This weekend’s light-hearted and escapist superhero blog post looks at the early stories featuring the Femizon called Thundra, who started as a villainess before reforming.
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #129 (December 1972)
Title: The Frightful Four – Plus One
Villains: The Frightful Four (The Wizard, Sandman, the Trapster and Thundra)
NOTE: This was Thundra’s first appearance.
Synopsis: The Wizard, Sandman and the Trapster are still at large after their recent clash with Spider-Man and the Human Torch in Marvel Team-Up #2. Meanwhile, at the Baxter Building headquarters of the Fantastic Four, the Human Torch drops a bombshell on his teammates – he is quitting the team to go live with his true love Crystal of the Inhuman Royal Family.
Crystal, Johnny Storm’s longtime girlfriend and former member of the Fantastic Four, was forced to move back to the Inhumans’ hidden city of Attilan due to her body’s negative reaction to air pollution in the human world.
After a fierce argument in which Invisible Woman (Johnny’s sister) sides with the Torch, Johnny flies off in the Fantastic Four’s plane to reach Attilan. The arguing is reignited by Agatha Harkness (still in the years BEFORE she tutored the Scarlet Witch) who tells the Fantastic Four that she has urgent business and they must come pick up Reed and Sue’s son Franklin Richards at her Whisper Hill home. Continue reading
THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE (1971)
Her heart and loins are finally stolen away by Italian-American Giovanni Scarlatti, a laborer in her father’s factory. Though he speaks broken English, Scarlatti’s mechanical genius is first-rate. The rebellious Elizabeth combines her own business acumen with Giovanni’s aptitude for inventions and before long the two lovers are married and have taken over the companies run by her father and plenty of his friends. 
PART ONE – This opening segment examined the Six Ages of the World section, a mythological look at the history of the world from Creation to the coming of Jesus Christ. The Book of the Dun Cow contains a mix of pagan and Christian materials, and in Part One I also reviewed its presentation of myths regarding Great Britain, legends of Saint Columba and its version of the story of Tuan mac Cairill, the only non-Ark survivor of the Great Flood and who chronicled the ancient races of Ireland like the Tuatha de Danaan, Fir Bolg and Milesians. Click 
PART TWO – The four sections covered in Part Two: Two Sorrows of the Kingdom of Heaven, featuring Elijah and Enoch in Heaven and their observations regarding the Antichrist, the end of the world and the Final Judgment; The Intoxication of the Ulstermen, about the Samhain partying of the Ulstermen and the peril it led to; The Raid on Dartaid’s Cattle, about a raid to rustle the cattle of the she-warrior Dartaid; and The Raid on Fliodhaise’s Cattle, featuring Queen Maeve, King Ailill, Fergus mac Roich and Queen Fliodhaise, her lusty ways and her cattle. Click 
Full Title: A NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF JOHN DANIEL, A SMITH AT ROYSTON IN HERTFORDSHIRE, FOR A COURSE OF SEVENTY YEARS. (1751) – Written by Ralph Morris, supposedly a pseudonym used by an unknown man. 
The unmarried son, Daniel (yes his name is Daniel Daniel) has a knack for inventing things and builds a flying machine. Its general shape is like one of our modern-day airplanes but the wings are leather over metal rod frames and in order to fly the wings must “flap,” which they do, powered by a pump. 
MOMMA THE DETECTIVE (1981) – Happy Mother’s Day to the ladies who brought all of us into this world! Every single one of us alive today was given birth to by a woman, and to help mark their special day here’s my review of a made for tv production about a sleuthing mother in New York City. 
Rolle starred as “Momma” Sykes, a freelance cleaning woman and cook who works for several well-to-do clients in a New York high rise. 
Momma Sykes’ son Alvin Sykes (Kene Holliday) is a detective with the New York City Police Department and he happens to be the one assigned to this particular case. His gentle exasperation as Momma persistently pursues her own parallel investigation to his sets the tone for what apparently would have been his “Bert Convy in The Snoop Sisters” role if this had gone to series. 
GRIPS 
As I indicated in the title of this blog post, I consider the Grips tales to be what low-budget, disreputable Grindhouse movies of the past were to glossy, professional films from major studios. The writing and artwork in Grips seldom approached the standards of the Big Two publishers, but the visceral violence, profanity and often taboo subject matter more than made up for the overall shoddiness of the finished product. 
A DARWINIAN SCHOONER (1893) – Written by William Alden. With so many fans of the various Planet of the Apes movies still around, I figured it was a good time to post a review of this story that’s in a similar spirit. 
PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS (1974) – That’s Wildcats as in the Baja Wildcats, the name given by the villainous Andy Griffith to himself and his fellow over the hill dirt bikers – William Shatner, Marjoe Gortner and Robert Reed! 
THE ABYSMAL INVADERS (1929) – Written by Edmond Hamilton. This is a nice mish-mash of elements that are part Creature Feature, part Doctor Who and part Jurassic Park. Hamilton gets bashed as a hack but his stories are harmless fun. 
