As the saying goes,
Святое дерьмо! это комикс го-го!
Back in the 1960s, Angie Bowie (then wife of David Bowie) approached Stan Lee to see if she could get the rights for one year to develop and air a Black Widow and Daredevil TV show. Ultimately, the program was never produced because it was too expensive and the special effects would have been to difficult to create.
Angela Bowie (b. 1950) was married to David for 10 years. She met him through a man that both were dating. Yes, you read that right. Then, somehow in their drug-addled and tempestuous union, they managed to produce a son. The son survived and went on to direct Moon, one of our favorite recent movies, and Source Code which was fun enough. Next up for the boy (Duncan Jones)? An Ian Fleming biopic project. Worthy topic, good sir.
Und zo, what we’ve learned is that great art can come from heroin and cocaine. Since our art is pathetic (actually it doesn’t exist, but let’s not mince words), we are going to take up both those drugs as well as throw in a dash of meth to put a modern spin on the whole affair. We’ll let you know how it turns out. Assuming we live long enough to do so.
Zounds! It’s another Comics A-Go-Go! infographic! Here we explore the effects of drug use with Angela and David Bowie doing the honors. Just take it from ol’ Nancy Reagan .. “Dope ain’t dope, yo-yo!”
After David Bowie went sober, realized who he was living with, divorced her and left to make a bunch of boring music and the single most unnecessary song and video in all of pop music-dom (a song which proved to be a perfect match for the sad pairing of David and Mick Jagger … during which time the not-so hush-hush gossip in the press led to folks in the know dubbing Bowie and Jagger “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” — a designation that inspired the Dana Carvey Show/Saturday Night Live vignettes of the same name — and there’s the animation/comic book tie-in you were waiting for), [... where we we? oh yeah ...] Angie got all bitter and stuff.
News of Angela Bowie as Black Widow and Ben Carruthers as Daredevil for the TV show concept.
Anyway. You know how we feel about miscasts. Angie was a heroin waif and look liked she could pull off all of the physical stuff needed to play Natasha Romanova, Russian cum-S.H.I.E.L.D spy/action figure extraordinaire as well (a.k.a. as poorly) as Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman could. That was a hell of a sentence. Keeping it simple: Angie Bowie wouldn’t be a good Black Widow. Having said that, with her wig and ever-so-cheery imitation-Russian facial expressions, she fit the era, we suppose. Paul Gulacy may have based his 1980s version of Black Widow on Angie’s screen tests (see pictures below). The decidedly non-Daredevil-esque looking dude in the promo shots is Ben Carruthers whom you may remember from such movies as Shadows (1959) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). What an awful costume. Hornhead indeed. Reminds us of a cartoonish-looking alien with antennas. As for the sullen expression, we have to wonder if EVERYONE was on some sort of narcotic in the 1970s. That would explain the fashion, entertainment, and even the politics of the era. We’re grateful to have grown up in the Ecstasy era instead.
In theory, the show was supposed to springboard off the chemistry of the Daredevil/Black Widow team-up and romance that had started just a couple of years earlier in the comics. We have to admit that we are actually curious to know what the whole disaster would have looked like. But we would probably regret that curiousity. So, we’ll settle for Scarlett Johansson.
Here’s a Black Widow story from the early 1980s. Paul Gulacy did the art and Ralph Macchio wrote the story. Humphrey Bogart guest stars. Click on the links at the bottom of each page at the Gulacy website to read the whole story. Don’t stray too far, though. We want you back.
Here are some additional Black Widow illustrations from Paul Gulacy’s portfolio.
Other than a penchant for strange hair styles, Duncan Jones has turned out rather normal in spite of his parent’s own penchant for hard drugs and nefarious sexual escapades.
For our next installment of a Toon’s Fave Tune: Dazzler ♥ My Heart Will Go On (Céline Dion). Because her special ability is to convert sound waves to light, the purer the sounds, the more powerful her energy. Unfortunately, because Céline’s song is an onslaught of cacophony, Dazzler made the dubious mistake of using it in a recent X-Men rumble room exercise and had her ass handed to her by Husk*. Dazzler’s favorite song is particularly danceable but she puts on quite a light show when she’s out doing Karaoke.
Here we see Dazzler’s look get an update in the late 2000s. As a character though, she’ll never shake her roots. She’s still a roller-skating disco goofball. Having said that, as difficult as it is for a character with an unfortunate background to overcome its origins, Dazzler’s got nothing on this schmuck. Seriously? SERSIOUSLY?!!!! But yeah, it’s a toss-up between David Hasselhoff as Colonel Nick Fury (the tough as bull’s balls bad-ass of S.H.I.E.L.D), and the illegal-in-48-states version of 
We talked about the Marvel Comics Damage Control series in a recent 
We’re a little late in getting there but we just saw Captain America (2011). Enjoyed it. A little subdued, we think (lots of explosions and running around isn’t necessarily the recipe for heart-pumping action in today’s cynical CGI-immune audience). At any rate, we stuck around to the end to see the trailer for The Avengers (2012). Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow (by the way, Scarlett Johannson as the Black Widow? Don’t see it, but we will have to get past it, one supposes), and Nick Fury (Sam Jackson is a favorite bad-ass, but casting him as Colonel Fury is a bit of revisionist history; it works in the present, but if the storyline has any continuity to the initial appearances of Captain America and other WWII heroes, it’s a stretch to visualize Sam Jackson as Sgt. Fury fighting in a war that pretty much excluded black soldiers from any significant action. ‘Nuf said.). Nice to see Hulk again, too.
Unfortunately, there is a predictability factor that makes these types of polls irrelevant. Take us back two years and we will lay odds that Thor doesn’t even crack the Top 10. Why? Because Thor owns a very small slice of the Marvel Story and his own backstory resonates more with the DC Universe than it does with the mere mortal riddled costumed heroes and villians of the Marvel Universe. Thor’s an odd character to begin with. Spidey’s abilities are unusual and he may take on some weird baddies, but outside of the webslinger role, he’s a regular guy with regular problems. We can all relate to a degree to his personal joys and foibles. His allies and enemies are mostly from our realm. Most of the best Marvel heroes are like Spider-man … humans. Humans with special abilities but human enough.
And lastly, #3 … Wolverine. Now bear with us. The reason Wolverine above other pillars of the Universe is because he has never lost momentum since being introduced in the late 1970′s. The Hulk has seen his ups and downs and it’s hard to get past “Hulk Smash” no matter how many story forms he comes in; Iron Man just never climbed up to the top (although he had great potential really, so we’re not quite sure what happened); other X-Men haven’t had as much success, and teams like the Fantastic Four and Avengers have had big dry spells. But Wolverine appeals. He slides very easily into other heroes stories and does so with amazing frequency. He has a complicated past which creates a wealth of opportunities to write a bunch of sideline stories. Wolverine will never be close to #1 but he deserves his position.
If we were voting from our own bias, however, Daredevil would be right up there. Daredevil is like a gritty, more adult version of Spiderman. His backstory is relevant, especially with Frank Miller’s tinkering, and the cast of cohorts and villains is rich and diverse. The Man Without Fear is a troubled man and his drama creates interest outside the costume. Thor? Again, not so accessible. So while Daredevil won’t take the third spot, he’s still ahead of The Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America in our books.
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