expatNERD

Author: Franka

  • Avengers Assemble!

    I’m going to continue my last post and instead of recommending something new, I will recommend something old. First a warning. I am a sucker for the old Marvel. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the illusion of those stories being created during a simpler time. Yes, sometimes a stereotype will hit you in the face, including a whole lot of German ones. But there is something comforting about seeing those earlier versions of characters interacting with each other and it just makes me smile.

    I cracked open the Avengers Omnibus Volume 4 and was treated to a lovely, albeit quite short, Neal Adams contribution. It was the Kree/Skrull War storyline brought about Roy Thomas and it pretty much ran from Avengers #93-97, with Adams doing issues #93-96. If you read the forward to the above Omnibus, Thomas admits that they were starting to run behind, and he decided to give #97 to the amazing John Buscema, much to the annoyance of Neal who had either produced thumbnails or even some finished pages. So that was that for Neal and he stopped. Which is aber schade because there must be a universe out there where Adams stuck around for at least twenty pages. You can find these issues reprinted and after doing a quick search online, the originals in a pretty good grade will not break the bank either. And it’s worth it because these books are beautiful.

    But I think my favorite part of this volume is the development of the Wanda and Vision relationship. It was quite well done with all the conflicts and drama that you can imagine. So my Thursday sketch above references that.

    bis bald,

    -franka

  • Wonder Woman

    I’m going to change it up a bit this week and instead of choosing a new comic as my pick of the week, I’m going to go back to the year 1992 and choose a series of comics.

    Thus, this week I’m choosing a storyline within the William Messner-Loebs run of Wonder Woman. Bill took over from George Perez, who had relaunched the series and had a very epic run. So as you can imagine those were some pretty big shoes to fill.

    Whereas Perez focused on the mythological aspects of Wonder Woman, Messner-Loebs decided to make it more action focused, and quickly took her into outer space. And I have to say it was fantastisch, or as we Germans might say, funtastisch (yes us Germans can be clever from time to time.)

    Wonder Woman #66-71 was a six-part storyline that finds our Wonder Woman launching to outer space to rescue a cosmonaut, who is then betrayed and teleported somewhere in deep space, and then her and the cosmonaut find themselves on a prison planet inhabited by slaves who are all female. This prison planet is run and guarded by a nasty alien species whose empire stretches throughout the galaxy and consist of only males. Wonder Woman leads an uprising and with her band of space pirates, sets on taking down the empire once and for all.

    It was epic and I interpreted it as an interesting retelling of the Wonder Woman origin, with a focus on the Amazons. Basically Loebs took this tale out of Themyscira and made it galactic. And the whole thing was drawn by Paris Cullins, who depicted a very muscular Wonder Woman that was definitely a cry departure from how George Perez and Jill Thompson drew her previously.

    Reading some of the letters pages in these issues, this was quite controversial. But it does hold up and you need to hunt down these issues. I love this storyline so much and really enjoyed the art. I even did a little cosplay of the change in uniform that Cullins designed.

    Hunt them down if you can, and if not, well that’s your loss isn’t it?

    Bis bald,

    Franka