Monday, September 17, 2007

Comicbabe battle Round 4 - Spiderbabe Winner - Part 1 ( now finally finished )

It´s been a whole week since my last post and even longer since the last post about comicbabe battle that ended with a kind of cliffhanger.


And I mean the comic related thing and not what we here in Germany call a cliffhanger which you know all about if you ever used the showering gel that goes by the name " cliff ".

The last week I was too wrapped up in doing more and more banners but at the same time I did not have more time on the computer. And as my brother has a new comic project it gets extremely difficult to endure his mobbing. It´s nearly impossible to live under the same roof under normal circumstances but by the time you get used to all the verbal abuse and the total lack of social interaction. But of course that just is multiplied when he has a new comic project and needs to vent his frustrations ( most of them caused by ignoring the good advice of his fellow brothers ) on anyone he finds.


Yesterday I went to bed early in hopes of getting something resembling a normal daily routine. Lately I have been getting to bed in the early morning because during the day I couldn´t get anything done. So the stuff I had to do kept piling up and when my brother finally went to bed I could do something. But that got later and later and it´s just too much. My problem is that while my brother hates everyone he also is doing what I call " ninja living ". Like a ninja who can melt into shadows and follows his prey unnoticed, shadowing his every movement my brother also " shadows " me. Which kind of baffles me because he acts like he can only work when i´m not around - as in off - planet at best. But on the other side he always adapts to my daily routine. If I stay up longer to get more time on the computer - he does the same after a few days. If I get to bed earlier because it´s no use to wait for him to go to bed - he does the same after a few days. If I start to do the siesta in the afternoon because I can´t do anything anyway at that time - you know it.......Ah, the joys of family.


Today I wanted to go to Stuttgart but because I got to bed so early and then couldn´t sleep till noon I was so tired I had to lay down. And then I slept till almost six o´clock.

But enough about how much my life sucks at times and back to the good things of life : comicbabe battle. In my last post about the sexy spiderbabes I was still undecided who should be the winner. And after one week the decision is not any easier but I have finally a winner. Which means that I can also announce

Sexy Spiderbabe Number Two : Mary Jane


As Marvel´s premiere redhead the partygirl par excellence Mary Jane is in the number two position of spiderbabes of all times. Playing second fiddle to the unforgettable Gwen Stacy for far too long MJ has stepped out of her shadow and into the spotlight proving herself to be a strong and confident character who even got Spider - Man to ignore his " Parker luck " and finally tie the knot.

Although there are a lot of fans who didn´t like this development. Yes, there are some readers who think making Peter Parker a married man means less trouble in his life. Well, let me say I have heard quite the opposite from all my married aquaintances. From the moment when MJ entered Pete´s life as " the neighbour´s niece he had to go out with " things got more intereting. And who could ever forget MJ´s catch phrase that has become part of the pop culture vocabulary ?


Now that´s how you know you made an impact.

At first MJ was conceived as a running gag being the girl his aunt was always trying to hitch up with Peter but then Stan Lee decided : what if she was really hot. And so she transformed into a real stunner. In the beginning Mary Jane had not much of a personality aside from always being hip and rushing from one party to the next.

In the beginning she wasn´t even Peter´s girlfriend. No, she was going out with Harry Osbourne when her rivalry with Gwen Stacy started. And in the beginning she was not much more than the more exciting and funnier version of Gwen.


That all changed when Gwen Stacy died and she and Peter grew closer together. Of course not everyone saw them as a couple and so MJ was written out of the book for five years only to come back with one of the worst retcons in retcon history.

It was revealed that Mary Jane knew that Peter Parker was Spider - Man long before the two of them ever met. Which not only lead to a lot of old spidey stories making no sense at all. All those times when Mj would have had the chance to cover for Peter because she knew he was somewhere else being Spider - Man and didn´t made her seem like a really selfabsorbed person. I mean if she secretly knew he was Spider - Man would she really have gone to the length of making a scene when he came late for a date only to not let him know that she knew ? That revelation that she had known all along really didn´t make things easier.


In fact is it even possible ? Doesn´t Spider - Man have a spidersense that would warn him ? Isn´t that the reason why Stan Lee invented the spidersense in the first place ? You see it is really difficult to really wrap your mind about the whole thing.

