Out of the Vault - Eagle

Digging through the vault archives, I sometimes come across a book I don't remember. Not in a "I forgot I had this" way, but more in a "What the hell is this?" way. I literally remember nothing about the title in question.

And that's to be expected when you've accumulated several thousand issues across forty years or so. Some things you buy once, you read, you say, "meh," then you bag it up and toss it in a box and never give it another thought. Then years later, you run across a random single issue of whatever and say, "What the hell is this?"

The thing that freaked me out when I ran across Eagle was, I had bought the first 10 issues. So I must have liked it, at least enough to keep buying it month after month. And yet, I had absolutely no memory of this book whatsoever. Why? Rereading the series, I figured out the answers.

I apparently kept buying the series because I wanted like hell to love this book. Eagle was an independent title published by Crystal Comics during the big black-and-white boom of the 80's (1986, to be precise). It was drawn by Neil Vokes and Rich Rankin (who apparently also co-plotted), with scripts by Jack Herman. Now, none of those guys have gone on to become huge household names, but they had all been connected to projects that were dear to my heart at the time.

Vokes had been penciling one of Comico's Robotech books, adapting the animated series; I liked the TV series, but was only lukewarm on the comics. Rankin, meanwhile, had started out inking Bill Willingham's Elementals, which I loved. I have a Rankin-inked Elementals page hanging on my wall at this moment, in fact.

But see, the thing about Elementals was, it had its beginnings in a game module for a superhero role-playing game called Villains and Vigilantes, which I played. And Villains and Vigilantes was designed by a couple of guys named Jeff Dee and Jack Herman.

So here was Eagle, penciled by a guy who also adapted anime, inked by a guy who also inked one of my favorite books at the time, and scripted by a guy who co-designed a game I liked. In addition, Matt Wagner (creator of Mage and Grendel) did the colors for the first issue's cover and contributed a pin-up, Arnold Pander (of the Pander Brothers, who did a long run as artists on Grendel) helped design the logo, and various other up-and-coming names (like Marc Hempel and Adam Hughes) continued to contribute to the book.

It was like these guys were all buddies just hanging out together and putting out this little labor o' love comic on the side, and I wanted to feel like I was part of that circle, so I kept buying the book, hoping that these talents whose other work I liked would eventually turn it into something awesome.

Unfortunately, the awesome never happened with Eagle. It was, literally, forgettable.

Eagle stars Richard Eagle (though we don't learn his first name for several issues), a master martial artist who works as a sort of private detective-slash-bodyguard (I wrote out the slash, because he literally slashes people--notice the sword on the cover above). He is also a powerful magician, drawing power from a mysterious orb that resides within his chest. The orb itself is a malign entity that slowly takes him over whenever he uses its power, so he uses it only reluctantly.

He also has a less-than-friendly relationship with the police. And in this scene from the first issue (click the pic for a larger version), we see one of the problems with the book. There is some extreme storytelling compression going on in this scene, what with the cop being over-the-top belligerent, and then cowering like a puppy after one good hard stare from Eagle. Only the art doesn't really carry off the extreme bad-assedness we're supposed to get here, there's no caption telling us what a powerful presence Eagle is, and the dialogue is stiff and somewhat nonsensical (what exactly would they charge him on--aggravated staring?). The whole scene feels cliched and underdeveloped.

Also, the ugly cop there? The reason he's so ugly is that he's an alien (although we don't find that out until issue #8, so until then, I just assumed he was badly drawn). And that becomes another of the problems with the book. This is, in many ways, a book by fans for fans, so there's a sort of throw-everything-in-there-and-see-what-sticks sense to the story. Eagle is a martial artist, but this isn't a martial arts story. Eagle is also a magician, but magic isn't really central to the story, either. Aliens and time travelers wander in and out of the book, but none of them really give the book any sort of firm direction. There were elements in there, like Eagle's relationship with the orb, that promised drama in the future, but it never came together and ended up seeming kind of aimless.

The art, meanwhile, had its ups and downs.

Here's an example of the art at its best. This is a scene from issue #7, where Eagle is fighting a Dr. Strange-inspired astral battle with the spirit of the orb. Dramatic layout, good solid drawing, simple and powerful inks with a nice balance between lights and darks and just the right touch of zip. Gorgeous.

All to often, though, we got scenes like the one above, a little stiff and clumsy, both the pencils and the inks feeling off-balance.

Another example is below, a romantic scene between Eagle and his love interest, city councilwoman Sivia Myers. Her large eyes say young, but her sunken cheeks make her look old. And in black-and-white it's hard to tell if her hair is white or blonde. So, is she young or middle-aged or even old? Hard to tell, and we should be able to, especially given what a major character she is.



Eagle did manage to create one relatively successful breakout character, a Terminator-inspired defender from the future named Death's Head, first seen in issue #4 (followed in issue #5 by a completely different Terminator-inspired character who fights a street gang inspired by Mike Baron's Badger--like I said, this was a book by fans for fans). He returned in issue #7 and had his own spin-off published for one issue before running afoul of Marvel's legal team (turns out they had trademarked a minor character named Death's Head themselves).

