Holiday Specials Raise Deep Questions

 My wife and I watch the various traditional holiday specials each year, beginning with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at Halloween. These specials often raise deep philosophical questions.

I don't claim to be the first person to ask these questions. Many have been out there for many years and I have simply jumped aboard the Deep Question Bandwagon.

For instance, many have wondered if, at the end of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, when Snoopy and Woodstock sit down for a turkey dinner--does this Woodstock some sort of cannibal?

Jumping to another holiday classic, this meme I found reminds us all that the fact that Yukon Cornelius never spun off from Rudolph into his own special. Or even his own series. The guy was awesome. This might just be the greatest crime ever committed against Western civilization. 

Of course, the debate about whether Frosty the Snowman actually owns the hat that brings him to life has been endless. One lawyer (and I apologize that I can no longer find the original source of this quote) writes: 

" The plot of Frosty the Snowman starts when the hat blows onto Frosty's head, making him alive. The Magician see's this and he takes the hat after it blows off of Frosty's head saying "If that hat is magic I want it back" to which the girl says "But it's not yours anymore, you threw it away" But he didn't throw the hat in the garbage he threw it at the garbage and then went to retrieve the hat meaning he wanted the hat back but Karen claims he abandoned the hat. The law of Abandoned property states "Abandoned property is something that the owner has knowingly discarded because she no longer wants it...Generally, the finder is permitted to keep abandoned property. But because the owner loses all rights in abandoned property, a court never presumes abandonment. The finder must prove that the owner intended to relinquish all rights." Lost property is different " Lost property is something accidentally given up...Usually, the finder of lost property has rights superior to all the world except the true owner. If the true owner comes forward, he gets his property back." this is already enough because 1) he didn't abandon it and 2) if he did abandon it Karen would have to find evidence that he did abandon it and all is fine until the bunny steals the hat from the Magician at the Townsquare and runs back to the kids with the hat on his head giving it to Karen and Karen, sees the bunny with the hat and she doesn't even hesitate to take the hat off the bunny's head to make Frosty alive again (is he even alive in the first place)."

But there's one question that I believe no one had raised before. Remember Hocus-Pocus the rabbit from Frosty? 

At one point, Hocus Pocus has to tell the other woodland animals to build a fire to keep the little girl Karen warm.

Later, when Santa Claus shows up, Hocus Pocus updates him on the situation and the narrator tells us that "Naturally, Santa spoke fluent Rabbit."

But that line implies that Rabbits have their own specific language, which in turn implies each species of animal has ITS own language

So how did Hocus Pocus tell the other animals they needed a fire? If each species has its own language, how did H.P. communicate with them? Or is Hocus Pocus a multi-animal linguist? If so, when did he pick up that particular skill?

The Frosty the Snowman universe, as well as the Holiday Special multi-verse in general, is filled with unplumbed mysteries.

Defending the Fort

 

cover artist unknown

Four Color #513 (November 1953) is the second of Ben Bowie's half-dozen appearances in that magazine appearances in that magazine prior to the 18th-Century trapper getting his own series.

The first story in this issue was written by Paul S. Newman, which accounts for its fast pace and expert story construction. The art is by Bill Overgard.

The story--"The Hostiles"--is centered around a remote fort threatened by the Hurons. It's constructed as a series of sort of mini-adventures all keyed on the siege of the fort. Each incident adds to the overall tension before the last adventure brings the story to a conclusion.

Mini-adventure #1: The Hurons steal the fort's horses. Ben and his apprentice Jim follow and steal the horses back. This is followed by Ben and Jim leaving the fort to find the men originally sent after the horses, leading them back to the fort before they get jumped by the Hurons.

Mini-adventure #2: Two ladies unwisely take a canoe ride. Zeke and Nakah, coming to the fort to join Ben, save them from a Huron war party.

Soon, the fort is besieged by the Hurons. This leads to the next two mini-adventures--dealing with an Indian sharpshooter in a tall tree who can see into the fort, then saving a building set aflame with fire arrows. 

Finally, Ben tunnels out of the fort at night to scout the Huron position, then leads a group of men out through the tunnel to attack. The Hurons are captured and the fort is saved.

It's just a standard frontier adventure, not breaking any new ground. But Newman's great writing and Overgard's lively art make it very entertaining and reinforce my idea that Ben Bowie is one of the most consistently entertaining comic books of all time. 

Read it yourself online HERE. 

Next week, we'll take a look at the second story from this issue. 

Booktube: The Greatest Book Ever Written

 

Cover Cavalcade

 DECEMBER IS WALTER BAUMHOFER MONTH!

This cover is from 1934.

Booktube video: My First Encounter with the Great Korak Time Paradox!

