JAWBREAKERS: GRAND BIZARRE IS AVAILABLE NOW!

Jawbreakers Grand BizarreRichard C Meyer’s fantastic team of mercenary superheroes nicknamed the Jawbreakers are back in action! They’ve been called the new AVENGERS, the new JUSTICE LEAGUE and the new X-MEN, and with good reason.

Meyer aka Ya Boi Zack is the man who recently brought readers the spectacular Stallone graphic novel project THE EXPENDABLES GO TO HELL. He’s also the creative mastermind of the IRON SIGHTS series. However, his most popular creations remain the superheroes in JAWBREAKERS, this time with art by Aaron Alfeche, main cover by Kyle Ritter and variant cover by Meyer himself.  

Jawbreakers Grand Bizarre and God KingJAWBREAKERS: GRAND BIZARRE, the third installment of the superteam’s adventures, features never before revealed secrets regarding the group of mighty mercenaries plus the mind-blowing menace of the Grand Bazaar. Said Bazaar appears on Earth once every 66.5 years and is a more hardcore version of the kind of foes that the Justice League Dark and the 1970s Defenders fought.

The title, Grand Bizarre, is a play on Grand Bazaar, so no, that’s not a typo on my part. To order this latest volume of Jawbreakers excitement: Continue reading

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THE MATARESE CIRCLE (1979): BOOK REVIEW

Matarese CircleTHE MATARESE CIRCLE (1979) 

TIME PERIOD: Late 1970s with investigations into events from before World War One and later.

To me this lengthy, epic espionage novel from Robert Ludlum was his finest work, partly because it nicely encapsulated how – over the course of the 20th Century – the world gradually found itself at the mercy of elaborate “intelligence communities”  (LMAO) working in conjunction with international corporate fascists.  

There’s something almost poetic about the way that – with the hindsight we have now – the bitter enmity between the novel’s central characters (one a U.S. agent and the other a Soviet agent) is washed away a mere decade before the real-world collapse of the Cold War paradigm.

And with that same hindsight it’s almost eerie how those two rivals come to realize that the real seeds of future totalitarianism lie in the New Feudalism’s ugly motto: Nations are obsolete, so wealth wedded to unchecked political power is the coming thing. Ludlum’s arch-villain Guillaume de Matarese was positively prescient.

LEAD HERO: Brandon Alan Scofield – Codename: Beowulf Agate. Forty-six year old veteran of Consular Operations, Ludlum’s fictional Intelligence Organization specializing in defections from hostile nations – mostly Communist – to the United States.

Matarese Circle 2As The Matarese Circle opens in 1979, Scofield has been with Consular Operations  for 22 years, almost since its founding. A Harvard grad fluent in multiple languages, Brandon joined the U.S. State Department right out of college. After a couple years in the “real” State Department he gravitated to State’s covert section Consular Operations (or Cons Op for short). 

In those early years Cons Op’s activities were not yet totally Top Secret. They were virtually a humanitarian organization which tried to accommodate as many people fleeing the Iron Curtain nations as possible. So many Eastern Europeans began seeking asylum in the Western World that the Soviets realized they had to take steps to cut off the flow of escapees.

Similar to the way they would later construct the Berlin Wall to prevent flight from East Berlin in particular, the Soviets clamped down on potential defections throughout Europe and elsewhere. Soviet intelligence agents – among them Vasili Taleniekov – began shutting down the almost openly- operating Cons Op defection network. Continue reading

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CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL (1830): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

Consolations in TravelCONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL or THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER (1830) – Written by THE Sir Humphrey Davy, this is largely a work of philosophical discourse but with one section devoted to a science fiction tale: The Vision.   

In that section of the book Sir Humphrey relates a first-person story in which he is taking in the Colosseum in Rome. An extra-terrestrial being calling itself a Genius and claiming to be from the Sun appears to him.

First this honey-voiced being fills him with a series of visions regarding humanity’s history, from prehistoric times to the recent past. After that the visitor from the Sun takes him on a tour of our solar system.

