Slideshow: Incredible Hulk Collectibles!

370 pictures of Greenskin stuff for ya!


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Movie of the Week: When Worlds Collide!

So it's the second of three George Pal movies I'm presenting this month on "Movie of the Week," this time it's "When Worlds Collide"!



Plot summary, as always, from the Wikipedia entry

Pilot David Randall (Richard Derr) is paid to fly mysterious photographs from South African astronomer Dr. Emery Bronson (Hayden Rorke) to Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating) in America. Hendron, with the assistance of his daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush), confirms their worst fears—that a gas giant rogue planet named Bellus is on a collision course with Earth. However, they believe that its Earth-sized companion, Zyra, could support human life.



Hendron warns the delegates of the United Nations that the end of the world is little more than eight months away and pleads for the construction of spaceships to transport a lucky few to Zyra in the faint hope of saving the human race from extinction. However, other, equally distinguished scientists scoff at his claims, and he is not believed.



Hendron's group is forced to turn to wealthy, self-centered, wheelchair-bound industrialist Sidney Stanton (John Hoyt) to finance the private construction of an ark, in exchange for taking him along. The ark is a rocket designed to take off along a mile-long track built on a mountainside and land as a glider.



Joyce becomes attracted to Randall and prods her father into finding reasons to keep him around, much to the annoyance of her boyfriend, medical doctor Tony Drake (Peter Hansen).





The ship's construction is a race against time. Groups in other nations also begin building ships. As time begins running out, formerly-skeptical scientists admit that Hendron was right, and governments prepare for the inevitable.



Zyra first makes a close approach, its gravitational attraction causing massive earthquakes and tidal waves that wreak havoc. In the aftermath, Drake and Randall travel in a helicopter on a mission of mercy to provide assistance to survivors. When Randall alights to rescue a little boy, Drake has to resist a strong temptation to strand him.



As the day of doom approaches, the ship is loaded with food, microfiche copies of books, equipment, and animals. Finally, most of the passengers are selected by lottery, though Hendron exempts a handful of people: himself, Stanton, Joyce, Drake, pilot Dr. George Fry (Alden Chase), and Randall, for his daughter's sake. Randall refuses his seat and only pretends to participate in the lottery, believing that he has no useful skills.



For Joyce's happiness, Drake deceives Randall by fabricating a "heart condition" for Fry, making a backup pilot necessary. Randall is the obvious choice.



The cynical Stanton becomes more anxious as time passes. Knowing human nature, he fears what the desperate lottery losers might do. As a precaution, he has stockpiled weapons. Stanton's fears prove accurate after the results are posted. First, his much-abused lackey, Ferris (Frank Cady), tries to get himself included in the crew at gunpoint, only to be shot dead by Stanton. Then, in the final hour, many of the those to be left behind riot, taking up Stanton's weapons to try and force their way aboard.



Hendron stays behind at the last moment, forcibly keeping the crippled Stanton and his wheelchair from boarding as well in order to lighten the spaceship. His sacrifice proves to be crucial as the fuel runs out too soon and the ship barely manages to glide to a rough landing on Zyra. The passengers debark and find the new planet to be (miraculously) hospitable. David Randall and Joyce Hendron walk hand-in-hand to explore their new home.




OK, me again... you know, it's been so long since I've seen When Worlds Collide, all I can say is that I remember enjoying watching it very much!

But next week, the third of the George Pal movies on "Movie of the Week," that's a different matter... it's my favorite George Pal movie of all time, "The Time Machine"!

Jon

Cool Stuff: Coloring Books and More!

OK, I said we were starting off with a few coloring books...



You know, there's just something bizarre about a coloring book based on a car toy line where the art seems to show the toys as toys, like this Johnny Lightning coloring book above!



But then, the Hot Wheels ones seemed to be the same way!



Well, okay, this one wasn't... it was based on the animated series!



But this sticker book definitely looks like it's supposed to be toys.



Did you have any idea that there were so many coloring and activity books based on Hot Wheels? I certainly didn't!

But enough of coloring books for now...



This Classic Countdown game isn't tied in with any particular character or tv series or movie... but I thought it was too cool not to save the photo and share it here!

Here's some more photos I saved just for the heck of it...




If there's a very successful toy line, sooner or later, someone will try to copy it... and that's the case above, with the Star Fleet figures (knockoffs of Shogun Warriors and other robot lines) and the Starroid figures (knockoffs of Star Wars). And that still happens today, but most of the knockoffs tend to go right to the dollar stores and Big Lots!



It's very rare that I post GI Joe stuff here... but when I saw this Skyhawk photo, I had to save it! It was an actual hang glider that flew with your 12" Joe in it!



