The (Old) New Mickey Mouse Club

The "New" Mickey Mouse Club, 1977

Although it is hard to imagine in this day of DVDs and Video rentals, back when I was growing up, the only way you could re-watch any of your favorite Walt Disney cartoons was to wait for the studio to re-release them in the theaters! And all you could do in the meantime was listen to the soundtrack album and read along with Tinkerbell (when she rings her little bell…like this!)

  Then one day my brother discovered a Disney TV show that would occasionally run segments of classic Walt Disney cartoons like The Aristocats and 101 Dalmations on its program -the show he had discovered was The New Mickey Mouse Club, and from that point on, we watched it every day in hopes of catching a clip of some favorite cartoon. I remember really wanting them to run the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment from Fantasia and ANY clip from “The Jungle Book”, which was my favorite Disney movie back then (and probably still is…).

  After a few months of watching the show, Waiting for clips of the Disney movies didn't seem quite so important to us, as we inevitably started liking the show itself and its cast. The songs were great, and the skits the “new” Mouseketeers acted out were hilarious! I remember we would cassette tape several of the skits, then me and my brothers and sister would memorize them and re-enact the show for my mother and visiting aunts, as well as sing out the songs!

  Then there were the Mouseketeers themselves. Unlike the original kids back in the fifties, this was a mix featuring a whole bunch of different ethnicities and ages. It really made it easy for anyone to have a different favorite member! For me, it was all about a pretty girl named Lisa Whelchel (who of course would go on later to star as Blair Warner in The Facts Of Life)...

  Lisa was, to me, the “cool” chick. She was really pretty, but decidedly tom-boyish. She was a practicing ventriloquist, and the show developed a segment called “Sleuth” around her and her ventriloquist doll SLEUTH, a detective dog. This quickly became my fave segment to watch, because it was all about the Whelchel!

  Each episode chose a different “theme” for it, whether it be “Discovery Day”, “Surprise Day”, “Who What Why Where When and How Day” and “Showtime”. These episodes were introduced by poppy theme songs, and before you knew it, we loved those songs, too! In fact, I don’t remember an awful lot about  “Surprise Day”, but I DO remember me and my brother taping the theme song because it was so good! ( I also have a vague memory of someone falling off a giant Ice Cream sundae, but that's just me.)

   After a few months had gone by, we discovered that there had been a RECORD ALBUM released for the NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB, complete with almost all the songs we had grown to know and love! I remember going down to Harry’s Music Store one day with my allowance money and purchasing the album for a whopping $3.00!

  Here’s a funny thing. Funny as in Ironic, that is. I had gone down and bought the album on a Friday afternoon, right after the Mickey Mouse Club show ended (about 4:00). We immediately opened it up and began listening to the record. A nice bonus was that the album came with the lyrics to the songs on the sleeve (and a REALLY NICE poster / souvenir book), and for the first time, we could figure out exactly what all the words were! We listened to that album all weekend, re-learned the songs in earnest, and couldn’t wait to watch the show again on Monday. But then, the ironic part: LAST  FRIDAY’S EPISODE WAS THE LAST EPISODE- THE NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB HAD BEEN CANCELED!!! We couldn’t believe it! Here we’d finally gotten around to buying the album to accompany watching the show, and now it was all that we had left of it!

  For a long time, we kept waiting for the show to come back on, as kids aren’t quite understanding about cancellation. But it never did, and before you knew it, Lisa and Julie had both gone on to Facts Of Life, and much much later, a brand new “New” Mouseketeers show came out featuring all the you-know-whos of this young generation.

  One sad thing I’ve noticed is that the original 50’s Mickey Mouse Club is (rightly) revered as the iconical pop culture show it was ( Oh, Annette!) and the recent Mickey Mouse club is famous for producing the Britneys, Timberlakes and Aguileras, but the 1978 show is just plain ignored. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Disney had been releasing Box Set episodes of both the Fifties show and the Nineties show, but not a single DVD has been released for the “middle” gang (yet), and one can only pray they’ll get around to releasing the album again on CD.

Someone on some other page states that the reason they haven’t released any of the episodes is because “they just aren’t good, as far as I can see”. Well, maybe they weren't stellar earth shattering shows, but if you grew up with them, they might have held a special place in your heart!

Everything's Archie!

I’ve always been really into Archie Comics, specifically those  digests that used to sell for about 75¢ back in the seventies. At the time I just liked the stories. They were funny, witty, and at times pretty humanitarian in their storytelling.

