Deadpool's Big Green Mama

Deadpool has a formidable power set. But, arguably his greatest power is Awareness. He knows he's a character in a comicbook (or movie), and that grants him knowledge and power as well as great snark. But someone else at Marvel paved the way for him. Right from the cover of her first issue (of her second run)...

And,no - it's not just a cover bit.
Let's look at She-Hulk's comments as she's wrapping up her first adventure (vs. the Circus Of Crime, following in her cousin's massive footsteps)...

(Yeah, we did)

The cover of the second issue continued to reference Bruce's old adventures, not only comics-aware but also comics-in-hand...

...unfortunately for Jennifer, it wasn't just the cover...

She not only knew she was in a comic book, but also was quite aware of the conventions of the form and of Marvel publishing history...

Knowing that she's in a comic also means knowing that entertaining the audience is primary. She'll even pause the story during a slow point to help keep the readers amused...

Okay. That might leave you a bit confused to the extreme definition of 'talking head panels' but there's a good reason. They've gone all Spock's Brain on her...

DeFalco was Head Honcho at the time, so you'd think his word would carry more weight, huh? Don't worry - they did make good sense of it all by the end.

Oh - "LOOK! The Blonde Phantom is here tonight!"

As you may remember from yesterday's post, Louise Grant's primary concern, even in her heroic identity of Blonde Phantom, was usually getting together with her boss, Mark Mason. Did she succeed and finally become Mrs. Mason?

Oh, yes...

Note that Louise mentions that she was the one who contacted Jennifer. That's because she was tired of existing in comics limbo. She managed to escape by becoming a supporting character in another book.

Yes, Louise is aware, too. And more experienced than Jennifer. After Jen starts to become infatuated with the D.A., Louise lets her in on some important information. Then she shows her how to use her awareness of their reality...

It being a comic, of course their lunch gets interrupted - by Stilt Man (a part of the book's declared policy of using only lame villains, y'know). She-Hulk ditches most of her expensive outfit to keep it from being ruined, and after the fight...

No, of course it wasn't Victor Von Doom when The Doctor arrived(nor was it The Doctor, for that matter) ...

Instead of Doctor Doom, Jen got Doctor Bong - an old Howard The Duck villain. She-Hulk is drawn (really, i didn't do that) into a television reality where she and the others are trapped at the channel changing control of Bong...

The bad Doctor has always been deranged, and Saturday morning cartoons have really set him off this time. Fortunately, Jen eventually realizes that they aren't really on tv...

(I did mention that he was a Howard The Duck villain, right?)

The appearance of an old Howard The Duck villain also teases the future here. Before too long, Steve Gerber would wind up writing the book - including the next (un)appearance of Dr. Doom ... Victor's 5th cousin, Dr. Bob Doom, D.D.S. And he's got an evil implant plot to rival his cousin. Yeah, it's the next worse thing to sibling rivalry. Vic gets all the acclaim.

So, by her 5th issue she was mastering the manipulation of her reality as a comic character.

55 issues later...

And so it went...


Before we go -
Some may be wondering yet about the title from a couple days ago teasing today's post. It comes from a bit later in the run...

...there. All makes sense now, right?

page art by John Byrne & Bob Wiacek, Brian Hitch & Jim Sanders III from Sensational She-Hulk #s 1-5 & 19 (1989, 1990)

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)