Favorite Songs: "Scarlet” by Lush

“Gala” was the first album I ever owned from 4AD shoegazer band Lush, and though I would go on to love anything and everything the band would subsequently put out(see my blog rantings here), my heart will always hold a special place for that first album.

   Because Gala was more a collection of their EPs Mad Love, Scar and Sweetness and Light than an “album” proper, several songs appeared more than once on the tracklisting, among them two versions of Thoughtforms and two of SCARLET.

 While the “newer” version of Thoughtforms became (to me) the ‘real” version of said song, Scarlet’s two version both had different things to offer for me. The newer version was more polished and dreamy (and bears a slight resemblace to “Monochrome”) while the ealier one was more “raw” in sound, almost live.It was THIS version that I slowly found myself attatched to, especially during the choruses where Emma’s Guitar chords sound positively sonic follwing the lines “But What’d you Say” and “When nothing’s meant ”, “What’d You Do” and “When all is Spent”.The tone of the guitars have this “british” feel to it and I for some reason, it reminds me of “Instant Party” by The Who on their “My Generation” album.

  In fact, the huge, dreamy guitar washes during the lines “No one to fall…in love” and the subsequent spirally guitar picking behind the lines “Faceless, faithless night…vanity’s delight” all have decidedly Townshend-ish flavouring, at least in my opinion, and that’s a major Who fan talking here!

Super-Vixens: Aleta

The next two entries into my personal “Super-Heroine Hall Of Fame”

I’ve dubbed “Super-Vixens are the two leading ladies of the original 1970’s  futuristic heroes, THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.

  When Gene Colan and Arnold Drake created The Team in Marvel Super-Heroes, the group was strictly a boy’s club, it wasn’t until the Guardians got updated in the hands of Steve Gerber in titles like DEFENDERS and MARVEL PRESENTS.

Seeing an obvious void in femininity in the team, Steve a couple of heroines to join the team, first with Aleta along with her  counterpart Stakar in the pages of DEFENDERS, the duo of course would unite to become the Guardian member Starhawk.

Aleta is one charcter who has been revamped in recent years so far from her original look as to be unrecognizable! Nowadays she sports the modern “pin-up” look of most heroines in the biz, but back then she was portrayed as a more serious character, only occasionally appearing to chew out Starhawk and confuse Vance! I’m not sure if she was supposed to be a “sexy” heroine, but she definitely had that appeal to me, although she always seemed to remind me of Cathy Lee Crosby! And that’s whether Al Milgrom OR George Perez was drawin’ her! Ahahaha

Aleta

First appearance Defenders #29

by Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema

Super-Vixens: Nikki

Nikki was created by Steve and Al just one issue after debuting the Guardians of the Galaxy in MARVEL PRESENTS, a Mercurian who became sort of the “juvenile Sidekick” kind of charcter, the voice of laughter and playfulness in a gang of somber grumps! There was (at the time) even a sort of side-story of Nikki and Vance growing closer, but that storyline seemed to have been phased out.

 Nonetheless, she remained the sole firecracker in the group, and one of my favorite portrayals of her is in an issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP , where Nikki , Martinex and Yondu team up with Spider-Man in New York. The Pencils are done by Bob Mcleod, and His rendition of Nikki ranks up there with his “Ororo as White Queen” cover in X-Men!

Nikki

First appearance Marvel Presents #4

by Steve Gerber and Al Milgrom

Favorite Actresses: Katharine Ross

Although The Graduate is one of my favorite movies of all time, this was NOT the movie in which Katharine Ross stole my heart (though she IS so pretty here).. and it wasn’t her OTHER blockbuster hit movie, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid that did it for me, either! (Though I’d certainly pack her on MY bicycle anywhere she’d like to go…)

No, strange as it may seem, the movie that I first fell for lovely Ms. Ross was in the 1978 horror movie, THE LEGACY! Yes, that sinister movie where Roger Daltrey, lead vocallist for The Who. dies by choking on a chcken bone! For some reason, this movie was on TV an awful lot, and each time it was on, I watched it for the pretty “Natalie Wood-ish”actress with the heavy fake eyelashes, whom I later found out was named Katherine Ross!

Then came the aforementioned movie like The Graduate, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, and her OTHER famous Horror movie, THE STEPFORD WIVES, all featuring Katharine at her best!