Back to MJs history she and Pete became an item and even tied the knot. Now during all the hype surrounding ONE MORE DAY Joe Quesada and the rest of Marvel ( and the WIZARD too ) are portraying the whole marriage deal like it was the most controversial thing that ever happened in a spidertitle. And I can say as someone who was reading comics at that time......no, it wasn´t. If you read the wizard article you get the impression that there were hordes of fans foaming at the mouth and stroming the gates of Marvel with torches and pitchforks demanding the release of the unbelievers who dared to soil Spider - Man´s glory with such an unmanly thing as marriage.


I don´t know how things were in America but here in Germany nothing of all that happened. Maybe the readers would have had the impression that it was all a cheap publicity stunt when Marvel decided they should marry them off because they were going to be married in the newspaper strip. But first of all the newspaper strip was not published in Germany and secondly it didn´t seem rushed.

They were going steady for a few years now and Peter had even proposed to Mary Jane before. So it was not like this development came out of the blue. It was rather the next logical step in the normal evolution of their relationsship. You meet a girl, you start going out together, you start living together and somewhere down the road you expect to marry and start a family. That´s how it goes and Spider - Man is not the first superhero to get married. Heck, he´s not even the first Marvel superhero to get married.


And it really was about time. I mean, I can´t speak for all Spidey fans of that time. There is a new generation of Spidey fans who know him only as a married man with a strong partner at his side. And to them that seems boring and dull and they want something new.

For me as a longtime Spidey reader it was a relief to finally see him being with one girlfriend - and one girlfriend only. It really became boring to read how Peter was always trying to " juggle " ( there really is no better word for it ) all of his girlfriends at the same time. He was always the hunter trying to catch three or five rabbits and in the end going home alone. Now the soap opera elements were something that gave Spider - Man the special " marvel formula " excitement that differenciated the Marvel comics of that period from all the other books from other puiblishers. But as a kid reading comics I couldn´t care less about all that girltroubles and heartaches. I wanted to see him tearing into the Rhino or going up against Doc Ock.


One of the problems with comics today is that kids don´t read much comics. On the other hand there are not many comics that are written for kids. I mean which kid wants to read about a hero having his midlife crisis or always whining and monologuing ? The parts when Peter had troubles at work or in school or he had to care for Aunt May were something that kids could relate to at some level....but the problems with his girlfriends were really for the more adult Spidey readers.

So when the focus shifted from all the troubles with dates, doubledates and going out in general I breathed a sigh of relief.

And Peter really lucked out on this one. I mean how can you top a successful bikini photomodel ?


Not that she really looked the part for a long period. Reading the comics you would never have known since she looked like your average girl in most of them. But then came Todd McFarlane.

Not only did he create SPAWN, cofound IMAGE comics and start a very successful toy line. He also had a very....no, one of the best runs on spider - Man. But his most influental contribution that has a big part on MJs participation in this countdown ( and you really have to wonder if she would be in it at all without Mr. Falane´s influence ) is that he decided that IF MJ was one of the topmodels of the world she should also LOOK the part.

Sounds easy but he really was the first one who started to emphasize that part.


Yep, all that talk about comic being made for male comic readers is nothing but hype. It´s one of the most used justifications why so few girls read comics but it´s all hogwash. There are two reasons why girls dont read comics :

First reason - you have to go and get them. I once believed that because of the fact that men are hunters and collectors and women are obviously not they don´t have the drive to go hunting for comics. Nowadays scientifics have discovered that women also have the hunting and collecting gen which is evident in the huge collections of shoes or hats women have. The main reason why women don´t read comics is that they have no bonus features like shoes. Women can spend a big part of their life hunting for shoes just to be the envy of the next party because they wear the same shoes like the protagonists of SEX AND THE CITY. And that´s something you don´t get from comics. So it´s part laziness and part lack of social acceptance. The moment comics become hip and cool and whatnot you can bet your firstborn that women will be the first in the trenches to get the most happening comic books.


Second reason - not enough horses. It has been a big mystery but horses and female readers are forever connected. This bond is as unexplainable as it is unbreakable. Let them ride and they will buy it.

But back to Mary Jane. Finally artist began to draw her as the hot firecracker she has become and in the stories she also played a bigger part. She became Peter´s anchor, the port in the storm that was his life and while she had a lot of problems in the beginning with him going out and fighting crime she was always supportive.

Maybe that´s going to change now with ONE MORE DAY but for the moment MJ has the number one spot on this list. Going from supporting cast member without much of a personality to the most important woman in Peter´s life ( for me she has become the number one taking Aunt May´s position ) and from average girl next door to knockout bombshell she really worked hard for her position.


