Monster Menace 1-4

Monster Menace 1-4

This was a kinda companion piece to Marvel's "Curse of the Weird" 4 issue mini. This series focused on the various Marvel pre-Silver age giant monster stories. This is the place were Fin Fang Foom and Groot showed up for the first time. So highlights from the 4 issues are. "I spent Midnight with the Monster on Bald Mountain" written by Stan Lee and art by Steve Ditko is a great moody story that shows both men at their artistic peaks. "The Terror of Tim Boo Ba" again by Lee and Ditko not only has a monster with a great name,but a fun twist ending that had to be mind blowing to the kids that read these stories many years ago. "When the Totem Walks" starts off the second issue with another blast of pure fun from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. They take the stupid idea of a killer monster Totem Pole and make it into something believe able for a comic book. "Save me from the Weed" besides the laughable title,is a fun science fictionish story from Stan Lee with Jack Kirby doing the pencils and Dick Ayers on inks.This is one of the many radiation gone wrong stories that were all through out pop culture during this era. "I can't escape from the Creeping Things" is another mortality tale from Lee and Ditko that has a very early ecological slant to the story.Then wrapping up issue 2 is the highlight of the issue. "I fought Colossus" written by Stan Lee pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Steve Ditko. Another of this era's "The machines are gonna take over " scare tales."I Live again" is the sequel to "The thing from Bald mountain" comic. It has the team of Lee and Ditko again and their talent shines through.Issue 4 starts off with a fun cover by Floyd Hughs. We start off with a sequel to the walking Totem story from a few issues back. "Orrgo the unconquerable" is a amazingly fun tale by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Then we get what I consider the highlight from the entire 4 issue series "Rorgg,King of the Spider Men!!". Written I am pretty sure by Stan Lee this has pencils from Jack Kirby and I think Dick Ayers did the inks. Small town gets invaded by a group of aliens that have 6 arms and look kinda like Spiderman when he grew the extra arms. This story was the best way to end what was a decent mini series. I enjoyed "Curse of the Weird" more,mostly cause the Marvel giant monster comics are not some of my favorite stuff. But judging this on all 4 issues "Monster Menace" gets a B.

Deathmate Red

Deathmate Red

Considered to be the worst part of the worst big event crossover of the 90s. This came out like 3 months after it was suppose to. And by the time it did ship most people had given up on Deathmate. So this one has the lowest print run of any of the issues. This was the issue that was handled by Rob Liefeld and his crew of talent from Extreme studios. This is mainly various Extreme Studio heroes,IE Youngblood,Brigade,Bloodstrike and Prophet with Bloodshot from Valiant thrown in. Now I am a fan of Bloodshot and looking back the Extreme Studio stuff wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.Sure most of it was generic superhero stuff with not so good art. The storyline in this comic makes no sense and really is barely even connected to the overall Deathmate storyline. Now Rob Liefeld draws a great Bloodshot. And some of the art in this issue would have made great posters,but as a actual comic it fails on so many levels. Deathmate Red gets a F+.

Good finds in teh cheap bins-5 random issues of Groo the Wanderer

Groo is a comic book series that at last count has been published by 6 different companies. Written by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragoines and with Sergio doing the artwork this is a simple tale of a brainless barbarian and his trusty dog. As they go from town to town trying to earn money and get some cheese dip. Now a few years back I won an auction on Ebay and got like 40 random issues of the Marvel/Epic run of Groo. And the other day dug them out cause I wanted something funny to read. The first issue I read was #24 and dealt with a town that had be cursed to become the ugliest town on the planet. And with how Groo keeps trying to undo the curse. The second issue,#25,was all about how through so misadventures Groo ended up having 3 different groups of raiders attack the same town. Then issue #33 in which Groo becomes leader of a group of pirates. Which is strange cause any ship Groo comes aboard ends up sinking rather quickly. Issue #42 is up next and has the classic story of Grannie Groo trying to marry Groo off to 2 different women. The first of which is a fugly farm girl and the second of which is a rich princess. Great issue that had me laughing many many times.Last one in this group was issue #43. Another issue with Grannie Groo ,she sells Groo into slavery,and he of course messed up her plan. I have always enjoyed Groo,but have learned to never read most than 5 or 6 issues at once. If you do the stories start to run together and it kinda makes then less enjoyable. This batch of Groo comics gets a B+.

