Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo - Round 10: Breaking The (Master) Mold!

For this week's round of Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo, I'm opting for a good old-fashioned man vs. machine conflict, courtesy of Incredible Hulk Annual#7, written by Roger Stern, John Byrne, and Bob Layton, who were an ideal late 70's Marvel creative team back when I was a young lad. Synopsis: Our titular Green Goliath gets kidnapped, along with the Angel and Iceman, and trapped in the asteroid headquarters of the Master Mold, a sentient 100-foot Sentinel robot. After escaping their prison cells, Iceman tries to get Hulk's aid in sneaking up on their robotic captor.


But sneaking isn't how the Hulk rolls.

At this point, ol' Moldy falls into a classic villain trap: He lets Iceman goad him into telling his origin. Worse, he gets rattled when Angel disputes that origin. All of which give a certain Green Behemoth some needed recovery time, and....

Which he does.

Looks like ol' Jade-Jaws could give Magnus, Robot Fighter a few pointers.


Tonight's fight music is this cybernetic singalong by the Alan Parson Project.

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Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo - Round 9: Aliens And Nazis And Amazons, Oh My!

Tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo is another rebuttal to people who think a certain Amazon Princess' adventures don't make her worthy of her own movie or TV show. It comes from World's Finest#248, written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Mike Vosburg and Dick Giordano. This is one of my all-time favorite WW stories. After all, how often do you get to see a story where Wonder Woman teams up with Sgt. Rock and Easy Company to fight Dr. Psycho and the Nazis AND a group of aliens who have formed an alliance with the latter two?


Here is tonight's Amazon/Axis/Alien altercation.

And that is why you always hold the door open for Wonder Woman.

One Nazi---down. Now for the alien.

Uh-oh. What does that alien gadget do?

This.

Who says Diana needs a sword, anyway?


Tonight's fight music is this electric selection from Lou Christie.

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Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo - Round 8: May the Force Be WHIFF You!

We all make mistakes, so for tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo, I'm showing how making a mistake can work to your advantage.


Tonight's Force-driven fracas comes from Star Wars#38 by Archie Goodwin, Michael Golden, and Terry Austin. Synopsis: After escaping Imperial trooper ships,  Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are stranded on a mysterious spaceship made of living metal (no, not this one). After they are separated, Luke tries to get his bearings and....

....all hell breaks loose.

How does Luke get out of this impossible situation?


By intentionally making a mistake and whiffing on a swing.

In this case one wrong definitely makes a right.

Elvis Costello, the source of this week's fight music, would agree.

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Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo - Round 7: Winning One For The Gipper!

For tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo, I'm bringing the Presidential Power, courtesy of our 40th POTUS, one Ronald Wilson Reagan. I'll be honest: Reagan was not one of my favorite Presidents in real life. On the comics page, however, is a different story, and tonight's White House walloping will show you why.


Tonight's Reagonomic rumble comes to you courtesy of Legends#6, written by John Ostrander and Len Wein, and illustrated by John Byrne and Karl Kesel. Synopsis: A band of armed insurrectionists, manipulated by Darkseid and G. Gordon Godfrey, are leading a coup on our nation's capital.


Let's see how that works out for them, shall we?

Looks like bedtime for bozos!

But wait! How could Ronald Reagan, a normal Earth human, be invulnerable enough to withstand Uzi fire and bend guns?

Here's how.

Yes, it was the one and only J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter himself.


Tonight's fight music is this piece of trickle-down tuneage from Lemon Demon.

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Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo - Round 6: Let's See Gal Gadot Do THIS!

Before we get started with tonight's round of Friday Night Fights: Boogaloo, I'd like to lead off with a little bit of a rant.


At last weekend's San Diego ComicCon, Warner Bros. unveiled the first photo of Gal Gadot in the Wonder Woman costume she will be wearing for the upcoming Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice film, and it certainly was....sepia.

Joshua Bell over at The Agony Booth wrote a very insightful column about the changes Wonder Woman has gone through since her post-Crisis reboot, particularly the negative ones, including the loss of her and the Amazons' more peaceful, nonviolent nature as well as Diana's increasing use of a sword where her nonlethal arsenal of bulletproof bracelets and a magic lasso once sufficed. He covers the subtle loss of WW elements I had forgotten existed myself. I highly recommend reading it.


And I have to agree with a lot of it.


While I think Ms. Gadot herself looks great in the costume, I have a very bad feeling about what that costume portends about the upcoming movie. First of all, where are the bright colors? She's supposed to be a symbol of hope, particularly for women. Instead of the classic red, blue, gold (or silver), and yellow, we're getting brown, brown, and more brown. Her former "golden lasso" looks here like something I would use to tie down large boxes to my car trunk. And worst of all, she's brandishing a sword.


A lethal weapon.


This indicates to me that director Zach Snyder intends to portray our favorite Amazon as a violent Xena wannabe rather than the peaceful princess we know and love. It also indicates that he and the WB think that a magic lasso of truth isn't a good enough weapon for a summer blockbuster. Which is ridiculous, especially since George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg have already made four such blockbusters starring a man armed with a damn bullwhip.


Okay, rant over.


To cleanse the palette, I'm going to post a fight from Diana's Silver Age days, namely Wonder Woman#130, written by Bob Kanigher and illustrated by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and recalling a time when Wondy was a lot more....fun.


Synopsis: Silver Age Steve Trevor is being something of a colossal dick to WW's bespectacled alter-ego Diana Prince at this juncture. He rarely asks her on dates and when he does take her out, he never shuts up about how beautiful and wonderful his "angel" Wonder Woman is. And Diana is quite pissed about it. She vents to her mother Hippolyta, who gives Di her magical Mirage-Mirrors, which will allow her to temporarily assume any form she chooses. So when Steve invites Wondy to a day at the carnival, she plants the Mirage-Mirrors around the fair grounds in order to mess with Steve and teach him a lesson.

Unfortunately, Wondy's foe Angle Man and his gang choose that moment to rob the carnival.


Unfortunately for them, that is, as Diana uses her newfound shape to....

....bowl them over.


Mirage Mirrors which let Wonder Woman change into any form she wants. We haven't seen these in a Wonder Woman comic in over 40 years why exactly?


Tonight's fight music is this little illusory number from Santana.

Bonus: This story, unfortunately, features the earliest sign of a trend that would go on 5 decades later to ruin two iconic DC characters.

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