There were some really strange Spideymoments involving MJ but you could say the same about most of the participants in comicbabe battle. One of those moments was in the Marvel Knights series ( which was just full of " Huh, what the heck.....this doesn´t make any sense ! " - moments ) when Peter and Mary Jane attended a class reunion. That was not the strange part but rather when some old classmates of Peter were stunned....absolutely shocked to see that old bookworm Peter Parker was married to a topmodel.

A topmodel that was in their class. It´s simple mathmatics people. If they were in the same class as Peter and Peter was in the same class as MJ then they were also in the same class as MJ. And they never noticed her ? THE ultimate partygirl ? The one who was always the center of attention ? It´s hard to believe that anyone who went to the same school as Peter didn´t know Mary Jane. And it´s not as if Mary Jane was an ugly duckling that later turend into a swan. So it makes absolutely no sense.


The other moment that was really strange was also in the Marvel Knights series ( like I said, it´s just full of those moments because almost everyone acts 100 percent out of character for most of the time ) when Wolverine was putting the moves on Mary Jane. Yes, Logan has a thing for redheads. And yes, Mary Jane is a redhead and also very sexy. But she´s also a married woman and although that doesn´t mean anything in the pages of Marvel Knights Spider - Man it means a lot in the rest of the Marvel universe. There was a love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey and Logan BUT Logan never tried to put the moves on Jean as long as she was with Cyclops. He never tried to hide his feelings for her and he never did hide them from Cyclops. But he never made the first move and he also always tried to avoid to break up a relationship. As long as a woman was with someone he stayed away from it.

Now some may argue that it is part of some from of chivalry or some kind of samurai code of Logan. I think it part of the second and also some kind of survival instinct. Because it always ends bad when you get caught between fighting fractions. Anyway, it was really strange when Logan was suddenly a womanizing playboy trying to break up Pete´s marriage with MJ. That´s more Gambit´s part.


And that´s all for this part. I know I wanted to reveal the winner of the Spiderbabe Round of comicbabe battle but this part has become longer than i anticipated. And it has also taken me longer than I thought. It´s now one week later than when I began this post and that´s quite long enough. There were some things that took away my time from blogging but we will come to that in the next post.

If you are a spider - Man reader you probably know already who is the only one left to top MJ and she really deserves her own post. There is also the matter of the new solicitations that I want to comment on - which I should have done already. So for today we end our Mary Jane appreciation post.


See you next time - when comicbabe battle continues.

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  • Sunday, September 09, 2007

    while you are making other plans

    I guess you expected to read another installment of comicbabe battle and you were just totally excited to see who has won the top spot.


    Well, me too. But the best laid plans of mice and men.....you know the rap. Just when you think you know how everything is going life throws a monkey wrench.

    In my case it´s not only life but also my older brother and the monkey wrenches are not thrown occasionally they have been raining on me since day one. Or more pouring all over me. I was just all set to go on a new installment of comicbabe battle. And I had my weekend already all planned out.

    I was going to go to the comicshop, bring all the TEEN TITANS and COUNTDOWN issues that have been piling up and buy some beer. Then I was going to spend the weekend reading TEEN TITANS or COUNTDOWN nonstop, drink some beer.....or better drink lots of beer and finally write the post with the top spiderbabe of all time. Yes, that was the plan.


    Now before I come to the part where it all goes to he!! in a headbasket I want to mention one thing about the WIZARD. I know that most american readers hate the wizard magazine like we in Germany hat Angela Merkel. But for me it´s one of the most important recources regarding comics. In many other comic magazines you have to flip through the pages to know if it´s woth buying. And that´s something you can´t always do especially if you order from a catalogue. With wizard I don´t have to do that. Every issue so far has been worth it´s money.


    Yes, I know it´s opinionated and may not represent everything objective but if you know how to read it you gat all the important information. What bugs me is that the magazine is slowly becoming....well, crap. There´s no other way to say it. There is always more and more stuff about movies and tv shows and less and less about comics. Now movies and stuff are nice but I can´t see most of the series anyway here in Germany and I also don´t want to read pages and pages of spoilers so I can ruin my tv watching experience.

    It´s become really ridiculous and while it´s nice to have some hot chick of a movie or tv show I never heard of on every other page I really want to read about comics.


