The Greatest Robots in the World: Epsilon

The Greatest Robot in the World is Andrew's favorite Astro Boy story, and his retelling of it to me may have been what got me to pick up Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy manga in the first place.The Greatest Robot in the World is considered to be one of the best Astro Boy stories (if not the best Astro Boy story), and has been adapted at least four times since its inception. Each time, the cast of international robots that feature in it have been adapted in different ways. I had planned to make collages of all of them to showcase these different adaptions - partly because I am very fond of collages - but as it happens, I only got as far as Epsilon, the Australian solar-powered robot.

Epsilon in the original manga, the 1980s TV show, and the 2000 era
TV show. After growing a nose, he decided becoming a girl was the
next logical step.

Andrew doesn't actually like Epsilon because he thinks he's a wuss. He's not very Australian, for sure, but I found his part of the story touching in its own way, because I am a sucker for melodrama.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find an encode of the 1960s TV adaption of The Greatest Robot in the World (which was never dubbed into English), and haven't actually read Naoki Urasawa's Pluto yet despite owning all of it, so those two versions are not present in this collage.

To me, the cream and brown accents of the '80s version don't really come across as good colors for Epsilon, given the florid stylings they went with - he's a very fancy robot with very utilitarian colors. I question the color design there. The '00 version is... well, nothing like how he was originally at all, but it was animated prettily. I guess that counts for something?

Maybe I'll go back and do some more collages. Maybe not! We'll see.

Godzilla vs The Essential

I've known Godzilla a long time. I was practically raised on Godzilla movies playing on Creature Features every Saturday morning as a child. I own every Godzilla movie ever made on DVD or VHS and in some cases both. As I type I am within spitting distance of three different Godzilla figures. I've read Marvel comics all my life. So why the hell have I never read Marvel's Godzilla: King of the Monsters? I have no idea either. Let's start reading.

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound.

Spider-Mannotations: Amazing Spider-Man #667, Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #1, Spider-Island: Deadly Foes

Spider-Island continues!  There's a lot less to explain in this week's Amazing Spider-Man #667, so I'll also be covering the two Spider-Island tie-in books that came out this week: Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #1, and Spider-Island: Deadly Foes!

Amazing Spider-Man #667

Somewhere in Rhode Island, a Hasbro executive is drooling.
(art by Humberto Ramos)

Four of the Best: Marvel Masterworks FF #1

So lately I've been reading Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four. The first volume, handilly numbered #1, contains the first 10 issues of Fantastic Four, in glorious remastered colour. It's the first time I've ever read these stories in colour -- well, most of them (I own issue 8, and a repro issue 1). For a huge Fantastic Four fan like me it's a joy to have an excuse to enjoy these stories again.

So I thought I'd pick out four of the very best panels from the TPB -- one for each main character -- to share with you. I'm sure other 80 Page contributors will copy this brilliant idea with other books, but let's be honest, it makes the most sense with Fantastic Four. So let us begin, shall we?

Sal's Sunday Punch #7

It's a very special CLONETASTIC Sal Buscema Punch!  In 1996's Spectacular Spider-Man #234, amidst the 6-part Blood Brothers storyline, Ben Reilly's been framed for arson after the Daily Grind, the coffee shop where he worked, burned down.  To clear his name, he's got to find the real arsonist - the Hobgoblin!  After fighting past his cyborg flunkies, he faces Hobgoblin, the recent recipient of a highly-unfortunate '90s cyborg makeover...

Save me, Tim Burton!
(Spectacular Spider-Man #234, written by Todd DeZago, art by Sal Buscema and John Stanisci)

Unfortunately, it turns out that the Hobgoblin isn't the real mastermind - he's working for the shadowy Gaunt!  Who it turns out was working for an even shadowier guy, but that's another story...

Let's talk about yuri: COME EMBRACE ME, SENPAI!

Remember, always read from right to left.

I was going to use this image instead,
but in the end, good taste prevailed. By
 which I mean wouldn't fit right.

If there's one thing that's really important to a compelling superhero origin story, it's having a good coming of age metaphor. Spider-Man is the most obvious (and also the most grossest). Sailor Moon was about the awesomeness of pre-arranged marriage learning to balance working and love. The X-Men are all about illustrating how homosexuality is exactly the same as shooting kinetic energy out of your eyes. And so forth.

A Lifeform in Puberty — Vega has a pretty similar setup, but a little less pretense about its own metaphor.

Let's talk about Australian Kids' Magazines.

All the images from this article
are from Krash #91. Krash is
known for its subtle covers.

As I pointed out in an earlier article there exists in Australia a wide range of magazines for children that celebrate and, let's be honest, shill youth pop culture. These are some of the only comics-related material produced exclusively in Australia for Australian children. They're available everywhere, and sell quite well.

Each one is filled to the brim with articles that barely hide the fact that they're actually advertisements for the most popular pop culture of the day. They're written directly to kids, they're colourful, and they're about things kids care about.

Also, they generally have comic pages as a backup in them! Actually that's probably stretching things. Most of them have a very small, teenie-tiny number of comic pages in the back of the issue, usually something like 6 pages of comics in a 100 page magazine.

The magazines are, frankly, incredibly crass. They try to write to kids on their own level, using 'young slang', and writing things in a way that sounds awesome and cool! Often using words like awsm and kewl. The result is that they're kind low on the literacy scales, and very hard to read if you're not 10.

Let's review Phantom #1607

In Australia Phantom has been published continuously since 1947 in a comic book format by Frew Publications. Frew's version of the Phantom comic is the longest running comic book based on the character in the world. Almost all the material in it is reprints of either newspaper strips or comic stories from the Scandanavian comic Fantomen.

I've be workin' on the... circus.

I've only recently gotten back into buying Frew Phantoms and I basically pick-and-choose, buying pretty much only the issues which have 'Phantom Classic' on the cover, because that usually means it's a reprint of a Lee Falk newspaper strip.

This comic isn't. It's a reprint of an old Team Fantomen story.

This post doesn't contain any sex

Remember, always read from right to left.
From 20-Year-Old Girl x 30-Year-Old Maiden, by Akiko Morishima.

Sorry, no review this week! I promise I'll have something good in a few days, though.

I'm the Zuggernaut, Bitch

Firestorm has a dismal rogues gallery. He just has a dirty closet mostly full of various furries and bondage fetishists. Looking through those weirdos a strange one just caught my eye.

"Where did my left leg go Torchman?"

Zuggernaut. *snicker* Seriously. That's the name you went with? Something about the design of this giant purple space roach is eerily familiar.