  As a kid, I would buy the books sporadically, mostly whenever I had extra change to purchase one…still, over time we accumulated a lot of ‘em, and me and my brothers and sister would regularly flip through the books whenever we needed something to read while snacking or relaxing. The Archie books became part of my childhood.

 As I got older, I realized how valuable these books were to me, and I tried to see how many back issues I could find at flea markets, used bookstores and rummage sales. I did manage to acquire quite a few especially at used bookstores like Rainbow’s Books.

It was only after this point of my mass consumption of Archie that I started to be able to tell which stories came out in the 40’s, which came out in the 50’s and the 60’s and 70’s.

  It was the stories from the Sixties and Seventies that really caught my eye, and as I got older, I finally began to appreciate the talent involved with the strip. Some of the art was just FANTASTIC, and you can see where current artists like Los Bros Hernandez got their influences from!

Harry Lucey

I started noticing that the art that featured Archie and the gang in the sixties had a real specific style to them. I could TELL that it was ONE artist drawing all of them. This was the artist that first drew the Archies as a band, and even the characters had real “sixties” style about them-Reggie even had sideburns! That artist turned out to be Harry Lucey, and MAN this guy could draw chicks…no one has ever drawn Betty cuter! The wild gestures he creates for the scenes are so dynamic and fun-In fact, Lucey is probably my favorite Archie artist of them all!

Among other things created during Harry's reign, most significant are the first appearances of both Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Chuck Clayton! Sabrina looked VERY Kim Novak back then!

Samm Schwartz

I also started noticing that a lot of my favorite stories that featured Jughead were all drawn in this retro reedy-thin style, and the guys all had high-water pants that showed their socks. I found out that these Jughead stories were drawn by artist Samm Schwartz, another great illustrator. He also had a flair for drawing gals, and his version of Midge Collins is the best as far as I’m concerned. Along with writer Frank Doyle, they created some of the FUNNIEST stories!

Al Hartley

Once in a while there would be certain Archie stories that dealt with peace, caring and loving your neighbor. I’d always notice that the artist’s style-He really had a flair for drawing Betty with real flaxen fluffy hair. Well, I found out that the artist/writer was a guy named Al Hartley, who was a strong Christian, and he’d slyly work gentle Archie stories into the strip. He even got permission to produce a few Christian-based Archie comics under the Spire Label.

 Dan DeCarlo

And then there’s Dan DeCarlo.The Mighty Dan DeCarlo!

 What can I say about him that hasn’t been said already. He’s the guy credited with redesigning the Archie Characters into the contemporary versions of we know and love today. He also created Josie, and later Josie and the Pussycats. Yes, the guy created Melody! And...Oh, how this guy could draw GIRLS!

I especially love his artwork in the mid-seventies, where Betty and Veronica were dressing like extras in Three’s Company. I call these the “Red Ribbon in Ronnie’s Hair” phase. Whenever Veronica would get exasperated, he would draw these lines on her cheeks to indicate flushing with rage, and I think it’s just hilarious!

Dan was also resposible for creating one of my favorite one-shot characters, a gorgeous uber-vixen named Virginia Cleary for the story "State Of Mind"! Yow! Yes, Virginia, slutty girls DID exist in Riverdale! Hahahahahahaha!

 The artwork all of these artists do is just terrific, and you can easily follow the story without even reading the word bubbles a lot of the time. I especially love when the artist goes out of his way to draw relaxed poses or shocked or angry reactions...they’re too funny!

It was this appreciation of the art involved that made me decide to expand my collection to try and get some of the original Archie comics. I wanted the ones that featured some of the stories I loved! Unfortunately (and obviously), most of these came out when I was like one to four years old, so it’s slow in collecting, but each time I SCORE and find an issue with a beloved story from my childhood, it’s like striking gold!

The search continues.....

Super-Vixens: Marvel Girl

Okay, at first glance, Jean Grey’s outfit seems to be nothing more than a green dress with yellow gloves and boots.Then looking closer, you realize…Yep, It’s a dress, alright!

So why do I love this costume so much?!

I don’t know, but I WILL say that in the era where Sue Storm was wearing the same outfit as Reed Richards and Wanda Frank & Janet Van Dyne were wearing their respective one-piece bodysuits, Jean’s dress outfit was positively original and sexy!

I know that a lot of people had an aversion to the new costumes of the Original X-Men, especially John Byrne ,who seemed to be obsessed with the original outfits (Kitty Pryde and later Jean in the Hidden Years reflect this) and Neal Adams, who quickly changed the Angel’s Yellow ‘n’ Suspenders look to a more sleek style, but, hey, one of the first classic comics I read was Avengers #53, and John Buscema’s depiction of the X-Men will always be THE defining look of the group for me.

