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......
As some of you might know, I have a board for Comic Book Kingdom on Pinterest.
There really is a lot of comic book related activity there, so if you havent checked it out, you might want to.
But with over 2000 Pins on that board, there's a lot to go through.
So I thought it would be cool to look back and post some of the pictures here that seem to be really popular there on Pinterest.
Here is a fantastic Indian Wonder Woman cosplay by Deepica Mutyala.
This is so good on so many levels that it's best just to let the pictures do the talking.
Television's (and to a whole generation of us) Batman, Adam West passed away Friday night in Los Angeles at the age of 88.
A representative said that he died after a short battle with leukemia.
"Our dad always saw himself as The Bright Knight, and aspired to make a positive impact on his fans’ lives. He was and always will be our hero." his family said in a statement.
Really incredible (see what I did there?) She-Hulk cosplay by Kearstin https://www.facebook.com/officialkearstin/ Photo: David Ngo Bodypaint: SJMasco FX+Illustration/Crew 13 Productions Wig: Arda Wigs
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
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.
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.
Black Lotus is a Marvel supervillainess that could be a whole lot more.
But I suppose they do need background players because everyone cant be a star right?
She was created by Ralph Macchio and George Pérez and made her first appearance in Marvel Fanfare #11 in 1983.
Black Lotus is supposed to be a pretty major assassin.
But as comic book assassins go, you rarely ever see them actually kill anyone.
Lotus is Japanese and her mother was one of the five women in the original "Nail", which was an elite ninja strike team used by The Hand.
They were all killed.
Really doesn’t sound too awfully elite.....
Anyway, Lotus was first seen as a freelancer trying to take down Black Widow with five other mercenaries.
She did get one good shot in on the Widow (while her arms were pinned) but Natasha turned around and took them all out.
Black Lotus was one of the women in Superia's all-female army, the Femizons and is in the modern incarnation of The Nail.
And she actually had a fairly large role in the Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow series, so maybe she has been done justice by Marvel after all.
The secret evil girlfriend of millions of fanboys out there....The Baroness. Yes, G.I. Joe's "bad girl" is just plain hot.
The long jet black hair, the black leather catsuit, the librarian glasses....and that accent. Let's forget all about the stupid version in the live action G.I. Joe movie in 2009 live-action movie okay? Anastasia DeCobray was born into European aristocracy, she wasnt Duke's fiancée, Ana Lewis. They should be horsewhipped for that alone.
And why am I mentioning a G.I. Joe villainess here on a blog about comic books?
Because the Baroness first showed up in the comics, not on TV. Yes Anastasia was created by Larry Hama and Don Perlin and first appeared in the Marvel comic book, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #1 in 1982, a full two years before her action figure even came out. And she didnt show up on TV until 1983 in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero mini-series. So the Baroness' root are pure Marvel comics. Actually...more than you might imagine.....
It's no secret that Cobra was based on the infamous Marvel evil organization Hydra. Before Joe came out, Marvel was thinking of doing a similar toyline based on S.H.I.E.L.D. So when Joe was created and Marvel was involved in it, Hydra/Cobra was a good fit.
AND Hydra's main bad girl was Madame Hydra, a Hungarian orphan taken in and raised by Hydra. European accent, skintight green leather jumpsuit, evil....hmmmmm
Anyway, despite all that, Baroness is her own woman. And that's the way we like it.
Long before there was a Justice League of America...or a Justice League, there was the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics.
How long before?
Well the Justice Society of America was created by Sheldon Mayer and Gardner Fox in 1940.
The idea was sound.
Take heroes that didn’t have a lot of exposure and put them in a book to get attention to them.
Make the big guns, Superman and Batman honorary members to draw even more attention and see what happens.
Well it worked.
The membership at first was Doctor Fate, Hourman, the Spectre, Sandman, the Atom, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman.
Within a year, the Flash and Green Lantern got their own books and left the JSA.
There were only two female characters in the series run, Wonder Woman and Black Canary and actually All Star Comics #8 was Wonder Woman's first appearance.
Although it has been said that Ma Hunkel, the original Red Tornado, was an honorary member as well.
The book ran until 1951 and issue number 57.
In the mid-sixties, DC reintroduced the JSA as heroes that lived on a prarallel Earth, Earth 2.
They had all retired then and interestingly, in Adventure Comics #466 in 1979 it was explained that the JSA had disbanded because of the Joint Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, which demanded they unmask.
An idea that Alan Moore would revisit seven years later in his Watchmen saga.
The JSA has shown up in other media.
Cartoon Network's Justice League had a variation of the JSA called the Justice Guild of America.
Then in Justice League Unlimited several JSA members appear.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold also featured many of the original JSA members.
But to date the BEST portrayal of the JSA was on Season 9 of Smallville, in the two-part Absolute Justice.
Here we get to see several JSA members, flashbacks to the Joint Un-American Activities Committee hearings and enough "Easter eggs" to make any JSA fan delirious.
Example...shots of the original Green Lantern's power battery, Hawkgirl's helmet and mace, the JSA meeting table.
It was awesome.
When I saw this originally it almost gave me chills....
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.
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.
I saw this pic yesterday and thought, "Wow! That is cool! Paige as X-23 kinda fits actually!"
But then I found out that it was photoshopped from a picture of cosplayer Laura Kinney as X-23.
Still, the photoshopped Paige is good.
But I prefer the original Laura Kinney version myself.
