He Is Iron Man!

Well, last night Matthew and I became the last two people in OKC admitted to the sneak preview of Iron Man.

Well, it's pretty darned good.

It was amusing seeing Jeff Bridges, the long-haired ranter against corporate greed in the 1977 King Kong remake, epitomizing corporate greed in this film.

Robert Downey, Jr did a fine job as a slovenly, rich jerk who is suddenly confronted with the effects that his selfish actions have on others. He was also pretty good as tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

Gwyneth Paltrow was so good I didn't know who she was for a while. She would be gorgeous if she had some meat on her bones.

Overall, a fine film for the would-be hero in us all. The special effects were "believable" over all, if over the top.

So, go see Iron Man!

Fisher Price's Super Car -- Who Is that Cute Kid?

Here, fresh from my wife's shopping bag, is a new Fisher Price toy for "DC Super Friends."

You shake the car to "energize" it and it runs for a while, all the while chirping heroic phrases.

While the car is cute, check out the back side of the packaging. Jazra looked at it and said, "That's Calvin!"

The boy, indeed, resembles Jazra's bestest play buddy, Calvin Hodge. See a picture from a couple of years ago to compare.

Now, if only we can get Jazra a modeling job too ...

Super Vans!

Here we have a couple of "Corgi Juniors."

The "Daily Planet" van, obviously newer, is labeled "Leyland Courier" on the bottom. The silver one, with more wear, is labeled "U.S. Van" on the bottom. As with all Corgis, they're "Made in GT Britain."

Ask and You Shall Know!

Have you ever wondered why there are high-altitude cooking directions on cupcake boxes? or what the Tooth Fairy does with all those teeth?

If so, ask Professor S O'Terrick! He's got all the answers! (All that matter anyway)

You may post your ruminations about life by visiting http://soterrick.blogspot.com/ -- or by e-mailing the Professor directly at sot@starokc.org.

Illumination awaits!

Darn Ol' Flame-Dragon!

This issue of Superman is cover-dated February 1962, and includes three stories featuring the Man of Steel.

First up is "The Three Tough Teen-Agers," with art by Al Plastino, in which a trio of toughies are shown that they aren't really hot snot after all.

The second story, with fine Curt Swan art, is "The Man Who Trained Supermen!," in which Supes (undercover of course) investigates a gym which claims to be able to make its clients into (physical) supermen, through a snake-oil-type Magic Elixir.

The third story, also with fine art by Curt Swan, is all about that bad ol' Flame-Dragon shown on the cover. However, in the book, the story is called, "Superman's Greatest Secret!"


Because, you see, the story isn't as much about the havoc wreaked by this potentially world-wrecking beast. No, the "real" drama and suspense are all in another ride around the "Lois-tries-to-prove-Clark-is-Superman" merry-go-round. Hey, Lois, go watch a Looney Toon! That merry-go-round broke down a loooong time ago.


Y'see, as shown on the cover, the Flame-Dragon takes a li'l ol' nip out of Superman's hand. So Lois spends several pages in maneuvering Clark's hand into her own, to check it for Flame-Dragon bites. Sheesh!


Then after Lois gives up and hasn't found aforementioned punctured Super-extremity, we find out how Superman pulled it off. It wasn't a Kryptonian imposter's hand Lois scoped out, nor that of a robot. It wasn't a dummy hand or some such.


No, Superman had taken advantage of a little ol' healing ray invented by a Kandorian scientist named -- are you ready? -- Re-Gen! As in Tissue Regeneration!


Oh, by the way, Superman just flew the Flame-Dragon into the past and dropped him off with Titano.


Another interesting thing about this issue is the full-page notice inside the front cover. (I've played with the contrast here because my copy has some water damage.) In this notice, DC basically apologizes for raising their cover price from a dime to 12 cents. Well, read it yourself.


See ya in the funny papers!

Great Bosses, Huh?

Around Christmastime, I was presented with a fine gift of thoughtfulness by my bosses, Richard and Margarette. While shopping at a competitor's thrift store, they came across this gem, a "First Printing" of the Return of Superman trade paperback, autographed by Jurgens, Bogdanove, and Breeding. Cool, Huh?

Now, I paid them back for buying it for me.