    And what´s up with the previews ? I remember that there were lots of them and even full issues printed in wizard. Now it seems that with the internet they don´t need to do that. Well, the internet´s all nice and well but you can´t take it to the crapper. And I want my previews printed on some nice paper that I can reread two years later. And not to vanish on the internet after a few months. I don´t need it blown up on the screen to ridiculous proportions with crappy resolution ( hello Marvel )or so small that it hurts the eyes. They have an article about Brain Hitch now on the FF and only one lousy picture ? Come on.

    Basic Training. Whatever happened to that ? Since the started selling those books no new part has appeared. Nice signal that you´re not only interested in our money. And I could go on for hours but let´s just say that since they switched to the bigger format with less pages it just gets worse and worse. You have less content and even less comic content. I know I don´t need all the pics in the new format if that means less pages. And I would rather read another installment of LAST MAN STANDING than more about some movies. If you want to do that just do a WIZARD MOVIE special.


    Back to the monkey wrench. This time it came from my brother. For the last three weeks he had some old stuff lying on the computer taking up 2.5 GB of our free space which meant that I had to burn stuff every two days so nothing important was lost. On some days the computer was left with only 775 MB or less. But that was no problem.

    Now from time to time my brother dowloads new freeware from the internet ( mostly graphic oriented ) because he hopes that somehow someday the computer will draw his comic for him. And if not the whole comic than at least all the boring stuuf you don´t want to draw....like cars, buildings, machines, perspective and all that background stuff. Of course he can´t put the new software on one of the two computers who are exclusively for work - which means doing graphics and stuff. No, he has to put it on the computer with less free space. Which is the one I´m using. Which was supposed to be only for me so I can surf and work without getting any viruses onto the important computers. And then it was for my brother to use when he has to go to the internet. And then my brother used it more than me and in the end I have almost no screen time. Anyway, after installing the new program he usually notices that the computer is working really slow and of course he wants to defragment the computer so it will work faster.


    That has never worked before and will also never work but it´s like the old spanish saying about the idiot and his stick. Once they have this idea they´re stuck with it. Now of course there was not enough room to defragment the computer because after the last defragmentation I put tons of new stuff on it. The last time I was well on the way of finally having the computer totally defragmented and was up to almost 6 GB of free space - but the next day my brother downloaded lots of stuff and we were back to 3.5 GB. And that was that.

    Now what that all leads down to is that as usual the computer could not be defragmented and also as usual there has to be someone who is guilty. And of course that has to be me. Because all the stuff my brother has on the computer is ultraimportant, absolutely necessary and you can´t survive without it. And all my stuff is just unimportant, silly stuff for this stupid blog I´m writing on like everything I do is so unimportant and useless. And the rest is porn and naked bitches.


    So instead of spending my weekend with comics beer and another installment of comicbabe battle I have been burning almost all my folders on CDs to get 5.6 GB free space to finally defragment the computer. I have thrown out almost all the stuff for my blog even stuff I know I will need in a few months or so. I will just have to put it one the computer again later - like I had to do everytime so far.

    I also had to get rid of the folder with all the pics I alrerady posted so from now on there is the chance that I may post a picture I have already posted. I wanted to avoid that but now I have no way of knowing otherwise. So I want to apologize in advance. From now on I´m back to square one with the pictures.


    And that´s all of my little rant about wizard and why this weekend turned out different than I thought. Hopefully we can get back to comicbabe battle in the next post and FINALLY find out who´s in the number one spot of the hot spiderbabes.

    Life is what happens.......

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  • Thursday, September 06, 2007

    Comicbabe battle Round 4 - Spiderbabe Finalists

    It´s time for another installment of every comic readers favorite topic : comicbabe battle.


    It´s been a few days since the last post in which I made a gazillion banners ( of which I probably can post 10 percent - the rest are not safe for work ) and also tried to decide who should get the top spot. So far I´m still undecided and I can´t guarantee that we will have one winner at the end of this post. But let´s jump right into it with the first finalist.

    Sexy Spiderbabe Number Five : Spider - Girl


    Coming from an alternate universe the daughter of Spider - Man is the first in our top five countdown. Although the MC2 universe never had the success it was originally intended for - that came later with the ultimate universe - it can still be proud of one thing : it has the best spiderbook of Marvel. When the whole line was cancelled this one stayed on ... mostly because of it´s fans. Marvel tried to cancel the book on numerous occassions but thanks to campaigns started by readers - and WIZARD magazine which always ran articles if the danger of cancellation reared it´s ugly head - the comic prevailed. With time it turned into the little comic book that could.


