Wonder Woman 2011 Pilot

Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights) brought the Amazon Princess to life in David E. Kelly's new Wonder Woman pilot.
The story and the outfit caused some controversy among internet comic book fans, to the point of the costume being changed (even thoough the producers denied the idea that outrage caused the change)
If you can find the pilot online....well you can watch it if you are really curious.
I wouldnt advise it though.
Adrianne is a great Wonder Woman.
I mean she really looks the part.
Given a better story, this might have really been something and been a forerunner of "Supergirl".
As it is, this Diana basically killed everyone that ran afoul of her, which seems to be popular with comic fans these days.
But it wasn't "Wonder Woman".

Since this, Adrianne went on to play Barbara "Bobbi" Morse (Mockingbird) on the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and that character too almost got a series.
Also, one of the Wonder Woman costumes in the pilot wound up worn on Harry's Law by Erica Durance (Smallville's Lois Lane).
She was playing a delusional client who believed she was the real Wonder Woman.
That episode was better than the pilot.

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Wonder Woman - Brigitte Goudz

Earlier this year I did a post about the incredible Brigitte Goudz cosplaying Wonder Woman on another blog of mine.
Well I don't know if it was actually considered real cosplay, but she was dressed up as Wonder Woman.
And what a Wonder Woman she is.
Though Brigitte is only five foot six and weighs 135 pounds this is seriously what Princess Diana should look like in real life.

Maybe if the CW's superhero shows need an Amazon Princess for a cameo......

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Adam Hughes - Catwoman

Although I have said before that one of my favorite Catwoman artists is Jim Balent, he ties with Adam Hughes.
Adam draws incredible women as it is, but his Audrey Hepburn inspired Catwoman is incredible.

You can see more of Adam's work at his website here:
http://www.justsayah.com/



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Wonder Woman, by Eric Basaldua

Wonder Woman, by The Art of Eric 'EBAS' Basaldua
You can see more of Eric's work at his Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/ericbasaldua/

Black Widow (Yelena Belova) - Marvel Comics

Wait a second...isn’t the Black Widow an Avenger?
And a redhead?
I know she started out as a bad guy in the comics but she got over it right?
Well....yes.
This is the second Black Widow, Yelena Belova.
She was created by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee and made her first appearance in 1999 in Inhumans #5.

After the original Black Widow (Natalia Romanova / Natasha Romanoff) went rogue, the Soviets replaced her with another woman trained by the same people that trained Natasha.
Of course one of the first things that Yelena did was to go after Natasha to kill her and take the name "Black Widow" officially.
But despite the fact that she was younger and she thought in better shape and trained better, she couldn't take the original Widow down, which bummed Yelena out to no end.

Yelema is an Olympic level gymnast, highly trained in martial arts and in weapons.
If we dont count the time she was the Super-Adaptoid, (and please, let's don't) she has no superpowers.

Outside of comics, the only place that Yelena has appeared so far is in the 2006 video game Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Oddly enough, with blonde hair, Scarlett Johansson looks more like Yelena than she does Natasha.
But if they ever do Yelena in live action....I vote for Katee Sackhoff

Black Racer - Marvel Comics

Continuing on with Marvel Comics seemingly endless supply of snake based characters, we have Black Racer.
She is not to be confused with Jack Kirby's Black Racer, a character in his "New Gods" pantheon.
Black Racer was created by Mark Gruenwald and Tom Morgan and first appeared in 1988 in Captain America #337.

This lady is Ariana Saddiqi, a mutant with superspeed.
Yeah that’s pretty much it.
Superspeed.
And she seems to be in the Quicksilver range, nothing like the Flash.
Well she does have some limited superstrength.
You would have to I guess, to be able to handle superspeed.

Of course since she is snake themed, she has been a member of both the Serpent Society and the Serpent Squad.

One odd thing about her is that her race changes.
She has been drawn as both Caucasian and African-American in different books (her green hair when she is in costume is a wig).
Judging from her last name, is it possible that she is actually Middle Eastern?
It looks like Marvel would get that together.

Black Mamba - Marvel Comics

Marvel Comic's Black Mamba.
Boy...Marvel really does love the snake-themed villains dont they?
Black Mamba was created by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio and first appeared back in 1980 in Marvel Two-in-One #64.
She is a bit more naughty than other supervillains...she was a call girl before she got a costume.

In the comics she was created by Roxxon Oil Company (yes, an oil company was an evil organization) and was a founding member of the Serpent Squad, which later changed it's name to the Serpent Society.