One of the first 12¢ comic back issues I bought was Issue #39, which, of course, featured the X-Men for the first time in their “new” outfits, as illustrated by Don Heck, but it wasn’t til my friend James got this hardcover X-Men book published by Grandreams which reprinted the Neal Adams Sentinels stories that I really fell in love with Jean’s Marvel Girl outfit. He really made her look terrific in that dress!

For some reason, the original Marvel Girl outfit is one of the things that IMHO Byrne didn’t seem to care much for, and as I’d mentioned before, he couldn’t wait to find a reason to get her out of the green dress and back into the yellow and black suit in his HIDDEN YEARS strip. But that’s okay, because Jean gave the costume to Candy Southern to wear, and my didn’t she look nice in it!

Jean Grey:

First Appearance: X-Men #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

First Appearance in new Marvel Girl Costume:

X-Men #39 by Roy Thomas and Don Heck

Favorite Artists:

Werner Roth (X-Men 48,49)

John Buscema (Avengers #53)

Neal Adams (X-Men #56-65)

Super-Vixens: Phoenix

The Mighty Dave Cockrum strikes again with this totally awesome outfit, one of my favorite designs, and I don’t care that he designed practically the same identical suit for Ms. Marvel… In fact, that costume is gonna show up any time now on this list!

Man, I just love this outfit, and it only got better when Byrne took over! Funny thing, one big difference in the way the two artists depicted the costume for me was that in Cockrum’s drawings, the green part of her costume always seemed like cotton material, for some reason, with leather boots and gloves, whereas Byrne’s illustrations always looked completely slick, like some kind of cosmic latex!

And another thing I mentioned before, John Byrne just loved drawing girls in pretty clothes, and Jean was no exception- in fact, he really draped Ms. Grey in some wonderful outfits over the years, but my favorite has to be the green off-shoulder dress she’s wearing in Uncanny X-Men #114. Just so damn pretty!

Oh, and I am adamant in my belief that the ORIGINAL storyline where Jean Grey turns into Phoenix in Uncanny X-Men #101, turns to Dark Phoenix in issue #135, dies in issue #137, and is buried in issue #138 as the ONE TRUE and CORRECT story.

Call me stubborn (yes) and hard headed (yep, yep), but as far as I’m concerned, the Jean Grey that we knew and loved has passed away, and I refuse to subscribe to any of those revisionist storylines that sprout up regularly like evil baobabs seeking to invade and destroy my planet! Argggh…

Jean went out in a thoughtful, unselfish and poignant way, and that’s how I want to remember her.

Jean Grey:

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

First Appearance in Phoenix Costume:

Uncanny X-Men #101 by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

Favorite Artists:

Dave Cockrum and John Byrne

Super-Vixens: Marianne Rodgers

I once read this joke book full of rude but hilarious sayings, and one line that I distinctly remember said, “Cute, but psycho…things balance out!” And if there was any Marvel character that deserved this title, it’s the scrumptious but flaky Marianne Rodgers, fledging precognitive and one time fiance to Tony Stark.

Marianne was introduced in Iron Man #40, a gorgeous looking girl who harbored a secret power- the ability to see into the future! This was all good and Marianne & Tony found themselves about to tie the knot… until Marianne saw a premonition that she’d be responsible for Tony Stark’s death. She absolutely has her panties in a bunch worrying about this, and proceeds to become an emotional wreck because of it.

Enter The Super-Adaptoid. Iron Man has a fierce battle with the old Avengers foe, battling him to the extent of his energies. Tony does manage to defeat the Super-Adaptoid, but barely has enough reserve energy to crawl home. It is a life-or-death situation, because if he doesn’t recharge his suit, in time, his heart will fail as well.

Suddenly Marianne shows up, and he asks her to help him recharge his armor… She doesn’t want to be responsible for his death, so she does what comes naturally, mainly getting her ass out of there as fast as she can, leaving Tony dying on the ground.

I’m sure every reader was like me, going “WTF?!”, but Tony was able to recharge himself in time, and rewarded the readers by dumping Marianne’s butt out the door.

In later issues, poor Marianne’s situation only got worse, and she was sadly later committed! Too bad, she sure was a purty little filly!

Marianne Rodgers

First Appearance: Iron Man #40 by George Tuska

Super-Vixens: Black Widow

The first time I ever laid eyes on Ms. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was in the first issue of DAREDEVIL that I ever bought, Issue #161, against Bullseye. All I could make out at the time was that this girl was somehow linked with DD, perhaps even romantically, but she never stood out for me in any way.

