Book review: Marvel Masterworks: Iron Fist Volume 1

Well, this is another kinda "accidental" purchase, as in I forgot I bid on the dang thing on eBay one late night. Color me surprised when I saw the notice saying I won something. But like yesterday's Young Marvelman Classic situation, this was a nice oversight.

Iron Fist was my introduction to to the world of martial arts, in the sense I had never read a martial arts comic (like Master of Kung Fu) or seen a chop-socky flick (like Master of the Flying Guillotine) before I picked up my copy of Marvel Premiere #15 at Gene's Superette in Amherst, Wisconsin. Even then I could tell the story had a golden age feel, but I hadn't known about Amazing Man back then.  I really enjoyed that first issue, but the problem I had was that I never got to read the rest of the origin story.

Back then, in Wisconsin, comics and magazines were distributed via this orange-yellow cube truck that hit the various grocery stores and drugstores during the week. You never knew what was going to turn up in this week's selection, and if you weren't there on a Thursday, you might never know. The next time I saw Iron Fist was in an issue of Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man (an issue that I think really should have been in the collection) and then in the first issue of his own comic, fighting Iron Man. I found that one nearly a year later at Hal's Red Owl in nearby Stevens Point. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Marvel Premiere title in that period. That was always the problem of being a comic book fan living in the boonies.

Anyway, this book finally allowed me to read all those missing issues. The stories hold up over the decades that have passed. The artwork is great, by such stalwarts as Gil Kane, Dick Giordano, Pat Broderick, Larry Hama, and of course, John Byrne. Byrne and Chris Claremont did their first work together in this title, just prior to their innovative run on Uncanny X-Men.

The series really shows how good comics in the seventies could be, with strong characters and concepts. The only thing I noticed is that, like a lot of the lower-tier Marvel titles, it had a virtual carousel of writers for that Marvel Premiere outing. The series luckily kept the consistency of the first few issues under Roy Thomas' watch for the entire run.

This really wasn't a series that I would've thought would get a Marvel Masterworks treatment. I kind of guess that the allure of the early Claremont/Byrne collaboration was enough to push it to the forefront. Personally, I hope they also consider giving Luke Cage, Hero for Hire/Power Man the requisite fancification; I like the two Essentials books, but sweet Christmas, Luke deserves the full-color shebang, too.

Marvel Masterworks: Iron Fist Volume 1 is a good read and a nice look back at when Marvel was really beginning to fire on all cylinders. Any Marvel fan might want to give it a go.

Book review: Young Marvelman Classic Volume 1

This was not a book I was thinking I'd read. Sure, I bought it off Amazon, but I had tried to buy MARVELMAN CLASSICS vol. 1, and got sent this instead. Well, at least it's still Mick Anglo's take on the Marvel Family, post-DC copyright lawsuit win. (By the way, the seller, FunFoodandFashion on Amazon, made everything right, and will be getting my return business.)

The art and the stories in this hardcover are actually pretty good. The British comic book always seemed a tad different than their US counterpart to me. I'm thinking because they always seemed to come out every week rather than every month like we're used to - they always seemed a little hurried. Up until the sixties, they had a definite golden age minimalism about them. If you're looking at the cover and expecting that kind of artwork on the inside, I'd go buy some Rob Liefeld if I were you. Always better to be disappointed by something you know is gonna suck beforehand.

The stories in this book are no hokier than C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel tales were: Simple, straight-forward, a lot of action, and a bit of pleasant goofiness. One thing I found odd is that the stories appear to be set in a vaguely US city rather than a British one. Maybe Mick Anglo was using ideas that were in the final Marvel Family stories and kept that aspect? I don't know, and I suppose it doesn't really matter. They're solid comic book stories.

I think of the three artists in represented in this book, George Parlett has the style I like best - very stark, with fine detail. It reminds me of the comic book art in the A-Ha video "Take on Me" for some reason. The other two artists, James Bleach and Frank Daniels, aren't quite as refined, but all are very enjoyable to look at.

This book is ALL black and white on newsprint stock, with the exception of a full color section at the end that features the original covers on glossy paper. If you like comic books in general, I don't think that's going to bother you too much, if it wasn't for the price tag. I wouldn't pay the $35 cover price for these though; there are plenty on Amazon and eBay for considerably less.

This was an unexpected jaunt into an area of comic books I'm a little unfamiliar with, so I'll have to say I enjoyed Young Marvelman Classics Vol. 1. I'll be looking out for inexpensive copies of the rest of the series, and the rest of the Marvelman reprints.

Movie review: Star Trek Into Dullness

I finally got around to watching Star Trek Into Darkness, and I have to say it's probably the worst Star Trek movie I've seen. Even worse than The Final Frontier or The Search for Spock or even Nemesis.

It's just simply a bad movie. There's far too much retreading plot elements from the first movie, and it's so unbelievable that they could remake Wrath of Khan to begin with ... of course, that's about all Hollywood can do nowadays is remake movies.

Did there need to be another major skydive in this movie, too? And while I love Leonard Nimoy, the first thing Alternate Spock does is check with his Real Universe older self and have him break his code against revealing the future (or at least the future as it should've been). Wow, Kirk gets demoted, again? Surprise, surprise. Oh, and of course Kirk had to be shown in bed with alien wenches again, right? And those fucking lens flares! I wonder if McCoy's main job on the ship is optometrist.

There were too many things in this movie that just made no sense. If people can beam over intergalactic distances, why bother with starships? Even Scotty's pissed off about them using his Transwarp equation for that.

Oh, and Khan's blood doesn't just heal people; it can raise the dead. Well, I guess there's no need to worry about the Klingons now. We can just resurrect anyone they kill. The third movie's gonna be might dull. Apparently Carol Marcus will be in her skivvies for most of that film to keep peoples' attention.

Let's poke around and find the good things in Into Dullness:  Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy,  who I swear is channeling the late DeForest Kelley he's so spot on. Simon Pegg was good as Scotty as well. Peter Weller's performance was excellent but completely wasted. The special effects were okay; typically overblown as most "blockbuster"/"tent-pole" movies are nowadays. There comes a point when there's almost TOO much going on in a scene for anyone to comprehend what they should be following for the sake of the story.

