#not even just a comic con but any event where Clark does a bit like this I’m chill with. like a costume party? also works.

[bonebrokebuddy]

I desperately need a fic or fanart of Jimmy dragging Clark to a comic con. Jimmy is decked out in an old Robin uniform (I still am a strong believer that Jimmy and Dick should be friends like they were in early comics) and Clark is in the cheapest superman costume and wig he could find while wearing his glasses.

#clark kent #jimmy olson #dc #please tell me this is a thing and if so Please send them my way #i just need Clark completely wearing superman gear but it being dollar store quality while wearing his glasses #and No One recognizes him #bones talks #bones prompts #<< ​i guess? #Clark would think it’s Hilarious and no one would recognize him as actually being Superman. #but Jimmy would get constant compliments on how good his cosplay is #not even just a comic con but any event where Clark does a bit like this I’m chill with. like a costume party? also works.

[motorcyclegirlfriends]

the think what worries me if somehow the writer putting the direction that accepting she is just kara danvers when she is more than that, that she accepting she has to be human bc kara danvers was a disguise made to blend on earth and diguise where she lost her last name, her honor, her title to live in earth like immigrants usually does and lose their culture bc they cant say their name or last name is weird.

Well, first I think I should note that Kara Danvers is a lot more than an unwilling disguise for Kara.

For one—The personality Kara has when she’s not Supergirl isn’t put-on. There are parts of her that she hides, but she didn’t one day pick up the glasses and act goofy the same way Clark did to hide the fact that he’s Superman. She suppresses a lot, but she’s otherwise as honest as she can be without revealing that she’s an alien (hence her always accidentally revealing a bit too much—she’s a pretty open person by nature). 

For instance: she doesn’t act awkward, she is awkward. 

(She puts on a smile, but that’s not purposefully to hide her alien-ness. It helps, but it’s a quality she has even when those she’s with know everything. It’s metaphorically a disguise, but in the same way anyone hiding their feelings is. She has this trait when she’s Supergirl, and she would probably have a touch of this trait if she lived a full life as Kara Zor-El on Krypton.)

Really, in a way, I’d argue that Kara Danvers isn’t so much a disguise as who she became.

Though, for the purposes of other metas, I don’t begrudge the use of the term.

Further, there is an immigrant narrative here, yes—Kara’s necessary loss of the name Zor-El because she has to hide where she came from. Calling herself Danvers must have been impossibly difficult, because she’s already lost very nearly all of her culture. (It’s terribly sad and thus terribly interesting to me, and an idea that I’d love to see explored more.)

But this is also an adoption narrative.

Kara Danvers is a part of the Danvers family. She’s Alex’s sister, Eliza’s foster daughter. 

Kara Danvers is the person Kara became after she lost her birth family.

And calling herself Danvers must also have been impossibly difficult because she lost her whole family. 

And Zor-El may represent Kryptonian heritage—the royalty of the House of El—but it also represents that she was Zor-El’s daughter, Alura’s daughter, Kal’s cousin, Jor-El and Lara’s niece. Astra’s niece, even. That name represents that she was a part of an entire, whole family, once.

But it also represents that she doesn’t have that anymore. 

It’s a proud and lonely name.

But Danvers? It’s may not literally mean “El Mayarah” the way her birth name does, but it certainly represents “stronger together”.

Danvers is Kara reaching out for love after losing everything.

“Eliza refused to leave. 

She said that my parents would want me to be loved, and that nothing would replace them. That they were a part of who I am.

It was the first time I ever let her really hug me, and that was the first time I didn’t feel alone anymore. 

Having M'Gann in your life doesn’t mean losing your family. It means feeling whole again.”

Kara Danvers is Kara allowing herself to be loved. Kara Danvers is Kara letting herself be a part of a new family.

There are things she does, like call Eliza her foster mom, not her mom, that honor her birth parents.

But Kara has made it very clear in canon that to her—an individual character who was adopted, rather than a one-size-fits-all adoption representation—the name Kara Danvers represents her attempt to have a “normal” (happy and whole) life after losing the life she was supposed to have.

And that’s why Kara is giving up on this name now. 

She has always feared that she’ll never have the kind of happiness that she would have had on Krypton, and a romantic relationship is a part of that happiness.

“Seeing you and Lucy makes me think that I am never gonna have what you two have. Someone who knows everything about me. My perfect partner at a game night.”

“Kara, you’ll find someone…”

“Growing up on Earth, I never felt normal. And I always thought that if I started to use my powers, my life would make sense. But I’m realizing that… 

Being myself doesn’t make me feel more normal. And it never will. Because my normal life, ended the second my parents put me on that ship. And that makes me… so… mad.”

So when she lost her relationship with Mon-El—who was someone who could conceivably understand more about her than any human, bring her closer to what a ‘normal’ life would have been on Krypton than she ever imagined—she takes it as more proof that she’ll never have that happy earthly life.

And that’s why she has given up on Kara Danvers.

Because when she took that name, she decided to make the Danvers her family and Earth her home.

Kara Danvers means letting herself try to form a happy everyday existence—a career, friends, family. Romantic love.

Kara Danvers means hope for Kara as an individual.

And she feels like she can’t risk that hope anymore, because it’s been proven that she’ll never have that life too many times.

But what Kara Danvers does not mean, is forgetting Krypton or her family.

That’s just… impossible. It’s present within Kara at all times. It runs through her like her Kryptonian blood.

Now, it’s unfortunate that the show has taken the word “human” away from it’s literal meaning, because we’re all very attached to how Kara does not become the same as a human when she loses her powers and to the idea presented in the season one finale—that unlike Clark, Kara does not have a human mind.

But really, they usually mean “human” colloquially, in the way we usually do—“a regular person” (like in Cat’s speech about caring about loved ones making them ‘human,’ not selfish). 

And they also may at some point mean “human” the way Kara means “Kara Danvers”—symbolically unified with the human race.

(I think they’d mean it in a similar way to how immigrants who move to America are American, but it’s sorta a false equivalency, in my opinion. But it’s a realistic false equivalency that the characters could believe, so I’m willing to play along.)

But the show is cognizant of the necessary balance of Kara’s identities.

If Kara ever decides that she’s only Kara Danvers, that she’s only “human”, then the show would present it as a problem to be solved. 

Really, one of the biggest purposeful themes of the show is balance. 

I’m not sure they conceptualize the character as three different selves the way we do—Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, and Supergirl. 

They may unconsciously see Kara Zor-El as who she is at her core, Kara Danvers as who she became on Earth, and Supergirl as a role she plays that also shows another aspect of her true self. 

They may consciously see her identities as just Kara vs Supergirl, as is suggested in the “Supergirl is what I can do. Kara is who I am” quote.

Or perhaps—as Melissa offhandedly refers to them in an interview— “Kara Zor-El the superhero and Kara Danvers, the reporter.”

(It probably changes, tbh. Which isn’t bad writing so much as a reflection of the intangibility of these identities. There’s no real right answer, because she’s always all of these things. It’s merely a novel and interesting way to conceptualize it, which would inform Kara’s self-perception in canon and thus inform her actions.)

But that doesn’t prevent them from honoring the qualities contained within these three selves through their storytelling.

When we first met Kara, she was only Kara Danvers, and she was unhappy because of it. The issue presented and focused on was that she wasn’t allowed to be a superhero. So when she became one, she was embracing who she was really supposed to be.

Happiness found from balance. 

All of season one was about her trying to master this new role as Supergirl and handle her Kara Danvers responsibilities. Emphasis on trying to get down the role of Supergirl (note that the low point of this theme was in Falling, when the people began to fear Supergirl).

Effectively, if perhaps not consciously as far as a separate identity, we also saw Kara embrace Kara Zor-El more in being able to share her alien-ness with the people in her lives. In being able to talk about her grief of an entire planet and culture beyond, “My parents died in a fire.” 

And just being able to mention Kryptonian stuff from time to time! How much of a relief must that have been?

Season 2 was promoted with the theme of Kara balancing Kara Danvers and Supergirl again (with Supergirl now being the stronger identity), though the consistency of this theme was lackluster. For the purposes of having a cohesive understanding, we’ll focus on how Kara thought she had it all figured out by the end of this season, until Kara Danvers crashed and burned. 

Really, the other aspects of her Kara Danvers identity grew further away (not only because Mon-El took a lot of her focus, but because the other relationships in her life suffered other circumstances. Her job included, though by the end it might actually have been the strongest part of her ‘human’ life.) so that when she lost the strongest element of it, she couldn’t properly rely on all those other things. 

An unbalance within the identity that threatened it altogether, in the end.

And now, in season 3, she’s given up on Kara Danvers completely.

Her Kara Zor-El identity is present but not processed. It motivates her being Supergirl even though she is depressed, because she has a responsibility to her mother and to Krypton to be extraordinary and to help this planet but not to be happy. But I think the fact that this event is triggering her abandonment issues (issues innately tied into what we see as Kara Zor-El) isn’t something she’s allowing herself to really think about or talk about.

