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Post by MWGallaher on May 26, 2021 16:14:35 GMT -5
Yeah, legendary title, unforgettable and catchy. It got me to buy a ticket!
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Post by MWGallaher on May 26, 2021 16:13:36 GMT -5
Clever usage of the homophonic "two/too". Much better than "Coming 2 America" being completely homophonic to its predecessor, making it impossible to differentiate them when spoken. But then, I don't think a lot of people were talking about that one, were they?
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Post by MWGallaher on May 26, 2021 16:10:31 GMT -5
The all-time champion will always be, to me, Aliens. So simple. So efficient. "Oh, there are several now??? O.K., I'm definitely scared". Good one! I never thought about just how brilliant and effective that choice was. It did lead to another "Rambo III" situation with the third film numbered to imply the existence of an "Alien 2".
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Post by MWGallaher on May 26, 2021 13:24:12 GMT -5
I've been thinking about sequel titles.
In recent years, it seems the movie world has been rebounding from simply numbering sequels (a trend that--as far as I can determine--began with THE GODFATHER: PART II and then FRENCH CONNECTION II).
Hollywood's norm now appears to be subtitles such as SPIDER-MAN: Far From Home and WONDER WOMAN: 1984.
There have been plenty in between that combined both approaches (e.g. STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan, HIGHLANDER II: The Quickening).
Less often, sequels don't explicitly incorporate the exact titles of their predecessor, like the sequel to ROMANCING THE STONE, THE JEWEL OF THE NILE.
Another approach is to give the sequel a variation on the original's title or otherwise echo it (ANALYZE THIS/ANALYZE THAT, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE/ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN). I can think of at least one instance that combined this with numbering (THE WHOLE NINE YARDS/THE WHOLE TEN YARDS).
And then there's real oddball cases where the sequel assigns a number to title that wasn't used in the first place, like RAMBO III, following the title transition instituted by the first sequel in the series, RAMBO: First Blood Part II. And the most annoying variation on the numbering approach, PART 2 WALKING TALL.
So, without regard to the quality of the sequels what are some of your favorite titles given to sequels, whether on film, in literature, TV, or other media? I wouldn't expect anyone's favorite to be a numbered one ("SUPERMAN II just sounds way cooler than plain old SUPERMAN!"), but which sequel titles generated intrigue and excitement and enticed you the most?
The first that came to my mind was BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. That had to be an unexpected one--what viewer would have thought to ponder whether there'd be anything worth filming beneath the planet of the apes? So much cooler than the obvious "Return to" would have been!
Another I'm quite fond of is THE MUMMY'S HAND. Why zero in on that particular body part? I don't know, but the title captivated me.
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Post by MWGallaher on May 18, 2021 8:49:33 GMT -5
Aquaman was initially not a hybrid human/Atlantean, but a human whose widower father trained him(!) to breath underwater using scientific secrets he discovered in the ruins of the lost undersea kingdom of Atlantis.
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Post by MWGallaher on May 18, 2021 8:32:04 GMT -5
Captain Marvel was dead, until 1966, when Myron Fass, a publisher of cheap magazines and comics, launched a new comic book, in 1966, Captain Marvel. The hero would split off his limbs, uttering the magic word "Split" and then recombine them with "Zam." it was stupid and hokey and filled with copyright viol;ations of its own and Fass pretty much had to shutter it, under legal threats. However, his trademark was purchased, for a minor fee, by Marvel Comics, who then launched their own Captain Marvel, aka Mar-Vell, of the Kree. While Marvel may have paid Myron Fass to give up the trademark, I always found it interesting that Marvel hesitated to actually use it. On the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES cover above, there is no trademark (TM) indicator on the "Captain Marvel" logo, only on the "Marvel Super-heroes" logo. When Mar-Vell was immediately promoted to his own series with the next installment, the trademark was attached to the phrase "Marvel's Space-born Super-hero!", which, according to the indicia, was part of the formal title of the comic: I assume they were acting cautiously until they confirmed that Fawcett's trademark had expired. Shazam! #1Look at The Big Red & Blue Bully, acting like he is all buddy-buddy with The Big Red Cheese! Someone's red & blue pants are on fire! Thoughts: Well, Denny is no Otto Binder (or even Earl Binder): but, he does a pretty darn