Death's Head was cool. Strong, silent, nicely designed. The one thing that annoyed me about him, though, was that his guns were never explained. Most of the time, he walked around empty-handed as in the panels at right. Every now and then, though, he'd shoot these double-barreled shotgun pistols, but he wore no holsters, so you never saw where they came from. They were just in his hands in the panels where he needed them, and then gone the next. But it's never mentioned that they magically appear or disappear. For all I know, he pulled them out of his ass.

Eagle eventually ran 23 issues, followed up several years later by a 4-issue miniseries. Vokes has rereleased Eagle in e-book form and is apparently planning on doing more Eagle someday. You can learn more here.

The Ackermonster

I'm noodling the idea of starting a stand-alone website dedicated to the Digger universe, to include not only the four Digger-verse stories published so far (plus new illustrations) but new stories and a serialization of the Digger novel, "Hero Go Home." Plus Digger merchandise including but not limited to Digger T-shirts (I'm working on a new design based on "Double-Secret Weapon" as we speak) and more.

In other news, the current plan for the blog is to feature a new radio program each Wednesday, and a new Vault comic each Saturday. However, I just delved into the vault again and emerged with 2 more boxes, so I may expand Out of the Vault to a twice- or thrice-weekly feature. And starting in January, I'll be reviewing one superhero movie a week for at least ten weeks (if anyone knows a good Windows XP-based way to do screencaps from DVD, clue me in).

But before I do any of those things, I need to do this...

Forrest J. Ackerman died last week. I know everybody and his dog are probably doing tributes or have already done so, but here's my two cents.

I never met Forry in person, but I was introduced to him in Famous Monsters of Filmland #108 when I was 11 years old. It was the King Kong issue, with a long feature article full of puns and details about the various King Kong films that had been done up to that time. Being an 11-year-old kid, I promptly decided to improve the black-and-white photos by drawing random blood on them in red pen.

But I learned a lot from Forry. Mainly, I learned that it is easy to be deceived and disappointed by an awesome cover or one-sheet.

For instance, on the left is the cover (by Ron Cobb, no less!) to FMoF #42, featuring Frankenstein vs. The Wolf Man. Needless to say, the actual 1943 film (starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man and a feeble and sick Bela Lugosi as the Monster) isn't nearly as dynamic and exciting as this single image (hat tip: Frankensteinia).

But then, that's the power of single images. They can appear without context, without explanation, with only their own symbolic, iconic power. But that's another post, I guess.

Forry taught me that it is possible to be disappointed by the disconnect between the product and the tease, and yet still love the product on its own terms, warts and all. Forry taught me that something doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyed. Forry taught me that monsters can be fun.

My big regret is that I didn't take the opportunity to visit the Ackemansion when I was attending college in L.A. A classmate of mine told me that Forry was a super-nice guy, and loved to give tours and I should go, but I was too shy. And now the opportunity is lost forever.

But the real truth is that my loss was not Forry's loss. The man had his disappointments, but he also got to spend decades making his living doing what he loved, and none of us can hope for a better fate.

So raise your glass in salute to Forry, the Ackermonster. We all owe him a debt we can only repay by paying our love of the genre forward.

Big Audio Wednesday - The First Batman?

I was going to post the second part of the Dr. Doom story today, but it's not as funny as the last one, and besides, I'm on vacation today, so I have time to write a more extensive entry.

I can't remember what it was that spurred me a few weeks ago to hunt for the first appearance of Batman on radio. It may have been the news about The Brave and the Bold premiering on Cartoon Network, or it may have been a confluence of my interest in old radio with my interest in "The Dark Knight" movie. Whatever it was, it got me thinking back.

It started for me in 1972 or thereabouts. I was in a bookstore with my mother (God knows why--she wasn't the type to frequent bookstores, I don't think) and I saw this big hardback titled Batman: From the 30's to the 70's. Of course, I had to have it.

When I got it home, I opened it up and read the introduction by E. Nelson Bridwell, and these are the opening paragraphs.

I don't remember the date... or the exact year... of that fantastic occurrence. I know I was a fan of the "Superman" radio show, and on this particular day Superman found a wounded boy in a drifting rowboat--a boy clad in a red vest and yellow cape.

It was, of course, Robin, the Boy Wonder!

And thus began the fabulous Superman/Batman team.

A few weeks ago, it suddenly occurred to me that, thanks to the Internet Archive, I could actually hunt down this legendary program that I'd first read about over 35 years ago!

But how to track it down seeing as how I knew neither the episode number or title or date? Google, of course. The first couple of sites that I came across simply repeated the same basic information from Bridwell's intro--Supes finds Robin in a rowboat. But the Superman Super Site added some extra detail...

On 5 September 1945, the Man of Steel came to the rescue of an unconscious boy adrift in a rowboat. Superman was quick to notice that the young boy was wearing a red vest with the letter "R" under his street clothes. "Great Scott," he proclaimed. "If this boy is who I think it is, this is serious business!" Superman had rescued Robin, the Boy Wonder and sidekick of Batman. Five days later, the Man of Steel would rescue Batman, who would repay the favor by pinch-hitting for Superman during the years to come.

While the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader had previously appeared together on symbolic comic book covers and in a brief cameo in a 1941 issue of All Star Comics, the 10 September 1945 radio broadcast was the first time that Superman and Batman worked together as a team. Batman and Robin would guest-star with Superman in 13 radio serials over the next several years, including one of the greatest adventure serials in the history of the series, "The Atom Man."

