INDIANA WANTS THEM – The INDIANA FEVER (3-9) took it on the road against the WASHINGTON MYSTICS (0-11).
The Fever were on top 28-19 to end the 1st Quarter, but Washington cut that to a mere 42-40 edge at Halftime. After the break, the teams went blow for blow and basket for basket, with Indiana holding on for an 85-83 win. Rookie sensation CAITLIN CLARK led the Fever with THIRTY points, while her teammate NaLyssa Smith logged a Double Double of 10 points and 10 rebounds. Continue reading
Filed under WNBA
This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at licensed I.P. Rom the Spaceknight’s crossovers with Marvel Comics characters.
NOTE: Rom: Spaceknight was a popular toy item decades ago and – as they did with the Micronauts – Marvel Comics licensed the rights to do comic book stories about the figure. Marvel’s Rom was a Spaceknight from the far-off planet Galador.
The Spaceknights of Galador were humanoids genetically grafted to their high-tech armor. They traveled the universe to fight the vile alien race the Dire Wraiths, who used advanced science, black magic and their own shape-shifting abilities to conquer planets and prey on their inhabitants. Marvel eventually made the shape-shifting Dire Wraiths an offshoot of their own company’s Skrulls.
Dire Wraiths had already infiltrated powerful organizations around the world by impersonating humans after doing away with them. This series featured a lot of story elements that Marvel would subsequently reuse in assorted Skrull invasion tales.
ROM Vol 1 #5 (April 1980)
Title: A House is Not a Home
Villains: The House of Shadows, Hellhounds of the Dark Nebula
Synopsis: Dr. Strange sensed that his long-ago foe the House of Shadows had returned to Earth. The house was really a sentient entity from another dimension. It preyed upon Earthlings who entered it due to its “haunted house” reputation until Strange defeated it and exiled it.
In West Virginia, Rom and two of his human allies, Brandy Clark and Steve Jackson, are pursued by Hellhounds (humanoid creatures from the Dark Nebula) sicced on them by the Dire Wraiths. They seek shelter in the House of Shadows, but Dr. Strange’s mystic warning helps Rom send the house back into exile before it can kill him and the others. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Balladeer’s Blog continues reviewing the 1927 book Trader Horn, the quasi-autobiographical account of the British Trade Agent Alfred Aloysius Horn’s adventures in Africa during the late 1800s. For Part One click HERE.
PART FOUR – We pick up this time with Trader Horn’s reflection on how the British and German firms in Africa dominated the European trade in ivory and rubber, while France was a distant third. There were whispers that the French (whom Horn referred to far more insultingly than he ever referred to the indigenous Africans) were strategizing about using their Colonial Governments to limit the success of Great Britain and the German Empire wherever they could.
The French and Belgians also pressed further and further into Central Africa, encountering tribes who had literally never seen white people before. Alfred’s employers at Hatson & Cookson kept him closer to the coast, but he added the Como, Remwe, and Belagona Rivers to his trading route.
All the trading firms in Africa at the time had their expeditions fired upon by Fan tribesmen, and Trade Agent Horn’s were no exception. As the years rolled by, Alfred was moved to a higher position with his firm. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
These two works were written by Lucian, the Greek philosopher and satirist who lived in the 2nd century A.D. Lucian was noted not just for his philosophical observations but also for two works that defied definition by his contemporaries but would easily fall into the category of science fiction today. Both works are from roughly 150 A.D. and feature trips to the moon by pseudo-scientific means.
1. ICAROMENIPPUS – The title, obviously, was inspired by the myth about Icarus using wings crafted by his father Daedalus to fly too close to the sun, which hubristic act led to his death. In this work Lucian depicted his hero Menippus using one wing from a large eagle and one from a large vulture to fly to Mt. Olympus, and from there to the moon.
He discovered that the moon (on which he could breathe just like on Earth) was populated by the souls of the deceased (roughly twelve hundred years before Dante’s Paradiso). From the moon Menippus made the astonishing observation that the Earth was round and not flat, in a wry addition to the then-ongoing philosophical debate about the subject. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
THE MANCHU EAGLE MURDER CAPER MYSTERY (1973, 1975) – This film was made in 1973 but not released until 1975. Where to begin with this bizarre detective “comedy” that starred Gabriel Dell long after his days with the Dead-End Kids/ Bowery Boys/ Little Tough Guys. For starters, fans of that series of films that ran from the 1930s onward will enjoy the fact that Dell gets to share a few scenes with his fellow veteran of those movies – Huntz Hall.