In some ways.. she’s living as Kara Zor-El, but that identity in and of itself is unbalanced.

In nearly every interview Melissa was in during comic con, she mentioned the scales of Kara’s life—Kara vs Supergirl—as something she is always juggling, and that now all of the weight is on Supergirl. 

And that’s the problem.

That’s always a problem in this show. If she puts too much emphasis on one aspect of her life, it makes her unhappy, and the plot works to resolve it in an entertaining way.

So the message of the show would never be that Kara is only Kara Danvers.

And perhaps they don’t conceptualize this character as Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, and Supergirl, but they’d never forget the parts of Kara that make her a Zor-El. 

And the name itself is not forgotten, either. For one, she introduces herself every episode with “My name is Kara Zor-El”. 

And she’s been called it on the show by others, as well.

Quick google search for quotes:

Season one, Maxima: “We could have been family, Kara Zor-El.”

Season one, Indigo: “Kill Kara Zor-El today or fight her tomorrow.”

Season one, Non: “Accept defeat, Kara Zor-El.”

Season two, Kelex: “Hello, Kara Zor-El.“

Season two, Mr. Mxyzptlk: “Kara Zor El, I love you.”

Season two, Mon-El: “Mother, father, this is Kara Zor-El.”

Season two, J’onn: “Your parents’ legacy is not death and destruction, Kara Zor-El. It’s you.”

I’m sure there are a lot more. It’s not a name they’re forgetting. 

Every time she is introduced to or referred to by someone she doesn’t have to hide her identities from and doesn’t mostly interact with her in the form of Kara Danvers, she is Kara Zor-El.

So I think she will always see herself as Kara Zor-El, while also being all these other things. 

And if any of these parts of her are gone, she’s not her full self, which the show is shown to be very much aware of it and has always made a point to address.

So I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about Kara losing any of these names for very long.

#supergirl #kara danvers #kara zor-el #supergirl season 3 #i feel like i repeat myself a bit here #ah well #I should make a Kara's identity like... chart or venn diagram! #lol #Anonymous #analysis: you're gonna suffer but you're gonna be happy about it

[theinsanecrayonbox]

the great FOP review mega dump

ok so apparently the rest of s10 was aired at the end of June through July of this year. now granted, i do not get NickToons and used a friend’s DVR to record it, so there’s a margin for error, but i don’t recall any of these episodes ever getting recorded. i could be wrong, my memory sucks, BUT TVGuide is stupid and has a habit of putting the wrong names/numbers on things and if the guide doesn’t list the episode as new because half of it already aired, then it wouldn’t get recorded. so again, huge margin for error.

basically, i hadn’t posted these yet because i didn’t realize they’d aired; i was trying to avoid spoiling anything for people. Nick sucks at their programming schedule. these first viewing reviews are nearly a year old in some cases, since it was about a year ago that i was given links to watch some of these online after they’d aired in other countries. so yeah, probably a little dated, might not hold up, but here they are so we can be done with this.

Which is Wish:

 Chloe is a vegetarian??? Has this been said before??

 I feel like everything in the garage there was in the attic when Dad made Timmy clean that out before…not that that isn’t plausible, since that’d be one way to “clean” the attic lol. Just thought it was a neat commentary.

 But yes Chloe, unleash your organizational skills. Color coded labels are awesome! Cleaning sucks, but labels lol

 And yes, switching bodies always works so well doesn’t it Timmy…but heehee he called Chloe pretty XD though in fairness…doesn’t this mean Chloe is still eating the meat, because Tim’s in her body…or do they just *look* like one another? See, that’s the gray area…

 Ok I do not like all these moments of Dad seeing Cosmo and Wanda; they’re glossed over yes, but still. That should break Da Rules though, because they’ve been revealed (not to mention Crocker knows about them a million times over I know). it just seems like a cheap gag that they don’t need, and it’s annoying.

 “Chlimmy Turnermicheal” lol, I need to draw a fusion of my Opals now XD;;;

 Ok yes, they’ve body swapped, not glamoured, so Chloe *did* eat the meat after all, thank you for explaining that

 Seriously, it’s Cosmo loosing the wands (for the umpteenth time) that is going to cause the problems here -.-

 Yay more Chloe parents! They aren’t 1 or 2 offs! Though…why were they absent up until this point? Did they decide to take a sabbatical from work after the booby incident? That’d be nice

 OMR Danny, Vlad (wait nasty Dan? Hu oh well), and Dudley puppets. That is too cute for words!!

 And a Little Shop joke. Eeeeeeee!!! I know they’ve done man-eating plants before, but still!

 Chloe’s dad faints at failure? Hm, that could be useful.

 Tim admitting he’d miss Chloe is sweet, especially since it wasn’t with any mention of loosing his fairies

 Hahahaha dressing up as each other/themselves, that’s great. Cosmo’s head blowing up is getting old though.

 All in all I give this episode a huge A+. It is a cliché trope of a plot, but I feel it was executed really really well!! Nice balance of magical aspects with non-magical ones I thought, and gave development to both kids and their families.

Fairy Con:

 Ok first of all, I thought Fairy conventions were held every thousand years or so, and was actually just for the fairies. Granted, this “Fairy con” could be a different event OR they changed the event after Timmy’s bathroom one, since that could’ve been the first time a godchild was involved? Also, Timmy is you go “every year” that shows that this is at least 2 years after you got your fairies (because you had Cosmo Con, then assume one after that, then at minimum this one), so why are you still 10?????? (and don’t go saying “the time stopping wish in secret wish” because uhg)

 Crocker in the fridge….ok…but adding in Crocker to crash the Con…yeah this is a complete plot reusing of Cosmo Con, just updating it a bit

 Look Girlfriend the cat isn’t dead!!

 If you’ve had their hair samples for that long why haven’t you cloned them before?? But “off brand cloning machine” is sorta funny. Also, Kenny G? that a Spongebob shout out or not?

 Ok if it merged the cat DNA with the fairy why didn’t it merge the fairy DNA together too? Also, missed your mark to have a real “fairy cat” show up (though no Sparky so we don’t need it anymore I guess)

 Oh but Chloe’s enthusiasm over her first con, I am so happy at that ^^ I just had my first comic con, and I was spazzing like that too when I wasn’t freaking out over being ditched and lost.

 Ok that is yet ANOTHER unique birthday for Timmy. He’s up to what, 5 now since the series started? (Boys in the Band, Birthday Bashed, Birthday Battle, the one mentioned in Birthday Battle about the dinosaurs) the kid is at least 14 now, he has to be!

 I like all the backgrounders. Some look super squashed, but still neat.

 Tooth fairy returns! Yay! We had mentions of Cupid and Mother Nature before, so it’s nice to see the magical celebrities are still around and not forgotten.

 Ahhh! The return of the Crocker Pot which captures fairies!! Ok I am giving this writing team an A- on doing their lore homework because they are getting so many things right (though the Fairy Con being thrown off is still deducting points sorry)

 There was a blonde fairy that looked like Samantha in the background O.o

 “Chloe Carmichael, any normal person would give up right now. But you are NOT normal!” - omr Chloe I love you and your “never quit” song was good and humorous, I still love you

 Timmy how can you not know what Crocker is up to? He’s always up to the same exact thing. If he’s in Fairy World, I’m fairly sure there is a 1000% chance he’s there to capture fairies. Geeze.

 OMR Princess Morebucks was in the seats at Cosmo’s panel, I’m not joking.

 All in all, it wasn’t a giant impacting story, but it was a good one, even though it was a total reusing of a plot. I feel like the writing team did their homework pretty decently (for the most part). Plus, the magic of cons ^^

The Hungry Games:

 This is the B-Story to Fairy Con…interesting choice…more fangirl!Chloe…

 I love her “Katniss hair”, heck I just love seeing alternate hair on her

 Heh “Ketchup Everdream”, wow, ok, sure

 That might be the wrong movie, but it sounds interesting. What movie was that Cosmo?

 Aw Chloe lost…but yay call back to screaming in her closet

 Lol Crocker is once again, king of dystopian world. That is perfect. This is all perfect.  Maybe it’s because I liked the Hunger Games movie that I can thoroughly enjoy this parody, idk. But this is great. I am loving this episode.

 And cue the pointless Dad part…wait Mr Bickles?? Where have you been?? Why are you here???

 I like the blonde/pink haired backgrounder

 I really loved this episode! It was so nice how Timmy did this for Chloe and stuck with it even when it was bad for him, then she turns around and does something nice for him at the end. It let Chloe fly her freaky fangirl flag on so many levels. Like I said, I liked Hunger Games, so this was a great parody that was loads of fun. I really really enjoyed all of it.

 As a whole episode, these two really show us what a geeky girl Chloe is I think. She’s not just the over achieving little Ms Perfect she was at first, she’s got her weird hobbies and obsessions too. And the fact that she was so into Fair Bears AND dystopian doomy future really says a lot about her, and really speaks to me on many levels. It’s just solidified my love of Chloe even more.