Mascot new lookThe first planet they travel to is Saturn, where Davy is awestruck by the alien landscape. Strange clouds fill the skies and among the oddest planetary features are large columns of liquid which flow from the ground upward. Saturn is inhabited by intelligent beings with three pairs of wings and organs like elephant trunks dangling from their bodies. Continue reading

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NEWS ROUNDUP: MAY 7th

Unrelated pic of Don LemonDon Lemon edition:

JOE BIDEN SPOUTS MORE GIBBERISH – Still limiting himself to softball appearances with interviewers willing to treat him gently, Senile Joe Biden made with another of his signature lines of imbecilic nonsense to the Democrats at MSNBC: “You know, one of the things, uh, every morning — this morning I didn’t — I get a brief from medical docs on the status, the status of where things are, and uh, you know, uh, the former head of the, uh, anyway.” Continue reading

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FOOL KILLER FORTY-ONE: NOVEMBER 1910

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE

Fool Killer timelessPART FORTY-ONE – Lore: This month a Rodman Gun was added to the Fool Killer’s growing arsenal of weapons.

Targets in the November of 1910 issue of James Larkin Pearson’s Fool-Killer:

*** People engaged in the literal buying and selling of votes in the midterm elections.

*** German scientists at Nuremberg (which in 1910 had none of the associations we make with it today) who announced successful tests with a remote-controlled ship. A small, crewless boat had been controlled wirelessly from up to 18 miles away. Even firing and reloading weaponry had been set up mechanically. The tests were set to move on to larger ships next.

*** The “Ass-ociated Press” as Pearson and his Fool Killer always called it, for the way it was overhyping the birth of a calf to Official White House Cow Pauline Wayne.  Continue reading

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MASKED MAN: STORY TWELVE

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of B.C. Boyer’s neglected 1980s superhero the Masked Man. For Part One click HERE 

Eclipse Monthly 10ECLIPSE MONTHLY Vol 1 #10 (July 1984)

Title: Frank Capra Memorial Hospital

Villains: Six armed and masked assassins

Synopsis: This was the final issue of Eclipse Monthly, which got canceled. The Masked Man was the most popular character in the anthology magazine and he graduated to his own solo title after this. Doug Wildey’s iconic old west gunslinger Rio was also featured in this issue along with Jetta Sixx, Wayne Truman’s heroic female pilot.

Masked Man downTrue to his word, the Masked Man (Dick Carstairs) has been at the side of Maggie Brown (his emerging love interest) each step of the way for her therapy. She is still at Frank Capra Memorial Hospital learning to cope with her new blindness following her injuries during our hero’s battle with the Joe Manfredi Gang last time around. Continue reading

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LADY MOLLY (1971) RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

Rivals of Sherlock Holmes otherThe Rivals of Sherlock Holmes lasted for 2 seasons of 13 episodes each from 1971-1973. The series dramatized non-Holmes stories of detectives solving mysteries in Victorian and Edwardian England written by contemporary authors. For Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the first episode click HERE

lady Molly againEpisode: THE WOMAN IN THE BIG HAT (November 15th, 1971)

Detective: Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, created by Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel). The first Lady Molly story was published in 1910.

Review: The fictional Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk was depicted working as a detective for Scotland Yard a full decade before women did so in real life. The period details in her series of mysteries often include references to the Women’s Suffrage Movement, but never to the point where it interferes with the storytelling.

The Woman in the Big Hat starts off with Lady Molly, played magnificently by Elvi Hale, shopping for a new hat. Her sharply-honed powers of observation allow her to thwart an attempted robbery by a few larcenous ladies posing as customers at the high-class shop.

Lady Molly and MaryRest assured this will tie back into the main story, but for now it’s back to Scotland Yard for Lady Molly and Mary Granard (Ann Beach, right), her Watson-style sidekick/ biographer. Elsewhere in London, a distinguished gentleman drops dead from poison at a cafe shortly after his female companion leaves the table.

With the only description of the presumed murderess being that she wore “a big hat,” Inspector Saunders (Peter To The Manor Born Bowles) finds that his investigation has hit a dead end. Reluctantly, he enlists the help of our heroine. Continue reading

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TRANSGRESS WITH ME: MAY 4th

Freedom of expression amnesty international

Time for another round of Transgress With Me:

*** PEOPLE WITH CLOSED MINDS MISTAKE SUCCESSFUL CENSORSHIP FOR “BEING IN THE RIGHT.”

*** If the Democrat and Republican Parties splintered into multiple smaller parties it might be the most peaceful way of subverting the cesspool of corruption that masquerades as our government.