Later I was to collect the back issues of Daredevil, and I was to find out she was a major character, in the pages of Daredevil (at one point the comic was even called Daredevil and Black Widow) and other group mags. One thing though, was that she never struck me as a “looker” in those Gil Kane / Gene Colan / Frank Miller issues, although I DO recall thinking she looked nice in some Colan or Miller issue where she’s wearing this pretty green dress in this one splash page …(I strangely recall that at the time she was wiping blood off her mouth!)..but that was about it.

Anyway, it wasn’t until I read the AMAZING ADVENTURES series that I saw her in a different light. I was so used to seeing her as Matt’s partner in DAREDEVIL or nagging Hercules in The CHAMPIONS and AVENGERS, that it was quite a surprise to finally see her as the sleek siren she was supposed to be!

And although all of John Romita’s gals tend to resemble Mary Jane Watson*, when I finally got around to purchasing a copy of legendary Amazing Spider-Man issue #86, that is where I found THE artist for depicting the Black Widow. John Romita’s take of Natasha just had the look that really (to me) defined what she was all about, tough, mysterious, and alluring.

•There was even this Not Brand Ecch gag where they colored the hair of Romita’s girls all different colors; red, blonde, green, blue, etc, and said: Fun Page: which is Mary Jane Watson and which Is Gwen Stacy?! Hahaha…!

Black Widow

First Appearance: Tales Of Suspense #57

First Appearance (New costume) : Amazing Spider-Man #60 by Stan Lee and John Romita

Favorite Artists:

John Romita (Amazing Spider-Man #86 )

John Buscema ( Amazing Adventures #1-8)

Signs You're In a John Byrne Comic!

Over every Icy Ridge lies a 

Huge, Futuristic Technological Wonder!

Alpha Flight #3

X-Men #116

Fantastic Four #224

About “Signs That You’re In a John Byrne Comic”:

Like many of you out there, I am a HUGE fan of John Byrne, and have voraciously read just about every title he’s done over the years, from Marvel to DC, Dark Horse, and Beyond!

And as any fan of Byrne can tell you, there are many things that are BOUND to happen in a any given tale of his, and the “Signs That You’re In a John Byrne Comic” entries are just fun captures of similar links between his wonderful stories that give you a sense of Deja Vu!

Super-Vixens: Phantom Girl

Up next is cute-as-a-button Tinya Wazzo, the Bgztlian native better known to the DC Universe as the Legion of Super-Heroes very own PHANTOM GIRL!

With the ability to phase through solid objects, Tinya was inducted into the Legion’s fold early on, but it wasn’t until years later when Dave Cockrum updated her character with that swinging’ futuristic bell-bottom jumpsuit that she became the spunky pony-tailed girl that we came to know and love!

While girls like Saturn Girl, Shrinking Violet and Dream Girl were heating up the Legion Outposts, Tinya always came across as the warm and bubbly “best friend” to everyone, she was the “sweet” girl! In fact, I always used to read the old 25¢ Superboy comics thinking that she looked an awful lot like Dawn Wells a.k.a. Many Ann Summers of Gilligan’s Island!

Most of these scans come courtesy of my beloved beat-up copy of Superboy starring the Legion Of Super-Heroes #203, an issue which Mike Grell seemed particularly inspired with his depictions of Tinya. She looked so adorable in every panel! The illustration of Tinya on the cover is a fave, too, drawn by the master himself, NICK CARDY. ..Can this man EVER draw a bad picture of a girl?

Phantom Girl:

First Appearance: Action Comics #276 by Jerry Seigel and Jim Mooney

Favorite Artists: Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell ( the Legion Immortals! )

My Favorite Stephen King Books

1.The Stand (Original 1975 version, NOT recut edition)

The first novel I ever read from Stephen King, and what a story it was. Possible the greatest book the man has ever written, IMHO. This is the story about a virus that kills almost everyone in the world, and the ones who survive are either drawn to a kindly black woman on a farm in Nebraska, or a tyrannical dark man named Flagg in Las Vegas.

   The book is broken into three parts:

CAPTAIN TRIPS

    The telling of the systematic way the deadly virus travels from person to person across the United States, as well as introducing the main characters, all of whom are somehow immune to the plague. They begin to have dreams of a kindly old Black Woman and a sinister Dark Man.

ON THE BORDER

   After “life as they know it” has ended, the survivors begin migrating. The people who are inherently good gravitate towards the black woman, and the ones inherently evil go to The Dark Man. VERY interesting chapters as the main characters start meeting along the way and becoming bigger groups.

THE STAND

   The two camps go to war. Or rather, Randall Flagg goes to war. He plans to send a nuclear missile over to the good guys’ camp, and drastic measures must be made to prevent this! Several key members are selected to go undercvover into Flagg’s camp, and some may not make it back!

