Neilalien : A Doctor Strange Fansite : A Comic Book Weblog  

October 02021

Joanna Cameron has died...

Actress portrayed Isis on the Isis/The Secrets of Isis television show in the 01970's; the first weekly American live-action television series with a female superhero lead character (pre-dating both Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman)...

And Neilalien has been crushing on smart leggy brunettes, and interested in Ancient Egypt, ever since...

Wikipedia: Joanna Cameron; The Secrets of Isis

Entertainment Weekly

Daily Mail

Comic Book Resources

[29 October 02021]

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Doctor Strange video game in the works from Insomniac Games?

[25 October 02021]

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Pushing Ahead Of The Dame, a David Bowie weblog, song by song: 01967 Bowie song "Karma Man" and a Melody Maker interview at the time "describing Buddhist monks as superhuman figures" "suggested that Bowie was up on one of the counterculture's new heroes, Marvel Comics' Doctor Strange, an arrogant ex-surgeon reborn as a chela to the Ancient One and who, as per Geoffrey O'Brien, "spends his days sitting lotus fashion within his tastefully decorated Greenwich Village pied-a-terre and tuning into the brainwaves reaching him from across the universe." Steve Ditko's Strange Tales was full of astral projections, trips to psychedelic bardos and battles with occult powers like the Dread Dormammu." [thanks Johnny Bacardi!]

[24 October 02021]

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Collecting information and lovenotes re: the absolutely amazing-looking book The Essential Guide To Comic Book Lettering by Nate Piekos

The Beat: preview and table of contents

Bigger Than Capes

Women Write About Comics
[btw, balloons for speech, bubbles for thought]

[23 October 02021]

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The Death Of Doctor Strange #2 out today!

Comic Book Round Up collected reviews

Variant cover regime [didn't like any of the variants for this issue]

"A bit of water treading and setting up all the pieces for the rest of the story" [review at The Beat]

"All aspects of the issue from the story to the artwork are 100% an unabashed loving celebration of Doctor Strange, his world, and the Marvel Universe as a whole both past and present." [review at Comicon]

MY WHAT?!

[20 October 02021]

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Marvel movie schedule shifts/delays: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will now kick off Summer 02022 on 6 May instead of opening on 25 March

[18 October 02021]

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Jon Kent, aged-up son of Lois and Clark, "the Superman of Earth", DC's new/current Superman, coming out as bisexual [Tim Drake/Robin came out as bisexual a few months ago]

[12 October 02021]

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There Is Not Enough Paper In America For Comic Books Right Now
[paper, comic books, not immune to global-pandemic supply-chain issues] [order your holiday gifts early!]

[7 October 02021]

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What If season finale released today!

Updating:

What If...?'s Multiverse Avengers Assemble In A Surprisingly Tight (If Predictable) Finale

Season grade: B- is about right, maybe a fun B+ for Doctor Strange fans, because the Doc episode and Strange Supreme were the best things about the season.

Marvel's What If...?: Season 1 Ending Explained- How The Finale Sets Up Season 2

WhoTF Gamora's appearance explained: There was a missing Gamora episode due to pandemic-based production setbacks.

What If...? Fans Agree This Guardian Of The Multiverse Can Take Down The Eternals

Strange Supreme was shown with awesome power! Enjoyed the Multiplied Mjolnirs and the "galaxy-destroying" blast eaten like a candy.

Annoying inconsistency: After making Ultron invincible in all universes with a set of Infinity Stones from only one universe, breaking that "rule", now the rule is back and Gamora's Stone-crusher thing only works on one universe's stones?

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Also out today 6 Oct: Defenders #3 (Ewing/Rodriguez), Savage Avengers #25

[6 October 02021]

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Ditko Con 02021 report and lovenote

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Also at TCJ: An Embarrassment Of Obsessions: From Apes To My Stan Lee Moment
[a 60-year-old's moving melancholy musings re: selling his old comic book collection; our quirky individually-tasted financially-worthless obsessions become storage fillers and burdens for our survivors to unload; kept a set of Strange Tales featuring Dr. Strange by Steve Ditko for his son; "The only thing I kept for myself was the set of Detective Comics with the Manhunter by Goodwin and Simonson."]

[5 October 02021]

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New York Comic-Con 02021 this weekend 7-10 Oct in NYC!

[Health & Safety: vaccination proof and masks required]
[Panels & Screenings]
[Artist Alley] [Exhibitors]

Haven't found any party lists for this year yet- probably muted due to the pandemic- but here are about ten NYCC-related parties/events using Eventbrite for their tickets

[4 October 02021]

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Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige says casting Tilda Swinton as a whitewashed Ancient One was a mistake
[thought they were being clever and avoiding chichés- but it would have been even more clever to both cast an Asian actor and still avoid chichés]
[Men's Health interview source]
[or is this the spin? remember: Marvel Denies Whitewashing 'Doctor Strange' To Appease China]

[3 October 02021]

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'Loki', 'Black Widow' And Why We're All Living In Disneyland [Gerry Canavan]
[Loki's introduction of the multiverse (and with X-Men/Fantastic Four incoming?) stands to extend Disney's cultural dominance and rescue an MCU running on "and the rest" third-tier-character fumes... the Marvel multiverse concept that conquered supercomics is so amazingly suited for conquering all media... allowing for any character or item of intellectual property to be recast (watch out actors!), killed, resurrected, reinterpreted, rehashed, alternate versions, alternate endings, etc... "It can't be lost on us that the TVA's primary weapon is the 'retcon': the ability to painlessly undo the consequences of any event to reset the story... if everything happens somewhere, does anything really matter?... to spectacle without consequence, to death without sadness, to franchise expansion without limit or end"]

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How Marvel Took Over Cinema And TV [The Economist; paywall] [discussed on Hacker News] [earning $25+ billion with 20+ movies has a way of rescuing one from bankruptcy]

[2 October 02021]

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The What If episode out 29 Sept [Season 1, Episode 8] brings back the powerful entity-eating universe-destroying "Strange Supreme" from Episode 4...!

For the season finale next week against a multiverse-threatening Ultron who succeeded in inhabiting the Vision body- and getting all the Infinity Stones...

And it shows there is that ol' Marvel interconnectedness to the anthology, to at least some of the episodes... Now we know the end of Episode 7 with that Ultron showing up in Party Thor's universe was a teaser...

Wouldn't the Infinity Stones only work in their own home universe?- so an Infinity-Stoned Ultron wouldn't be as powerful in other universes and thus couldn't threaten the multiverse?

Why the heck is this Episode 8 particular story the one that breaks the Watcher's heart? Didn't he Watch the Doctor Strange episode?

What If...? Episode 8 Review: A Very Ultron Apocalypse

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The Last Annihilation event finale was Guardians of the Galaxy #18, out 22 Sept: Dormammu jack-o'lanterned the Ego planet and launched an invasion wave of Mindless Ones until Rocket Raccoon shot him with a big gun. Doom siphoned off some of Dormy's power for later. Doc nowhere to be found.

Update: Doctor Strange in Amazing Spider-Man #74 [out 29 Sept], not doing much, parleying with Mephisto about Peter Parker's soul- but the big Nick Spencer/Kindred Saga finale is on the radar by retconning the hated Sins Past storyline (Gwen Stacy did not have sex and twins with Norman Osborn; all a ruse! with artificially-created genetic children who became Kindred) and adding slightly more heft to the hated One More Day storyline (Mephisto has foreseen that May Parker, Peter and MJ's daughter, takes him down, so he's been trying to prevent May's birth) [Mephisto's Spider-Man One More Day Plan Finally Revealed]

[1 October 02021]

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