    Proving that she has the staying power of a real contender Mayday Parker is a scrapper like her comic. While the comic shows every month why Marvel became such a giant in the industry ( but also why it isn´t as good as it used to be ) with good stories, solid storytelling, interesting characters and outstanding art the character of May would definitely not see herself as " hot " or " sexy ". A little insecure of herself as a hero at first Spider - Girl has now become confident in her role as superhero and carries on the spiderlegacy. She even has a prominent status in the superhero community.

    Apart from that she has a trim, fit physique and she let´s 616 Spider - Man eating her dust when it comes to being BACK IN BLACK.


    Now that´s a sexy back !

    Yes, that´s right. Your eyes don´t deceive you. Spider - Girl comes with two different outfits : the regular spiderclone costume and the black and silver special. She looks stunning in both of them although the red and blue one does accentuate her backside a little more. Not that she would have any problems there.


    Now that adds to her hotness status. In any case she is a character with a lot of potential since she is still a growing woman so she may ( no pun intended ) rise higher in the sexy - o - meter. I mean just look at Jubilee´s growth spurt in the pages of NEW WARRIORS. Who knows what can happen ?


    Sexy Spiderbabe Number 4 : Spider - Woman a.k.a. Julia Carpenter


    And we´re back to the regular 616 universe with our third and last Spider - Woman in this countdown. Julia Carpenter played a big part in SECRET WARS ( the original ) after which Spidey had a brand new costume based on hers. So her costumedesign was the blueprint for Venom. Talk about groundbreaking.

    It looks better on her. While there were some spider venoms involved in her origin story her webs were " psy webs " and not organic webs ( or chemical webs before the retcon to make everything more like in the movie ) so she´s only partially spider ...... or something.


    She has been a member of the Defenders, Avengers West Coast and the short lived FORCE WORKS. During CIVIL WAR she registered ..... which turned out to be a ruse to spy for Captain America. When she was found out she became a fugitive on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. The last appearances I´ve seen from her were in MS.MARVEL where she tried to find out where the government was hiding her daughter. In the pages of the new OMEGA FLIGHT series she is a member under the name Arachne to have the charges against her dropped. Which basically were using her constitutanal right of civil disobedience while following an unjust law that dictated her to register. My, my, that´s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.


    Sexy Spiderbabe Number Three : Silver Sable


    The first in our top three is the silverclad mercenary and leader of the Wild Pack. As a highly trained weapons specialist and martial artist she can take on anyone. Like many of the women Spider - Man meets in his line of work she wears skintight latex - in her case it´s shiny silver. Unlike the other women Silver Sable a.k.a. Silver Sablinovia ( if you want to know why she uses the name Silver Sable ) she is also the CEO of her own security company and ruler of her home country Symkaria.


    Being not only at home on the battlefield but also in the high society of monarchs and other rulers Silver has not only the look of a cool platinium blonde she has also a lot of class and style. Like the blondes in the Alfred Hitchcock movies which were always like an iceberg on the outside but a volcano on the inside.


    And since I like shiny things Silver´s in the top three. Not only because she´s a kick - ass woman who can twist your arm or shoot you in the head without breaking a sweat. Also for her firm and fit body. Did I mention the shiny costume ? I wonder if that´s real silver ? As the CEO of a big security firm she sure would have the money. I know I would take real silver. I mean, you never know if you run into a werewolf ..... especially in the Marvel universe ....... but you never know. It always pays off to be cautious.


    And with that we come to the places one and two. Which for me was a really tough decision. If you know your Spider - Man trivia you know that there can be only two contestants left who are battling to get the number one spot. Like in the comic these two women have both been romantically involved with Peter and they are both incredibly hot and sexy. Of course I´m talking about Mary Jane and the Black Cat.


    It´s a really tough question like who´s hotter ? Betty or Veronica ? On one side you have a hot bikini model and Sports Illustrated cover model. I guess. I mean I don´t know if there is such a thing as Sports Illustrated in the Marvel universe. But judging from the Marvel Illustrated magazines featuring various superheroines and other characters in string bikinis and less I would say the chances are very high. And Mary Jane was in it.


    But also the Black Cat. Arrgh ! We´re never to get anywhere like this. Felicia is not a model but she has the body of one. The only reason why she´s not on the cover of hundreds of magazines is that she gets a bigger kick out of being a catburglar.


