Mightiest Mortal Monday with Peter Krause ?

Because I can´t have two Spider - Man posts in a row ( even though we are still in the middle of Spider - Man Week ) and I want to wait with my next post about George Perez´ THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD until next month here is something that didn´t fit in one of my Jerry Ordway posts.

Because while I pimped THE POWER OF SHAZAM I didn´t get to put much of the artwork from the series in the post. As I said before, the regular artist for most of the run is Peter Krause who surely must have some german roots. I wonder how he felt having to draw Nazi villains. Anyway, originally I wanted to do just a short post with a lot of covers by Jerry Ordway  but then I thought that everybody knows his art style and it´s much more important that people see Peter Krause´s work since that will be what they are paying for. Now for those readers who don´t want to get spoilered the only option is probably to just trust my recommendation and just buy the complete series. I tried not to include too many big reveals but on the other side I mainly chose pages that look cool. So without any further ado I give you THE POWER OF SHAZAM by Peter Krause and next time we will continue Spider - Man Week with a very unexpected artist.  

Since I have no links for this post I am including one of the famous Hostess Pies ads with Captain Marvel. A few months ago while I was going through my files I put all of these as well as some other in house ads in a special folder and I promised to post these whenever it fits the post topic but so far I don´t think I have actually done that. It´s just that there is so much to do with each post and check and double check everything that I forgot.

Since I have written a post on January the 29th last year I have already covered most of Today´s celebrity birthdays but as always there is one that somehow slips through the cracks and in this case it´s Marc Singer who turns 70 and whom you may have seen as General Mathew Shrieve on the third season of Arrow. I am not sure exactly why his face looked that familiar because I never watched much of Dallas when it aired and no episodes of the original V series. It´s strange but lately there has been more content from Canada on this blog from Are You Afraid Of The Dark ? to Marc who was born in Canada to an upcoming post I am planning on Dale Keown´s Incredible Hulk run. Anyway, Marc Singer is of course best known as the main lead in the Beastmaster trilogy. Which was a surprise for me. I didn´t even know there was a third one. I found it on YouTube but the picture quality is so poor that I will have to look for it elsewhere.

Initially I had written that I never watched the subsequent tv series with Daniel Goddard but the longer I think about it the more some repressed memories rise to the surface of me watching some of these episodes.

Although the film fared only modestly at the box office, it steadily built a strong cult following over the years. It received significant local tv and cable airplay in the USA, notably HBO and TBS where it became a TV mainstay and viewer favorite. Its replay was so common that some dubbed TBS " The Beastmaster Station ", and HBO as " Hey, Beastmaster in On. "
 

As WATCH & BURN puts it in his review : " If you are one of the thousands who may have caught it on cable during the 80s and 90s you probably remember it fondly. Still The Beastmaster may be one of those movies that is better remembered than re - watched.  Overall it withstands the test of time and has aged pretty well, probably than any of its stars."

Speaking of the movies, Marc Singer had three stunning cult sirens as co - stars, Tanya Roberts and Janet Jones in the first one and Kari Wuhrer in the second one. They almost got eighteen year old Demi Moore for the first movie but Tanya Roberts got her part. Seeing as how different their careers went it was probably the right choice although it wouldn´t had hurt to see the young Demi Moore as a scantily clad barbarian babe.

Usually I would use the opportunity to include them here but I just did that with Janet Jones Gretzky in my last post and the post before that and an earlier post so I think that at this point readers are sufficiently saturated with necessary links. I also posted something about Demi Moore just a few days ago. As for Kari Wuhrer, while I never got around to give her her own cult siren entry I mentioned her in a few posts like my Casting the Justice League of America movie series where I cast her as Gypsy . 