  The first time I read The Stand, I was blown away not only by the story itself, but more impressive was the people IN the book. I’d never read a story with such fully developed, wonderful characters before, and I found that when the book came to a close, I really missed them!

The 1975 Version and the Version Available Now

Stephen King says that when he originally wrote The Stand, he didn’t have the clout he had later, so his editors cut a lot of stuff out of his original book. Now that he HAD the clout, he wanted to present the book as it was originally intended. I gotta tell you, when I first heard about this, I was EXTATIC. As it was my favorite book,I couldn’t wait to see what I’d been missing. But then when I got the book, the introduction told me that:

1)    Some of the stuff that was originally edited out WAS (in King’s opinion) crappy, so he didn’t bother restoring it

2)    2) The stuff left out would be replaced by BRAND NEW STUFF HE WROTE FOR THE BOOK!!!

WTF!! They tagged the book “For The First Time Complete and Uncut”, but in opinion, it is like Paul McCartney went back to the Sgt. Peppers album and wrote some new songs and stuck them in between the other tracks!

The thing that sucks is that I don’t like a lot of the new stuff , but some of the original manuscript that has been put back in is terrific., particularly the scenes with Nick and Tom…so whenever I read the original 1975 version, there are scenes I wish were there. But I can’t ever treat the recut version as  the “real Thing”. Too many good things have been screwed with, and even little things have been tweaked, like the chapter ending “Why else was he suddenly able to do magic?” has been excised, and it was a fave line of mine. And, oh man, that epilogue in the recut version has to go. I never liked stories where they spend the whole movie trying to kill the monster, and when they finally succeed, at the very end, the monster pops up again, The End. It’s like the whole movie was for nothing .

And that’s just what happens in the recut version of The Stand.

The sad thing is of course, When a friend of mine wanted to read the Stand, I told him best to get the original version. It was then I found out Stephen King had done a George Lucas, and made the original one out of print. YOU COULD ONLY GET THE NEW VERSION!  Eventually he was able to obtain a decent copy from a used book store, but even now they are getting harder and harder to find.

If possible, please read the Original 1975 version (the one with the cover I scanned is a good one!)

02. The Dead Zone

 The Story of a boy who awakens from a coma with psychic powers. This is decades before Brian Johnson from Breakfast Club was playing him on TV. A story about regret and loss. So many good segments in this one, but the story can be broken down into five parts: One is when he’s a teacher before the accident. Two is when he has his long and painful recovery. Three is when he becomes a famous serial-killer hunter. Four is when he becomes a tutor for kids. And Five is the grand Finale when he must stop a man from becoming the president of the United States because he has seen that this man will cause World War III.

And yes, the Christopher Walken Movie version rocks!

03. Different Seasons

 I tried not to list compilation books, but this is far too good to ignore, and besides, these were NOVELLAS. Not only does it feature Apt Pupil and the story that inspired “Stand By Me”, it also had the original “Shawshank Redemption” story (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) and possible my favorite short story of all time from Stephen King, THE BREATHING METHOD.

It’s split into four parts, one representing each Season.

Part One is “Hope Springs Eternal”, The Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redeption story.

 This is the story of inmates in a sadistic Prison, a man who can “get” things for you, a man unjustly accused of murder, but more than anything else, it’s about how having HOPE can motive you. A terrific story. The Tim Robbins film was pretty good too!

Part Two is “Summer Of Corruption”, “Apt Pupil” This was also made into a movie with Ian McKellen. This is the story of a boy who finds out a Nazi war criminal is living incognito in his town, and blackmails him into revealing all the dark memories he has, eventually corrupting both the Nazi and the boy.

Part Three is “Fall From Innocence”, the famous Stephen King story that inspired Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, THE BODY. Four boys growing up make a trip to see a dead body, and encounter things that will change their lives.

Part Four is simple “A Winter’s Tale”, featuring the story The Breathing Method.

  Man, The Breathing Method, what can I say. It is just fantastic.  First there’s the setting. It’s set in this old English gentlemen’s club, and King takes the time to describe it quite vividly and spookily. The members of the club tell stories, from far flung to fantastic. I can’t explain it, but King describes this so well, each tale seems so eerie. And that brings us to the second good point: the tale that the story is centered around is ALSO fantastic. A great tale within a tale, a tale about a single pregnant woman practicing to give birth to her child using the at-the-time unknown Lamaze method.

 I’m glad to say that The Breathing Method is the sole story in Different Seasons that hasn’t been made into a movie (yet), and for this we are truly grateful. I just don’t see how they could capture the wonder and eeriness of the story.

