This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the Defenders tales following the Evil Eye of Avalon story.
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #12 (February 1974)
Title: The Titan Strikes Back
Villain: Xemnu
Defenders Roster: Dr Strange, Hulk, Valkyrie
Synopsis: We pick up an unknown amount of time after the previous story. Dr Strange gives Valkyrie a mystic sword called Dragonfang to make up for her giving the Ebony Blade back to the Black Knight.
Xemnu is back on Earth, having reassembled his scattered atoms once again. He has taken over the town of Plucketville in the American Midwest. He again plans to repopulate his home planet of Xem at the expense of Earth’s life-forms.
Dr Strange, Hulk and Valkyrie are the only Defenders available who can be rallied to save the world from Xemnu. (I’d have thrown in Clea, too, myself.) Our heroes battle the alien, who is defeated and again seems to be destroyed in the explosion of a spaceship he made the enthralled citizens of Plucketville construct for him. Continue reading
WAR OF THE WORLDS (2025) – A new chapter has been added to the history of H.G. Wells adaptations. Ice Cube stars in Amazon’s feature-length product placement for itself. In a moment of Cosmic Comedy, Amazon straight-facedly attached the tagline “It’s worse than you think” to this flick.
Ice Cube Makes Faces should have been this thing’s title, since he does nothing but sit in a chair exercising his facial muscles while spending face time with us and absurdly playing his Big Brother Will Protect You role to the hilt. And lest you fear that this adaptation will be less than faithful to the source material, the filmmakers even included the part where one of H.G. Wells’ characters says “Get your skinny ass over there!”
GULLIVAR JONES ON MARS aka Lt. Gullivar Jones – His Vacation and various other titles and spellings, was published in 1905 and is one VERY odd piece of work. The author was Edwin L. Arnold, whose ineptitude made this novel very unfulfilling as he defeated his storyline at every turn. Before I get into this third and final part of my review of Gullivar Jones on Mars the links to the first two parts are below: 
MORNING ON THE ISLE OF BEASTS – We pick up the morning after our hero, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Gullivar Jones, survived the night on the Isle of Beasts – my name for the place, since Edwin couldn’t be bothered to provide names for places or characters much of the time. 
PARTNERS IN CRIME (1984) – To note the passing of Loni Anderson here’s a Forgotten Television look at the detective series in which she co-starred with Lynda Carter. Both ladies had been married at one time to a private detective named Raymond Dashiell Caulfield. 
Loni played Sydney Kovack, a streetwise woman who grew up in San Francisco pulling minor hustles here and there with her con-man father. Ultimately, she went straight and became a professional cellist and bass player. 
*** 1. MORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITY MUSTANGS ### 2. GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY VIKINGS (Defending National Champions) ### 3. KEISER UNIVERSITY SEAHAWKS 4. UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA-WESTERN BULLDOGS ### 
5. BENEDICTINE COLLEGE RAVENS ### 6. NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS ### 7. INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY WILDCATS ### 8. MONTANA TECH OREDIGGERS ### 
YANKEE BUCCANEER (1952) – An enjoyable movie but one which throws history out the window in the mind-boggling way that only Hollywood could manage! The real-life American naval heroes David Porter (Jeff Chandler) and David Farragut (Scott Brady) are presented fighting Caribbean pirates during the early 1820s. 
Our heroes become romantic rivals for Countess Margarita La Raguna (Suzan Ball, Lucille’s cousin) as the movie ignores the fascinating REAL relationships between the Porter and Farragut families. Still, Yankee Buccaneer is fun, and naturally the good guys win. David Janssen, Michael Ansara and Tonto himself, Jay Silverheels, co-star. 86 minutes.
In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 –
SERIAL: Again, per MilesTellerRox, before presenting and mocking The Party Crashers our machine-gun wielding Film Vault Technicians First Class Randy and Richard presented and mocked an episode of Mysterious Doctor Satan, a Republic serial from 1940. 
FILM VAULT LORE: This episode featured Randy (right) and Richard’s (left) interview with Denver Pyle, who appears in the film being presented, The Party Crashers. They taped the interview with him at Ben Johnson’s ranch. 
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 1973 combination of its licensed War of the Worlds rights with its original IP Killraven (1973-1976). It was similar to how Marvel combined their licensed Fu Manchu rights with 
WAR OF THE WORLDS – Jonathan Raven, rechristened Killraven in the gladiatorial circuit of Earth’s alien conquerors of the “future,” leads a group of Freemen in an attempt to retake the planet. CLICK 
THE WARLORD STRIKES – On the run after the destruction and genocide of their Staten Island rebel colony, Killraven and his Freemen run afoul of the Warlord, a human quisling who has wanted revenge against the rebel leader ever since he escaped from the gladiatorial pens. CLICK 
HAPPY FRONTIERADO! The first Friday of every August marks Frontierado, the holiday devoted to the myth of the old west rather than the grinding reality. For some of us the celebration kicks off Thursday night; for others they wait until the actual day of Frontierado to hold their festivities.
WHISKEY JIM – James Greathouse was born in Texas around 1854. Nothing is known about his early life but at age 20 he was living in Fort Griffin and running a successful bootleg whiskey network he had shot his way to the top of. As you could guess that illicit trade earned him his nickname Whiskey Jim. 
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