Preview: "Kato: Way of the Ninja"

Francesco Francavilla provides a look at his cover for the first issue of the spinoff series from Dynamite Comics' Golden Age Green Hornet series on his blog!
(And, yes, we've already covered how Kato's garb is different from the previous Golden Age and movie versions.)

Phantasmo: Master of the World!

Once more, we journey to Tibet, birthplace of literally hundreds of superheroes from the Golden Age of Pulps and Comics to the present including The Shadow, The Green Lama, and Doctor Strange.
Lamasaries in pulps and comics did a thriving business in training Westerners who crashed on, stumbled into, or sought out their mountaintop locales to receive physical and / or mental training which they then used to fight evil back in their homelands.
(Oddly enough, very few Asian characters bothered to go to the Himalayas to learn mystic or martial arts! But I digress...)

A rich, but disillusioned, American who had spent over two decades living in Tibet, seeking enlightenment from the monks, learned the lamas' secrets of "ultimate control of their mental processes."
Returning to the USA, he took a new civilian identity, "Phil Anson", and began a war on crime as Phantasmo! (We never learned his original name or why he was so disenchanted with his previous life.)
Like The Spectre, Phantasmo was actually an astral projection who could take solid form when separated from his "host" body.
His abilities included super-strength, flight, near-invulnerabilty, and penchant for growing / shrinking tricks.
Also like The Spectre,  Phantasmo wore just shorts, boots and a cape. (astral bodies apparently don't get cold.) Unlike The Spectre, who wore green, Phantasmo wore yellow with gold highlights. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making him look like he wasn't wearing anything at all if the Magenta printing plate got screwed up, which happened from time to time! (Warning: NSFW)
While his astral form ran around doing heroic feats, his human form was unconscious and helpless. Phil hired Whizzer McGee, a bellhop at the hotel Anson lived in, to guard his body while it was "unoccupied".

Debuting in The Funnies #45, Phantasmo was the first superhero character from Dell Comics, who had previously done reprints of newspaper strips like Dick Tracy.
From his premiere, Phantasmo was the cover feature of The Funnies until #57,  when he shared the cover with up-and-coming superstar Captain Midnight, who forced him off the cover as of the next issue!
"The Master of the World" remained as a backup feature until #63, when The Funnies became a funny animal book and Captain Midnight got his own title.
Phantasmo literally disappeared for several decades, until revived (in flashbacks) in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers mini-series a year or so ago!
We suspect he'll be showing up in the present-day storyline, in due course.

In the meantime, we're re-presenting him on a line of kool kollectibles including t-shirts, mugs, messenger bags and other nifty tchochkies.
So, check out "The Master of the World", as Phantasmo was described on the covers, before he catches a cold. ;-)

Jungle Girls Movie Poster & Comic Cover Gallery

BTW, did we mention that ALL these posters and covers (and a half-dozen more) are available on our Jungle Girls 2010 12-Month Calendar? ;-)

Toddler and KidsWear Easter Egg-citment!

Choose from Ducky's 1st Easter...

...Bunny Family Painting Eggs...

or Bunny Daddy, Baby Duck!

Bibs, creepers, toddlers' and kids' t-shirts, sweatshirts, and adult goodies like maternitywear!

NOTE: The organic clothing is from American Apparel!

Order now, so you'll have it in time for Easter!

Fantastic Femmes PixPost: Dorothy Dandridge IS Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba

In her only genre role, Dorothy Dandridge played Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba in 1951's Tarzan's Peril.

An original story, not based on any of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories, the film was the third of five movies starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and it was directed by Byron Haskin, who went on to A-list genre films like 1953's War of the Worlds.
It was also the first Tarzan film to have scenes shot on location in Africa.
(Previous films used existing stock footage from other movies.)

One of the scenes from the film is recreated in the biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge starring Fantastic Femme Halle Berry as Dorothy playing Melmendi.
Here's a comparison between a scene in the original film and the biopic's version of it.

Melmendi, nor her tribe, the Ashuba, have appeared in any Tarzan story (in any media) since...

Note: technically, this is a Pix Post, but it's also a Hero(ine) History and Fantastic Femme entry!