Once Upon a Geek

Tonight is officially “Must See Shag TV”!  Two of my all-time favorite superheroes are appearing on the small screen tonight!  Doctor Fate and Firestorm, two different TV shows, on the same night! What are the odds?!?!?!?

Doctor Fate is making his first live action appearance ever on Smallville tonight!  We’ve seen him in animation on Superman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoons, but never in the flesh.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we get to see some Ankh bolts tonight.   Click here to read an interview with actor Brent Stait on playing Doctor Fate in Smallville.   Here is a lengthy episode description:

A man named Sylvester Pemberton tracks down Chloe (Allison Mack) and tells her he knows about her team of superheroes and needs their help. However, before he can explain who he is, he is attacked and killed by Icicle (guest star Wesley Macinnes). Clark (Tom Welling) and Chloe’s (Allison Mack) investigation leads Clark to the former headquarters of the Justice Society of America where he meets up with Nelson AKA Dr. Fate (guest star Brent Stait), Carter Hall AKA Hawkman (guest star Michael Shanks) and Courtney AKA Star Girl (guest star Britt Irvin). Courtney pleads with Hawkman and Dr. Fate to help her catch the killer that is targeting their group but they are reluctant to resume their duties as superheroes. Clark, John Jones (guest star Phil Morris), Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) and Chloe team up to help the JSA stop Icicle before he murders another member of the group. Meanwhile, Lois (Erica Durance) receives a package from a mysterious agency called Checkmate, run by Amanda Waller (guest star Pam Grier). Geoff Johns wrote the two-hour episode. Glen Winters directed the first hour and Tom Welling directed the second hour.

My thanks to Luke over at the Hawkman blog (Being Carter Hall) for sending me tons of great information on Doctor Fate’s appearance on Smallville.

Firestorm finally returns to animation after nearly 25 years!  Firestorm was a regular on the last two seasons of the Super Friends in the mid-1980s.  Since then, he has been absent from our airwaves.  He didn’t even get a cameo in Justice League Unlimited.  Well tonight he returns in a big way on the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold.  Click here for an interview with Michael Jelenic, Producer and Story Editor for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, about Firestorm’s appearance on the show.  Here is the brief episode description:

A school field trip goes awry when Dr. Double X causes a lab explosion that fuses slacker science teacher Ronnie to his genius pupil Jason, creating the reluctant hero Firestorm…and unbeknown to them, it leaves Batman divided into three parts!

Smallville “Absolute Justice” airs tonight at 8pm-10pm eastern time on the CW network.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold “A Bat Divided!” airs tonight at 7:30pm eastern time on Cartoon Network.

Hooray for Doctor Fate and Firestorm!

Welcome to ONCE UPON A GEEK’s part of the Crisis on Earth-Blog: The DC Challenge! ONCE UPON A GEEK is a blog that focuses on a variety of geeky topics, including: comic books, Doctor Who, Star Wars, role-playing, 80’s TV shows, and science fiction in general. If this is your first time here, welcome aboard! If you’re a regular, I think you’ll enjoy this crossover event.

Today and throughout the next few weeks on comic book-themed blogs across the internet, DC Comics characters are being spotlighted in a series of challenges. In my case I’ll be representing Doctor Fate, one of my all-time favorite superheroes. Your DC Challenge, if you choose to accept it, involves visiting each of these various blogs and tackling their particular challenge.

The objective of these challenges is to go from blog to blog until you reach the goal-page featuring a lush scan from an obscure George Pérez pin-up of every major character involved in this crossover event. We all hope you enjoy this online scavenger hunt, and the new comic blogs you’ll be exposed to! Many thanks go out to mastermind Frank Lee Delano (of the blogs: Idol-Head of Diabolu, Justice League Detroit, and …nurgh…) for coordinating this massive effort! Way to go, Frank!

Your ONCE UPON A GEEK challenge is the crossword puzzle below. I couldn’t embed the crossword puzzle itself, so you’ll have to click the image to be taken to the interactive puzzle.  Each question in the puzzle relates to either Doctor Fate, a character participating in this crossover, or other well-known DC characters. Just a heads-up, I removed any spaces or hyphens from the answers. For example “Captain Amazing” would simply be “CaptainAmazing”; or “Locust-Man” would simply be “LocastMan”. Once you’ve finished the challenge, follow Doctor Fate’s mission beneath the puzzle. Have fun!

