Dynamite

The Kixx downed the first-place Baltimore Blast, 13-6, last night in a National Indoor Soccer League game at First Mariner Arena. Peter Pappas stopped eight of 11 shots for the Kixx, who improved to 5-5. Baltimore fell to 7-2. Forward Hewerton Moreira recorded a three-point goal and an assist to extend his point and goal streak to a team-high eight games.

The point, Dave Mulholland says, is to keep the other team pointless. "If we keep them in the low 50s - and if we score 55 or so ourselves, we're capable of winning every game," said Mulholland, Archbishop Ryan's basketball coach. Mulholland's defense-oriented scheme worked like a dream Friday night as the Raiders (3-1) pulled out a 57-51 nonleague victory at home over St. Joseph's Prep. Ryan has won the three games in which it has held an opponent to fewer than 60 points.

Dynamite has distinguished itself the past few years by carefully choosing projects and having virtually all of them look fantastic and be entertaining reads. This has been especially true of their licensed properties such as "Zorro," "The Lone Ranger" and "Battlestar Galactica. " So it is only fitting that their latest attempt to draw in fans looking for new adventures of a popular property features perhaps the most unstoppable icon of them all, in "Terminator: Revolution. " While sure to please hardcore fans, writer Simon Furman also makes the book accessible to readers unfamiliar with the franchise.

It took a while for Paul Pressey to surface last night at the Spectrum. But when he did, Milwaukee's versatile point forward made the Sixers disappear like a David Copperfield illusion. Pressey scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half of a 109-104 victory that tied the NBA quarterfinal series at two games and restored the Bucks' homecourt advantage. "We had our foot in the hole," Pressey said. "We would have been in the hole if we had lost this game tonight. We kind of feel like we're back on level ground now and that's going to give us another chance to recuperate.

Poor Donovan McNabb. The guy can't win - even when the Eagles do. For years, people complained that Five is incapable of engineering a fourth-quarter comeback. Then he did just that against the Bears (even though there was a fair amount of time remaining on the clock) and the Redskins over the last two weeks. Naturally, the detractors apologized and gave credit where it's due, right? Not quite. After the Washington game, I received e-mails from fans who complained - and stop me if this sounds familiar - about how McNabb is inaccurate on short routes and won't ever win a Super Bowl because blah, blah, blah.

An Oaklyn man who authorities said was in an alcohol rehabilitation program took a stick of dynamite into a local bar Tuesday night, then down to Newton Creek, where it exploded and killed him, authorities said yesterday. Authorities did not immediately identify the man, who they said was 37 years old, pending notification of family members. Greg Reinert, a spokesman for acting Camden County Prosecutor Lee A. Solomon, said the cause of death had been ruled accidental following an autopsy by Dr. Robert Segal, Camden County Medical Examiner.

Police and explosives experts yesterday called off the search for 40 sticks of dynamite the son of a Lower Providence Township woman said he had buried years ago in her backyard. The Montgomery County bomb squad dug for a day and a half before declaring the neighborhood safe. Workers using shovels and then a backhoe dug a 400-square-foot by 5-foot-deep hole but found no explosives, police said. By yesterday afternoon, the hole had been filled in. Six homes in the neighborhood near Buckwalter and Egypt Roads were evacuated and traffic was rerouted during the excavation work.

Frank Dainese, self-proclaimed "nitroglycerin man," ran his fingers along the 2-by-16-inch tube of brown waxed paper. He handled it as he might a fine piece of jewelry. "That's a damn good stick of dynamite," he said. "Feel the density. It's well-filled. It's a beautiful stick. I hate to see it replaced. " After more than 40 years researching, making, selling and detonating all kinds of explosives, however, Dainese realizes that - sentimentality notwithstanding - dynamite is no longer the explosive of choice.

With "Buck Rogers," Dynamite has taken yet another iconic character and updated him for today's audiences. It may be their most impressive endeavor to date. Why? Because unlike most of the properties in their stable, there have been no projects starring the character in decades. If you take away the TV show starring Gil Gerard in the 1970s - which disappointed die-hard Buck Rogers fans - there have been no truly memorable stories told starring the character in any medium in a long, long time.

THIS WEEK, Comics Guy takes a look at "Battlestar Galactica: Cylon War," Dynamite's latest spinoff series based on the popular sci-fi show. Yet again, they have successfully explored a part of the "BSG" mythology that has barely been mined for stories and done so in a way that not only entertains but strengthens the entire franchise. It is in this series that we learn how one of mankind's greatest assets turned into one of its most deadly foes. While the show began with a "war" that lasted little more than an eyeblink and resulted in the Cylons almost wiping out humanity, we see the seeds of the First Cylon War - as it is often called - being planted 40 years before the TV series takes place.

