Cover Cavalcade

 MARCH IS ANTHROPOMORPHIC BEARS MONTH!

This 1962 cover is tentatively credited to Pete Alvarado.

Fridays' Favorite OTR

 The Whistler: "Murder has a Signature" 1/15/45

Bitterness, deceit and greed forge a chain of consequences that eventually leads to murder.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The City of Lights Can Be Pretty Darn Dark

 

1935's Charlie Chan in Paris, starring Warner Oland as Chan, is a strong entry in the series. It's a good, solid mystery with an excellent climax.

Getting to that climax is a lot of fun. Charlie arrives in Paris, ostensibly on vacation but in reality investigating the source of forged bonds. He immediately receives a death threat.

Charlie shrugs this off and soon shrugs off an overt attempt on his life. Charlie is soft-spoken and invariably polite, but he has never scared easily. 

He's soon joined by his son Lee (Keye Luke), which adds in the excellent father-son chemistry that made the Oland films the best in the series. And, though Lee is always comic relief to a degree, he's also a real assett in the investigation, following a suspect and making astute obeservations. I kind of wish there had been a scene in which Lee was present when someone tries to off his dad. Other movies in the series show us that you simply do NOT threaten Charlie Chan when Lee is around. It will not end well for you. That's always fun (and a little touching) to see.

Charlie accompanies some friends to a nightclub soon after arriving in Paris, but his real reason for doing so is to meet up with a dancer at the club. She's been doing undercover work for Chan. But she's murdered before she can tell him anything significant.

There's another murder after that, with a friend of Charlie's being arrested for it. But Charlie knows she's innocent and knows this murder also involves the counterfeit bonds. The crimes are being committed by a scruffy begger. It's not hard for us to guess that the begger persona is a disguise, but each of the likely suspects has an alibi for at least one of the murders.

Charlie eventually puts it all together. Accompanied by a friend, he eventually follows the trail into the sewers of Paris, where a confrontation with the killer is inevitable. Its a suspenseful and satisfying conclusion to the mystery.

The Charlie Chan movies are now on YouTube. I don't know the legal situation, so I can't promise the link below will always be there, but here's a good quality print of the movie:

War Between Worlds, Part 1

 

cover art by Gil Kane

Fantastic Four #160 (July 1975), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema, starts with a bang. Or rather a series of bangs, as the interdimensional tyrant Akron the Magnificent chases the Thing down a New York street, hurling thunderbolts at the hero.

This by itself isn't all that unusual. The Fantastic Four do lead active lives. What would strike a regular reader of the FF as odd is that the Thing is in a panic. Ben Grimm, by golly, does NOT panic!

He also doesn't recognize his girlfriend Alicia when she arrives on the scene. 

Well, the explanation is that this Thing is NOT Ben. When he's defeated by Akron and the two disappear, Alicia brings a scrap of this Thing's clothing to the Baxter Building, where she finds Ben safe and sound. 

While Reed decides to look up information on Akron, Ben plays a hunch. He calls the Great Refuge and asks to borrow Lockjaw, who instantly teleports to the Baxter Building. Ben has him sniff the clothing scrap and they zap off on the trail.

There's a brief but fun gag in which Lockjaw first takes them to a bizarre dimension where the big dog wants to chase interdimensional "jackrabbits," but Ben gets him back on track. They end up in an alternate Earth outside a castle.

Inside that castle, Ben discovers that Earth's Ben (who is still human) and that Earth's Sue (who is married to Ben) being menaced by robot monsters. Ben destroys these, though a final tussle with a Frankenstein's Monster robot is a tough one.

This is a dimension in which Reed and Ben were the only ones in the spaceship when it was hit by cosmic rays. Reed became the Thing. Ben got both stretching and flame powers, but eventually lost these. It's Ben in this reality who married Sue.

Alt. Ben and Alt. Sue were here to talk Alt. Reed to stop isolating himself in the castle, where he's been working on robotics. But Alt. Reed is missing. Somehow, he ended up on the mainstream Marvel Earth being pursued by Akron. Where he is now is anybody's guess.

So there's a mystery to solve. In fact, that mystery might be even more convoluted. Back on regular Marvel Earth, Reed has announced that the Fantastic Four Inc, funded by Reed's patent, is losing money. Reed has decided to sell out to a corporation, though he's assured that the FF will still control their day-to-day activities.

This, at first, seems to be a separate plot thread from Ben's adventure. But the name of the corporation buying out the FF is very similar to a metal sign the wall of Alt. Reed's lab. The logo is exactly the same. It seems that someone is attempting an interdimensional hostile corporate take-over.

It's a strong start to the story arc, giving us plenty of action while still setting up an intriguing mystery. Buscema's art is great, complimenting the story perfectly. Next week, we'll find out what happens next.