Don' Look in the basement-Elvira's Movie Macabre airing

"Don't Look in the basement"

A young pretty nurse goes to a rural insane asylum for work. Now this isn't your normal nuthouse,it is set in a old wore down home,and there isn't locks on any of the doors. And right before the new nurse gets there,one of the patients kills the head doctor with an ax. You have a nice collection of patients. There is the Judge,who either was or thinks he is a court judge and is also the person that killed the head doctor. There is Sarge,who still thinks the war,I am assuming from what time frame this was filmed in it would be Nam,is still going on. You have one lady who carried around a baby doll that she thinks is her real kid. And another lady that is a total nympho. Then there is Sam,Sam is a very large man who has the mentality of a 8 year old and seems to just want to be friends with every one.Oh he also LOVES Popsicles. Well most of the patients warm up pretty quick to the new nurse. And Sam keeps telling her that the dead doctor is talking him on a daily basis. Well things seem as normal as they can be at a house of the mentally ill. Then one night the new nurse is confronted by this older woman that vaguely warns her about something not being right in the house. This messes with the young nurse and the next day she finds out that it seems the old lady has cut out her own tongue. Things start going down hill from this point and keep it up till the ending. Now I don't want to spoil the ending at all. But it is a decent twist and helps makes up for the low budget and some of the bad acting.This is either in the public domain or assumed to be cause it isn't hard to find it on dvd super cheap. I have 4 different dvds/dvd sets that have it. The first one was one of the old Brentwood 10 movie packs. This was the first place I saw it. Then I have  a cheap dvd with 3 films one of with is "Don't look". Then  a dollar dvd that I picked up cause I liked the cover. And finally one of those Mill Creek 50 movie packs.

Deathmate Blue

Deathmate Blue

Before this came out it was one of the most hyped and anticipated comic company cross overs in years. You have Image comics ,who were smoking hot at the time. And Valiant comics,who were at their peak artistically and storywise. And the basic idea wasn't bad. The two different universes merge and a small group of people are trying their best to correct this huge mistake. Well lets start off with the obvious mistakes,this was published in mid 1993 and had a cover price of $4.95. IIRC at this times most comics were at most $1.95. Sure the issue is over sized and the cover has a small amount of blue foil on it. But there is no way this should have been almost $5 an issue. Each of the four "color" issues of Deathmate were collections of some short stories. We start this one off with a story that has Magnus Robot Fighter and Brigade. Written by John Ostrander and art by Jim Calafiore,this is decent. But really this story,and most of the other ones in this entire crossover,feel like you have been dropped into part 20 of a 40 part storyline.The fight between Magnus and Battlestone is decent,and has the usual Valiant style of good art. Next story is one that pairs up Secret Weapons and Cyber Force. Secret Weapons as a title never really worked for me. And Cyber force always felt like a X-men spin off team that would have lasted 2 years at the most. Written by Joe St. Pierre and art by Sean Chen,this one is more interesting than the first story. There is an attempt on the President's life and the combined team of Secret Weapons and Cyber Force must stop it. The next one has people from Harbinger,Brigade and Cyber Force. The team from the last story has invaded the Harada HQ and it ends up with a big fight. The story by Maurice Fontenot and art by Howard Simpson are both flat and really drags the pace of the book down.Geoff the geomancer finally gets to meet up with Harada and the both of them get in touch with Solar. This sets up the storyline that will be continued in Deathmate Epilogue.Last story has Solar man of the Atom and Supreme. Written by Kevin Vanhook and art by Peter Grau. This has Solar and Supreme teaming up with Master Darque and Dr Eclipse to go find out what has caused the two universes to combined and what is causing they to be destroied.This is one of the better issues in the whole Deathmare shitfest. But even then it is barely worth 2 bucks much less the $5 it sold for. I do like how it took the storyline and continued it forward.Which is something other issues in this series didn't manage to do. Deathmate Blue gets a C.

