For Part One of this series click HERE.
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #174 (June 1974)
Title: It’s Always Darkest …
Villains: The Secret Empire
Synopsis: This story picks up right where the previous issue left off. The disguised Captain America and the Falcon, posing as drifting, mutant-hating goons for hire have been recruited into the Secret Empire. That villainous organization has been plotting to take over the United States and has also been hunting down and capturing mutants in furtherance of that goal.
The Empire’s operative Number 13 is escorting the disguised Cap and Falc via elevator into their secret headquarters far beneath the New Mexico desert. (Where the group has been lurking ever since their first battles with the Hulk in the 1960s.)
As our undercover heroes are led by Number 13 throughout the high-tech and armament-loaded lair, Captain America reflects to himself how this whole convoluted saga began with the public campaign against him by the Viper and his crooked colleagues on Madison Avenue. Continue reading
CRATES – Crates’ career spanned from approximately the 450s B.C. to the 430s B.C. We have fragments from nine or ten comedies from an unknown total output. From other sources we know that comedies as stage productions began sometime around 500 B.C. or earlier so Crates came fairly early to the artform. 
NEIGHBORS – We do not have even a hypothetical year for this work, unfortunately. Since titles sometimes referred to the all-important Chorus of a Greek comedy there is speculation that the chorus members were “Neighbors” of some sort (Duh!) but nothing is known about the plot.
DEATH GAME (1977) – Also released under the title The Seducers, this horror movie/ psychological thriller was filmed in 1974 but not released until 1977 due to assorted legal entanglements. Sondra Locke and cult queen Colleen Camp starred with Seymour Cassell in this thoroughly bizarre exploitation movie.
After the oft-invoked nonsense about the film being based on a true story Death Game begins.
QUEST OF THE STAR STONE (1937) – It’s crossover time! C.L. Moore decided to do a story in which her two most famous pulp creations – 
NJCAA DIVISION ONE – 1. INDIAN RIVER STATE PIONEERS ### 2. SALT LAKE CITY COLLEGE BRUINS ### 3. DODGE CITY COLLEGE CONQUISTADORS ### 4. JOHN A LOGAN COLLEGE VOLUNTEERS ### 5. KILGORE COLLEGE RANGERS ### 
6. SOUTHEASTERN (IA) COLLEGE BLACKHAWKS ### 7. INDIAN HILLS COLLEGE WARRIORS ### 8. HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS ### 9. OTERO COLLEGE RATTLERS ### 10. ODESSA COLLEGE WRANGLERS ### 
MEDA: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1891) – This sci-fi tale of the year 5575 AD was first written in 1888 but read mostly among the social circle of the author. Its first official publication came in 1891. 
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #171 (March 1974) 
A gang of armed men have blasted their way into Captain America’s jail cell, claiming to be on his side and offering to help him escape. Cap is torn, apprehensive that people will conclude he’s guilty if he escapes but fearful that if he stays nobody will be able to prove his innocence. 
THE DARK LAND (1936) – In her tower bedroom at Castle Joiry, Jirel lies in bed, mortally wounded while leading her men at the Battlefield of Sorrow. A pike wound in her side has grown infected and the weak, delirious warrior woman is surrounded by her chambermaids, all of them weeping over their lady’s condition. 
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog presents another item from Mary Harris Jones, better known as “Mother” Jones. This pioneering lady stays in touch with Balladeer’s Blog despite having passed away long ago. Now THAT’S dedication. 
MOTHER JONES: Thank you, Balladeer. I want to jump in with some of the latest dispatches from the Biden Regime’s war on the rest of us, a war they wage alongside complicit Republican office-holders like Cocaine Mitch McConnell. 
CHROME AND HOT LEATHER (1971) THE Marvin Gaye made his big-screen debut in this relentlessly absurd example of the bad biker films of the 1960s and 1970s. 
Balladeer's Blog 