Dimmsdale Daze:

 And we start off with jokes about barfing…well it is a roller coaster so I can let it slide…just don’t spiral out of control with them…

 Heehee “vines” joke, that’s great. Because it highlights their age AND that they are more naturalist

 Oooo Connie said “shyster”, that’s pretty borderline…

 Chaining yourself to the tree in town…wouldn’t that be the same tree that Tootie did the same thing to in the first live action movie? I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing…

 Did Chloe’s middle name change? O.o but lol to the “when you’re a parent you can make the decisions” because I head canon them meddling after Chloe’s divorce, but I know that line is the plot fodder, so I’ll just push the head canons away for now

 Lookit that adult!Chloe though!! I’m not that far off the mark with my design (plus you know, there are several older!Timmy designs and none are more true than the other, so my older!Chloe being short and bustier is still plausible). And hey lookit! Cameo of the adult!Timmy from Big Problem AND confirmation that if one of the godkids breaks Da Rules they both loose the fairies TOGETHER

 Neither Clark nor Connie really look too much like Chloe as children (ok Connie *does* but when you consider they made child Dad look exactly like Timmy before, it’s not quite enough)…just another tick in my adopted column, just saying…

 Why did that child in the bounce house have lipstick O.o

 Chloe’s earring is like, in the wrong place and it’s bothering me…

 “But I have the mind if a child” “It’s true, he’s been tested” – I…wow, just…yes?

 And of course Connie and Clark get assigned Cosmo and Wanda, I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming honestly ^^;;

 You know, even though this is sort of a rehash of Big Problem and The Switch Glitch I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Single mom!Chloe was great, it feeds my future headcanons. It proved that Tim and Chloe do share the negative effects of the fairies. And it was just a really good Chloe episode that Timmy was just a supporting character in. I really did like it. A+

 As a whole, I think both parts (this is meant to be paired with Spring Breakup) work nicely together. It’s a lot of Chloe and her family, so if you want some serious Carmichael development, do for this set most definitely.

Chip off the Old Crock:

 Ok before getting into this one, I just gotta state that since I read the description for it, I’ve been ITCHING to see this. How does Crocker have a nephew if he has no siblings? (*current thoughts: i’ve since this review come up with a plausible scenario*) What would this child be like? How could I use him for Superverse conveniently?? And then I saw screencaps and saw that he was a mini Crocker and got disappointed…

 But now we are to watch so let us see how that unfolds…

 What’s with that redheaded backgrounder?? He looks like a Lebowitz!! *files that away for layer usage*

 Still laughing that he’s named Kevin since that is a “name of evil” in our games and what not ever since my brother used it as a placeholder name for a badguy in a storyline; ever since then “Kevin” had been the badguys who are sorta pointless lol

 But still…”study abroad” um…you still could’ve used that since Crocker obviously has family in Canada; studying in California would then be considered “abroad” if he was Canadian. And that way, he wouldn’t have to be his literal nephew, but his 2nd cousin, but they just call each other uncle/nephew because it’s easier. That might sound confusing, but at least it makes more sense then just randomly implying he has siblings when he never has. I’m gonna headcanon this from now on, and no one can convince me otherwise. (*current thoughts: again, i’ve figured it out since writing this; i’ve left the original thoughts though to prove my though process from point A to point B*) Plus you miss out on Canada jokes this way…

 Awww Kevin, I’m starting to love you…that’s weird…

 Everyone pick a partner-no one pick Kevin, classic. However…redhead boy had 2 partners, why didn’t Crocker notice and stop that? There’s no reason why Chloe and Tim needed to pair up with him aside from plot relevance…

 Ah sweet Chloe, standing up for the misunderstood and outcast, trying to find the good in them and make others see it too. I love you sweetheart ^^ go make friends with Francis now please

 Why isn’t Dolores fawning over Kevin? You’d think she wouldn’t let her *grandson* out of her sight, considering the coddling we’ve seen her give Denzel at times. Unless she’s busy with her *other child* I guess…but in that case why isn’t she belittling Denzel for not being like *his sibling* and having kids and not living in her basement? I’d love to see Denzel look like a looser compared to this *sibling* he suddenly has, and it suits the family dynamic as we know it. Or perhaps the *sibling* is more of a looser, but Dolores still sings their praises because they did move out and have a kid, unlike Denzel who has a steady job and whatnot because *sibling* is a total bum. I mean, I get that it would only slow down the storyline, but it just feels out of character, plus the sudden introduction of a *sibling* just is wrong too…I should stop analyzing the Crocker family and just go back to the actual plot

 Kevin wants to be a dentist??? O.o are you related to Dr Bender??? That…would explain nothing honestly, idk why I went there

 “Sorry I’m too busy being a loner” haha that’s a good one

 Hey callback to Crocker wearing ladies clothes. Nice.

 “It’s a blueprint so shouldn’t it be blue?” hahaha that was funny

 Chloe how did you get to the top of the rock wall without a rope?? Did you boulder your way yup there?? And Tim! You should never rock climb without a belier(sp?) geeze, rock climbing 101 there dude

 And toilet joke…but I will let it slide because I am actually enjoying Kevin

 “Unleash your inner looser” omr yes best line

 Ah the build up to the betrayal “aw you guys actually like me” “well yeah you’re not evil” *does the evil thing* “we hate you now because you are evil after all”

 Unsuspecting Van is back whoot!

 Ninja!Chloe and Tim with a light saber; nice, but what a missed opportunity…also Chloe has a ninja suit…she really is replacing Tootie isn’t she…

 And Kevin saves the day by wishing none of this ever happened…just like Chester did in Fairy Idol hm…

 But at the end of it, I’m actually very surprised how much I liked this despite all its flaws. It’s riddled with clichés and huge plot holes/continuity errors, but I genuinely liked Kevin (and whole heartedly look forward to writing him into Superverse…also would it be too weird if he was Kyler’s father? I think it’d be weird…). I think it’s a nice B-story to Cat and Mouse and together they make a pretty good episode.

Space Ca-Dad:

 Off topic a moment here; rewatching the theme and it just dawned on me…maybe there’s a “fairy shortage” because no one’s enforcing the rules over fairies being revealed/discovered. I mean, if everyone Timmy knows knows about his fairies and yet he keeps them, then other kids must be doing that too you know. Just saying Jorgen, you caused this problem yourself man…and honestly, why not outsource the fairy jobs then to other magical creatures, since Fairy Idol proved any magical creature can be converted to a fairy godparent. It’d be a great way to bring Norm back if you stop and think about it, or a way to get the Pixies back in there too. I’m just saying, the “fairy shortage” story is pretty weak…still think Jorgen just did this to them because they’re good for each other…

 Ok back to the episode itself

 Yay Chloe is still a Squirrely Scout, good for continuity! And you love food puns? i love you more Chloe, you so are a Catman related heroine aren’t you ^^;

 Did he say “Mrs Lipshitz” or “Mrs Libwitz”? it was really hard to tell, so idk if that’s a Rugrats shout out or someone I have to add to my  Lebowitz family tree (cause slurred sound…and the witch/mental thing does suit the family…)

 Dad you had the rank of “flying squirrel” why is this confusing??

 Ok there are “Pickles” living on the street, I’m going with Lipshitz. So many Rurgrats shout outs.

 Whinny kid, Kid with issues (aren’t you Kevin?), and Stuart…so we are going with the latest (and suckier) Squirrel Scout troop line up. Kay.

 Chloe as a jr. astronaut though and knowing how to fly space ships ^^

 Heehee “Space Jam” how many more thinly veiled references can we have XD;;

 (maybe Squirrely Kevin is Kyler’s father…that’s doable…)

 Ah yes, Dad throwing the fairies out just when the kid/s need them. Yup, never seen that plot device used before nope. And how can rocket fuel destroy magical wands? They’re fairy magic, why are they so easy to ruin??

 How did you find a planetoid when you were heading towards the sun??? I don’t…right, why put logic into things, my bad

 The Glorg. Florgatron-5. Hm…*files that way for layer usage* Bakersfield???

 I loved all the aliens at the restaurant though.

 Over all, this episode was…meh. I didn’t dislike it, but it was a very pointless Dad episode. Seriously, you could’ve had them go to the Planet of the Dads and do pretty much the same thing, but at least keep that storyline going (since I think it’s the longest running one now). I’m unimpressed, but I’m not disappointed. So lets see if the B-story can save the episode as a whole.

Summer Bummer:

 “The looks of psychotic anticipation” lol, well we’re starting off with some good

 Also it’s summer vacation yet again. Mk…this makes it at least the 4th summer vacation Tim’s had, what with School’s Out, Shelf Life, and Microphony being the others I can easily site off the top of my head. So again, these children should be like 14-16 now

 It’s the return of Dad in short-shorts. Oh man, run and hide now.

 Chloe getting a summer internship/scientific program is very her. Must always be learn…wait did she say the corner of a basement?? O.o that’s concerning child…

 Oh hey that pink clad teacher is from s1 I think. Wasn’t she in Timvisible at the water cooler?? That is a very nice and wow throwback guys. Major points to you.

