What the Hellhounds!?

The source material for this piece which I put together in Adobe photoshop comes from two other artists. The Torpedo was a line art character study from Eric Jansen. All I had to do to that one was basically add some color to it. ROM is a cropped version of an original piece from Greek artist Kapandais Nikolaos. All I did to that one is add some grey tones to make him contrast from the background a bit more.  

Here's a brand new awesome fan art piece of ROM blitzing a pack of Black Nebula Hellhounds by Kapandais Nikolaos. And this time this one is all him. By the time they realize just what the Hell hit them they'll be on a one way trip to Limbo.

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/art/Rom-Spaceknight-955323949

A couple months ago I was hesitant to post these pages that were part of a SABRA story pitch to Marvel Comics from writer Matt Yocum and artist Jake Bilbao because I felt they were a little too "real world" in terms of subject matter. I've recently had a change of heart. Mostly because I really just want to share this stuff with as many people as possible out there. It's really great material when it comes to the question of what could have been.

  

Almost certainly by late 2023 we will start to see official movie trailers turn up for Captain America New World Order. But before those trailers we will almost certainly by privy to production and "first look" type still images from the film. Some of those no doubt will include Shira Hass as Sabra. I can't help but wonder if all the leftist antisemites as well as the ones within the muslim world will freak out out again and act like a bunch of cry babies with dirty diapers as they did back in September when the Sabra character appearance in the MCU was first announced? The Sabra character was created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema with creative input from Belinda Glass. Thank you all!

April 8th Update: For any Star Wars fans out there I've got something to share that I just started last night and completed this morning. The show down from the season one finale of Disney Plus's Kenobi was one of the best light saber duels ever in Star Wars. The exchange that Kenobi and Vader had at it's conclusion was also some great writing that was the icing on the cake. That was definitely my kinda Star Wars.

April 10th Update: We'll, just when I thought I'd seen it all when it comes to comic book/sci-fi related public art in The San Francisco Bay Area. What we have here is an amazing Miles Morales Spider-Man mural. I've been past this block in Oakland more then once in recent months so I know this mural is pretty new. It's located on 29th Avenue right before the highway 880 south bound onramp. Check it out if you're in the area.

 

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.