Samantha Bryant's Blog, page 66

W is for…Wolverine

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/... has been known by several names, and had several looks depending on who is drawing him. I tend to think of him as Logan, and I always picture him in a bloody teeshirt and jeans (no yellow pajamas for me, please).

When I first discovered the character, in comics, Hugh Jackman wasn't yet associated with him, and he was allowed to be kind of squat and ugly. He's definitely been prettied up now, though I'll give Jackman credit for understanding the character psychologically and mastering some of the iconic poses.

Logan is probably my favorite superhero character, besides those I myself have written. He's an antihero, in that he's not always interested in being a hero and he's willing to use deadly force. I like him because he's got such a relentlessly tough and grumpy exterior, but he's got a marshmallow of a heart when it comes to people who need protecting.


He has an especial soft spot for young women and in many of his storylines has had a young protégé: Kitty Pride, Jubilee, Rogue, X-23, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). I've admired the relationships for avoiding sexual complications (and the ick factor of teenager with an old dude) and for the way he manages to protect these women while still helping them fight for themselves. He's egalitarian in his own way, and old fashioned and modern at the same time, teaching that the best defense is a strong offense.

He's an amazing character, with a healing factor (at least in most storylines) that slows his aging and gives writers a long history to play around in. He's been a soldier, a mercenary, a recluse, and a hero. I'll keep reading him as long as they keep writing him.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories. Change of Life, book two of my Menopausal Superheroes series just came out a few days ago!

V is for . . . Velma!

Velma Dinkley might not seem like a superhero to some. She can't breath underwater or fly or throw fire or anything like that. But not all superheroes have superpowers. Without their gear, Ironman and Batman are just rich guys, after all.

Velma is a superhero to me because she's a woman making it on the strength of her intellect. She always has the necessary background knowledge to spot the clue that is out of place. She's brave and stalwart, willing to walk into the heart of the volcano or into the depths of the swamp.

She even has a weakness: blindness (in the form of a tendency to lose her glasses).

I've loved Velma since I was a child watching the original Scooby Doo,  Where are You? series, and I've enjoyed the interpretations since in other cartoons and the movies. Especially in more recent programming, both Velma and Daphne get a rewrite and are no longer just comic relief and victim, respectively.

Velma is so hipster that she was cool with her own geek-ness before the world began to realize that smart is sexy. I still wouldn't mind growing up to be Velma.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories. Change of Life, book two of my Menopausal Superheroes series just came out a few days ago!

U is for…Underdog

http://underdog704.com/wp-content/upl... might be the first superhero I ever admired. I used to sit on the floor as a toddler watching the humble and lovable shoeshine boy save Sweet Polly Purebred while my mother folded laundry around me.

The cartoon was silly and light, in the vein of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hong Kong Phooey, and other cartoons of the era. Underdog had a range of talents/powers, with no consistency from episode to episode, but this didn't bother me. I liked his rhyming speeches. I even sort of got the Superman references, thanks to watching the old TV show with George Reeves in reruns with my uncles.

Sometimes, in the face of dark and twisted superhero stories like the recent Batman franchise, I miss the wide-open optimism and joy of heroes like Underdog, who knew simply what was right and fought villains who were clearly wrong. His secret identity stayed secret and his ego remained in check. Maybe some more recent superheroes could learn a thing or two from this shoeshine boy.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories. Change of Life, book two of my Menopausal Superheroes series just came out a few days ago!

T is for…the Tick!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wZHTuNTP8iU...
SPOOOON! It's the battle cry of The Tick, a hulking nigh-indestructible superhero who dresses in what appears to be blue latex, though the antennae move, which begs the question of whether that's a costume or his flesh.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/o...
/7/79709/2124195-woodard_tick.jpgI've loved him in comics, in cartoons, and in his short-lived but absolutely fantastic live-action TV show. The Tick in some ways parodies superheroes and in other ways gets to the heart of what makes superheroes great. 
He does often save the day, though it's by luck more than skill. He's unrelenting sunny and optimistic, and convinced that he is on an important mission. His childlike wonder makes for some fun and hilarious moments. The cast surrounding him (Arthur, American Maid, Bat Manuel, Die Fledermaus, Bipolar Bear, and Sewer Urchin, among others) are equally absurd, with their strange powers.

I wonder if they were inspiration for some of the Evil League of Evil heroes Joss Whedon wrote for Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog?

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   This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories. Change of Life, book two of my Menopausal Superheroes series just came out a few days ago!

S is for…Swamp Thing

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s3T7hRo2LVU/hq... might be expecting Superman here for the letter S. He seems like an obvious choice. Possibly the most famous of all superheroes, and using the actual letter as his symbol. But, I've never been all that interested in Kal-El. He's overpowered to the extent that writers really have to reach to write conflict for him, and, too often, the reach shows. 
So, instead I'm going to talk about Swamp Thing, my favorite eco-warrior. You'd think a scientist who spends all his time in the swamps of Savannah, Georgia would be safe from bad guys. But, no. Apparently, if you're going to work on a plant/animal hybrid that can survive anywhere, word gets out. Next thing you know, you're a mutated beast fighting another mutated beast to save the woman you love…and the world. 
Swamp Thing pulls together some of my favorite themes in comics and pulp: knowledge as dangerous (in the wrong hands), underdog heroes, gentle-on-the-inside beasts, and thwarted love.