She was recently credited in the cult classic “Donnie Darko’, I say “credited” because I have to say the morose psychiatrist lady in the movie didn’t look ANYTHING like the adorably girly Katharine Ross I knew and loved!

Oh Elaine Robinson, won’t you please come home?

Super-Vixens: Shrinking Violet

From Wikipedia: Shrinking Violet is a fictional character, a superheroine and Legion of Super-Heroes member in the DC Universe's 30th and 31st centuries. Her real name is Salu Digby and she comes from the planet Imsk. She has the power to shrink to tiny size, as do all Imsk natives.

 Growing Up, Shrinking Violet (or  “Vi” as the kids called her) wwas never one of my favorite characters, and I really didn’t much care for her Cockrum-designed costume (This one that looks like Marvel Comics’ Polaris’s Shi’ar oufit), but I did like how he drew her features, and boy, when Mike Grell was pencilling the Legion Of Super-Heroes, she sure was pretty! Plus, she seemed to be one of the more “serious” characters, and when the 1993 Legion portrayed a grown-up Salu working for the military, that really seemed to fit, for me!

Shrinking Violet

First Appearance:Action Comics # 276

by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney

Favorite Songs: "Funeral In His Heart" by October Project

I fell in love with October Project from the first time I heard the strains of their first single “Bury My Lovely” all the way back in 1993, and have been a rabid, manic fan ever since! The vocals, the music, the lyrics… all of it blended together so well to create a whole canvas of dreamlike music that defied categorizing!

In 1995, the group released their second album Falling Further In, and to promote it, they appeared on a few radio programs and talk shows, and one fo the songs they chose to sing at these events was the awesome Funeral in His Heart. It was an “unplugged” version of  that really caught my ear and made me really start appreciating the song- Mary’s powerful voice, Marina’s crystal harmonies, Emil’s piano and harmony vocal…throw in David’s guitarwork and Urbano’s toms, and you had a tight-knit combo that really kicked butt!

   Later I was to acquire a performance they did for a Sony Records expo while promoting their first album, and was surprised to find they’d done “Funeral In His Heart” even back then…I guess the song wasn’t as new as I thougth It was! This live version, however, had a different ending to it than the album version- at the last chorus, the music ceased, and all four vocallists (Mary, Emil, Marina and David) all harmonized accapella:

“The World is falling apart…

He’s getting older

and there’s a funeral in his heart”

 They repeat the lines as Mary adlibs around the refrain, and the song comes crashing to its end- to the overwhelming applause of the audience! Awesome!

Super-Vixens: Kari Limbo

There was this Green Lantern issue where (at least judging by the cover ), Hal Jordan was going to die when his Power battery exploded as he recharged it. But in DC Comics’ tradition of “faking us out with a misleading cover”, it ended up being not Hal himself, but rather a gent named Guy Gardner, a substitute GL filling in for Hal at the time.

 With Guy Gardner’s body presumably vaporized by the exploding lantern, it was up to Hal Jordan to inform Guy’s fiance about the accidental death, and she turned out to be this gypsy girl named Kari Limbo who was not only drop dead gorgeous, but was also gifted with Psychic powers!

 This was around 1978, and I have to say that me and my friends really fell for the Kari Limbo character. First off, she was a character that was introduced in the stories we were reading, so maybe we connected to her more readily. Second, as I ‘d already mentioned, she was sultry and sooo exotic (she’s a GYPSY, for chrissakes!),  and third, everything Kari did seemed to emanate “SEXY”, at least to our 6th grade minds.  Every issue would find her kissing Hal for whatever reason, she appeared (quite innocently enough) in her nightgown to  greet him (see pic above), and most importantly: She rocked some seriously low-plunging blouses! Take a look at that pic in the lower left hand corner. It may not seem like much in the world of Image Comics and the like, but back then, that was some SERIOUS cleavage! Totally rocked our worlds, I tell you.

 In later issues, she would join Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Black Canary in tracking down villains, and soon fate found Hal and Kari falling for each other (all in three issues! MAN that is fast!) and planning to get married!

 Well, as we all know now, Guy Gardner did NOT die in the explosion, he’d been taken to the Phantom Zone, and was none too happy about finding his Cherry Poptart about to marry his “business associate”! So much for those plans!