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

Another Joe Kubert cover, this one from 1969.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Philip Marlowe: "The Deep Shadow" 3/21/50

"This time, a bride-to-be, a corpse in a plush bungalow and a Southern drawl behind a gun all had one thing in common--they moved through the same deep shadow!"

Click HERE to listen or download.

Seeing it Through

 

cover art by A.L. Ripley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #177

The second work of prose fiction (I'll be skipping a few poems in the issue) in the January 10, 1926 issue of Adventure is the short story "Seeing it Through," by Jack Rendal. Rendel was a fairly regular contributer to Adventure from 1926-1928 (7 articles and 4 short stories), but I can't find any credits for him after that. That's too bad, because this story, at least, is excellent.

A tuberculosis-ridden man named Markham has raised his two sons atop a mesa in the Colorado desert, raising date trees he imported from Africa. Between this and selling an occasional painting done by Markham, they manage to eek out a living. Water for the date trees is brought in from a nearby spring a pipe.

There was once a mother in the picture, but she gave up on their desolute and hard life years ago. The boys (Hugh, age 19 and Hale, age 16) still have hopes of one day having enough money to find her.

This is a short story, so its remarkable how quickly and without effort Rendel establishes the near-barren desert setting and the strong personality of Hale, the younger brother through whose eyes we experience the tale. With very few words, Rendel tells us all we need to know and established the story's desolute atmosphere. It's good writing that draws you into the tale.

Anyway, an obviously corrupt lawman steps into the picture and soon the water supply to the mesa is cut off. After that, Hugh gives the lawman reason to want revenge and Hale finds himself in a position to either betray his brother to save himself or save Hugh and possibly get himself killed.

It's a good story, which you can read HERE. The next story we come to will be one of Harold Lamb's "Khlit the Cossack" tales. And when you start to read a Khlit story, the only appropriate thought going through your head should be: "This is going to be awesome!"

Every Respectable Lost World Includes Man-Eating Plants!

cover artist uncredited

Gee whiz, you would think that hungry dinosaurs and violent cavemen would be trouble enough for Turok and Andar! Now, they gotta deal with carnivorous plants?

Well, to be fair, carnivorous plants are a standard part of most prehistoric-themed Lost Worlds. So it would be expected the two Indians would run into some eventually.

This all takes place in Turok Son of Stone #26 (December 1961-January 1962), in a story written by the prolific Paul S. Newman and drawn by Giovanni Ticci. (Ticci worked in Alberto Giolitti's studio and Giolitti did the inks. Ticci always does an excellent job of emulating Giolitti's style--I can rarely tell them apart.)

Turok and Andar encounter the plants while dodging an angry styracosaurus. The dinosaur gets caught in the plant's tentacles. It seems that nothing can escape the tentacles.

Except the next day, they notice that the dinosaur is gone--no remains, no bones, no nothin'. They soon discover a nearby tribe that has a secret powder able to open up the plants. The cavemen used this to get the styracosaurus's meat. 

Though Turok considers the meat his, its not worth going to war over. Andar, though, thinks the secret powder would be useful. So that night, he sneaks back to the tribe to steal some. 

Andar, here, acts foolishly. But he's young and an occasional foolish decision is a legitmate part of his character. And when he's discovered, it's just bad luck and not another stupid mistake.

Andar makes a break for it, but gets caught by a plant. Okay, maybe he is a little too stupid in this story.

Turok finds him and realizes they now really need the secret powder. He negotiates the the cavemen and, after saving them from a charging herd of iganodons, they tell him where to find the powder. They don't, though, tell him about the safe path. 

The unsafe way involves scaling a cliff and dealing with a flock of hungry pterodactyls. Fortunately, poison arrows continue to be the rock that smashes dinosaur scissors.

Turok frees Andar and, for bonus points, lures a hungry carnosaur into the plants unaffected by the powder. 

It is a fun story. As was true of nearly all of Newman's best Turok stories, it involves Turok using his head as well as his bow to triumph. Perhaps Andar does act a little too dumb this time around. But he is indeed young. I, of course, was a perfect little angel growing up, but who among the rest of you didn't occasionally act foolishly when you were a kid?

Next week, we'll visit again with the Fantastic Four for the beginning of a 4-part story arc.
 

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

From 1970: A Joe Kubert cover

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Sherlock Holmes: "Tell-Tale Pigeon Feathers" 1/21/46

The story starts in an unusual way, with Mrs. Hudson going to Mycroft rather than Sherlock with a problem. But Sherlock is soon involved in a case in which pigeon feathers may be the clue that keeps Dr. Watson out of jail.

Click HERE to listen or download.