Just a couple more shout-outs to Adam Ant – Stuart Leslie Goddard – then I’ll move on to another person. Previously I took a look at his songs Goody Two Shoes, Vive Le Rock, Gotta Be A Sin, Miss Thing and Room at the Top along with his cover of the Doors song Hello, I Love You.
Here is another great example regarding Adam’s eclectic style.
It’s Made of Money.
Filed under opinion
READER INTEREST IS THROUGH THE ROOF FOR THESE LOOKS AT THE SUPERHEROINE MANTIS. FOR PART 1 CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 122 (April 1974) Trapped in Outer Space
It’s kind of nice that you readers have been so enthusiastic about these nice little bits of escapism. That’s why I’m doing two per week now. We can all use a light-hearted distraction now and then.
As our last installment ended, five Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, The Scarlet Witch, The Black Panther and The Vision) were battling seven of the twelve members of the supervillain team called Zodiac (Aries, Leo, Cancer, Aquarius, Pisces, Scorpio and Sagittarius).
The Avengers called MANTIS and the Swordsman were recovering from their injuries back at Avengers Mansion. Taurus, the leader of Zodiac, had lured the seven mutinous members of his criminal cartel to a seeming warehouse that was really a trap.
The Avengers, all unknowingly, had trailed the Zodiac superteam to that locale and had attacked them, only to have the battle royal interrupted by the taunts of Taurus. Taurus – openly revealing his true identity of billionaire Cornelius Van Lunt – launched the warehouse/ disguised spaceship into orbit to let his enemies die when their air runs out.
TRAPPED IN OUTER SPACE
Synopsis: At first all of the Avengers and Zodiac members are pinned to the floor by G-Forces but eventually the huge deathtrap reaches its programmed altitude and settles into orbit. The reinforced steel door slides right to reveal the Earth far below and a mostly transparent force-field enclosing the entire warehouse.
Thor hurls his hammer at the force-field, but it just penetrates the force-field, which re-forms after it passes through. The hammer tries to return to Thor’s hand like usual but his relative position to the hammer has changed as the spaceship/ trap has moved along in its orbit. Thor’s hammer remains floating outside in the vacuum of space.
The Vision is not able to phase through the force-field because it is the same technology that Zodiac used to seal off Manhattan from the rest of the world in one of their previous clashes with the Avengers. In 1974, when this story was published, Thor would still magically transform back into his secret identity as the lame (as in limping), mortal Dr Donald Blake after 60 seconds without his hammer.
He leaps behind one of the prop boxes in the phony warehouse and pulls some tarp over himself just in time to avoid having Zodiac see what has happened to him. The villains HAVE noticed how paniced Thor became without his hammer Mjolnir and realize something is up. Aries leads his teammates in an attack to finish off Thor, who is obviously in dire straits. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
GAME ONE: The INDIANA FEVER hosted the ATLANTA DREAM to tip off the evening. This was a closely contested affair and by Halftime the Fever were clinging to a 33-31 lead.
After the break Indiana slowly but surely put more and more distance between themselves and the Dream, ultimately winning the game by a final score of 85-74. Erica Wheeler led the Fever with 20 points. Continue reading
Filed under WNBA
Yes, it’s the 16th of June, better known to James Joyce geeks like me as Bloom’s Day. The day is named in honor of Leopold Bloom, the Jewish advertising sales rep and Freemason who is one of the major characters in Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The novel also brings along Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his earlier novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
For those unfamiliar with this work, Ulysses is Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novel in which he metaphorically features the events from the Odyssey in a single day – June 16th, 1904, in Dublin. (The day he met Nora Barnacle, the woman he would eventually marry after living together for decades) Bloom represents Ulysses/Odysseus, Stephen represents Telemachus and Leopold’s wife, Molly Bloom, represents Penelope.
The novel is jam-packed with Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
THE SHIP OF SILENT MEN (1920) – Written by Philip M Fisher. The crew of a ship called the Lanoa set out from Hawaii. A few days later an abnormally powerful electrical storm strikes, leaving the area unusually cold in its wake.