Then there's Khan, with the now-officially over-exposed Benedict Cumberbatch. He's great in Sherlock. Hell, he's now more Sherlock than Rathbone and Brett in some quarters (not mine). But he's no Ricardo Montalban when it comes to Khan. He's just too smarmy and there's no warmth in his performance. Montalban's Khan was a complete bastard, but you felt other emotions in him as well. Cumberbatch's Khan is just too superhuman living weapon and nothing else. The exact opposite of Chris Pine's Kirk.

The only real way this movie could've saved itself would've been for Kirk to have remained dead. That would've been a good impetus for any future movies in the series - find a Captain who's not a complete jerk. Chris Pine's adolescent performance makes you wish Bill Shatner would stop by and slap some sense into him. He may have been a ham at times, but at least Shatner could play a goddamn captain. All Pine is portraying is a drunk, sex-crazed, young punk.

If I had to rate this movie with some fanciful ratings system, it would get maybe One Phaser Bank out of however many the Enterprise may have now. A complete letdown on so many levels, it isn't even funny.

However, this is:

***

Now available on Amazon.com:

The Monster Quiz Book 
By Rich Meyer

In paperback and e-book!

Godzilla, Frankenstein, Rodan, the Blob, Bigfoot ... they're all monsters you may encounter in the Monster Quiz Book! 500 questions and answers about monsters of all kinds: Giant kaiju, man-made creatures, monsters of legend, beasts of myth, movie-spawned horrors and even a few you might encounter in real-life! Hours of family-friendly fun with this quiz book!

I Blame Society for Making Me Create These Bad Covers

Please forgive me. I was led astray by baaad people. 

The Killers - the comic book!

In the spirit of Charlton Comics' David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, and Partridge Family titles from the early seventies, here comes: The Killers!

Not Quite the Avengers #100

I've been posting these on Facebook lately, so I thought I'd post a couple here. Just a little Photoshop work to pass the time as I procrastinate doing actual stuff that might be useful.

First up, two versions of The Avengers #100:

The Avengers meet the Avengers.

And, apparently a little later, the other Avengers assemble!

Hard to work this one up effectively, since there are so few pictures, color or otherwise, available of John Steed's first three associates (David Keel, Martin King and Venus Smith). 

That's all for today, folks! Hope you enjoyed 'em!

Kneel Before Zon!

One of the new big things that a lot of the fear-mongers have focused up lately is the fact that Amazon, on their forums and in e-mails, have stated that a reader doesn't have to read a book in order to review it. As if there weren't already far too many things the Evil 'Zon was doing to stick and twist the knives into the backs of independent authors.

Well, it's true. And that's a fact that's not just true for Amazon. It is a fact for ANY review, ANYWHERE. How do you prove someone read a book? Should they have to take a test on what they read? Y'know, like we often had to do in grade school. Well, at least my classes did. That and book reports. Oh wait, a book report is kind of a review, too, isn't it? With a lot more spoilers we actually expect.

At least Amazon has a differentiation between verified sales and people just wandering to the site after <shudder> reading the book at a library. I guess those folks shouldn't have the ability to leave a review in a perfect world. Bad enough those cheap bastiches didn't buy the book to begin with right? Oh crap, I think my Overdrive loan is almost up! I better go check...

Nope, still got a week. Anyway, if the people are upfront and honest by saying "Well, I didn't read this book, but I am making this comment because <insert reason here>" or "I read the preview and it didn't inspire me to read the rest. This is why <insert reason here>", I don't see the problem. It is an honest evaluation of their feelings on the book in question, and why they are making that particular statement at that particular time.

Authors have got to remember one thing: Reviews are NOT for authors. Reviews are for other people - potential readers, potential users, potential customers. They are paeans to quality or warnings for dreck. Some folks make them humorous, some detailed and sophisticated, some just emulate Frankenstein with a "Book good! or "Book bad!" Most potential customers know how to take what is written in reviews with a grain of salt.

If I see a book with nothing but five-star reviews, that smells of yesterday's fish. If I see fifty five-star, a smattering of two- to four-stars, and six one-star, then I can actually gauge what's going on in a book. There's at least a few people who weren't reviewing out of some sort of obligation or agenda.

No one likes everything, and consequently, everything is not liked by everyone. If an author can't understand that fact, they would be better off in another, less criticism-driven profession. Everyone's got a book in them, they say. But not everyone has the skills to get that book out to the masses properly. It's a sad truth; not every writer out there now should necessarily be a writer. I think You've got to have a few chops in order to get the job done. I think everyone should at least try once, but to make sure you have your head and ego about you before you make that decision to hit the publish button.  If you don't, you are just opening yourself up for disappointment.

One way to avoid bad reviews is to write better. Forget the politics, forget the bullshit and WRITE! It's a great thing to learn by doing and it won't cost you a bloody cent!  Rather than wasting your time worrying about bad reviews (or bad reviews that the Evil Zon is foisting upon you, of course), try perfecting your craft a bit more and then try publishing crap that doesn't have a bloody agenda beyond entertaining, informing or selling books! That's what you're doing this for, isn't it?

I've gotten bad reviews. I've left bad reviews. I've gotten glowing reviews and left the same. I've gotten some reviews from people who obviously didn't read my book. Oh, it cut me so deeply to the heart. Not.  Guess what? I don't let it get to me. Why? Because in the long run, it's not all that important a thing. I could get all bitter and vindictive, but then when would I find the time to be a proper smart ass and wiseacre?   That's a word that really needs to come back into common usage. Along with the name "Gertrude." It's a fine name. It's got character. I had a chicken with that name when I was a lad.

The Pros and Cons of Facebooking (with apologies to Roger Waters).

There are some days when you realize, even on the small scale of Facebook, what kind of people there are in the world. There are those misguided to the point of evil, and those who are more than willing to go to bat for what's right.

Things start weird sometimes. I think deep down, people usually have good intentions; people want to help others. It's part of being social creatures, even if it's just the virtual sociability of the internet. Someone asks what they think is a legitimate question or concern. Someone posts an opinion on a situation. Other people chime in with answers and additional information. Often times, a question gets answered or a problem gets solved. Everyone gets happy and moves on with their lives.

