YODEL-AY-HEE-HOOOOOOOOOOOO

The upcoming "Spider-Man" musical, directed by Julie "Lion King" Taymor and with songs by U2, was semi-previewed this week and here's some news:

"Ishioka’s costumes were breathtaking — a rogues gallery of the villains that appear onstage in the musical received audible gasps from the audience, including the Green Goblin, Lizard, Kraven, Swarm, and a new female villain created at the behest of Taymor, Swiss Miss (dressed in immaculate white dominatrix gear and multiple knives)."

Now, I get why Swarm might be in this show. After all, there is a HUGE untapped audience of fans of obscure villains from "The Champions". But "Swiss Miss" just puts the parafin-wax on my homemade fudge. I mean, hells yes, The Swiss Miss girl is hot, and anyone who wouldn't want to tap that is just crazy. She is truly the ALMOST-ultimate male fantasy: a porn-y blonde who speaks broken English, bearing chocolate. But I just don't see how she is gonna fit into the rogue's gallery, unless it is later revealed that she is really Gwen Stacy, who went mad after ingesting too many tiny marshmallows. That would be cool because it wouldn't be Mary Jane.

MEME, YOU FUNNY LITTLE GOOD FOR NOTHING, MEME

~P~ of Sanctum Sanctorum Comix showed the darker side of his nature in tagging moi for a meme. There's a special place for meme taggers and I'll see you there, ~P~!

As requested, here are the rules...

The Rules
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Write six random things about yourself.
4) Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

And now, six random things about me...

1. I auditioned for the role of Mallory on TV's Family Ties. Needless to say, I didn't get it. Damn you, Justine Bateman!
   
2. I can watch three NFL games in one day without breaking a sweat.
   
3. I've seen every movie Bob Hope ever made. Even Call me Bwana.
4. The scariest thing I've ever done is ride a giant Ferris wheel run by an ex-con named Spyder at a tiny town fair in Maine.
   
5. When I was five I wore cowboy boots with everything including my PJs.
   
6. I just started reading comics last year, which should explain why I don't know doodle about them.

Now, since I'm new to the Blogosphere, I don't know any fellow bloggers who haven't already been tagged, so I can't name the next victims. However, if there are any lurkers out there who would like to take up the meme mantel, please do! And show yourselves sometime. :-)

COVER TO NOT SO MUCH JIZZ OVER - WONDER WOMAN #212 (1975)

Hi! I'm a DC cover from the same era as Marvel's "Team-Up" #40, and I am colosally fucking boring and why don't you just shoot me in the head and get it over with.

I believe that what is going on here is that Wonder Woman is not experiencing a shorter, lighter period (there was no YAZ back then and women had to just drink a lot of Rum And Tab), and the mightiest heroes ever are trying to cheer her up, but they know they will get their heads chopped off if they try. "Hey, Diana, you w-wanna, I don't know, go fight some crime?" "FUCK YOU!!!" "Okay, raincheck."

COVERS TO JIZZ OVER 1 - MARVEL TEAM-UP #40 (1975)

Lookee at dat! Back in the day (choose a day) Marvel's covers exploded off the newsstand, grabbed your visual cortex by the ganglia, lifted you upside down and shook 25 cents out of your pocket. Yes, comics were a quarter back then. A friggin' quarter.

Sal Buscema never, ever did anything small or mundane. As much as people justifiably swoon over the energy of Jack Kirby's art, Sal's art has just as much power, bombast and clarity. His men were cleanly handsome and his women were unthreateningly gorgeous (except for Valkyrie, whose jutting metal breastplates could have led to congressional hearings, were the powers-that-be paying attention to comics back then. Thank God they weren't, because a lot of pre-teens would be devoid of women to have awkward, warm, funny dreams about).

Every week at the newsstand there were at least five Marvel covers that looked like this. They made DC covers look like Jehovah's Witness primers.

WELL, THAT EXPLAINS "SPIDER-MAN 3"

SPIDER-MAN 4 - IGN has quotes from director Sam Raimi who would like fewer cooks in the kitchen next time. "They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually," Raimi said. "But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn't really have creative control, so to speak. The best way for me to move forward on films, I realise... and this was a lesson I had to learn for myself... is that I've gotta be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film. I love Spider-Man so much that I'd like to continue telling Spider-Man stories but only under those circumstances where I think I can honour him. I don't think I can honour him any other way." Thanks to Holden for the heads up on that.

SPOILER ALERT! - FUTURE DOCTOR STRANGE ARC

Doctor Strange has lost his title as Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. But, fear not Strange-o-philes! Award-winning scribe Brian Michael Bendis has an exciting new job in store for your favorite erstwhile Master of the Mystic Arts - Starbuck's Barista!

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON #161 HAS THE BEST FIGHT SCENE, EVER

Bow down before the altar of Our Pal Sal Buscema.