 Chloe is 10 and a half???? So she actually IS a year younger than Timmy, since he was already 10 when he had his birthday (and we ignore the previous like 5 birthdays he’s had >>) and they share a birthday…but wait, your birthday is in March…summer vacation starts in June/July, that isn’t 6 months later…ok so on the one hand, your math is all wrong, but on the other my headcanon that Chloe is a year younger seems to be proven fact. I don’t know what to do with this information!!

 Oh this is the sleep wishing episode I heard about! Wow took a while for the plot to show up…but you know, even though this has been used before, I feel like this is being used in a different context and for a different character, so I’m allowing the reuse of the plot idea. Let’s see how twisted up Chloe’s subconscious is…

 “Gender neutral Jesse” is sorta weird…I like the fact that Chloe did play with baby dolls though…

 Timmy you can’t unwish Chloe’s wish! We’ve been over this-we had a whole episode dedicated to it!! URG!! Did they just throw that out because it’s easier for them to just fix each other’s mistakes that way? I mean, if this was the only time, I could buy that since she didn’t *consciously* make this wish, it could be undone by Tim, but the other times they’ve pulled this she’s been in her full faculties. So uhg! You can’t even keep your own continuity you establish in the same season >> (but…you guys have been doing better than expected, so…it’s not *as* negative points as I’d usually give…or maybe it is but you’ve just racked up enough positive ones to be at the standard by now I guess)

 Hey Dr Rip Studwell, long time no see XD and…you made a manscaping joke…wow, I…wow

 And a poop joke…but you have a pirate ship…but still…

 “Took one to the crow’s nest” is that a crotch shot joke? Wow this episode is just…wow

 Omr the mini shoulder Chloes are adorable! I love valley girl!Chloe and german science!Chloe. Didn’t like the second poop joke in a minute, especially since Dad really *shouldn’t* have heard science!Chloe say that…

 She wished the doll big again…I think Chloe’s repressed feelings are about not wanting to grow up

 And look Da Rules FINALLY decide to kick…oh no, Chloe wished it to be unwishable...yeah, because that’s the only way to stop Tim from fixing it >> and yet at the same time, he did wish the monster to stay until he stopped lying about who set Chompy free, so…formula…

 “There’s free ice cream all over the street! It’s like delicious roadkill!” ok that is the best line ever

 Wait, you’re wishing yourself into Chloe’s mind?? Because that worked so well when you went into your own…and why does it remind me of Mabel’s dreamworld/mind? I expected less pink, more purple honestly. Preschool!Chloe is so adorable!! Totally called the plot though, not that it’s hard.

 Cosmo confirmed as queer, because even when he thought Wanda was “Weird Dude” he still had a crush on him. Wow, I am floored they did that, good for you

 And we end it by promoting cannibalism? Oh wait no; we scratch the 4th wall instead. Ahha. Yeah. You totally missed the opportunity to have “Kids just being Kids” playing somewhere-possibly remixed-because I feel the message suited Chloe’s mentality too right now.

 Over all, I’m glad it was Chloe centric but…I feel like this could’be been done in half the time maybe? They ignore their own continuity, but they do tackle real stuff in a minimal magical way. I guess like the A-story, I’m unimpressed but not disappointed. I feel like both of these should not have been paired together because as a whole the entire episode is lacking; they both needed a stronger story to counter balance them. It’s a good watch once through, but I doubt it’s an episode you’ll want to rewatch.

Dimmsdale’s Got Tallent:

 Ok…I feel like this plot has been used before…and not necessarily thinking Fairy Idol either, but I just can’t place which episode I’m thin king of…

 TOOTIE!!!! THEY DIDN’T SHIP YOU OFF TO BOARDING SCHOOL OR WHATEVER!! OMR!!! Sadly you were just a backgrounder cameo, but still…now I just need to find Francis then my main favs will have all appeared to be not dead (*spoiler: Francis does not appear anywhere*)

 More Bickles…huh…

 Mom’s stage name is “Madame Sasha”…is that a hint that her first name is Sasha?? Most times when you make up “magic names” they’re either your real name in between “the” and “magnificent” or they’re some super exotic/fake/fantastical sounding thing like how Dad was “Dadracadabra”

 And more about Chloe’s one-woman show. That’s so neat that this is something that they’re developing for her, instead of using as a toss away one shot gag.

 Kevin!! Dressed as a dummy for a comedy act lol. It’s an old and over used plot idea, but I’ll run with it. I like it. Cause Crocker now has 24 hour access to a child, he of course has to think of other ways to use it. “I’m telling my mom you made me do this” because that is Denzel’s sister so it is a legitimate threat…though you’d think Dolores would object to this too…why have we not had any interaction of Kevin with his grandmother yet??? I’d love to see Denzel get jealous over the attention his mother is giving Kevin that he never received

 Haha Dad stealing Chloe’s idea, and still breaking the gender norms, nice. Where did Bickles get the coconut bikini top and grass skirt though?

 Oh baaaaaad lesson to be teaching kids there guys. If the authority figure won’t give you want you want, you shouldn’t do them favors to try to bribe them into giving it to. Especially in the entertainment industry. That’s how bad situations happen….

 Um those remote control tap shoes shouldn’t work because they would be helping Tim to win a competition, which is against Da Rules…not that Da Rules seem to matter anymore…

 Ok Mom, you claimed to be a “Pet Psycho” yet you’re using only wild/non-pet animals. I think that’s probably the easiest way to point out that you’re doing this wrong

 “I love me some snake and mongoose” ok…lets go see if that’s a euphemism on google…hm, nope, just a drag racing movie. That’s nice…wasn’t Bickles a race car driver at some point??

 Doug Dimmadome returns! And “curious life partner”??? the Mayor and Chompy are a thing??? O.o???

 Good boy Kevin, stand up to Crocker ^^

 “That was a Dimma-dud” so simple and stupid, but probably the most fulfilling line thus far ^^;

 love Chloe’s gold gown

 ok I lied, “Dimma-dope” is now the most fulfilling line in this

 heehee Dudley Puppy and Crimson Chin balloons in the parade. So headcanoning that TUFF Puppy was a show on tv in FOPverse

 so this episode was….well just really pointless filler too. We got like minimal focus on any of our main characters. Have they forgotten how to write Timmy and Chloe?

 Together these two (this was paired with Knitt-witts)  were not a good match. Both were pointless filler with not a strong plot in either of them. Too many guest cameos, no character development. It was just barely enjoyable enough to not hate it, but just barely honestly. Weak episode all around.

Goldie Crocks and the three Fair Bears:

 Ok I’ve been looking forward to the return of the Fair Bears since the episode titles were released.

 Interesting to see the Squirrely Scout troop back again, still the same B-team line up including Chloe. Thought you already had that patch…but then again that could’ve been with the A-team troop lineup, so…the records were all destroyed when it was disbanded maybe?

 Thanks Tim, we all were asking that. But how does using Mom’s shampoo make your hair blonde? Luscious and even longer I could buy without complaint, but blonde??

 More over achieving Chloe lol (poor girl is gonna crash when she burns out). But wow, she fought King Neptuna…so why didn’t he remember her? Is Supergal now enemy to the merfolk??? Though that plays into the Merfolk vs Glamazons wouldn’t it…

 And now we turn into the clichéd camping storyline where Character A decides to go use non-wilderness to camp in luxury. But Tim, you used to like camping??? Also, still not seeing how the episode title plays into this plot yet…

 Cosmo has been right/made sense on more than one occasion though, why is it that surprising?

 Ok now we get the title…Crocker’s mother has a cabin in the woods? Buyable, sure. Crocker somehow brought the Fair Bears back into reality??? Uh…what now? Wait, they weren’t sent back to TVLand?? And Crocker knows all about their origin?? HOW does that not break Da Rules huh? Is it because he doesn’t know who wished them up, so it’s not against Da Rules?? Why wouldn’t they tell him that; wouldn’t that be a fair thing to do?? He’s in a blonde wig because they’re going to be Goldielocks at a theme park, yeah sure, ok I can buy that. But HOW did he get the bears in the first place???

 And Dad is blonde to be Goldielocks…wow…

 Chloe breaking the 4th wall a little there

 Gah even more middle names! Chloe how many do you even have????

 NO! YOU CAN’T UNDO THE OTHER’S WISHES! URGH!!! You established this rule right off the bat, yet you keep breaking it and they let you keep breaking it. Timmy wished for the camping stuff-Chloe should not be able to wish it away. Yes the plot is stalled, but really, what is the plot at this point??? If you’re only going to enforce the rules when it suits you, well, anarchy for all then please

 And you wished away the magic…yeah, that’s going to go super well

 “Mr Crocker’s unsightly twin sister” ok on the one hand, that works because of Kevin granted (even though she’s not a twin persay, but he has suddenly got a sister), but on the other…this is all saying that guys can’t have long hair and I don’t like that. I love guys with long hair. Between that comment on Crocker, and the comments earlier about Dad, why is long hair automatically girl now?

