This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist blog post about superheroes looks at more Spider-Woman stories from her early years. For her first post click HERE.
SPIDER-WOMAN Vol 1 #17 (Aug 1979)
Title: Deathplunge
Villain: Wax Man (1st appearance)
Synopsis: Fully recovered now from her long war with the mutant Nekra and her cult of worshippers, Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) treats herself to a night out at Monte Disco. She meets a young man named Eric and the two grow closer over drinks and dancing.
In the Ladies Room, another patron of the disco (lol) accidentally takes Jessica’s purse instead of her own, identical one. That purse contains Jessica’s compressed Spider-Woman costume, which the inebriated woman slips into and becomes a hit on the dance floor.
Our heroine slips away from Eric to try getting back her costume without exposing her secret identity. At one point, the drunken woman dressed as Spider-Woman falls off the deck of the mountaintop disco. Jessica uses her powers to save the woman and recover her costume before the drunk knows what’s what.
Later that night, Eric and Jessica are making out, when Eric mutates into his supervillain form of Wax Man. Continue reading
If it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, then regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know it’s the day when I kick off my annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon in which I review several versions of A Christmas Carol. I look at movies, television shows, radio shows and books which adapt the Dickens classic. Every year I present new reviews with a few old classics mixed in since newer readers will have missed them. 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2000) – Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2025 begins with a new review. This ITV production from British television which presented the Scrooge figure as a loan shark coincidentally came out the same year as the Brazilian version which featured Scrooge as a drug dealer. 
Neither one was a comedy, but this UK adaptation adds lighter moments here and there. A Christmas Carol runs just under 75 minutes and was made by a creative team that genuinely understands the Carol. You can tell not just from their insertion of some of the more obscure lines from the Dickens novel but by the way that even their necessary departures from Dickens to stay true to their loan shark gimmick still perfectly reflect the novel’s themes. 
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Enjoy this holiday and the hope for peaceful coexistence represented by the possibly mythic meal that it commemorates. The kind of self-righteous killjoys who bash Thanksgiving are the type of sanctimonious idiots that are fun to laugh at since they have no identity outside of their ephemeral political concerns. 
This wraps up my look at three of Tom Selleck’s early starring roles in turkeys. 
THE WASHINGTON AFFAIR (1977) – Also released as A Very Intimate Washington Affair, and for all I know as A Very Brady Washington Affair, this movie was a remake of director Victor Stoloff’s own 1966 film Intimacy. Neither version was very successful, but trivia buffs remember the original and the remake for Barry Sullivan playing the exact same character in both. 
By ’77 even the production’s attempt to cash in on Watergate and other government scandals was a bit too late and the sexual angle would barely disturb a contemporary grandma. Add the facts that the script sucks, there are literally only two sets for the entire film, and the central camera gimmick is absurd. 
THE GYPSY WARRIORS (1978) – Yesterday I reviewed the godawful 
This 1978 tv-movie starts out by turning “show, don’t tell” on its ear. As bad as the opening of The Chinese Typewriter was, the opening to this World War Two snoozer is even worse. The beginning devotes FOURTEEN entire minutes of the 76-minute runtime to a portentous announcer merely narrating as we see mismatched footage of hands, arms and the backs of heads plus second unit film of buildings, airplanes and vehicles.
Two thousand fishermen from Cape Cod had gone off to enlist in the Continental Army, and in their absence the British had repeatedly landed raiding parties to harass the citizens.
THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1979) – It’s tough to remember the time before Tom Selleck was a tv megastar. His looks made him stand out and he had “future success” written all over him. He even showed he had a knack for comedy when he made two appearances on The Rockford Files as the annoyingly perfect and cliche-ridden detective Lance White. (“I’m okay, Jim. It’s just a flesh wound.”) 
With those writing and directing pedigrees behind the project you should have been able to smell several seasons, big money and some Emmy Awards in the offing. 
ROUND ONE: GAME ONE – The SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY FIRE welcomed the REINHARDT UNIVERSITY EAGLES (should be Rottweilers). The Fire led 14-7 in the opening Quarter and 21-10 by Halftime. Neither team scored in the 3rd Quarter, but Reinhardt University mounted a fierce rally in the 4th. Southeastern University held on for a 24-22 victory. 
ROUND ONE: GAME TWO – A more lopsided affair was to be had in Oskaloosa, IA as the WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY STATESMEN played host to the TEXAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY RAMS. The 1st Half ended with the Statesmen out in front 21-3. After the break, William Penn U. outscored the Rams 17-6 to win the game 38-9.
ROUND ONE: GAME THREE – The UNIVERSITY OF ST. FRANCIS (IN) COUGARS took the field against the visiting EVANGEL UNIVERSITY VALOR. A 7-0 opening Quarter advantage for the Valor became a mere 10-7 edge come Halftime. The 3rd Quarter ended with the Cougars within 12-10, then in the 4th they came from behind for a 13-12 triumph. 
In the Zoroastrian version of the end times the Big Event will happen 3,000 years after Zoroaster/ Zarathustra introduced the world to the belief system that bears his name. For those who date Zoroaster’s birth to around 1,000 BCE that means the end could come any year now, but for those who date his birth closer to 600 BCE the world still has hundreds of years to go. 
MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #53 (Jan) 
The genetically engineered human/ animal hybrid creature Woodgod (at right) – also immune to the nerve gas – is still being contained in the depopulated town by Major Del Tremens and his troops at Tranquility Base, who caused the nerve gas leak. 
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