The men on board the Lanoa don’t have much time to ponder that before they begin receiving distress signals from a ship identified as the Karnak. Even though the message indicates that the death of the entire crew seems imminent, the Lanoa receives the message again later, after assuming the Karnak met with disaster. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
The Hypnotic Eye is one of the most beloved bad movies of the 1960s. Its hilariously campy trailer, its sinister Eurotrash villain and its Ed Wood-level police work all make it a true anti-classic.
Jacques Bergerac, one-time husband of Ginger Rogers, played Desmond, the magician who uses the title object to augment his hypnotic abilities to an enormous degree.
After various beautiful women appear on stage with Desmond as volunteers from his audience he plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that causes them to mutilate themselves in various extreme ways after the show.
Some set their hair on fire, some wash their faces with acid ,some shove their faces into fans, etc. This being an old black & white movie the effects are very tame by today’s standards. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
OUR SUPERHERO-CRAZED SOCIETY IS LOVING THESE LOOKS AT THE SUPERHEROINE MANTIS. FOR PART 1 CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 121 (March 1974) Houses Divided Cannot Stand
AVENGERS ROSTER: Thor, Iron Man, The Scarlet Witch, The Black Panther, The Vision, The Swordsman and MANTIS.
HOUSES DIVIDED CANNOT STAND
Synopsis: Atop the World Trade Center Towers the battle between the Avengers and the supervillain team called Zodiac has come to a pause. That pause was brought on by Mantis’ mutant empathic powers filling her with the pain that Taurus’ Star Blazer Cannon inflicted on New York’s Geminis. This caused her to be overwhelmed and fall down, teetering on the edge of the roof and in danger of plummeting to her death below.
With all the combatants now focused on Mantis’ potential fate the Zodiac member Aries encourages their leader Taurus to unleash another blast from the damaged cannon to hopefully cause Mantis to fall.
Taurus refuses. With Zodiac’s attempt to kill every Gemini in New York thwarted by the damage done to the Star Blazer during the clash of superteams he now wants to simply make an escape and offers to spare Mantis if the Avengers let Zodiac go. He hints at Mantis being very, VERY important and thinks the Avengers are bluffing when they (truthfully) say they don’t know what he is talking about.
The Scarlet Witch – using her romantic partner the Vision’s body as cover, quickly maneuvers into position and unleashes her mutant hex power on the Star Blazer, completely destroying the weapon. The other Avengers rush forward to attack Zodiac in order to keep them away from the prone form of Mantis and hopefully capture them.
Virgo defeats the Scarlet Witch for the second time in as many days, then joins her teammates in using their superior numbers to keep the Avengers hard-pressed by attacking in cadres. At length Aries fights his way through the Avengers and tosses Mantis’ body over the ledge. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
THE Nth MAN (1920 – 1924?) – Written by Homer Eon Flint, who died in 1924. Though this short novel was not published until 1928 many fans of the author argue that it was actually written in 1920.
The story is set in what was then the near future of the 1930s. The Nth Man is an enormous humanoid figure with hardened skin like the shells of certain species of animals. He is supposedly 2 miles tall, but that would make many of the events in the novel impractical if not impossible.
The mysterious giant is at first regarded as half rumor and half Tall Tale as he sets the world talking with some incredible actions. He tears apart some of the Great Wall of China, he removes the head of the Sphinx and places it on top of one of the pyramids and he picks up a ship bound for Australia and carries it for thousands of miles.
Showing more cognitive purpose the Nth Man also makes off with an entire building to thwart a plot by anarchists and saves a little girl from drowning. All of the preceding deeds have been accomplished under cover of darkness but now the colossus comes out into the open, emerging from San Francisco Bay to tower over the city.
The Nth Man walks from coast to coast, easily defeating the aerial and land forces that attempt to stop him. You would think this proto-Kaiju sequence would have inspired a film adaptation long ago. The gigantic figure goes to Washington D.C. and lays down some demands from on-high. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Here is one last round of congratulations for the ladies who won the national championship in softball in the nine divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog.
NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics)
National Champions – OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY STARS
Runners-Up – Corban University Warriors
2016 Champions – Oklahoma City University Stars
NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association)
National Champions – OKLAHOMA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY BISON
Runners-Up – Bluefield College Rambling Rams
2016 Champions – Mississippi College Choctaws Continue reading
Filed under college sports