 Dolores dated Shaggy??? O.o i…I am very unnerved by that…wasn’t she already a full blown adult with a 10 year old child when Shaggy was a teenager roaming in the van with the Mystery Inc crew?? O.o

 Omr yes. Referencing the “original German version” as a darker one. Talking about basting and eating people. This turned dark super fast and I love that. why TrollLOL’s face is on the oven idk, but I’m rolling with it because I love this part.

 “I’ve already got 2 strikes from the school board” uh…yeah that’s the wrong side of dark I think…but it’s Crocker, it was probably the fork in Waxelplax’s fanny, and the flour incident or something fairly similar.

 Yes Tim, yell at Chloe that this is all her fault. We know it is, but pointing it out won’t help. But it totally is; you wished for no magic and you got into trouble-not surprising.

 HOW is it nearly midnight??? It was like, what, noon at the latest when this started?? You have not been out in the woods-in the daylight-for 12 hours-of daylight. Chloe hunny, you’re the smart one, why are you failing telling time??? I know its dark outside the house now, but it wasn’t in the scene before. Cosmo I think your clock is right. And how is “poof us out of here” bring you to a spot where it is, once again daylight; that seemed to suggest instant teleporting so you’re at the same time. Unless this next scene is a cut away to hours later BUT STILL! It should not be midnight.

 Oh Dad, yes, I’m sure no one cares about your troop anymore.

 “let’s send the Fair Bears back” uh you should have done that the first time and this whole mess would have been avoided. It’s like leaving the door to the comic book world open all over again.

 And yes, cause unnecessary harm to Crocker, why not. Not to mention all the innocent patrons at the theme park…

 Also why has no one mentioned Dimmsdale had a theme park before now?

 All in all, not a good episode. I was looking forward to the return of the Fair Bears, and it felt like they weren’t even in half of the episode. The rest was another boring camping storyline, which these two seem to do a lot of huh?

 Paired with Fancy Schmancy, as the production order says, I think the whole 30 min episode is completely weak and not great. This one was bad, the other was filler, so together they are just not meshing well at all.

#Fairly Odd Parents #Fairly Oddparents #fop #kp talks fop #review #mega dump

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Comics: Terror Inc. #1

Terror Inc. was created by Marvel and the character himself started out as a run in their Epic Comics imprint, but was later brought over to Marvel as part of their main comics roster, albeit only for a short time, as they only released 13 issues that was originally supposed to be 15. Terror was created by D.G. Chichester, Margret Clark, and Klaus Johnson. However in this run of the series, only Chichester returned to write for it, with the help of Jorge Iaffino. Steven Buccellato is credited as being the artist.

Terror is an anti-hero whose has the power to attach other people's limbs to himself and in the process gain muscle memory, feelings, and the ability to use the skills associated with whatever body parts he has attached. Honestly, I think this pushes the line of suspending disbelief, especially for a comic that is wanting to be dark and gritty, but I will let it slide. I make this comment now just to get it out of the way. That being said, let's get into the review of Terror Inc. #1.

Starting with the cover, we see an image of Terror seeming to either jump or run towards a group of cops shooting at his leg. There is also a man's face in the lower right-hand side screaming. He also seems to be choking, or maybe punching a guy that is in his way. Honestly this cover is pretty terrible, it's crowded,the art is just barely passable, and it's impossible to figure out what exactly is happening. The only decent part of this cover is Terror himself, who is centered in the middle and you can clearly see him, and honestly he isn't drawn terribly, especially considering some of the crap coming out of the 90's (thanks Liefeld). The same can honestly be said for the artwork throughout the comic.

We start the comic with a shot of a large man in the shadows behind a desk, with Terror stating that he didn't have a problem morally killing the man, whose name is Roger Barbatos. We then go through a few decently drawn panels with Barbatos mockingly saying that he was insulted that Terror had chosen such a boring way to try to kill him after a failed attempt to slit his throat. You see, Barbatos can't be killed, as illustrated by Terror when he says that, "My difficulty rested in keeping the corpulent toad of a weapons merchant dead." It turns out that Barbatos is, although not immortal, impossible to kill by conventional means. We will find out why a bit later.

One bad pun about Terror being a "cutting-edge assassin" later, and Barbatos' thugs rush in, showing off some really bad artwork as Terror fights them off. I mean one panel is really bad here, making one of the goons look like a mud monster. He continues to fight them off before Barbatos grabs a rocket launcher and shoots directly at him, forcing Terror to jump out of the window of the skyscraper and hit the ground hard. Honestly, this wouldn't have been terrible if they had given us some clue beforehand that they were in a skyscraper, but they just kind of gloss over that fact and send Terror right out the window. All they would have had to do to make the scene a little better would be to show a skyscraper, or hint at them being in a skyscraper, or even just flat out say that they are in a skyscraper. Anything would have been better than just leaving that fact out until Terror actually jumps out.

Terror falls and lands on top of a parked car, destroying his body in the process. Meanwhile, Barbatos is commanding them to make sure that nothing is left of the body, and to burn it until it's nothing but ashes. One of his henchman tells Barbatos that maybe he should wait as he had heard stories about Terror, but he cuts him off and says "that fountain a' red when he hit weren't no Jello, Sammy." I have two problems with this; for one, what fountain of red? I looked at the panel of him hitting the car and see nothing that says he was even bleeding, much less gushing a "fountain of red." The second problem is that what his henchman said was stupid. Assuming the stories he heard were the ones about how Terror could put on new body parts and was especially hard to kill due to that; why the hell would you say to not burn him? If his ability is to use other people's body parts to keep himself alive, and he can just pull any person off the street and steal their parts, then the best way to deal with him would be to burn him until there was nothing left to put parts on.

We now see Terror waxing poetically about the sinister game of..."Got your nose." I'm not even kidding, he compares his ability to the game most adults have played with children, using big words to make it sound like its first degree murder. I know it's hyperbole, but it's just stupid. Hiding poor writing using a thesaurus does not negate the poor writing. He then goes on to steal one of Barbatos' thug's arms as the man checks his body, then steals another guards legs in order to be able to get away. The entire time commenting on how he knew that Sammy was a jogger based on how quick and agile his legs felt. Terror then rides away on a motorcycle he hot-wired using the muscle memory of the arm he stole from the first guard he killed after landing on top of the car. He laments throughout this sequence of events about how he is losing profit and how Barbatos' "indifference to the tenets of morality" is taking him too long to fix. He hasn't actually done anything evil, but Terror's idea of morality still seems a little hypocritical.

We now switch, confusingly, to an a man named Mikal Drakonmega (It makes sense later, but I still think it's a dumb name). Mikal is a paranormal researcher who is working on writing a book. To promote this book, however, his agent wants to make a big spectacle. This leads Mikal to say that he is not going to write it because he doesn't want his work to become a sideshow spectacle and he doesn't want to be associated with scam artists who steal people's money off of the paranormal hype.  Mikal says he wants to show up the con men while his agent insists that he needs to stop acting holier-than-thou. Mikal says he wants to help right the wrongs he created, as it is implied that he went from a serious occult researcher to a more lucrative job working in the media, contradicting some of his own point in order to get people to buy what he was selling. His agent says he needs to come to his senses, which sets Mikal off, who insists that this decision IS him coming to his senses. The agent then leaves, bitter and frustrated, saying that he has some ideas of his own. His wife is clearly unhappy with his decision. Honestly this is probably the most well-written and drawn part of the story.

Cutting back to Terror, we see him talking to a woman named Alexis, who works for the people that hired Terror to kill Barbatos. He puts on someone's ear, saying that he hears echos of marital problems of whoever it belonged to. Alexis tells him that a bunch of third-world countries are tired of Barbatos supplying their enemies with weapons. Terror replies to this, "So that their neighbor's ability to kill them does not exceed their ability to kill their neighbor--how community minded." I don't disagree, but that still seems like a stupid thing to say, especially coming from an assassin. He then puts in an eye that apparently belonged to one of Barbatos' men. He uses the ears to listen to echos of what the henchman he stole them from picks up, and this is where we find out that Barbatos has sold his soul to a demon called Beelzeboul. We get a few panels of him sacrificing his soul for near-immortality, with Beelzeboul stating that the pact only protects the body. We then cut back to Terror using a female hand he got from somewhere, though it's never quite explained where. Alexis makes a quip about him having nice nails. He is using the arm because it has the skill to draw well, which Terror needed in order to draw a specific mark he thinks may help him.  Terror decided that in order to kill Barbatos he needs to find a way to break the contract he made with Beelzeboul.

Terror then goes to see a man named Rekrab about the sigil he had found, showing him the copy he drew earlier. Basically, Rekrab informs him that the only way he was going to get Beelzeboul to appear before him was to summon him himself, as he doesn't come up from Hell of his own accord. This is where Mikal comes in, as Rekrab mentions him to Terror, who comments that Rekrab hit a new low due to Mikal's reputation as a "pop necromancer." Rekrab says that Beelzeboul calls himself Satan for ego's sake and that he fathered a half-breed demon named Hellstrom. Hellstrom, however, blew off his father and purged his birthright. This is where we find out that Mikal is the illegitimate son of Beelzeboul and that with no one to take the inheritance, maybe Terror could use Mikal as a sort of "key" to get down to Hell. 

We then cut to a televison showing an interview with Mikal, which is hosted by a man named Ray Marlin Rothermel. I haven't had much more to say about the artwork to this point, but Rothermel's face is drawn like he is constantly doing the "derp" face (I'm only 22 and I feel old just writing that). Rothermel introduces Mikal, who goes on to tell people that they are not at fault for being lured into fraud by false occultists and that it's actually the con men that are to blame. The man next to him, who is introduced as "Anthony Mang, main man of the wacky and wicked Temple of the Risen King," agrees with him and goes on to say that "training to recognize the fraudulent must begin early." Mang then brings out a group of children dressed in stereotypical devil garb, complete with horns and pitchforks, and says that his youth group use pitchforks to "divine the true night spirit from the poor imitation." Mikal immediately gets angry and rips off his microphone, walking off the set and confronting his agent, shoving his face away and berating him for not letting him take the high road. My question is; how the hell did he not notice the guy sitting next to him before they even started. Also, how the hell did he not know Mang's reputation? Surely someone who takes it seriously knows the big name frauds well enough to know when they are sitting right next to them.

Anyway, his wife breaks up the fight, telling them both to calm down. She then sees that his face has gone half bluish-grey and asks what's happening to him. He responds that he is being forced into a part he doesn't want to play and that no one is out there working for who he really is. My biggest complaint here is, once again, the artwork. If they were trying to make it look like his demon side was coming through, they could have done a lot better than simply turning half his face bluish-grey. Give him small horns, or a different eye color, hell just change his facial features in any way that has something to typically do with the demonic. That was just out and out lazy. (Yes, I know this is coming from the guy who can't get anything out consistently.)

Left on that bit of irony, we switch back to Terror, who has entered the home of some unholy monks who worship the serpent once known as Hellstorm. The serpent is kept there and the "High Father" of the monks is the only one who can touch the serpent without being bitten. So in usual Terror fashion, he rips off the monks arm and after a bad pun (he said he was "taking part" in the ritual. That just barely counts as a pun to me), it cuts to him using the "High Father's" arm to kill the serpent. The comic ends with Terror holding up part of the serpent, saying that he was going to be (sighs) executor of the will now that Hellstrom is dead.

This comic is...okay. I mean, it could have been a lot better, especially the artwork, which goes from barely passable to bad. The writing, for the most part, was decent, though the sheer amount of puns (which I refused to subject you to) made it seem less like an edgy comic for young adults, and more like a Silver Age comic that somehow managed to sneak some adult themes past the editors. I know it's a cult classic, and I can see why, but personally, I could take it or leave it.

#Marvel #Comics #Terror Inc. #Detective

[somar78]

A Brief History of the Triumph Spitfire – Everything You Need To Know

The Triumph Spitfire – An Introduction

The paradoxical thing about the Triumph Spitfire is that it didn’t spit fire. The original Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft was powered by a huge supercharged Rolls-Royce V12 engine and was fitted with up to eight machine guns so that it truly did spit fire from engine exhausts and guns.

The Triumph Spitfire sports car however had a diminutive four cylinder engine, no machine guns, and only spat fire if the engine was so out of tune that it caused a backfire in the exhaust. It was however much less expensive to buy, a lot cheaper to run, and it was enormous fun.

Triumph and The Blitz

During the “Blitz” of 1940 the industrial city of Coventry had rather a lot of bombs dropped on it by the Nazi Luftwaffe in their efforts to bomb Britain into submission. Although this had worked quite well for the Nazis in other parts of Europe it didn’t in their efforts to conquer Britain: the pesky British just seemed to get more and more determined. Bombing Britain turned out to be about as profitable as poking a stick into a hornet’s nest expecting the frightened hornets to flee away.

Sadly Coventry was a city where many of the classic British cars were made and as a result of the Nazi bombing some were destroyed, notably Triumph, who had a long history of making beautiful motor cars. What was left of Triumph, which wasn’t much more than the name, was purchased by Sir John Black’s Standard Car Company on December 31, 1945.

Sir John Black understood Britain’s dire post-war financial need to export or perish and he looked to the American market as a place where he would really like to sell cars. Other British car makers were seeing this also and Jaguar had debuted their six cylinder XK DOHC engine in a hand built sports car based on their sedan chassis, but fitted with a hand made sports car body.

It was an instant success and although Jaguar had not actually intended to put that car into production they found they had so many customers with open checkbooks that turning away all that lovely money was unthinkable: thus it was that the Jaguar XK120 went into production, with actor Clark Gable taking delivery of one of the first examples.

Earlier pre-war “SS” Jaguar cars had been based on chassis from Sir John Black’s Standard Car Company. So he reasoned that if Sir William Lyons of Jaguar could create sports cars that would sell like hotcakes in the US then he could do that as well. His first effort was the Triumph TRX concept car, which was basically a sleek body built on a Standard Vanguard sedan chassis and engine.

People did not line up with open checkbooks for that one however.

The design team went back to work and so at the London Earls Court Motor Show of 1952 they showed their second effort: the 20TS. This was a car that looked rather more like a beast and not at all like a beauty a socialite might drive.

It was a car that could compete with Donald Healey’s 1951 Austin-Healey 100 and it led to the creation of the Triumph TR2. In fact a 20TS was taken to the Jabbeke motorway in May 1953 fully speed prepared and driver Ken Richardson, sitting on a cushion because they did not want the extra weight of a seat in the car, belted the car down the road to achieve 124.899 mph. Richardson was not belted in coincidentally: no seat, no seat-belt.

Triumph had their sports car that was a direct competitor for the Austin-Healey 100 and sales of the Triumph TR2 and its successors were good, but in 1958 Austin-Healey debuted their sports car for the not so monied masses, the Frogeye/Bugeye Austin-Healey Sprite.

Small, based on the diminutive Austin A30/A35 sedan the Sprite was marketed as “something a chap could keep in his bike shed”: lots of chaps (and chappettes for that matter) decided that having their very own boy racer sports car was too much of a temptation to be sensible about.

The Sprite did not have a boot/trunk, it just had a stash area behind the seats, something like a miniature Aladdin’s Cave for soft luggage. The Sprite had quite minimal weather protection also, side curtains for the soft top rather than heavy and expensive to make wind-up windows with their winding mechanism.

The Sprite did have seats however, unlike Triumph’s 20TS Jabbeke speed car, because not all chaps have the raw courage of a Ken Richardson, and passengers would expect a car to have seats, even a sports car.

In September of 1960 the chaps at Triumph decided they could do rather better than Donald Healey’s little Sprite and so they started work on their own small sports car, naming the project “Bomb”.

The new car was to be based on a shortened version of Triumph’s small sedan, the Triumph Herald, which boasted a body design by Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti. A shortened Herald chassis was sent to Michelotti and he created the body style. Meanwhile the engineering team at Triumph built a test “mule” using a shortened Triumph Herald, basically a two seater Triumph Herald, to get the mechanics and suspension sorted out.

Although other car makers were shifting to unibody construction Standard-Triumph did not have the financial resources to support that transition: and in any event regarded it as unnecessary.

Small production sports car makers were using a chassis rather than a unibody, Lotus, TVR, and Morgan being examples. The Triumph Herald was built on a backbone chassis with the body made as a separate item and this made it an ideal foundation for the Bomb.

Where the Triumph Herald’s chassis had outriggers these were removed for the Bomb so the bucket seats could be set nice and low. This required the fitting of strong sills to provide structural stiffness but was a sound design.

The project was to be short-lived however as Standard-Triumph were in financial trouble as car sales had slumped as a result of the 1956 Suez Crisis. Petrol rationing had been resumed in Britain as a result and people either stopped buying cars or had very small ones, such as the BMW Isetta bubble car.

This was the political situation that led to the creation of the Austin/Morris Mini, and it was also the cause of Standard-Triumph’s financial woes. By December 1960 work on the Bomb was stopped and the Leyland bus and truck company made a takeover bid for Standard-Triumph, which they succeeded in completing in April of 1961.

The Bomb was put into a corner in the factory and covered up with a cloth like a body awaiting burial, but it was not to be forgotten. When a Leyland executive visited the factory he asked what was hidden under the sheet and when the prototype sports car was revealed he was a very happy camper. He could see the potential, and the Bomb was unexpectedly given a new lease of life: on July 13, 1961 the Bomb development project was underway again.

The Triumph Spitfire 4 (1962-1964)

In getting the Bomb from prototype into production not many changes turned out to be necessary: the Triumph design team had achieved a great deal in the few months they’d had to develop the project and Giovanni Michelotti’s work was brilliant.

This was in part due to the fact that the car could be built on a shortened and modestly modified production Triumph Herald chassis, an advantage the chassis provides that a unibody does not.

The engine was the stock 1,147cc (70 cu. in.) inline four cylinder OHV from the Triumph Herald with a couple of SU carburetors bolted on to improve its breathing ability, the engine then being given a bit of a tweak here and there to make it more sports car like.