    No, I just don´t know who deserves the top spot. And I´m not going to come to a conclusion tonight. It´s almost 4.00 in the morning now and if I wasn´t waiting for the rerun of PRISON BREAK ( because our VCR in the living room is on strike and we can use only one VCR ) I would be either in bed or surfing the internet. So I´m going to end this post now and hope that I will be able to pick a winner after my trip to the comicshop. Maybe then I will know who is the sexy spiderbabe of all time and the winner of this round of comicbabe battle.


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    Tuesday, September 04, 2007

    Comicbabe battle Round 4 - Sultry Spiderbabes

    It´s been a while since my last post because on one side I was busy fiddling with my own banners and on the other because now that my little brother has come back from his vacation we have now three persons using the same computer.


    And I also had to decide which section comes next and go through all the needed material. I have done the introduction to the horny horror hotties but since I started the Marvel section first I should finish it before I start another.

    So I am going to do the spider babes now. What is a novum is that right at this point I have no idea who is going to be in the top position. I had to include one person I had almost forgotten and at the moment the number one position is a draw. Since it keeps shifting as I go along I will be as excited as you to find out who is gonna be our winner. In the four fantastix section I was counting on Susan Storm going home with the trophy and I was surprised to see her on second place. So who knows who wins this one ?


    Spider babes : under this section I have put all the women involved with Spider - Man which are quite a lot. Not only does this include almost every superheroine in the Marvel universe but also a truckload of ex - girlfriends. I know that Peter is always bitching about the famous " Parker luck " but in most instances it meant that he didn´t know which of the three or five hot girls he was involved with at that time he was gonna pick. Let´s face it the man is a player. He even has his own official index to keep track of all his hot ex - flames. I bet his little black book has the size of the New York phone book.


    Of course that means I had to leave out a few not only superheroines whom I have covered in other rounds but also the ones to which I couldn´t find any pictures of like Liz Allen or Debbie who wouldn´t be very high on the list anyway.

    Also in this category are all the women which have at one time or the other gone by the name Spider - Woman or Spider - Girl. Which are also a handful. I had thought about doing a top ten but that´s not really narrowing it down. So like in all the other sections let´s first go to the ones that didn´t make it into the countdown at all.

    Black Widow


    Keeping with the spider theme I would have her in this ranking but since she was in the avengers section Natasha is not competing.

    Spider - Woman a.k.a. Jessica Drew


    Although wearing the name Spider - Woman at the moment she was also in the avengers section and will also not compete.

    Madame Web


    No this is not the WWE where Mae Young has to win every bikini contest. So I doubt that she looks like in this pic by Arthur Adams. At least she was rather old in the latest Spider - Man issue she appeared in. I think she was rejuvenated at some point but since it´s too confusing I left her out.

    Arana


    Arana is one of these overrendered, overcolored books without any real shadows that look more like a bunch of animation movie cells than a real comic book. Which I really hate. Don´t get me wrong I like painted artwork like from Alex Ross, Richard Corben or Don Lawrence. But it seems that artist nowadays like Clayton Crain on SENSATIONAL go just overboard with detail and the eye just looses focus. You can´t tell the difference between what´s important and what not. You have no reference point.

    Not that it´s not wonderfully rendered but real craftmanship also means being able to take yourself back and to put the story into the foreground. It seems that a lot of artists have forgotten how it is to read a comic. Like Dell Otto in SECRET WAR. He´s a good man for covers and paintings but his pages had no soul, no dynamics, no movement.

    Anyway, the only occasions I have read about this new Spider - Girl knock - off are her appearances in MS. MARVEL so I left her out. I know next to nothing about her. Is this even her real costume in the pic ?

    Spider - Girl ?


    Again I´m not entirely sure who this is supposed to be. Either Spider - Girl with a different costume or somebody´s own version of a charakter like her. Nice design by the way but I have no idea where to put her. Out.


    Next up are the participants who would be in the top ten. I like it short and sweet so it´s only a top five but in the top ten the next sexy spider chicas would be included :

    Spider - Woman a.k.a. Mattie Franklin


    Mattie wore the title Spider - Woman only a brief time during the John Byrne penned Spider - Woman series with art by Bart Sears. Now while Bart is one of the artists who can draw really stunning females his art on this series was beyond par and the confusing and weird stories by Byrne didn´t help much either. As the fact that she changed costume every two issues. As a character she never had the time necessary to develop a distinctive personality beyond of the usual " pissed of hip youngster who doesn´t want to be a superheroine " cliche that Jubilee invented in the pages of X - Men. Lately she has been back on the radar in the pages of the superb LONERS miniseries but we have to wait and see if this is a comeback or just a quick guest appearance.

