Happy New Year ( 2026 edition ) from The Glass Walking-Stick!

 

The Kelpies

 On our recent road trip around Bonnie Scotland we stopped off at Falkirk to see the awe-inspiring Kelpies. Situated in The Helix, a former industrial area which is now a lovely eco-park, The Kelpies are two 30m-high steel sculptures of horse heads. These incredible pieces of art were created by artist Andy Scott, and represent the industrial heritage of the area and the workhorses who pulled canal boats along the waterways and ploughs through the fields. The beauty and scale of The Kelpies ( aka Duke and Baron ) is breath-taking and they really have to be seen in the ( horse ) flesh to be appreciated.

We spent most of the afternoon and evening there - mostly because we hadn't realised just how late the sun sets in Scotland at that time of year, and we wanted to see The Kelpies lighted up at night. It was worth the wait as they looked stunning.

We'll definitely have to visit the big 'orses again one day - they're just gorgeous.

#Avengers #Spider-Man #Comics

Did the hashtags get your #attention? Of course, it's just another desperate attempt by me to get people to read this blog. Sorry... #blog. Do hashtags even work here on Blogger? Are they migrating over here, now that the House of Hashtags ( the site formerly known as Twitter ) is being run into the ground by a power-mad tech bro' ? Who knows, certainly not me. But I digress... let's talk #comics. ( There I go again. )

I picked up these beauties a couple of weeks ago in Worcester's wonderful Out Of This World. It was only my second visit to this Aladdin's Cave of Comics but it's fast becoming a favourite. The owner, Gary, is a top bloke - friendly, knowledgeable and very fair in his pricing of #comics etc. We had a lovely chat about all kinds of Bronze and Silver Age comics, and I even remembered to buy a few.

 Amazing Spider-Man no. 54 ( Nov 1967 )

This issue is from the imperial phase of the Lee / Romita partnership: all the requisite elements are here from the soapy goings on of the supporting cast, to the vile villain ( Doc Ock of course ), to Peter Parker in full on neurotic mode. The story revolves around Aunt May's questionable decision to take on a certain Dr. Otto Octavius as a lodger. What could go wrong? As you can see below, quite a lot...

This is the second issue of a four-part Spidey / Ock slug-fest which leads into the classic story where Spidey loses his memory and unwittingly teams up with the tentacled terrorist. Romita's artwork is lush as always, although the inking of Mickey Demeo ( aka Mike Esposito ) is sometimes dull. The girls ( Gwen, Mary Jane and Aunt May ) all look amazing, though.

Also in this issue we see the first meeting between Peter and Joe "Robbie" Robertson, soon to become a familiar character in the Spidey strip and one of the first prominent Black characters in Marvel comics. And then Aunt May has one of her turns. ( Don't worry - she'll be alright. )

The Avengers no. 100 ( June 1972 )

Moving on from our friendly neighbourhood web-spinner, it's time to meet those #Mighty #Avengers in their equally Mighty 100th Issue - in fact, the mightiest of all as the cover proclaims. This is an issue I've long wanted but always found too expensive before. This copy is slightly worse for wear, being only a G+, but the Out Of This World price was right, so I had to pick it up.

The story finds those avengerers heeding a summons from the Black Knight to travel to the legendary city of Olympus for an epic battle with Ares, God of War, his ally The Enchantress, and various and sundry mythical creatures. The script, by Rascally Roy Thomas, is the purplest of prose, but the artwork is ( mostly ) wonderful, coming from the pulsatin' pencil of Barry Windsor-Smith. ( Don't forget the "Windsor", or Barry gets upset. Just ask Pete Doree. ) I say "mostly" because Bazza's work suffers from a round robin of inkers here. The early pages inked by BWS himself ( see above ) are lovely, and there's plenty of good stuff here from Joe Sinnott and Syd Shores, but Barry's style is often blanded out by the other two inkers. But, never mind, it's all fun stuff and I'm glad to finally own a copy.

Avengers no. 131 ( January 1974 )

Another issue of T'Avengers, seemingly cashing in on the then-current Kung Fu craze, if this splash page is anything to go by. That mysterious maid Mantis kicks some back street mugger in the jaw ( "Klok!" ), while the ad on the facing page is trying to flog the discerning reader a "revolutionary new audiovisual home study course in dynamic Kung Fu & Karate" - well, who could refuse? ( Interestingly, the small illustration accompanying this ad looks like it was produced by "Judo" Jim Starlin, but I could be completely wrong on that score. )

This issue is part of the ongoing Celestial Madonna epic, a multi-part story including Immortus, the Kree, the 1940s Human Torch and his relationship to the Vision, the recently deceased Swordsman, the terrorist group called the Zodiac, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. And, this being a time-travel yarn, the Avengers' greatest foe #Elon Musk Kang the Conqueror turns up. Mission statement below:

( Talk about yer power-mad tech bro's  - I'll leave it up to you, Dear Reader, to decide if Muskrat is cosplaying Immortus or Kang here. )

Anyway, this is a fine, dialogue-heavy issue ( if probably mind-boggling to any new readers ) with the great Steve Engelhart delving into the Vision / Wanda / Mantis love triangle, while also delivering some requisite action scenes and setting up the convoluted plot to come. There's some un-showy but lovely artwork from the team of ol' reliable Sal Buscema and new-to-Marvel Joe Staton, fresh from his run on Charlton's E-Man. One of the main draws for me was the cover for this issue: I first glimpsed it in one of  the earliest issues of Marvel's in-house fan magazine FOOM I acquired as a kid ( no.7, fact fans! ), and all the covers featured in those issues were indelibly burned into my brain, and now have an almost-totemic status. I've always meant to find those specific comics but haven't really pursued it - maybe I should start now.

All in all, a nice little haul from Out Of This World, and I'm sure to go back there for more delights.

( If not more #hashtags. )

Happy Valentine's Day from The Glass Walking-Stick

 

FF Fridays slight return: First Steps trailer

As any long term reader of this 'ere blog would know ( pauses for hysterical laughter at the thought of such impossible creatures ) my all-time favourite comic book is the Lee & Kirby Fantastic Four. I used to do a semi-regular feature here called FF Fridays, and the release of Marvel Studios' latest movie trailer prompted me to dust this off.

The previous cinematic adaptations of Marvel's First Family have been a very mixed bag. The Tim Story-directed films from the early 2000s were fun but deeply flawed, while the 2015 reboot was irredeemably bad. ( We won't mention the unreleased Roger Corman production from the '90s. )

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the previous FF films, none of them captured the unique feeling of the original source material: the superhero soap combined with cosmic melodrama, and an often goofy humour. The FF were always tied to their era - the heady days of JFK and the Space Race - and I always thought any movie adaptation should be set in the 1960s. This trailer gives us a glimpse into a retro-futurist world which seems to be exactly that and is very promising, from the brief glimpses of the characters, to the Silver Age aesthetic, to the shadow of the Big G looming over Manhattan.

For the first time in a very long while I'm quietly excited for a superhero movie. ( And, to be fair, James Gunn's upcoming Superman film looks promising too. ) Maybe we're heading for a renaissance of the superhero film? Stranger things have happened.

Merry Christmas from The Glass Walking-Stick

 Wishing peace, love and light to all you gorgeous people out in the Blogoverse. Have an Incredible (Hulk) day!