Counting Comics - Part 3

Thanks for watching my video/checking out my blog, let's go into more depth and count and talk about the comics on this week's show.

Justice League of America (80-Page Giant)

This is a cool book from November 2009, I think it was a kick off for Vol 2 of the League. In this book the team are split up and spread through time by Epoch a time-travelling villain when they prevent him from killing a child who is destined to grow up as his enemy Time Commander. Each story of the time hurled heroes is told by a different creative team. I love this sort of story, they are a lot of fun.

DC Universe Decisions 1 - 4

Created by Bill Willingham, Judd Winick and Rick Leonardi this 4 parter from 2008 tells the story of what happens when ouspoken liberal Green Arrow openly endorses a political candidate in the presidential elections. An interesting idea that really makes you think outside the normal, punching criminals box, as it explores the repurcussions of this action in interesting depth.

Justice League - Cry for Justice 1 -7

Written by James Robinson and drawn by Mauro Cascioli this 7 parter has Hal "Green Arrow" Jordan and Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen head up a spin-off Justice League seeking to take a more pro-active stance against the villains of the World as a reaction to the 'deaths' of Batman and Martian Manhunter during Final Crisis. This was originally planned as an on-going but changed to just 7 issues.

Booster Gold 1 - 25

This is the 1st run of Michael Jon Carter aka Booster Gold, created in 1986 by Dan Jurgens. As stated in the video he stole tech from a museum in the 25th century including a Ledion of Superheroes flight ring, Braniac's forcefield belt and he used Rip Hunter's time sphere to go back to the 20th century where he saved then President Ronal Reagan's life and got known as Booster Gold when he got tounge tied and fluffed his name. His nickname from his football career was "Booster" and "Goldstar" was the hero name he actually wanted to be known as. I joked in the video about maybe Rip Hunter arresting him for time violations but in a later Booster Gold series (2007 - 2011)they team-up and it's revealed that Rip is Booster's son!! Time travel eh? It gets a bit messy doesn't it?

The Power Company

Witchfire 1

Manhunter 1

Josiah Power 1

Skyrocket 1

Striker Z 1

Sapphire 1

Bork 1

The Power Company 1 - 18

Created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett this team of professional heroes for hire 1st appeared in JLA # 61 before starring in their own 18 issue series. The series of one-shots introducing the cast were called Power Surge and had them team-up with existant heroes and act as origin stories for the team. Josiah Power although the strongest meta of the Company, and the man who brings everyone together, rarely fought alongside the team. This is not the 1st hero-for-hire team from DC, there has been The Conglomerate, Captains of Industry, Hero Hotline, S.T.A.R Corps and the ill-fated Blood Pack, heroes created by a Bloodlines alien's bite, who in line with my rant of the video were mercilessly killed off during one crisis or another!

Adventure Comics presentsDial "H" for Hero 479 - 490

Well this is cool, I was only just talking about these books last week when I found the H.E.R.O. books in the 1st box I peeped into. Rather than just repeating myself here is a link to that blog for you to check out HERE

Ambush Bug

Son of Ambush Bug 2

Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer (1985)

Irwin "Ambush Bug" Schwab was intenttionally created by Keith Giffen as a silly character and 1st appeared in DC Comics Presents #52 in 1982. Apparently both Bug and Lobo were created by Giffen from an old character Lunatik who he created whilst in high school. Does that make them brothers!? Ambush Bug has the power of teleporattion and was inititally an annoying supervillain for Superman before deciding to become a good guy. His origin is disputed but one story is that when the planet Schwab was doomed one of it's inhabitants, Brum-El, desperate to save his wardrobe sends his clothes into space where it collides with a radioactive space spider and only Ambush Bug's suit and an angry sock with a Doctor Doom complex named Argh!Yle! survive. The sock is Bug's evil nemesis. He is considered to be suffering with mental illness and often breaks the fourth wall, I think he predates Deadpool in this regard but I'm not sure. HERE is a cool list of 4th wall breakers for you to check out!

Ms Marvel 1 - 23

Over the years there have been 4 series of Ms Marvel with the 1st two starring Carol Danvers and the others with Kamala Khan. This run from 1977 is the 1st ongoing series she starred in. As Carol Danvers she 1st appeared in Marvel Superheroes #13 (March 1968) as a non-superpowered United States Airforce officer. In Captain Marvel # 118 (November 1969) she was caught in an explosion with the Captain which caused her DNA to merge with his and ended up giving her super powers. She started fighting crime as Ms Marvel in her own book quite some time later though in January 1977. 

Over the years she also had the names Binary and Warbird before taking on the mantle of Captain Marvel in 2012 after the original hero died and Captain America told her that Mar-vell would want her to have it. "The Death of Captain Marvel" from 1982 is Marvel's 1st ever graphic novel. 

Although only Carol and Kamala had runs of Ms Marvel books there have been 2 other women to use the name. There was Sharon Ventura who was an Unlimited Class Wrestler and love interest of Benjamin "The Thing" Grimm, who also was a member of the Fantastic Four for a time. Then there was Karla Sofen aka the villain Moonstone who was a member of Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. As for the Captain Marvel name that's a whole another story, you can go and check that out HERE as I think this week's blog is long enough already!! 

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I looked into the book and found that it only ran for 23 issues so I do have all of them! I have no idea why it says at the end of the book "Next Week: Sabretooth" when there is no #24!!

So that's 76 DC comics and 23 Marvel comics in the tally this week, making the totals 164 DC and 23 Marvel comics so far. That is still the tiniest sliver of the tip of the iceberg so come back next week for some more counting.

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Geek Tee Friday - Judge Dredd

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Gaze into the fist of Grey

This week's shirt features the baddest Law Man in fiction, Judge Dredd,  who has been "The Law" in British comic 2000AD since it's 2nd issue, way back in 1977 when 2000AD personified "the future" instead of being quite a while ago, as it is now!! He is the brainchild of writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, who I have to say is possibly my favourite artist ever. Although in the 1st appearance of Dredd in the comic it was in a story written by freelancer Peter Harris with re-writes by Pat Mills, and drawn by Mike McMahon.

Judge Death 1st appeared in Prog 149, (in 1980), he was a terrifying supernatural Judge from another dimension Deadworld where they decided that as all crime was commited by the living then life itself would be a crime. The city is guilty, the crime is life, the sentence is death!! He was eventually defeated; after his body was destroyed, his spirit inhabited the Psi-Judge Anderson and they captured her and Death's spirit in Boing®, a spray on plastic that turned people into human pinballs.

Later in Prog 224, (8 August 1981), in a story written by John Wagner/Alan Grant with art by Brian Bolland, some of Death's brother Dark Judges from his world, Fear, Fire & Mortis came to free him from his captivity and continue bringing their brand of justice to Mega City One's "lawless" populace. Fear has the ability to literally scare a person to death but in this classic panel by Brian Bolland it's illustrated just how tough Dredd is, whereas a normal human would collapse and die he punches straight through Fear's helmet.

I must admit to not having read much Dredd in my later years, 2000AD started losing it's appeal to me with some of it's stories and art not capturing my interest at all but Dredd is always cool. 

There have been 2 Dredd movies too but I only like to talk about one of them, the Karl Urban one from 2012 was really cool and I have high hopes for the proposed TV series and really wish that it has great success when/if we get to see it!

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Counting Comics - Part 2

So 1st up let's talk about my YouTube channel name Thegreyman, it's an alternate spelling based on my nickname and the DC comics character the Gray Man, who is pretty obscure and related to the Lords of Order. He had a run-in with the JLA back in 1987, 1st appearing in Justice League # 2 in June and dying in November the same year in Justice League International # 7.

The Gray Man captured dream energy and could duplicate himself

So the 1st box of comics is sorted through and as I knew it would be it was all DC, we won't be seeing any Marvel comics until I start sorting through my upstairs boxes. Just 2 titles so far H.E.R.O. and Sandman Mystery Theatre.

H.E.R.O.

(1/2 - 22 = 21 comics)

The H-dial from H.E.R.O. originates from House of Mystery # 158 which came out April 1966. It's original holder was Robert "Robby" Reed who discovered that by dialling 'hero' he would magically be transformed into one. 

Later, in the books I recall from my younger years, there were 2 dials, found and utilised by 2 teens, Christopher "Chris" King and Victoria "Vickie" Grant. They lived in the New England town of Fairfax and fought crime in a number of different guises against a wealth of villains, all created by the readers who wrote in and won a t-shirt if their ideas were used. They appeared 1st in February 1981 as a special insert in Legion of Super-Heroes (Vol 2) # 272 then ran in Adventure Comics # 479 - 490, before going over to the The New Adventures of Superboy # 28 - 49 as a back-up story, which works out to be a 3 year run from 1981 to 1984. 

The book series I have here in my collection ran for 22 issues from 2003 to 2005 and focused on how the dial affected a number of ordinary people, Robby Reed appears again seeking to reclaim the dial for himself. It ran for 22 but I only have 21 comics as 1 & 2 are compiled together in one book.

In 2012 with the New 52 a new Dial H book was launched, it ran for 15 issues with a last appearance in Justice League #23.3 in November 2013.

Sandman Mystery Theatre

(1,4 6 -10, 13 - 70)
(Sandman Midnight Theatre 1995)
(Sandman Mystery Theatre annual # 1 - 1994)
67 comics

There are a number of characters in the DC universe with the name of Sandman. I think the 1st that I was aware of was the Jack Kirby created one from 1974. Garrett Sanford became trapped in the dream dimension only able to leave for 1 hour a day, he became the protector of the dream dimension and met up with the Justice League a few times. He started in Sandman # 1 in December 1974 and died in Infinity Inc # 50 in May 1988. I never read that many of his books but I think I liked his costume so he stuck in my mind.

I mention Sandman also known as Morpheus or Dream of The Endless in the video too, he was created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg and debuted in Sandman (Vol 2) # 1 in 1989.

This Sandman though is the original character to use the name, created by Gardner Fox and Bert Christman, Wesley Dodds is a Golden Age hero who wore a gas mask, fedora and trench coat and utilised a gas gun to send his enemies to sleep. He was a member of the Justice Society and All-Star Squadron and was later succeeded in the name by his sidekick Sandy. He 1st appeared in New York World's Fair comics in #1 in April 1939 and dies in JSA Secret Files and Origins #1 in August 1999.

In Mystery Theatre which ran for 70 issues from 1993 to 1999 wealthy investor and business man Wesley Dodds is plagued by prescient dreams of crimes which he feels compelled to solve. So he dons his mask and uses his patented gas gun and keen detective skills to get to the truth and apprehend the guilty. He is aided by Dian Belmont the socialite daughter of the District Attorney. The pair become lovers and remain together for the rest of their lives which makes me happy as they have such great interplay and dialogue in these books. It always bugged me in comics that the path to true love is so bumpy with the hero rarely getting the woman he loves, so it's nice that Wesley & Dian work out! 

In a co-incidental turn for this blog, much later in his life, after the events of these comics, Wes becomes aware of a plot by a mystic being called the Dark Lord to prevent the rebirth of Dr Fate. He travels up a mountain to meet the Gray Man to learn the place of Fate's arrival, he gets the message to his JSA colleagues and then leaps from the mountain top rather than tell the secret to Mordru who appears and threatens him with torture to get the information.

So he remained a total hero to the end and rests with Dian in Valhalla the cemetary for superheroes, with just 1 disturbance to his sleep during that awful Black Lantern episode!

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I have ideas to improve the look of the video for next time, not having the bright light from the window behind the comics for one thing. I might see if I can use a different video programme to make a split screen or have a small window for my face and a bigger one for the comics cam. We'll see what I can work out!

So here is the count so far of my collection

H.E.R.O. - 21 comics

Sandman Mystery Theatre - 67 comics
Collected books - 2

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Total 
DC comics - 88

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Counting Comics - Part 1

I am going to start counting my comics. I had to stop collecting back in 2013 due to cash shortage and I want to properly document how many and what comics I have. So I am going to start going through them and make some videos chatting about them as I go.



So in this 1st video I just show you my boxes and shelves in my very messy house, as you can see I have quite of few of them. This is the earliest one that I can remember buying off the shelf at the time it came out back in 1979. 

So I make that 35 years of comic collecting although I didn't go crazy with collecting Super Hero comics until 1986 I think. I'm guessing that as I can recall that Blue Beetle, Ted Kord was the 1st comic I collected from the start of it's run til it's finish and that began in 86. I used to collect a load of British fun & action comics like Whizzer & Chips, Buster, Monster Fun, Cheeky Weekly, Tiger, Eagle, Speed, Nutty and loads more but I have since sold them all apart from my 2000ADs on Ebay, which is a shame as I could've done videos on those too!

I need ideas on some manner of cataloguing my comics, I think there are some cool programmes or websites you can do it on, so I need to work that out.

So by this video I have 14 long boxes, 11 short boxes and a fair few on some shelves. A quick search tells me a long box holds around 275-325 comics and a short box 150 - 175. So just in the boxes alone I'd estimate somewhere between 5,500 & 6,475 comics. I would guess it's towards the larger number as I stuffed those boxes to almost bursting I reckon.

I started out getting mostly Marvel I think, collecting most of the titles at some point or other. I gradually converted to DC though, I can't recall how it happened really. I know the X-Men books annoyed me with their deliberate over complication and convoluted plots and Spider-man's angst ridden character that never seemed to resolve any plot lines made me stop caring. So I fully expect there to be more DC than Marvel in my collection but we'll see. If you watch my videos over the months you'll see that I have some cool classic Marvel titles in my boxes too. 

I will try and do these videos on a weekly basis, please leave a comment, correct me on any mistakes, share your comic memories etc as I get disheartened easily so a bit of encouragement and feedback always helps.

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Nextflix Reviews - GLOW

Want to know what to 'watch next' on Netflix? Check out my Nextflix Reviews

GLOW stands for Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling, this program has had 2 seasons so far on Netflix and I am hooked. I binge watched both seasons pretty much as soon as they hit the network. The premise is based on a real life wrestling promotion that started out in 1986 and had a syndicated TV show for 4 seasons that was known for it's comedic skits. 

In 2012 there was a documentary about the promotion, this was seen by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, who were looking for ideas for a female-centric show at the time. They went on to create this GLOW show. This 2012 documentary is also available on Netflix and is an interesting, funny and poignant watch, well worth checking out to see the history and influence it had on this show. 

Season one of GLOW came out on Netflix in 2017, with season 2 just coming out at the end of June this year. The wrestlers from the series are based on the original characters but with different names.

Alison Brie is a keen but essentially failed actor, she just can't get a decent role despite her passion, professionalism and enthusiasm. Her best friend Debbie Eagan is a fairly successful soap opera star and seems to have it all, making Alison feel overshadowed by her. The pair fall out in spectacular fashion when Brie sleeps with Eagan's husband. 

Alison goes to an audition for GLOW, a wrestling show to be filmed for TV, it's pay rolled by enthusiastic but inexperienced rich boy Sebastian "Bash" Howard and to be directed by irascible, jaded Sam Sylvia. The team is soon put together and starts training, Alison brings her acting chops and enthusiam to the project which rubs Sam up the wrong way but this is the best job she's ever been given and is determined for it to be a success.

Things take a nose dive for Alison when her ex-friend Debbie is picked up to be the star draw of the show as all american good ol' girl Liberty Belle. This threatens her position and stirs up animosity between them, but can they forget their differences and make the show and their relationship succeed?

This disparate team of women need to become like a family to each other, living through the bumps and bruises of life whilst going through the bumps and bruises in the ring. Will the fans like the show? Will the network like the show? Will they be able to pull off the manoeuvres they've practised?

