2016 Comic Challenge 228 Hero Alliance #04

TITLE-Hero Alliance #04
PUBLISHER-Innovation

Back in the mid 90s I found a few issues of Hero Alliance in the cheap bins. And I really enjoyed those issues. So since then anytime I find issues for cheap I grab them.

One thing that stood out about Hero Alliance is how the issues were more about what happens before and after the big battles most superheroes get into.

This issue starts off with two men robbing an elderly lady's apartment. The old lady sees them and they run away. On the rooftop they get confronted by this world's version of Batman. One of the men ends up falling to his death from the roof. Which of course brings heat on the team.

The art and story is pretty good. Now I am gonna try to track down the rest of the series.

Hero Alliance gets a buy.

2016 Comic Challenge 211 Jughead #06

TITLE-Jughead #06
PUBLISHER-Archie

This is the last issue in the first story arch of the new Jughead series.

The gang makes a plan to stop Stanger from brainwashing more students at the upcoming Halloween dance. Jughead at first wants nothing to do with it. But then gets a clue as to why the new principal is ignoring Veronica's breaking of various rules. So he joins in on the plan.

There is a great fight between Jughead,who is dressed up as Captain Hero,and Moose. But our unsung hero manages to save the day.

Chip Zdarsky took my favorite Archie character and made him even better. All the homages to previous Jughead series were great. Erica Henderson's art fits this series perfectly.

Yeah gonna have to get the trade of this 6 issue run soon.

Jughead #06 gets a BUY!

2016 Comic Challenge 091 Illuminati #01

TITLE-Illuminati #01
PUBLISHER-Marvel comics

Titania has just gotten out of jail. And once her boyfriend,the Absorbing Man ,gets out she wants to move and try to live a normal life.

After weeks of trying to find a job.she ends up getting a job as security at a pawn shop. Thanks to She Hulk,who runs a program for ex-villains trying to turn over a new leaf. A group of 3 armed,and armed with some kind of laser like guns,try to rob the pawn shop. Titania of course uses her powers to prevent the robbery. Which causes her parole cuff to go off. And fairly quickly Luke Cage and Iron Fist show up.

Thanks to an appearance from The Hood,Titania escapes and is asked to join The Hoods new army of villains.

I have never heard of Joshua Williamson before,who is the writer.Same with Shawn Crystal,who is credited as artist.But the story so far and the art are pretty good. The art has a very slight cartoony look to it. Which works pretty well with the colors used.

Illuminati #01 gets a borrow.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 095 Heroes Saving Charlie

TITLE-Heroes:Saving Charlie
AUTHOR-Aury Wallington
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-$2

With Heroes recently making a comeback I dug out this novel. If you watched Heroes during it's original run you will remember a part were Hiro went back in time and met a red haired waitress named Charlie and he feel in love with her. On the show this all happened in one episode. But with the TV show being a huge hit that story was taken and fleshed out into this novel.

Since Hiro is from the future he knows Charlie's fate. And most of the novel is about him trying to decide if he should prevent her death or not. Aury did a great job capturing the feel of each of the characters from the show. And does his best avoiding any time paradox. Which is always something you have to watch out for when dealing with time travel in fiction.

Going back now,after finally seeing all 4 of the original seasons of Heroes,I gotta say this novel is better than seasons 2 thru 4. But not as good as the first season. If you are a Heroes fan and haven't read this book yet go get a copy. It shouldn't cost that much and is a neat piece of Heroes merchandise.

Heroes:Saving Charlie gets a B-.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 092 The Encyclopedia of Superheroes

TITLE-The Encyclopedia of Superheroes
AUTHOR-Jeff Rovin
FORMAT-Trade Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-Yes
PRICE-$3

When I got Rovin's Adventure Heroes reference book I also ordered this one about superheroes.Back in the pre-internet days books like this were very valuable reference tools. Of course now they are kind of outdated relics.

