Tag Archives: Marvel

BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: Baseball with Galactus in Marvel Adventures Avengers #26

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! Avengers: Endgame is breaking all of the box office records, so now is as good of a time as any to bring you a Bizarre Baseball Culture look at a truly bizarre Avengers tale: 2008’s Marvel Adventures The Avengers Volume 1 #26, in which baseball helps our heroes save a planet from Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds.

Well, sort of. It’s more of a non-sequitur thrown in to justify this awesome cover:

Image of cover of magazine, featuring Galactus looking down at the Silver Surfer, Hulk and Spider-Man playing baseball.

And… I’m totally fine with that! It is available to read for Marvel Unlimited subscribers here. Head below the jump for more of this piece:

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BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: Strange Tales #36 “The Discovery”

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Yeah, so that Power Rangers series I promised I’d finish two years ago? You’re going to keep waiting. Today, we’re going to the 1950s to read a story from Marvel’s Strange Tales #36, circa 1955. Well, sort of, you see, this is actually a story from Atlas Comics, which is what Marvel was called at the time. It’s a short, four-page story in the middle of an issue full of them, and calls to mind later stories like the Sidd Finch hoax… and how it could go horribly wrong, especially if he wasn’t used right.

Go below the jump for more:

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BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: The Kool-Aid Man Cometh (W/bonus Kool-Aid Commercial)

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

There is a man. A man unlike any other other. He’s not really a man, he’s more like a anthropomorphic water-pitcher filled with Kool-Aid. He is the Kool-Aid Man, and he is the subject of this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture:

KAMcoverOH, YEAAHH! It’s time for The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man #1 from Marvel Comics in 1983. Go below the jump for more:

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(Blogathon ’16) CONTINUUM CLASSIC: 2007 AAA BASEBALL HEROES

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

Originally published June 19, 2013.

In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

I warned you. I told you it was coming. You could have gone away, but, no, you had to go and actually come here and read this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture. This is a very special Bizarre Baseball Culture, as, for the first time, it’s something that I actually have in my very small personal collection of comic books. You see, in 2007, each Triple-A baseball team had a day celebrating superheroes, and as a giveaway, there was this comic:

2007GiveawayComic copyAnd, as you can probably guess, I was at that game and got the giveaway. And so, it sat in a drawer for almost seven years, ignored. Until today. Yes, true believers, tremble and prepare yourself for the 2007 edition of Triple-A Baseball Heroes, featuring the superheroes of Marvel Comics.

Now, a few notes before we get going here:

  • All of the images in this post were scanned by yours truly, and any problems with the quality of the images are my fault.
  • All characters and logos in the comic are property of their respective owners (such as Marvel Comics or Minor League Baseball). The excerpts from this comic used in this post are being used under fair use doctrine and are meant merely to support and enhance the opinions and facts stated in said post.
  • Click on any of the images to make them bigger.
  • To the best of my knowledge, the only way to get this comic nowadays is to find it on eBay or have gone to the games that had them released.

Now, go below the jump for the rest of the post:

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BEST OF 2015: BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE- The Time That Bullseye had a 2-issue Baseball Miniseries

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Originally published May 16, 2015.
In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

One of the things you realize when you think about superhero fiction too hard is that a lot of the criminals could probably become rich using their technology or skills in more legal pursuits. For example, find the right quiz show for the Riddler, and he’s rolling in dough. Captain Cold or Mister Freeze could easily make a mint if they applied their freeze-weapons toward something like refrigeration. Heck, even the people who write the comics know this, and in the 1980s they turned Lex Luthor from a supergenius with lots of high-tech inventions into a corrupt supergenius billionaire superexecutive who had made his money from his many high-tech inventions.

Which leads me to Bullseye. Bullseye’s a Daredevil villain, created by Marv Wolfman and John Romita Sr. in the 1976 and perfected by Frank Miller in his run on Daredevil’s comic book. Bullseye’s entire shtick is that he basically has perfect killer accuracy with basically everything, even harmless stuff like playing cards. He’s arguably Daredevil’s second-greatest foe (after the Kingpin), and is directly or indirectly responsible for the death of at least two of Daredevil’s girlfriends (only one of whom got better).

But, still, that shtick with the accuracy, wouldn’t you think he could make a great pitcher?

Well, there was a 2-part miniseries at the turn of this decade that basically grabbed a hold of that idea and ran with it… Bullseye: Perfect Game.