This article adds lots of convincing detail, even including a line of dialogue. Unfortunately, when I tried to use this information to pin down the exact episode in the Internet Archive, I was disappointed. According to both Internet Archive's Superman page and this page on the Superman Homepage, the September 5, 1945 episode was part of the "Dr. Blythe's Confidence Gang" storyline.

But although Superman discovers a rowboat in the first episode of the story (or perhaps the last episode of the previous storyline, episode 1095 (1096 on Internet Archive)), there was no Robin in it, just a bad guy with a sack of gold. Dick Grayson is mentioned in the next episode (1096 (1097 on IA), listed as the 9/5/45 episode on the Superman homepage), but he is not discovered in a rowboat. Instead, he is first referenced this way.

Jimmy Olsen: Come on, Miss Lane. Tell me what gives?

Lois Lane: Uh-uh. I'll tell you what, though Jimmy. I'll give you a chance to find out.

Jimmy Olsen: What do you mean?

Lois Lane: How would like to go to Playland this evening?

Jimmy Olsen: Playland? Well, sure, you bet. They got a terrific giant roller coaster there and... oh-oh, I forgot. I got a date with Dick Grayson.

Lois Lane: Dick Grays-- Oh. The boy you found in the boat that time.

Jimmy Olsen: That's right. Dick's a swell guy, but every time I tell him something about Superman, he comes back at me with something he heard or read about Batman.

So it appears that, if the episode dates on Internet Archive and the Superman homepage are correct, the September 5, 1945 episode is one where the rowboat incident is only discussed as having happened in the past. The real debut of Robin happened on some other date, and unfortunately, there are very few episodes from the previous three years on Internet Archive (54 out of almost 700) and no clue as the actual storyline being referred to.

And though Batman first appears in the Dr. Blythe storyline on Monday, September 10, 1945, it's apparent that Clark Kent and Batman have met before. So the dates given for Batman's debut appearance on the Superman homepage (and subsequently on every other page that uses that page for reference, which seems to be all of them) are evidently wrong (BTW, the aside that Batman also appeared in the Atom Man storyline is also wrong--I've listened to that entire story and Batman doesn't appear at all). The actual episodes and actual dates of Batman's debut appearance seem to be lost, at least so far.

So here is the first extant meeting of Superman and Batman from 10 September, 1945*. The storyline so far:

Dr. Blythe's underling Dixie Lamarr has killed a cop and is certain to go to the electric chair. However, it turns out that Dixie is a dead ringer for Lois Lane, so the criminal doctor comes up with a plan. He lures Lois to an amusement park with the promise of a bogus award, and plans to kidnap her inside a house of horrors. However, Jimmy Olsen and Dick Grayson tag along, and when Lois disappears, they call Clark Kent and Batman for help. When Clark arrives, he finds that Jimmy and Dick have gone missing, too.

Enjoy.



If anyone asks for it, I'll post the rest of the episodes. They make an interesting contrast with later depictions of both Superman and Batman, since neither at this time was nearly as invincible as later comics mythmaking would depict them to be.

* I know the file says it's the 9/11/1945 episode, but that's wrong. The previous episode teases this one by saying "Tune in Monday," and the second Monday in September 1945 was the tenth.

WTF Moment From the Vault - Canimls

Okay, so I mentioned previously that Neal Adams, god-in-human-flesh that he was with a pen, was not so great with the creative concepts. While trolling the Vault for this week's entry, I happened to run across this as a further example.

To the right, you see the back cover of Echo of Future Past #1, an anthology comic published by Adams's Continuity in 1983. This is an in-house ad, offering cute and lovable characters available for "licensing and projects." And they're pretty standard. On top, we have Bigfoots, lovable baby animals with big feet. At the bottom, we have Li'l Dragls, charming baby dragons with human friends.

But that middle tier...

Let's have a closer look.



These are the Canimls, odd little two-fingered, three-toed monsters that, from the look of the "I" in the name, come in a can. And each one has a different color, different property and a name to match. Reading from right to left, we have "bashfl" (don't ask me what's up with the missing vowel before the "L"--it's an Adams thing--witness "Dragls"), "dangl" (?), "fondl" (??), "nibbl" (???), "tickl" and "cudl." I've left the last one's name deliberately blurred for now, but there's enough here to make anyone knit their brow. I mean, taken individually, the names aren't anything definitely objectionable, but taken as a group, they certainly are at the very least wide open to mockery, especially given the fact that they're meant to be marketed to kids.

But what about that last Caniml, there in the upper left. What's his name. I mean, it couldn't be any worse than "nibbl" or "fondl," could it?

Wait for it...

"CANIBL"!!!!

Awww, cute, fuzzy wittle "canibl."

And that, folks, is what is known around here as a true WTF moment.

Random Sunday Notes

It's the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Mentioned without editorial comment, simply that it's worth remembering. I don't always make it a point to post this, but I probably should.

Had my company Christmas party last night. In keeping with the economic events of the past few months, it was less lavish than previous years, and subsequently, people didn't stay as long. So I got home earlier than I'd planned, poured myself a drink and watched "Daredevil," of all things. Don't want to discuss it too extensively right now, because I plan to start blogging about movies pretty regularly soon, and I plan to concentrate, at least at first, on comic adaptations, so I want to keep that round in the chamber until then. Suffice to say that it's a movie that ages less well with each viewing.