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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories:

R is for…Red Sonja

https://www.dynamite.com/images/redso... I was a little girl in the 1970s, there was a used bookstore on the avenue in my hometown: Tom's Book Nook. My mother used to take advantage of the trade-in program, exchanging a pile of paperbacks for a pile of paperbacks on pay days.  I was allowed to spend a dollar on old comic books, from a box Tom kept under the counter, of comics for ten cents each.

It was always a strange collection. A mix of Spiderman, Tales from the Crypt, Archie, Duck Tales, Doctor Strange, Thor, all kinds of disparate heroes. But I loved Red Sonja. I still do. 
As a child, I was sure I was getting away with something, reading her tales. After all, she was nearly naked, and assuredly not ladylike or sweet. My grandmother definitely wouldn't have approved, though I suspect my mother did, even if she didn't say so aloud. 
Given how the women in most of the other comics in Tom's shop were either victims or noir-ish schemers, I liked Red. She was direct. She was strong. Tough. She'd have to be. Chain mail bikini. (Ouch). In spite of looking like some kind of pin-up girl, she was so much more to me. 
In recent issues, she's been updated by Gail Simone and I love her even more. In my heart, I might just be Red Sonja, even if my surface is a lot less fierce.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories: The newest one released TODAY! Check out Book 2: Change of Life (the kindle is now live and the paper edition will be out in the next few days!)

Q is for…Quicksilver

http://d3qljroq8e8j0n.cloudfront.net/... (or Pietro Maximoff) was one of my favorite characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Young and arrogant, passionate. Dangerous and hard to contain like the liquid metal mercury he was named for. Ripe to be taken advantage of by manipulators. Having survived a war-torn childhood, he and sister wanted vengeance. To get it, they were willing to subject themselves to experimental procedures. It worked. They became powerful. I especially enjoyed the scenes with his superspeed.

Pietro worked willingly enough at theft and trickery for those who would use him, but he had his own ideas of right and wrong, which SPOILER ALERT led to his self-sacrifice. I love this kind of character, whose heart is good and redeems himself in the end.

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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories:

P is for …Phantom

http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimage... Phantom has been around a long time. He was invented for comics by Lee Falk in 1936 and he's found his way onto the small and big screen since. Of course, I didn't know that when I saw Billy Zane's performance in 1996. What I did know was that I loved it. Not everyone does, of course. Even I'll admit that those purple pajamas are a little ridiculous.

I also didn't know that The Phantom was the first superheroic character to wear a skintight action outfit like that. He was also the first to use the mask that disguised even his eyes. He didn't have any superpowers beyond knowledge and training. Much like Batman, he was a detective first and foremost.

In 1996, I wasn't the pulp enthusiast I am now becoming, though I had enjoyed several stories of that sort. I'm not sure I even knew the term for it. I guess I've always been drawn to stories that intermix fantastical and more realistic elements, humor and drama, action and philosophy. After seeing this film, I began to seek out more of these kinds of stories. So, my thanks to Mr. Falk for creating such an inspiring and intriguing character. He brought me one of the great joys of my life.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories:

O is for …Obi-Wan Kenobi

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/...
I first "met" Obi-Wan Kenobi when I was six years old. I was sitting in the dark with my parents, watching Star Wars, and having my world rocked.

Obi-Wan wasn't my favorite character then. At age six, I think I liked C-3PO and Princess Leia the
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photo...-
organa-solo-skywalker-9301327-373-321.jpgbest. But I liked him. With all those crazy kids running around, it was good that there was a grown-up on the scene: someone who knew what he was doing and could help keep the rest of them alive while they figured it out.

Of course, I had no idea who Alec Guinness was. He wasn't big with the playground set before Star Wars. But that didn't mean I didn't understand presence. As Obi-Wan, he seemed weary and sad, like my Grandpa when you asked him about the war. He also seemed like there a lightness to him beneath. Like he used to be fun.

Gravitas. That's what it was. In a world full of pew-pew and "it's so crazy it might just work!", Guinness as Obi-Wan had dignity. Thanks goodness there was Obi-Wan. He really was our only hope.

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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories:

N is for…Nick Fury

http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com... Fury, as played by Samuel L. Jackson in the recent Marvel movies is one of the best revisions of a character in comic book history.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/...
9a47cab318f6e9248d986ead3df1a8e.jpgHe's always been tough, and had the eye patch, though he used to look more like J. Jonah Jamison in tights, down to the half-eaten cigar and white wings in his hair. He's a hard man to pin down. He's a soldier, a spy, a mercenary, a hero and an anti-hero, all rolled into one man.

There are sacrifices he's willing to make, to protect his vision of right. Careful. You might be one of them.

I was so happy when Jackson got the role. No one does dangerous like Jackson. The writers really got the "wheels within wheels" intrigue of the character, and Jackson understood the manipulative nature of the man, whom we hope is still on the side of right in his heart.
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This post is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be writing about superheroes I love all month. You can check out other bloggers and see their creative takes on the challenge here.

Don't forget to check out my own superhero stories: