USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association) DIVISION ONE – 1. UNIVERSITY OF SAINT THOMAS (TX) CELTS ### 2. PAUL QUINN COLLEGE TIGERS (should be the Farmers) ### 3. CLINTON COLLEGE GOLDEN BEARS ### 4. BRYANT & STRATTON COLLEGE AT ALBANY BOBCATS ###
5. FLORIDA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CONQUISTADORS ### 6. OAKWOOD UNIVERSITY AMBASSADORS (Defending National Champions) ### 7. MANOR COLLEGE BLUE JAYS ### 8. UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS CRUSADERS ###
Filed under College Basketball
For Part One of this series click HERE.
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #168 (December 1973)
Title: And A Phoenix Shall Arise
Villain: Phoenix (The son of the original Baron Zemo) FIRST APPEARANCE
Synopsis: We pick up an unknown number of weeks or months after the end of the Yellow Claw storyline. In the intervening time period Captain America was in action with the Avengers saving the universe from Dormammu and Loki alongside the Defenders.
Captain America and the Falcon are out on their nightly patrol looking for crime. At length they pause on a rooftop to discuss how much guilt that Steve (Cap) still feels about the way that the long-lost Peggy Carter is still adjusting to the years she lost in the mental hospital.
And, sadly, has been relying on Cap more and more to cope with the modern world since he went through a similar experience when the Avengers found him frozen in suspended animation years ago. Worst of all is the way that Peggy thinks that she and Steve/ Cap are still an item even though in the years that she was gone he and Sharon Carter, Peggy’s much younger sister, have fallen in love.
NOTE: Over the decades, as the World War Two era was left further and further behind, Marvel retconned it so that Sharon was really Peggy’s niece, then grand-niece, etc instead of her younger sister.
Without warning, Steve and Sam (Falcon) are attacked by a new supervillain calling himself the Phoenix and using a high-tech rifle that shoots deadly energy rays. Phoenix taunts Cap that he has a grievance to settle with him, puzzling our hero, who doesn’t recognize him. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
IT’S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … IT’S SUPERMAN! (1975) – It’s the bomb that asks the musical question “How many Lembecks can you handle?” Even the most die-hard Superman fans would have a hard time forcing themselves to watch all of this made for tv movie version of the 1966 stage musical.
The needlessly awkward title is a viewer’s first hint that this cringe-inducing production will fail to live up to its potential. The second hint comes in the form of the distractingly cheap illustrated backdrops in every scene. Even Donny and Marie would have nixed those sets.
Despite music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and script by David Newman & Robert Benton this Superman musical was Broadway’s biggest flop in history as of the 1960s. It’s no great shakes in its televised form, either.
An early song, titled We Need Him, is actually pretty catchy and had me hoping for something halfway decent. Unfortunately most of the other songs are weak at best and annoying at worst. You’ve Got Possibilities and Ooh, Do You Love You are the only other standouts.
Some of the comedy bits are reminiscent of the intentional camp of the 1960s Batman tv series, except for very seldom being actually funny. Only a few of the jokes land, but the failings of the songs and comedy bits are not the fault of the cast members, who try very hard and who have proven themselves in many other productions. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Superheroes
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAMES JOYCE! His works got me hooked in my teens when I really related to his character Stephen Dedalus as he rejected his religion and indulged what I call his “young and pretentious side” in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I wore out my copy of Joyce’s novel Ulysses and continue to mark Bloom’s Day to this very day.
Over the years Finnegans Wake replaced Ulysses as my favorite Joyce novel and I’m fonder than many people are of his play Exiles. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.
JIREL MEETS MAGIC (1935) – First off, let me say that is a bizarrely bland and unfitting title for this wildly imaginative tale. It also ignores the supernatural elements of Jirel’s first two adventures by implying this is the first time she “meets” magic.
The story opens up with Jirel on horseback leading her army in a bloody assault on Castle Guischard, the stronghold of the sorcerer Giraud. When our heroine leads the way into the castle itself, even her bravest men are a bit intimidated by the dark history of the place, but charge in along with her.
When the last of Giraud’s men are slain and all secret passageways from Castle Guischard are covered, Jirel and her men scour the entire castle for any sign of the sorcerer, whom she has sworn to kill over his double-dealing with her.
