Days of Future Passed- X-Men #141

I actually had a subscription to X-Men back in 1980, and this was one of the issues I got in the mail.  It, along with part 2, was John Byrne's penultimate story for this run of the X-men (I think there were two mutant titles published now... hard to believe, eh?).  It sure seems to have had quite the impact on the franchise now.  I would never have thought anything of it, other than it was an enjoyable tale, with the hints that it was NOT the same timeline as what we were actually getting. 

The big hint was in the future Colossus's middle name, which also led me to finding out the difference in male and female Russian (and other Slavic) family names.  Squirrel! 

Words Get Stuck In My Throat -Devo

I remember hearing this version on the Dr. Demento show back in 1979 or 1980, but somehow missed that it was by Devo and from the movie "War of the Gargantuas" (1966). I knew I had heard it before, but since monster movies had started disappearing by that time (at least in Colorado) I couldn't quite place where I knew it from.

Battle of the Humongunauts

The first 13 episodes of "Mystery, Inc" are all I have to watch, and I'm finished with them.  It's a very enjoyable series, probably the best Scooby series that has ever been produced.  Granted, that's not too difficult to accomplish, since most of the Scooby series have been crap.  I think I may have mentioned that before, here and there.  I watched a lot of them out of habit, since it didn't matter the name of the series, they were almost ALL Scooby clones.  Now, I will make an exception for Josie and the Pussycats, but I may also be a bit biased.

Orion Home Video - Monster Movie Previews (1989)

I remember vividly when these four movies were released on VHS by Orion. I'd seen all of them before on TV, but they had pretty much disappeared by the mid-80s, thanks to damn infomercials. Ugh, I still hate those things. They were fullscreen versions, and all had the AIP/Titra/Titan dubbing that I had grown up seeing (yes, I know, GAPPA was the international dub, but you get the point) so "Save The Earth" is on the Smog Monster tape. These were also released on laser-disc, which was a blessing, since it allowed all of the dubs to be saved.

Godzilla... or am I ruining the fandom again?

Over the last week, since the movie's been out, it seems like there is a lot of (non) controversy about this movie.  At least in the tiny Godzilla fandom that exists in this country.  I've read a lot of reviews now, and it seems some fans think if you don't love the film you just aren't "getting" it.  It also seems to go the other way, if you like the movie then you hate Godzilla.  What if you are ambivalent to it completely?

The Fooks - Drunken Lullabies

Here's a great cover of Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies". In fact, I've heard this so many times I actually prefer it to the original. Full disclosure- I'm friends with the band and make no apologies for that. They are all great people and I miss them. A lot. I'm working on ways to get them to tour Colorado, but if you are in San Diego go see them.

Xenorama #17 is go!

Yes, it's all finished, and just in time to capitalize on the new giant monster trend in the movies (that is, if it lasts more than a month).  This issue is really a good one, as you can tell by the amazing cover!  I've been really blessed by having the talented Dan Ross do these covers for me.  Everyone should raise a tasty beverage of their choice to him when seeing the new issue.  He's also a great person, too, so that helps.

Batman: The Animated Series Intro Live Action

After a month of mostly Godzilla and Godzilla oriented it's time for some new material. Well, OK, so Batman isn't new to this blog, but this is one right cool homage to the mostly excellent (yes, there were a few clunker episodes) animated series of the 90s. I think comic book heroes work best in drawn form, and praising this cartoon is nothing new.

Godzilla 2014

So I saw GODZILLA last night, and if you only want a short, non-spoliery review, stop at the end of this here paragraph.  It's very adequate entertainment- it's loud, 20 minutes too long, predictable and has some good moments in it.  I mostly liked the score and actors were pretty good.  Script could have used a couple more edits, but I don't think Hollywood employs editors these days.  OK, now onto the spoilers.

Godzilla vs King Shisa, Rodan and Angilas

Since the new movie officially opened today, I am showing this fun clip from the 50th anniversary Godzilla movie. This is a movie I like quite a bit, probably my favorite since 1975. Sure, it could be a lot better- less martial arts fights, longer monster fights, a less overpowering Godzilla, but it's never dull or boring. I do have an excellent fan edit which really helps. And there's a ton of monsters in cameo appearances. I've quote Mr Owari a lot, but "I like FINAL WARS, I must be destroying the fandom."

