Wednesday, October 16, 2024
The Spider: Corpse Cargo (1933)
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Xum's Who in Print
Xum's Who is a fan expansion of the DC Who's Who by Xum Yukinori, artist, podcaster, and comics fan, who unfortunately passed away in 2019. His son Isamu completed some of Xum's unfinished entries and got them all together for a limited print run. They are gorgeous dives into forgotten corners of the Pre-Crisis DCU.
For instance, Volume I gives entries to the Earth-One Superman and Wonder Woman, characters left out previously because of the erasure of their universe.
Characters deemed too minor for the official run like the Mikaal Tomas Starman, the Teen Titan character Golden Eagle, Lady Cop, and the Batgirl villain Lady Viper get their due. There are also characters whose exclusion from the original run seems odd (Giganta) and some whose exclusion points to the agenda behind the original run's compilation (Sugar & Spike).
I'm still waiting for someone to do an entry for the Black Eagle and his squadron of Tuskegee airmen but despite that lack, Xum's Who is a great thing to have in print.
Thursday, October 3, 2024
Wandering The Wild Wild West
For a long time, the only book on The Wild Wild West was Susan Kesler's book which is out of print. McFarland Books and author Don Presnell do their part to fill that gap with Wandering The Wild Wild West: A Critical Analysis of the CBS Television Series.
Presnell's book lacks the first-hand production detail and photos which made Kesler's book so great, but he does offer a solid review of all the episodes and does highlight the historical context of some episodes. He also offers up some fun trivia in infographic format.
I think it's a good addition to the library of any Wild Wild West fan, and for a fan without a copy of Kesler's book, it's essential.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Micronauts Chronology Conundrum
Anticipating receiving the copy of the Micronauts: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 2 I preordered soon, I finally got back around to revisiting the contents of the first Micronauts omnibus--stories I haven't re-read in twenty years or more.
I noticed something in those first few issues that I either didn't notice before or had forgotten: the timeline of Baron Karza's rise to power is confusing.
Micronauts #1 (January 1979) by Mantlo and Golden and Rubenstein, opens with the scions of Homeworld's royal family, Prince Argon and Princess Mari being pursued and captured by the forces of the despotic Baron Karza. We are told that the king and queen have been killed, but given their kids are still on the run, every suggestion is that this is a recent event. Karza's coup/revolt appears to be a relatively new thing, though certainly it has been going on long enough he has significant forces at his command and alien allies (the Acroyear) from elsewhere in the Microverse.
Next, we see Arcturus Rann return to Homeworld has his 1000 years long voyage of exploration--and quickly get captured himself. We soon find out that after Rann left on his trip, warp drive was discovered, and the species of the Microverse were connect while he was in flight. "Within six months" of the advent of warp drive (whenever that was) the Microverse was at war thanks to Karza. Rann has heard of Karza. He was his tutor 1000 years ago!
While the information here is unclear, it would suggest at least that Karza's revolt isn't brand new. Perhaps it was centuries after Rann left that warp drive was invented, but whenever it was Karza was in position to launch a war of conquest against other worlds.
Finally, the protagonists of our series are all united in the arena, where Karza and his ally, the Acroyear ruler Shaitan are going to watch their struggles from a position of honor. Shaitan says to Karza:
"It's been almost 24 xats since your insurrection, Karza, and still you enjoy the unswerving loyalty of the rabble!"
We're given no idea how long a xat is, but clearly 24 of them is sufficient time that Shaitan seems surprised the people still support Karza, so I don't think "hours" or "days' would be a good translation.
We also find out Dallah and Sepsis who we've heard people swear by before were Rann's parents. They were deified by the resistance after they were martyred for defying Karza "almost 1000 years ago."
Where does all this leave us?
- Almost 1000 years ago, Karza killed the rulers (presumably) of Homeworld Dallah and Sepsis in the Body Banks.
- Either that or some other event marks the beginning of his insurrection "24 xats" before the present.
- In the present, he has only recently killed the King and Queen of Homeworld (who aren't Dallah and Sepsis), and only at the start of this story manages to capture their children and their entourage.
We're given contradictory clues that Karza somehow both began his coup a long time ago, yet only recently completely it, and we have two royal families with an unclear relationship.
Perhaps there is further information in later stories that would clear this up. Certainly, I can think of a backstory that would make sense of it all, but I do wonder what Mantlo intended?
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
A Warlord Omnibus at Last?