But there are those who don't really want any real help or advice. What they post is the only position on a topic that they care to embrace. An opposing view is anathema. Pointing out a flaw in their view of the topic is a cause for outrage. Logical thought? That goes out the window, as the individual feels obligated to mount a major defense against all those who would dare to shake the foundations of their worldview.

The details are never important. Vengeance must be theirs! There is a sense of justice to be assuaged, and it can only be done through righteousness! But ... that righteous furor must not be traced back to them. Oh, no. That would look bad on them. So let's allow some imaginary friends to come into play. Revenge and a clean slate! No one will know! They will be getting over on the whole world, not just those pitiful fools who dared to challenge them with things as untoward as facts. Only then can they sleep at night.

A group of my Facebook friends, all authors or reviewers, were unfortunately put in this sort of situation this week. The details of the offense aren't important; needless to say we tried to give someone some clarity on what could end up being a litigious point. What happened afterward is also not that important, other than to say everyone who attempted to provide that clarity was mercilessly insulted and defamed by a fake account of the individual.

What is important is that, unlike said individual, real friends came to each other's defense, getting nearly all of the libelous posts removed from Facebook, while providing succor and support to each other. Many of us are real serious about our art. Many of us just goof around. Many of us are mixtures of both ends of that spectrum. But ALL of us came together to offer support to those defamed by this malicious attack.

And that will probably make the individual in question even more annoyed and self-righteous. Unlike that person, we all had real people to offer that support. Not a figment of their imagination defending them. But good people.

To those people, I give my undying thanks. They know who was drawn into this miasma for no reason, and helped me solve the problem.

To the individual who did this, actually, you also have my thanks. I knew I had good friends on Facebook, but it takes an incident like this to truly appreciate the etheric tendrils that link folks together. Unlike you, we have each other's backs. I feel nothing but pity for you, stuck in your tiny world of hate. Best of luck to you on your future endeavors, and I hope you find something that will soothe whatever ails you inside.

Flash Fiction: Meta-Lovecraft.

“No!” screamed James. “That chant is for certain to bring forth one of the Old Ones!”

James tossed the knife into the chest of the necromancer, hoping to forestall the inevitable. But he knew it was too late. James noticed a black form oozing into existence in front of the gateway and his blood turned cold.

A strange feeling came over Bob as he finished typing, a strange, sick reverberation that got to his very bones.

“Hah!” He said out loud triumphantly. “If that can make me feel creepy just by typing it, it’s gonna knock the socks off my readers!”

He clicked “Save” with his mouse and leaned back in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. Black and glistening, it filled the doorway to his room. His eyes had little time to focus as the blackness surged forward. It knocked him off his chair and he was completely enveloped by the cool moistness. Almost immediately, the pain began - searing, burning pain, as if acid was burning through his clothes, his skin, his eyes, his throat.

It was quick, as death’s go, but he felt every nanosecond of it. And as his body dissolved and even his fear was absorbed by the blackness, his last thought was: “This would’ve been a great ending for the book!”

Rich looked at the screen and sighed. Another flash fiction story finished, he sighed to himself. Rich grabbed his Mountain Dew and turned, only to face the blackn

Flash Fiction: The cost of a virtual easement in the funny papers.

“Okay, this is what happens,” George said with an evil gleam in his eye. “First, I make a long razor slice from the back of your neck down to your butt. Then I peel off all of your skin like a suit.”

George smiled a little more. “Next, I cover you in rubber cement. After that, I roll you in broken glass."

George offhandedly added, "And then I shake three drops of tabasco on your backside." George thought for a moment. "Oh, what the heck, I'll squeeze a lemon and add some salt there, too."

“Then it’s time to pull that skin suit back on.” George said triumphantly. “Then it's time for a short trip, as I push you down the cellar steps.”

George's eyes narrowed. "Do you understand now, boys?"

The boys just looked at George with a shocked glazed over their eyes.

After a few seconds, Dennis slowly turned to Joey and whispered “Gee, maybe we shouldn’t cut across Mr. Wilson's yard anymore, huh?”

Book Review: Fun with Reid Fleming

Reid Fleming: The World's Toughest Milkman was my initial foray into the world of alternative and underground comic books. David Boswell's characters, originally presented in Heartbreak Comics, were collected in a single issue in the early eighties. Reid Fleming resonated with me for some reason ... I guess back in those days I liked the ol' ultraviolence, since I did read Wolverine, and the sarcasm and parody helped things along quite well. Fun with Reid Fleming reprints all of Reid's adventures (at least all the ones I know about). 

The story is simple: Reid's a milkman, and he doesn't care too much about his job. He's a veritable Everyman for anyone who's been stuck in the boring drudgery of the modern rat race. Reid gives free rein to our Everyman and all of our inclinations to not take any shit from the people who confront us. Change your milk order at the last minute and Reid will piss in your flower garden. Insult his unique hairstyle, and he will chase your car down on foot and put a lit cigarette in your gas tank.  And woe and be tide you if you are Reid's boss. His supervisor, Mr. Crabbe, gets the brunt of Reid's anger. Crabbe's already got a lot against him, being mistaken for a twin of the Frankenstein Monster. Somehow, kindly milk company owner Mr. Clock puts up with Reid's shenanigans, though he's also not afraid to butt both Reid and Crabbe's heads together when necessary. 

Reid Fleming lives his own hedonistic way, and the highlight of his daily life is watching his favorite TV show, The Dangers of Ivan, about a spy who doesn't even let death stop him. The existential story often parallels Reid's own life. 

The only woman in Reid's life, besides irate customers that is, is Lena, an actress who is both drawn and repulsed by the dairy delivery technician. Fellow milkman Cooper is Reid's only friend, though he's often napping his way through most of Reid's exploits. 

Fun with Reid Fleming reprints Reid Fleming: The World's Toughest Milkman, and the four-issue Rogues to Riches storyline. David Boswell's intricate pen-and-ink work is a beauty to behold, with some of the finest cross-hatching you will see ... and never overblown like an Image Comic.