Xenorama #17... the cover!

Here's the amazing cover for Xenorama #17.  I may be biased, but I'd sure buy this if I saw it on the stands!  It pretty much covers everything that's in the 'zine this issue.  Do I need to say it was created by the extremely talented Dan Ross?  He manages to get many disparate images to coalesce into just an awesome cover.   I'm very blessed to have such talented people in my life!

Godzilla 2000 (1999) trailer

GODZILLA 2000 was the first Japanese Godzilla movie to be released to US theaters in 15 years. This was kind of due to the horribly non-entertaining US movie from 1998. It's a pretty fun film, though it's marred by a large chunk of time where no monsters are present. The dubbing is good and it is actually a bit better than the Japanese version. Toho liked it so much they replaced their "international" version with this one.

Challengers of the Unknown #11

I don't think I ever read the Challengers of the Unknown as a kid.  This would be because I never saw them, since their run was pretty much over before I started reading comics, and then when revived I had other interests.  I bought the first Showcase Presents of the Challengers originally adventures mostly out of curiosity than a sense of "I so need to read this and found out how some stories ended!"

Since I've discovered them now, I've really enjoyed reading their adventures.  Jack Kirby is credited with creating them, more or less, and they really are the prototype for the Fantastic Four.  It's pretty easy to see, though they never had the emotional content that Stan brought to the FF.  That's a story for another day.

Godzilla vs King Ghidorah/Mothra trailers

The trailers for these movies make them look exciting. The movies are entertaining, especially if you make a drinking game out of all the western movie "homages" that appear in both films. There are plenty. King Ghidorah is the better movie, since Mothra started the whole beam wars, though both movies are full of them and lots of other shiny lights. Still, the lack of CG is a plus, since the effects now look so different.

Fun Godzilla

Since it's nearly time for the new, deadly serious, dark, gritty, gloomy, apocalyptic and probably very humorless Legendary Godzilla, I thought I'd put up a couple fun things from Godzilla's past.  Which is almost every movie other than the original.  And, whether serious Godzilla fans like it or not, most of the rest of the world sees Godzilla and giant monsters in this light.  That's not really a bad thing.  The Japanese films take themselves seriously, but have a sense of humor about the proceedings.  From what I've seen of the new movie, it's deadly serious.

Godzilla by BOC

I was kind of looking for the TNT Monster Vision version of this video but this one is pretty cool as well. Lots of great clips from the first series of Godzilla movies and a few from the second series (which when viewing just these clips, you'd think the second series was almost as exciting and fun as the original run). It's a shorter version of Blue Oyster Cult's awesome "Godzilla" song (I bought two albums for different versions of this audio excellence).

Mystery, Inc

Long time readers of the blog AND the zine will know that I'm no big fan of Scooby Doo, for a wide variety of reasons.  The main one is that I blame the show (wrongly, but it's funny to me) for the networks taking superheroes away from Saturday morning cartoons and then replacing them with thousands of Scooby Doo show clones (seriously, how many of them were there?).  I enjoyed the first season and some of the team ups, even the lame Batman and Robin was (thanks to Bat-mite for fixing that).  My favorite was the one with Josie and the Pussycats, of course.

Yoda... video

This isn't quite the original version I heard back in 1980 on the Dr. Demento show. Originally Ray Davies would not give Al his permission to use the music from "Lola" to do the song, but at some point he must have realized all the other cool kids, and even Nirvana, were doing it. It's a pretty dead on song, though no one at the time knew that there would only be three movies for what...15 years or so. We figured he'd make his next six movies every three years. How naive we were.

series 2 Godzilla

As I mentioned last post, Godzilla returned to the cinemas in 1984 with a rather dull solo outing.  This started a new timeline, and would be called a "reboot" now.  Such a lame term.  Anyway, the series continued until 1995 and included seven movies.  Wrongly called the "Heisei" series (since the Heisei era is still going on) I just call it the second series, it's easier.  These movies are all connected to each other by a rather tight continuity, though some errors do creep up here and there at times.