*** IF STANDARD OIL WAS TOO BIG AND TOO POLITICALLY CORRUPTING THEN SO ARE FACEBOOK, GOOGLE AND TWITTER.

*** Every individual is a minority of one.

A truly great library*** PEOPLE WHO ARE EASILY OFFENDED AND LOVE ANNOUNCING  THAT THEY ARE OFFENDED ARE THE MOST SIMPLE-MINDED FOOLS IN THE WORLD.

*** Academic Freedom is a meaningless sham when alleged colleges and universities become political organizations that fascistically impose just ONE narrow-minded set of views and punish any dissent.

*** JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS COUNTER-INTUITIVE IT DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN IT IS “DEEP” OR “INTELLECTUAL.” Continue reading

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THE HUMANOID (1979): THE WORST STAR WARS RIPOFF

Humanoid 2We all know today’s date, so let’s examine the notoriously bad Italian ripoff of Star Wars. I know many people consider Star Crash to be the worst of the Italo-Ripoffs but I’ve always gotten more laughs out of The Humanoid.  

The many, many ways this movie steals from Star Wars will become clear as we go along. Let’s deal with first things first:

Richard KielRichard Kiel plays the title figure. His real name is Golob but the Darth Vaderish bad guy arranges for Golob to be the guinea pig for a treatment that transforms ordinary people into powerful “Humanoids”. As a Humanoid Golob loses his beard for some reason but – even more comically – the beard suddenly reappears when he is returned to normal late in the movie.

Humanoid 5Golob in his amped-up Humanoid form has super-strength, is invulnerable to harm and can deflect energy blasts that the Rebel Alliance-style good guys shoot at him. The bad guys plan to use a warhead to expose every man, woman and child on Earth to the bio-treatment, thus creating an instant army of billions of super-powered Humanoids like Richard Kiel. (Good luck controlling them since the treatment will reduce them to mindless animals like Golob.)  

Corinne CleryCorinne Clery portrays Barbara Gibson, the spunky Princess Leia pastiche. Barbara is a prominent scientist of Metropolis, which is what the entire Earth has been renamed now that it is just one big planet-wide city in the far future setting of The Humanoid. Barbara studies a gifted Asian lad who controls the Force uh, I mean some kind of psychic or magical energy field. 

Lord GraalIvan Rassimov plays the main villain Lord Graal, whose entire army dresses exactly like Darth Vader. He does, too, but to stand out from his underlings HIS black helmet and mask have cutouts that let his eyes, mouth and cheeks show. Lord Graal wants to create the aforementioned Humanoid army so he can conquer the entire Milky Way galaxy. He has magical powers like the Asian boy.  Continue reading

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TWENTY MORE “ANCIENT” SCIENCE FICTION STORIES

One of the most popular topics here at Balladeer’s Blog is “Ancient” Science Fiction. That category covers science fiction stories – often very primitive – from the 1st Century A.D. up through about a hundred years ago. Here’s another list of twenty items for 2020.

Nth ManTHE Nth MAN (1920?)

Author: Homer Eon Flint

“Ancient” Kaiju! An enormous humanoid being with skin like turtle shells rises from the depths to rampage across the United States. The entity is intelligent and lays down political and economic ultimatums to the career politicians of Washington DC and to the plutocrats who pull their strings. Though the enormous Nth Man is told that his demands will be met, the tycoons betray him. They construct a high-tech army to try to kill the giant when he returns and the battle is on.

FOR MY REVIEW CLICK HERE   

Mexican MysteryA MEXICAN MYSTERY (1888)

Author: W. Grove

An inventor in 1860s Mexico seeks favor with Emperor Maximilian by devising an actual “thinking” train engine complete with mechanical arms which allow it to function without humans manning it. The intelligent construct develops a predatory mentality, then goes on a wild killing spree throughout the country while outfighting its human foes at nearly every turn.

FOR MY REVIEW CLICK HERE  Continue reading

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