Hope you enjoyed the crossword puzzle!  Now you’ll have to work your way through Doctor Fate’s mission and a few of the blogs below if you want to reach the goal-page featuring an obscure George Pérez pin-up of every major character in this crossover.  Some of these blogs are participating in the crossover today, others will be in the coming weeks.  Visit them now, visit them later, visit them often!

1986

Inza Nelson sat on an antique couch, working a personalized other-dimensional crossword puzzle, within her invisible tower home in Salem, Massachusetts. Many wives find themselves “widowed” by their husbands’ obsessions with sports, gambling or what have you.  You could say Inza was a sorcery widow, as the unnaturally youthful woman had been since meeting her husband-to-be in the 1940s. It was then that Kent Nelson began his career as the crusading mage Doctor Fate, serving the cause of Order alone, and later as a member of the Justice Society of America. In the years since, Kent has become withdrawn from humanity and increasingly isolated in his studies, leaving poor Inza to her own devices.

Or not. Dr. Fate strode into the room, his features almost entirely obscured by his mantle of power, the gleaming Helm of Nabu. “Take cover,” he demanded, “I’m expecting uninvited guests.” Just then, otherworldly luminescence filled the room, followed by the material forms of three strangers.

The first looked like a derelict, with his unshaven face and long, unkempt black hair, streaked with crimson. He scowled, “I remember you two, even if you were withered old prunes when we met.” This menacing fellow, with a red ankh tattooed over his right eye, drew a golden blade on Dr. Fate. “I took that helmet of yours, and turned it into something useful. I was supposed to be the balance between Order and Chaos, but everything turned rotten, and I’ll end up with my own blade stuck between my ribs.”

The second figure exactly like Dr. Fate, but his tone was less haughty. “We took on your duties, and it will destroy us, body and soul. They warned us. We will stop you from cursing us.”

The third figure was also strikingly similar to Kent, but less poised, and with a costume bearing an ancient Egyptian motif. “I am Hawkman’s son. Why couldn’t I just defend the skies? Why did magic rot away my life, killing me, taking my lover’s mind and my son’s soul? Why couldn’t you do your own job?”

If Dr. Fate found any of this disturbing, he showed no sign of it. “I can sense the touch of Nabu in each of you, but you are not in a time of your own, and you each forget your place. Not a single one of you will carry the weight of my responsibilities for a fraction of my length of servitude. One day, you may each claim my place as Fate, but for now, begone.” With that, Dr. Fate dismissed these future inheritors of his mantle, seemingly with all the effort of an afterthought.

Inza rushed to the being who was both her husband, and something else entirely. She wondered who these Fates were, and what their appearance meant. “They were representatives of a possible future, manipulated into adulterating our present, and they are not alone. All across the Earth, these agents of a grim tomorrow haunt other superhumans. They do not belong, and I will see to their removal.”

With that, Dr. Fate exited his tower, leaving Inza to fret and displaced super-heroes to dread his pursuit.

Follow Dr. Fate’s mission through these blogs…

• The Aquaman Shrine
• The Atom: Tiny Titan
• Hawkman/Hawkwoman at Being Carter Hall
• Metal Men at Comics Make Me Happy
• Flash at Crimson Lightning
• Green Arrow at Dispatches from the Arrow Cave
• Black Lightning and Unknown Soldier at El Jacone’s Comic Book Bunker
• Firestorm Fan
• Black Canary at Girls Gone Geek and Wonder Woman at Girls Gone Geek
• I Am The Phantom Stranger
• Martian Manhunter at The Idol-Head of Diabolu
• Elongated Man and Zatanna at Justice League Detroit
• Captain Comet at …nurgh…
• Doctor Fate at Once Upon a Geek
• He-Man and Battle Cat at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise
• Mister Miracle at random picture day
• Adam Strange at Reilly2040’s Blog
• Supergirl Comic Box Commentary
• Sgt. Rock at when is evil cool?
• Batgirl at The Anti-Didio League of America
• Plastic Man at The Continuity Blog
• General support from Toyriffic

If you enjoy blog crossovers, then you may want to check out the previous comic blog crossovers we’ve done. The first major Crisis on Earth-Blog celebrated the gorgeous George Pérez/Alex Ross painting from the Crisis on Infinite Earths 1998 hardcover. The next blog crossover was a celebration of the Super Powers Collection’s 25th Anniversary.