Did something I haven't done in over a year on Friday. I bought a new comic book. Besides delving into the Vault, I've been reading through the archives of several good comics blogs lately and just got the itch. I'll write about the comic I bought tomorrow or Tuesday. But in the meantime, if you've got time to kill, look at Gone & Forgotten, Dial B for Blog and Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep!

Out of the Vault - Plop!

In mid-1973, DC launched a new title, an experimental book combining humor and horror. Titled Plop!, it billed itself as "The Magazine of Weird Humor." (Please excuse the quality of the scans; the comics are old and yellowed, and the printing quality wasn't the best to start with. I tried to clean them up as well as I could. And remember, you can click on any image to see a larger version)

See the thing about horror comics in the 70's was, they weren't. Horror, I mean. They tried, lord, they tried. While Marvel was trying the Monster-as-Superhero route with mixed success, DC continued to publish traditional horror anthologies like House of Mystery, House of Secrets and The Witching Hour. However, they were heavily restricted by the Comics Code Authority, so much so that they couldn't even use the word "horror" in the titles. So although they copied the tried-and-true format of EC comics, with creepy hosts giving pun-filled ironic introductions to stories of the macabre (a format lifted by EC from radio shows such as Inner Sanctum Mysteries and The Hermit's Cave), the stories themselves rarely managed even a single goosebump. They were more often little morality plays, where a bad character receives his just desserts in an ironic twist, and usually more funny than scary.

So in 1973, DC apparently decided to just go with the humor whole hog and created Plop!, a combination of their regular horror mags with early Mad comics. Above you can see the cover of the first issue, typical of most of the run--a bizarre random Basil Wolverton character (who has nothing to do with the inside of the book) surrounded by Sergio Aragones drawings.

The insides were just as much of a hodge-podge. Each issue had a framing sequence drawn by Aragones, featuring the hosts of DC's horror comics--Cain from House of Mystery, his brother Abel from House of Secrets, and one of the witches from The Witching Hour. The three would try to outdo each other in telling outrageous stories of things that go "plop" (that moment when everything goes down the tubes). There were no ads. Instead, between the framing pages and the four- and five-page stories would be pages of single-panel gag cartoons around subjects like monsters and prison.

Most of the gags were corny, but some of the stories were fun. Like "The Escape" in issue one, an Aragones story in which a prisoner escapes from a dungeon with the help of an army of trained rats. Unfortunately, when he and the rats escape to the outside world, they bring the Plague with them. D'oh! I also liked this Aragones story from issue 10, which has fun with the Shazam problem, namely, if saying "Shazam!" makes Captain Marvel super, why don't the bad guys do it too?



As corny as the book was, though, it was a Who's Who of big comics names. Comics legend Wally Wood did a few covers. Kurt Schaffenberger and Murphy Anderson came over to do some humorous comics featuring DC's superheroes,including this further illustration that Superman is, indeed, a dick, (although frankly Lois was asking for it).

The biggest coup of all, though, was landing Berni Wrightson, who had become a certifiable star for his work on Swamp Thing. Wrightson did stories for at least the first two issues, but the one that will be remembered for all time, the one that made Plop! an early success (successful enough to run for 24 issues, anyway), the one that will always give it a place in my heart, is "The Gourmet."

Written by Steve Skeates, illustrated by Wrightson, and winner of the Shazam Award for Best Humor Story of 1973, "The Gourmet" tells the story of Vernon Glute. Insanely rich and grotesquely fat, Glute spends his days at his dining room table eating the world's finest delicacies, including his personal favorite, frogs' legs. And Glute demands they be fresh, the fresher the better, so fresh that he has live frogs shipped to his kitchen so they can be butchered on the spot.

Then one day, the frogs have their revenge...



PLOP! heh heh

Jackie Chan Hates Glass

Pawing through the $5 DVDs at Wal-Mart, I found a special collector's edition of "Police Story" starring Jackie Chan. I had seen it many times in its dubbed version as "Jackie Chan's Police Force," but the Chinese version on the new DVD is complete with scenes cut from the American release, as well as some behind the scenes features. If you're not familiar with it, you should hunt it down and watch it. This was one of the films that rejuvenated his career after his unfortunate first foray into American filmmaking, and one whose influence profoundly affected Chinese and American action movies in general.

The basic story is pretty simple. Jackie is a cop named Chan who captures a big drug boss during a raid gone wrong. He tries to convince the boss's secretary to testify against him, but when she learns he has deceived her, she leaves him with nothing but a taped testimony that ends up getting him laughed out of court. The kingpin goes free, but lures Chan into a trap and frames him for the murder of a fellow cop. Meanwhile, the secretary decides to turn on her boss for real, and Chan must save her life when the thugs try to keep her from escaping with evidence that can put their boss away for life.

By American standards, the writing and pacing are somewhat weak. But Jackie Chan himself is an amazing performer, and this movie is full to bursting with incredible stunts and action sequences, from the destruction of the shanty town to Jackie hanging from a double-decker bus by an umbrella to a brutal climactic fight in a huge department store.