decent return for Captain Marvel, borrowing a page from Stan & Jack and putting the Marvels and the Sivanas (and the supporting cast) on ice for 20 years. He then brings Captain Marvel back in contact to foil their plans and all is right in the world. It's not exactly on the same level as the epic Monster Society of Evil serial; but, it'll do the job. Meanwhile, the reprint starts a trend of the reprint stories from Fawcett showing up the lesser imaginations at DC. Don't get me wrong, Denny gets pretty imaginative; but, he didn't have unravelling rugs feeding string across interdimensional barriers, thereby creative a cosmic tug of war, leading to cross-dimensional invasions and wrestling matches, before shutting down the pipeline! Heck, we don't even learn exactly what the Sivanas were up to, as they never identify the purpose of the electronics they had stolen, apart from the generic ruling the world scenario. Mary and Junior didn't even get to get their licks in. Still, it's enough to prime the pump. The art from CC Beck isn't quite the classic of old, though it's still pretty darn good and he keeps it all simple. For the most part, this is kept pretty basic, for younger children, compared to what was going on in the Superman comics. it's pretty much in keeping with what they would do in the Super Friends comic, which would follow, in a bit. That's fine and it tries for whimsical, but, as the reprint shows, whimsy isn't Denny's forte. At least he didn't send Captain Marvel off on a journey to discover America, with Spy Smasher and the wizard, Shazam! We are teased at the end with a return of Mr. Mind, who was executed via the electric chair, at the end of the Monster Society of Evil serial, in Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures. It will be interesting to see how they get him out of that! See, death has no meaning in comics! The reprint also shows the time honored tradition of the Marvels to get knocked out and tied up, in their mortal forms, always ending up gagged, even if other hostages aren't. The Marvel Family Adventures would do William Marston proud, as they rivalled Wonder Woman for bondage drama, even if they weren't quite as kinky. Alan Moore poked fun at it (well, fun might be s stretch) as such images are part of the fantasy programming fed by Dr Gargunza, in secret, to Miraclewoman, in the Miracleman series. He also intended it to be a central feature in his Twilight proposal (which neither involved sparkly vampire stalkers nor ELO music), for Billy Batson, as he is described as visiting dominatrixes to get his kicks. On a similar line (as Grant Morrison would probably gleefully point out), Robert Mayer's Superfolks includes a Captain Marvel pastiche, Captain Mantra, who ends up captured with his sister, Mary Mantra and efforts to free themselves have unintended consequences, in the form of the Demoniac, a superpowered crazed monster, who Mood Indigo must stop. Thankfully, this series is a bit more innocent than that and keeps it to normal Nancy Drew and Little Orphan Annie levels. They do give Mary Marvel a sexier makeover, though, shortening the hemline of her skirt a few inches, trading her boots for ballet flats and aging her a bit. Could have been worse, given what the later DC regime did to her. I was 13 when this came out, and I'd devoured the Big Red Cheese chapter of All In Color For A Dime over and over, after multiple check-outs from the Memphis Public Library, so I was primed and ready and very enthusiastic to grab this off the stands. I remember creating my own animated version of the origin with my 8mm movie camera and hand-drawn cut-outs. Looking back, the most striking characteristic of the story was how its visual clarity and direct, relatively simple story-telling made the entire thing so memorable. Almost 50 years later, not having looked at the comic in at least 30 years, I can remember almost every beat, and visualize every page. I can't do that with some random Spider-Man issue of the era--there's no way I can recall a specific page of JJJ and Robby bickering in the Bugle offices from AS-M #95, but I can clearly picture Mr. Morris interacting with Billy in Shazam #1. My interest did wane quickly after several issues that were too juvenile to keep up with my teenhood, but I was quite happy to part with my dimes there at the start of the run.
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Post by MWGallaher on May 13, 2021 19:38:46 GMT -5
Note that his cape isn't exactly a reverse, substituting black for white and red for yellow. You could kind of point to Black Adam being the first to reference the hero's costume, with his own, though his was not a reverse of it. Good catch--it's exactly the same kind of reversal as Prof. Zoom, swapping red for yellow and replacing white with black (Barry's chest emblem & Cap's cape). I believe that at some point, Reverse Flash's chest emblem was changed to a mirrored orientation, with the lightning bolt pointed upward to the left instead of the right.
