This is it, my friends, time to lay some cards on the table. Maybe I’ll lost the majority of you along the way but it’s high time to talk about my favorite female Avenger. Heck, how about my favorite female Marvel super-heroine?

I personally liked Mantis from her first appearance, back in Avengers #112 (June 1973), where she was wearing a different costume than the one she’s more known about (with the same colors) and looked more like a sophisticated Japanese lady than a young Vietnamese orphan. To top it off, when I learned that she lead the evil Swordsman to a new life of righteousness, I couldn’t be more glad: he had always been one of my favorite villains, acting noble and snotty in his own unique way. In my book, she couldn’t be a bad person. Of course, when she dropped-kicked a whole team of Avengers soon after (including Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Vision, Black Panther…), oh boy, there was more to meet the eyes here. And on the chauvinistic side, I have a weakness for beautiful, Asian-type girls, as if you didn’t know… I found interesting the way she talked (the «this one» part) and her «humbleness». Of course, the Celestial Madonna story is classic Avengers material (though it was never developed to my satisfaction in future years, if developed at all…).

When Mantis appeared, there were only three official female Avengers: Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp (who at that point, had still the sadly topical «bimbo-headed» etiquette around her); Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch (who had been under the shadow of her brother Quicksilver for too long, was beginning to develop a much-appreciated «power-up» and was more and more committed to future husband the Vision) and Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow (who made quite a list of guest-appearances and finally became a member for the grand total of two issues at the time). Not much girl action around Avengers Mansion. I found Mantis a different and intriguing addition to the team: she was very independent and mysterious, more powerful than presumed and was the lead player in her romantic liaison with the Swordsman, contrary to the other three gals (at that time, remember?: Jan overshadowed by husband Henry Pym, Wanda overshadowed by Quicksilver or Vision, Natasha by Hawkeye or Daredevil). Swordsman was the weak link in this relationship. Now maybe the majority of young male readers didn’t like to see the male hero on the receiving end?

After mating with an intelligent tree from outer space (?) and producing an unique being that is destined to be a new form of benevolent life in the universe, Mantis was lost in comic limbo for many years, as Marvel didn’t have a clue of what to do with her. A shame, as she was quite an unique creation, from the mind of writer Steve Englehart, who even more or less recreated her in different comic book companies, mainly the DC character Willow and the Eclipse Comics character Lorelei! Talk about dedication! More recently, Mantis has been glimpsed in the mini-series House of M: Avengers and in a more active role in the galactic mini-series Annihilation: Conquest. Check out her chronological apparitions and some personal info available via my Avengers site.

I’m currently re-watching the second season of what in my view is the best recent French-speaking series from Québec, Les Invincibles. This all turns around four guys making a mutual pact of finally living life as they want it, with no emotional attachments, with the ultimate objective of enjoying a carefree bachelor existence in purely thrill-seeking fashion. Of course, this means having sex with lots of women, with a rule that states that these relations can’t not go past a time-limit of two weeks. As you can guess, everything falls apart in unexpected twists and turns.

In the second season, the same guys are involved in another scheme, this time a Rally of Happiness, when they must fix themselves a personal objective to be resolved in a period of three months. If all four can successfully manage it, it’s a trip to Punta Cana for all! Once again, the results will be surprising, hilarious and sometimes touching.

One of the main characters is a comic book fan, having created a super-hero team based on his personality and those of his three friends, Les Invincibles. So, they are frequent parallels between his fiction and real-life turmoils. And what turmoils they are! Example: have you ever faked moving to a new apartment?

This excellent series is cleverly scripted, brilliantly played and filmed in true innovative fashion, with a lot of references and tributes to past cult movies. So what does this have to do with Kim Bingham? And first of all, who is she?

Well, she’s a Canadian singer-songwriter, who debuted on the Montreal indie scene in the ska band Me Mom and Morgentaler (Dr. Henry Morgentaler being a defender of the rights to abortion in Canada), which is still considered an unique and colorful live act. She pursued another phase of her career in 1999 under the name Mudgirl and she was a guest at the Lilith Fair U.S. tour. A prolific songwriter, Kim has always been at ease with her Montreal roots, as she can compose and perform in both English and French. She also played with Nelly Furtado and David Usher.

Her involvement with Les Invincibles is as composer-performer. This turned out to being cast as a musician in the series itself, in a too-brief and curiously silent role as guitarist Melanie, band mate of one of the main male character. Her powerful title track for the series won a Gémeaux Award and can’t get out of your brain after the very first listening. There’s a soundtrack for the series, where Kim expertly does amazing covers with material from Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello and even the Ramones! She has recently been part of a tour of Canadian entertainers in Kandahar, to visit our country’s troops stationed in Afghanistan. Watch out in 2009 for the third season of Les Invincibles! And please keep on eye on Kim Bingham’s career! Her pleasant and precise voice is pure joy.
Kim photo by Sabrina Usher

Just saw the official the 80th Annual Academy Awards list of nominees… and the Crazy Babysiter Twins are not in nomination as Best Supporting Actresses for Grindhouse/Planet Terror! –-the hell? I’m going to boycott that thing, screenwriters strike be damned! I would’ve settled to a single trophy to share between them… but no! Let’s go for another no-surprise list!

