Saturday, June 13, 2015

More JLA casting and The New Teen Titans

It seems the weekend is when I find the time - or at least use the time - to post and since my last one was a lot of black and white pages let´s do it in full color, baby, and continue with the JLA casting Hollywood edition.


These posts get longer as I keep working on them between my other comic posts. Originally planned to be in two parts I will have to do it in various installments depending on how much stuff about the Justice League I´m adding. Which I only do because I really love the Justice League and the more I work on these posts the more I realize that there are so many things I want to say about the Giffen League, about Bart Sears´ and Pablo Marcos´ Justice League Europe ( which gave readers the definite version of Power Girl ) or the Justice League of Joe Kelly which in my opinion is one of the most underrated periods in the teams history.


But that´s the topic of another post which will hopefully also include Death in Comics : The Death of Mr. Miracle, so let´s get started with this post.

Jeri Ryan as Black Canary ( Dinah Lance )


In the history of the Justice League of America Black Canary has become a more important and prolific member but that wasn´t always the case since she wasn´t even from this universe - at least in the beginning.

THE SECRET ( AND HIGHLY COMPLICATED ) ORIGIN OF BLACK CANARY

Now strictly speaking Black Canary wasn´t from a parallel universe since that didn´t exist until the Silver Age when new versions of The Flash or Green Lantern heralded the birth of the multiverse and all Golden Age heroes ended up on Earth 2. But we will come to this in a moment. 


Dinah Drake first appeared in FLASH COMICS 86 published in August of 1947, where she was a supporting character in the JOHNNY THUNDER feature. But Black Canary wasn´t destined to play second fiddle and with issue 92 she got her own anthology feature, replacing JOHNNY THUNDER. 


Dinah Drake was a florist with black hair who fell in love with Larry Lance, a Gotham City Police Department detective, so she put on a blond wig to fight crime. This Black Canary had no super powers but with her superior fighting skills she became a JSA member. She married Larry Lance and when the JSA was revived in 1960 she became a resident of Earth 2.

When her husband died Dinah decided that there were just too many memories connected to her home dimension so she moved to another parallel earth where she became romantically involved with Green Arrow.


Now for some JSA members like SUPERMAN, WONDER WOMAN, GREEN LANTERN or THE FLASH there were counterparts in the JLA of Earth 1 but Black Canary was not one of them. So when Dinah finally decided to make that earth her new home this might have been on of the things that led to CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Crossing over from Earth 2 to Earth 1 was much easier before the Crisis since the JLA and the JSA had annual meetings which always ended in a big team up to fight super villains.


Dinah Lance had a daughter which was cursed by the villain The Wizard with a devastating Canary Cry and when Johnny Thunder´s Thunderbolt couldn´t cure her the child was kept in suspended animation and he made everybody think she was dead. Which came in handy when Dinah found out that the fight which caused her husband´s death also had her dying slowly of radiation poisoning - they just transformed her memories into the now adult body ( who wouldn´t wish daughters could skip puberty through suspended animation ) of her daughter. I guess back then things were that easy because based on Today´s knowledge I´d say that they either had to erase her daughters personality for the mother to become the new dominant persona or instead of really saving the original Black Canary they just uploaded her memories into the brain of her daughter. 


Like most DC characters her origin was changed after Crisis and with the characters of Earth 2 folded into the history of Earth 1 probably not many people remember that she originated on another earth. What they kept from her origin is that she still was the daughter of the original Black Canary although the JSA had now been active before the JLA on this earth. So she became a second generation superheroine and while her former role was that of a connection between two earths her new role was to connect one generation of younger super heroes with its predecessors.


The new Black Canary had grown up under the tutelage of the members of the Justice Society of America as her - kind of - protective uncles which is where she got her fighting skills from. She had a Canary Cry but unlike the Pre Crisis Black Canary of Earth 2 she had complete control over it.


All this background info is probably boring all my readers who´ve started reading Justice League comics with the NEW 52 so let´s just say that Black Canary is my chance to cast one of my favorite tv sci fi sexbombs.