Sorry for no post yesterday.  Time lost to three hours of Chuck, two hours of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, several Blackest Night crossover issues, and a sick child all caught up with me.  Sometimes other things just get in the way.

To pour salt in that wound, I’m not even going to give you a real post today.  Instead I’m going to direct you over to my other blog FIRESTORM FAN where I’ve posted the first part of my interview with the amazing Gerry Conway!  Gerry Conway is a comic book legend!  He was one of the most prolific comic book writers of the 1970s and 80s. His writing credits go on for miles! He’s probably best known for co-creating the Punisher and scripting the death of Gwen Stacy in the Amazing Spider-Man. He also wrote for and produced such TV series as Law & Order and Diagnosis Murder. Back in 1977, Gerry created Firestorm the Nuclear Man along with artist Al Milgrom. Gerry continued to write the character of Firestorm for about nine years. Gerry recently returned to comics after an almost 20 year absence with the insightful mini-series, The Last Days of Animal Man.

Gerry was kind enough to sit down and talk with me for about 80 minutes about Firestorm the Nuclear Man!  We discussed things like Firestorm’s creation, artists, the writing process, creator rights, the DC Implosion, merchandise, where the character has journeyed since his involvement, and much more! I believe any comic book reader, even if you aren’t a fan of Firestorm, would genuinely enjoy this interview.

So head over to FIRESTORM FAN.com and check out comic book legend Gerry Conway.

Today we are presenting the latest collection of geek related t-shirts from my closet.  This time around I’ve included some baseball caps and even one pair of new boxers.  For past entries featuring geek apparel, please click here.  These shirts are all fairly recent acquisitions.  Please note nearly all of these were gifts.  My wife has put a strict moratorium on buying myself anymore geek t-shirts as the closet is already bursting at the seams.  Happily my friends are under no such ban. 

This t-shirt and ball cap combination was a gift from Serv.  Notice how the colors on the Superman symbol are reversed.  I find that striking.  In fact, this hat has become my favorite to wear lately.  The shirt came pre-faded.

This Red Lantern t-shirt was another gift from Serv, this time for my birthday.  Can’t you feel it?  The shirt just radiates rage.  Rage!  RAGE!

Neat mega-print Batman shirt from Lore (the irredeemable brother) for my birthday.  I really like the Bronze Age styling of the image.

Hilarious Star Trek t-shirt from Lore (the irredeemable brother).  This gag still makes me laugh!

Neat Superman hat I’ve had for a while.  I picked it up at Wal-Mart of all places.  I really like the bold colors and that the hat is fitted.  Where there would normally be an adjustable strap on the back, it’s just solid fabric with the stitched Superman symbol shown in the insert.

This Ghostbusters shirt is actually billed as a “T-shirt Costume”.  I picked this up at Target last Halloween.  The slime glows in the dark also.  I’ve been slimed!

A birthday gift from my boss.  This shirt is hilarious!  I tried to make the image big enough for you to read all the various powers.  I think my favorites are, “Communicate with Fruit” and “Summon a Lamp… Once”.  LOL!

This Scooby-Doo t-shirt is another birthday gift from Lore (the irredeemable brother).  I really like the coloring on this shirt. The mystery machine is faded and everyone in the foreground is really solidly colored.  Just looks sharp.

A friend gave me this Star Wars ball cap about 15 years ago.  It’s served me well, even in the years before Star Wars was cool again.

I picked up this Unique Geek t-shirt prior to DragonCon to help promote the website.  The insert shows the back of the t-shirt.