   King followed this story up with another good short story called “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands” which dealt with the same club and characters.

04. Eyes Of The Dragon

Ahh, so what that this is supposed to be a kid’s book! The story is great! I particularly love the style of the narration here, King is talking like the book narrators of old!

Story about goodness in people, wickedness in people, and FRIENDSHIP and HONOR. And some of that stuff he wrote explaining Magic…too good! I particularly loved the way he explained invisibility. You couldn’t make yourself disappear, but you could become DIM, where no one would notice you even if you were standing right there.

Ooh..and the organic magic lock, the kleffa carrot that would scream when someone tried to open your box…Good Fun!

Super-Vixens: Talia Al Ghul

Okay, I’m going to go ahead and get Talia Al Ghul out of the way, as there’s probably no list of comic babes out there that doesn’t list her! Saying Talia is on your list of Comic Book Babes is a remark that is usually answered with a resounding “duh”.

First exposure to Talia was in the oversize Treasury Edition of Batman (and you all know which one I’m talking about…that awe-inspiring classic cover featuring Batman screaming in anguish over the fallen figure of Robin, with a very lackadaisy Talia in the background.)

…Who WAS this gorgeous mystery girl, and why did she have it “on” for Bats?

In later issues I would find her to be just as ruthless (even moreso, actually) than her father Ras Al Ghul. She had all the fire and drive as her father, but none of the finesse, generally just ass-kicking her way to her goals.

In fact, that’s one of the major differences in the Neal Adams Talia and subsequent depictions of her as drawn by folks like Dick Giordano or Irv Novick – Neal always drew her kind of naïve and spacey looking, while the other artists drew her as the threat she actually was! And who can ever forget that backside featured on the cover of Batman #330?

First Appearance: Detective Comics #411 by Denny O Neill and Bob Brown with Dick Giordano

Favorite Artists:

Neal Adams

Irv Novick

Dick Giordano (The DC Comics go-to man!)

Super-Vixens: Polaris

While Ororo’s STORM costume has the distinction of being my favorite Super-Heroine costume of all-time, My SECOND favorite costume goes to another mutant in the Uncanny X-Men pantheon, Miss Lorna Dane, better known to the superhero world as POLARIS.

Ms. Dane has had quite a few costume changes over the years, but the outfit I’m referring to is her original green silk “harem” style costume that was first introduced to us all the way back in X-Men #50, as conceived by writer Arnold Drake and Jim Steranko.

My introduction to Polaris came during the Byrne / Claremont run of the X-Men. My very first issue was #125, in the first part of the Mutant X storyline. The issue ends with Lorna on the phone telling Scott that they are being attacked by someone or something on Muir Isle and would appreciate the back-up. At this time, I didn’t know she was a super-hero, and simply thought she was the (green-haired?) girlfriend of Havok. A few issues later, when the group is getting ready to have a showdown with Proteus, she is seen in the background taking off her sweater to reveal that sexy costume underneath. (What a shot…I’ll never forget it!)

At some point I fell in love with the artwork of Jim Steranko (and really, which Silver-Age Marvel Comics aficionado hasn’t?) and really wanted to get X-Men issues #49-51 which he’d done these gorgeous covers for. When I finally got my hands the issues, I was stoked to find that this was the first appearance of Lorna! I eventually got the Neal Adams issues as well, finding out how she and Alex hooked up (by dumping poor Iceman on his butt!) as well as seeing her character develop.

When Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum revived the X-Men in ’76, she was given a new costume that I truly despised, supposedly of Shi’ar origin but looking a lot more like Shrinking Violet’s costume in DC’s Legion of Super Heroes.(which was also designed by Mr. Cockrum) Fortunately Byrne had the kindness to drape her in my beloved costume instead when he took over the run.

You know, one thing I’ve always felt was that John Byrne liked Lorna’s character a lot. After all, it was the Byrne/Claremont team that did that Marvel Team-Up story, but even more proof came to me when Byrne did his stint on the short-lived “X-Men Hidden Years” strip. He really fleshed out Lorna’s character,including her as much as possible and even giving her a well deserved solo arc in”The Promise”.There’s this one passage that’s really great when Bobby pushes Lorna too far with his “You’re MY Girl “ schtick and she really lets his have it!

After Byrne left the original X-Men run, they immediately changed Lorna’s costume back to the Shi’ar outfit, one that I had to endure till she was outfitted with a far more sensible one in the Peter David “X-Factor” run (a run I rather liked as it utilized three of the “Muir Isle Gang" members!).