Now the movie I chose to post is Beastmaster II : Through The Portal Of Time because I think it´s the best movie. Which should not make much sense but neither does the title of the movie since they actually do not travel through time. Producers always make these sequels where fantasy characters come into our modern world from their primitive culture and without the familiar setting it always sucks. See the awful Masters Of The Universe movie which in defense of Dolph Lundgren failed mainly because the director was too busy shooting an homage to Jack Kirby´s The Fourth World comic books to do a faithful adaption of Eternia´s greatest heroes.

With that being said it works for some reason in the Beastmaster sequel.

To quote STINKER MADNESS : " While the premise is one that typically infuriates fans Beastmaster II : Through The Portal Of Time pleases from end to end. It has some sort of charm that doesn't make sense. The jokes are total crap. The acting is painful. There's no boobs. Yet somehow it all adds up to funny shenanigans that simply entertain lovers o' the stupid.

The true highlight is Wings Hauser's Arklon, who is arguably the lowest IQ villain in cinema history. His plan is seriously to blow up his world. He has already conquered the world, yet he thinks blowing it up will give him more power. There isn't some mystical element that blowing the world up turns him into a god or anything. He just wants a neutron bomb to blow the whole damn thing up, including himself. Ok, let's put that aside. In order to accomplish his goal of suicide and world-ending destruction, he decides to enlist the unwilling support of L.A. girl, Jackie ( Kari Wuhrer ) who knows nothing of nuclear weapons but knows a lot about 90's fashion.

Standing right next to Arklon is the witch Lyranna ( Sarah Douglas ) who has a great rack, wants to bang him, rule the world at his side, has super powers, knows where the bomb is, plus has the means to get there and continually helps him without getting a single utterance of " thank you ".

Arklon's moronic antics culminate when he falls into a lake of fire and shouts his victory at Dar - and then burns up to death. Beastmaster II is a breed of a different cat ( or painted black tiger ) from the first one in all sense. It should suck, but is a true majestic triumph of crap. Do it. "



By the way, if Sarah Douglas looks familiar it´s because besides appearing in Solarbabies, Remington Steele, Quest Of The Delta Knights, Gargoyles and Strippers vs Werewolves she also played Dr. Lana Zurell in The Return Of Swamp Thing, Ursa in Richard Donner´s Superman movies and the evil queen Taramis in Conan The Destroyer. And she just recently appeared in last week´s episode of Supergirl, Fort Rozz as priestess Jindah Kol Rozz. 

The more I see of Lost Hero Of The Golden Age the more I like it. I had expected to find something about the more obscure heroes that pop up in The Power Of Shazam like Bulletman or Spy Smasher but you will see that Mary Marvel was really one of the pioneers of female super heroes.



SJWs make a lot of fuss about the Wonder Woman movie and Supergirl on the CW but totally neglect Mary Marvel who predates Supergirl. In fact Supergirl was based on her. Although she had worse luck than Mary Marvel.

I don´t know if it was the fact that Mary Marvel was Billy Batson´s sister and not just his cousin but she lived with him instead of ending up in an orphanage like Supergirl. I guess comics really were written for kids back then because that sounds like something a spoiled kid would do. Or maybe Silver Age Superman just couldn´t be bothered with relatives and hid his cousin in an orphanage while he was swinging at the Fortress of Solitude doing grown up things with Wonder Woman, Big Barda and Power Girl.

Although that quickly changed once Supergirl hit puberty or rather when puberty hit certain areas of Supergirl´s anatomy and Superman decided that the best way to get Lois Lane to back off from constantly trying to marry him was if Supergirl cosplayed as a mysterious superheroine that he was going to marry. Which not only gave him an excuse to run his grubby paws all over his innocent little cousins booming teenage body but also for some heavy petting in front of Lois. To make it convincing - at least that´s what he told Kara. My, the good old times when making out with relatives could be part of the story in a comic as long as it was for a good reason.

Coming back to Mary Marvel, since her looks were based on Judy Garland Today´s music video is with her. I had to search for quite a bit because I didn´t want to post Somewhere Over The Rainbow but I think I finally found one where Judy really looks like the inspiration for Mary Marvel.



Since I mentioned the SJWs and their strange hang ups just a moment ago, guess who had her own tv show before Wonder Woman ? That´s right.

Aww, come on. You knew that I just had to include another episode of The Secrets Of Isis in a Captain Marvel themed post. This is the third episode I´m posting and the longer I watch the series the more I get into it. Too bad that I can´t find it on DVD anywhere for less than 140 smackeroos.



And to brighten up the day of all internet watchdogs who are now on my blog because I used the word " Isis " here is an episode of the Shazam cartoon from 1981. Thanks for keeping the internet safe and carry on.



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Have somebody run a check on all loincloth freaks.

Spider - Man Week with our pal Sal Buscema

Well, my last post took a bit longer to finish than expected ( don´t tell me you didn´t enjoy the new animated GIFs of french sexbomb Florence Geanty ) but here is the promised post for Sal Buscema´s 82nd birthday.

And what´s even better - at least for me - it is my 900th post ! Yay, me !

Now the reason why I decided to do a post about Sal Buscema´s marathon on THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER - MAN instead of one of my usual birthday posts where I include art from various titles is that I had enough original art pages in good quality. Not that I haven´t added a few more pages and eliminated some others after the usual thorough research but most of the art was already in a special folder. The second reason is that I personally like these posts with a theme better. And last but not least I want to see if we can´t get some momentum to convince Marvel / Disney to continue reprinting this run. I mean, SPIDER - MAN : TOMBSTONE was released in June 2016 and so far there has been no announcements of any follow up trades. This run needs to be available in trade paperback. Anyway, as you can see a lot of the original pages are from Heritage Auctions, I think I found the rest either at Comic Art Fans or I don´t remember. As always thanks to all the hard working guys on the internet who put the content up that helps me to write these posts and if you want to be credited or have a link to your website send me an e - mail or use the comments.   

So that was my 900th post, this year´s Sal Buscema appreciation bonanza and now I have to catch up on my sleep because one of the reasons why it took me so long to finish my last post was that I had to get some much needed rest. Because otherwise I am just useless. What is that you say ? I can´t go without including the usual links to earlier Sal Buscema posts for new readers ? Okay, the things I do for my fans. There is one tribute post about all the different books Sal Buscema worked on in 2015, one post in 2014 where I talked about his run on The Incredible Hulk where I also mentioned other favorite periods in Hulkstory, another Hulk post where I listed which pages were missing in my french issues of Gamma and another Hulk post to pimp volume 7 of the Essentials which was offered for 8 bucks at amazon. Last but not least I posted issue 1 and issue 2 of Amazing Spider - Girl where he inked over Ron Frenz and on his last birthday I did a special Thorsday post about one of my favorite Mutant Massacre crossovers . And now I have to retire to sleep the Odinsleep.   

Ah, I really needed that. I feel much better now. Okay, where were we ? Oh, yes. The links. I don´t know if I have included them in my latest Jerry Ordway posts but 13TH DIMENSION has kind of copied my idea by doing their signature 13 Covers By schtick which was all about the All - Star Squadron in 2017 and The Power of Shazam in 2016 . While I find it good that they are putting a spotlight on such great veteran artists I am a bit disappointed that I seem to be the only one who dares to call the big publishers out why they are not giving him work. But I guess that´s the benefit of being just a small blog that literally nobody knows except for a handful of faithful readers and they have to be careful to stay in business.

Another callback to an older post ( although not on this blog but on COMIC BITS ONLINE ) is P. J. Armstrong´s review Aventura Cósmica - Avengers : Kree / Skrull War on CUARTO MUNDO and to tell the truth that´s just an excuse to post three more links to those megalong posts on COMIC BITS ONLINE about the UK Marvel comics by Alan Class , the Mighty Crusaders by Alan Class ( I did mention the Mighty Crusaders in my last post ) and the Justice League of America  and the wraparound covers I promised.