Here's an extremely cool vintage construction toy... Ideal's Klikit!





And Ideal's Super City was pretty cool, too!



Remco produced this walking Rudy Robot!



Remco also produced this space gun, which I think is extremely cool!

Hey, it's been a while since I've posted photos of Ideal's Zeroids... let's take a look at a few, shall we?





Next time around... we'll start looking at some DC stuff!

Jon

Give-A-Show Fridays: Giants and Midgets & Seeing Without Eyes!

Note: The people who appear to be completely black (as in the color) should appear more brown, but browns don't scan well from transparencies.

By the 10's: Fight Comics!

Going to Fiction House for the next by the 10's... and Fight Comics!



Man, has issue 10's cover made it to Beau Smith's "Manly Cover of the Week" yet? Because look -- the woman in the background's actually shooting her rifle to fight off the wolves, while the hero figures, "The heck with that, I don't need to waste bullets... I'll just club 'em with the rifle!"

And from his stance, it looks like he's dealing with that while also having to go to the bathroom really, really badly.



Here's Fight Comics #20... don't look at this cover too closely, or the complete lack of perspective will blow your mind to pieces.



OK, there's a few things I don't get about the cover for Fight #30. First of all, how often did our troops have to rescue gorgeous blonde American women from the Japanese soldiers? Second, how is her skirt staying where it is? (I think Alicia Masters bought this skirt second-hand years later, when Annihilus tied her to the cables of the FF's elevator shaft during Byrne's run) And thirdly, just what the heck is supposed to be happening when the rope is cut? Because it doesn't look like it's taken that much of the tension, honestly... I guess it's assumed that the babe will be pulled apart?



Fight 40, and the whole "America's armed fighting forces" or whatever it was is gone, and Seniorita Rita has the cover spot! And she's being menaced by a Nazi Vulture. Or maybe it's a Nazi Condor, I'm not really certain.



By Fight 50, Tiger-Girl's taken over the cover spot... and what the heck is up with the whole "Tied between two trees" thing that's popped up twice so far here?



Obviously, Sheena was a major going concern, which explains the complete changeover of content. And here's issue 60, as Tiger Girl spears a lion!



Issue 70s cover, and I'm guessing the tiger about to pounce on the Big Game Hunter is Tiger Girl's friend!



Issue 80, and the best cover of this series so far! Could almost be Dave Stevens' work!

But things started changing a few issues later... on 82, Tiger-Girl was off the covers, and the military guys reclaimed the cover spot... all the way to the last issue, #86.

Jon

Cool Stuff: Original Comic Art!

And I start out this installment of Original Comic Art recently offered for sale with Gene Colan's cover for Doctor Strange 35! I've long been of the opinion that Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula was where Colan did his best Marvel work!



Next up, it's page 10 of Fantastic Four 190 by Sal Buscema, although most of the panels are flashbacks to one of the Lee/Kirby issues, isn't it?



And we're going backwards now to FF#104, and page 22 of that issue, art by Keith Pollard!

Yeah, this post will really demonstrate how there wasn't any unifying look to the FF throughout the 1970s...



Here's page 14 from Fantastic Four 118, art by John Buscema. Keeping track? That's three different artists so far!



John Buscema's here again, with the cover for Fantastic Four 120! I suppose if one were to argue the point, one could say the Buscemas were pretty much the "look" of the 1970s Fantastic Four.



Here's Big John's cover for FF 123!



And here's page 27 from Fantastic Four 131, by... Ross Andru! That's four different artists now! Of course, this wasn't anything new for Marvel in the 1970s.



Page 10 from FF 134, by John Buscema, as we're in the midst of Reed and Sue's separation!



Here's page 22 from the same issue!



And going ahead a bit, here's page 1 from Fantastic Four 150, art by... Rich Buckler!

And I think that's where we'll leave it for this time around!

Jon

Castle of Frankenstein #25 Part 6!

As we continue looking at Castle of Frankenstein #25, we come to "The Genius of George Pal," which seems to be the main feature dealing with older genre movies in this issue!



This interview was conducted when George Pal was 69 years old, and it's a pretty good interview with the man, starting with his early days doing Puppetoons, and talking about the special effects in War of the Worlds, Destination Moon, and other movies...



On these pages, 38 ad 39, Pal talks about his attempts to do 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Wah Chang, Gene Warren, Lester Bryan, When Worlds Collide and the sequel he never got a chance to do...



On pages 40 and 41, the topics covered are The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, Dr. Lao, and other movies...



And the article wraps up in page 42, with a teaser for Part Two's coverage of Doc Savage, which appears in issue 26!

Jon