Nowadays I’m not sure just what kind of costuming Lorna is running around with, but a (relatively) recent glance at a cover of Ultimate X-Men #61 reassured me that all those involved are still doing their duty of keeping Lorna a Cute and Sexy Marvel Commodity, no matter what the costume!

First Appearance: X-Men #49 by Arnold Drake and Werner Roth

First Appearance in costume: X-Men #50 by Arnold Drake and Jim Steranko

Favorite Artists:

Werner Roth (X-Men #49)

Jim Steranko (X-Men #50)

Neal Adams (X-Men #57-65)

John Byrne ( Uncanny X-Men #119-129)

Super-Vixens: Silk Spectre

Laurel Jane “Laurie” Juspeczyk, the beautiful Silk Spectre, daughter of the original Silk Spectre , and one of the main characters in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons epic WATCHMEN series.

When we first meet Ms. Juspeczyk in WATCHMEN #1, she is going off on poor old Rorschach and so my first impressions was that she wasn’t a very likeable charcter. Fortunately in that same issue she is shown in a better light when she dines with Daniel Dreiberg, the Nite-Owl character, and I warmed up to her a bit. Over the next few issues, through her relationship with Dr. Manhattan and her growing attachment to Daniel, I started liking her character more and more, until I was dying to see her get into (and out of) her Silk Spectre costume… and I wasn’t disappointed!

One thing I’ve always though was pretty cool was the way that the original Silk Spectre’s costume had that 40’s glamour style with leotards and fishnets, while Laurie’s costume looked very 70’s disco-queen looking, both costumes reflecting the times.

You know one thing I really liked about Laurie’s costume-the detail with her heels. Artist Dave Gibbons treated the shoes like an accessory to her costume, and was very keen on illustrating her putting the shoes on (see pic), and also vice versa…I thought it was a nice touch when she took a tumble down a hillside and one heel flew off!

Silk Spectre: Watchmen #1-12 by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Super-Vixens: Heater Delight

YOWSERS! What can I say about gorgeous intergalactic alien prostitute Heater Delight that you can't discern just by glancing at the illustrations? She's an effin' BABE!

I had a friend who was a major Warlock fan, collecting the series from its inception in Marvel Premeire, through POWER OF WARLOCK 1-8, Warlock's STRANGE TALES continuation, the incredible WARLOCK 9-15, the Marvel Two In One Annual and the epic conclusion in AVENGERS ANNUAL #7.

Now, I had the opportunity to read all of my friend's Warlock comics, and there were a lot of important issues I noted to pick up, however, the first issue I bought on my own was WARLOCK #12, the side- story featuring Warlock's sidekick friend Pip The Troll, and introducing sultry Heater as the "Damsel In Distress"! Yes, I just NEEDED this issue! I mean, even besides gorgeous Heater, the story was damn funny to boot!

Poor Heater is slave girl who promises Pip the Troll "Unbelievable Pleasure" if he frees her. After much abuse and lumps, Pip manages to get the girl free just in time for said girl's boyfriend to show up and claim her! He could have freed her himself, but Heater didn't want him to get hurt! And what about the reward? Why, Heater was talking about giving him her pleasure cruiser, or course!

I love Pip's line: "Soon as I figure the most painful way to do it, I'm gonna locate and kill them two!"

A Masterpiece by Jim Starlin and Steve Leialoha!

Favorite TV: The Brady Bunch!

When I was in fifth grade (in …oh, around 1975 or so), my favorite TV show on the air was the Sherwood Schwartz (creator of Gilligan’s Island, as well) family sitcom, the  Brady Bunch!

It all started one afternoon when I was complaining to my mother  about “Not havin’ nothin’ to do”…to get me off her back, she  changed the channels on the TV and said, “Why don’t you watch this show? It’s about kids.”   Well, I didn’t have too much interest in it at first, but since there wasn’t ANYTHING ELSE going on that day, I checked it out, and immediately fell in love with the show!

  As I recall, that very first episode I saw was this one where Bobby saves Peter’s life by pushing him out of the way of a falling potted plant. Oh my gosh, the show was so funny, I knew I was gonna have to tune it to it every day! And tune in I did, til (like most things I love) it became an all-consuming obsession- I remember countless days when the family’s shopping outing or dinner plans had to wait 'til I finished watching my show!

One of my weekday chores that year was picking up my little brother from preschool. What I would do is plan my chore around the TV shows I wanted to watch.  Gilligan’s Island ended at 4:30, and Brady Bunch started at 5:00, so that gave me a half hour to truck on down to the Preschool and pick him up while the CBS News ran at 4:30 to 5:00.