    Gwen Stacy


    Peter´s original love interest and also his big tragedy. In a countdown of Peter´s ex - girlfriends she would be surely in the top three if not in the top two. But with the years her role in spider - Man´s life has become smaller and smaller. In fact readers of today mostly have no idea who she was. And as sad as that may be she was always a little quiet. Stunningly beautiful but more like the girl next door. And not the ones you see in the pages of Playboy magazine.

    Betty Brant

    Another one of Peter´s ex - girlfriends Betty Brant is still around and has appeared only recently in the pages of FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD SPIDER - MAN. When the late Mike Wieringo left the book I thought that my last issues would be the ones right after that storyarch - the Mysterio issues by Todd Nauck. But being a big fan of Scott Eaton´s artwork I just recently purchased the german version of the Vulture story in which Betty Brant shows that she can still drop em dead.


    Now is it just me or does Scott draw her a little like Halle Berry ? Maybe that´s just me. Anyway Betty has this high spot also because of the Spider - Man 3 movie. Because let´s face it : Kirsten Dunst doesn´t really look like the hot swimsuit fotomodell right out of the pages of Spider - Man. Someone better suited for that role would be Nikki Cox fromUNHAPPILY EVER AFTER and VEGAS. Hubba hubba.


    They had a nice looking Gwen Stacy - who was the fotomodell in th movie - but the sexiest girl in the whole movie was Betty Brant. So for that alone she deserves to be in the countdown.

    By the way I tried to find a better photo of her but this is the best I could find.

    Dagger


    Next up is the female part of the Cloak and Dagger tag team. While I was reluctant to include her in this round I´m not sure if she fits anywhere else. She did make her first appearances in the pages of a spidermag and was involved in many storyline after. Besides being a sexy blonde with a really strange cleavage window she´s also a strong character who always manages to subdue the dark side of her partner Cloak. In the pages of CIVIL WAR they both helped to turn the tide of the last battle but I´m not sure if they have resurfaced after the big showdown.

    And last but not least in our pseudo top ten is :

    Stunner


    When Mark Bagley took over AMAZING SPIDER - MAN I left the title after a few storylines. I had read the title for a long time but since my younger brother was already reading the other spider - title he continued with the series. So I didn´t spend money on the now infamous CLONE SAGA. Man, that´s a word I never expected to mention in my blog.

    There were a few issues I bought like the ones that featured Daredevil´s very own THYPHOID MARY. And the ones that had the debut of a new character : Stunner.


    Now while the character itself was nothing too exciting she was maybe the only good thing to ever come out of the crapfest the clone saga turned into. To this day I don´t remember who all those guys like KAINE, CARRION or whoever were and what happened to them in the end. But I remember Stunner.


    Basically she was the She Hulk but without the green but I didn´t care. We can always use more sexy, muscular blond babes in comics. Especially if they have her build....and cup size.

    Now I know that´s just me dreaming but in Marvel vs. DC ( and later in the JLA / Avengers mini ) I always hoped to see her go against Power Girl. In a microbikini. Or at least in a wet t - shirt. Now that would be something for Dave´s Lonbox BOOB WAR files.


    At last, it was not to be. And then they go and say that comics are a male dominated medium. If that would really be the case we would have BOOB WAR - THE MAGAZINE coming out every month featuring stories of all the hot chicks of comicdom going at it wearing only those shoelace - string - bikinis drawn by babe artists like Mike Deodato, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho or Victor Rinaldi.


    So the only reason why she´s not in the top five.....well, actually there are two. One : she was not in many stories and the ones she was in ( like the clone saga ) were not that good. Two : while she had the same hot hardbody as She Hulk she never appeared in a bikin in an issue of Spider - Man. So she´s not in the top spots but only by the hairs.

    And with that we end today´s post which has become long enough. Like the last few times we will come to the top five spider babes in the next installment of comicbabe battle. Maybe till then I will know who the number one is.



    Since I posted nikki Cox´photo earlier I also wanted to add the clip of that particular movie scene for all those who haven´t seen it yet. I think she would make a terrific Mary Jane.





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