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Night Beat: "Bomb on the Denver Plane" 9/4/52

Someone calls Randy with a tip that someone has planted a bomb aboard a passenger plane. The plane is evacuated before it blows up--leaving a piece of leather as the only clue to the bomber's identity. 

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Thanksgiving break

 

cover art by Irving Tripp

No Wednesday or Thursday posts this week, since blog hits traditionally drop during a big holiday. We'll be back next week. 

Cover Cavalcade

 NOVEMBER IS HUCKLEBERRY HOUND MONTH!!

Huckleberry Hound covers were a lonely business--this one is also uncredited. It's from 1968.

My Small, but still Cool, Sherlock Holmes collection

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Lone Ranger: "Train Wreck" 4/30/43

Sabotaging a train turns out to be the first step in a villain swindling another man out of a gold mine. But he doesn't count on the Lone Ranger looking into the matter.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

A Fencing Master who Isn't Quite a Fencing Master

 

cover at by Charles E Chambers

cover art by Sid Rosenbaum

"The Open Door," says the Castillian proverb, "will tempt a saint," which is only the Spanish way of saying that opportunity makes the thief."

Rafael Sabatini nearly always wrote great opening sentences. This one is from the short story "The Open Door," first published in the July 1935 issue of Redbook (which has the least swashbuckler-looking cover in the history of magazines, but what the hey). It was later republished in the December 1951 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. This was about a year after Sabatini's death, reprinted as a tribute to him.

The main character--a mediocre fencing master named Florimond--has set up a fencing school, claiming to be the student of the famous fencing master Guillaume Danet. But he loses most of his student quickly, as most of them quickly realize that Florimond is neither a good fencer nor a good teacher of fencing.

Florimond's Open Door to temptation comes when he ends up ticking off a traveler staying at the local inn. A duel is arranged for the next morning. But when the traveler learns the Florimond is supposedly a fencing master, he visits Florimond in the middle of the night and offers a bribe to be let out of the duel.

Florimond realizes he has stumbled upon a method to bring in a regular income, as long as he's not greedy and carefully picks his targets for luring into duels the victim will then pay money to get out of. For a time, his racket goes smoothly.

But of course he eventually gets greedy and challenges the wrong person to a duel. This leads to a plot twist that many readers will THINK they see coming, only for a second plot twist to turn this on its head. It's a great ending that highlights Sabatini's cynical take on artificial "Code of Honor" social mores.

It is a great story. You can read it yourself HERE. 

It Makes Perfect Sense to Me!!!!

 

cover art by Curt Swan

Action Comics #389 (June 1970), written by Leo Dorfman and Curt Swan, is a product of the then-fading Silver Age of Comics, taking a silly premise and treating that premise seriously.

And I, by golly, am fine with that. I think you can argue that Superman's plan to prevent an alien invasion in this story makes perfect sense in a Comic Book Universe.

What is that plan? Well, Superman announces that he's tired of the superhero business and is going to try his hands at sports. He tries out for baseball, hitting a ball into orbit and otherwise easily showing up the pro players. But a kid manages to strike him out and Superman peevishly throws the ball into orbit as well. He then says that baseball isn't for him and flies away.

He keeps trying other sports, each time knocking a ball or bag into orbit before he apparently gets bored with the sport or is told it is too dangerous to let him participate.

What's going on here? Well, it turns out there's an alien ship in orbit around Earth, getting ready to take atmosphere samples. If the air proves good for the aliens, then they are going to invade.

Superman had secretly filled every item he knocked into orbit with a mutation gas, designed only to affect life from the alien homeworld. All the sports items are now stuck on the end of the ship's probes, so it collects the gas rather than atmosphere samples.

That baseball with which the kid strikes out Superman was full of gas, but has a small rip. Not wanting to take a chance on the gas being harmful to Earth, he tossed that ball away as well.

So the ship flies to the alien homeworld and, when the aliens test the samples, they find out Earth's "atmosphere" would mutate them into horrible monsters. They call off the invasion.

I love Superman's plan. Yes, it is an example of Silver Age goofiness (which I consider a strength to the story), but it really does make sense. I've made a list:

1. Superman would use violence only as a last resort. This is a non-violent solution.

2. He could have threatened the aliens. ("I'm Superman and this is the Justice League. You don't stand a chance.") But the aliens might have a powerful armada and try anyway. Even if they are defeated, people could get hurt.

3. Why didn't he just fill bladders full of the mutation gas and attach them to the ship's probes? Thus saving him from having gone through the whole trying-out-for-sports rigamarole? Well, because... because... SHUT UP! The plan makes perfect sense, I tell you! So just shut up!