Okay, I don’t normally post pictures of underwear, but this is an exception.  I already featured these boxers on FIRESTORM FAN, but thought they were worth mentioning here also.  I just picked these up last week from K-Mart.  While there are tons of DC Comics boxers on the market, these are astonishing because they include both Firestorm and Doctor Fate.  Seriously?!?!?  Firestorm and Doctor Fate?!?!?  Two of my favorite characters that have proven time and again they can’t support their own monthly comic books?!?!?  Two characters that almost no one in the general public would recognize?!?!?  You betcha!  The other characters (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Robin, and even Green Arrow) aren’t surprising to see on apparel as they are fairly well known.  I just never imagined they’d make Firestorm or Doctor Fate boxers.  I’m thankful they have!  I will say it’s a bit awkward where they’ve placed Firestorm.  He’s right on the flap. Kinda creepy.

Dragon*Con was four days of zany geekiness with 30,000 of my closest friends. Today kicks off my recap of celebrities, costumes, events, friends, swag and more!  While I’ll cover a lot, this is only a fraction of what took place during Dragon*Con 2009.  At certain times, there were as many as 50 different simultaneous sessions going on! This program was astonishing!

Last year’s Dragon*Con was so amazing, I didn’t think this year could hold a candle. Well, I was wrong.  This year was as good as, if not better, than last year!  One of my goals was to take more pictures this year.  In 2008, I took a little over 400 decent pictures.  This year I managed to take over 800 pictures, with over 600 of them worth keeping!  If you want to check out my pictures, they’ve been uploaded to Flickr and THE UNIQUE GEEK photo gallery.  Additionally, I’ll be featuring some of my favorites here over the next few days.

The hardest part about coming back from Dragon*Con is re-acclimatizing to regular life.  After complete immersion in the geek-lifestyle, it’s hard to readjust to “normal” people. Just imagine four days surrounded by people with similar interests and that understand every vague reference you can imagine; phrases like the following are understood by everyone there: Docking Bay 94, Ootini, Kobayashi Maru, Red Shirt, Can’t stop the signal, It was a bad call Ripley, Pwned, My Precious, Pre-Crisis, or It’s Clobberin’ Time.  You can’t help but get caught up in the experience.  It’s like an affirmation of everything geek.  It’s like Christmas for adults!

FRIDAY

My flight into Atlanta arrived around 9am.  Serv got there just before me, so we caught up in the airport.  We hung around for a bit waiting for our friends Holly and Race.  We grabbed a beer (remember it’s only 9am) agreeing that it’s only alcoholism if you attend meetings.  Holly arrived on-time, but no Race.  Huh?  Yeah, super-punctual Race missed his flight.  Race-less, we grabbed the MARTA and headed to our hotel.  After getting off at the Peachtree station, we knew we were in the right place when we saw someone dressed up as the Mad Hatter and an overweight guy in a Star Trek costume.  Bingo!  We’d arrived.

Immediately after checking into the hotel, I went to get my Dragon*Con badge at the Sheraton (most sessions have Dragon*Con staff checking for badges).  The line for pre-registration badge pick-up was about three hours long.  Aaaarrrrggghhhh!  I was really bummed because I was gonna miss some panels I wanted to attend.  Thankfully someone informed us that certain lines up front were vacant.  It appears the majority of people checking in had last names starting with A, B, or S.  So I side-stepped the rest of the line and walked right up.  In-and-out in five minutes!  I guess that makes up for the 45 minutes I had to wait last year.

Sadly we missed the William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy panel.  I’ve heard it was great!  There is some video available online, so I’ll be sure to check that out later.  I quickly zipped over to wait for the Torchwood panel.  While there I got my picture taken with a life-size TARDIS replica from Doctor Who.  This thing was amazing!  The owner handed me the key, suggesting I unlock it and step in just like the Doctor.  There was a sound system inside playing the background hum of the TARDIS as well as the occasional Cloister Bell!  Totally cool!  The owner explained they have different windows and decal treatments to emulate the different eras of Doctor Who (as the TARDIS has changed slightly over the years).  It’s currently decked out to appear as the TARDIS 11th Doctor Matt Smith will be traveling in.  In addition to touring with the replica TARDIS, the owner also sells Tom Baker scarf replicas that she knits.  I still have my 12 foot scarf my Great Aunt knitted for me back in the 1980s.  We talked quite a bit about the different scarves worn in the show and the efforts she’s going through to ensure accuracy. Really neat lady.  You should check out her website, the WittyLittleKnitter.com.

