredevil is wearing his old original black and yellow costume above.

The title is really the  only thing in common with the original - where Daredevil is wearing his red costume. I can only guess the spanish artist of the first cover didn´t have the actual issue of Fantastic Four in front of him so he didn´t know the Man Without Fear had a new set of duds.

Our last example Today was one of the most difficult one to find. Not THE most difficult one because there are some where I could not find out to which issue they belong. And I DID find it out for this. But it wasn´t easy.

This cover wasn´t much help other than confirming that there must be a story with a title " Killing You To Save You " that involved the Thing.

Which meant - again - going through all the story titles ( thanks to the guys from Grand Comics Database for their resource ) until I finally ended up with Fantastic Four issue 42 called To Save You, Why Must I Kill You ?

And that´s the reason why I´m wrapping things up for Today. You see, it took me a few hours to put all - or most - of the covers in the right order and folders so we will have to do the real DEJA VUE post about Fantastic Four 51 some other time. Although our next post will be the re - posted first part of my SPECIAL SUBZERO EDITION of CASTING THE JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE ( which I had replaced with the birthday posts for Salma Hayek and Beyonce ) featuring Coco Austin, Darlene Silva and Miko Lee.

Since Today´s post was about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby´s quite legendary Fantastic Four run I wanted to start off with a Stan Lee documentary but because the embedding was disabled by YouTube you have to watch it here . Nevertheless I found this video of Stan Lee on LARRY KING NOW which at least my readers outside of the US have probably not seen yet. I hope.



I did find a Jack Kirby documentary even if it´s been split into 5 parts.



Since one of my links about FANTASTIC FOUR 51 already tackles the train wreck of the latest Fantastic Four movie I want to pimp another video by comicbookgirl19. I picked it because it does a good job of explaining the whole debacle without really spoiling too much. It might convince you to save your money and wait until the movie is on tv if you haven´t seen it.



Today´s first cartoon video is from the animated SILVER SURFER show. I know it´s old but I hadn´t seen it until a few months ago and although they changed a lot of Norrin Radd´s origin story the source material is so strong that it´s still a good and entertaining show. Since I have already posted the last episode here is the first in english, spanish and german.





Since I´m counting the Silver Surfer video as my cartoon recommendation of the day here´s a more self indulgent video. I´m just a sucker for the old 60s Marvel cartoon shows which were sometimes just the art of the original comic with very basic animation - what people now call motion comics and behave like they have re - invented the wheel.  Speaking about re - inventing something according to Greg Hatcher´s post on COMIC BOOK RESOURCES the newest Fantastic Four movie was such a flop because it was not really a Fantastic Four movie and so far the Hanna Barbera cartoon has been the most faithful of all the adaptions. This is the episode with Galactus who for some strange reason is green instead of purple. Who knows what the guys who made this were smoking.



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