Greetings Loyal Airmen and our apologies for not being able to post an entry last week.  A very unexpected situation arose that compelled us to fly back east to New Hampshire.  Nothing serious mind you, and once taken care of, Valerie and the Air Chief were able to enjoy our visit with our moms on Mother's Day plus seeing other family members to include our two granddaughters, Kristi & Chelsea. We had such a great time with them and also enjoyed meeting Kristi's (a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire now) boyfriend, Taylor Hodgdon who just happens to be a huge Mr.Jigsaw fan.  Small world, isn't it?

         
                     Our Friend Lisa Moore Contest Winner
Which is an excellent segue into our next topic here.  As most of you Loyal Airmen will recall, earlier this year we ran a contest on the ZONE 4 weekly podcast in which our listeners had to write in telling us why they enjoyed listening to our show.  At the end of several months all the entries names were put in a hat and our co-host, Brant Fowler drew one name to be the winner.  The prize we promised was that they would then appear in the very next issue of our comic book series, Mr. Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts.  Well, the winner was our dear friend from Texas, Ms.Lisa Moore, one of the premier colorist in our medium.  Once Lisa had won, she was kind enough to send me several photos of herself such as the one above, which we then gray scaled and sent off to artist Gary Kato along with our script in which she would guest star.  We are very happy to report that Mr. Jigsaw # 10 is now complete and at the printers even as we write these words.  It features two stories, the second called “A HELPING HAND” is the tale in which Lisa appears.  Below is part of a page from that story.

     
Gary did a great job capturing Lisa's likeness and we made her a research engineer who develops prosthetic limbs for our wounded soldiers coming home from the Middle East.  With fingers crossed this issue will be on sale soon and of course we'll post a cover image as soon as that happens.  And a special thanks for Lisa for playing our contest and again congratulations on your win. We truly hope you like your appearance in this story.

And finally, unless you've been hiding out in a cave the past few weeks, you will be aware the biggest, best, most fantastic comic inspired movie blockbuster of all times is now out at theaters.  We are of course referring to Marvel's AVENGERS, the culmination of a series of spectacular movies begun with IRON MAN and then followed over the past four years with HULK (2), IRON MAN (2), THOR and then CAPTAIN AMERICA.  All of which were actually one massive tale and for the first time in movie history offered us a shared-world scenario exactly as the comics have featured since Marvel was born in the early 1960.  Kudos to Marvel Studios for their vision, for their determination to stick with such a phenomenal project and for bringing together such incredible talent both in front and behind the camera.

AVENGERS brings such a wonderful ensemble cast, each perfect in his or her role.  Robert Downey Jr. has the right smirk to be Industrialist genius Tony Stark (Iron Man). Chris Evans totally wowed us in his role in CAPTAIN AMERICA and he reprises it with ease in this cinematic sequel. Of course one of the biggest surprises of all in this movie was the big green guy, the Hulk, with Mark Ruffalo becoming the third actor to play the split personality behemoth on the silver screen, following Eric Bana and Edward Norton.  And after seeing AVENGERS twice, we believe Ruffalo is by far the best Bruce Banner since the late Bill Bixby portrayed him on television. By the time this film rocks into its final, all out battle in the last thirty minutes, the Hulk takes center stage is is simply awesome to behold.

These fine actors are aided and supported by Chris Helmsowrth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and make his debut in this series, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton (Hawkeye).  Returning are the stalwart Samuel L. Jackson as the tough leader of Shield and the ever brilliant Tom Hiddleston as the mischievous villain Loki who plans on ruling the Earth….until the upstart Avengers get in his way.

AVENGERS is the pinnacle of adventure fantasy film-making and we applaud writer/director Josh Whedon for his masterful control of what could easily have been a train-wreck.  That he could shine a light on all these magnificent heroes and yet at the same time make them work smoothly as an ensemble cast was sheer genius.  No surprise the movie is making KAZILLION dollars world-wide. Seeing it brought the Air Chief back to the days of his youth,when in 1961 he purchased a copy of Avengers # 1 and thought it was by far the coolest comic book in the whole world.  Now it has become the coolest movie ever.  God bless everyone who had a hand in bring this dream to life.

Oh, and if you'd like to “hear” the Air Chief wax lovingly and long about this movie, be sure to tune into ZONE 4 now when it is posted at the Comic Related website later today, as co-host Brant Fowler, Gordon Dymowski and John Wilson join us in discussing AVENGERS like the loveable geeks we are.

Till next week, go see Avengers.
Ron – Over & Out!