Years later, Guy Gardner would have a new life (so to speak) in Justice League and his own solo stuff, catapulting him to fame and BIG popularity! But I never did read those issues, and am not sure if Kari Limbo EVER made another appearance after the wedding disaster of GL/GA #120.

Where are you , Kari? Can SOMEBODY please revamp her character for the new millennium? C’mon, she’s got the Psychic Powers and the good looks- who could ask for anything more to work with?!

Kari Limbo

First Appearance:Green Lantern / Green Arrow #117

by Denny O’Neil and Joe Staton with Dave Hunt

Favorite Artist: Alex Savuik

Favorite Songs: "Vanilla" by Tanya Donelly

Granted, I've loved everything Tanya has done since her days back in the Muses, from Green through Not Too Soon, her work with Kim Deal in both Breeders and This Mortal Coil, and her own projects including Belly and her self-titled albums,

but 'Vanilla" is really a rare gem, one of those hard-to-find songs that are worth every minute and penny of your searching, because the reward of getting your hands on the tune is SO heart warming, catchy, full of Tanya Donelly goodness.

  Just the other day I was telling my friend Gerg that I consider Tanya one of the finest songwriters out of that whole Alt/Rock movement, in MY opinion , anyway!

The pic on the side isn't the cover for Vanilla, by the way, as most fans will recognize it as the cover to "The Bright Light", but the blurry cover of the Pretty Deep 7" isn't so great, and Tanya looks just fantastic on this cover, so I opted for this one instead!

Tanya Donelly / Vanilla

Favorite Comics: Captain America #253-254

“Should Old Acquaintance be Forgot…"

Roger Stern and John Byrne pay respect to the Legacy of Marvel Comics' Golden Age featuring Captain America and the Invaders in this awesome story that appeared in the pages of Captain America 253 and 254.

In England, a series of terrible slasher murders are being committed. People are being killed and having the blood drained out of them. Everyone believes it to be the work of some insane serial killer, but elderly Lord Crichton of Falsworth Manor suspects something a bit more sinister. He believes the culprit to be a VAMPIRE named Baron Blood, and he has good reason to suspect it, because Lord Crichton was once UNION JACK, the heroic leader of the Invaders, who battled Baron Blood countless times during the war.

   His accusations fall upon deaf ears, however, because he is old and unwell, and everyone believes him to be getting senile. But Lord Crichton feels in his heart that he is correct, and calls upon the only person whom he knows will believe him: Captain America.

  

 I love this scene where Captain America reunites with his former team mate Spitfire, Miss Jacqueline Crichton. During the war, she was the teenage girl who had a crush on Cap, but to her sad realization, she sees that because of his years in suspended animation, he has remained young, while she has aged many years.

   I love this passage because the story reflects so much about time, how it steals strength and energy from people who were larger than life in their youth. More than this, though is the story’s underlying message of respect and friendship. It’s never clearer that when Cap has a chance to talk to Lord Crichton alone..…

Unlike everyone else in the house, Captain America is the only one who still gives  Lord Crichton the respect and dignity the former leader of The Invaders deserves. Both men are true heroes here.

Lord Crichton tells Cap that his half brother is back from he dead and will be coming to take his life. He states that his brother will continue to return from the grave until he is killed the only way to properly kill a vampire: beheading.

All suspicions are laid to rest that night, however, when Baron Blood descends upon Falsworth Manor to take out meddling Captain America.

But The Vampire is in for a surprise, when he finds Captain America wide awake and waiting! Ouch! That’s gotta hurt!

The Vampire flees as morning breaks, and thus the manhunt begins to locate the body of Baron Blood before he can strike again. All paths come up dry, however, and the group is forced to change their tactics. They must bait Baron Blood and draw him to THEM!

   They use the bait they know Baron Blood cannot resist: Having old Lord Crichton dress up again as his old foe Union Jack will be too much for the vampire to take.

  When the Baron arrives as expected at sunset, however, it is Lord Crichton’s nephew’s friend who is waiting in the suit. Together with Captain America  the two battle Baron Blood to a standstill! Time is running short for them though, because as the sun goes down, the Baron gets stronger. Quick action MUST be taken while they have the vampire against the ropes, and Cap remembers the advice Lord Crichton gave him a few days ago:

The story ends with the group destroying all the remains of Baron Blood. After the ceremony, they find that Lord Crichton has also passed on. They are satisfied though, knowing that Lord Crichton died with the knowledge that his evil half brother’s reign was over.

