Tagged: team up
That Time The HULK Fought The HUNCHBACK of Notre Dame?!
I was rewatching some of my favorite eighties cartoon episodes straight from my childhood recently & was reminded why The Incredible Hulk series from that era remains one of my faves! It used to be paired with ‘Spider-man and His Amazing Friends’ during the Marvel “power hour” on Saturday mornings!
I’ve stated here a few years ago that as much as I liked The Incredible Hulk animated series of the early eighties there just wasn’t enough appearances from the jade giants rogue’s gallery. As far a real villains, he only really went head on with The Leader, Doctor Octopus oddly and the Puppetmaster. As a kid I’d always hoped to see The Abomination, The Rhino, The Bi-Beast or M.O.D.O.K. pop up to cause The Hulk some trouble. Instead in a strange twist we got an epic battle between the green goliath and of all people, The Hunchback of Notre Dame(?!) in an episode from 1982 called ‘When Monsters Meet’.
Yep, Quasimodo for some reason showed up not only in the animated series but also in a special one shot issue from 1983 the that I still personally adore to the this day! And at a mere 60 cents you just CAN’T complain right?!
What’s so perplexing is I could never quite figure out just why the hell they chose to pit the Hulk against him in the first place? I mean surely there were better villains to feature in an animated series! But still…
…And really who would’ve thought that Quasimodo actually had the super human strength to go one-on-one with The Incredible Hulk in the first place?! I’m impressed! They actually managed to make him into a pretty frightening and formidable foe. Go Quasi!
I’m guessing that this particular one shot issue, which featured actually a pretty sweet savage battle, was created in some sort of way to generate more excitement around the animated TV series? Either that or someone was just a real BIG fan of The Fighting Irish and just simply couldn’t resist making Quasimodo into a bonafide Incredible Hulk bad-ass villain. I think the results worked shockingly well, don’t you?
Whatever the case I just had a an 80s flashback of owning this weirdo one shot comic book beautifully illustrated by Sal Buscema and seeing this particular episode for the first time. Believe me, though an ODD choice of a story and semi stupid villain, it made me long for those Saturday mornings and sugary cereals of sooo many years past…
Let’s Get Phantasm’s Reggie Bannister to Appear on ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’!!
Bruce Campbell is horror icon & ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ is definitely here to stay now with season three announced recently. Heck, season two was even BETTER than the first and gave a more detailed look at just who Ash really is as we hung out in his hometown for the majority of the show. This all got me thinking about other horror franchises and their unique heroes who haven’t quite gotten the level of respect that Bruce has gotten over the years. I recently re-watched the entire ‘Phantasm’ series and found myself drawing parallels between Bruce’s ‘Ash Williams’ and Reggie Bannister. Heck I’d say that Reggie from ‘Phantasm’ is just as badass as Ash and that the two of them would likely end up being good buddies if they ever met up to kick some evil monster booty.
Interestingly enough I ran across a petition online that someone had made that actually proposes the idea of getting the Phantasm’s Reggie into the ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ series on Starz. It hasn’t gotten much publicity yet but I actually think it’d be an incredible idea to incorporate characters from other similar franchises into the series. I guess it’d be a little bit like an ‘Expendables’ of horror with some grizzled, aged heroes teaming up together. I think a cool place to start would actually be introducing ‘Reggie’ into the series to give Ash a hand. Both have a lot in common and it’d be comic gold to have these two older ass kickin’ dudes team up and let’s face it, I think fans would eat something like this up. To be clear I’m not just proposing that the actor Reggie Bannister makes a small cameo, I’m saying he should appear as the character ‘Reggie’ from the ‘Phantasm’ series.
Reggie’s got the attitude and even in the somewhat lackluster “Phantasm: Ravager” he proved he’s still got what it takes to kick evil right in the ass. Ash may have his boomstick but Reggie’s got his signature quadruple barrel shotgun and can use a chainsaw like the best of ’em. Yep this retired ice cream man still’s got the moves & the charm with the ladies (or so he likes to believe). Another thing him and Ash have in common. He’d be a perfect addition to the Starz series and Ash could pay him a visit hearing lore about another older dude who’s spent his life fighting evil while hopping into different dimensions. It might take some convincing from Ash, Pablo & Kelly to get him on board but I could see the four of them teaming up being quite a incredible little slice of horror history in the making.
How likely is this idea? Probably slim to none, but let’s consider at least that Don Coscarelli (The mastermind behind Phantasm) has already worked with Bruce Campbell, giving him one of his best roles of his career in ‘Bubba Ho-tep’. To my knowledge the two of them are friends despite not ever being able to agree on how to proceed with ‘Bubba Ho-tep 2’ which for a while was going under the title of ‘Bubba Nosferatu’. It’d be amazing to see Don Coscarelli direct a couple episodes of ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ as well wouldn’t it? We also saw a cameo in ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ from Reggie Bannister so it’s very likely the two of them already know each other. Bannister is also still working in horror, in 2016 he starred in Phantasm: Ravager, The Obsidian Curse & Bonejangles. I’ve gotta check out the latter two.
I even took a moment to send Reggie a message on Facebook about the possibility of an appearance on ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ and got a response saying “Anything could happen but no one has approached us”. So it sounds like he’d be open to it but really fans have to make a stir in order for anything like this to actually ever materialize. What do you think? Would you like to see Reggie and Ash team up? Are there any other horror icons you think would fit nicely on the series? Share this post if you wanna see Reggie & Ash together!
Guardians of the Galaxy: No Need for a Cinematic Avengers Crossover!