Bloodshot volume 1 issues 0-6

Bloodshot volume 1 issues 0-6

This series came out when Valiant was at their peak of popularity. And IIRC issue 1 of Bloodshot came out the same day as the infamous Superman Volume 2 issue 75 AKA the Death of Superman issue. Bloodshot is the story of a former mafia hitman who is sold out and given to a Asian tech firm as a guinna pig. They fill his blood of nanites,little robots that can fix almost anything and allow him to control any electronic device. Well Bloodshot is rescued early on and goes on a quest to find out his past. Seems he remembers almost nothing of his previous life. You can tell that at first this was Valiant's attempt for a Punisher style hero. But quickly it changes into something else. Issue 0 came out way after these 6 issues and it does a good job giving you some of Bloodshot's story from before he became a one man killing machine.Issue 4 has him teaming up with Gilard aka the Enternal Warrior. They team up take on one of the many mafia families. An uneasy truce is reached and Gilad gets Bloodshot a job working for a British group that kinda reminds me of the group Micheal Knight worked for on Knight Rider.Issue 6 has a great cover of Bloodshot falling outta a place through the air. And at one time this issue was super hot. Cause it was the first appearance of Colin King who was Ninjak. And for a very short while Ninjak was a super hot hero. Thankfully all these issues should be easy to find for a buck an issue if no cheaper. This group of Bloodshot issues gets a B+.

Curse of the Weird #2

Curse of the Weird issue 2

Published back in the comic glut of 94,this 4 issue mini series was over looked by most of the comic fans. This is a series that reprinted "weird" tales from Marvel's Atlas era books. You get 5 stories. The first "The Ghost of Grismore Castle" has amazing artwork from the comic genius Steve Ditko. Kinda a normal ghost story,but it is elevated from an average story to a great story by art. Ditko has an energy and aura around his artwork that I can't really describe. Up next is "Bat's Tales' written by Stan Lee and pencils and inks by Russ Heath Jr. Passable vampire story with a predictable ending. "Innocent Bystander" is third,with pencils and inks by Dick Briefer. Never heard of Dick before but his artwork is a little below average for the time period. The story is like a 3rd rate "Crime Suspense Story". "The Unsolid Man" pencils and inks by the great Joe Orlando.Besides the art this one is not worth reading. And it isn't as good as Orlando's great stuff with EC. Wrapping up the comic is "No Sign of Life" written by Stan Lee and pencils and inks by Steve Ditko. Very cute Sci Fi story that doesn't over stay it's welcome. And beside the usual pages of ads,we get a few pages giving us some background on the stories,writers and artists that worked on this issue. I found this issue along with the following 2 at Coast Con last year. Got them outta the cheap bin and just the 2 stories with Ditko artwork are worth 10 times what I paid for them.

Pg 13 vs Spike/Mikey from ECW

I wonder if this is what inspired the Rock to create the People's Elbow?

Micheal PS Hayes VS some jobber from AWF
This is from the short lived AWF. Which from what I can dig up was syndicated into at least 4/5ths of the country. Also seems like that lots of areas it aired at like 2am on Sunday Morning. I can remember coming home from either a party or a night at the bar and turning this on. It was fun you had 1 hour of AWF then WCW Worldwide.  I wonder if a young Dwayne Johnson saw this match and modernized Haye's finisher?

The "lost" great tag team of the 90's.

Never given their due. I am guessing cause they spent most of their time in Memphis and the USWA. This was one of the best tag teams of the whole decade of the 90;s. They had a match in ECW  vs Little Spike Dudley and Mikey Whipwreck that I will try to post soon,.

WCW bash at the beach 1997 lucha libre 6 man tag

Remember when you usually got a fun lucha libre match at most WCW ppvs?