If you've seen "Tango and Cash," you've seen one of this movie's signature stunts--the semi stopping short and flinging two thugs through its windshield (in "Police Story," it's a bus and it's three guys coming through the windshields). If you've seen "Rapid Fire" starring Brandon Lee, you've seen several of this movie's stunts "homaged." Likewise, a major sequence in "Bad Boys II" is lifted from this film.

One thing that stands out to me every time I watch this picture is how much glass gets broken in it. Jackie Chan must have had a rich uncle die or something and leave him a fortune in stunt glass, because if there's glass in this movie, someone's head is going through it. In the opening sequence, guys fly through winshields. When Jackie is attacked while driving the secretary to his apartment, both the car he's in and the car that attacks have windshields and windows broken. In a fight in an apartment, one guy is thrown through a window, another smashed through a glass table. In the final department store fight, people are constantly being thrown into showcases. At one point, a bad guy ducks two punches from Jackie that very precisely target two framed pictures on the wall, breaking their glass. In the final moments of the film, Jackie punches a henchman in the eyeglasses, breaking the lenses, knocks another guy through some glass shelves then throws the big boss through a display case. It should be titled "Jackie Chan Hates Glass," seriously.

Final trivial notes: even if you haven't seen this film, you may have seen its sequels without knowing it. "Police Story 3," co-starring Michelle Yeoh, was released in the U.S. as "Supercop," and Police Story 4 was released here as "Jackie Chan's First Strike."

Seriously, if you have five bucks to spare, go to Wal-Mart and grab this.

A Heroes Huh?

I just noticed that last post was my 400th. Woo-hoo. However, seeing as how my first post was a dummy placeholder to stash the graphics I was using on the blog, this is more properly my 400th post. So yay.

Back when I was buying comics regularly, the way I decided to drop a title from my list was if I noticed that I was regularly pushing that title to the bottom of my reading stack. If I got to the bottom of the stack and said, "Oh crap, I've still got to read Flash," I knew I was pretty much done with that title (then again, simple inertia kept me reading Flash for probably two years past when I really should have stopped).

I''m noticing the same thing with Hulu, now. When I log onto Hulu to watch my slate of Monday shows, I'm like, "Heroes? Nah, later. Terminator? Yeah, but Chuck first, then Terminator, then Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy if I still have time."

I felt bad for Jeph Loeb when I learned he'd been fired from Heroes, but frankly, even though this season is better than last, it's still disappointing. That's the risk you run with series that have a central mystery. If the mystery disappoints as it is revealed, the entire series deflates, especially if you haven't managed to craft characters the viewer wants to stick with for the long haul.

I can count the characters I really like watching on one hand (Hiro, Claire and HRG), with some others I'm fairly interested in (Daphne and Elle). Some characters I used to like have turned ridiculous and annoying (Nathan and Suresh), and I was tired of Sylar by the end of Season 1.

But the thing that's got me writing about Heroes now is the lastest Hiro subplot. Hiro's brain has been regressed to age 10, and his only way of finding out what's been going on in the last few months has been to read issues of 9th Wonders, the prophetic comic book drawn by the late Mystery Sock.

We first learned that the comic was prophetic in episode 2 of season 1. Hiro uses that issue to guide him for several episodes, then in episode 19, we see Isaac shipping the "last" issue to the printers via bike messenger, which it appears never gets published, because whenever characters reference the story in the future, they're looking at unpublished proofs, not the actual issue in question. And that issue tells how Hiro travels to the future, then comes back and stabs Sylar in the final episode of Season one.

But now, ten and eleven episodes into Season Freaking Three, 9th Wonders is still being published, still depicting events contemporaneous with the show's timeline. Who has taken up the mantle of prophetic cartoonist? Oh, these are issues that Isaac drew before he died, only now the inventory has finally run out. But there is a rumor that there is one final story out there, in a sketchbook Isaac gave away just before he died.

Remember when I was complaining about "Bolt" and moviemakers purposely getting their own job wrong for story convenience? That goes double for this show, with an exec producer who is a working comics professional resorting to this kind of ridiculous retcon to write characters out of a fix. Seriously, as much as I love Hiro, I wouldn't cry if they killed him off, along with Peter and Angela and Poppa Petrelli and Sylar and any-fucking-body else who can time-travel/predict the future. It was cool for a season, but now it's seriously hurting the show. We're all getting sick of that shit. Either dump the prophecies, or at least stop making the show completely revolve around them.

Big Audio Wednesday - More Doctor Doom

So I'm coming home from work, and as I come down the exit ramp, ahead of me I see a low-slung sports car with a naggingly familiar silhouette. Low and wide, it looks sort of like a Ferrari, only with two dark rectangular attachments on either side and something slender and white sticking up from the center. "No way," I thought, but as I got closer, turns out I was right.

It was a DeLorean, fully tricked out as a replica of Doc Brown's time machine, complete with Mr. Fusion. No bullshit, Jack. Coolest drive home from work I've had in a long time, let me tell you.

This week's old-time radio show is another Fantastic Four episode, starring Bill Murray among others. In this episode, the Fantastic Four are joined by Ant-Man as they battle the return of Doctor Doom.

I don't want to spoil the hilarity for you, but let me just say, this is probably the trippiest and silliest superhero adventure I think I've ever listened to, and that includes the juvenile Power Records adventures I listened to as a kid.

Game Over, Man! Game Over!

So Lost has been running this Alternate Reality Game for several months now, basically since the end of last season, with the basic conceit being that Dharma is recruiting new members. You would log onto their site and every couple of weeks or so, a new test would appear that you could take part in, and by the end of the testing, you would be assigned to some project that would get you ramped back up into the story of Lost leading into next season. My dossier said I was going to be assigned as a psychologist. Hah.

But it seems that the financial crisis hit the makers of Lost just as hard as it's hitting everybody else, because the big announcement from Dharma was, "go to dharmaspecialaccess.com and watch a video of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof saying, 'There's not going to be a cool game, just a few behind the scenes videos. Sorry."

So the game is no more. Boo. But Lost season 3 on DVD is coming next week. Yay. And the new season starts on the 21st (ETA: of January, that is). Double yay. I've been waiting for this a long time. Now I have to think seriously about getting an HD converter and DVR from Cox to watch it properly.

New Toy

Took advantage of the Black Friday sales to get a new TV. Now I've got one with a screen larger than a comic book. Broke it in last night by watching "Big Trouble in Little China." Good movie, although I'm reminded every time I see it that it's as much a screwball comedy as an action picture. The dialogue comes straight out of Howard Hawks pics of the 30's (except for the one time where Kurt Russell says "Fuck it").

When I first unpacked the TV and set it up, though, I paged through the digital onscreen guide to watch some test channels and noticed that there were four comic book superhero movies on simultaneously--"Superman: The Movie," "Elektra," "Batman Forever," and "Batman and Robin" (yes, two channels were playing Joel Schumacher's disintegration of the Warner Batman franchise simultaneously).

It's a measure of how superheroes have finally become integrated and accepted into the mainstream culture, not only that the movies were made, but that they draw enough of an audience to be scheduled even if they're awful.

Wow

Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State was a crazy-ass game this year. The battle of the non-existent defenses. Over 100 points total scoring, 61-41 in favor of Oklahoma. Now the BCS standings are a total roshambo, since Texas beat Oklahoma, but Texas Tech beat Texas and Oklahoma beat Tech. Leave it up to the computers to figure out who comes out on top among paper, scissors and rock.

Out of the Vault - The Searchers

Completely unrelated to the John Wayne movie of the same title, The Searchers was first published in 1995 by Caliber Comics. Written by Colin Clayton and Chris Dows and drawn by Art Wetherell, The Searchers brought together the real-life descendants of several fictional characters.

Yes, you read that right.

You see, in 1896, Charles Fort brought together several famous authors of science fiction and adventure novels--H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs--and opened a mysterious book in their presence. The book's magic gave each author vivid visions of the characters and events depicted in their novels.

Moments later, several proto-Men in Black took Fort and the book away. You can see them in the illustration at left, bearing patches reading "MIP." That doesn't stand for "Men In Plack," but for "Ministry of Incredible Phenomenon" (sic--this seems to be a Caliber thing--I just read another Caliber book published at roughly the same time, an awful X-Files rip-off titled Raven Chronicles, that features the exact same misuse of phenomenon/phenomena).

One hundred years later, the descendants of Phileas Fogg, Captain Nemo, Professor Moriarty, Professor Von Hardwigge (of Journey to the Center of the Earth), and Griffin the Invisible Man (all of whom were brought into existence by the book) team up for adventure.

The most basic outline of the premise calls to mind Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which brought together characters by the same authors depicted in this series. However, the execution couldn't be more different.

Virtually nothing happens in the first issue of The Searchers. We see the flashback to the historic meeting, then watch the various modern characters being summoned to their own meeting. But there's nothing very interesting about the characters as they're introduced. Kane Talgarth (Nemo's descendant) spends a page in a traffic jam, talking to his boss at a bank. Geneva Fogg spends a page in bed, refusing to answer her phone. John Hammett, Griffin's descendant, slaps around his coworkers at a mental institution, then reveals that his left wrist is invisible (wha?). That's as good as it gets in the first 30 pages.

In issue two, the mysterious man who summoned the various characters tells them they have to travel to the Arctic on a mysterious mission. What is it?

If I told you, you would not believe me. Best you see it with your own eyes.

Well, that's good enough for our heroes. Geneva Fogg busts out her amazing travel agent powers, whipping up a travel itinerary like that, then everyone travels to the Arctic just in time to be attacked by gunmen. Hammett the Partially Invisible Man grabs a couple of Uzi's from their attackers and single-handedly blows them all away (at least seven men, maybe as many as ten) without a scratch before attack helicopters appear overhead and blow him to smithereens. And incidentally, uncover the Nautilus buried under the ice.

At this point, we're 60 pages and almost six bucks in, and it feels as if the story has barely begun. Too many story threads out there, no interesting character conflicts, too many hanging threads (for instance, although Burroughs and Haggard were at the fateful meeting, none of their characters appears in the first two issues, or is even mentioned, aside from a brief mention of a cousin in Africa and a passing reference to Barsoom). There's a brief sequence that seems to be setting up a major villain in an Air Force pilot who beats up his wife, then steals a stealth bomber, but it comes out of left field and makes no sense on several levels, so that it was difficult to suspend disbelief and accept this guy as a legitimate menace.

I stopped buying after two issues, and Caliber stopped publishing after four, followed by a two-issue miniseries. Going back and rereading now, you know what? I don't miss it.