The Torchwood panel was pretty good.  It featured Gareth David Lloyd (Ianto Jones) and James Marsters (Captain John on Torchwood and Spike on Buffy).  Last year these two did the same panel together, so there were several rehashed stories. If I hadn’t attended this same panel last year, I probably would have enjoyed this more.  New stuff included some good discussion on ramifications of the recent “Children of Earth” storyline, as well as some unrelated anecdotes from Marsters.  All-in-all it was a good panel and I’m glad I went.

Next up was the Avengers Symposium on Assembled 1 & 2 in the Hyatt.  The first 30 minutes was an interesting literary analysis of the comic book super-team the Avengers and the Assembled books by Van Allen Plexico.  Then it turned into a Q&A session with Van, George Perez, Keith RA DeCandido, George Kopec, and Joe Crowe. Great panel!  This was also considered the book release for Assembled 2: The Unauthorized Guide to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Their Foes, so I purchased my copy and got the whole panel to sign it.  Hooray!  Also on sale was Super Comics Trivia!, a book containing questions and answers from ten years of Van Plexico’s comic book trivia tournaments at Dragon*Con.  Surprisingly, I’m on the cover of the book!  Seriously, I’m not kidding!  I was lucky enough to participate in one of Van’s Marvel/DC Comics Jeopardy tournaments a few years ago.  Someone happened to take a picture of the game and that made the cover of the book.  Interestingly enough, Van posted this picture to his website a few years ago. I jokingly asked if he could color in my bald spot.  For the cover of the book, he did!  If you look closely you can see where they colored in my bald spot!  LOL!  Thanks, Van!

You can order both Assembled 2 and Super Comics Trivia from Amazon.com. I’m the guy closest to the camera in the blue shirt below.   The back of my head is on Amazon.com!  I’m famous!

After that was the A-Team panel featuring Dirk Benedict (Faceman on A-Team and Starbuck on the original Battlestar Galactica) and Dwight Schultz (Howling Mad Murdock).  They really had chemistry and were lots of fun to watch.  They were definitely old pros on the convention circuit and knew exactly what would get the crowd cheering.  They had some really funny and surprising things to say about George Peppard and Mr. T.  I’m glad I made the time for this panel.

Then I hit artist’s alley.  My goal… to get an autograph from George Perez on an old Flash comic featuring a Firestorm back-up story he drew.  When I arrived at Perez’s table, turned out he was doing head sketches!  Awesome!  In addition to signing the comic, Perez sketched Firestorm for me!  In the Assembled panel, Perez mentioned he always likes to add something extra when delivering an art piece.  I’d asked for Firestorm, so he took the time to add in an “extra” of Professor Stein’s astral head!  To see the Firestorm sketch you’ll have to watch future posts on my other blog, FIRESTORM FAN.com.  Needless to say, George Perez was super cool!

The last event of the evening for me was in the comic book track, Marvel vs. DC Family Feud.  The host, Van Plexico, changed the format this year from the usual Jeopardy to Family Feud, which allowed many more players to participate.  He selected returning champions and finalists from previous years, so I got to play!  On our team (dubbed the “DC” team) was my good buddy Michael Bailey (from Views from the Longbox and Fortress of Baileytude), a Dragon*Con acquaintance Mike Stewart, another Dragon*Con acquaintance named Michael, and two other guys named Michael.  Seriously, on our team there were five guys named Michael and one guy named Shag.  And if you know me at all, then you know how ironic this really was.  On the opposing team (dubbed the “Marvel” team) was our good friend Choco Taco, publisher Lars Pearson, and four other blokes.  It was a close contest with some unexpected survey results, but in the end our “DC” team triumphed!

The rest of the night was spent hanging out with friends and taking copious amounts of pictures.  Sadly around Midnight the battery in my camera died.  I was just about to snap a picture of Barbie Jedi when it happened.  Aarrggghhh!  Sadly I never got the picture, but thanks to the wonders of Flickr, I found that someone with the online handle Charfade did get her picture.

Sometime around 2am or 3am we all retired for the night.  In our room was Serv, Ravenface, Choco Taco, Race, Jon, and myself.  Six guys all packed into one hotel room.  It’s no surprise that what happened next can only be described as THE WAR OF THE SNORE!  I believe I have permanent hearing damage from the racket we created with our snoring.

