Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy Fourth of July

To our countrymen, have a wonderful holiday! And to the rest of our friends -please enjoy this awesome picture from the 1976 Marvel calendar!
 
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13 comments:

Humanbelly said...

Thanks much, Karen (and by extension, Doug)-! The DC area's been blasted by a bit of a heat/humidity wave which is pretty much the expectation for this time of year-- although for ONCE it looks like the folks going to see the Folklife Festival and the Fireworks on the National Mall will have an evening of nearly-comfortable temps tonight.

I wonder-- to our sizable contingent of Great Brits on the blog, how does our annual mid-summer hoopla play over there? If at all? Or is France's celebration more visible and immediate?

Or heck-- edo, does our holiday have even a shadow of a presence in your neck of the woods? (I would assume that for the most part it wouldn't, of course-)

Patriotic fervor and historical significance aside, what it does provide is a fine holiday to anchor the summer around in our society-- and like most of our more secularized holidays, it can be enjoyed almost universally, regardless of class or region. Big Apple mega parades are a delightful spectacle-- but teensy little local village/township parades have an incredible, sincere charm all their own that can't help but plaster a grin on one's face. Huge fireworks displays can be astonishing works of pyrotechnic art. . . but at the same time, the most I've ever enjoyed fireworks was at the little beach on the lake of my home town, where one of the wealthier citizens across the way funded it and shot them off himself. About one rocket every 60 to 90 seconds out over the water. Every rocket-burst was its own single portrait in fire and color, fiercely examined during its brief life.
(this was also in Michigan, where it was chilly enough to wear a jacket in the late evening down by the water-!)

HB

July 4, 2014 at 8:28 AM
Edo Bosnar said...

HB, to answer your question: nope, not a bit. So I, displaced Yank that I am, just sit here at work and grumble about all you guys enjoying your barbeque and whatnot on a nice summer's day off.
Actually, though, the sting of that is taken off by the fact that Croatia has this late-June knot of non-working holidays: June 22 (on a Sunday this year, rats!) is Antifascism Day, and June 25 is Croatian Independence Day; Corpus Christi is also - for reasons nobody here can really explain - also a national holiday, which moves around depending on Easter, so this year it was on June 19.

Anyway, I hope everyone stateside has a good one.

July 4, 2014 at 8:39 AM
Anonymous said...
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July 4, 2014 at 9:11 AM
Humanbelly said...

Edo, I'm LOVING that there's an official Antifascism Day--! From now on, I'm going to set aside June 22nd as a day I will definitely not oppress my neighbors and crew-workers. . . (man, it's gonna be tough-- but I guess it's only once a year. . . )

HB

July 4, 2014 at 9:17 AM
Anonymous said...

Batman marathon on IFC. If your service provides the channel, feel FREE to enjoy the episodes.


The Prowler (going commando.....free indeed).

July 4, 2014 at 9:19 AM
Murray said...

Happy Independence Day to all you yanks from the Great White North!

Before you go do that festive skipping and jumping, a comic book question is sparked by the rowboat artwork. What is the Vision's citizenship? There are dozens...hundreds...of Avengers comics I haven't read. Or have read once and forgotten utterly. Was our synthezoid ever given a whatchacallit...Green Card? Or does everyone keep considering him an "appliance" or piece of equipment? Was there ever a storyline where the Avengers were off to vote and he felt left out?

For that matter, what are the status of Pietro and Wanda? Thor has always had an unofficial, or official, ambassador-at-large status.

July 4, 2014 at 9:20 AM
Humanbelly said...

Here's what the Marvel Wiki says:

"Vision's citizenship is undetermined due to the fact that as an Avenger, he was granted provisional citizenship in the U.S."

And it was certainly a topic of discussion back when he was effectively killed by the gov't in WCA. It seems like the simple answer would have to depend on whether or not he is legally considered a "person". If he is, then he would obviously have to be considered an American Citizen, 'cause as Torch or Vision he was "born"/created AND achieved sentience right here in the U.S.of A.-- making him a native-born citizen. Specific circumstances of birth would have to be deemed irrelevant to the issue, I would assume, since the folks who were "test tube babies" aren't denied that status. Nor babies born by C-section. Nor, I would ultimately assume, would be babies that might someday be fully gestated outside of their mother's womb.

