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Hungary wants to know: Which woman is best for Spiderman?
From the news portal Index, based in ever-randy Hungary, comes exploration of the question “Melyik nőt döngölje meg Pókember?” which might be translated as, um … well, let’s put it this way. Within the URL link to the story, the webmasters and/or editors have changed the article title to the more, shall we say, family-friendly “Melyik nő illik a legjobban Pokemberhez?” or “Which woman is best suited for Spiderman?”
(While BuckBokai admits this has little to do with sports, hey! Pinup comic babes!)
In light of the Spiderman movie franchise reboot which featured Gwen Stacy replacing more traditional Mary Jane Watson as Peter Parker’s love interest, the author tantalizingly known only as Cinematrix reveals his/her choices for getting with the Spider someday – since “the franchise gets rebooted about every 10 years.”
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Nine super innings: DC Superstars #10
BuckBokai was going to do a full-on review of a highlight in science-fiction sports literary history, namely the lead story of DC Super Stars #10 (1976), but the issue has proved elusive to download and more importantly has been amazingly critically analyzed by Comic Treadmill back in 2005 and recently by Baseball Prospectus, so we’ll refer you to those links.
If you haven’t been lucky enough to experience the life-changing greatest of DC Comics finally living up to their “Strange Sports Stories” franchise in form, this epic is based on an argument between the simply awesome Sportsmaster and the Huntress. This couple makes a bet stemming from a dispute in which the Huntress maintains that the bad guys never win (she must have been hip to the Comics Code Authority of Earth prime, eh?) and thus set up a superheroes vs. supervillians match.
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Review: “Danger on the Martian Links”
The BuckBokai 40th-anniversary retrospective of DC Comics’ “Strange Sports Stories” mini-run appearing in Brave and the Bold issues 45-49 continues. Today: The Brave and the Bold backup story in issue 46, “Danger on the Martin Links,” a nice attempt in the subsubgenre and nearly inspired enough to neutralize the idiocy of “The Hotshot Hoopsters” somewhat, is reviewed.
Whoof. Well, after the debacle that was the Brave and the Bold no. 46 lead story, i.e. “The Hot-Shot Hoopsters,” science-fiction sports fans will be pleased to hear that the backup tale is actually not bad. Not great, mind you, but with a glimmer of interesting material and a glimpse at what might have been.
(Or “what would be,” perhaps – BuckBokai still has high hopes for DC Comics’ “Strange Sports Stories” mini(?)-series of 1973-74, to be read through and reviewed after finishing up the BotB run.)
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What the puck? Hockey goes to Zarmina, Stan Lee to NHL
Could it be that folks noticed the opening week of NHL hockey this year? In the science-fiction sports realm, at least, the Canadian national pastime has been getting a bit of play lately.
Pop astronomy geeks like BuckBokai were certainly intrigued by tales of Gliese 581g, a.k.a. Zarmina, a so-called “Goldilocks Zone” planet 20.5 light-years away on which water may exist and homo sapiens could live – albeit in a narrow band between perpetual scorching sunlight and continuous night.
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Review: “The Hotshot Hoopsters”
BuckBokai continues with its 40th-anniversary retrospective on DC Comics’ ultimate mini-series, the “Strange Sports Stories” collection in Brave and the Bold issues 45 through 49, proving today that he loves this blog by slogging through “The Hotshot Hoopsters,” cover story in issue #46. I read this one so you don’t to.
Last season’s Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) championship series pitted the country’s age-old rivals Žalgiris Kaunas against Lietuvos Rytas for the nth straight time since the first sports missionaries brought the new religion to the country in the 1920s.
This was to be no ho-hum cliché-ridden series interesting only to the country’s citizens, however, thanks to the stark raving insanity manipulation of Žalgiris by team owner Vladimir Romanov. In what was certainly a nearly unprecedented move, Romanov fired head coach Darius Maskoliunas *in the middle of the best-of-seven championship series* with his team down two games to one. Assistant coach Gvidonas Markevičius stomped out a day later, leaving Žalgiris with a coaching staff numbering zero.
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Review: “Goliath and the Gridiron” (or, This is Your Brain on Berries; Any Questions?)
In continuing its 40th-anniversary retrospective on DC Comics’ ultimate mini-series, the “Strange Sports Stories” collection in Brave and the Bold issues 45 through 49, BuckBokai today analyzes “Goliath of the Gridiron,” a sobering, moralistic tale of berry abuse in college football in the early 1970s.
In the best tradition of sportswriting-based purple prose, “Goliath of the Gridiron” opens with a bloody good (so to speak) description: “The shock of contact and the thud of body against body heralds the opening of the *Hartnell Aggies’* football season…”
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