This weekend’s escapist and light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the earliest adventures of Spider-Man.
AMAZING FANTASY Vol 1 #15 (August 1962)
Title: Spider-Man!
Villain: The Burglar
Synopsis: This hero’s origin is well-known by now. Student Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider that was exposed to radiation and, in typical comic book nonsense, he gains the proportionate strength of a spider, wall-crawling ability, spider-sense and more.
Peter, nerdy and bullied at school, lets himself become an obnoxious jerk in his Spider-Man identity as he cashes in on his powers to become a celebrity. His cocky attitude allows a robber to escape when Spider-Man could have easily stopped him. When that same man burglarizes Peter’s home and kills his Uncle Ben our hero is conscience stricken and realizes what a responsibility his powers are. He catches the burglar for the police. Continue reading
THE MILLTILLIONAIRE (1895) – This novel was written by American author Albert Waldo Howard under the pen name M. Auburre Hovorre. A second edition came out in 1898. 
It’s been a while, so here’s Balladeer’s Blog’s latest installment of Transgress with Me. As usual, it’s only for the courageous and mixes old with new. As I’ve often mentioned in the past, I used to be a Democrat before their increasing intolerance and fascism drove me to leave the party and become an Independent Voter.
*** Authoritarian Democrats are only content in environments where they have a captive audience, like in schools or wherever they can use the full force of the government or other higher “authorities” to impose silence on those who disagree with them.
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) 
NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) DIVISION ONE
This is the fourth part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at 
LE DUEL D’HAMLET (1900) – In this roughly 2-minute short, the 56-year-old Bernhardt gave cinema a gender-flipped Hamlet as she fenced with Pierre Magnier as Laertes in the climactic duel. 
TOSCA (1908, 1912) – Bernhardt portrayed Floria Tosca in this adaptation of the Puccini opera. (Yes, it’s a silent movie version of an opera.) The entire story was condensed into just 40 minutes and Sarah was so appalled with the production that she insisted that it not be released and, in fact, wanted it destroyed! 
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – Closing out Balladeer’s Blog’s 2024 college basketball season was this game between the top seeded BARTON COLLEGE COUGARS and the 7 seeds – the TRITON COLLEGE TROJANS. 
THE FANTASTIC FOUR – There can be no over-stating the importance of the Fantastic Four to Marvel Comics and by extension to much of pop culture the last several years regarding superhero movies and television programs. Though the Fantastic Four are now considered as dull as any b&w sitcom family of long ago, the team’s success convinced Marvel the market was right to recommit to superhero comic books. 
As Marvel Comics in 1961 the company decided to dabble in superhero comic books again, with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two veteran comic book hands since the 1940s, putting together a brand-new team of superheroes. That team was, of course, the Fantastic Four. 
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – Fighting it out for this division’s crown were the 5 seeds – the NATIONAL PARK COLLEGE NIGHTHAWKS – and the 2nd ranked SOUTH SUBURBAN COLLEGE BULLDOGS. 
Here at Balladeer’s Blog my love of enjoyably bad movies has been well established. You can count me as one of the many “Human Breens” as fans of filmmaker Neil Breen are called. 
As with the best of the bad auteurs Neil churns out productions that are uniquely his own. There is no mistaking a Neil Breen film with a film made by anyone else. Picture The Room’s Tommy Wiseau trying to make a David Lynch movie. But with a LOT more needless violence against laptop computers. 
DOUBLE DOWN (2005) – Neil Breen starred, wrote and directed this movie – and quite obviously he or an associate even wrote the IMDb description of the plot. That description calls Double Down “an edgy action thriller,” which would certainly come as a surprise to anyone who has actually SEEN the film. 
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