The Herald’s front drum brakes were dispensed with and replaced with some nice efficient discs to ensure the little beast could stop as well as go. The suspension was fully independent and originated from the Triumph Herald; at the front were wishbones with coil springs and at the rear were swing axles using a transverse leaf spring bolted to the top of the differential.

The body was made to offer significant advantages over the new car’s main competitors, the greatly re-modeled Austin-Healey Sprite and its twin sibling the MG Midget. The new Spitfire was fitted with a rather awkward to raise soft top, wind-up side windows, exterior door locks, and quite comprehensive instrumentation to give it a hint of an aircraft cockpit look.

The name chosen for the car was not Bomb, but instead took the name of the iconic fighter of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire. The Bomb had a new identity, reminiscent of the Second World War fighter aircraft which featured in the “Biggles” comic books that so many of the young men and women who would buy a Spitfire would have grown up reading.

This first model was known as the Spitfire 4, simply because it was fitted with a four cylinder engine, unlike its Battle of Britain namesake which had a Merlin V12. The Spitfire 4’s engine produced 63 bhp @ 5,750 rpm and torque of 67 lb/ft @ 3,500 rpm. This gave the little car a standing to 60mph time of 16.4 seconds and a top speed of 92 mph.

While these figures are not particularly impressive they don’t really convey the feeling of the Spitfire. With its seats set very low the car gave the impression it was going rather more quickly than it really was, so low seats, an aircraft like cockpit, and a nice engine warble, all combined to make the little Spitfire a very fun machine. It was also affordable at the petrol pump as it delivered a frugal 31 miles to the Imperial gallon.

The Spitfire 4 had a few optional extras available for it, a heater/demister, removable hard-top, wire wheels, and in its last year of production a Laycock de Normanville electric overdrive. In addition to these were the performance kits available from dealers. These included twin dual throat Weber 40DCOE carburetors, a high compression cylinder head, high lift camshaft, and for the really serious petrol heads such extensive engineering items such as stronger pistons, con rods, crankshafts, clutch and close ratio gearbox kits from the Triumph Vitesse.

This sort of thing had considerable appeal to a generation raised on Biggles comics and Meccano sets.

The Triumph Spitfire Mark II (1965-1967)

The Mark 2 version of the Triumph Spitfire was introduced in 1965 and provided some relatively minor improvements over the original Spitfire 4, which was now often referred to as the “Mark 1”.

The engine power was increased to 67 bhp @ 6,000 rpm and British models were treated to a diaphragm spring clutch while North American market models retained the original coil spring one, and were also fitted with ACDelco distributors as opposed to the British which stayed with Lucas.

The interior trim of the Mark 2 was upgraded to include carpet in place of the original rubber mats, redesigned seats, and the covering of exposed metal panels with trim. There were of course the obligatory new badges and grill to give the car a “new” look.

The Triumph Spitfire Mark III (1967-1970)

The Mark 3 was a major upgrade, the Spitfire was subject to some significant competition from its Austin-Healey and MG Midget rivals and it needed to pull some rabbits out of the hat to keep up with the opposition.

The car also had to comply with new bumper height regulations and this was accomplished by a two fold strategy of raising the bumper on the bodywork and by raising the front springs. This combined effect imparted a quite different look to the car and it was referred to as the “bone in the teeth” model.

In their efforts to beat the competition Triumph greatly improved the folding soft top so it was much easier to deploy. The dashboard was done in wood veneer to significantly bring the look of the interior upmarket. The engine of the Spitfire was increased in capacity to 1,296cc which was the same as on the Triumph Herald 13/60 and 1300 models.

The Spitfire engine with its twin SU carburetors delivered 75 bhp @ 6,000 rpm with 75 lb/ft torque @ 4,000 rpm. The car’s performance benefited from the increase in power with its standing to 60 mph time down to 13.4 seconds and its top speed up to 95 mph. The car’s electrical system was also changed over from traditional British positive earth to the more universal negative earth.

1968 was to produce happy news, and more difficult news for the Triumph Spitfire. The celebratory news was that the 100,000th Spitfire was personally driven off the production line by Standard-Triumph’s General Manager George Turnbull.

The more difficult was the introduction of new vehicle safety standards and exhaust emissions regulations for the US market. Cars exported to the US constituted 45% of Spitfire production and so the cars needed to be able to comply with US standards. In 1968 the Spitfire’s braking system was upgraded to a dual hydraulic circuit with failure warning light: this was also to become a requirement in Australia under the Australian Design Rules (ADR).

1968 was also the year that British Leyland, who owned Standard Triumph, acquired ownership of British Motor Holdings which brought MG, Austin, and Jaguar/Daimler all into the same company. This meant that the Spitfire, Sprite and Midget were all now competing with each other from within the one company.

The Spitfire had to comply with new emissions standards for 1969: this meant that the engine’s compression ratio had to be reduced to 8.5:1, the camshaft was re-profiled, and ignition timing had to be adjusted. So the upshot of these regulations was that the engine had to be made less efficient, which meant less performance and increased fuel consumption.

The cars affected by these changes are nowadays referred to as “Federal Spitfires” and their engine power was down to 68 bhp with torque reduced to 73 lb/ft. The car’s standing to 60 mph time increased to 14 seconds, which was still pretty good by the standards of the time.

Also in 1969 the Spitfire had to provide headrests to guard against occupant neck injury in the event of a rear end collision. This required a redesign of the car’s seats and was a welcome improvement. The car’s dashboard lost its attractive wood veneer which was replaced by a black plastic one for US market cars, and the instrumentation was relocated to be directly in front of the driver.

Of particular note is that the transverse leaf spring with swing axles rear suspension was kept all through to the Mark III. This system produced much the same effect as it did on the Volkswagen Type 1 and the early Chevrolet Corvair, although on those two the effects were more exaggerated because of the rear engine causing the weight distribution to be very rear heavy.

The Spitfire had much more even weight distribution, but the vice of the swing axles was still able to rear its ugly little head. This problem occurs most markedly if the driver lifts off the throttle in a corner or brakes. The weight transfers to the front outside wheel and as it does so the rear outside wheel is lifted and as the swing axle forces a shift to positive camber it “tucks under” which can cause a switch to dramatic oversteer or a roll-over.

This suspension was widely criticized and drivers who wanted to get the best from the handling of their cars installed camber compensator rear suspension kits to fix the problem, just as more technically minded Corvair and Volkswagen owners did.

The Triumph Spitfire Mark IV (1970-1974)

The Mark IV was a major revision of the Triumph Spitfire. The bodywork was redesigned by Giovanni Michelotti and among the changes the weld line on the top of the front wings/fenders was eliminated along with the chrome finisher strips that covered them.

By this stage rather old school chrome headlight surrounds were removed and replaced by body color ones, the grill became black plastic and was complimented by black plastic bumper under-riders. The wheel-arches were stylishly flared and the door handles became neatly flush fitted. The windscreen height was increased by two inches.

At the rear of the Spitfire was perhaps the most dramatic change with the rear end being given a cut-off style which brought it into line with the rear end styling of its stablemates the Triumph Stag and the restyled Triumph 2000. This would be the same sort of style that the Triumph Dolomite of 1972 would also be given so the Triumph cars looked like a part of a coordinated family.

For the Mark IV the instrumentation was moved from the center of the dashboard to being directly in front of the driver for all markets. Many features that had previously been optional extras became standard fittings on the Mark IV Spitfires. These cars had a heater/demister as standard, black sun visors, and three-point seat belts.

The hardtop was greatly improved and included opening rear quarter-lights while the folding soft top was treated to a plastic cover to keep it neatly packed away. The switch for the optional electric overdrive was relocated to the top of the gear lever, perhaps inspired by the red button for the passenger ejector seat fitted to James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in “Goldfinger”.

The Mark IV also finally got synchromesh on first gear, something that British car makers seem to have had a near religious aversion to in the same way that British motorcycle manufacturers resisted installing electric starters.

The engine of the Mark IV was mostly the same as used in the Mark III but due to the desire by British Leyland to rationalize component parts and spare parts inventory the Mark IV engine used the heavier con-rods from Triumph’s six cylinder engines. These heavier con-rods affected the engine’s free revving characteristics but did not reduce power. Engine power remained at 75 hp (SAE) but was now quoted in published material as 63 hp (DIN). So all that actually changed was the measurement method for published data, not the engine’s actual power output.

The Mark IV was a tad heavier than the Mark III however, which contributed to the car feeling a bit less spritely, and added to that the final drive ratio was changed from 4.11:1 to 3.89:1 which helped with motorway cruising, but not with standing start acceleration should you want to race a guy in a Porsche away from the traffic lights.

The big fix on the Mark IV was to finally cure the swing axle vice, something that arguably have been done much earlier. The fix was remarkably simple, instead of the whole rear suspension leaf spring assembly being bolted to the top of the differential casing only the bottom-most leaf was, leaving the others free to move around the central axis. The rear suspension was further improved late in production by the widening of the track, improving stability.