A terrific story full of history and respect for the legacy of the Golden Age of Marvel Comics.

More Fave Kid Books: Encyclopedia Brown

Another Children's Series I remember really, really liking was Donald J. Sobol’s juvenile mystery sleuth ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWNbooks. The first book I read in the set was ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN AND THE CASE OF THE SECRET PITCH, (a book I found buried within three filled spindles of paperbacks at the back of the school library as part of the honorback system) and at the time I wasn’t really aware that it was part of an ongoing series. But I liked that one book so much that I went down to the local library to see if there were any more, and was excited to find that there were about ten books in that set, and even now, I can’t  find the words to describe how COOL all those books looked together on the shelf! In any case, I immediately made it my mission to borrow each one, two at a time…til I’d read ‘em all!

One of the things that made Encyclopedia Brown stories so much fun was the way you were given all the clues to each case (read: chapter) and was given a moment to try and “figure it out for yourself”. Though some solutions were based on knowledge no average 3rd grader would know, (Ambergris floats? Who Knew?!) most of them were based on plain common sense, and these were the ones you could either solve yourself or at least go “Oh, yeah!! I shoulda known that!” (Like that story where the guy claimed to have hit his leg on the table, where there was a delicately stacked house of cards…!)

Besides Donald J. Sobol’s smart and fun storytelling, one of the BEST things about the book was the fantastic artwork by Leonard Shortall. Shortall illustrated in a very 1950’s suburban family style, perfectly suited for depicting Idaville, the “average American Town”. In the early books he drew with thick brush strokes, but as the series went on, Shortall’s work took on a very thin, spindly style (somewhat akin to  Roald Dahl’s drawings in his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books.) and these were my favorite illustrations of them all!

And while we’re on the subject of Shortall’s artwork, a kind of a funny thing, but back when I was obsessively and voraciously reading and re-reading the Encyclopedia Brown books, I developed this strong attraction for Sally Kimball, Encyclopedia Brown’s tomboyish second in command!! Something about how Shortall was depicting Ms. Kimball invoked images of the my ideal American sweetheart a la Lisa Whelchel or Maureen McCormick in my mind, but unlike Marcia Brady, all I got from my friends when I made this confession was strange looks!!

I once mentioned to Car about my childhood attraction to Sally Kimball, and she looked at me like I’d gone off the deep end! “But she was only a drawing in a BOOK!” she exclaimed, and…well, I really didn’t have anything to back me up! To me it didn’t seem so weird, but then again, I’m the guy who regularly posts about crushes he’s had on comic and cartoon characters, so my opinion’s probably not that great!

For me, the “Golden Age” of Encyclopedia Brown was the books I grew up with, that is, from Book 1 (Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective) through to Book 12 (The Case Of The Dead Eagles), and It had always been my wish to someday get all those books so I could reproduce that wonderful sight of the complete set with matching spines that I’d seen back during those early library visits!! Alas, the paperback versions for sale at the bookstore had entirely different covers (and some not even illustrated by Shortall!) so it seemed an impossible task.

As I got older, I’d occasionally see stray copies of Encyclopedia Brown books at rummage sales and book fairs, and on those rare occasions one of the editions from the library turned up, I grabbed it up, and with the arrival of EBAY (great at finding ex-library copies of books you remember reading as a kid, I tell you), I was finally able to complete my 12 book series with the covers I remembered from the library- the same covers I've uploaded here...! I even came across some of the paperback editions that I remember seeing growing up, which I ALSO bought! Can’t have too much nostalgia!

On the Subject of the Original Titles:

As I’ve mentioned before, I got into Encyclopedia Brown when it was on its tenth or eleventh book, and one thing that I really liked were the ambiguous titles that presented Encyclopedia Brown as the neighborhood “Ally of Justice”, with names like “Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way”, “Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day”, or “Encyclopedia Brown “Gets His Man”. The only one that was unlike the others was the second book entitled, “Encyclopedia Brown and the Case Of The Secret Pitch” which, for some reason, was named after a random case in the book.