Of course, both were born on August 12, 1986, in Caracas, Venezuela and are named Electra and Elise Avallan, nieces-in-law of director Robert Rodriguez. They will be seen next in another horror thriller, The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond, so there’s always hope. Please continue to kick zombie butt, girls!

One of the very first American actress that caught my eye as a youth (and I mean when I was around four or five years old!) was Suzanne Pleshette in her movie debut, The Geisha Boy, a Jerry Lewis comedy that I probably saw on TV dubbed in French. Even as an infant, I was astounded by her eyes, her voice and her perfectly shaped face. A born New-Yorker, Suzanne Pleshette left her mark on television work and the stage, more than on any movie project, even if her fate in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds gave me nightmares. She’ll be principally remembered for her part in The Bob Newhart Show… and of course that amazing husky voice. Another highlight was the replacement of Anne Bancroft in the Broadway version of The Miracle Worker, where Suzanne got great reviews. And she almost got to be the first Catwoman on the Batman TV series, before the part went to Julie Newmar.

It has been known since August 2006 that she was suffering from lung cancer. She arrived in a wheelchair at a Bob Newhart Show cast reunion in September 2007, where she announced that a part of one of her lungs had been removed for treatment. But she finally passed away on January 19, 2008, from respiratory failure.

This is the second episode (considered to be the best) in this excellent series, maybe the best ever example of a Women in Prison motion picture. Once again, Meiko Kaji is back as Sasori, this time focusing her revenge on the corrupt and abusive prison administrator and guards, the action taking place roughly one year after the events of the first film. After numerous and punishing mistreatments, her heroine escapes with some other female inmates, the latter not very trusting of her at first. Can their bid for freedom remain a realistic goal?

The script is sometimes an excuse for the staging of elaborate and colorful surreal moments, particularly some flashback sequences focusing on the fugitives’ guilty past. Note that Sasori has only three lines of dialogue, but Meiko principally acts with her eyes in the most uncanny manner, conveying diverse emotions in a way that borders on the supernatural. In the finale, when clothed with her wide hat and long black coat, she looks like the ultimate angel of death. Beware her retribution! She even makes a simple spoon a deadly weapon…

Here are some key images of the film, that can’t be recommended enough:

Next in line will be Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable.

1989 was an important year for me. I can almost say that it was a lucky year, as I turned 25 and the day of my birth is indeed 25. Above all, I met the person that would become my wife (15 years of wedding bliss this year, you can send cards) and this relationship inspired me to write my most ambitious fiction project to date. The discovery and contribution of a local upcoming Québec singer was also a turning point.

For some months at that time, I had toyed with the idea of writing a rock’n’roll novel about a struggling band, with a most complex female singer, after giving up in creating a comic book version. Over the following months, this eventually evolved to become a fantasy/horror story, to my great surprise, but it all came out in a most logical way. I won’t go into plot details because who knows what could eventually happen to that tale (which was eventually planned as a seven book saga, way before that Potter guy). Yes, I submitted my manuscript to some publishers… twice. One seemed interested but filed for bankruptcy some days after receiving my submission and the other send me the most strict rejection letter ever… that I still have and cherish to this day. Revenge is a dish best served cold, as it is said.

So yes in the mid-eighties, I used to play bass in a punkish band, however being more at ease in writing lyrics than hitting the right note. Mix this with my newfound ladylove and with the discovery of Marie Carmen on the musical scene, and I enjoyed many channels of inspiration. I won’t discuss my sentimental life here, but let’s note that I fell in love with three different women, each on their own different levels: one was my chosen companion to spend the rest of my life, the other a great entertainer and inspiration, and the last a fictional person of my own creation.

Marie Aubut was born on August 24, 1959, in Ste-Foy, Québec, and choose the artistic name of Marie Carmen when deciding to pursue a musical career. She became known in the local Québec musical scene for her participation in popular stage musicals, most notably Starmania and Vis ta vinaigrette. I first saw her at a concert for the Montreal band The Box, where she was backup singer alongside another future successful female Canadian songstress, Sass Jordan (now a judge on Canadian Idol). I immediately adored Marie’s look, mainly her tendency to tuck immaculate white shirts into tight pants/jeans, her admirable cheekbones and her own way to move on stage. Of course, I had no clue of her name on that night.