Speaking of the Justice League of America, when I mentioned Aquaman and Green Lantern in my last post I completely blanked that I still have links for both of them : DIAL B FOR BLOG has a post on all the different Green Lantern oaths from Alan Scott to Hal Jordan that have popped up in the comics - which I may have already posted somewhere else - and SCANS DAILY has some wonderful Neal Adams art from Green Lantern issue 84.

WITH GREAT POWER has a review of the recently released Aquaman : A Celebration Of 75 Years hardcover that is one of the few positive reviews these collections have been getting because of the scattershot manner in which the issues that are included seem to have been chosen. Now with Aquaman it seems that there are so little reprints of his adventures ( a complete 18 year period is still un - reprinted ) that this book is a rare feast for Aquaman fans. The regular price on this book is 40 bucks but you can get it at amazon Germany for 30 EUROS which includes the shipping.

Now while you have to be careful not to collapse from sleep deprivation one of the more positive aspects of returning to an almost daily posting schedule is that I no longer have to cover the celebrity birthdays I might have missed in - between the posts or any important cult sirens of notice and can get directly to the anniversaries of the day. Speaking of which :

Ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky turns 66 but since I never was a big ice hockey fan ( I have no idea if they showed any of the matches he was in on german tv ) the only thing I know about him is that he has an excellent taste in women since he married cult siren Janet Jones who celebrated her 57th birthday on the 10th of this month. I did a re - post of her cult siren entry last year so click here to read more about the hot babes from Police Academy like Leslie Easterbrook, sexbomb Becky Mullen and hasian hardbody Chona Jason´s erotic cult movie Sinful Intrigue and wrestling shows from the 80s. Plus a drunk Sarah Shashi, a sexy Sabrina Setlur, a classic fight by George Foreman vs Muhammad Ali, Tales From The Crypt : Ritual and classic clips from G.L.O.W. and Catch Up with Joe Williams and Horst Brack, der Bestrafer better known to german comic fans as Robi.  

Her posts have become a much beloved annual tradition so I wanted to do a new version of last year´s re - post and my initial plan here was to re - post the entire post and pimp it to the nines with some animated GIFs.

But I guess that it´s true what they say about the best laid plans of men and mice because this year I haven´t got the time and last year the strain was too big after adding all the GIFs and the page did not load completely anymore. So I had to cut a lot of stuff and pictures. In the end I made 3 new posts : one for Becky Mullen, one for Janet Jones, and one for Leslie Easterbrook who plays Callahan and had her best scene in Police Academy 4 - Citizens On Patrol where she emerged from a pool with a wet t - shirt .

Her spin - off post gets also re - posted on most years and it used to be in one post together with Janet Jones Gretzky who starred alongside her in Police Academy 5 and Becky Mullen . I also wanted to do a new version of Leslie´s post as well as Becky Mullen´s latest re - post from 2016 because there is some new material I already prepared in advance to add later on.

The post also included 80s cult siren Monique Sluyter and the Tutti Frutti girls but that part got too long and I had to give it a post of its own which I re - posted in 2016 in a new and better version . She was a candidate from my Justice League of America casting series - I cast her as Fire a.k.a. Beatriz da Costa in the Andy Sidaris Special - and before getting her solo post she was also regularly mentioned in the annual re - posts of italian mega soccer MILF Simona Ventura . I wanted to do a new version of her post since there was some new stuff that I wanted to add to it so I´ll have to see if I can get around to do it before her next birthday comes around.

Coming back to Janet Jones, her post started as a way to give props to one of the unsung heroines that transform otherwise unwatchable b - movies into bearable entertainment by taking their clothes off or at least show what their Mama gave them and who don´t get enough recognition.

It only later became a possibility for me to talk about the Police Academy movie franchise and a whole lot of other stuff like the comic books. Janet is of course best known for appearing in Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach in a stunning white swimsuit presenting her best ASSets and she is one of the reasons people still watch the movie. Or at least wait for the parts with her in them to be over before zapping to something else.

