LOOK! The Blonde Phantom Is Here Tonight!

I mentioned yesterday that we'd be heading to visit Deadpool's Big Green Mama, but i'm still working on corralling my peripatetic mind and it doesn't want to write about that just now. So we're gonna slip around back and sneak up on it.

The Blonde Phantom first appeared in All Select Comics in the fall of 1946, with her own title debuting that winter.

So why is everyone laughing?

Perhaps, one might think, it has something to do with her adventures? Blonde Phantom Comics #12 (the first issue. You know how it goes) opened up with an impressive looking enough splash - full page even -

As the story opens up, however...

And that seemed to be a primary focus - dating her boss...

Little might one suspect what a deeply strange fate awaits her...

page art from Blonde Phantom Comics #s 12, 17, & 20 (1946, 1947, 1948)

Does Satan Dance The Funky Chicken 'Neath The Harvest Moon?

We've just got a meandering Ramblings post here today. There's a new post featuring Ellis Chambers' work in Jolly Jingles over on The 1940s Funny Animalphabet if you're in the mood for some comic reads.

Meanwhile, since i'm still getting back up to speed, we're taking it easy here today. But, you might be wondering about that title above on this post. As you may have noticed, the trend on this new wave of postings has been to take the title from the text of the material under discussion. "Does Satan Dance The Funky Chicken 'Neath The Harvest Moon?" is the chosen line from the piece in progress, but it wants a different title - Deadpool's Big Green Mama. And i'm going to go with it.

This ain't her, but it is a direct hint -

(Who says The Rump can't read? This sure sounds like it)

Meanwhile, on with the ramblings...

Happy Birthday to Bumper Robinson!

If you're a comic book media fan, you should know his name. Bumper's been around in comic & genre work for most of his life. He was only 13 when he co-starred on the 1987 tv movie version of The Spirit (vastly superior to the theatrical movie from a couple decades later) as Eubie (Ebony in the comics) alongside Sam Jones and Nana Visitor as Denny and Ellen. By that point, he was already an experienced actor with over a score of appearances including the alien child in the scifi classic Enemy Mine and a recurring role as Leon on Night Court (where he first caught my attention). He'd even had something of a comic book based appearance before then on the Hillstreet Blues episode Ratman And Bobbin. Over the next decade he showed up, or was heard, on tv shows and cartoons ranging from Flintstone Kids to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to the tv mini-series about the Jackson Family, An American Dream. In 1996 he played one of the mutants (Mondo) in Fox's poorly executed Generation X telefilm. That brought him back to comics and related adaptations, and he's been a staple since.

While continuing to do live action work on shows like Living Single, he was doing voice work on shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Godzilla, and Pinky & The Brain. In the 21st century, the trend continued and expanded - Batman Beyond, Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, Static Shock, Teen Titans, The Batman, Legion Of Superheroes, Transformers, G.I.Joe, Batman: The Brave & The Bold, The Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man, LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes, Avengers Assemble... it goes on.
And that doesn't touch his work in video games featuring X-Men, Justice League, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Batman, and more.
He's the voice of both Cyborg for DC and Falcon for Marvel. That's pretty impressive all by itself.
Heck, he even did voice work for my current game of choice - Fallout 4. (Great game actively being murdered by the interface(s) Mods required.)

Happy 45th, Larry! Can't wait to see what comes next.


Rambling onward...

The Man.
So... finally started to watch season 3 of Guardians Of The Galaxy. If you're missing him, the first episode has a delightful multi-scene cameo from Stan Lee. (And Seth Green pops in as Howard The Duck)
Matter of fact - if you haven't been watching the Marvel toons in recent years, there's a whole bunch of Stan waiting for you - usually playing Stan. For example - did you know that he's the mayor of Vista Verde, the town where Hulk And The Agents Of S.M.A.S.H. make their home? And they're usually bigger scenes than the movie cameos, too. Sometimes he even gets up on the Soapbox.

The Decimation.
Marvel's name for Thanos's Snap and the resulting loss of 50% of all life in the universe.
A terrible name.

Devastation.

Obliteration.

Even Snappening was a better name.

Decimation refers to a destruction of 1/10th of the whole. I know words evolve and change meanings with time. Pussy may have originated from the word pusillanimous, but the word has taken on other connotations over time.
But with Decimation, it's built into the word - the prefix 'deci' refers to a tenth part. In order to make it refer to one half instead, i have to pretend i'm too stupid to understand the component parts of the word. I've always had a problem making myself stupid for society, and i'm not going to start now.

Wakandan Cruelty.
I've seen some talk about how cruel it was to leave Bucky with only one arm when Wakanda could easily have given him a more naturalistic, non-weaponized arm. I sincerely doubt that the decision to go without an arm was anyone other than Barnes' - think in the context of the old samurai or gunfighter who finds peace by hanging up their weapon.