Great first day! Wonderful to see friends again and have so much fun! I’m sure I’m forgetting things, so there may be addendums throughout the week. Come back tomorrow for coverage of Saturday, which will include: breakfast with Draco Malfoy, a parade, and people throwing caffeinated mints at my head at 4am…

In case you missed it yesterday, there was an awesome crossover between fourteen different blogs celebrating the 25th anniversary of Kenner’s Super Powers Collection.  In fact, it was so well received that other blogs joined in!  Check these sites out:

• Michael over at The Legion Omnicom jumped in with both feet and did his own entry into the crossover on the Super Powers Tyr figure!
• Rick was kind enough to promote the crossover on his blogs, Mail it to Team-Up and Plastic Man Platitudes.
• Bubba Shelby gave us a shout-out over at his outstanding toy blog, Toyriffic.
• Finally, Matt over at No Cure for Comics discussed the crossover and even included a Super Powers TV commercial!  Matt moderates the fantastic Comic Blog Elite toplist.

Some of the bloggers involved have plans to make further posts celebrating the Super Powers Collection.  So keep visiting these blogs and others for additional posts: The Aquaman Shrine, Crimson Lightning, Bat-Blog, and …nurgh….

I’m still reeling from all the great information put forth by everyone involved in the crossover.  Below is the list of all the blogs involved in the crossover.  If you haven’t checked them all out, I strongly encourage you to.  There is some great commentary, neat collectibles, and some funny stuff.  Well worth your time.

• Rob (the blogger who inspired most of us to start our own superhero blogs) rolls out the pomp and circumstance for the King of the Seven Seas over at The Aquaman Shrine.
• Frank investigates J’onn J’onzz, the Manhunter from Mars, at Idol-Head of Diabolu.
• Tommy applies his detective skills to the Batman universe of characters over at the Bat-Blog.
• The Clowny Princess brings us a different view at her blog dedicated to the Clown Prince of Crime, Love Dat Joker.
• Kelson types the fastest blog alive and covers the Flash over at Speed Force.
• Running side-by-side with Kelson is Dixon’s Flash blog over at Crimson Lighting.
• Frank explores the figures and mini-comics that might have been for Justice League Detroit.
• Luke provides the rundown on the winged wonder, Hawkman, over at the cleverly named blog Being Carter Hall.
• Doug puts a new spin on the adventures of Red Tornado over at his Doom Patrol blog, My Greatest Adventure 80.
• Adama keeps Green Arrow’s aim true over at Dispatches from the Arrow Cave.
• Michael provides up, up and away coverage of Superman over at the Fortress of Baileytude.
• Frank tackles as many Super Powers mini-comics today as humanly possible over at his blog called … nurgh …
• Finally, I tackled Firestorm’s Super Powers antics over at my other blog, Firestorm Fan.

My thanks to everyone involved in the crossover and to anyone who enjoyed reading it!

John Ostrander has written some of the greatest comics produced in the last 20 years. Some of his best known work includes: Suicide Squad, Star Wars Legacy, The Spectre, Legends, Grimjack, The Kents, Hawkworld, Martian Manhunter, Eternal Warrior, Magnus Robot Fighter, Manhunter, Firestorm, and the list goes on and on.

John has been battling glaucoma for years now.  If he loses this battle, he loses his eyesight.

John recently had some very expensive surgery.  Without the surgery, he would not have been able to retain his sight.  Unfortunately, the resulting medical bills are more than John can afford.  This is where we come in…

A benefit auction has been announced to raise money to pay the medical expenses of John Ostrander.  His friends and colleagues Mike Gold, Adriane Nash and Peter Katz have organized the benefit auction with the aid of Wizard Entertainment to help pay the medical bills after John’s insurance ran out. The event will take place on the Saturday night (August 9) of Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con in a nearby hotel.  If the auction isn’t an option for you, they are taking donations as well.

John continues to give us excellent comic book adventures.  This is your chance to give something back to him.  I feel this is important enough that I’m posting it both here on ONCE UPON A GEEK and on my other blog, FIRESTORM FAN.

Please visit Comix4Sight.com for all the details and how to help.  Anything you can give would be appreciated.