It always bothered me, as it was SO unlike the other titles. Then I was to find that “Secret Pitch” was initially entitled “Encyclopedia Brown Strikes Again”, an appropriate title for his second outing, and very much keeping theme of the other 11 titles. Why was it changed? I guess the term “Strikes Again” sounded a little sinister, and not at all like the “Encyclopedia Brown: Ally of Justice” themes the other titles have.

Ah, but it all became a moot point when book 12 in the series came out, as that one was named after a case, too: The Case of the Dead Eagles. Then all the books after it followed suit, i.e.: The Case of the Midnight Visitor, etc… Why I’ve even noticed that they’ve gone back and changed some of the OTHER original titles into “case” titles; books like Encyclopedia Brown Lends a Hand have been retitled “The Case of the Exploding Plumbing”, proving nothing is sacred as far as childhood nostalgia!

Not that this has anything really to do with Encyclopedia Brown, but the same thing happened to Gary Larson’s FAR SIDE collections. The original books all had titles like “It Came From The Far Side” “Bride of the Far Side” and Beyond The Far Side”, etc, etc. Then one day, the seventh or eight book came out, and it was called “Night of the Crash Test Dummies” or something like that. I was like “WHAA!!”Ahahahaha!

Super-Vixens: Hela

Hela…WOW! What can you say about Hela that will do her justice?

 Borne out of Thor's Asgard mythology, Hela’s the mac-daddy of goddesses- the otherworldly embodiment of DEATH!

  I wasn’t a keen reader of Thor, and for most of my life, Thor was the one major Marvel comics that I hadn’t gotten into. For one, the stories were, for a kid, REALLY grown-up, and it was hard to follow along, and TWO, Nobody I KNEW was into it, so there was no one to “turn me onto” Thor. But I knew the characters well enough, and the spectre of Hela was always known to me, along with the other major players of the comic such as Loki, Odin, Balder, Sif and Ulik.

The first Thor story I read was printed in a Marvel book called “THE SUPERHERO WOMEN”, read while sitting on the floor of our local Waldenbooks. It was a paperback collection featuring Marvel Comics' roster of Super Heroines such as the Invisible Girl, Black Widow and Medusa, among others.

In it, they had reprinted what was one of Thor’s most well-known and heralded HELA stories, culled from issues featured in THOR #186-190, called “The Icy Grip of Death”, where Hela comes to earth to hunt down Thor and take his life.

When Stan Lee came up with this story where Hela was going to don a “human” physique and appearance a la Donald Blake, It was up to Big John Buscema to come up with how she would look, and WHOA, did he deliver!

  Hela’s mortal form, in my opinion, is SPOT-ON PERFECT! Looking at her, my first thought was, Oh my God, YES! Adopting a sultry Greta- Garbo-ish outlook ijust has to be the PERFECT container for her, for if anyone has to imagine what Hela’s voice would sound like, Garbo’s husky swedish voice ABSOLUTELY fits the bill! I was BLOWN AWAY!

Besides that, even Garbo’s PERSONALITY was akin to Hela, with her “I Vant To Be Alone” mythos…imagine the swedish Sphinx uttering Hela’s lines “Why speakest thou to me of...Love?"

It would be many, many years later til I collected the actual issues in that impressive THOR run, but even back then I knew what I had read was a classic story that would continue to shine as one of the great cornerstone THOR tales for years to come!

Hela

First appearance: Journey into Mystery #102 (March, 1964)

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Favorite Albums: Blondie / Plastic Letters

I’ve been a huge fan of Debbie Harry and BLONDIE ever since hearing their cool “Heart Of Glass” for the first time, and while I absolutely love ALL their albums, probably the one that I have the most sentimental attachment to is their 1978 release PLASTIC LETTERS.

Now, I’ll admit that a large part of how much I listened to that album had a LOT to do with how much I loved looking at that fantastic album cover. In fact, I had quite an obsession with it that started way back when I pickd up their single Call Me. On the back of that single’s picture sleeve, they had little pictures of Blondie’s catalog LPs and I remember squinting at the little B&W thumbnail of the album titled “Plastic Letters” and even as a lad of 13, remember thinking how frickin’ sexy Debbie looked sitting on that Police car, duked out in that tight, short leather dress and seductively holding her lush hair up to her face!

Back then I was merely a singles buyer, and it wasn’t until 1981’s  awesome Greatest Hits package came out that I realized that BLONDIE was this AWESOME group that DEMANDED I check out every one of their previous releases and that meant purchasing all their ALBUMS!