Now here is Mamba's rather unique power.
She can scan a person's mind and pick out a loved one.
Then she projects extra-dimensional Darkforce energy around the victim and it crushes them, all they while they think that they are being embraced by said loved one.
She can also use the Darkforce to surround herself and change her appearance.

Black Mamba was a founding member of BAD Girls, Inc., a founding member of Serpent Squad (Serpent Society) and also a member of the Femizons, the Masters of Evil, the Secret Avengers and the Women Warriors.
She does get around.

Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) - Marvel Comics

Kitty Pryde aka Ariel aka Sprite aka Shadowcat was created in 1980 by the X-Men dream team, John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
Kitty has been a little sister and girlfriend to several X-Men.

Kitty is one of the few named Jewish characters in the Marvel Universe.
I imagine a lot of others are, because most of Marvel's writers and artists were Jewish back in the 1960s.
As a matter of fact, there have been several long in depth articles written about the religion of Marvel superheroes.

But back to Kitty.
Kitty was a throwback to the original Marvel formula with the X-Men.
The teen outcast that discovers she really is a bit more different than the other kids.
In her case, a mutant.

Kitty's powers are cool.
She phases through things.
But it's a tad more complicated than just that.
Actually, it would take a Physics professor to really explain all the stuff Kitty can do.
And James Kakalios did just that in his book "The Physics of Superheroes".
Check it out sometime, it's very interesting.

Besides her superpowers, Kitty was trained in martial arts in a manner similar to Psylocke (as it it was all pretty much downloaded into her consciousness) so she is versed in various martial arts.
She speaks several languages including Shi'ar and Skrull, and she is a hi-tech genius.

Beware the Claws of the Cat - Marvel Comics

Before Marvel Superhero Greer Grant Nelson became Tigra, the icon of furries everywhere, she was The Cat.
The Cat was a comic launched in the early 70s along with Night Nurse and Shanna the She-Devil, designed to try to draw in a female audience.
And Marvel went big with this too, assigning the writing and artwork to two women (which at the time was almost unheard of) long time Marvel artist Marie Severin and writer Linda Fite.
Stan Lee was determined this comic was gonna be for women, by women and about women.
You have to give "The Man" props for doing that.

But it didn't last long and the concept fell apart pretty quickly.
After four issues actually.
And the art team changed constantly, but Lee tried to keep it female driven.
But poor sales killed the book quickly.

But even today I think the first issue with Marie drawing it and legendary EC Comics artist Wally Wood inking it is a classic.
Severin and Wood were REALLY good together.
Their Cat was very sexy in the 1950s "Good Girl/Bad Girl" way.
Had that team stayed together, the series may have gone on quite a while.

Greer Grant Nelson went on to become Tigra and Patsy Walker later got the Cat suit becoming Hellcat.

Fitness Model Alyssa Loughran as Power Girl

This is fitness model Alyssa Loughran as DC's Power Girl.
I think the words, "perfect fit" fall a little short here.
If there is a better cosplay of DC Comics Power Girl out there, I would like to see it.
The picture perfect (literally) photography is by Jeff Zoet.

You can see more of Alyssa here:
https://www.facebook.com/Alyssaloughranfitness
And more of Jeff's work here:
https://www.facebook.com/JeffZoetVisuals

Tigra - Marvel Comics

Tigra.

She's furry, she's hot and she's funny.
Along with She-Hulk, she's one of the few Marvel females that have managed to keep something of a sense of humor about them despite all they go through.
She's been in no less than four different Avengers groups, plus the Lady Liberators and the New Warriors.
And EVERY fight she is in is a catfight.....

The Tigra is the defender of the "Cat People", not people that like cats but people that are actually descendants of a race of cats created by sorcery during the Dark Ages. They have lived in the shadows ans always had a Tigra to protect them. Sort of combine that horrible Halle Berry "Catwoman" movie and the movie "The Cat People" and you are close.

Anyway HYDRA (Hail HYDRA!) goes after the Cat People for some weapon tech they have, Greer as the Cat is mortally injured trying to help them and to save her life the Cat People use science, magic and psychic powers to turn her into The Tigra.

Tigra looks like a humanoid tiger. She has sharp retractable claws and enlarged canine teeth that can puncture steel and your standard superhero skill-set, superhuman strength, speed, senses and agility. Because of her transformation, she is said to have limited mystical abilities, but these have never been explored extensively. She also has some degree of resistance to psychic attacks.