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Post by MWGallaher on May 13, 2021 17:35:10 GMT -5
I voted for Barry; even though the Kid Flash costume is a superior design, it was the Silver Age costume that captivated me even before I ever started reading comics. I'm also very fond of this: In hindsight, it's an obvious strategy: just flip the color scheme on the evil counterpart's costume, but I don't think anyone thought of it before the Reverse Flash, and I can't recall anybody trying to duplicate it afterwards. I found the color scheme surprisingly effective, and jumped at the chance to finally have a Reverse Flash t-shirt years ago!
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Post by MWGallaher on May 1, 2021 19:55:18 GMT -5
Also from FLASH #173, September 1967: The half-face framing Carmine Infantino uses here caught my eye, since it's something Jim Starlin used a lot... and then I read on and thought 'Gold skin? Full wavy hair? Black around the eyes? Extensions on the chest-piece rising over the shoulders? Bare legs? Jewel on the forehead that projects power beams?' Look familiar to anyone else? (I'm not suggesting Gil Kane swiped his Warlock design--which was derived from Jack Kirby's 'Him', who only had golden skin in common--from Infantino's 'Golden Man', but it's an interesting predecessor that incorporates several distinctive aspects, isn't it?)
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 29, 2021 7:23:36 GMT -5
BLACK PANTHER #1, 1977:
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 28, 2021 10:25:30 GMT -5
From THE FLASH #173, 1967, Kid Flash uses his super speed in a novel manner that I don't recall ever seeing repeated, for super-blowing:
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 27, 2021 16:18:51 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #33Spidey & Nighthawk It always bugged me when Marvel would slack on coming up with an MT-U logo for a character who had never yet had the privilege of a masthead. For some reason, seeing a new official logo for these guest-stars was a big deal, and I was very disappointed with this dashed-off effort. They'd done ok with new logos (so far as I know) for Vision in #5 and Inhumans in #11, but then we got the pedestrian and generic Hawkeye in #22, this lame Nighthawk, Valkyrie next issue, Yellowjacket and the Wasp in #58-59, and more and more generic token logos with zero impact as the series continued.
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 21, 2021 13:32:46 GMT -5
YOUNG LOVE #125
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 11, 2021 17:11:03 GMT -5
Detective Comics #642 (March 1992) By the way, since when does Aparo do lettering?? As has been noted, Aparo had customarily lettered and inked his own work up until the mid/late 80's. I got to see some of Jim's pages in progress from this run of Detective Comics and it be might of interest to know that he did the lettering before the pencils, which really surprised me. He had a stack of pages with the panel borders and lettering completed, having mentally conceived his layouts in sufficient detail to place all the captions and dialogue on the page.
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 9, 2021 7:57:48 GMT -5
I'm guessing that Marvel wanted to use the name Ringo because the original Johnny Ringo was a well established character in Western fact and legend. Thus they may have gone out of their way with that admittedly ridiculous part of his origin to establish that their Ringo's name was a nickname and not his surname, so that nobody would think he was literally Johnny Ringo, the outlaw who notably crossed paths with Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, and who appeared throughout the 50s in movies and on TV. (In 1950's "The Gunfighter", a superb movie, the eponymous character was played by Gregory Peck and called Jimmy Ringo, but the name Ringo was cemented in people's minds as a kind of brand name for a notorious gunman.) I doubt Atlas would have had too much to worry about where copyright laws and trademarks were concerned, but as there had also been a 1953 movie with Richard Boone ("City of Bad Men") playing him, maybe they were playing it safe just in case? I can't think of any other source from which they'd have come up with "Ringo Kid" other than the notorious Johnny Ringo (obviously, Ringo Kid was published long before the public was aware of the man who'd make "Ringo" into a household name). Somehow, "the Ringo Kid" has an undeniable Western vibe, even if you aren't aware of Johnny Ringo, even if "ringo" is a meaningless word to the reader. It's interesting how nonsense words can still have a particular resonance in the right context.
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