When I began to pick up all of Blondie’s albums, naturally one of the first ones I got was Plastic Letters, and Oh my GOSH, if I thought Debbie looked fine in that black and white thumbnail, imagine the impact it had on me holding a 12 inch album cover of the picture, and all in vibrant COLOR! The sexy dress Debbie was wearing now had the added allure of being this HOT PINK number and the famous Debbie Harry locks now drenched in the blonde color of her namesake! HOLY TOLEDO!

Turning the LP over, I was hit with yet ANOTHER incredible pic of Debbie, this time showing off the gorgeous two-toned hair she was sporting at the time, dressed in a sexy black dress and flashing that demure smile…gads, it drove me crazy, I had SUCH a MEAN crush on her! To this day, this time period is my favorite as far as Debbie’s “looks” are concerned, and the Plastic Letters cover and back are STILL my favorite pictures of her, EVER!

So , yeah, I must admit that the cover had a LOT to do with how much I listened to that album, but even so, I still think this album stands out from the others: Whereas the first album had a real “50’s” retro sound to it, and albums Parallel Lines and Eat To The Beat were kind of like “mainstream” albums featuring hit songs you heard on the radio all the time, Plastic Letters is the only album that seems like a “Post-Punk/New Wave”  record with a real “underground” sound to it.

Songs like "Fan Mail” are synthesizery poppy tunes that clearly sound like the forerunner of what groups like Missing Persons and Berlin would sound like a few years later, and yet, songs like “Cautious Lip” have all the tension and angst of a punk group (and you can’t beat that animalistic SCREAM at the end!)…and then there are the FUN songs! Tunes like “Kidnapper”, “Love At the Pier”, “I’m On E”, and “I Didn’t have the Nerve to Say No” are soooo fun and catchy, and it was a thrill to see (years later) a 1978 concert with Debbie singing there and struttin’ her stuff and sassily dancing around on stage!

For fans of the first album there are a couple of those “fifties” sounding songs here, too: “I’m Always Touched By Your Presence Dear” and “Denis” have the light-hearted touch a la Dusty Springfield, and the album is rounded out by a few VERY moody and picturesque numbers in “No Imagination”, and “Youth Nabbed As Sniper”, and the spookily X-Files sounding “Bermuda Triangle Blues”!

Blondie are still one of my favorite groups, and I still pick up everything they’ve done, including CDs and DVDs as well as their reunion efforts like No Exit and The Curse Of Blondie, and still look forward to whatever new projects they may have coming up!

Super-Vixens: Thorn

The year was 1978, and I was cruising at the local Mom n Pops sundries store reading comics, when I came upon the latest issue of SUPERMAN. Although my friend Jas was a collector of the man from Krypton (a result of worshipping the Chris Reeve movie, natch), the Superman comics really didn’t seem that interesting to me...

  That was until I spied  the latest issue on the stands that day! The issue was Superman #336, and on the cover, Supes was struggling against one of the sexiest vigilantes I’d ever seen- she was like Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson rolled into one (an assessment I probably made at the time due to my infatuation with Charlie's Angels), badass and scantily clad, to boot!

Suddenly, I decided that I really wanted to start buying Superman!

 Despite my change of heart towards Superman, my pockets only came up with about two nickels, a far cry from the 42¢ it would have taken for me to walk out of there with the comic! I wandered around the empty lots where I’d usually find a deposit bottle of two to return and make some change, but that day I came up dry! I was halfway ready to give up, when I dropped by my neighbor’s house. The fellow who lived a few doors down always had spare change in a big ashtray on his coffee table, and I begged him to spare me  a few coins to bring my finances up to scratch! After much hemming and hawing (his right) about why I needed this comic so badly, a reason I tried to dodge by saying “I Like Superman!”, he relented, and gave me the 32¢ I needed!

 I ran back down to the liquor store, and rather sheepishly paid for the comic, feeling quite sure that the gent ringing me up knew that it was only ‘cause of this sexy heroine on the cover that I was buying it! In any case, I got it, and read the story, learning all about this new heroine/villain called the Thorn, and her sweeter alter ego, Rose. New? Well, that’s what I THOUGHT! It wasn’t until years and years later that I’d discover Rose and the Thorn had been around for quite some time, appearing in the pages of LOIS LANE as the back story for many issues!  And going online, I’ve found that Rose and Thorn’s legacy is continuing on to this very day!