This Eclipse Books volume is definitely a book worth looking out for on Amazon or eBay, and is usually relatively inexpensive (under $10 USD). It's a small little world, but it's funny and engrossing and shows you that super-heroes were once not not the only things in comic books.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON FOR THE KINDLE

THE COMIC BOOK QUIZ BOOK

Volume 4

By Rich Meyer

Here we go again with another foray into comic book trivia! This time around, there are 500 questions (and answers) about the X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, Harvey Comics (including Casper and Richie Rich), the Justice League of America, the Fantastic Four, the Mighty Crusaders, the Tick, DC Comics' legendary Showcase Presents, and Dell Publishing's Four Color Comics series. 

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009DRDBI4
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009DRDBI4
CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B009DRDBI4
DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B009DRDBI4

Movie Review: Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

While I never got to see this film when it was in the theatres, Koyaanisqatsi has become one of my favorite movies. 

The film has no narrative, other than any the viewer cares to imagine it has. There's no real darkness, say  like in a sublime movie like Eraserhead; this is just movie just shows life and the world the way it is. Any story, any theme you think you see ... well, that's you. 

The film's subtitle is "Life Out of Balance", which is ostensibly what the word "koyaanisqatsi" means in the Hopi language. The movie begins with a simple cave drawing, and switches to a rocket launch. After that, we have numerous picturesque sequences of landscapes, the sea, clouds, and the like, followed soon by the inclusion of humanity and it's technology, in the form of large trucks, power plants, and cities. After that, the films goes through the myriad stages of life in modern society: Movement of vehicles and people, people at work, people enjoying a break, industry and stores, night life, the dawning of a new day...the comparison between modern society and a machine can clearly inferred by a number of contrasting images. The film processes through all these vistas, returning to a failed rocket launch, and the cave drawing from the start. 

A clip from Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Godfrey Reggio was the director of this film, which took nearly ten years to finish, given the rather Lynchian approach taken to filming and financing. There was no real script and while some stock footage was used, most of the movie was filmed firsthand by Reggio's cinematography Ron Fricke.

The panoramas and time-lapse cinematography of this movie is at times breath-taking, even now in these days of CGI masterworks. The film is a precursor of a lot of programs on basic cable, like How It's Made and many Discovery Channel documentaries. I bet a lot of people have seen parts of this movie and not realized that they come from a greater whole; I know the Hostess Twinkie packaging line segment came on the disc that had my very first video driver on it, way back in the early nineties. The various vistas can also be disturbing: Hordes of empty blocks of apartments ready to be demolished, a street that, until you see the fire engine, looks to be in a third world country instead of New York, among others.

Some Law Vegas workers.

It is truly fascinating to watch the flow of people as they move in the city-segments; even with these pictures, it's still almost hard to get your head around the number of people involved in the day-to-day activities of a modern city ... the constant line of people on the streets, on the escalators and in the stores.

I'm sure this movie is a hit-or-miss for a lot of folks. Some will see it as pretentious, some will see it as a lot of nothing, and of course some will see it as a masterpiece. I'm of the latter category. Imagine an hour-and-a-half travelogue that makes you think. That's the lowest common denominator explanation of Koyaanisqatsi that I can come up with. The film is really a lot more than that, but any movie that actually makes an audience think rather than just bask in visuals is a good thing.

AVAILABLE FOR THE KINDLE ON AMAZON.COM

THE TRIVIA QUIZ BOOK: VOLUME 5

By Rich Meyer

And away we go with another e-book of 500 easily used questions and answers about a variety of trivial topics. This quiz book features questions on cult films, the radio program "Lum and Abner," the comic book super-hero team the Avengers, advertising slogans, Bugs Bunny, fictional detectives, big bands, board games, cult movies, and the TV show "The Twilight Zone." Family-friendly fun for everyone!

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008K50WVO

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008K50WVO

CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008K50WVO

DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B008K50WVO

http://www.hulu.com/watch/27800

Movie Review: Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster a.k.a. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster was the first Godzilla movie I ever watched.

Japanese movie poster

Again, this was back when TV channels actualy played watchable programming. WSAU Channel 7 in Wausau, Wisconsin, one of the few channels we could actually get  in the middle of Portage County, broadcast this one as part of the CBS Late Night Movie.

This was a message movie I found a little heavy-handed even back then. Pollution was the big message - hell, the monster's name, Hedorah, means "pollution" in Japanese supposedly. The moving rivers of gunk and junk made the Cuyahoga River look like the ol' swimming hole back home. And that song "Save the Earth" still annoys me to this day, even when listening to the Japanese version of it.

You've got your precocious kid, a kindly scientist, an acid trip, a slimy monster and Godzilla. Pretty formulaic for the genre. Even with the acid trip, which I didn't figure out exactly what it was until years later. Or allegedly found out. No, I found out the proper way wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more, squire.

Hedorah sucking up some car exhausts.
And some cars. 

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster is definitely a kid's movie. Like most of the kaiju output of the seventies, the only adults that would really be going were parents or the die-hard genre fans. That said, there is a lot of random death and destruction. Destruction, yeah, you're gonna have that in any kaiju movie, but out-and-out death? Not too often. This one clearly shows parts of Hedorah flying off while Godzilla was spinning him around, crashing in and killing (by drowning) a bunch of mah-jongg players. The main young adult who worked with Dr. Yano and organizes the bonfire event at the base of Mount Fuji appears to be one of the casualties when Hedorah spits a blob of mud at him and some others who were tossing torches. It's not often that a main character on the side of the angels buys the farm in a Godzilla movie.

Hedorah would be a great kaiju in these days of advanced CGI. It would be easy to turn him into an much more amorphous blob that would probably engender a lot more terror from the audience. Unfortunately, he still has the same rotting-cabbage-head appearance in his brief scenes in Godzilla Final Wars, I guess since he was just a walk-on in that monster fest.

The only version of this movie available right now is the DVD, which uses the international dubbing. While it does make a lot more sense in some of the story points, it doesn't have the charm of the original American Pictures International dubbing. I think one of the last times I saw that version was on a mid-nineties episode of Chiller Theatre on WLUK out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, complete with horror host Ned the Dead. And that's the way you should be watching these goofy flicks, along with a tongue firmly in your cheek.



Trailer for Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971)

AVAILABLE FOR THE AMAZON KINDLE

FREE TO BORROW FOR AMAZON PRIME USERS

1,001 COMIC BOOK TRIVIA QUESTIONS
(Comic Book Quiz Book Volume 3)
By Rich Meyer

Here's truth in advertising: 1,001 trivia questions (and answers) about comic books! All genres, hundreds of popular characters, easy ones and stumpers ... hours of family fun!