Sadly for such fans, Leo Gorcey and the rest are nowhere to be found in this flick. Making up for their absence is a cornucopia of cult stars and fringe figures that will simplify all your future games of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery was directed and co-written (with Dell) by Dean Hargrove, producer and director of countless television detective shows like Columbo, Perry Mason, Matlock, Jane Doe, McBride, Real McCoy, and many, many others. In fact, Columbo’s basset hound is said to be the dog playing Winston in this flick! Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
Previously I examined Joel Chandler Harris’ 1902 story Flingin’ Jim And His Fool-Killer, set in Georgia in October of 1872, plus Ridgway Hill’s Facts for the Fool-Killer, set in and around Buffalo, NY in 1909.
Now we back up a year for the great O. Henry’s story The Fool-Killer, published as part of The Voice of the City in 1908. In his younger years O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) had personally known Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans, the editor of the Milton Chronicle.
Evans was the man behind the earliest written examples of Fool Killer stories and published them as if they were letters from the “real” Fool Killer himself, who claimed Jesse Holmes was his actual name. O. Henry started his short story The Fool-Killer by recapping the fame of the folk-figure, claiming he was known “from Roanoke to the Rio Grande.”
In apparent deference to his old friend Charles Evans, Porter kept Jesse Holmes as the Fool Killer’s “real” name but introduced some of his own innovations to Fool Killer lore. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History, opinion
Here is my usual post-completion collection of chapter links, in this case for The Villon Legend.
PART ONE – Francois Villon, poet and outlaw, is born in 1431 into a nearly post-apocalyptic France in the wake of the Hundred Years War and the Plague. He grows up idolizing and defending the memory of the controversial Joan of Arc, who was not made a saint until 1920.
Villon begins writing irreverent poems in his teens and through his years getting a Master’s Degree at the Sorbonne.
After that, he falls into a career as a thief in Paris while still churning out poetry. CLICK HERE.
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
WNBA
INSTANT CLASSIC – The INDIANA FEVER (2-8) welcomed the CHICAGO SKY (3-4) yesterday for what turned out to be a terrific game.
The Fever led 17-14 in the 1st Quarter and 35-33 at Halftime. After the break, the Sky put up 37 points to the 36 scored by Indiana but the Fever won out 71-70. Kelsey Mitchell led the victors with 18 points. New draftee Caitlin Clark plays for Indiana. Continue reading
Filed under WNBA
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the early stories about Jack of Hearts.
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #22 (March 1976)
Title: Who is the White Tiger?
Villains: The Corporation
NOTE: In his first appearance, Jack of Hearts was a supporting character.
Synopsis: Jonathan Hart, the son of scientist Phillip Hart, saw his father killed by agents of the Corporation (a lesser version of Marvel’s Hydra and A.I.M.). The Corporation agents wanted the secret of Jonathan’s father’s Zero Fluid, a liquid energy source.
While fleeing those villains, Jonathan was accidentally exposed to the Zero Fluid, transforming him into a super-powered being able to shoot Zero Energy from his hands in the form of rays of concussive force. That concussive force from his hands could allow him to fly, as well, the same way the Fantastic Four villain Blastarr does.
Jonathan designed armor to contain the volatile Zero Energy in his body and made it a costume which he wore as the superhero Jack of Hearts. In this story he fought Corporation agents to start his revenge quest. He also fought the martial arts hero the White Tiger, mistakenly thinking he too worked for the Corporation. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Balladeer’s Blog continues reviewing the 1927 book Trader Horn, the quasi-autobiographical account of the British Trade Agent Alfred Aloysius Horn’s adventures in Africa during the late 1800s. The partially factual book spawned multiple movies. For Part One click HERE.
PART THREE – Trader Horn’s skills at bartering and deal-making with the indigenous people grew as he acquired more and more experience. His account always expressed his awe at the high populations of animal life throughout the region in the 1870s-1880s.
Gorillas were plentiful enough to live in what Horn and his fellow Trade Agents called colonies. It was from observing gorillas that humans had learned to break open the huge water vines to drink the water inside. Alfred was always grateful for the way this practice allowed one to make one’s water supply last longer on extended journeys through the jungle. The water from the vines was clean enough to avoid dysentery, too. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
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