Where's the "gift of thoughtfulness"?

They know me well enough to notice something I might like, and they called me to ask if I would like it!

THAT's where the thoughtfulness comes in!

Thanks, Boss and Bossette!

The Superboy Legend!

From Superboy 163, cover-dated March 1970, we have an end-of-Silver-Age exposition of Super-Powers.

The art is most likely by Bob Brown, the penciler of this issue’s cover story, “Reform School Rebel!”

The text, also uncredited, is probably by E Nelson Bridwell, the great DC trivia honcho and assistant editor.

Here we have the “final” exposition of super-powers, with some arising from Earth’s lighter gravity, and others bestowed by Earth’s yellow sun.

Well, I Sure Liked It!

With a theme by Danny Elfman, Mark Hamill as the Trickster, and lots of fun and suspense, what was NOT to like about the TV series The Flash?

Here's a TV Guide spread from the time.

Who's That Knocking on My Door?

Here is a selection of book covers concerning the whole "entity" question, from a religious views to extraterrestrial ones.

Space Aliens Are Our Brothers! No, They're Evil! Or ...

The Ultraterrestrial presences manifested as UFOs and Aliens choose to appear in different lights. Sometimes they're our wonderful, benevolent Space Brothers, who arrive to give warnings about the dangers of atomic research. They may represent a Galactic Conference, much like Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Of course, there are also the Bad Seeds, who zip around abducting people, making military and civilian planes diappear in midflight, and other not-nice kinds of things.

All you have to do is select the "encounters" which bolster your opinions of the day, and le voila! You have books about nice space guys, and books about bad ones.

The same dichotomy obtains in comics too, dontcha know. For every Superman there's a Super-Menace. For every J'onn J'onnz there's a bunch of "White Martians."

Which reminds me of something Captain Jim Kirk tells Spock in Star Trek VI, when talking about some action Spock had taken: "Spock, everybody's human."

Which means, to me, that we are all individuals made up of petty ambition and noble ideals, of good will and selfishness.

Why don't you share your thoughts on such topics with us? See you later.

Bill Bazhaw Figures Out the Pyramids

As I said a few days ago, a book by W.A. Bazhaw, called The Search for Cheops and His Treasure, contains the only believable idea for how the Egyptians might have constructed the Pyramids -- especially the Great Pyramid -- using the technology of the day.

Bazhaw, a geophysicist by trade, brought a little engineering insight to the idea. Also, I would suggest, he had a flash of inspiration, much akin to Jonny Quests's suggestion as to how to see "The Invisible Monster," -- "Well, paint it!"

The simple but awesome idea for Pyramids didn't involve paint, but water. Hydraulic engineering, in fact.

With a watertight causeway built from the nearby Nile, all those stones weighing many tons could be floated on reusable barges.

You would build the outside perimeter of the the first level and then flood it. You would then float the stones into position and pry them off the barge, using poles and strong backs.

To feed the water, you would have a sloping shaft -- a hydraulic elevator -- up one side of the rising pyramid , building it higher as the walls rose higher.

All this was within the technological bounds of the Eqyptians of 2500 BC or whatever, and living next to the Nile, with its anuual floods, they certainly had the opportunity to observe the lifting power of water.

You should borrow or buy this book, if you want to learn more about this believable, possible method of pyramid-building.

It can be an aha! moment for you too!

Looking at Some Pyramids

Here are a few book covers examining the Pyramids and Egyptian themes.

The first one, Pyramid Illusions, is a straightforward they-did-it-with-a-ramp type of book.

The most interesting "exotically speaking" is Worth Smith's Mystery of the Ages from 1948. Smith is one of many in past times who felt that the Great Pyramid of Giza is a "gospel in stone." Several folks would try to "decode" the G.P. in an end-of-the-world type of way. Using standard inches or various contrived "Pyramid Inches," these guys would match measurements of the G.P.'s passages with the time of world events, on a 1 year = 1 inch basis. By their reckoning, the world ended around 50 years ago, I think.

From a realistic point of view, -- believable too! -- we have William Bazhaw's The Search for Cheops and His Treasure. This book, in my opinion, offers the only believable method for the construction of the Great Pyramid by folks 4000 years ago, using their technology and not Space God mumbo-jumbo.

