This year, I was able to attend Mid-Ohio Con, and once again, it was an absolute blast. I was able to meet a lot of great independent comics’ creators, I got the chance to thank writer Kurt Buesick for getting be back into comics with his mid-90’s run on The Avengers, I even snuck a far-away picture of Lou Ferrigno. (Any closer and I would’ve been charged a whopping $40!) As usual, I took a ton of pictures, so check them out after the jump!
Author: Sam Dunham
Sam Dunham
Sam Dunham was born at a very early age, and shortly after became entangled in the world of film. His first memories are of seeing King Ralph in his local theater. He learned to talk with the help of Adam West's Batman: The Movie. He's one of the few people to still own a working RCA Videodisc player (heck, it's where he first watched Young Frankenstein!). When Sam is not perusing his extensive B- movie collection or sitting in dark theaters with a tub of popcorn, he is usually found reading comic books, fixing computers, toiling away at his day job, working some nights at a local radio station as a "soundboard guy," and going to class so that he can one day toil away at his day job fixing computers. One time, Lou Ferrigno conned him out of $20.00. But that's another story...
In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The A-Team. That’s all well and good for the original A-Team, but what about their shiny-new contemporary counterparts?
Wolverine. Cyclops. Jean Grey. Beast. Storm. Prof. X. Iconic members of one of Marvel Comics’ most widely recognized super teams, the X-Men. Every one of them born with amazing mutant abilities, banded together in an effort to save a world that hates and fears them. I’m here to tell you today… Not a single one of them are in this film. Instead, we get a guy with a bad Irish accent, a woman with ill-defined psychic powers, a Latin stereotype, and a group of bland supporting characters kinda-sorta against a bargain-bin Jim Carey. Take the jump, and let’s get this…
Acknowledgment: I wish to express my gratitude to the enemies of crime and crusaders throughout the world for their inspirational example. To them, and to the lovers of adventure, lovers of pure escapism, lovers of unadulterated entertainment, lovers of the ridiculous and the bizarre… To funlovers everywhere… this review is respectfully dedicated. If I have overlooked any sizable groups of lovers, I apologize. -Sam Dunham
This week, I’m going to start things off by “pulling back the curtain,” if only just for a moment. The whole idea behind the From the Vault series is to highlight older, oft-forgotten cinema gems that have, in one way or another, a connection to the realm of comic books. Honestly, this piece is supposed to be mainly about older flicks. But one can’t live on “Golden Oldies” alone, so this weekend I ventured out into the world and caught a showing of Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man II. Is it another instant classic, or does it…
Looking back on my childhood, I’ve found that my family went through a number of… I guess they’d be called “trends,” where one or more of us would get enthralled by a certain activity for a while, and then, quickly as it came, the interest would fade. Around the late 1990’s, we were really into renting movies and music from our local library. We would literally stop in two or three times a week, picking up a handful of classic films and older music each trip. And the one thing I vividly remember is every time we made our way…
Well, another Free Comic Book Day has come and past, and what better way to celebrate the festivities than a write-up of the day, complete with pictures! This year (much like every year), I spent a considerable portion of the day at my LCS of choice – Hobby Central in Delaware, Ohio. Throughout my time at the shop, I was amazed at the number of families strolling in, perusing the many isles of comics, games, toys, and model sets. When asked about Free Comic Book Day, owner Jamie Long had this to say: “We’re doing alright. We didn’t do a…
Hey kids, it’s pop quiz time! What do you get when you mix a bodybuilder, a former Miss America who has ties to a U.S. President, and the director of the third season of the “hit” TV show Blossom? Give up? The third and final installment to the hit television series The Incredible Hulk, that’s what!
Have you ever wanted to go back and correct the mistakes you’ve made in the past? I know I would. And every once in a while, we’re given a chance to right what was once wrong (hoping the next leap… is the leap home. That’s right, I used a Quantum Leap reference), and this week, I had the chance to check out one of the corrections of the past, namely Richard Donner’s version of the classic film Superman II. So grab your red cape and read on!
Sit down, kids. Ol’ Sam’s going to tell you all a story. Once upon a time, there was a certain comic publisher who was on the verge of bankruptcy. To stay in business, this company sold the film rights of many of its popular characters to… well, whoever was willing to pay, to be honest. In 1992, Constantin Films was about to lose the rights on their property unless production began by December. This left Bernd Eichinger, the head of Constantin Films, with a real problem. He really wanted to make a film with these characters, but didn’t have enough…
Citizen Kane. Gone With the Wind. Shaft. Sometimes a movie comes along that is considered an instant classic, beloved by the overwhelming majority of the Earth’s inhabitants, and transcends mere popularity and becomes a staple in pop culture. Ladies and gentlemen… The Muppet Movie is one of those movies. It’s time to play the music… It’s time to light the lights… It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Movie tonight!
For this week’s installment of From the Vault, I’ve decided to step away from the superhero genre (and poorly-made CBS TV-movies, apparently), and settled on a film a little more from the pulp side of comics. The movie for this week is (as you may have guessed) Touchstone Pictures’ Dick Tracy. I’m going to be honest for a moment – This film has been on my radar ever since I started writing for Major Spoilers. There is a lot to discuss here, both good and bad, so without further delay, let’s get to it.
Ahh, the ’70’s. A time of afros, bell-bottoms, and oddly enough, in the case of CBS television, attempts at superhero TV shows. Today, the most well-know of these shows are Wonder Woman starring____, The Greatest American Hero starring William Katt (a personal favorite of mine), and of course The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and (the eternal con-man) Lou Ferrigno. What many casual viewers today don’t know is that CBS also had the adaptation rights to many more of Marvel’s intellectual properties. Many of these characters were held onto until the mid-1980’s, where they were used as a way to…
What are superheroes like when they take off their masks and drop their “heroic†persona? It is a common theme found in many comic books today. In fact, some books are based solely around this question, and they all have varying degrees of success. One of the more noteworthy examples of this is the 1987 run of Justice League (International), created by the living legend Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. In it, the comic showed the reader the politics, the in-fighting, and ultimately the humor that is unleashed behind closed JL headquarters’ doors. Sounds like a great sitcom, right? That’s…