And she is the patron saint of Furry/Comic fans everywhere.

So far Tigra has only appeared in one Marvel cartoon, the absolutely horrible "The Avengers: United They Stand" (1999) where she was voiced by Lenore Zann (Rogue).

 

   Tigra and Ms. Marvel have a real catfight

Lyra - Marvel Comics

She's the daughter of Hulk and Thundra.
What else do you need?
It's like what if Superman and Wonder Woman had a baby.
And Wonder Woman was a man-hating Femizon from the future and Superman was a green rage-filled hate machine.
Just don't make Lyra calm.
You wouldn't like her when she's calm.

You see, in her quest to create the perfect female warrior, Thundra got some Hulk DNA (which wouldn’t be hard the way he goes around smashing things) and took it to the scientists in her future. They impregnated her and in nine months or so....BOOM! A little baby girl with the genetic make up of the Hulk and Thundra. Yes this is sort of the Marvel equivalent of what would happen if Superman and Wonder Woman had a kid. Although she was nicknamed, "She-Hulk" in the comics, I decided to include her here what with Thundra actually being her mother.
One thing I thought that was cool about Lyra was her power. Yes she had Hulk level strength, but the madder Lyra got...the weaker she got. The exact opposite of her father.
So to maintain her strength, she had to enter into a Zen-like trance that enabled her to stay calm and very strong. Of course since this was a really cool quirk and didn’t go along with the berserk/killing rage so popular in comics, Marvel got rid of it.
Hey...who wants a powerful character that remains powerful by keeping their head about them and NOT giving into rage? What kind of role model is that?
Idiots.
Lyra was created by Jeff Parker and Mitch Breitweiser, and first appeared in Hulk: Raging Thunder #1 in 2008.

Spider-Girl - Marvel Comics

Part of the MC2 Universe, Spider-Girl was May "Mayday" Parker, the daughter of Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and Mary Jane Watson.
I really liked this character and the feel of the series.
It reminded me a lot of DC's "Batman Beyond".

I'm really surprised that more people do not know about May "Mayday" Parker aka The Spectacular Spider-Girl. Yes, Spider-Girl. Set in the MC2 Universe, May is the daughter of Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and Mary Jane Watson. MC2 (Marvel Comics 2) was a series of stories set in a possible alternative timeline of the Marvel Universe. There we got to see what would happen to the heroes in a few years from now, without messing up the current continuity. It was Marvel's way of logically progressing the stories without affecting their trademark heroes. What I liked about the series was that it had a "Silver Age" feel to it in a lot of ways.

May was created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz and first appeared not in MC2, but in an issue of "What If" in 1998. I liked this Universe it was set in because it wasn’t your typical apocalyptic future stories. Everything didn’t go to hell in a hand-basket in a few years. And you got to see the sons, daughters, nieces and nephews of our current heroes.
May inherited most of her fathers powers. She was only half as strong but twice as fast. May's wallcrawling was due to a bio-magnetic field her body generated. Her "Spider-Sense" was vastly more acute than her father's and she also had the ability to sense the weak points, similar to the Inhuman's Karnak. She also wore mechanical web-shooters that could fire a line, impact webbing and metal darts.

And she got the best of both worlds. She inherited her mothers looks and her dads brains.

Sif - Marvel Comics

Marvel Comic's version of Sif.
Usually just a back up player in Thor's adventures in the comics, in Norse Mythology, Sif was a goddess, Thor's wife and the mother of his children.
Well at least she did manage to get into both Thor films and show up on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (played by Jaimie Alexander).

 

Unfortunately, the Lady Sif has usually been used as a background character in Thor. She was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1964 and....well that's not exactly true. Stan and Jack based their Sif on the goddess Sif from Norse mythology. Where Marvel's Sif is pretty much just an Asgardian warrior with a sword, the Norse Sif was actually a goddess and the wife of Thor. She also had golden hair which Loki cut off and Thor made him replace a golden headpiece.

The hair-cutting thing was worked into Marvel's story, but in the comics, her hair is replaced by black enchanted hair made by dwarves. Yeah....I know.

Also in the comics, Sif is the sister of Heimdall (aka Heimdallr in the myths).

Sif has your standard Asgardian powers, super strength (she can lift around 30 tons), durability and she's basically immortal. She's six foot two and weighs 425 pounds. 425 pounds? Yes, like all Asgardians, Sif's body tissue is about three times as dense as a humans. Sif also has the power of teleportation through time and space

She also carries a sword that has been enchanted by Odin that allows her to cut open passageways between dimensions.