The tone of the show is a great mix of fun and serious, there is drama and proper character development but there is a lot of light hearted stuff mainly in the in-ring personnas of the wrestlers, with such names as Welfare Queen, The She-Wolf, Zoya the Destroyer, Beirut, Fortune Cookie and Brittanica. Most of them are terribly non-pc stereotypes which are so familiar to anyone who watched wrestling back in that era.

Season two is a continuation of the themes of the 1st really with new challenges being presented to them to do their best to try and overcome. I won't say what happens but it seems very likely we'll see a 3rd season sometime in the future, where I hope they'll be able to keep up the level of quality and entertainment of the previous ones.

Oh yeah I just found out today that the character Welfare Queen is played by real life wrestler Kia Stevens. Her TV show wrestling persona is a fun heel who is a sweetie out of the ring, nothing like the powerhouse, Awesome Kong she portrayed for the TNA wrestling promotion.

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Nextflix Reviews - The Limehouse Golem

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I remember seeing adverts for this when it hit the cinemas and it looked pretty good to me so as soon as I saw it pop up on Netflix I watched it with my girlfriend. Set in Victorian London before the days when Jack the Ripper terrified the city there was another serial killer gripping the populace with fear and morbid fascination. They've been dubbed the Golem after the killer left a part of a Rabbi's anatomy on the page of a book in a section about the Jewish folklore creature of that name. 

Bill Nighy plays John Kildare, a vice detective moved to homicide as they are clueless, and need a scapegoat to shaft if the killer is not caught. Rumours about Kildare have damaged his reputation so he is chosen to take over the case and shoulder the blame. Assisted by local police man George Flood (Daniel Mays) they get an emphatic lead that points to the killer being one of 4 men.

This leads to another story altogether, one of the suspects John Cree has been murdered, poisoned, and the blame has been placed upon his wife Lizzie. Kildare is convinced that she killed her husband after discovering that he was the Golem and seeks to prove it so she can possibly avoid being executed once these extenuating circumstances come to light. Kildare and Flood follow through the clues, question the living suspects and through interviews with Lizzie, Kildare gets into her history finding out how she met John Cree.

This takes us into her story, from a harsh early life she manages to find a place and begins to thrive in the theatre. She meets and becomes good friends with Dan Leno a star in the music halls and is taken under his wing. John Cree is a theatre critic and aspiring playwright who becomes besotted with Lizzie. The historical story crosses over with the present day investigation as Kildare struggles to identify the killer as Lizzie's husband before she feels the cut of the hangman's noose.

I found this to be a very enjoyable movie, the actors are all excellent, the settings and plot are engrossing and there is a bit of gruesome murder too, so something for everyone. Erm... well not for kids though... obviously!

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Nextflix Reviews - Tau

Want to know what to 'watch next' on Netflix? Check out my Nextflix Reviews

Julia, (Maika Monroe), awakens in a cell along with 2 other prisoners, all of them captured to be tested and experimented on by Alex, (Ed Skrein), a cold, enigmatic science genius who is working on perfecting artificial intelligence. Seemingly without morals or emotion, Alex has implanted devices into his captives necks that collects data from them that needs to be tested and eventually extracted, a process that will prove fatal. 

Julia manages to free herself from the cell but is still trapped in Alex's house which is full of high tech drones and a security robot that stops anyone from escaping. These are controlled by an earlier AI creation, Tau, who Alex commands to make Julia take on a series of mental tests every day when he is out of the house.

The company he works for are on a deadline and time is running out, he has only so many days to test and remove her implant. The countdown is on for her to try and escape before she dies. Her only chance of escape is to convince Tau the AI to help her. Can she find more humanity from a computer than she can from the emotionless Alex?

I don't want to give any spoilers so I'll leave this review like that, it's a good film though with a cool concept, decent script, good acting and it's well paced. There is some gore but it's more a sci-fi thriller with some good tense scenes than a horror. Can Julia convince Tau to go against it's programming and help her? What makes a person a person? 

I was surprised when looking at the cast to find that Gary Oldman voiced Tau, I certainly never recognised him.

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Also starring Maika Monroe