But it would all go back to the precedent of his legal Personhood, right?

HB

July 4, 2014 at 11:09 AM
david_b said...

Prowler, thanks for the reminder on IFC. I'm actually keeping my electric bill down today, but can always sit and watch the TVLand DVD bootlegs I still have.

AAAAND daydream about that 'official' DVD (and blu-ray) release of the classic Dozer series this November.

Hmmm, it will need to have West-Ward and HOPEFULLY Newmar & Craig commentaries.

("..Please, please please...)

July 4, 2014 at 3:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Happy 4th of July everyone!

There's a holiday called Antifascism Day in Croatia? Wow Edo now that's a holiday! Hmm in Croatia if a holiday falls on a Sunday the Monday is not automatically a holiday?

Edo, down here in Trinidad we're quite the opposite - once a holiday falls on a Sunday then Monday is given as the holiday. We don't have an Antifascism holiday like you guys up in Croatia, but we do have a Corpus Christi holiday, Edi, Divali, Easter and of course Christmas.
The funny thing is, Carnival, one of the biggest festivals is not officially listed as a holiday yet all schools and government offices are closed for those two days of revelry!

Gotta love Trinidad - being such a multicultural society every segment of the population seems to get its share of holidays. I haven't done any scientific surveys but I'm betting T & T has many more holidays than many larger countries. Now why is it that our productivity is so low ... :)


- Mike 'back from vacation' from Trinidad & Tobago.

July 4, 2014 at 9:39 PM
Humanbelly said...

Thinking about Pietro & Wanda's legal status, Murray-- it seems like it would have been reeeeelly tough for them to have gotten into the states in the first place. One has to assume that the initial trip shortly before Avengers #16 would have to have involved all kinds of forged documents and bribes. I mean, I don't think either Bova or the High Evolutionary were overly concerned w/ getting birth certificate paperwork filled out on that one very busy, stormy evening up on Wundagore mountain. And heck, THEN they were adopted by gypsies--! Realistically, it should have been incredibly tough for them to even get work permits, let alone a Resident Alien green card. Heck, have they always drawn an Avengers stipend? Have they been paying taxes on that? Pietro's been a citizen of Attilan, even-- how in the world does Immigration deal w/ that sort of thing??

(Yeah. . . the real-world template just doesn't hold up under closer scrutiny very well, does it?)

HB

July 4, 2014 at 10:22 PM
William said...

Very cool drawing. [sigh] I miss Ironman's old armor. It was so simple and functional looking.

One question. What the heck is Wanda doing? It looks like she's blasting those icebergs with a force beams, but her power doesn't work like that. Maybe she's using her hex power to turn them jello or something.

July 4, 2014 at 10:59 PM
Edo Bosnar said...

Mike, I love that Trinidad makes Monday a day off if the holiday falls on a Sunday! Nothing like that here, but, say, December 26 (St. Stephen's) and Easter Monday are holidays - which is, I think, the case in most predominantly Catholic countries in Europe.
And speaking of lowered productivity, a time honored tradition here is to "connect" holidays. That means if there's a case when two or more holidays are close to each other on the calendar (like this little late June set of holidays I mentioned), people take vacation days around them for maximum time off.

HB, as for Wanda and Pietro, I think they made their first trip to the US with Magneto, as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. However, I doubt he bothered to secure green cards for them or anything (I can just see their responses to some of the application queries: Purpose of stay in the U.S.? "To aid employer's megalomaniacal plans to subjugate and possibly wipe out all Homo sapiens" - which, after Magneto looked the form over before handing it in, would then be scratched out, with this new response written in "To work in uncle's bakery").

July 5, 2014 at 2:46 AM
Anonymous said...

Wow, I've NEVER seen this image before (that I remember!)

I think it would make a great tattoo!

starfoxxx

July 7, 2014 at 5:35 PM

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