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Visually it’s a very striking, very attractive film, and the performances are very much of the Adam West “play it straight to enhance the hilarity” school of thought, with the possible exception of Samuel Jackson, who seemed intent on sinking his teeth into every piece of scenery that came within reach. The dialogue is pulpier than a pulpy thing filled with pulp, but that fit right in with the general over-the-top goofy tone of the film. It’s Frank Miller’s Spirit, not Will Eisner’s, obviously, but hell, it kept my attention and it made me laugh. And that initial fight scene between the Octopus and the Spirit was a hoot. Toilets are always funny.

So, yeah, I liked it quite a bit. Let the admonishments begin.

BEHOLD

THE ODINSTAMP

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back cover ad from Vic Verity #6 (August 1946)

I was flipping through a few books we were processing for our bargain boxes, and was amused this act of supremely mundane super-villainy. Not that trashing someone’s home isn’t a pain in the rear for the folks living there, but you’d think superpowered conflict would aim a little higher:

NO, NOT DAZZLER’S NEW ISSUE OF SPO MAGAZINE! She hasn’t read it yet!

Rogue’s about to take off after her act of complete dickery, but then decides what she needs to do…

Man, totally raiding Dazzler’s nut bowl. Are there no depths to which Rogue won’t sink?

from Dazzler #24 (Feb. 1983) by Danny Fingeroth, Frank Springer & Vince Colletta

• AS FORETOLD BY PROPHECY: it’s the nigh-inevitable second pulse-pounding chapter of THE CHRONICLES OF SOLOMON STONE, as told by Chris Sims, Matthew Allen Smith, and Benjamin Birdie. Who else could do it? Who else would dare?

  Anyway, go check it out. Secure your skull first, because your brain may explode from exposure to unfettered awesomeness.

• Okay, gang, seriously, did you really think we didn’t know how the first Rocky movie ended? The joke is both more and less subtle than that, honest!

  Anyway, pal Dorian has been rewarded with an enormous amount of attention for his “Uncomfortable Plot Summaries” post, and, surprisingly, nearly all of it has been positive. Good on him, and I, along with several other internet pals, were very happy to have been part of it. (I’m particularly pleased that one of entries I wrote, for Star Wars: A New Hope, has been cited quite frequently.)

  Keep checking back, as a few new good entries have been popping up in the comments section.

• A couple of notes about yesterday’s post: pal Cully let me know that this letter is from 1976, that he was eleven(!) years old, and (to answer Steve Canadian‘s question), alas, Marvel kept the art and Cully didn’t make any copies of it. But Cully says as far as he remembers, it was just some character he created himself.

  If you want a slightly more recent sample of Cully’s art, you can see the cover of his comics digest Skulldog in this post of mine from a while back.

• Here’s a great hidden gem of a website that you should check out: Dateline: Silver Age, featuring the best in-story newspaper headlines ripped from yesterday’s comics! A nicely designed site with entertaining content…almost sublime in its beauty.

  And here’s one that I spotted in my referral logs over the last few days: Roasted Peanuts, a site taking good advantage of the Comics.com embedding service to provide commentary on the classic Peanuts comic strips.

  I should also note that Living Between Wednesdays now has its own domain name and has undergone a swank new redesign with lots of new content. Currently featured: an interview with Jeff Parker!

Pal Cully was digging through some old belongings of his, turned up this rejection letter he received from Marvel Comics in the 1970s, and was good enough to let me show it to you folks here:

detail from the cover of Who’s Who #12 (Feb. 1986)
by Paris Cullins & Dick Giordano

• So I, along with several internet pals, chipped in on pal Dorian’s latest post where we all came up with, shall we say, alternative descriptions of movies and TV shows that are uncomfortable at best, downright rude at worst. So go, enjoy, be offended, maybe.
• I got a mention in the latest episode of Look at His Butt, which perhaps I should explain is a Star Trek podcast with a specific focus on Captain Kirk, William Shatner, and, occasionally, the butt they share. Anyway, they were quite amused by the Trek items from the latest End of Civilization and decided to share it with their listeners, which was quite nice of them.
• I also got a brief mention in another podcast, 2 People Talking, in which I’m brought up during a discussion of, what else, Swamp Thing. Specifically, during a review of the recently released Saga of the Swamp Thing hardcover, which (SPOILER) Angie liked.
• Enough about me, here’s more about me…well, okay, about a friend, Pal Tom F., graduate of the Kubert School and the fella who let me borrow these Kubert School ‘zines…anyway, he’s got a DeviantART page where he’s showing off some of his swell illustrations. Please, go check it out.

  Speaking of Tom, the other day he brought in an original drawing of Swamp Thing recently done for him by his former classmate Steve Bissette, which of course made me insanely jealous. It’s the third one down on this page and it’s even more awesome seeing it in person.

• And as long as we’re talking about Swamp Thing: Swamp Thing and Floronic Man Legos. I knew adding “swamp thing” to my Google Alerts would pay off someday.

from Black Panther #11 (Sept. 1978) by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer