A-Next Ages: Bluestreak

I thought it might be fun to work out the approximate ages of the various members of the MC2’s Avengers. Keep in mind this isn’t definitive unless it’s spelt out on the page and is merely a rough estimate based on in-universe information or where necessary statements from the creative teams involved in the characters creation and development.

For today’s inaugural post, I thought why not continue the Bluestreak love? So, let’s see what we can deduce about the mutant speedster Blue Kelso’s age from references in the comics.

Starting with her first appearances in A-Next, there isn’t a whole lot of specific information given about Blue that we could use to work out how old she is, but what we do get suggests she is a youthful and…*ahem*… exuberant young woman.  

Note she is significantly shorter than all other members of the Dream Team which could suggest she is still young in years and has some growing to do (A-Next #4).

In A-Next #6, the seemingly teen aged hero Argo the Almighty (son of Hercules) notes to himself that Thunderstrike, American Dream and Bluestreak are ‘all around my age’.

Blue also makes a passing reference to current school curriculum in A-Next #10, which could imply she either currently attends or recently attended school. Given her power set and personality, it's very likely Blue finished her schooling rather quickly. Perhaps while still training with the X-People?  

Perhaps the biggest indication for Blue’s actual age also comes from Argo, this time in the pages of Last Hero Standing amid a battle with the Incredible Hulk in issue #4, when the Almighty states ‘Bluestreak’s only a teenager.’

The most prominent character thread for Blue throughout A-Next, J2, Wild Thing and even Avengers Next is her unrequited crush on her fellow Avenger J2 aka Zane Yama. While at first, we only see Miss Kelso show interest in the massively muscular super heroic J2 alter ego, she does appear to later learn of his secret identity as scrawny teenager Zane Yama and still retains her feelings for him (Avengers Next #1-5). Zane will surely be the subject of a later entry in this series at some point, but for now, that point should be kept in mind!  

I’d be remiss not to mention the American Dream mini-series which heavily features flashbacks to the titular character’s origin, including her time training under mentor (and former Avenger Hawkeye) Clint Barton alongside Brandon Cross, Aerika Harkness and, of course, Blue Kelso. What these scenes tell us is that the four members of the Dream Team are roughly around the same age, even if we don’t learn specifics.

Now let’s move onto information not present in the comics. We have a response to a fan-question about both Freebooter and Bluestreak by Tom Defalco from the Alvaro’s Comicboards Spider-Girl Message Board. Here’s the question and response:

‘James Hunter: This one is where the clarification is needed, in your mind, how old are Bluestreak and Freebooter? I ask because a friend and I were discussing how mature Freebooter seems at times (in the end we decided that Freebooter must be about 19 and Bluestreak in the early teens, maybe 15 or so, would that be about right?)

Tom Defalco: Sounds about right.’

Skipping ahead to the recent wonderfully in-depth interview with Ron Frenz on Adam Chapman’s Comic Shenanigans podcast, we have this comment regarding the relationships between the members of the Dream Team:

‘I liked the way they interacted, I liked the way Brandon and Blue came across as brother and sister, harping at each other. And Shannon kind of came across as the oldest sister who was constantly going ‘Bluestreak!’ and telling her to mind herself and all that kind of stuff.’

That’s about all we have, folks. So, in conclusion, I’d be willing to guess that Bluestreak is the youngest of the Dream Team. She’s roughly around the age of Zane Yama, whom she maintains a crush on despite knowing in his youthful civilian form. She’s younger than Freebooter but not significantly so. If I had to be specific, I’d say Blue Kelso is 14-16 years old throughout the publishing history of the MC2.

Until I get a life, I remain

frogoat  

Bluestreak's Costumes

Who’s everyone’s favourite blue-haired, fast-talking, impulsive speedster? That’s right! Bluestreak! What, did you think I was going to say Sonic the Hedgehog?! I thought now would be as good a time as ever to take a look at the different costumes worn by Blue Kelso through the years. There’s more than you might think! 

Bluestreak’s most enduring and iconic costume is the one she debuted in alongside her fellow Dream Team members in A-Next #4, following a shadowy cameo in A-Next #3. 

But let’s take a chronological look at Blue’s costumes throughout her career. As I’ve discussed in the past here, Blue was at one point a member of the X-People led by Jubilee. Unfortunately, we don’t have any visuals of what her X-Suit might have looked like, so here’s my terrible photoshop from a while back to give you a very rough idea:

Assuming my timeline of events are correct, after leaving the X-People, Blue becomes Clint Barton’s (formerly the heroic Hawkeye) special students, training to become a new generation of Avengers (American Dream #3). While training, Miss Kelso is seen wearing this training outfit:

Upon graduating, Clint gives Blue Kelso the code name Bluestreak and gifts her the costume we first saw back in the original A-Next series (American Dream #3, A-Next #3-#12).

Blue would continue to wear this costume during her guest appearances in Spider-Girl for several years. However, it is worth pointing out that a new costume debut’s as part of Felicity Hardy’s fantasy in Spider-Girl #52. This costume notably features full-length pants instead of shorts and long sleeve gloves.

Here’s where things get a little confusing. With Ron Frenz as regular artist on the Spider-Girl title, we got a few glimpses of Bluestreak alongside her fellow Avengers. While it’s a bit hard to tell with only background and cameo appearances, Blue seems to be rocking the full-length pants and long gloves look in Spider-Girl #81 with either a short or no-gloves variation in #83. I believe the former (almost certainly miscoloured) appearance is also the origin of the ‘Greenstreak’ joke, for anyone who remembers that!There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance of Blue with the short gloves again in Spider-Girl #86.

Despite apparently switching to the long pants, Blue continues to wear her original Bluestreak costume complete with bike shorts throughout both Last Hero Standing and Last Planet Standing mini-series as depicted by artist Pat Olliffe. This trend continued into the Avengers Next mini series under artist Ron Lim and the American Dream mini-series featuring art by Todd Nauck. Meanwhile, ol’ Blue’s cameo’s in Amazing Spider-Girl weren’t big enough to clarify exactly what get-up she was wearing at the time.

Which brings us to Bluestreak’s appearances in the Secret Wars Spider-Girl tie-in story published in Spider-Island #1-#5. This story actually features a few new costumes for established MC2 characters, but here we see Ron’s design from Spider-Girl #52 make its first full-fledged appearance in all it’s glory, with a few tweaks such as Blue now having grown her hair out longer.

Let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions. I’m hoping to do more of these costume posts for other prominent MC2 heroes in future. What’s your favourite Bluestreak costume and are you as curious about her time with the X-People as I am?

Until I run out of blue hair dye and an urge to slap Thunderstrike in the buttocks, I remain

frogoat

Comic Shenanigans: A Conversation with Ron Frenz and Tom Defalco

Occasionally I stumble upon a real treat when looking for podcasts to listen to and having recently discovered Adam Chapman’s Comic Shenanigans, I’ve found a wonderful pair of interviews with long-time comic co-conspirators Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz discussing their work on the MC2 series A-Next.

I think any MC2 fan owes it to themselves to give these podcast episodes a listen. Not only are they nice and long, they are loaded with new insight, commentary and behind the scenes information, they reveal just how much Tom and Ron share the creative process while working together.

The first part is a conversation with Ron Frenz, discussing A-Next #1-6 and can be found here:

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-zqu4n-d003c7

The second part brought in Tom Defalco to join Ron in the conversation to talk about A-Next #7-12 and can be found here:

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-626c9-d1dc38

Once again, this was a phenomenal listen and, in my opinion, the best and most in-depth and informative look behind the scenes of the MC2’s A-Next. I can’t thank Adam Chapman enough for this. I know I’ll be revisiting this podcast again in the future and I look forward to sifting through all the new information and unused concepts in upcoming posts.

Until I step up my game, I remain

frogoat

MC2 Avengers Cameos

Another brief post, this time about the recent cameo appearance of MC2 characters in the pages of the current volume of Amazing Spider-Man.

So, I recently sat down to catch up on the past few months’ worth of Amazing Spider-Man and was pleasantly surprised to finally read the scene I’d been told about in Amazing Spider-Man (vol.  5) #35. For context, Spider-Man has an experimental device that calculates the probability of event transpiring. This device wasn’t very practical until it received a super-charge from an energy burst set off by Miguel O’Hara aka the Spider-Man of 2099. As a result of this burst, Spidey is able to use the device (dubbed ‘The Clairvoyant’ and now loaded with Miguel’s holographic assistant Lyla) to view various scenarios to determine how likely they are to play out favourably.

Written by current Amazing Spider-Man scribe Nick Spencer with guest art by Oscar Bazaldua, it’s here that we get our rather lovely glimpse of several MC2 Avengers: American Dream, Sabreclaw, J2 and, of course, Spider-Girl. Long-time MC2 fans will instantly recognize the shot of the various heroes as being a direct swipe from the cover of Avengers Next #1 by Mike Wieringo.

This isn’t the first time this particular image has been referenced in an MC2 cameo, as we saw when a variety of different worlds were glimpsed in the climax of 2013’s Age of Ultron #10 following the breaking of the space-time continuum via repeated abuse of time travel by the Avengers.

Going back a little further to 2010’s Avengers (vol. 4) #2 we got a similar line up of the MC2’s Avengers roster when the Main Marvel Universe Avengers glimpse realities, which you may have notice seems to be a running theme. Here we see Bluestreak, Sabreclaw, Freebooter, Mainframe, Spider-Girl, J2 and American Dream representing the MC2 version of the Avengers.

I think that’ll about do it for now. Let me know if there is anything you would like to see discussed relating to the MC2!




Until I break the space-time continuum in an unrelated story and therefore potentially give an explanation for why future developments involving the death of a beloved MC2 character can be disregarded in the event the MC2 returns to print someday, I remain




frogoat

The Evolution of Earth X Venom (May Parker) in Other Media

Having recently tracked down the necessary elements needed, I decided to finally put together this long-overdue video demonstrating the Evolution of Earth X Venom aka May Parker in Other Media.

The years noted are the year the original media was released and, where different, the year the character appeared (has far as I've been able to ascertain). Here is a list of the appearances in this video:

Earth X Hardcover Book Clamshell by Graphitti Designs: A Music Video included with the release animated by David Riske (2001)

Activision's Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro as an Alternate Costume for Spider-Man as voiced by Rino Romano (2001)

Gameloft's Spider-Man Unlimited mobile game (2014) though the character wasn't added until January 2017. The voice actress remains uncredited. If anyone has any information, let me know!

Music: 'Tangled Web (Peter & May Parker)' from the Earth X Soundtrack by Scott Vladimir Licina

I don't claim to own any of the trademarks or copyrights on the characters, concepts or music featured in this video. It was made purely out of love of the character and I make no profit from this video. Please support the media and games featured in this video by buying a copy. Made under 'Fair Use' as the video does not affect the copyright and trademark holders from profiting and promotes their works.

Until I get more time to put into these things (maybe when I retire a millionaire), I remain

frogoat

MaydayMemer Reviews The Famous Cover Series Spider-Girl Figure

Due to some real-world set backs, I've been neglecting the blog. Fortunately, fellow MC2 fan and Meme Lord extraordinaire MaydayMemer offered up their first thoughts review of the Famous Cover Series Spider-Girl Figure. Thanks for covering for me, MaydayMemer! Without further ado:

The figure came in, it’s a pretty cool one. I unboxed it and was actually planning to make a meme with it. However I couldn’t get either of my ideas right. 

One was a recreation of that panel of her on the glider saying “don’t believe anything you read on the net." I have a Demogoblin Glider I was gonna use but I couldn’t get the perspective or pose right. Another was just a photo of her face looking stern, but the camera didn’t pick up the details right to make her look grumpy like she kinda does on the figure in person.The caption would’ve been:



Them: you can’t make a meme using a figure

 Me: [inserts image of Mayday Figure]




Here’s what she looks like just neutral outta the box:

She can move her head and arms, bend her elbows and swivel her wrists. She has a stomach crunch too.Then she can move her legs, knees and feet up and down.She can even swivel her ankles and do the splits which surprised me given the fact the figure is cloth covered.