Thor, the X-Men, Green Lantern, the Pink Panther, the Hulk, the Avengers, Batman - there are questions on nearly every comic book character you can think of in this quiz e-book.


US:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YUL0CQ
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007YUL0CQ

CA:  http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B007YUL0CQ
DE:  http://www.amazon.de/dp/B007YUL0CQ

Movie Review: Alphaville (1965)

"No one has lived in the past. No one will live in the future. The present is the only form of life. It is a state of existence which is indestructible. "  

-- Alpha-60.

Alphaville (1965) is one of my favorite foreign films. It is also that rare foray into existential science fiction that actually works on the screen, and is as much of a success in that category as Solaris (1972).

Jean Luc Goddard's "thinking-man's noir", is based on the adventures of a popular secret agent/private detective created by Englishman Peter Cheyney. This version of Lemmy Caution was a great leap from the previous prose and film versions of the character; This Caution is a tired and beaten man, trying to do his duty in a city without hopes or dreams. Eddie Constantine portrayed Caution, just as he did in several other movies, but his new interpretation of the character shocked many audiences. Lemmy Caution was normally more sprightly and upbeat ... but it's hard to see anyone being happy in the city of Alphaville.

The gist of the mostly-improvised story is that Caution, posing as a journalist, is supposed to find out what happened to the last agent sent into Alphaville, and to find and stop the plans of Professor Von Braun, the creator of the sentient computer Alpha-60, which does all the thinking for everyone in the forlorn metropolis. 

Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution

Alpha-60 outlawed concepts such as love and emotion; even crying over someone's death has a penalty of summary execution. Alpha-60 has even erased words from society. Each room has a "bible", which unlike the ones provided by the Gideons, is actually a dictionary, which can be replaced several times a day as more and more words and concepts are banished to oblivion. 

The movie also looks at how the heroic can fail. Lemmy Caution seems to be on the verge at times, but his willingness to beat the computer has him holding on tightly to his principles and values. He finds his fellow agent Henry Dickson (played splendidly by Akim Tamiroff) near destitute and living only for his own baser pleasures. A conversation between the two mentions that both Dick Tracy and Guy LeClair are also dead, apparently figuratively killed by the emotionless world of Alphaville, if not by literally agents of the super computer. 

Goddard puts in several strange pop references into the film, as if to subtly hint as to what's going on. Professor Von Braun's real name is Leonard Nosferatu, an aside to the classic F.W. Murnau movie about Count Orlock the vampire. Two of his assistants in the bureaucracy of Alpha-60 are named Professors Heckle and Jeckle, after the comical Terrytoons magpies.  Von Braun is constantly denying that Nosferatu exists, and the two Professors just explain the strange goings on to Caution amid people tap-dancing on tables and clackering computer machinery. 

Anna Karina as Natasha 

Depending on how one goes into a viewing of Alphaville, the movie can seem either arcane or very cheap. Caution's Ford Mustang is called a Ford Galaxy, and he states he hopes to use it to put the "vast gulf of sidereal space" between him and Alphaville. The stark black-and-white cinematography can also lean toward the uninitiated looking at the film as a cheap production, rather than the existential work it really is; there are no fancy special effects, even of the limited kind available in science fiction films of the era. The photography gives the movie a claustrophobic feel that's necessary for understanding what's going on in the characters' minds, or at least what's left of them. 

The movie has been favorably compared to Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, and Goddard was definitely influenced by that classic, all the way to the ending admonition of Caution to Natasha to not look back at the city as they were leaving it. The real highlight of the film is the word play in the battle of wills between Caution and Alpha-60, each putting forth his own philosophy until one becomes the victor.

This is one of those movies that I naturally had to replace the VHS when it came out on DVD. The Criterion Collection DVD of Alphaville has a great transfer of the original film in French, but the subtitles are slightly different than the dubbing of my old copy, which I purchased from Sinister Cinema way back when I got my first VCR. Most of the new translations make a bit more sense than what I was used to hearing, which is a good thing, but it's a little confusing at time. Luckily, I've watched this film so many times that neither the sound nor subtitles really matter. 

The film's the thing, to paraphrase the Bard, and Alphaville is a movie that it would behoove most movie fans to give a try. It's Goddard so the film snob in you can be happy, and it's hard-boiled for the blue collar side of the equation. And it makes you think, which a good movie is supposed to do. 

AVAILABLE FOR THE KINDLE ON AMAZON.COM

THE 99-CENT QUIZ BOOK OMNIBUS EDITION
By Rich Meyer

This omnibus is a compendium of all four volumes of the 99-Cent Quiz Book series. All of the original 400 questions and answers are here, on Cliffhanger Movie Serials, Television Westerns, Comic Strips, and Horror Movies. 

As an added feature, there are also forty (40) bonus questions about those same topics. This quiz e-book omnibus is great for several evenings of family-friendly and fact-filled fun!


US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AH04L5I
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AH04L5I

CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00AH04L5I
DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00AH04L5I

Movie Review: Godzilla vs. Gigan, a.k.a. Godzilla on Monster Island (1972)

Japanese movie poster

 Great poster there on the left, ain't it? Next to Destroy All Monsters, I think it's the best of the series. Too bad that poster is for the movie that is the nadir of the Godzilla series: Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972).

The film was released briefly to US screens as  Godzilla on Monster Island, though the Big G doesn't spend a lot of time there.

The basic story is that an alien race of cockroaches have come to take over Earth since the humans on their own planet destroyed that world through pollution and waste. They hire a cartoonist to do some unspecified design work at an amusement park they're building to be their base of operations, complete with a giant Godzilla Tower. The cartoonist and his black-belt girlfriend get involved with a couple of folks who know about the cockroaches' plan. Gigan and King Ghidorah are called in to attack Tokyo and lure Godzilla (and Anguirus) from Monster Island, so the aliens can kill him and complete their plans of conquest. Naturally, things don't go as planned.