Thanksgiving Radio

Looks like Wednesdays for the foreseeable future will be Old Radio Wednesdays. Future weeks will feature more Fantastic Four, as well as possibly the very first appearance of Batman on the radio. But with Thanksgiving tomorrow, here's a special treat: an Very Special Thanksgiving Episode of Mel Blanc's radio show from 1946.

The scripted gags are a little weak, Blanc's character Zookie is a flimsy rehash of Porky Pig, and the schmaltz gets a little thick in places. But it's fun overall, and a good example of entertainment in a simpler time when thankfulness didn't have to be qualified.



Happy Thanksgiving.

Bolt and a New Die Hard

Saw "Bolt" yesterday. It's good. It's got your standard "you're special just because you're you" moral, but the gags are funny and the opening, which depicts Bolt's fictional TV show, is pretty damn awesome. I'd watch that show.

However, this is a pet peeve of mine. The central premise of the story is that Bolt doesn't know he's on a TV show, because they act out all the scenes and special effects in real time around him while keeping the cameras hidden. Which, as anyone who has actually worked on any type of film or TV show knows, is exactly not how you make any type of film except maybe Punk'd, but even then, they can't keep a straight face for more than a few minutes.

It doesn't bother me so much when movies get other things wrong. I don't expect civilians to get every aspect of military operations right, for instance. But making movies is their job, damn it. They should know better.

Oh well. There was also an awesome trailer that's got me really excited. It was "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," starring that guy from King of Queens. And it's basically "Die Hard" in a mall. Crooks take over a mall and hold the shoppers hostage, and it's up to mall cop Paul Blart to save the day. And yeah, it's not exactly cutting-edge to be making a parody of movie that's 20 years old, but it's one of my favorite movies, and the parody looks to be really funny.

Out of the Vault - Samuree

Yeah, it's been a while since I've delved into the vault, but now the scanner's warmed up, so let's start again. I had a hard time deciding which to do first among Plop and The Realm and Samuree, but Samuree eventually took top spot due to the squick factor that starts in the very first scene.

But let's back up for a second. I've said before that I was a DC reader in the early 70's. And one reason, besides the self-contained stories in most issues, was that DC had at least as many great artists working for them as Marvel did, guys like Nick Cardy and Jim Aparo and Murphy Anderson and Dick Giordano and most importantly, Neal Adams. Neal Adams was a legendary figure in 70's comics, known for drawing one of the most iconic Joker stories of all time, "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge," in Batman #251, and his work on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, as well as reviving the X-Men and illustrating the Avengers during the Kree-Skrull War over at Marvel.

But in the late 70's, Adams became disillusioned with the big 2 and started speaking out against work-for-hire and for creators' rights. And in the early 80's, he began producing his own creator-owned properties, first at Pacific Comics and then with his own publishing imprint, Continuity Comics.

Adams appears to have created and designed the properties for Continuity, then handed them off to other creators who emulated Adams's look as a house style. But as talented as Adams is with a pen, his character concepts were pretty sucky. During the 80's, Adams's prolific mind brought us such classics as Crazyman, ToyBoy, and Skateman.

Which brings us back to Samuree. Samuree was a generic hot female martial artist who had a brief run from 1987 to 1991 or thereabouts and then was revived in 1993 even more briefly before the great mid-90's market implosion killed her for good.

I bought the first three issues, because it was Adams, man, and even if the storytelling was crap, at least the books looked good. The first issue was typical of the series: gorgeous Adams cover, interior art by Mark Beachum with inks by Akin and Garvey and muddy colors by Liz Berube. Adams is credited with the story, and right off the bat, things feel icky.

The first page is a workout montage reminiscent of the opening of this episode of Miami Vice (featuring my high school classmate Suzy Amis), followed by this scene where a 16-year-old Samuree blatantly throws herself at an older man (as always, you can click the images for a larger version). The dialogue is not only crap ("Can you hear myself?"), but it manages to be suggestive without being the slightest bit erotic ("My body is...used" - Adams loves him some ellipses, BTW). It seems as if this guy is going to be a significant member of the supporting cast, but he barely appears in the first three issues.

Spotting a newspaper article about a hostage situation in New York, Samuree rushes to the Museum of Natural History, where she disables a few SWAT team members before running into the Revengers (Armor, Silver Streak, and Megalith) who are also trying to free the hostages. After several pages of fighting and discussion (during which we're told over and over that the slightest noise could cost all the hostages their lives), the four heroes band together and kick the terrorists' butts. However, before they can talk to any of the hostages, mysterious figures appear at a skylight, throwing smoke bombs and abducting three of the hostages--Silver Streak's father, a scientist hunted by Samuree, and Tom Savini.

Yes, that Tom Savini.

Subsequent issues don't get any better. Elliot Maggin (70's comics fixture who in his DC days not only rocked the pretentious middle initial but added the even more pretentious exclamation point--Elliot S! Maggin) took over the writing, but the dialogue stayed dumb and the characterizations wooden. The layouts tried too hard to be dynamic and were often confusing, the action sometimes hard to decipher under muddy overcoloring. The story moved in fits and starts, with backstory thrown in so randomly that it's not apparent whether the pages in issue #2 are printed in order or not.