(By the way, the reason that "earthen ramps" were probably NOT used is, by the time the G.P. was about halfway built, the amount of material for the ramp or ramps would have far exceeded the amount of materials used for the entire G.P. ! Making the ramps a much huger undertaking than the finished product.

No, Bazhaw has come up with a craftier way to build a pyramid, given its location (hint, hint).

Next time we'll look into how it was (probably) done.

Happy Saint Paddy's Day to Ye!

In celebration, here are some Mystery Paperback covers

having to do with the Auld Country -- Great Britain.
Mysteries abound!

Take a Trip to the Wild Bookshelf!

Having made it to the 1600+ number of books in our study -- cataloging title, author, dates I've read them, etc -- I thought I'd share a few fun examples of my interest in the weird, the bizarre, the outre.

On the shelves reserved for "Mysteries" -- UFOs, conspiracies, mind control, Bigfoot, Atlantis, the Pyramids, forgotten knowledge, and the like -- we find 375 hardback and paperbacks.

No, that's not counting the 60+ assassination books, which are shelved separately.

Here are a couple of paperback invitations to breathless incredulity.

Please feel free to comment or ask for specifics!

Welcome to Her World, Won't You Stick Around?

Here is the play area of Wonder Woman's Colorforms Playset.

As you can tell, it's set on Paradise Island. For Zeus's sake, let's hope that the Invisible Airplane is supposed to be in the background far away, and not zooming through this clearing.

The only two character pieces that survived for me to buy were a generic Bad Guy, and a very -- um, athletic -- Wonder Woman.

Either Wonder Woman is swinging down from a tree branch like a gymnast making a high dismount, or perhaps she's in the middle of a forward somersault off an unseen trampoline?

Doesn't the Bad Guy look kind of like Bruce Lee? Maybe this set originally featured Wonder Woman and Kato teaming up against somebody else!

On second thought, given the expression on her face, maybe Princess Dianna slipped on a banana peel?

Now, This Is a Heroic-Looking Wonder Woman!

Here we have a (cleaned-up) Colorforms box for a Wonder Woman playset.

The actual box is bent and banged up with a price written on it. I've tried to freshen up the lady's looks a bit.

This depiction of the Amazonian Wonder looks like a fine role model for eight-year-olds, I must say.

Our next post will reveal the sticky play surface and a couple of players in this world of good-vs-evil.

Revised and Expanded (Kind of Like My Waistline)

Yesterday we saw the 1st printing of Larry Nemecek's TNG Companion.

Nowadays the version for sale is updated to include the end of the TNG series and info from Star Trek: Generations.

Now, don't blame the reporter for the lameness of some of his subject matter (the aforementioned Star Trek Hibernation film).

Guess what! There's a new 8-disc Superman soundtrack out there! Glimpses of THAT for tomorrow.

A Trek Fan Turns Pro!

Beginning with TNG-1, my friend Larry Nemecek had been tracking every arcane reference in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Every name and reference. Freeze-framing (on videotape that is) to read display screens. All that good stuff.

And, helpful guy that he is, when he finished a volume, he made sure to send a copy to the TNG staffers at Paramount, in tribute.

How thrilled he was to hear that the writing staff was actually USING his reference collection, because it was more organized than their own notes!

After all, as a journalist at the Norman, OK Transcript, he knew a thing or two about note-taking!

Well, time passed, and Larry earned a "pro" contract with Pocket Books to meld together his entire TNG series.

Here's the first printing. Also I blushingly present the Acknowledgments page, wherein ThunderChief thanks yours truly and another pair of STAR OKC compadres, the sweet and wonderful (and prickly) Mike and Tamara Hodge.

We helped him out a little bit.

How Can He Be a Captain, He Doesn't Have a Ship!?

Yes, these were some of the comments about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when Larry Nemecek covered the second season in DS9-2 .

Alas, while Paramount "bit" onto Larry's research for his TNG s and gave him a contract for a "pro" book about that series, he did not get a similar offer for his DS9 concordances.

We'll look at those pro books in a day or so.

It Can't Be STAR TREK, They Don't GO Anywhere!

Yep, that's what they said about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the first non-Roddenbergian show, covered here by Larry Nemecek in his own inimitable style.