The performance of the Mark IV was lively for European specification cars: standing to 60 mph time was 12.5 seconds and top speed was 97 mph. In 1972 however the engine was detuned which brought the top speed down by a couple of miles per hour but, more tellingly, increased the standing to 60 mph time to 14.5 seconds.

In 1972 for the US market Triumph began fitting a larger 1,493cc engine which was created by lengthening the stroke of the older 1,296cc engine. This US version was fitted with a single Zenith Stromberg carburetor and had the necessary anti-emissions control equipment installed on it.

The Triumph Spitfire 1500 (1974-1980)

In 1972 Triumph rationalized production by using the US market 1,493cc engine in all markets, but only applying the emissions controls to the US market engines, and tuning up the engine for British and European markets thus creating the fastest Spitfire yet, other than the car’s fighter aircraft namesake of World War II.

The car fitted with this new engine was called the Spitfire 1500 and its engine produced 71 bhp (DIN) @ 5,500 rpm and torque of 82 lb/ft. This engine was mated to a Morris Marina gearbox with the result that the car could now actually “do the ton”, i.e. 100 mph and boasted a standing to 60 mph time of 13.4 seconds. The British and European market engine had a compression ratio of 9:1 and breathed its leaded petrol through twin SU HS4 carburetors.

The US market Spitfire 1500’s engine was given a compression ratio of 7.5:1 so it could run on the unleaded gasoline that was being phased in. It breathed through the single Zenith Stromberg carburetor and had an exhaust gas recirculating system and catalytic converter. This engine produced 53 hp (DIN) giving the car a standing to 60 mph time of 16.3 seconds.

The Spitfire 1500 had the longer swing axles and resulting wider rear track, and also had its rear suspension a little lowered to induce some negative camber, which all contributed to the car’s improved stability.

The car’s interior trim was substantially upgraded with “chequered brushed nylon centre panels” in the reclining seats and also got steering column stalk mounted controls in the 1977 upgrade. The final model had the features expected by that time including an electric windscreen washer and hazard warning lights. Wire wheels ceased to be available as an option however as the world moved on to accessory alloy wheels.

Conclusion

The Triumph Spitfire was built to be a small, inexpensive fun machine and it delivered an elegant sufficiency of enjoyment of driving and exploring wherever you fancied going. It was a car that did not attempt to deliver the terrifying levels of raw performance of such cars as the AC Shelby Cobra, it wasn’t in the same price league, nor would those who purchased a Triumph Spitfire have been looking for that from it. They were looking for a car that delivered affordable enjoyment, and it delivered that wonderfully.

The Triumph Spitfire has acquired for itself a quite dedicated enthusiast following over the years but there are also a lot of people out there for whom this was the car of their young years: a car that carries with it many memories.

It’s a car that those who were privileged to own one look back on with fondness. We can imagine a young Triumph Spitfire owner having a secret “Snoopy Moment” as he drives thinking “Here’s the World War II flying ace in his Spitfire…” – hopefully there is a little bit of Walter Mitty in all of us.

Picture Credits: Standard-Triumph, Leyland.

The post A Brief History of the Triumph Spitfire – Everything You Need To Know appeared first on Silodrome.

source https://silodrome.com/triumph-spitfire-history/

#cars

[nerdarchy-blog]

MisCon is my local convention here in Missoula, Montana. All of the common trappings of the small convention are present and, in some cases, exceptional. This is really the thing that not only differentiates MisCon from other small cons but makes it absolutely special among conventions. All of the advantages of a small convention (small crowds) with standout special guests and incredible panels, art shows, and much more.

MisCon is a 4-day celebration of fantasy, science fiction, and horror that takes over the Holiday Inn Missoula Downtown every Memorial Day Weekend.

Nerding out at MisCon

See below for a gallery of images from MisCon 32

Vendor tables packed the interior of a spacious hotel lobby with the entirety of the hotel’s conference and spare rooms taken up by panels and other activities. This con meanders and, as it does so, traces a neat path through the hotel lobby, onto the main floor, straight through the center of the hotel’s restaurant and out the back doors to a wonderfully sunny back field of hardwood trees.

The entire con sits along one bank of the burgeoning Clark Fork River, now skirting its banks with melt water from winter. I have to say, even as the con winds down each evening and the excitement of activities, celebrities, and going over my con budget abate, the incredible surroundings manage to keep me in a state of wonder. It really is four full days of magic.

If you’re savvy you can do what myself and the wife did for MisCon — get those tickets early! Head over to the MisCon website and preregister. Trust me when I say this will shave as much as 20 minutes off getting in the front door. An army of attendees will arrive at the launch of the convention on Friday night and stroll past the massive line straight into the convention, an absolutely wonderful feeling. Pickup for early passes starts Thursday night and continues through the convention, a secondary (good job planning ahead) table is set up for preregistered attendees.

When I attend a convention I look for a few things to fill my time, a quiet space to relax between events, and faces I remember from the prior year. This year I checked all my boxes and managed to not only see lots of familiar faces, and find a wonderful sunny corner to rest in, but found so many entertaining events I often found myself torn between them.

Panels are by far one of my favorite convention forms of entertainment. I would hate for you to think the entirety of this con is any one thing though, so be aware, there’s far more than just panels at MisCon! This year the convention was packed to the gills with writing panels, creative panels, and a variety of other items such as worldbuilding that, while I didn’t make it to them, I would’ve loved to attend. At any one time roughly three panels would be running at the same time, often more. At one point 7 events, many of which I wanted to attend, all ran at once. In an ideal world the con would’ve run for weeks and I would have the free time to attend everything!

Costumes, cosplay, and period dress all made a stop along the way. I would guide you on what the best day is to dress your best but its a bit of a mixed bag. If you’re like me you select only a few days, or even times, to cosplay and leave the rest of the convention as free time where the complications of wearing a costume don’t need to be considered. I know there are those of you out there who stay in costume for entire conventions and I absolutely salute you. I lack your fortitude and respect your perseverance!

Nearly every day of the convention has excellent attendance, except the tail end of Monday as MisCon closes. With greater attendance comes photo ops and that wonderful moment when someone stops you and asks to take your picture. To me this is the payoff for the time and energy I’ve invested into my outfit! I would suggest, if you’re looking to cosplay for only a portion of the convention, at minimum dress for success on Sunday. Sunday is the costume contest, has fantastic attendance, and tends to be a very busy day.

Vendors, oh, so many vendors. Half the vendors I know. I know them from last year and the year before, including some of my friends from Muse Comics, the hometown comic shop. If you’re at the convention and need a few packs or even a box of Magic: The Gathering to run a draft, they have you covered. Forgot your dice on your way to the hotel? Missing a supplement or wanna try out any number of new tabletop experiences? Muse not only carries everything you need on the showroom floor but also caters to requests and can retrieve more inventory from their locally run store. It’s fantastic to have the store manager on hand, always helpful and happy to take special requests from the storefront only 10 minutes away.

This year one of the special treats was spending time with Geek Lolita and Nemesis Gear. Hanging out with these wonderful ladies we collected some of the finest pieces they had available to assemble a grand ensemble for me! All leather, all steampunk or almost “western-punk” (is that a thing??). It was a pleasure to spend time in the booth and talk about the handmade wares. Every piece they sell is made by hand and, holding and inspecting each piece reveals the amount of labor and love dedicated to these masterpieces.

The local Belegarth group spends most of its time in the large riverfront outdoor space of the convention. The foam flies as howling combatants thrash each-other in wild combat. It’s an incredible spectacle to go from happily chatting away with the Rosearik Rikki Simons, the voice actor for GIR on Invader Zim, to armored combatants taking gladiatorial turns in a fighting ring. Anyone interested in participating, learning, or even just watching (what I did) is welcome to join the crowds and take in the show. My mind, watching the melee, half-expected to see some cheapjack bellowing as they passed through the crowd “Place your bets, place your bets here!” If I’d had a few silver to spare I assure you my bet would’ve been placed.

While I could go on and on about the convention the final item I wanted to mention is a special treat of happenstance that only adds to the magic around MisCon — the local farmers market, every Saturday morning. The Missoula farmers market spans a few city blocks and, on a sunny day, is the finest way to spend a morning I can imagine.

After hunting down a parking space my wife and I walked the length of the farmers market, picking up breakfast, coffee, and some fresh vegetables along the way and ended our walk in the middle of the convention. The two events mingle perfectly and literally cross over into each other. Saturday, because of the farmers market, massive attendance and great photo ops has become my favorite convention day. I dress in costume and enjoy strolling around in public dressed as Fitzroy Brumblebottom! My wife, dressed as Princess Peach endures frequent, but enjoyable, distractions as every little girl along our path demands her picture taken with a “real life” princess. I love being a nerd.

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Large or small, it's great to nerd out with friends at conventions like MisCon. @_Kienata_ shares his experiences getting nerdy over Memorial Day weekend. #staynerdy MisCon is my local convention here in Missoula, Montana. All of the common trappings of the small convention are present and, in some cases, exceptional.