Jeri Ryan played the DD drone of Borg " Sex with Nine " ( how I call her ) on STAR TREK - VOYAGER and was one of three reasons to watch the show. And I´m not talking about her awesome twin torpedoes and the holographic Doc. I´m also putting the hot half - klingon chick on the list.


But to tell the truth for me it was mostly hot Jeri and her big borg boobies that I could even suffer the show. Originally I had casted her as Supergirl ( well, the seventies version with the cleavage shirt and the tight hot pants ) but I think she´s more fitting as Black Canary. We just have to get her to open the zipper like the shirt in her picture or go with the classic look.


Jeri Ryan has her own post where you can read more about her and all the other hot babes on Star Trek and apart from the " Black Canary " / " Black Canary underwear " labels you can check out my last post about tv cult siren Markie Post where I talked about Black Canary on the ARROW show.


Jolene Blalock as Hawkgirl ( Kendra Saunders / Shiera Hall )


Don´t even ask about Hawkgirl´s origin, as even well - versed comic afficionados get confused by this. Let´s just say I chose Jolene Blalock for the role after once again watching a few clips of her on ENTERPRISE.


Yes, this list is a bit STAR TREK - heavy but I don´t watch that many tv shows. That has such hot centerfolds in the cast at least. On Enterprise Jolene Blalock played vulcan sexbomb T´Pol with full chest  - I mean zest, with her booty on duty and she really put her back into the character !


Which made the fact that the writers of the show later on like totally chickened out on the vulcan / human relationship so disappointing. First they gave you all of these hints - like every Star Trek fan knows that T´Pol was supposed to be Spock´s mother and that he was half human - and then they wanted to play it safe and they were " just friends ", like that ever works. Back to Jolene she´s got a body men dream about and she´s the spitting image of Hawkgirl even down to the pixie haircut.


Since she´s one of my favorites she gets cast as the pretty bird who got Red Arrow and Hawkman fighting over her during Ed Benes´ Justice League of America run. Again, there´s no special post on Hawkgirl but Jolene Blalock got her sci fi cult sirens post with plenty more stuff.


Kelly Overton as Huntress ( Helena Bertinelli )


With the Post Crisis Huntress I have always felt that she lost a great part of her unique appeal when she was turned from the second generation superheroine with Batman and Catwoman as her parents to an ordinary daughter of a mobster with an origin that was closer to Batman´s.


Hmm, let´s see. We need someone who is very good with martial arts, is megahot and has an ass to die for. Sounds like anyone I already wrote a post about ? Bingo. Since the whole TEKKEN movie revolved around Kelly Overton´s butt cleavage it´s not far - fetched to cast her as Huntress.


She can play the teacher who all male students lust after as well as the super heroine who makes heroes go gaga - like Blue Beetle in the BRAVE AND THE BOLD cartoon. I have to say what surprised me a bit was that she hooked up with Nightwing since he is one of the most wanted males.


And she didn´t have to shapeshift into the form of his girlfriend Starfire - like the Titan from the future Mirage did in the pages of TEAM TITANS .


I bet Dick was in the doghouse with Starfire after that for not noticing the difference. Man, DC really was doing some crazy sexed up things in TEEN TITANS and the other TITANS book during the WILDBEAST HUNT storyline.


I remember that in a later issue Mirage posed naked as Starfire to get back at her ( that part of the issue was illustrated by Adam Hughes ).


I really can´t believe that I still haven´t gotten around to write a lengthy post about one of my favorite TITANS storylines. We can all agree that the first issues by Marv Wolfman and George Perez are the s - word ( like issue 18 of NEW TEEN TITANS which has not only the other Titan called Starfire but one of the best DEATH IN COMICS stories in DC´s history ).


Anyway, the quality of those early Titans stories ( and that I found them at a reasonable bargain price at amazon ) is the only reason why I bought volumes 2 and 3 of the TEEN TITANS OMNIBUS even though I had heard that the binding on them is not as good as with the Marvel omnibus.