Zak Attack.
Did you see that Zak Snyder recently exploded an F-cluster bomb regarding his DC movies. In the middle of it all, he explained/admitted two things-

One - his movies are Elseworlds movies, not the real deal. He never intended to make a 'real' Superman movie. He was making a What If-? What if the Kents thought like Snyder did?
Instead of teaching Clark that he had a duty to use his powers to help others, his father taught him to protect himself above everyone else, including family & loved ones. (And using suicide to teach the lesson? Ick)
His mother taught him that he doesn't owe the world anything, and never did.
Of course this Superman isn't a hero - how could he be?

Two - Snyder doesn't believe in the concept of heroes nor aspirational figures and was intentionally trying to destroy them for the 'idiots' that do.

This has been obvious all along, but it was nice of him to finally admit it.

Maybe next time he'll talk about the incredible stupidity of treating eyeballs like fixed-mount lasers or....   damn. It's hard to narrow it down to even just a few incredibly stupid things from BvS-Death Of Justice, much less one reference. Let's skip all the big obvious ones and go to making Superman a peeping tom pervert  (admittedly, that's already been done in Superman Returns). We see this when he flies up away from Lois while repeating a line from Bruce & Alfred's private conversation about nobody staying good forever with no rational reason for saying it on his own unless he was listening to them.

Creepy, dude.

Here's a better fight between Supes & Bats -

There. Fight over.

Captain Thunder, I Presume?

As i mentioned yesterday, Captain (Terry) Thunder started out as an action/adventure strip. Although we have a vulture in the first panel, it's not Vincent, just local colour. Art Peters, and later Buck Johnson and Pierre LaRue, were pen names so we have no idea who was writing. But we do know it was originally drawn by Arthur Peddy whom we've already seen drawing the Red Panther (also for Jungle Comics).

On that first episode, he's listed as only Captain Thunder. They changed it to Captain Terry Thunder for the second issue of Jungle Comics and that stuck until his final appearance in that incarnation of the title in #151. As we saw yesterday, however, other things did change. A half dozen issues into the run Gloria hit camp...

...and they even got fireworks when they kissed. Gloria stuck around for another issue, just long enough to leave Terry with Kismet the Camel. Kismet found Anderson, and Vincent soon joined in the madness. Terry Thunder's once 'normal' life was warped and soon his adventures had transformed into this sort of affair...

Slowly, it seemed, Terry Thunder got over the trauma of Gloria Frazier. The presence of Kismet, Anderson, and Vincent diminished, and by issue #40 they no longer shared billing on the strip, and soon vanished entirely. Anderson lingered the longest, what with being human and all.

Perhaps he went crazy again later in the series. I'll have to keep reading and see...

page art from Jungle Comics #s 1, 6, & 29 (1940, 1942)

Somebody's Stuck And Even We Don't Know Who...

Captain Marvel is now available for watching at home, and the "other" Captain Marvel is due for home video release in a couple of weeks. How amazing is it that we not only got movies for both, but that they were in theatres at the same time?

It's just so tragicly lame that somebody decided to tag him with the name Shazam. After a half century of people laughing at Freddy Freeman because he can't say his own superhero name one might think they'd avoid looking so stupid. Guess not.

And it's not like they didn't have another name they could easily use. Before he was called Captain Marvel, he was originally Captain Thunder. They even used this name for the Kingdom Come stories. And it's not like they couldn't splash SHAZAM! on all the promotional material to keep the branding prominently displayed. It makes so much more sense than the inherent stupidity of speaking his own name causes him to lose his powers (and reveal his identity to whomever he was talking).

So why not use the name Captain Thunder?

It couldn't have anything to do with this guy, right?

One odd thing here is that Captain Terry Thunder was a fairly straightforward adventure strip - Captain Terry Thunder And The Congo Lancers. Then a dame came through the camp and he had to spank her and he had to kiss her and she gave him a camel and left. After that, he went a little crazy for a year or two before settling back down to normal.

Odder yet, after settling back down, Richard Case took over the art chores. You may recall that name from yesterday's post on the Doom Patrol. Very strange, since that was 1943 and Case wasn't born until 1964.

Who knew there was another Richard Case drawing comics? Yeah, we'll be circling back this way. We already had a bunch to look at in Jungle Comics anyway. (Kind of thought that we'd get to Fantomah or Wambi or the White Panther or one of the others first. But here we are.)

panel art by Bill Bossert and Al Stahl from Jungle Comics #s 17, 18, 23, 26-31, & 36 (1941, 1942)

Reality And Unreality Have No Clear Distinction In Our Present Circumstances

While i've been off, there's been some truly odd happenings out there. I usually tend towards things further in the past, but -

Even more odd than T-Rump palling with Canya SeeMe for a new stop on the Putting The Ass In Class tour. The "weirdest team in comics" got a tv series that deeply embraces that weird and brings it to live action in ways i could never have hoped for. And with a delightful attitude, too...

(Yeah, i blurred the caption to be nice for the censors. Oops - i mean redactors. I forget that we censor the word censor these days.)