No longer with us to celebrate his anniversary is Paul Newman whom I always got mixed up with Steve McQueen. Probably because when I was growing up you got either one or the other in all the good movies. Of course now I don´t confuse Paul Newman with other actors because he´s the one in the movie Cool Hand Luke ( known as Der Unbeugsame - The Unbending in Germany which is the same title The Natural with Robert Redford got here ) with real life Power Girl Joy Harmon´s famous car wash scene. Never underestimate the effect giant, wet boobs that are pressed tightly against glass can have on the memory. Just ask Simona Ventura .

Since I don´t have videos for any of Todays celebrity birthdays ( I skipped a few that I have covered in earlier years ) I want to start with one about the so - called Archie Heroes because I think that not a lot of people know their secret origin. I mean, there might people out there who may have heard about The Mighty Crusaders or have read the comics from one of the various reboots but even I forgot that MLJ Publishing, the company that became famous as Archie Comics started out with super hero comics.



Since a lot in this section has to do with older posts I want to include a video that I found too late to include it in my post about spanish comics from my youth. It´s the wonderful Marisol showing that fan service was not invented by k - pop groups and that it has been around probably since the invention of music videos possibly going even back to the music films.



She really grew up quite nicely since Ha Llegado Un Angel ( An Angel Has Arrived ) which is the only film I have seen with her. I watched it with my mother in Cine De Barrio, a program that shows classic spanish movies.



While I missed a lot of these and am not as familiar with all the people in them it hits a certain nostalgia because I have lived in these houses with the furniture, I have watched some of the programs that are on tv, I have had those toys or read those comics and I have walked these streets. And I have definitely worn those clothes, sideburns and all. One of the reasons why I like watching these old films - besides being a good remedy against homesickness - is that I always learn new things from spanish pop culture.

Marisol for instance was one of the biggest child stars of the 60s who had less success as a teenager and retired at the end of the 70s. Today Marisol goes by her real name Pepa Flores and is mostly unknown except by the few who remember her from those wonderful movies or because she did the first nude cover for the spanish magazine Interviu which became an institution in Spain where naked pictures of the famous are concerned.

They recently closed shop. Here is a short bio of her for all my spanish readers and all others can find more info about Marisol on wikipedia.



I had to include a video about Sal Buscema and since I  could not find one from Spectacular Spider - Man here is another classic Marvel Comic bout.

Remember when they used to do these titanic clashes between heroes ?

It seems that Today every hero ( and I´m using the term hero loosely here because even the ones that are not replaced by a teenage / female / gay / black or another SJW compatible minority version are unrecognizable and seldom behave like heroes ) is fighting every other hero all the time but as soon as it´s over you completely forget it. Anyway, from the golden age of four colored donnybrooks here is Hulk vs the Avengers from The Incredible Hulk issue 300 by bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema and Gerry Taloc.



Since we are on the subject of comic books, here is The Tale Of The Ghastly Grinner which is not only one of the best episodes of Are You Afraid Of The Dark ? but also is the one about comic books. All those comic readers who became a comic fan in the 90s will recognize a lot of stuff. Now I saw a video where some guys reviewed this episode and made jokes that the main character did probably not get work from comic companies because he was just a teenager. But if you know even a little about comic book history you know that there were dozens of cases in which creators started to work in the comic industry as teenagers. The age was not that important back then as long as there was real talent.



I was just about to end this post with a video from a favorite cartoon show from my youth, Lolek & Bolek, when I realized that I actually never posted an episode from the classic 1960s Amazing Spider - Man cartoon.



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We pledge to unselfishly use our great power to defeat evil and injustice everywhere ! We will save the needy, the down - trodden and anguished, topple evil persecutors and despoilers, so that all people can live in dignity and joy, safe from oppression ! We will bring mercy to the afflicted and troubled ! So pledge The Mighty Crusaders !