Grappler of Steel

John Savage at Rants Roids n Rasslin is featuring a double whammy of wonderfulness today--color panels from a 1969 comic, in which an amnesiac Superman becomes "Masked Superman" in the pro wrestling arena, AND stills of the late, great Steve Reeves in shirtless muscle poses.

Tell me, am I squealing and giggling like a little girl yet?

Aggrieved beside-the-point footnote:  In 2001, when the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences flashed images of its recently departed members and confreres during the Oscars, everybody, it seemed, got some sort of applause except Mister Reeves.  Nothing, nada, crickets, and throat-clearing coughs at the back of the house.  I was outraged.  I wouldn't want to slight any of the other talents who died in 2000 by flip comparisons, but Reeves contributed hugely to my personal interest in cinema.  And while they may never have achieved the gravitas and paychecks of a Sir Alec Guinness or a Walter Matthau, Reeves and some of the other B-listers who died that year--among them Billy Barty, Julie London, Werner Klemperer, Charles Gray, Roger Vadim, Professor Toru Tanaka, and Paul Bartel--were significant influences on my world, deserving of either thunderous applause or stunned silence at the mention of their names on that sad and solemn roll call.