Which still baffles me since that is not some secret technology. Just last week I got the second volume of the ABSOLUTE edition of SUPERMAN BATMAN and there are no problems with the binding. But for some reason DC can´t do it right with the omnibus books. I was thinking about getting the first volume as an omnibus since it would look nicer on the shelf next to the others but the price on that is so ridiculous that I will probably hang onto the spanish edition although it´s smaller in size. One thing I have to say for the books from Planeta DeAgostini is that they are easier to read than the hefty omnibus books. But who knows, maybe I can find the Archive Edition hardbacks at a reasonable price next year in Erlangen.


Since I´m talking about the NEW TEEN TITANS I have to pimp the new trades DC has started putting out. Not because DC gives me so many review copies or because I think that they are doing such wonderful things with the NEW 52 but because this is a book everybody who loves comics should read. If you haven´t read the issues and you don´t want to plow through bargain bins for back issues or don´t want to buy those hefty omnibus books ( volume 3 is currently available at amazon for 56 EUROS ) this is your chance to read one of the best DC series of all times. The first two volumes are already out covering the series up to issue 16 and volume 3 is announced for the end of September. The art by George Perez is breathtaking and Marv Wolfman starts planting seeds really early on. I mean the start of THE JUDAS CONTRACT is right in the second issue.  


And since we are already on the subject of the Teen Titans I have one last contestant to add for this part of my Justice League movie casting :

Michelle Bass as Wonder Girl ( Cassie Sandsmark )


Well, this one ( and two more ) are not really Justice League members but I guess I was just too lazy to do a NEW TEEN TIT - ANS movie casting.


Which I may do somewhere in the future. To tell the truth I don´t know anything about Michelle besides that I like her dress and she looks like the drawing of Wonder Girl down to the hair, the make - up and the eyes.


And we´re staying on the subject with our first video : issue 2 of The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. I posted the video of the 1st issue in my YAYA HAN COSPLAY UPDATE and I mention issue 2 above.



Our next video is about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this time about the various comics. I wanted to post the video of NOSTALGIC CRITIC on the Michael Bay movie but it´s just too long and I can´t watch it. If you have an hour to waste you can check it out on YouTube but I just can´t submit my readers to this kind of torture. What I´m going to post in one of my future Superman related post is the NOSTALGIC CRITIC video about MAN OF STEEL which is also long but much more entertaining. Anyway, here´s the video about the Turtles comics and it looks like those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Adventures comics are really worth checking out. 



I like to post german music videos from my youth and also clips from my favorite tv shows so THE BLACKLIST´s version of Peter Schilling´s Neue Deutsche Welle Hit Major Tom is like killing two birds with one stone.



More german goodness with a documentary about the Autobahn, Germany´s Super Highway where overspeeding is legal, Junge !



From fast cars to fast women here´s a video of Ava Cadell which I couldn´t fit into my last post about movie pioneer Andy Sidaris.


After writing so much about his movies I have started to watch them once again because I was telling myself that if I enjoyed them so much I should do this more often. Initially I did this because after a while the plot of the movies tend to blur into one another but now I think there might be one more Andy Sidaris post to come. This also supports my initial statement about the movies. For me MALIBU EXPRESS shows that Andy knows what kind of movie he wants to make but he doesn´t know how. HARD TICKET TO HAWAII is when he has assembled all the elements he wants to put into it. PICASSO TRIGGER is the first movie when Andy has his formula together and the first appearance of Roberta Vasquez and SAVAGE BEACH is the first one where the story is a bit more interesting and the nudity and the love scenes are longer and more integrated in the storytelling.


But it´s not until GUNS that Andy really hits his stride. By the way, Cynthia Brimhall makes her first appearance in HARD TICKET TO HAWAII but she stays very much in the background until here scenes in GUNS. There is a huge improvement in quality in comparison to the previous movies, in cinematography, in the two lead characters, the supporting characters which include more well known actors, it´s more glamorous, in short it´s a perfect game that lasts till FIT TO KILL. ENEMY GOLD and THE DALLAS CONNECTION are the last good ones before the decline starts. Even so they are all worth watching so if you haven´t already done so - do it ! 



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