The verdict is in! The Guardians of the Galaxy have moved from C to D list superheroes to A list superstars literally overnight! I had my doubts about it, I mean who wouldn’t considering their previous popularity or should I say unpopularity in the comic books. But the movie was a ton of fun, it had great effects, a neat-o story, excellently executed characters and a ton of laughs! It also had another thing going for it-it stood on its own with out needing to constantly reference The Avengers!! It was honestly a breath of fresh air to see a Marvel flick that wasn’t (at this point) trying to tie in or crossover into The Avengers. I like the whole crossover cinematic movie universe that Marvel has created but does everything always need to tie into something else? The answer is no even though it seems now everyone is getting the idea that they want to crossover and create one big movie universe for their separate franchises.
Don’t get me wrong I love The Avengers-it was awesome. But I can’t tell you how happy I was that this had nothing to do really with Thor, Captain America & Iron Man! I hear the plan is to have the Guardians meet The Avengers. When I think about that, it really doesn’t excite as much as I thought it might. maybe because I simply enjoyed The Guardians so much that I’d just love to see them hit space on their own, Avenger free so to say. I think they should tie in a little bit with Thanos but do we really need a movie jam packed with ten plus superheroes crammed into space? I don’t think so! Right now I’m just excited to this movie again and I’m this close to saying I like the Guardians movie even more than The Avengers! Nice work Mr. Gunn!!!

This was one of my favorite comics as a kid! And it is a crossover…so well, maybe Marvel will once again prove me wrong?!*-
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Superman vs He-Man!! Who’s More MAN?!
Check out this awesome cover way back from 1982, us kids had our wildest fantasies come true with Superman and The Masters of the Universe! As a kid we’d always be pondering important things like “Who’d win in a fight He-Man or Superman?!” Well our wish came true in the form of this comic book! Of course the only reason the two fight is because of Skeletor taking control of Superman’s mind-DUH! It was a damn good fight too! Now if only we could see He-man Fight the Hulk!!
ULTRA Lame Comic Book Cover of the Week: The Punisher & Eminem Team Up!
I thought it’d be a good idea to showcase some real lame comic books that probably should never have been made! I don’t want to spend too much time on these abominations, but I do want to at least acknowledge that someone thought they’d be a good or “cool” as fuck idea to make. So the first one I want to spotlight is the Punisher and Eminem team-up! Yeah man Mr. Mathers is a good rapper but is he really that much of a bad-ass that we needed to see him team up with Frank Castle?! I think we all know the answer to that one but somebody thought he was cool enuff so we got this shit whether we liked it or not!
Yep, this really happened and it wasn’t that long ago either-in 2009 we got this stupid story which tries it’s hardest to make us all really believe Eminem can play hard ball with the big leagues. This comic and story just plain suck. You can watch the whole thing unfold below on this youtube vid! I think however this is going to a fun little series of comic books to research, there has gotta be some others that rival this garbage and I intend to find em’ all!
Truly Strange Celebrity Comic Book Appearances! Part 2!
So guess who else was immortalized into a comic book back in 1984? None other than David Letterman! Yeah he made his first comic book appearance in The Avengers #239! It seems that Wonder Man used his connections as an actor to get the team on Late Night’s most popular television show! However this appearance is no cake walk for the team as the dastardly super villain Fabian Stankowicz aka The Mechano Marauder attacks the team on live television with his crazy ass gadgets! He then takes the guest seat and chats with Letterman about how his plan is foiling The Mighty Avengers in front of a live audience.
The Avengers who are unable to take down Fabian due to a force field he’s got surrounding him and Dave-so yes folks it’s up to Letterman to take matters into his own hands and steal the show! This issue sounds pretty ridiculous huh?
Well it was one of those “assistant editor” issues that came out in ’84 where you basically got a zany issue of the unpredictable! Damn those were the days back in the 80’s! Also Paul Shaffer is seen in the issue rockin’out-folks next time you’re back issue shopping grab up this little gem of an issue!
Comic Book Cover of the Week! It’s Miller Time!
So this weeks cover is one of my faves drawn by Thing artist extraordinaire Ron Wilson-I always love comic book story lines that really show superheroes on their time off. This particular issue has an amazing cover that simply shows the Thing gettin’ wasted at the local dive bar with none other than the Sandman! This was an unusual pairing at the time to have The Thing “teaming up” with a villain but it seems that after this issue in which the Sandman contemplates his life’s direction and tells his complete origin to Ben Grimm, that the two seem to have a friendship that forms that will lead them once again to drink beer together in yet another later issue (the next time will be in a hospital room). It’s simple comic book story lines that I feel are missed greatly in the comics of today-If you’re looking for a great simple and fun back issue to check out Marvel Two in One #88 from 1982-just make sure to crack open a cold one when reading!
WTF Comic Book Moments!!
I just recently saw this cover and I just had to share this here! It seems like Superman, Batman & Robin may be overstepping their boundaries maybe just a little bit here on this one don’t you think?! Hopefully the police didn’t get involved because seriously folks Batman looks WAY too stoked on the idea of stripping down!!
Let’s hear it for Chinese Popeye!!
Holy shit-you wanna see something truely amazing that will blow your mind? Well look no further cuz it’s time for motherfucking Chinese Popeye to blow it off the roof! Yeah chinese Popeye appears in a movie from 1976 called The Dragon Lives Again in which the soul of Bruce Lee heads off to Hell and meets a number of weird ass people like James Bond, Laurel & Hardy and most incredibly Popeye! But even more rad is that he’s kicking mummy ass all over the place! It’s a dream come true to have a Bruce Lee / Popeye team up bro-down!
I have yet to see this movie in its entirety but after viewing this short clip and being a mega Popeye fanatic this is clearly a must see!! Check this shit out!!! Robin Williams didn’t want you to know that some bad ass beat him to the punch-but man what I would pay to see Chinese and American Robin Williams Popeye duke it out!!