Thanks once again to everyone that stopped by during BLUE DEVIL WEEK here at Once Upon a Geek. Based upon feedback I’ve received, quite a few people have enjoyed the Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn interview.  I’m thrilled to hear that!  Keep your comments coming!

There were a couple images I’ve presented previously that I couldn’t resist including again.  First up is an advertisement for Blue Devil #1 that ran in DC comics in the month of June 1984.  I simply love this shot!

Next up is an advertisement from 1986 promoting the Blue Devil/Firestorm crossover.

I ran the scan above of this ad a few months back.  Well… I was amazed when Frank over at …nurgh… ran the same image last week, but with a much better resolution.  Click here to see the amazingly clear copy of this advertisement.

Thanks again to all the visitors to BLUE DEVIL WEEK!  With FLASH WEEK, AQUAMAN WEEK, FIRESTORM FAN, and BLUE DEVIL WEEK all behind me, I’m only got one left to cover of my top five favorite superheroes – Doctor Fate.  It will probably be a while, but I”ll get around to it.

Nothing new here at ONCE UPON A GEEK today, but you should really check out my new Firestorm pint glass over at today’s FIRESTORM FAN post.  It’s super cool.

Besides the Firestorm pint glass, Toon Tumblers also produces a ton of other Marvel and DC pint glasses.  All the glasses are designed in the spirit of the 1970s and early 1980s character glasses.  Their glasses feature classic bronze age images of characters like: Spider-Man, Superman, Iron Man, Batman, X-Men, Wonder Woman, Fantastic Four, Joker, Ghost Rider, Sgt. Rock, Power Man, Punisher, Warlock, Captain America, Avengers, Moon Knight, Invaders, Daredevil, Nova, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Hulk, and more!

You can check them out by clicking here.

Because apparently I don’t spend enough time blogging already, I’ve started another blog!  FIRESTORM FAN – A blog dedicated to DC Comics Nuclear Man – Firestorm!  You can find it at http://firestormfan.com/.

I’ve been running ONCE UPON A GEEK for nearly a year now.  While I love blogging about anything and everything geeky, I wanted to start another site that really focuses on one subject.  In the past year, I’ve become interested in some comic book character blogs, such as: The Aquaman Shrine, Speed Force (dedicated to the Flash), and Idol-Head (dedicated to the Martian Manhunter).  Here at ONCE UPON A GEEK, I’ve done a FLASH WEEK and an AQUAMAN WEEK.  I’ve been planning to dedicate a week each to my other three favorite characters (Firestorm, Blue Devil, and Doctor Fate).  Firestorm is actually my #1 favorite character (believe it or not, even more so than Aquaman).  When I started to contemplate a Firestorm Week, I realized that I would be interested in doing much more than just one week dedicated to the character. After searching around the web I haven’t been able to find an active blog dedicated to the character.   There are a handful of good reference sites and some defunct sites, but no currently active blog.  So I decided to give it a try! 

At FIRESTORM FAN I’ll be covering all things about the character.  I’ll cover all the various incarnations of Firestorm, comic books, toys, cartoon appearances, memorabilia, advertisements, my own editorial thoughts on the character … just about anything related to Firestorm.  For example, on Monday I did a post about the 1985 Super Powers Firestorm action figure.  Today I published a post with lots of Firestorm related news.  That’s the general idea behind the blog.

Now don’t fret, I won’t be abandoning ONCE UPON A GEEK in favor of FIRESTORM FAN.  I’m only planning to post to FIRESTORM FAN once or twice a week.  I don’t have the time to do both blogs five days a week, and I really don’t think there is enough Firestorm content to keep a daily blog alive indefinitely.  What may happen is that I miss a day from time to time on ONCE UPON A GEEK. I’m not planning for this to happen, but real life sometimes get in the way.  So please forgive me in advance if I miss a weekday.  Don’t think of it as losing a blog-post, think of it as gaining a new blog-in-law.

So please feel free to stop by anytime or subscribe to the RSS feed.  If you visit FIRESTORM FAN, check out the graphic header I put together.  Then hit refresh on your browser.  There are three different headers that rotate at random.  Neat trick that came with that Wordpress theme!  I plan to design further headers just for fun.

Support Firestorm! Fan the flame!