It’s a surprisingly good short look at obsession and perfection, with some nice easter eggs for fans of baseball and of comics and a great ending that I’m sort of bummed out I’ll spoil in my summary…. BELOW THE JUMP:

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“Fantastic Four” Bizarre Baseball Cultures that are probably way better than the new movie

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The new Fantastic Four movie recently came out. It was a total and utter disaster, with a Rotten Tomatoes score that can only be seen with a microscope and a box office performance so pitiful it couldn’t even win it’s week. It’s hardly surprising, really, as A) it was not made by Marvel itself, but rather FOX, which only has the rights to make these movies due to a deal it made way back in the early 1990s when Marvel was in the direst of financial straits, and B) it was trying to turn what is arguably the most optimistic and adventuresome of comic books into a dark and moody techno-thriller. I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!?

With luck, this failure will lead to the Fantastic Four and their stable of villains (most notably DOCTOR DOOM) back to the Marvel line, so we can see a real and proper movie featuring the FF, with Doctor Doom done right, and maybe with a Hulk-Thing fight thrown in, too, because after how badly this and the previous movies have hurt the reputation of “Marvel’s First Family”, they’re going to have to go all out to win back the crowd.

But, anyway, enough rambling. Here are the Bizarre Baseball Cultures that featured the Fantastic Four. All of them, no doubt, are better than the current film:

2007’s AAA Baseball Heroes

This Marvel/AAA Baseball crossover is great in that it shows off how the Fantastic Four are basically an ordinary family who happen to go exploring alternate dimensions and fight space-gods in their spare time. I mean, look, they all are at a ballgame together!

 

2007GiveawayComicPage1From what I understand, the latest movie has none of this stuff. And it flopped big time. Coincidence? I think not.

It also has a Hulk-Thing fight and this, the greatest image in the history of art:

Screen Shot 2013-06-18 at 5.53.33 PM2008’s AAA Baseball Heroes

This installment of the Marvel/AAA Baseball didn’t have as much Fantastic Four fun, really only featuring Reed Richards and the Mole-Man (who served as the villain). However, unlike the new movie, it showed the Fantastic Four as part of a large and vibrant universe and as close allies and friends with characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man. Which, if you ask me, instantly makes it better than whatever piece of crap 20th Century Fox just put out.

We also see the Mole Man cry tears of joy, which still makes me laugh for some reason:

And the Mole Man wept...

Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius Super Summer Spectacular

A good, innocent, all-ages comedy comic about Franklin Richards, the eldest son of Reed and Sue Richards, as he tries to cheat in little league by using a Flubber-like explosive substance on his bat to hit some home runs.

It also has this image:

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 10.37.50 PMAh, such light-hearted whimsy. If only the new Fantastic Four movie had some of that, maybe it wouldn’t have been called something that “not only scrapes the bottom of the barrel; it knocks out the floor and sucks audiences into a black hole of soul-crushing, coma-inducing dullness.”

That’s something that somebody actually wrote. Go look on Rotten Tomatoes.

Cameos

The FF has also made brief appearances in my run-down of Marvel Universe appearances by Yankee Stadium, and in the Bullseye miniseries. I won’t go in depth on those, as we are forgetting about the unofficial fifth member of the Fantastic Four, their arch-nemesis, the greatest villain in Marvel comics….

DOCTOR DOOM….. who once tried to kidnap Jeff Conine

Okay, this is what Doctor Doom apparently looks like in the new movie:

What. The. Hell. That isn’t Doctor Doom. That’s, like, I dunno, what would happen if evil C3PO had a baby with a Gothic Crash-Test Dummy. Jeez, is it THAT EFFING HARD, FOX?!?! THIS IS WHAT DOOM LOOKS LIKE, IN BATTLE WITH TWO OF HIS GREATEST FOES:

BILLY THE MARLIN and SPIDER-MAN!

MarlinsSpideyCoverI mean, jeez, that’s one of the most iconic things in comic books. It was the partial inspiration for Darth freaking Vader. But, NOOOOOOOO, you have to go make Doom like like a human vacuum cleaner that just got put in the oven for too long.

…Seriously, FOX, give back the rights to Marvel. They’re Disney. They have the money. They have the X-Men television rights you want. For the good of all that is holy. PLEASE!

(ahem)

Anyway, Doctor Doom made one of the most notable appearances in Bizarre Baseball Culture when he went and tried to kidnap Jeff Conine to force him to play for the Latverian national baseball team, only to be foiled by Billy the Marlin and Spider-Man. Truly, words cannot describe the greatness of this story. If Marvel ever gets the rights to Doctor Doom back, the very first thing they should do is make a deal with a Marlins and put into production a adaptation of this, albeit with Giancarlo Stanton taking the Jeff Conine spot.

I mean, look at this brilliance:

Screen Shot 2013-09-27 at 11.05.15 PMI mean, behold this:

Screen Shot 2013-09-28 at 1.44.38 PMSeriously, this is probably better than that new movie, and the Fantastic Four aren’t even in it!

…So, anyway, that concludes a look back at Fantastic Four appearances in Bizarre Baseball Culture. Keep an eye open in the next few days for the next installment, featuring Popeye the Sailor Man, a known user of performance-enhancing substances (i.e. spinach).