Of course Sif was portrayed on the big screen by Jaimie Alexander in both Thor and Thor: The Dark World. And she also showed up as Sif on an episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Scarlet Witch - Marvel Comics

One of my all time favorite Marvel superheroines, the Scarlet Witch.
She didn't look like this in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but I got used to the "new" look.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch.
One, she had a "stand and point" power.
Two, her brother Quicksilver was a world class jerk.
Three, her daddy Magneto was one of the biggest, baddest super villains in the world. Normally not so bad, but when you are trying to be a hero, it can be a drawback.
But Marvel rectified all that years later and had Wanda, originally a pretty weak character, almost destroy the world.
Things change right?

Scarlet Witch was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared not in the Avengers, but in X-Men #4 back in 1964.
You see, Wanda and her brother Quicksilver are both mutants and were part of her father's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Interestingly, Wanda's outfit was green on the cover of X-Men #4.

Anyway, after a brief run she and Pietro (Quicksilver) went to the Avengers because the Avengers had a habit of allowing ex-criminals to join...and because Iron Man asked them to.
At that time the Avengers were Cap and three ex-supervillains, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
So the Avengers had the first supervillain work release program ever.

Wanda became a mainstay in the Avengers.
She married the android Avenger the Vision, was trained in the mystic arts by both Agatha Harkness and Doctor Strange, and was the leader of the Avengers West Coast team.

As far as powers go, generally her abilities are the power to alter probability (Hex Spheres) and work magic.
Her probability alteration has gone up to God-like points now and then as when she resurrected Wonder Man or when she wiped 90% of the mutants off the Earth by saying, "No More Mutants."
Besides all that, she's a pretty good hand to hand fighter, being trained by both Captain America and Hawkeye (who has had a crush on her since the 60s).

Psylocke - Marvel Comics

Psylocke can go mind to mind with the best telepaths in the Marvel Universe and still go round after round with the likes of Wolverine and Sabretooth.
Plus she is one of the hottest superheroes ever created.

You talk about a character with a messed up past. Here is Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock. Betsy is the sister of UK based superhero Captain Britain and was created back in 1976 by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe. CB was a character that appeared in Captain Britain Weekly, a book put out by Marvel UK.

Anyway, Betsy was a precog, then a telepath, then she got telepathy AND telekinesis (with no explanation...her powers just changed), she was blinded and then got bionic eyes, then she body melded with Kwannon who was a Japanese female ninja mutant and gave us the Psylocke we all know and love today. Yeah...like most female comic book characters, she has been through a lot.

Psylocke has been a member of a lot of groups, most notably the X-men. But she has also been in The Hand, the Hellfire Club, Excalibur and X-Force just mention a few.

Powers? Who knows? Marvel has altered the character so much that you can't keep track of what she does. I hate it when you have version 1,2,3 or 4 of a character.

The one we are (or at least I am) most familiar with though is the one with ninja skills, telepathy and the awesome "psychic knife," that could take down just about anybody that she scored a direct hit on.

So at that time (around 1989) Psylocke could go head to head with the best telepaths in the Marvel Universe and still go hand to hand with people like Wolverine. She was a pretty well rounded character.

Night Nurse - Marvel Comics

The Night Nurse, Linda Carter (no, not that one, she spells her name with a Y), the "EMT to the superheroes" actually first appeared way back in 1961.
You have to admit, if superheroes were real, this would be the woman to know!
I think this would have made a better TV show than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Can you imagine "House" and "Arrow" mixed together?

Night Nurse, Claws of the Cat and Shanna the She-Devil were all launched together in an effort to draw in female readers.
But Night Nurse was not a superhero book and people weren’t even sure if it took place in the Marvel Universe.

It was about Linda Carter...yeah I know, but it's okay and you'll see why in a minute. Linda was a nurse at a hospital called Metro General in New York City. The series was created in 1972 and Lynda (with a y) Carter rose to fame in 1975. Plus, this Linda Carter actually was in a series called Linda Carter, Student Nurse back in 1961.

Anyway, Night Nurse didn’t run long, only four issues and Linda would have faded into obscurity. Except some of the writers at Marvel love tying things in as much as I do!