The ecology message doesn't smash you in the teeth like it did in the previous entry Godzilla vs. Hedorah. But the film will be giving you dentures for numerous other reasons. The plot, story and script of this movie makes Godzilla vs. Megalon, considered by many to be the worst G-Film, seem like Citizen Kane. Very little sense of logic was applied to it. I understand it is a kid's movie, but I saw it on TV when I was a kid and pretty much gave it a "WTF?" even then.


This movie is a stock footage parade. The rampage of Gigan and King Ghidorah through Tokyo is accomplish with mostly stock footage. Almost all of King Ghidorah's footage is from previous movies, notably Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster and Monster Zero. I think maybe, at the most,  three minutes of Gigan footage was filmed, and most of that was of the creature kicking in storefront windows. Apparently, he does not like seventies' era window dressing.

Use mannequins at your own risk
when this guy's window-shopping.

This movie has some of the most laughable special effects I've ever seen. For at least the first ten minutes of their appearances, King Ghidorah and Gigan are simple plastic models - possibly off-the-shelf toys - with no movement at all.  The Ghidorah suit is pretty laughable, with the hair-like tufts behind his heads making them look remarkably like Keith Richards. Apparently, this outfit was on its last legs, since the heads don't really move separately like they did in earlier movies. When they do move, that is.

Gigan's certainly an interesting looking monster, though never quite detailed as being a cyborg. The buzzsaw in his belly doesn't make a lick of logical sense, and the hook hands must mean he's really easy to beat at Super Mario Kart. Of course, it's not until Godzilla Final Wars that Gigan actually lives up to the promise of that appearance.

It isn't nearly as bad as the movie's heroes, Godzilla and Anguirus. Anguirus (also known as Angillas) shows up as different colors all the time. There's a scene in the ocean where he's lobster-red, and when he approaches land, and the Self-Defense Force shines searchlights on him, he's a multitude of colors, all looking as if it was painted in sickly splotches. All through the big battle scenes, at least in the parts that aren't taken from earlier movies, Godzilla is losing bits and pieces of himself, the rubber of the suit appearing to be on its last legs.

This is also the first, and thankfully only, movie in which Godzilla talks. He's kinda bossy, and sounds a little bit to me like Chester A. Riley with a head cold. (Go ahead and Google, you young whippersnappers; the rest of us will wait.) The whole concept is ludicrous and does little to help the lack of a plot.

Most folks know I love bad movies. Give me something by Ed Wood or Bill Rebane and I'm a happy camper. Godzilla vs. Gigan is NOT that kind of endearing bad. It's just a crappy movie. You'll, of course, have to watch it if you're a kaiju and Godzilla fan, but I can't see even kids wanting to sit through this thing. If there's a Godzilla movie to completely forget about, this is the one.

AVAILABLE FOR THE KINDLE ON AMAZON.COM

THE TRIVIA QUIZ BOOK: VOLUME 6

By Rich Meyer

Here we go folks with another bout of family-friendly and fun-filled quizzing! 500 questions for all ages and all skill-levels from trivia neophyte to omniscient master. This time around, the questions fall into ten categories: Capital cities, famous quotes, Green Lantern and Green Arrow, Doc Savage, song lyrics, Jack Benny's radio show, The Andy Griffith Show, comedy albums, the comic strip Peanuts and Presidents of the United States.

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AF1MXS6

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AF1MXS6

CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00AF1MXS6

DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00AF1MXS6

Movie Review: Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All-Out Attack (2001)

Japanese movie poster

One of the interesting things about the last round of Godzilla films, known as the Millennium series, was that none of them had to have much continuity with the previous films, other than the original Gojira (1954). There was also none of the sixties and seventies' Godzilla,  who was a friend to children and protector of the planet. With Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All-Out Attack, the Big G goes further back than the original; he's not just a force of nature in this one - he's a mean bastard out to destroy everything in sight.

While Godzilla was ostensibly destroyed in the original movie (with a little retroactive continuity for this one), the monster in this movie is given a much more mystical origin and is basically Zombie-Godzilla for all intents and purposes. The lack of pupils and irises makes him even more evil-looking in my opinion.

Godzilla now exemplifies all the lives lost to Japanese forces during the Pacific War. He's come back to take revenge on the islands of Japan for those deaths, since the Japanese people (or at least the Government) is more than willing to consign those acts to a forgotten corner of their history. To protect the land (the actual land of Japane, not the people), the Guardian Monsters rise up: Barugon (from Frankenstein Conquers the World), Mothra (from almost as many movies as Godzilla), and King Ghidorah (ditto). It is interesting to see Ghidorah as a hero, as usually the space monster is one of the ultimate bastards. Barugon is still a popular kaiju in Japan, which explains his inclusion, rather than the more popular Rodan or fan favorite Anguirus (Angillas).

The human side to the story features the commander of the Japanese Self-Defense Force dealing with his often-drunk daughter, a reporter for a cheap digital TV station producing sensationalist dramas. She's the only one who has contact with an old man who knows everything about the Guardian Monsters, and the coming battle.

There's a lot of great action and destruction in this one, as Godzilla, left loose for the first time in his cinematic career, gets a free hand to destroy Tokyo. Nothing accidental about this rampage ... he's there to kick ass and take names! He decimates the Japanese land forces in less than a minute, and nearly destroys everything on the water as well. The battles with the Guardian Monsters show there's no quarter given to the populace of Japan. Hundreds, probably thousands of people are shown being crushed under the debris of the monsters' swath of havoc. The only way this could be worse for Japan is if Godzilla was hungry and started eating people.

Godzilla facing King Ghidorah and Mothra
(Barugon already met his end about
twenty minutes earlier).

Barugon gets a bit short-changed in the end, but does have a pretty long battle with the Big G in the movie. Mothra's role is apparently just to die and supercharge King Ghidorah a couple of times. Ghidorah is at his most impressive (short of his brief Mecha-King Ghidorah phase, which was simply too cool for words), but it is Godzilla's show all along. And one of the few instances in the long series that the efforts of the human forces actually play a major role in the villain monster's defeat, much like the original 1954 movie.

This is definitely a must-watch for the kaiju fan, and it is a very accessible film for the average movie-goer.

John Carter (2012): $300 million for ... this?

After reading John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood, a book that went deep into the problems behind the latest cinematic megaflop, I decided it was finally time to sit down and watch John Carter. Given that Disney pretty much set the film up to fail with either too much or not enough control or effort at various stages, I was actually hoping to see a good adaptation of a story I had read a long time ago.

