Friday, January 16, 2026

Friday Femme Fun MODELING WITH MILLIE "Mille the Marvel"

If you think Marvel and DC are rebooting their characters more frequently than ever...
...you've never followed the many incarnations of Millie the Model from 1945 to the present!
This particular story is from the early Silver Age "romance comic" phase of her career.
This never-reprinted story from Marvel's Modeling with Millie #54 (1967); written by Gary Friedrich, penciled by Odgen Whitney, and inked (uncredited) by Frank Giacoia; was Millie the Marvel's only appearance.
It was also the final issue of this particular title.
Over at her ongoing "sister" title, Millie the Model, the character returned to her previous Archie Comics-influenced format, once more becoming a teen-humor title without ongoing storylines.
Trivia: From 1945 to 1973, there was always at least one Millie title from Atlas/Marvel, for a total of five different series, plus annuals, a couple of one-shots, an ongoing series in Comedy Comics, and a spin-off series for her rival, Chili!
Her main title ran for 207 issues, and was, until Fantastic Four #207 came out in 1979, Marvel's longest-running character-named book!
(Books with longer runs like Mighty ThorIncredible Hulk, and Captain America had different names [Journey into MysteryTales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense, respectively] before becoming "character" titles.
Millie's flagship title was always Millie the Model!)
Millie was rebooted several times going from a romance/humor hybrid to Archie-style humor to romance/soap opera and finally back to Archie-style humor with changes to the characters' ages, professions, and relationships at each stage.
Millie Collins, despite being shown as outside the Marvel Multiverse in this tale, has appeared as part of the mainstream Marvel Universe in several titles, including the "Wedding of Reed and Sue" in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (along with Marvels #2), Dazzler #34, Sensational She-Hulk #60, and the Models, Inc mini-series.
In the 1980s, a middle-aged Millie appeared in the Star Comics mini-series Misty, about the teen-age daughter of Millie's brother!
(The best thing about this Trina Robbins-produced mini-series was the retro look and use of readers' designs for the characters' clothes.)
Millie was scheduled to be rebooted in 2003 as a teen-age tennis player in a manga-style mini-series called 15-Love.
When the project was finally published in 2011 (yeah, eight years later), the lead character was Millie's teen-age niece (though Millie herself did appear briefly)!
In 2009, Millie and her Silver Age supporting cast were the 20-something title characters in the mini-series Models, Inc.
The series also features Johnny (Human Torch) Storm, Spider-Man, Dr StrangePatsy (HellCat) Walker, Tigra, Night NurseMary Jane Watson, and real-life fashion expert Tim Gunn, re-establishing the Mille characters in the Marvel Multiverse...but nothing's been done with them since!
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Thursday, January 15, 2026

Reading Room EERIE ADVENTURES "Vampires from Venus"

 It's Freezing, Windy, and Snowy Outside...

...perfect weather for a tale about an invasion by aliens from a hot and steamy planet!


This 1951 tale combining mobila, lethal plants (based on the Triffids from the novel Day of the Triffids which had just been published) and vampires (with their classic weakness, sunlight) from the Ziff-Davis one-shot Eerie Adventures was illustrated by Bob Powell and Howard Nostrand.
The writer is unknown.
Eerie Adventures used leftover material from the recently-cancelled Amazing Adventures with an attempt to market it as horror rather than sci-fi/fantasy.
Only one issue was published as the title was dropped by Ziff-Davis to avoid legal action by Avon who already had an ongoing Eerie comics title.
ZD then did a Weird Adventures one-shot, which sold well, but discovered there was already a title with the same name from PL Publishing which debuted the month before!
So ZD retitled their book Weird Thrillers, before PL could take legal action.
The series ran five more issues before the Dr Wertham-led Seduction of the Innocent witch-hunt forced the cancellation of all horror-related comic books.
(Ironically, the PL series only ran two more issues before the entire company folded.)
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Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder RAUMPATROUILLE "Hüter des Gesetzes" (Guardians of the Law)

After twice defeating energy-based aliens known as "Frogs"...
...the crew of the Orion 7 encounter rebellious robots on an Earth colony!
(Note the story makes use of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics!
 Kool!)
OK, let the comparisons to how Kirk and Spock would've handled it begin...

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness (Continued) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Conclusion

Art by Bob Larkin
There are those who believe...that life here began out there, far across the Universe...with tribes of humans...who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians...or the Toltecs...or the Mayans...that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids...or the lost civilizations of Lemuria...or Atlantis.
Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--far, far away amongst the stars...
Betrayed by one of their own to the robotic alien Cylons*, the Twelve Colonies of Man are wiped out in a sneak attack.
The survivors hastily assemble a fleet of ships under the protection of the only remaining Battlestar, and head away from their now-devastated worlds....
This second half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.
Because it was based on an early draft of the script, names (Serina is called Lyra) are different, and some characters who live in both the movie and tv series (including Cassiopeiadie!
(Baltar dies in the feature film, but survives in the TV series.)

This first version of Marvel Super Special #8 (1978) was a full-process color, slick-stock magazine.
However, because the editor didn't get approval from Universal Studios on the final art before it went to press, the vast majority of the copies were ordered pulped!
(This story has been confirmed by both then-Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and the book's artist Ernie Colon.)
Changes in both script and art were made, and the book was reissued as a tabloid-sized Treasury edition, with standard comic book "flat" coloring and a new pen-and-ink cover by Rick Bryant based on the Bob Larkin cover painting!
The story was modified again when it was expanded to fill the first three issues of the ongoing Battlestar Galactica comic book...including keeping both Baltar and Cassiopeia alive!
(Cassie would later die in the comic adaptation of the two-part episode "Lost Planet of the Gods", where she's killed by Cylons.)
*Though the Cylons' Imperious Leader appears reptilian, it is as much a robot as the others, though based on the image of the humanoid lizards who created the robots!

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Battlestar Galactica: the Definitive Collection
The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film

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Monday, January 12, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Part 1

Besides Robots and Androids Created by Humans...
...we also present ones created by aliens, such as the Cylons...as seen in the extremely-limited/never-reprinted version of the feature film-length pilot, from the magazine-sized Marvel Super-Special #8 (1978).
...and thus we pause to catch our breath...until tomorrow...and the cataclysmic conclusion.
The Cylons were conceived and built by a long-dead alien race..also called Cylons.
It's unknown whether the robots killed their masters or the aliens went extinct due to a plague or other natural disaster.
The Imperious Leader, a robot itself, was built in the image of those reptilian aliens.
It's implied that Count Iblis and some of his near-godlike fellow aliens manipulated the Cylons and human Colonials into the Thousand-Year War.
(Actor Patrick Macnee played Iblis and provided the voice of the Imperious Leader robot, leading human traitor Baltar, the only human who ever met the Imperious Leader and lived, to piece the puzzle together!)
Note: the juvenile spin-off series Galactica: 1980, introduced Cylons indistinguishable from human beings in the episode "Night the Cylons Landed".
This first half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.
We'll have the story behind the change from magazine to tabloid format next time...
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Battlestar Galactica: the Definitive Collection
The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film

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