You know a Mantlo and Buscema fan was just in Greece and Israel when you see pics like these

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This is not Sparta, this is Athens. Sporting my ROM t-shirt in Greece may not be quite as epic as King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans holding off thousands of invading persian scum at the Hot Gates of Thermoplyae or even the naval campaign the Athenian general Themistocles carried out against the persians in that war effort but I still think it's still kinda cool.

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And this is Israel's eternal and undivided capital Jerusalem. And that is a copy of Incredible Hulk 256 which is the first appearance of Marvel's premier Israeli superhero Sabra. Written by Bill Mantlo and penciled by Sal Buscema in 1980 which was a better time in history for comic books as IDW's Micronauts #1 and ROM "the" spaceknight 0 issue have proven to us once again. Here's a little something else from later that day in Jerusalem  . . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww-PSW4afKw

A real life Sabra

Also wanted to give a big thanks to deviant artist nikoskap for doing this awesome Sabra fan art during my time in Greece. Niko lives on the island of Crete which I unfortunately didn't get a chance to visit but at least we were able to communicate electronically while in the same time zone for a change which was nice. Thanks for this great surprise which I'm honored to post here and for standing with the people of Israel. Sabra is a fictional character ofcourse but in the real world there are many brave women in Israel putting their lives on the line for The Holy Land and it's people. Military service in Israel is compulsory, 3 years for men and 2 years for women. Left click the image to magnify.

On a side note here I wanted to say something about podcasts these days. Is it just me or do they ALL suck? Some of the plane service had Wi-Fi and at one point I tried to listen to some podcasts having to do with the sort of thing we comic book sci-fi nerds are into and everyone I tired to listen to was boring as Hell. In fact it's been years since I last heard one that was any good at all. At one point I tried to give a listen to some having to do with The Suicide Squad and then one having to do with Free Comic Book Day and it was all about as much interesting as watching your computer buffering a video stream.

Astonishing Tales 2009 One Shot starring Sabra part 3 of 3

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Well at this point the story pretty much speaks for it's self. Yeah that's a pretty nice perspective in that top panel like I said in part 1 of this blog posting series the art work in this issue is just absolutely amazing. I would love to see this artist pencil ROM, Hybrid, The Torpedo and the dire wraiths I know he would make them all look so awesome.

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And that city is Jerusalem, probably the most contested piece of real estate in the world. In the near future I should be doing some flying of my own to both Greece and Israel where hopefully I'll have a couple cool photo opportunity ideas that Bill Mantlo & Sal Buscema will get a kick out of. Ok one last thing . . .

Avengers 101 mighty facts

Here's something that I found in an Avengers special edition magazine by Wizard (1999) I picked up from a con in a dollar box a few weeks ago. I've been sitting on this because I wasn't sure if it was worth blogging about because quite frankly it's a bit ridiculous even within the fictitious comic book universe of ROM spaceknight. I've never read the original Avengers #10 but I'm pretty sure somebody came up with this concept long after that issue and indeed long after ROM #1 was published.

Astonishing Tales 2009 One Shot starring Sabra part 2 of 3

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So obviously if you were thinking of Samson & Delilah toward the end of the last posting you were right. Samson, who's great strength comes from his long hair is betrayed by Delilah who cuts his hair while he's sleeping. To further debilitate him he is also blinded and eventually put on display by being chained to the pillars of a temple. Thinking he is helpless his enemies party around him and mock him in the process but with his last bit of remaining strength he manages to pull down the pillars he is chained to quite literally crashing the party. Ofcourse this kills Samson but at least he takes his enemies with him.

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I also like the whole concept of Sabra being saved by the Israeli army as opposed to her being sprung by some other superheroes or something like that. It underscores the whole point of her story to Yael about how every body in the security apparatus (from the Israeli Defense Force to Mossad*) of the tiny country of Israel have each others back.

*Mossad, the Israeli secret service that Sabra operates under.

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Next up, the conclusion.

Astonishing Tales 2009 One Shot starring Sabra part 1 of 3

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Over the past few years there's been a handful of obscure random single issues I've been on the look out for. In recent months I've been able to get my hands on just about all of them from discount back issue boxes except for this one. Couldn't find it online either as far as hard copies go but a friend of mine who had a marvel.com account was able to hook me up with a digital copy so now at least I was able to read the entire story as opposed to just some of the random clip art found here and there all over the web. I really wanted to make this story available in a more complete format for any Sabra fans out there so I'm going to make this 3 part posting series.
First off, as you can see the art work is nothing short of amazing thanks to Brazilian artist Adriana Melo. But aside from that it's very interesting about who the writer is. Matt Yocum was actually a US Air Force liaison to the Israeli Air Force and has spent quite a bit of time in Israel over the years. And obviously he's also a writer and a big comic book fan. In a nut shell, the story takes place at a diplomatic function in Jerusalem in which Sabra runs into her old friend Ronit who in turns introduces Sabra to her daughter Yael. As an important side note in the story it turns out Sabra and Ronit's fathers served in the Israeli air force back in the day. Notice how in the flash back panel Sabra is featured in her original costume (but with her early 90s hair style)? As you can see from the clip art above Yael is having some anxieties about her impending military service for which Sabra proceeds to give her a pep talk of sorts.

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The story has some nice touches to it such as the Old Testament references that even non religious folks should be able to pick up easily as Sabra faces this Pacific Rim style Hydra robot.

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In the story of David and Goliath every body knows how the young King David brought down the Philistine warrior Goliath with his sling but David also decapitated him which may not be as commonly known. That's just what you did in those days after you take down a mother fucker.

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Sabra's disposition during her captivity with Hydra mirrors another Hebrew fable from the Old Testament although in Sabra's case things didn't end nearly as tragically but we'll get into that in part 2 of this blog posting mini-series.