Len Wein...and now Harry Dean Stanton

Bill Sienkiewicz

Ya know it's ironic that this tragic news about Len Wein's passing should come just over a week after I fished this issue of Comics Interview 32 out of a quarter box. Which as you may have guessed I grabbed because of The Swamp Thing article inside. Cheesy as the early 80s Wes Craven film was it seemed really cool to me at the time and it was actually my introduction to The Swamp Thing character. And then one day I saw an issue at a drug store some where and that would be the beginning of what was a pretty big Swamp Thing collection. I even had this Swamp Thing action figure at one point it was actually kinda cool it had this detachable hand with a line attached to it that pulls the hand like a fisherman's reel.
As for Wolverine, I was a fan long before it was hip to be a Wolverine fan in the 80s I collected every appearance I could find. Back then a Wolverine appearance in a non-X-Men title was always guaranteed to bump up it's value but I didn't care much about that I just wanted to read more Wolverine and seeing him interact with other Marvel super heroes from Captain America to Spider-Man and even ROM was beyond awesome. Ofcourse Wein's body of work went far beyond just co-creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine and I think it's nice to know all that will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

Len Wein and Hugh Jackman at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con

Over the years I've done a few unique Swamp Thing centric blog postings over here if you never saw them or don't remember them you suck, but here are the links anyways...
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-didnt-squad-ever-run-into-swamp.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2016/11/swamp-thing-and-golem.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2013/12/poison-ivy-vs-swamp-thing.html

September 15th Update: So now we have it happen again this week. Another big name from our child hood as comic book and sci-fi fans has passed away. This time it was Harry Dean Stanton who died at 91. Stanton has had a long career on both the big screen and small spanning for decades. I knew him best as Brett from ALIEN and as Brain from Escape from New York. And don't forget about Stanton's brief appearance in the first Avengers film where he plays a security guard who finds Bruce Banner amid a mass of debris caused by him falling through the roof of an abandoned building while he was The Hulk.

Black Power

Fan art by Peter Temple left click to enlarge

Obviously I like this fan art other wise I wouldn't have posted it here but at the same time part of me wants to see even more black heroes from Marvel and DC in here kinda like those Marvel Universe Handbook or DC Who's Who montage covers. Off the top of my head specifically I'm thinking Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Blade, the John Stewart Green Lantern and Mr. Fantastic. Don't know if Amanda Waller quite fits the profile of what defines a "super hero" but I'd include her just on general principle.

Ok and now for another kind of black power. Just by chance today I passed through The 4th Annual Vintage Car Show in Downtown Hayward (California) while running some errands and look what they had there. Not at all a fan of the tim burton Batman films (or much of anything from burton for that matter) but I have to admit the batmobile in those movies was one of the few things they had going for them. The tumbler is my favorite though.

The Suicide Squad goes nuclear

Ya know with all this shit going on with north korea and their nuclear program not to mention renewed tensions with russia and the threat of islamic terrorists trying to get their filthy hands on that shit for years now it got me thinking about Firestorm 64 written by John Ostrander. The issue came out in 1987 in which the Cold War was still going on here in the real world even though it would be only a few years later that the soviet union would collapse. For about the next two decades or so we really didn't think about nuclear war as something that we had to worry about any more.
So this issue was part of a story arc in which Ronald and professor Stein (who was dying of a brain tumor at the time) as Firestorm attempted to coerce the nuclear armed nations of the world into dismantling their nuclear arsenals under the threat of doing it for them if they didn't comply. A some what similar premise to the awful Superman 4 film which ironically also came out in 1987. Yeah that didn't go over to well and as a result Firestorm was declared an outlaw and become subject to arrest. As a result Captain Atom (prior to this issue), Task Force X, The Justice League mixed it up with Firestorm in an attempt to end his crusade.
The story line continues and comes to a head in Firestorm annual 2 in which The Squad and The League start to fight each other. Adding to the mayhem The Parasite who at the time was in The Squad goes rogue. Firestorm manages to deal with The Parasite and make his escape only to be confronted in the Nevada desert by a russian super powered agent named Pozhar. The show down happens shortly before professor Stein's tumor finally kills him and disrupts the Firestorm bond in the process which happens only seconds before both the U.S. and Soviet governments try to nuke both combatants. Good stuff, makes me miss the 80s all that much more.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/suicide-squad-the-complete-ostrander-run-1st-time--t24588.html

Enter The Tiger

By artist Craig Cermak

I like this, Bronze Tiger has almost a Bruce Lee kinda vibe going on here.