Perhaps that was the problem, as I read the entire eleven-book Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs one after the other over a period of a week or two. So I think my memories may be a little warped over what happened where. I just started re-reading the series from the first book, A Princess of Mars, from which this movie is supposedly adapted.

To be completely honest, I see very little of that book in this movie. I see very little Burroughs at all, really. I see a lot of Flash Gordon, a lot of  Star Wars and a bit of Dune, all of which can probably claim the influence of John Carter of Mars somewhere in their lineages, but I would've hoped this movie, of the original source material, would've found away to rise above that.

There's a lot of CGI. I assume that's where all the money went. And the Martian Tharks are amazing. The various Martian vistas are truly wondrous to behold, though I'm not exactly sure why Mars has a blue sky when there are no oceans. And you gotta love the babysitter beast, Woola. But not even a Michael Bay movie can get by just on eye candy anymore, and there needs to be a story.

There's some stuff that resembles one in John Carter, but it doesn't always jump out at you. The sound mixing is horrible (at least to me) and I found myself having to go back to see what people said a couple of times because the soundtrack music drowned it out. The mysterious Therns, the inadvertent reason Carter is even on Mars to begin with, are interesting, but they really seem out of place in this movie, as there seems to be enough global political strike on Barsoom that they didn't need to stick their noses in it. The super-high tech that the Therns give the Zodangans is similarly out of place.

The whole concept of the moving city of Zodanga is completely ludicrous. It's like someone had a vaguely interesting steampunk design left over from The Wild Wild West movie and had a little too much beer one night. Sure it looked interesting during Carter's escape, but it makes no logical sense on a world with rapidly depleting resources to move an entire bloody city around the planet.

After reading that book, I was in a very accommodating mood for this movie. It may have been wronged by the morons at Disney, but it also wasn't very good. It was a disservice to long-time fans of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic, and it certainly wasn't worth $300 million.

There are sometimes when a book really shouldn't be made into a movie. I think John Carter will stand, at least for a few years, as an example to prove that axiom.

Watch the fan trailer and save your Redbox dollar for a Scooby-Doo movie...

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM FOR THE KINDLE

THE 1970'S SCI-FI MOVIE QUIZ BOOK

By Rich Meyer

This is the quiz e-book for the b-movie fan in everyone! If you liked watching Peter Graves fight giant grasshoppers, Bela Lugosi turn people into Tor Johnson, or giant brains crawling around the countryside, then you'll enjoy these questions (and answers) about the movie era that spawned a thousand chills and a million drive-ins!

US SITE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004I6D6LW

UK SITE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004I6D6LW

CA SITE: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B004I6D6LW

DE SITE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004I6D6LW

Movie Review: Destroy All Monsters (1968)

When I was a kid, Destroy All Monsters was the gem in the kaiju eiga crown ... that Holy Grail that every Godzilla fan wanted to see. Luckily, back then in the seventies, TV stations actually played stuff that people actually wanted to watch. The CBS Late Night Movie, The ABC Friday Night Movie, WLUK's T.J. and the ANT (All Night Theatre), and Saturday afternoon movies on the local stations in Central Wisconsin finally got me to that goal. And then the early days of TNT and The Sci-Fi Channel (I can't being myself to call it SyFy out of deference to the days when it actually played science-fiction) Channel buttressed it in the mid-eighties by replaying it. It took nearly twenty years to see that film twice.

Of course now, I have it on DVD and can watch it anytime I want. And two nights ago, it was my Kaiju fix. This 1968 flick is what you would call a "monster fest", much like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or House of Dracula  twenty five years earlier. it featured almost all of the popular giant monsters created by Toho Studios, battling on both sides of an alien invasion. In the far-flung year of 1999, space travel with the moon is common and all the world's monsters have been confined to an island for study. The invading Kilaaks take control of the island and the monsters, wreaking havoc on the world's cities. Earth isn't defenseless and fights back, culminating in a monster brawl at the base of Mount Fuji. The aliens bring in the space monster Ghidorah as a last ditch effort, but hey, you know how this ends, right? Godzilla, good guy, aliens, smucked all over the place.

Godzilla is, of course, the star of the movie, but a good number of his kaiju cohorts get a lot of airtime, namely Mothra (in caterpillar form), Rodan, Angilus (a.k.a. Angurus of Gigantis the Fire Monster fame), Manda (from the sci-fi movie Atragon) and Gorosaurus, who's only previous appearance was as the dinosaur that the giant ape kills in the Rankin-Bass/Toho production of King Kong Escapes. The monsters Varan (from Varan the Unbelievable) and Barugon (from Frankenstein Conquers the World) make brief appearances, usually at a distance, since the rubber man-in-a-suit-a-saurus costumes for those two creatures had degraded to the point that they couldn't be used for close-up, active city stomping. Gorosaurus does the subterranean monster bit instead of Barugon in Paris, destroying the Arch de Triomphe. Godzilla's son is on hand for a little comic relief in the final battle, blowing a smoke ring onto one of Ghidrah's flailing heads as he gets stomped by his dad and friends.

On the whole, the special effects are pretty good in this one, with a minimum of stock footage. Godzilla gets to stomp New York for the first time, and the monsters attack cities that aren't Tokyo for the first time. The story's fine, too. Don't bother deconstructing it; I mean it is just a monster movie and if you're watching a monster movie like you'd watch a Scorsese or Tarkovsky flick, you've got something wrong in the cabeza to begin with. The plot is adequate for the movie's intentions, and gives lots of opportunities for spaceships, monsters, aliens and wanton destruction to appear on the screen.

Sure, it's dated, but this is a fun movie and wastes an hour-and-a-half quite efficiently!

Movie Review: The X From Outer Space (1967)

The X From Outer Space (1967) was one of many kaiju-eiga (strange beast)/science fiction films released in Japan during the monster boom of the sixties. It is a seriously goofy movie. Do NOT even think about trying to find a proper rationale for anything that goes on in this film! Just sit back and enjoy the goofiness!