Turns out after Night Nurse ended, Linda was saved by a superhero. (Hey...she lives in New York...probably half of the cities population has been saved by superheroes) But that incident made Linda the EMT to super-powered beings. Similarly to the way Mob people can't go to hospitals when injured, you cant take a hero to the hospital without risking their secret identity. Which is where Night Nurse comes in. And yes though people call her Linda, her codename really is "Night Nurse".

Some of her patients include, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange (she dated him for a while) and Elektra. She even helped run SHIELD safe-house number 23.

One really cool thing I thought was she actually had a catch-phrase. If a wounded hero or someone seeking aid for a hero came into the hospital she would say,"go to the room on the right" which meant she would take care of them.

Though she doesn’t have any superpowers, she is a tough lady and doesn’t have a bit of trouble telling a patient to sit or lie down and shut up no matter how powerful said patient is. And she doesnt need powers. With all the heroes she has taken care of, if a supervillain even THOUGHT about laying a hand on her...can you imagine the world of hurt he would be in for?

Oh yeah...and since she first appeared, she went on to become a full-fledged Doctor...specializing in "Superhero Medicine" maybe? But Dr. Night sounds like a bad guy...so she still uses Night Nurse.

Namora - Marvel Comics

Namor the Sub-Mariner's not so little cousin, Namora was created in 1947.
She's 5'11 with blonde hair and blue eyes, she has superhuman strength, speed, durability, agility, reflexes and she can lift up to 100 tons underwater (75 tons on dry land).
What's not to love?

Namora has got the jump on DC's Mera by quite a bit considering that she was created by writer Ken Bald and artist Syd Shores way back in 1947. So she had a sixteen year jump on Mera.

And if you are like me you probably went, "Namora? Really? Why didn't they just call her Sub-Mariner Girl?" Well actually, her name as created was Aquaria Nautica Neptunia which allowed the writer to use all the Latin sounding underwatery terms he could think of. She took the name "Namora" to honor her cousin Namor. Namor (in Atlantean) means "Avenging Son" and Namora means "Avenging Daughter"...so it's not as bad as it sounds. In comic book terms at least.

Namora has your basic butt-kicking Atlantean abilities. She is five foot eleven, 189 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Namora has super-strength, limited invulnerability, she can swim at superhuman speeds, and she has those little wings things on her ankles that allow her to fly like Namor.

Side Note: No she doesn’t. Those little hummingbird wings on her feet are not gonna make her fly! Sorry...they may have bought that in the 40s....but no. She has to have some kind of psionic ability.

Anyway... besides all those powers...it's possible she has an even worse attitude than Namor when she gets angry. So that makes her pretty rough in a fight.

Justice League: Doom

Have you seen the trailer for Justice League: Doom?
If you haven't, here it is....

What make this so amazing is that for this film, they got the band back together!

You have Kevin Conroy as Batman, Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman, Michael Rosenbaum as the The Flash, Carl Lumbly as Martian Manhunter and Superman: The Animated Series' Tim Daly as Superman and instead George Newbern which I'm kinda on the fence about.

Also they wont be having John Stewart's GL, but they will have Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan.

And one thing that makes me VERY happy is that Phil Bourassa (Young Justice) is doing the character designs.

Comic Book Fans and Comic Con

Comic Book and movie news is pouring out of Comic-Con so fast you can hardly handle it.
Man...I remember when Comic-Con wasn't that big of a deal.
Then again I remember our local comic book convention here in NC in Charlotte where I got to actually meet and talk to people like John Byrne and Dave Sim.
But Comic-Con now seems to be a national event.
That's not bad mind you, I think its great the industry is getting that much press.
I just kinda miss the old intimate days when you could actually sit down with a writer or artist and talk.
You got things like Dave Sim drawing me a picture of Cerebus the Aardvark(I think for about 20 bucks), not really liking it and drawing me another for free, letting me keep both of them.
Or Mike Zeck talking about Spider-Man getting a new costume in "The Secret Wars" and then saying "Ooops...I shouldn't have said that.".
Then proceeding to draw me a pic of Spidey in the new all black suit, but refusing to date it because he didn't want to get in trouble with Marvel.

Can the average reader get that kind of one on one relationship at a huge event like Comic-Con now?
Now instead of people like Byrne and Sim, you get Peter Jackson, Denzel Washington, Robert Downey Jr., Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox and Josh Brolin.
I love that they want to interact with the fans as best they can, but can you see actually bumping into Peter Jackson in a hallway and having a 30 minute discussion on the state of comics today?
I hope for the sake of today's comic book readers you can.