Here’s me trying to recreate her iconic Spider-Girl #1 pose:

As you can see the only flaw I have with the figure is the mask; it looks really malformed. I suppose that’s the thing with cloth masks. Funny enough the fig was delivered using a gin tasting kit package. Weird, guess that was the only box he had. But she has the slit on the back of the former so she can reveal her face. She has a split on the mask and on the back, I have no idea why for the latter and I don’t want to know, frankly! lol

I had a Happy Meal/Burger King toy of Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man which had a removable cloth mask and what I think is clever about the back Velcro thing is they made it the black bit of the spider logo, a good way of making it unobtrusive with the design.

It’s actually a pretty neat representation of early issues Mayday, some great detail especially with her even wearing earrings. Makes me wonder how that’d work in real life though; it’d hurt like hell if she got a ring snagged under the mask wouldn’t it? Ah but I’m overthinking it! I will say I think she resembles moreso issues 2 or 3 Mayday a lot more than the first appearance Mayday. Again another nitpick as they’re not THAT different and I’m probably just remembering specific panels like during the basketball scene and taking my impressions from that memory.

Here’s my attempt at a backwards wall crawl sort of pose - with what I believe is a ToyBiz Iron Man to see what the scaling’s like:

Here’s the panel I was thinking of that looks just like the figure:

Here’s one final pic before I go for now. It’s on that Goblin Glider I had hanging around:

She fits surprisingly well on it! Hope you enjoyed the look at it, if you have any questions or anything feel free to ask.


A huge thank you again to MaydayMemer! Check out the Spider-Girl meme subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/MaydayMemes/ and check out some of the best quality memes ever made! 

Until I get off my lazy butt and write my own posts, I remain

frogoat

Tom Grummett and the MC2

Recently I've been thinking about well-established artists in the comics industry who's take on the MC2 characters we've yet to see. Then I remembered there are a bunch of artists outside of MC2 mainstays such as the wonderfully talented Ron Frenz, Pat Olliffe, Paul Ryan, Ron Lim or Todd Nauck who've in some way worked on my favourite fictional universe. Every so often I'll try and dedicate a short post to each artist's brief foray into the MC2 Universe.

Tom Grummett

Tom Grummett kind of flew under my radar for the longest time as a young comic reader. I was aware of his work on books like Thunderbolts and it was his artwork alone that got me through New Exiles. But it wasn’t until later I learned of his iconic run drawing Superman and Batman over at DC. Truly, Mr Grummett deserves the comic industry’s respect. But we are going to take a look at the two occasions Tom Grummett drew May Parker aka Spider-Girl.

Tom Grummett actually worked with for Tom Defalco’s novel X-Men & Spider-Man: Time’s Arrow Book 3: The Future which was first published in 1998. We got two chapter illustrations pencilled by Tom Grummett with inks by Doug Hazelwood. The art was presented in black and white, but as I’ve mentioned in my Spider-Girl 2020 post, the first illustration was partially coloured for a composite image in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005. So, technically, Tom Grummett was one of the first artists to draw May Parker as Spider-Girl.

Speaking of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, Mr Tom Grummett’s art not only appeared within the book, he also produced a new piece of art for the cover. This was one of -if not the- first Official Handbook I bought and it was all thanks to that gorgeous art. It certainly helped that it features Tom Grummett’s rendition of May ‘Mayday’ Parker aka Spider-Girl AND Rina Logan aka Wild Thing!

There’s a world out there somewhere in which we saw more MC2 titles and issues, and I believe a prime candidate to fit the style and tone of the MC2 imprint would be Tom Grummett. My appreciation of Tom’s Spider-Girl 2020 design from the novel has increased through the years. I’d love to see him pencil a crossover between the MC2’s Spider-Girl and Spider-Girl 2020. Someday, friends! Someday!



Until I stop building imaginary comic titles and crossovers in my head, I remain



frogoat