Several mission to Mars have gone missing with all hands lost, so the spaceship AAB-Gamma is being sent out to investigate. The crew encounters a fuzzy UFO that the comm officer notes as looking like a fried egg that impedes them a little, mainly forcing them to waste some fuel, and the ship's doctor comes down with an illness, and head for the moonbase instead. There's some romantic entanglements with the Captain, the biologist and a lady on the moonbase. The doctor on the base is forced onto the AAB-Gamma, and they again run into the UFO on their way to Mars. This time, they turn back after wasting more fuel and discovering a strange foamy substance on the outside of the ship, along with egg-like spores, one of which they take with them back to Earth.

The crew and some of the staff had a dinner party, which is interrupted by the obligatory call from the lab - the substance is missing and there's a hole in the floor ... and a track on the floor that looks like a big chicken! The four of the crew head out to a party in Hakone when the power goes out and a strange-looking  (and I mean strange - look at the picture!) monster pops out of the ground and starts on a rampage. They fairly quickly (y'know, around noon the next day) deduce that this is what escaped from the lab and they name the deely-boppered creature Guilala.

Lots of cornball destruction of the Tokyo landscape, some dams, and some tanks and planes (of course) follow. The scientists reason that perhaps that mysterious foamy substance might be a defense against Guilala, so the AAB-Gamma takes to the skies once again. The new substance, Guilalanium, sucks up energy and radiation, making it difficult for the ship to return home, since it interferes with communications and controls. They manage to find a way to shield it and, after another UFO encounter in which they are buzzed by the flying egg (and not much else), get the Guilalanium back to Earth in time to prevent Guilala from destroying the entire island. A poignant choice in the romance department and "The End" flashes on the screen.

A clip from The X From Outer Space (1967)

This was the first monster movie produced by the Shochiku Film Studio, and while it had none of the polish you would find with a Toho Production or the early Daiei Gamera films, it was still an enjoyable film. There's a lot of goofiness, with the comm officer trying hard to be the comic relief, the monster itself being just the strangest thing they could've come up with, and the quaintness of the special effects. You don't notice a lot of wires, but the buildings tend to fall apart like gingerbread houses. The design of the AAB-Gamma space ship is very interesting though; looking a lot like some sort of modified submarine and not the usual rocket/missile-shaped craft of the era.

But one of the hallmarks of being a kaiju eiga fan is to look at a movie in a Japanese manner: If the story is worth telling, you can overlook flaws in the presentation. The X From Outer Space was a tale worth telling, so I find I can quite easily enjoy it with those flaws; in fact, like a lot of films, you can enjoy it more with the flaws.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM FOR THE KINDLE

THE MONSTER QUIZ BOOK

By Rich Meyer

If you like monsters, giant-sized, human-sized or any size, then this is the quiz e-book for you! Godzilla, Gamera, Frankenstein, the Creature, the Mummy, Dracula ... nearly every creature that's tried to scare the pants off you gets a shout out in this one!

US SITE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QRPTJE

UK SITE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005QRPTJE

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DE SITE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B005QRPTJE

Comic Book Reviews May 6th, 2013

I've been catching up on my comic book reading for the past couple of weeks, and thought it was time to post a few reviews. We're doing two titles I've mentioned here before, and all three are from DC Comics' current "New 52" continuity.

All Star Western could for the most part have been part of the old DC Universe with only a few tweaks. It is quite possibly one of the top five books being published today. The writing is excellent and the artwork is perfect for the time period. Bounty hunter Jonah Hex has starred in the first nineteen issues, in stories set primarily in 1880's Gotham City, with Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the person who would found the legendary Arkham Asylum, along for the ride. The title features a back-up story set in the same era, highlighting western characters such as El Diablo, the Barbary Ghost, and Bat Lash, as well as a new version of Tomahawk, Dr. Thirteen and an early version of Stormwatch. Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have captured the essence of the era perfectly in this series. All Star Western is a series that belongs on everyone's comic pull list.

The biggest disappointment in the "New 52" for me so far has been Justice League. This book is supposed to be the flagship title of the company, but it comes off as the same-old, same-old. We've seen almost all of these stories before, in one form or another, and the original iterations were much better. The artwork, yes, it's pretty darn good. Jim Lee is the only real original Image graduate that actually improved since those halcyon days of artists who cared little for human anatomy. But the book is severely lacking. The Justice League always seems to be bit players in someone else's story. From the hackneyed origin story with Darkseid to bring Cyborg into the JL fold, to the "Throne of Atlantis" storyline, and the current one, which portends to be a retelling of "Tower of Babel" and the Justice League: Doom animated feature, I find myself not caring about any of these characters. Superman and Wonder Woman getting friendly? Yawn. Batman being nosy and underhanded. Ho-hum. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. How about having these people act like heroes again, rather than bit players in other sagas or spoiled brats?

Finally we have The Movement, written by fan favorite Gail Simone, noted for stints on Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and several other popular titles. This book is set in Coral City, a previously unknown municipality in the DC Universe. There's a lot of corrupt cops, one cop trying to do his best, a possibly possessed young man who's a serial killer and a bunch of young metahumans. What there isn't is a cohesive story. I've only read the first issue, but nothing in it makes me want to leave the house to look for the second. I have no empathy for anyone in this story. I've read some of Simone's Batgirl issues, and they made sense and were entertaining. If this is how she writes when creating her own characters, then she should stick to established ones. Freddie Williams III provides some interesting art, very reminiscent, at least to me, of some of the art on Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol run. But it's not interesting enough to shell out money for the next issue.

I'd have to say that, right now, The Movement is the absolute nadir of the "New 52" imprint, even topping Liefeld's Hawk and Dove for that honor.

I'm so proud of myself for not making any obvious puns on the name of that last book.  Next time around, some of the "Marvel Now!" titles, including Dark Avengers, Indestructible Hulk, and Savage Wolverine.

AVAILABLE FOR THE AMAZON KINDLE - FREE TO BORROW FOR AMAZON PRIME USERS: 
1,001 Comic Book Trivia Questions (Comic Book Quiz Book Volume 3)
By Rich Meyer

Here's truth in advertising: 1,001 trivia questions (and answers) about comic books! All genres, hundreds of popular characters, easy ones and stumpers ... hours of family fun!




US SITE: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YUL0CQ
UK SITE: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007YUL0CQ