I didn’t wait for long and was delighted in rediscovering her with the release of her first solo album. Oh the joy: finally a French singing female rocker with a different style, namely a non-bimbo-ish attitude. In fact, Marie was quite theatrical in her singing (too much theatrical for her detractors) and I adored her passion. In her first shows, she used to come on stage wearing a man’s suit, complete with tie, but there was absolutely nothing butch about her.

Indirectly, her mere presence in my favorite entertainers at the time was a great benefit for my writings, namely my main female character who was also a singer, with a more edgy heavy-metal side. I named her Augusta, a tattooed six-foot-three redhead with glowing green Asian eyes, of ferocious beauty and talent, a seemingly direct child of the legendary Medusa. I won’t reveal her secret but you just had to move out of her way. Of course, my novel’s main male character began to behave and talk exactly like I would do, projecting many insecurities and hilarious cynical wit like I supposedly used to do (used to?).

My hormones and feelings were on a roller coaster between Monique, Marie and Augusta, three different and fascinating muses in a life that had been pretty devoid of serious and ever-lasting female excitement. Monique became a fan of Marie, accompanying me to at last seven different concerts over the years… and got pretty soon very jealous of Augusta, whom she pictured as her sentimental rival, to my dismayed chagrin! But she eventually warmed up to my imaginary singer and maybe one day you’ll do too.

Marie Carmen soon became Québec’s most popular and successful singer in the first half of the nineties, producing four studio albums, a live album and a Best Of compilation. The apex was the immense success of her reprise of gloomy French singer Barbara’s mythical L’Aigle noir (curiously a song that supposedly talks about incest!). This was her ultimate reach to stardom. She won countless musical awards and was not shy in declared her love for her fans, which was met with snobbish sniffs by the press. Soon after her fourth (and probably best) studio album, though, and with some difficulties with new management, Marie decided to call it quits, being fed up with showbiz and incessant touring. She actually went to Peru to became a goodwill worker for people in need, a complete career turnabout if there ever was one. She still pops up from time to time on TV, with a notable 2005 appearance in Star Académie, a popular Idol-ish french musical show, effortlessly out-staging the young participants.

She has been a player in a most important part of my life, in many varying degrees. In a way, she subconsciously helped in consolidating my feelings in regards to love and her presence was invaluable comfort in creating my Augusta character. It’s with sweet melancholy that I think of her from time to time. Of course, I think about my wife all the time. As for Augusta, there’s not a day in the part 20 years that she doesn’t pop in my head, not a single day… her story is yet to be told.

Like a vast majority of you, I really discovered Caroline Munro in the pages of Fangoria Magazine, in her profile available in issue #4. We also learned more about her in issue #7, as she recalled her participation in the grisly film Maniac. She was a bouquet of fresh air wherever she appeared and her enthusiasm, charm and sincerity are always welcome. Still looking absurdly young, let’s wish her a happy one.

Horror icon Vampira (Maila Nurmi) has passed away in her sleep last Thursday. The irony of losing this legendary personality so soon after her birthday last December has not be lost on me. Actually, this is the first time that a Cult Siren is lost since the site’s creation. It’s not a feeling that I particularly enjoy.

I hope that Vampira will join James Dean (who has been waiting for more than fifty years!) and Tor Johnson and all the underground gang in the cult icons to celebrate up in the sky (or is that down in the furnace?).

Our first guest coming from the Bahamas is the amazing Shakara Ledard, actress and model born to a Bahamian mother and a French father. The year was 1979 and the town was Nassau. Around the age of 14, young Shakara moved to the United States and began modeling soon after. Her participation in music videos for Justin Timberlake, Usher and Babyface has all been memorable. Inevitably (and logically), she has been a Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue model.

To our great joy, she has also been present in some movie roles, as Gina Gershon’s lesbian lover in Prey for Rock & Roll and as a masseuse tempting Woody Harrelson in After the Sunset (what man could possibly have the will to refuse a massage from Shakara AND Audrey Quock?!?!?!). Besides co-starring with Dolph Lundgren in his first directorial debut in The Defender, Shakara’s screen roles have been disappointingly too brief. Here’s hoping for the future…

The following image is © Sports Illustrated.

Since I talked briefly about Olga when the movie Hitman was released, it seems that our Ukrainian beauty remains one of our top favorites around here, as her mere presence has been a contributing factor to this blog’s success.

So I’m pleased to announce that Ms. Kurylenko will be in the next Bond film, alongside Gemma Arterton, of whom I also talked about last December. In fact, it looks that Olga will be the official main leading female character. All will become clearer in the weeks to come. Things are shaping up to be quite exciting in Daniel Craig’s second appearance in the lead role!