 

Bizarre Baseball Culture: Marvel’s Menagerie of Yankee Stadium appearances

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Sometimes, baseball plays a role in a piece of fiction, but not really a big enough one where I can do a full piece on it. Take Marvel, for example. The fact that 95% of their heroes are in New York City means that there are plenty of stories where heroes or villains visit Yankee Stadium but where their visit isn’t long enough or baseball-focused enough to really justify giving them the full Bizarre Baseball Culture treatment.

So, this time, I’m killing many birds with one stone and showcasing some of Yankee Stadium’s appearances in Marvel comics. Go below the jump to see some of them:

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BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: Marvel Adventures Spider-Man 34 brings steroid accusations, hallucinations, and a angry father

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Sports have many problems. There are performance enhancing drugs, exploitative agents, a culture that honors people and asks their opinions for no other reason than that they are strong, and stupid adults who ruin everything.

And in Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #34, we get a hard-hitting glimpse at how this affects high school baseball in a Marvel Universe. BECAUSE SOMEBODY HAD TO TELL US!

Screen Shot 2015-05-29 at 1.39.53 PMPublished in 2007, this issue was part of the Marvel Adventures/Marvel Age imprint, a set of ongoing series that were meant for all-ages of readers. To make it more readable for younger folks, these series cut down on more complicated backstories, featured characters (like Spider-Man) that most kids would have been familiar with from TV or movies, featured younger versions of some characters (this Spider-Man is still in High School, for example), didn’t have as much violence, and eliminated bad language and sexual innuendo.

But… that doesn’t stop it from having steroid accusations, a angry father, sports agents, and other fun stuff! It also has a baseball uniform with a Koala Bear on it, which is cool.

Go below the jump for more!

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BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE- The Time That Bullseye had a 2-issue Baseball Miniseries

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

One of the things you realize when you think about superhero fiction too hard is that a lot of the criminals could probably become rich using their technology or skills in more legal pursuits. For example, find the right quiz show for the Riddler, and he’s rolling in dough. Captain Cold or Mister Freeze could easily make a mint if they applied their freeze-weapons toward something like refrigeration. Heck, even the people who write the comics know this, and in the 1980s they turned Lex Luthor from a supergenius with lots of high-tech inventions into a corrupt supergenius billionaire superexecutive who had made his money from his many high-tech inventions.

Which leads me to Bullseye. Bullseye’s a Daredevil villain, created by Marv Wolfman and John Romita Sr. in the 1976 and perfected by Frank Miller in his run on Daredevil’s comic book. Bullseye’s entire shtick is that he basically has perfect killer accuracy with basically everything, even harmless stuff like playing cards. He’s arguably Daredevil’s second-greatest foe (after the Kingpin), and is directly or indirectly responsible for the death of at least two of Daredevil’s girlfriends (only one of whom got better).

But, still, that shtick with the accuracy, wouldn’t you think he could make a great pitcher?

Well, there was a 2-part miniseries at the turn of this decade that basically grabbed a hold of that idea and ran with it… Bullseye: Perfect Game.

It’s a surprisingly good short look at obsession and perfection, with some nice easter eggs for fans of baseball and of comics and a great ending that I’m sort of bummed out I’ll spoil in my summary…. BELOW THE JUMP:

Continue reading →

Spider-Man’s appearances in BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE

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As you would know unless if you’ve been living under a rock the last day or two, Spider-Man is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In honor of this, here are the web-slinger’s appearances in BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE:

2007’s TRIPLE-A BASEBALL HEROES

The crossover between Marvel Comics and AAA baseball that you never knew you needed, Spidey is one of the main characters in this comic. There is also a serious error, however, as Peter Parker is portrayed wearing Yankee regalia, which goes against the well-established fact (to Spider-fans) that Pete is a Mets fan.

2008’s TRIPLE-A BASEBALL HEROES

Spider-Man has a much smaller role in the second AAA/Marvel crossover, but does still appear, so it counts.

BILLY THE MARLIN

One of the greatest achievements in human history, right up there with fire, the wheel, the polio vaccine and Mario Kart. I mean, just look at this:

MarlinsSpideyCoverIn this comic, Spider-Man aids Billy the Marlin in stopping Doctor Doom, who has arrived in Miami to kidnap Jeff Conine in order to force him to join the Latverian National Baseball Team, or something like that. It’s amazing. I did not make that up.

Peter Parker Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #33

The last (for now) Bizarre Baseball Culture featuring Spidey, this issue is entirely about Peter Parker’s love of the New York Mets and how it was a bond between him and his Uncle Ben. Features an appearance of an off-brand and talking Mr. Met.

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So, there you go! Spider-Man’s appearances in BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE! Enjoy!