But I love reference books. I keep a stack of them in my bathroom. And they make perfect reading while you are taking the Browns to the Super Bowl.

So how through is this book? It came out in 1985.So I am assuming it was more than likely finished in late 84 or early 85. But even with my huge knowledge of superheroes there isn't one I can think of that isn't in this book. Hell there is so many in here I have never heard of. Each entry seems to be well researched and as far as I know accurate.

I love how in one of the appendixes we get a list of superhero teams. And another appendix for obscure Golden Age heroes.

The Encyclopedia of Superheroes gets a B+.

2015 Reading Challenge Book 067 Project Superpowers volume 01

TITLE-Project Superpowers volume 1
AUTHOR-Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
FORMAT-Trade Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
PRICE-$7.50

I remember first hearing about this mini series in early 2008. I have always liked the Golden Age public domain heroes. With Malibu's Protectors being one of my favorite series. So when I found out Alex Ross was doing a mini series at Dynamite that was reviving lots of PD Golden Age heroes I had to read it.

I managed to grab issues 0 thru 7 out of the cheap bins at the comic shop on the coast I was going to a few times a year. The owner and I ended up chatting about the Black Terror and the Golden Age Daredevil for a long time that day.

Then a few years later the Science Fiction Book Club was having a big sale. I went to see what they had on clearance and they had the trade reprinting the first mini series for cheap. I gave away my copies of the issues. Cause everything in them is reprinted in this trade.

So what is the story? Starting in WWII the Fighting Yank is going around and trapping the various heroes into Pandora's box,which is a urn actually. By doing this he is told it will cause all the evil in the world to also return to the box.

Then in modern day he realizes he was duped. So with help from the Green Lama,he breaks the urn and all the heroes return. But cause of their time in the urn they have changed.

The main thrust of the story is these now free heroes dealing with not only being betrayed by one of their own,but dealing with how different the world is now.And by the end of the mini series they have taken control of New York City.

I ended up re-reading this because finally after a few years of nothing Dynamite has a new Project Superpowers series on the stands. Written by Warren Ellis,and up to it's 3rd issue. I wanted to refresh my memory on this series before starting the new stuff.

Project Superpowers volume 1 gets a 3.99 outta 5.

Three Toys from a box of junk 03/31/2015

For close to 15 years I collected toys. Mostly action figures,but there was a decent amount of non-action figure toys in my collection. When I moved back to Mississippi close to 10 years ago I sold off a huge amount of my toy collection.What I did keep mostly got put up in boxes.

I was never one to keep my toys mint in package. With action figures it was much much easier to display them when they were loose. Plus I get to pose them and place the various accessories where I want them.

I have been slowly moving stuff out of my closet. And dividing the junk I am finding into two piles. One of course is stuff I want to keep. The other is stuff I am getting rid of. I doubt I can sell much of what I want to get rid of. So if you see a toy on this blog that I say I want to get rid of. Contact me,I am more than happy to trade them for whatever.

Now I am stealing this idea from Matt at Dinosaur Dracula.Go check out his site,it is a great read. Click to goto Dinosaur Dracula website.But every few weeks Matt will pick 5 random action figures from his humongous collection.Take some pictures of them and talk about them. I really enjoy reading them. So I stole the idea. But I am changing it up slightly. Matt does 5 Action Figures. I am doing 3 toys. No clue how often I will be doing one of these.

3 Toys from the Box 03/31/2015

Up first is the oldest of the three toys I picked out for today. Oldest as in the one I have owned for the longest.

A few years after LJN lost the WWF license it was picked up by Hasbro.The LJN figures we bigger,but had no articulation. Which is kind of dumb for a wrestling action figure.The Hasbro figures were much smaller but did have a few points of articulation. Plus each of them had an action feature.

I am pretty sure Hasbro made 2 Brutus Beefcake figures.And this is the first one. Brutus IIRC came with a pair of shears,so he could cut the heel wrestler's hair.There is only 3 points of articulation. The shoulders and neck. And the action feature is super lame. You press down on his head and release it and he jumps. Well most of the time he just falls over.