Although I’ve managed to check out a few of the earlier (and later) issues,and they’re sometimes written or drawn better, nothing will affect me quite like that first issue I read, written by and drawn by Dick Giordano, as THE version of Thorn that I’ve loved all these years.

Rose and Thorn

First appearance: Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #105 (Oct. 1970)

Created by: Bob Kanigher and Ross Andru

Super-Vixens: Mariah

Beautiful Russian Archaeologist Mariah arrived on the scene in the pages of Warlord in issue # 6, and has pretty much the same entry information that I put in for Morgan's OTHER female companion Tara, with the one possible difference that we actually got to see Mariah in "civilization" clothing before she adopted the more traditional Mike Grell super girl duds.

Mariah

First Appearance: Warlord #6 by Mike Grell

Beatles Live At The BBC!

People tend to write off THE BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC double album as nothing more than a bunch of recordings taken from a live Radio Show. Well…yeah, that’s what they ARE, but it’s more than that, too!  

   When the Beatles were clubbing and touring in their early days, most of their set consisted of covers of their favorite songs at the time, songs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, and others.

   By the time the Beatles were releasing albums, their OWN compositions were filling the tracks, but they always put at least a couple of songs from their club sets onto their albums, songs like SLOW DOWN, BAD BOY, ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN, BOYS, A TASTE OF HONEY, BABY, IT’S YOU, LONG TALL SALLY, and YOU REALLY GOT A HOLD ON ME.  

   On BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC, you get to hear a whole plethora of songs they covered that never made it onto ANY of their albums. The thing about it is, these songs are performed REALLY TIGHT, and you can hear the joy in their voices as they sing- they really love these songs!

 

  There are even a couple of songs (Keep your Hands Off My Baby, I Forgot To Remember To Forget) that actually sound pre-recorded, the performance is so tight.   The cool thing about these covers is that they aren’t merely re-done, rather, they are taken and given a “Beatley” twist to them.

 

Songs like Elvis Presley’s “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry over You” has been given a Beatles “Wooooh!”, The Coasters’ “Young Blood” has John saying “What’s Your Name?” in his hilarious "simpleton" slur, and Chuck Berry’s “I Got to Find My Baby” has a real sweet Beatles riff towards the end of the song! 

  Even songs that DID make their way to Beatles Albums sound different and interesting: At this stage in the game, JOHN was still singing lead on “Honey Don’t” (which later went to Ringo on Beatles For Sale), and it is a real foot-stomper! 

   I always tell my friends that you could take the unreleased songs from the double album, and make ONE fine Beatles single album! By my estimation, the tracks to consider:

 I Got A Woman (cool George guitar picking)

Too Much Monkey Business (George rocks in the middle!)

Keep Your Hands Off My Baby (pre-recorded? Background vocals sweet!)

I’ll Be On My Way (AWESOME Lennon/McCartney song never put on album!)

Young Blood (Awesome, Fun song with George lead)

A Shot Of Rhythm and Blues

Some Other Guy (Killer song, featured on the ANTHOLOGY special)

That’s All Right (Elvis song featuring a driving Ringo beat!)

Carol (nice George guitar talk-back to John’s vocals)

Soldier of Love (a bit of “Baby It’s You” here)

Clarabella (Paul doing his “Little Richard” style vocals here)

Nothin’ Shakin

Crying, Waiting, Hoping  (cool version of Buddy Holly song)

To Know Her is to Love Her (early “This Boy” influence?)

Memphis, Tennessee (John doing Johnny Rivers!)

Lonesome Tears in my Eyes

Sweet Little Sixteen (I can’t believe this never made it to album!)

Hippy Hippy Shake I Forgot to Remember to Forget (awesome George vocal)

Ooh My Soul

I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry Over You (Elvis song turned Skiffle beat!)

I Got To Find My Baby (rockin’!)

Honey Don’t (John Vocal-kicks ass!)

Don’t Ever Change The Honeymoon Song (a real Paul-type song, nice!)

Yes, the quality here isn’t great, and in spots can be pretty thin (this is probably why they kept this from the public so long!), but these were radio broadcasts, and to hear new/unheard music by The Beatles is such a rare thing!