At last, in a high tower of the castle, Jirel finds what must have been Giraud’s hiding place and sees how he apparently fled.
Behind plush curtains is a window with impossibly large ivory shutters. Once opened, those shutters reveal that the window leads not to the outside, but to another dimension in which Giraud has sought shelter.
Continue reading
Filed under Pulp Heroes
It’s been awhile since Balladeer’s Blog has posted a shoutout to a neglected college sports team with a cool name. Here’s the first in a long time.
College: SOUTH CAROLINA FAITH A&M
Team Name: RAGIN’ BULLS
Location: Summerville, SC Continue reading
Filed under Cool names and cool logos
BIG ZAPPER (1973) – Linda Marlowe stars as Harriet Zapper, a two-fisted private investigator, in this first of two Zapper movies directed by Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend Lindsay Shonteff. If they ever build a Museum of Britsploitation Films, Shonteff will have an entire wing dedicated to him.
In the past I’ve covered Lindsay’s various pale imitations of the James Bond movies – Number One of the Secret Service, The Man From S.E.X., Number One Gun, The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World and others.
Often forgotten were the man’s pair of films about a virtual “Dirty Harriet” with sexy Linda Marlowe as the lead. I’ve read some reviews that bash Marlowe’s performance as Harriet Zapper but all I can say is those critics must never have seen Lindsay Shonteff’s other film projects. NO actor can come off looking talented under Shonteff’s direction.
Big Zapper finds millionaire Jeremiah Horn (Jack May) hiring Harriet Zapper to find his missing son and daughter. Harriet dives into the investigation and learns that both of the teens were murdered by the criminal organization of a psychotic gangster called Kono (perennial Shonteff villain Gary Hope). Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
For Part One of this series click HERE.
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #165 (September 1973)
Title: The Yellow Claw Strikes
Villain: The Yellow Claw (later called the Golden Claw)
Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time around, on top of the walls around Grimrock Prison in Maryland, where Captain America and the Falcon defeated the supervillainess Nightshade.
Nick Fury, who arrived recently with several armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in helicopters, is still explaining to Cap and Falc that Nightshade was being financed by the Yellow Claw. Fury and his agents arrived hoping to capture the Claw but that villain had already escaped.
Things are still a bit tense between Cap and Nick because this is only their second face to face meeting since Contessa Valentina went back to Nick after making him think she was leaving him for Cap. (She did that to get back at Nick for the way he temporarily dumped HER for Laura Brown. What a Soap Opera.)
Fury, in a ridiculously irrational dispay of anger, tries accusing Steve and Sam (Cap & Falc) of screwing up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s attempt to arrest the Yellow Claw, even though our two heroes were lured to Grimrock Prison by Nightshade as part of her plan.
Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
THE HAMPDEN-SHIRE WONDER (1911) – Written by J.D. Beresford. The story centers around Victor Stott, the remarkable son of Cricket star Ginger Stott. A news reporter who is on friendly terms with Ginger Stott meets his one year old child Victor during a train trip.
The reporter is disturbed by Victor’s obvious intelligence and menacing, piercing stare, though the prodigy’s father has forbidden the child to speak in order to avoid confirming suspicions regarding his paranormal intellect.
When Victor is five years old the anthropologist Squire Challis, another friend of the family, lets the obviously brilliant child loose in his extensive library. Victor manages to complete every book in Challis’ library in a matter of days. He then proceeds to debate and demolish all of Challis’ deeply-held views in a variety of scholarly subjects. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Readers reminded me that I did not post an easy-reference post containing the links to each chapter of my reviews of 1970s Spider-Man classics, so here it is, belatedly!
ONE: While searching for the missing Aunt May, Spider-Man gets caught up in the ongoing gang war between Dr Octopus and Hammerhead to see who will succeed the arrested Kingpin as crime boss of New York. Click HERE.
TWO: Spider-Man investigates what Dr Octopus is keeping from Aunt May, battles the Hulk in Canada and fails to save Gwen Stacy from the returned Green Goblin. Click HERE.
THREE: J Jonah Jameson hires Luke Cage, Power Man, to bring in Spider-Man for Norman Osborn’s death. Meanwhile, Jameson’s astronaut son John is transformed into a were-creature by a rock he brought back from the moon. Click HERE. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
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