Yeah, that's Cyborg on the right along with our core team, Robotman, Negative Man, Elastigirl, and Crazy Jane. Those names might not ever be actually used on the show, other than Crazy Jane. They're not heroes, excepting Cyborg. They're just Cliff Steele, Larry Trainor, Rita Farr and Jane (Kay and company) - misfits, not heroes.

3 months older than the X-Men, outcast freaks gathered together by a rich genius in a wheelchair to protect a world that shuns and fears them. They're the

Unsurprisingly, the show leans heavily on the Grant Morrison / Richard Case years. What is surprising is how much crosses over from the comics. And they've also dived deep into the Arnold Drake / Bob Haney / Giordano Bruno Premiani years. Things are definitely remixed a bit, changed both to cross mediums and for cohesion - They've only got 15 episodes in season one and over a half century of comic history to work with. Even longer on the show, actually. Rita has her transformative origin in the 1950s. Larry in the '60s, Cliff in the '80s, and Kay/Jane in the '90s, with the primary timeline being in this century. Things get changed, but in ways that work to serve the characters.

Cliff Steele is our entry character. His rebuild and awakening after the crash is how we meet the characters of the show. He's the newest member of Caulder's menagerie. Though he may have had his accident before Crazy Jane's transformation, it took years to rebuild and get him up and running.

Rita Farr, who generally was given the least character development in the old comics, has the most changes. Those changes work to make her more of a misfit - oddly to make her fit better on the team.

Larry Trainor is Negative Man, not Rebis - the gender fluid construct merging the male Trainor with the female Dr. Poole and the negative energy being binding them. Maybe later, but Rebis is a bit much to introduce in the limited framework of a single season. Instead, they found a different non-binary angle for his sexuality.

Jane, amazingly, is the least modified of the four. There's no mention of the Gene Bomb from the alien Invasion! mini-series which triggered the metagene, activating powers in all 64 of her personalities, but that's hardly surprising. Not only do we meet several of her well known personae, including some one might not expect, like Sun Daddy...

...and Silver Tongue, whose words form in the air, allowing her to use them as weapons...

 That's one of those things that works so easily in comics (since the words are already there anyway) but was rather surprising, but fun, to see on vid.

And, yes - we do go into the Underground...

Besides the core team, you know who else shows up on the series?

Danny The Street!

If you haven't read the old comics, Danny The Street is just what he sounds like - a Street named Danny. Of course, he's not a 'normal' street. Aside from being sentient, he's also mobile - able to shift his location around the planet at will. Also, he's a transvestite...

Yeah, the Bureau Of Abnormality wants him bad.

Among others, we also get Flex Mentallo and the white space between the panels...

Did you ever think we'd see Animal/Vegetable/Mineral-Man, even in a minor role?

And big Cheers for casting Curtis Armstrong as Brother Ezekiel! (yes, he's a cockroach)

The most off-model character is Mr. Nobody, but that makes sense unless you wanted a fully CGI intentionally-unreal-looking character. Instead, the ever cool Alan Tudyk winds up looking like this...

 ...it works well for the concept, if not for the descriptor "looks like you're always seeing him out of the corner of your eye" that's used once or twice in the comics. But, the comic version(s) didn't really fit that notion either.

And they even touch on the other versions/incarnations of the Doom Patrol. Here, for example, we see the Chief with Celsius, Mento, and Lodestone...

There's a great deal more - even mentions of The Brain and Mssr. Mallah.

The show takes its time, digging into each of the characters and building their world over the first 13 episodes with a big 2-ep final confrontation. And, yeah - it forgoes the typical conclusion to find a more appropriately odd ending to the tale.

Will there be a second season?
The show was quite well received, but the DCU streaming service itself might not last long. Now everybody is launching new streaming services to grab a slice of the pie (forgetting that what made streaming so popular in the first place was being able to go to one source for shows), and Warner Brothers wants in. They own DC and are likely to decide to kill DCU so they can make their service the home for the characters.

Only time will tell, but we got one true bit of Odd and perhaps more will follow. Maybe we'll get to see the Scissormen if there's a next time! (How does one represent the hole in reality after the scissormen have cut someone out of it? It's a lot easier on a white page, eh?) Maybe we'll even get to see the Brotherhood Of DADA (we got the Brotherhood Of DA this time, so maybe not)

We can hope.

screens from Doom Patrol season one (2019)

panel art by Richard Case and Scott Hanna for Doom Patrol #21 (1989)

NOTE: Post edited, but only to add bold face to names.

Let's Go Recolonelize The Multiverse!

A quickie post to reassure all that i didn't just post a couple and crawl to the back of the cave again. Still working back up to daily posting (need to grab a few more visuals for the piece in progress), but should be a full post tomorrow.

Meanwhile, under the heading of Chickens Before Spiders...

Remember that one in the middle where Colonel Sanders had to posse up his multiversal counterparts to save Fried Chicken?

From the 2nd of 3 DC/KFC comics, featuring the evil Colonel Sunder from Earth 3. (And that chicken headed Kolonel in the back is from Kamandi's world, if you was wondering)

page art by Tom Derenick and Trevor Scott for KFC: Crisis Of Infinite Colonels (2016)