FCBD 2011

Since there is no comic shops really near me. The past few years I have drove down to 3 Alarm Comics in Biloxi Mississippi. Last year I made two trips to the comic shop on FCBD. One early in the morning ,and then later that day. On the second trip I took my 8 year old cousin Jared. He has started getting into comics so I do whatever I can to encourge him to read them. Well today we decided to get to the shop right after they opened. I was expecting what had happened last year. IE the shop having in 4 artists and at first there being a limit of 2 free comics per customer. Well we showed up about 10 minutes after the store had opened and it was super crowded. Seems the owner had brought in 8 artists. The only one I knew was Mitch Byrd. Who is from the area and seems that most people if they have heard of him ,remember his run on Guy Gardner Warrior comic. Well Jared wanted to look around so we spent about 20 minutes looking at action figures and wall books. Saw some good wall books at decent prices. But really nothing I want. Also saw some good figures again at good prices. But I really don't have much room to display action figures. Well Jared found the newest issue of Sonic the Hedgehog. So he picked that up and then walked over to the rack that had all the free comics on it. I then went off looking for some of the trades I wanted. Found the shelf with the various Showcase presents trades. Nice selection and I picked up Jonah Hex,Shazam,and House of Mystery volumes 1 and 2. All of them for a decent amount off cover. So I started looking for the shelf with all the Marvel Essentials. Looked all over ,then finally saw it was right behind some of the artists. So I kinda reached around and grabbed Essential X-men volumes 4-7. Gotta say I haven't read this era of X-men in over 20 years and I am really enjoying them. Well by this time the store is super crowded,and well I don't handle crowds too well. So I quickly found Walking Dead Volume 10 and then made my way to the free comic rack. Saw Jared had put back the issue of Sonic. So I asked him why. "Why pay 3 bucks when they have one that is free?" Can't really argue with his logic. One strange thing,I had went the night before with him and his lil brother to see Thor and both of them loved the movie. So when I saw the FCBD Captain American/Thor issue I figured Jared would be all over it like a fat chick loves steak'ums. He showed no interest in it,but did pick up Atomic Robo,Silver Scorpion,and the James Patterson Wizards and something book. I ended up getting one of every issue they still had in stock. By this time I am already starting to shake,and knew I had to get out of there quick. So I walked over to the register,and was surprised there wasn't a line. Guy rang up my trades and I got a nice discount. So far all I have read was the 2000 AD FCBD edition. And it was a nice way to introduce people to the various stories that run in 2000 AD, Over all it was a fun day and I will be back next year.

Serial Mom

Serial Mom by John Waters

Made in the mid 90's this was one of the more high profile and mainstream films to come from the mind of John Waters. It stars Kathleen Turner as the Serial Mom of the film title. Sam Waterson as her husband. Matthew Lillard as her horror movie loving son. And Ricki Lake as her boy crazy collectible selling daughter. Film starts off almost like a modern color version of Leave it to Beaver. But once her husband heads off to work and the kids are off to school the cracks in Ms Turner's facade start to show. Seems she loves to call one of the neighbor women and scream all kinds of obscenity's at her. Well after this she is off to the high school for a PTA meeting with her son's math teacher. The teacher tells her that Lillard is a deviant who is obsessed with horror movies. This pisses off Serial Mom and she catches the teacher in the parking lot and runs him over multiple times with her car. She heads off and gets the car washed before heading home to start cooking dinner for her family. The next morning the cops show up at her house to question her. Seems there was a witness who saw a blue station wagon run over the teacher. And Serial Mom is the only parent who was at school that day that has a blue station wagon. She answers the police's questions. And tries to help her daughter get over being stood up by the boy who was suppose to drive her to the flea market today. We head off to the flea market. And we see the aforementioned boy there with a super cute Traci Lords on his arm. Serial Mom sees this and follows him into the bathroom. Then runs him through with a fireplace poker. Well again there is a witness,but the cops don't believe him. Well the movie goes on with Serial Mom going after anyone that she believes is doing wrong to her family. And the family begins to suspect that their beloved matriarch is a killer. This film is a fun dark comedy that is a satire of the media circus that surrounds most high profile murder cases. The cast is all very good at their roles. And this has a decent amount of gore mixed with some very very black humor. I have enjoyed this film since the first time I saw it back when it hit VHS. Serial Mom earns a B+.