Gal Gadot at Justice League panel with Wonder Woman cosplay fan

Just a heads up, there's a ton of 2017 Comic-Con videos containing panels of just about every up coming sci-fi/comic book movie and TV series both on cable and NetFlix this year. It's astonishing how many big time A list celebrities are at this event in San Diego now. Back when I went in 1994 it was pretty big but nothing like it is now. A Hell of a lot easier and cheaper to get into back then as well, now it's almost like you gotta know somebody on the inside in order to get into the con.

By the way have I ever mentioned here how much I fucken hate donald trump? Big thanks to Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool which is where I found this funny ass cartoon . . .

 http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/

Entertainment Weekly Magazine presents The Ultimate Wonder Woman Guide

I picked this up a couple of days ago at a local super market. It's pretty cool not only does it have a bunch of great stuff in regards to the production and cast of the Wonder Woman movie it also in general covers the history and evolution of the character in a very comprehensive and detailed way. The guide goes all the way back to the guy who came up with the Wonder Woman character (also the inventor of the polygraph) to the classic Linda Carter TV series, Wonder Woman's countless appearances in multiple forms of media over the years, her impact on pop culture and even the upcoming Justice League movie.

The back cover has some pretty sweet art work at first I thought it was John Byrne but it turns out I was mistaken. It was done by Jose Luise Garcia according to some research done by fellow blogger Dale Bagwell http://dbsuniverse.blogspot.com/

A fun photo spread with Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen and director Jenny Jenkins

You'll find a lot of nostalgia in this issue along with at least a few other things even some of the more hard core Wonder Woman fans out there might be surprised to see.

One other thing, my wife loves charm bracelets and started busting my balls for a Wonder Woman one ever since we saw the movie.

One of the most bad ass scenes ever in a comic book based movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEwkn-Q2Oo

Adam West passes away at 88

Adam West as The Gray Ghost

Just heard the sad news (leukemia) a couple hours ago and I wanted to get a posting up this weekend with a little bit of my thoughts on West's career. As a kid I kinda used to like the original Batman TV show because like Spiderman on The Electric company it was one of the very few live action outlets available for some of my favorite comic book characters. As I got older I won't lie I did develop a certain degree of disdain for the show because of it's campyness although I certainly never felt that way for West himself who by all accounts has always been a stand up guy in his personal life.
I'm really glad that over the years he managed to in part rejuvenate his show biz career despite his type casting handicap with voice acting work on The Simpsons and The Family Guy. As some of you may remember he was also the voice actor in The Grey Ghost episode of the Batman animated series. That series brought a lot of critical acclaim and respect to the super hero genre and that episode in particular was certainly one of the best if not the best episode of the series. Ironically, West plays an out of work actor who can't couldn't find new acting gigs due to a type casting handicap but would go on to help Batman solve a series of crimes carried out by some psychotic fan boy using sophisticated remote controlled toys.

Ya know I have to admit even though I came to grow weary of the original Batman TV show I always maintained my fondness for the classic Batmobile from that series (I dug the Batboat to). I used to have the original die cast ones from Corgi but at least I still have a couple packaged ones from a Hotwheels release some 8 or 9 years ago which I saw in a Dollar store of all places. Looking back I should have picked up more of them. As a crime fighter you probably don't want to drive around seated in an open canopy (not much protection from gun fire) but that's ok it was such a cool design I still love it till this day.

My short and to the point Wonder Woman review

Ok here's your one posting for this month on what is largely an inactive blog site these days. Well DC's cinematic universe was badly in need of a hit after some what of a let down with Batman vs. Superman and the catastrophe that was the Suicide Squad. But I think Wonder Woman may have come to save the day as it were. And I must say it's a point of personal pride to see Israeli Jewish actress Gal Gadot (and former Israeli Defense Force soldier) deliver the leading lady role as this iconic character in her first solo film.
Gal Gadot is to Wonder Woman what Hugh Jackman is to Wolverine. That was a big part of what made this movie good and it had a great mix of non campy humor, ass kicking action and good secondary character development. I also like how they tied the beginning and the end to Wonder Woman's appearances in Batman vs. Superman. All that aside, as someone who is not a fan of the Star Trek reboot films (fuck you jj abrams) it was nice to see Chris Pine's talents as an actor not squandered on a shitty movie for a change.
On something of a side note I wanted to also mention that this movie has been under attack by the antisemitic BDS (boycott divest sanction) movement against Israel. Ofcourse this is because the film's leading lady is an Israeli Jew and former IDF soldier. The hezbolla controlled failed state shit hole known as lebanon banned the film. But I'm happy to say the movie never the less is cleaning up at the box office this weekend and has enjoyed very positive reviews by fan boys and regular audience goers alike. Knowing that Wonder Woman has become the latest BDS fail makes seeing it that much more satisfying.

Left click to enlarge

NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER. FOR SPARTA, FOR THEMYSCIRA.