On the plus side, I guess, Samuree did feature about 80% more cameltoe than your average comic. So there is that.

Fantastic Four on the Radio

So last week, I was listening to a ton of old Superman radio episodes from 1945, looking for the first radio appearance of Batman (which I may have found, but I'm not sure). I figured it would be a good tie-in to my recent post on "The Brave and the Bold."

But then I stumbled onto these Fantastic Four episodes from the mid-70's, and had to do this first. These make the Blue Beetle episode I posted a while back sound positively lavish. Cheap classic radio shows featured sound effects usually performed by a live prop man, with a single organ for music.

The Fantastic Four series featured a canned theme song and goofy scripts based closely on the original early issues of the comic, slightly updated in places (Jonny Storm admires a stereo with Dolby in one episode, for instance). Voice acting was mediocre, and is mainly noteworthy for a young Bill Murray sleepwalking his way through the role of the Human Torch. Sound effects are limited to a bunch of theremin farts.

So, in honor of my recent post about the first appearance of Doctor Doom, here is the radio version of that story. Let Stan Lee transport your imagination through Marvel magic and dull narration. Listen to the psychedelic wonder of the Fantastic Four's talking signal flare ("four..."). Thrill to the adventures of the Fantastic Three as they travel through time on an urgent mission. Quiver with delight as the Human Torch utters the immortal line, "This beverage really quenches my thirst," with complete conviction. Tremble with fear as Doctor Doom does a cross-promotional deal with H.P. Lovecraft by summoning monsters from Carcosa.

This, my friends, is the best of the early 60's crossed with the worst of the mid-70's, brought to you through the modern future miracle of the Internets. Click the widget to listen.

Another Food Hack

I love candy apples, the ones you get at the fair on a stick covered with a hard shell of cinnamon candy. But at the store, the only candy apple kits require you to prepare the coating in a pot on a stove to make a batch of like 10 apples. It's too much work, and too much of a hassle to store the apples after, plus often I only want a small taste, not a whole apple.

So here's my quick and easy candy apple hack.

Quarter and core an apple. Now cut an oblong trench in each apple section you feel like preparing (you can save the rest in the fridge for later; this is a scalable hack). In each trench, stand up a coin of cinnamon hard candy. I then heat the apple section in my toaster oven at about 350 until the candy starts to melt and run down the sides.

Let cool and eat.

Awesome taste, super easy to fix, complete portion control. The only kinks I'm still trying to work out are how to cut the trenches to allow maximum candy melt without losing it down the sides as waste, and how long to let it cool so I don't burn my mouth, but the candy doesn't reharden too much. But those are easy to tinker with.

Food Hacking

Since I've rejoined the bachelor life, I've started making a lot more of my own meals (partly for economic reasons, partly because I don't live as close to eating places now as I did before). Back when I first got engaged, I decided to learn how to cook, at least a little, and discovered I enjoyed it.

But what I do now, you couldn't really call cooking. I don't make things from scratch; I buy prepackaged ingredients, then "enhance" them. It's more like food hacking.

For instance, ramen. Back in college, I would buy a packet of ramen and fix it according to the instructions on the label. Bland and boring. But when I was in Korea, I noticed that they use ramen like the stone in stone soup. Cook the ramen, then add all kinds of things to it to make it more nutritious and more palatable.

So here's my current take on ramen, although I reserve the right to play with stuff with every new batch. I start with a basic package of ramen and sliced hot links or sausage or hot dogs (depending on how broke I am) for protein. But when I'm boiling the water, I add a splash of wine (usually dry sherry, though I've experimented with red as well) and a sprinkle of fresh rosemary (maybe a half-teaspoon or so). The ramen is so salty that this adds only the slightest undertone of flavor, but it makes the house smell wonderful. I boil the noodles and hot dogs, then stir in the flavor packet and take it to the bowl. Once it's in the bowl, I add shredded cheese and a splash of bitters (I could do this in the pot, but the cheese makes a sticky mess, and it's easier to only clean it out of one container).

I used to add egg, also, but I haven't bought eggs in a long time. I've got some frozen shrimp I could try, and I could add fresh vegetables, but that starts to sound too much like cooking. What I'm doing now is quick and convenient, but has more flavor and depth than simply eating what comes out of the pack. That's food hacking.

Any easy food hacks you'd like to share?

Music Bleg

I'm trying to get into the groove of writing again. I want some music to write by, but the music I have isn't really suitable. I want something instrumental, like a movie soundtrack, but not necessarily orchestral. Something heroic, but with a fun edge. Maybe something like the soundtrack to "The Incredibles," but not that, because if it's too familiar, I'll just start picturing that instead of writing my own stuff.

Speaking of "The Incredibles," my absolute favorite musical moment in that movie (maybe even my favorite moment overall) is during the Hundred Mile Dash. Dash is tearing through the forest, trying to escape from the flying saucers, when he sees that he's headed right at a lake and closes his eyes. The crashing music goes almost completely silent, except for a little xylophone, as Dash opens his eyes and discovers he's running on the surface of the water. Then he gives this awesome little laugh and accelerates as the music swoops back in, changing from tense and frantic to jaunty and swinging, baby, which almost makes up for the fact that it's the freaking Perry Mason theme (well, not exactly, but close).

That's what I want, but not that, if you know what I mean.