Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Rob's Room: Frank Quietly's Star Wars
Monday, January 30, 2012
Alpha, Beta, Gamma Flight
Gamma Flight:
The original Gamma Flight served as the first tier in the three tier process of becoming a member of Alpha Flight as instituted by Department H. Gamma Flight was mostly raw recruits. After a training period, theoretically they would be upgraded to Beta Flight and eventually to Alpha Flight, the premiere official superhero team of Canada. The members were Diamond Lil, Smart Alec, Wild Child, and Madison Jeffries.
Former Gamma Flight members (Diamond Lil, Smart Alec, Wild Child) along with Beta Flight members (Box and Flashback) were convinced by Jerry Jaxon and Delphine Courtney to join Omega Flight in his bid to destroy James Hudson.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
DC Super-Stars Society
- a 17x22 poster by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez
- a cloth patch
- a DC Super-Stars Society decal and an insignia transfer to iron on a shirt
- a membership certificate "suitable for framing"
- a membership card with the chapter's secret code on back
- discount coupons to save on Dollar Comics, Amazing World of DC Comics, Direct Currents, and the regular line
- the DC Super-Stars Society Bulletin "with contest announcements, instructions for establishing your own local chapter of the DC Super-Stars Society, and more!"
- an exclusive set of DC Super-Star Society envelopes "to identify you as a member and give your letter to the editor special handling!"
In late 1977, DC proposed a fan club called the DC Super-Stars Society with a dozen chapters, devoted to a number of its popular characters and teams: alphabetically, they were for Batman, Black Lightning, DC's Battle Stars, Flash, Green Arrow & Black Canary, Green Lantern, JLA, JSA, the Legion, Shazam!, Superman, and Wonder Woman. (For the record, DC was publishing 37 titles at the time, and they could have had chapters for the Secret Society of Super-Villains, Aquaman, Mr. Miracle/New Gods, mystery/horror, Jonah Hex, Warlord, or Kamandi, according to a subscription form).But 1978 was also infamous at DC for the aftermath of the Explosion, popularly known as the DC Implosion, in which a large number of titles and projects were cancelled by Warner execs. The DC Super-Stars Society was one of the casualties. As far as I know, only the Superman club ever put something out.
The first ad appeared in the December 1977. It was all timed to coincide with the DC Explosion, in the summer of 1978. You'd send your SASE and in return you'd get a 4-page pamphlet: an intro, a trivia quiz, a pitch for the other chapters, and the subscription form for that chapter. The Legion pamphlet arrived in the mail in July 1978 (just before my 12th birthday), and I eagerly sent in my $4 for my Special Charter Membership Kit, which would have taken 8-10 weeks for delivery. Unfortunately, it never came. I did get my money back, though.
Dork Note: I can relate to that last bit about eagerly waiting for a membership; which failed to arrive. The same thing happened to me with the Captain Cosmic Fan Club.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock
Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock is a five-gesture expansion of the classic selection method game rock-paper-scissors. It operates on the same basic principle, but includes two additional weapons: the lizard (formed by the hand as a sock-puppet-like mouth) and Spock (formed by the Star Trek Vulcan salute). This reduces the chances of a round ending in a tie compared to the more traditional game.
The game was originally invented by Sam Kass and Karen Bryla. It was mentioned in an article of The Times in 2005,and popularized in 2008 by "The Lizard-Spock Expansion", the 8th episode, Season 2 of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
Paper covers rock
Rock crushes lizard
Lizard poisons Spock
Spock smashes scissors
Scissors decapitate lizard
Lizard eats paper
Paper disproves Spock
Spock vaporizes rock
Rock crushes scissors