Before reality television dames were dripped in diamonds, draped in furs, and devoted to their dogs, there was the beautiful, raven-haired, violet-eyed fashion and lifestyle icon Elizabeth Taylor. From the time Taylor began her film career in Lassie Come Home at the tender age of 10, women and young girls have been coveting her on-screen style choices, from those jodhpur pants in National Velvet to the lace and silk white slip she favored in 1958's sultry Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . "She wasn't a fashion person, but her images in whatever role she was playing . . . would be picked up by everyone," said Jane Likens, associate professor of fashion design at Philadelphia University.

This game of giants changes remarkably when one of its littlest threats takes the field. DeSean Jackson yesterday returned from a concussion and, with a special helmet hopefully designed to lessen the risk of further head trauma, Jackson provided the answers to every question the Colts' defense offered. He caught a 9-yard touchdown pass less than 2 minutes into the game. He burned the Colts for a 58-yard reception 10 minutes into the quarter that set up a field goal. He took a pair of end-around handoffs 11 yards, then 6 yards, to help milk 69 seconds off the clock near the end of the Eagles' 26-24 win. "He's able to do so many things other players can't do," said quarterback Michael Vick, who also returned from injury.

When dynamite decided to do a comic adaptation of "The Expendables," an August film release featuring arguably the most colossal collection of action stars ever to appear together, there was only one choice to write it. Chuck Dixon has become legendary for scripting butt-kickers - due in large part to lengthy runs on Punisher and Batman - and he is more than up to the challenge of writing this prequel comic. The action is fast and furious, and there is adrenaline crammed into every panel.

"Gold and untold riches . . . I am a simple girl and have never much cared for such things. Steel is my most precious metal. " So speaks Red Sonja in one of her adventures contained in the just-released "Red Sonja" No. 50 - and it is a quote that captures the essence and simplicity of the character's appeal. Much as the character thinks nothing of going up against ten or more men with only her blade as an ally, so too has she defied the odds by not only making it to her 50th issue - something only a literal handful of solo series starring female characters have ever done - but also by giving no indication through either sales or quality of the book that it is going to end anytime soon.

We continue our top-10 baseball tour with the best third basemen in Southeastern Pennsylvania. We cranked this list, based on personal observations and coaches' insights, up to 12. 1. Kevin Conroy, Father Judge, senior. During one critical stretch this season, Conroy, a do-everything player, went 10 for 11 with three triples, two doubles, and a towering home run. Conroy, also a first baseman and designated hitter, batted .338 with 14 RBIs, 12 runs, 10 extra-base hits, and a .472 on-base percentage.

PHILADELPHIA hardcore heroes Kid Dynamite will reunite Aug. 15 as part of the weekend-long This is Hardcore festival at the Starlight Ballroom (460 N. 9th). Kid Dynamite last performed in August 2005 at CBGB's in a series of shows to raise money to save the legendary New York club, now a John Varvatos store. This is Hardcore also features Thursday singer Geoff Rickly fronting for an Ink & Dagger reunion set. The band's singer, Sean McCabe , died in 2000 at age 27. Dagger's money from the onetime show and T-shirt sales will benefit Maks Zielanski , son of Crud Is a Cult and Flagman member Ed Zielanski , who has a rare childhood cancer.

Comic-book publisher Dynamite has decided that 2010 is going to be the year of the "Green Hornet" and is gambling that it will be able to capitalize on that in a big way. The "Green Hornet" movie, which will be released Dec. 22, is counting on overcoming the character's lack of general familiarity with a cast that includes Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Edward Furlong and Edward James Olmos, and Dynamite has also assembled an eye-popping...

With "The Complete Alice In Wonderland," Dynamite has again taken a classic book, whose characters and story are seemingly known well by the general public and provided a fresh, exciting take by going to the trouble of adapting the original work and telling the story as it was originally meant to be told and in a way only the comics medium could tell it. Through the years, various interpretations of the work have tended to focus on characters like...

Poor Donovan McNabb. The guy can't win - even when the Eagles do. For years, people complained that Five is incapable of engineering a fourth-quarter comeback. Then he did just that against the Bears (even though there was a fair amount of time remaining on the clock) and the Redskins over the last two weeks. Naturally, the detractors apologized and gave credit where it's due, right? Not quite. After the Washington game, I received e-mails from fans who complained - and stop me if this sounds familiar - about how McNabb is inaccurate on short routes and won't ever win a Super Bowl because blah, blah, blah.

Beneath the good-natured retro silliness of "Black Dynamite" is something smart and new. This re-creation of an early 1970s blaxploitation movie is vaguely in the style of an Abrahams-Zucker ("Airplane!," "Naked Gun") or Wayans Bros. genre send-up, but it's crucially different. "Black Dynamite" is a canny and often sincere replica of a movie in the "Shaft" or "Dolemite" tradition. If a print turned up on "The Antiques Roadshow," experts might have a hard time determining whether it was an actual period piece or expert reproduction.