This is the second one of this Brutus Beefcake Hasbro figure I have owned.I got my first one back in the mid 90s. The local America's Thrift had got in what I must assume was some kid's wrestling figure collection. There was at least 30 of these Hasbro WWF figures. They were priced at 50 cents each. And I grabbed almost all of them.Something happened to that figure when I moved in the late 90s. The one in the picture I got in a trade with a fellow collector. He was just getting into VHS collecting.And one of my neighbors called me and told me their kids had just gave them "A wholea bunch of VCR videotapes." As a thank you for helping the husband stack firewood the previous fall I was told to come over and get any of the vhs tapes I wanted.

This is one of the toys in my collection I want to get rid of. Loose it has almost no monetary value. Anyone reading this that wants it leave a comment below and we can work a trade out.

This is the newest out of the three toys.Either late 2012 or early 2013 I found it in a three pack at Fred's.I rarely look at the toys in Fred's cause like Walgreens and other drug stores,they price the figures a few bucks higher.Fred's at least puts stuff on clearance,and then the price is usually really good.

Mattel had been making this sized DC superhero action figures for a number of years. Most of the time the figures had good paint jobs,good sculpting and decent articulation.Cause of the size of them they remind me a bit of the Kenner Super Powers line from the mid 80s. Unlike the Super Powers figures this line from Mattel has no action feature.To make up for this they have much more articulation.

As far back as I can remember I have been a fan of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.I think it is for 2 reasons. The first is my favorite color is green. The other is I love Green Lantern's power ring. Such a great power. And what kid wouldn't want a ring like that.

Oh maybe you are wondering who else was in the three pack with old Hal here. The pack was called "The Hard Traveling Heroes" set. For the comic geeks out there that should be enough of a hint to figure out who the other two are.To be nice I will go ahead and tell you :P The other two figures are Oliver Queen the Green Arrow,and Dinah Lance the Black Canary.Back in the 70s DC merged Green Lantern and Green Arrow's comic books. And those 2 along with Black Canary traveled around the world fighting off social injustices.

I doubt I ever would want to get rid of this figure.With my action figure display areas being very limited,smaller figures like this are much easier to display. And for such a small figure it looks amazing.My only complaint,and it is more of me being an ass than anything,is that the Super Powers Green Lantern figure came with a Green Lantern Power Battery accessory. This figure didn't.I am sure I could check Ebay and buy one and add it to this figure.

While this is the oldest of the three toys,it came out about a year or two before Brutus Beefcake,I didn't get it until summer of 2012.I can't remember if I got in in the same trade as the Brutus Beefcake or if I was in another trade with the same guy.

In the late 80s or maybe it was very early 1990 Mattel started a new line of He Man action figures.The Masters of the Universe line had been dead for a year or so and they wanted to revamp it some.Gone was the exaggerated muscles of the old line. Replaced by a somewhat more realistic look. Also this line had more of a science fiction feel.I don't remember seeing this toy line in stores. And only saw the cartoon maybe 4 times.

I was a huge Masters of the Universe fan. I clearly remember saving up my dollar a week allowance up so I could buy my first MotU figure,which was Man-At-Arms.So when I saw this figure on my buddy's trade list I had to have it.

Compared to the MotU line,the New Adventures of He-man line looks kind of crappy. The action figures aren't nearly as inventive.The sculpting while more realistic isn't as good.The paint jobs are not as good. I have no idea about the accessories,since this one didn't have any when I got it.

If someone made me a good offer I would get rid of this toy. It isn't that I don't like it. It just isn't impressive enough to hold onto when I am very limited in space.

Well I hope someone read and enjoyed this.I am gonna have to figure out how to take better pictures of the figures. But I am working with an cheap camera and it isn't like I have much of a clue as to what I am doing :P