It's been reported on Mike Grell's website that two volumes of a Mike Grell's The Warlord Omnibus is coming in 2025. What will be in them? Well, certainly First Issue Special #8, Warlord volume 1 issues #1-71 (most of the issues after 52 were either scripted or ghost written by Sharon Grell, but Mike gets sole credit in the issues), Warlord Annual #1, and the 1992 limited series issues #1-6.
The 2006 reboot had nothing to do with Grell's series and is best forgotten. The 16 issues of the 2009 series were written by Grell (and sometimes drawn by him), so hopefully they'll will be in the 2nd omnibus. There's also a guest appearance in Green Arrow (1988) #27-28 by Grell and Jurgens that hopefully gets included.
I wish the full run of the original series was getting collected. Even though the Grell issues are my favorite, I started reading Warlord in the Burkett era/Jurgens era, so I have some nostalgia for that stuff too. Still, if having it relegated to apocrypha is how it must be to get Grell's Travis Morgan saga in omnibus format, then so be it.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
10 Great Action/Adventure Cartoon Theme Songs
Jonny Quest (1964)
Trey: This fast-paced, Space Age jazzy number composed by Hoyt Curtin really says action and speaks strongly of the era when it was recorded. According to Curtin in a 1999 interview, the band used for the sessions was a jazz ensemble with four trumpets, six trombones, five woodwind doublers, and a five-man rhythm section including percussion. It stands among the greatest theme songs of all time, period.
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
The Fargo Series by John Benteen
Over the summer, I decided to check out the men's adventure paperback series Fargo by John Benteen after discovering it was cheap on Kindle. I became aware of the series thanks to the upcoming graphic novel adaptation, Fargo: Hell on Wheels, by Howard Chaykin.
Amazon bills the series as a Westerns, and I suppose some of them are, in the same way The Professionals (1966) or Fist Full of Dynamite (aka Duck You Sucker) (1972) or other adventure films in Western locales are considered Westerns. They take place in the early 20th Century (1912-1915 in the ones I've read so far) and involve imagery and action out of Westerns (tough men in wild country on horseback with guns), but they involve a range of locales more again to traditional adventure pulp. They range to the jungles of the Philippines and Panama, as well as the more traditional Mexican desert or Yukon.
I've read reviews that refer to Fargo as sort of a "Western Conan." I can see what they mean in that Fargo is tough as hell, irresistible to women (apparently due to sheer manliness, as he is described as unhandsome and hardly has a scintillating personality), and good at most everything in his warrior and outdoorsman purview. However, Benteen's attention to detail regarding gear and preparation for obstacles his hero faces, and his penchant for pitting Fargo against enemies that appear to be a match for him, serve to make the series feel more grounded and realistic. Only slightly pulpy instead of completely so.
Benteen's prose is lean in the mid-Century way, not pulp purple. His action and dialog are punchy and mostly effective but without any lyricism or descriptive vistas despite their natural locales. Unfortunately, but expected given their genre and when they were written, they carry a streak of misogyny, some of the volumes moreso that others. There is some cultural and racial insensitivity lurking in their too, but in the volumes, I have read the narrative is generally not unsympathetic to both Native Americans and Latinos, though Fargo does exhibit some ill-feeling toward the Moro, who he fought in the Philippines.
They're all quick reads (under 200 pages) and fast-paced. So far I've read:
- Fargo (vol 1): Set in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution, Fargo is hired to rescue an engineer (and his mine's haul of silver) from deep inside that war torn and escape bandits with revolutionary pretensions.
- Panama Gold (vol 2): A prequel set in 1912. Fargo is asked by Teddy Roosevelt himself to investigate and thwart an attempt to foreign powers to use a mercenary army to sabotage the nearly completed Panama Canal.
- Alaska Steel (vol 3) In 1914, Fargo is hired by a movie starlet to find her wayward husband so he can claim his oil money inheritance. The problem is, he's disappeared in the Yukon where he was seeking his fortune as a prospector.
- Apache Raiders (vol 4) Fargo is back in Mexico in 1915, smuggling guns for Pancho Villa. He encounters a "lost" tribe of Apaches (a group that never got sent off to Florida) whose leader is playing a general Indian uprising.
- Massacre River (vol 5) Perhaps the pulpiest of the one's I have read, Fargo is in the Philippines on a job to escort the daughter of a Chinese businessman to her arranged marriage. If Filipino insurgents weren't enough trouble, there is a family of wealthy, Confederate Lost Cause holdouts, looking to create a new empire and kicking the U.S. out.