Now, the church where the preschool was not that far away, but even still, if I got caught at enough red lights, I would inevitably miss the first 5 minutes of the Brady Bunch, upsetting me to no end! Ah, the priorities of a 5th grader!

What was it about that show that I loved so much? Well, enough theories have been bouncing around for years now, reasons  such as: “The Brady Bunch represented a family you wanted to be in” or “The show provided an escape from the harsh real world”, and I do agree with those sentiments, but for me, the two things that really drew me in to the show were:

1. The Music: I used to use a hand-held tape recorder, and tape the beginning and ending songs- they were so darn catchy, and I LOVED it whenever the kids sang! “Time To Change” , “Sunshine Day”, and “Good Time Music”, anyone?*

 

And the beginning songs- each season featured a different recording (except Season Two and Three…I guess the kids didn’t change enough to warrant a remake) and every one of them had a little something different to them that made each one special- back then, my fave was Season Four, with drums that seemed a bit more kicking (right at the moment they sing the line "that this group"...)! Why, I loved the opening song so much, I even got  into the Peppermint Trolley Company, the group that sang the intro to Season One! (Very good album, BTW)

2. What else? Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Yep, I was in love with Marcia, played by Maureen McCormick,. though at the time, I thought her name was spelled “Marsha” Silly me, they even SHOWED the correct spelling during the ending credits, but I never noticed! Didn’t really care for her in those Technicolor slacks, but oh my how she could rock a mini-dress!

So, As I mentioned earlier, I started watching the show around Season Three, and at the time, had NO IDEA that I was watching a syndicated show that had in fact been canceled four or five years earlier! But reality came and hit me on the head soon enough- I remember one Friday afternoon watching  the episode where Bobby and Cindy (and, yes, Oliver) sell Greg some shampoo that turns his hair orange. Then, the following Monday, I tuned in and had one of the biggest shocks of my life, when suddenly The Brady Bunch kids were played by an almost unrecognizable group of little kids! “What’s going ON?” I asked out loud!

I watched the episode –(it wasn’t the first episode where Mike and Carol get married, I think it was the one where the kids challenge each other on what to get with Trading Stamps) and eventually, I got it. These WERE the same actors…just a hella lot younger! Then when my mother came home, she explained to me the fact that the show was OLD, and the kids were actually all grown up now. She even added, “Just like Family Affair”.

 I was confused. “SO…that show is old, too?”

 “Oh yeah, the kids are all grown up, now!” Then she added, “in fact, Buffy died of a drug overdose.”

WHAT! I couldn’t HANDLE THAT! “But…But, all the Brady kids are alive, right?” 

“As far as I know,” she said, to my relief.

    I didn’t have to wait long for PROOF that the cast of the Brady Bunch was alive and well, when the sappy BRADY BUNCH VARIETY SHOW came out a few months later. Gads, I just couldn’t WATCH IT! But then they followed with more reunion specials, the awesome BRADY GIRLS GET MARRIED, (where I got to see a grown Jan and Marcia in a show all their own), and even that slightly corny A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS !

I loved those Bradys so much that I even made sure I tuned in to every episode of the animated series "The Brady Kids", a show that really utilized the kids singing- each episode had at least one song by them (I remember really liking the song "Merry Go Round", for some reason!)...and who can forget those wacky co-stars Marlon the Bird and Ping and Pong the Pandas?

  I even tried to watch that dreadful new Bradys Today show (was that the title? I can't even remember anymore), but gave up after just one episode! No matter, I could always go back to my beloved original series, and Lo and Behold, one by one all five seasons eventually got released on DVD, and I got to experience the show ALL OVER AGAIN!

*Funny thing about “Good Time Music”…When I got older, I tried to get all the songs the Brady kids sang, and though “Time To Change” and “Sunshine Day” regularly appeared on albums, I NEVER saw Goodtime Music on any of them! I researched the various LP tie ins they released, thinking for SURE It would be on at least ONE of them, but to no avail. It was only years and years later when they finally released a CD proper of Brady Kids songs (It's a Sunshine Day, released by MCA)  that they revealed in the liner notes that Goodtime Music was the ONE SONG they never recorded for any album! BAWWW! So the episode performance is pretty much the ONLY thing that exists, recording-wise!

Even searching online, I've only been able to find the version from the "Very Brady Sequel" soundtrack- some files even mislabeled as the song from the TV show!

 Too Bad, this was really a terrific song- from the episode “Adios, Johnny Bravo”, it features only Greg and Marcia singing, and I have to say, Maureen  sounds just fabulous here! And my, did she look nice, too! So PRETTY!