Well, maybe it doesn't make complete sense. But the goofy charm of the Silver Age (quickly dying away by the 1970s and probably finished off when Gwen Stacy died in 1973) cannot be denied. This is simply a fun story.

Next week, we'll pay a visit to Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men. 

Recommended World War 2 Novels

 

My Booktube channel

My impeccable taste in books really is the only hope for Western Civilization.

Cover Cavalcade

 NOVEMBER IS HUCKLEBERRY HOUND MONTH!

 Here's another uncredited cover--this one from 1967.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 You Are There: "The Battle of Hastings" 6/6/48

Other than inserting a fictional meeting between William and Harold just before the battle begins, this episode gives us a reasonably accurate account of the battle itself. I especially enjoy the news crew joining in William's troops in briefly (and mistakenly) believing that William had been killed and reporting this on the air.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Gun Fury (1953)

 

Gun Fury, made in 1953, is a solid, entertaining Western. Expertly directed by Raoul Walsh, it tells the story of a man (Rock Hudson) pursing the outlaws who have taken his gal.

Ben Warren is taking Jennifer (Donna Reed) to his California ranch to marry her and pretty much ignore the rest of the world while he works his land. A veteran of the Civil War, he's tired of killing and just wants to be left alone with his soon-to-be wife.

But the Slayton Gang has other plans. Slayton (Philip Carey) is a very, very unreconstructed Southerner. He and his partner Jess Burgess have a sort-of Jesse and Frank James vibe going on--bitter from the war and striking back at society by becoming outlaws.

Well, this goes for Slayton. Jess (Leo Gordon) is less brutal in his outlook. When a stagecoach robbery results in Jennifer being taken hostage, Jess insists the girl not be harmed and be left behind. This results in JESS being left behind, tied to a post for the vultures to eventually feast upon.

Warren saves Jess and the two team up. Soon, they are joined by an Indian named Johash, who wants vengeance for a sister than Slayton killed. 

So a good guy, a bad guy and a vengeful Indian take up the pursuit of Slayton and his gang as the outlaws ride for the Mexican border. Eventually, they are joined by a Mexican woman whom Slayton spurned.

Raoul Walsh always makes a movie look great. Gun Fury was originally released in 3D, so there's a few camera shots you can tell were there just for the 3D effect, but its not enough to be a distraction. 

And the story is great. There's tension involving the pursuit, while some members of Slayton's gang begin to wonder why Slayton is so determined to slow them down by bringing the woman along. And we gradually realized the Slayton has taken up permanent residence in Crazy Town--convinced that he and Jennifer can use stolen gold to recreate a Antebellum South home in Mexico and live as if the South did indeed rise again. There are shootouts, hostage negotiations, betrayals and some nifty sniper work by Johash.

Slayton's gang includes characters played by Lee Marvin (not yet a star) and Neville Brand. Along with Leo Gordon, that makes this movie a haven for tough guy character actors. Another blogger I ran across while researching this film joked "Where was Jack Elam when they cast this film?" I would add Lee Van Cleef to that list. But, heck, adding Elam and Van Cleef to the movie might have lead to Tough Guy Overload. Marvin and Brand were hard-core combat vets in real life, while Gordon did time in San Quentin before  straightening out his life and turning to acting. Those three alone bring the Tough Guy Rating to about 97 out of 100. 

Here's a clip:

Never Abuse a Toad!

 

cover art by John Buscema

Writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema bring the Quicksilver/Wanda story arc to a satisfying end in Avengers #53 (June 1968). Of course, we had to put up with cross-title shenanigans, with an important chunk of the story unfolding in X-Men rather than The Avengers. It would have been perfectly acceptable to simply have one team guest star in another team's book, Roy! It would have been! A shared universe doesn't mean forcing your poor readers to buy a book they might not otherwise want to buy!

But the story itself is very good and, as I believe I've mentioned in earlier posts, I suppose I should stop whining about this after nearly half a century has passed. But I still whine nonetheless. Whine, whine, whine.

Anyway, the Avengers show up just after Cyclops defeated Quicksilver (which happened at the conclusion of X-Men #45). Cyclops decides the Avengers might be imposters working for Magneto, and a brief fight follows until Cyclops runs away to free the other X-Men.

We then get a flashback, showing Angel arriving in New York to bring the Avengers back to Magneto's hide-out. But along the way, the Avengers find the bug that Magneto had planted on Angel before allowing the flying hero to escape.

Magneto's plan is to lure the Avengers to the island and then use a mind control ray to get the X-Men to attack them. BUT the Avengers have deduced that--at the very least--they are walking into a trap. So they leave Angel tied up very loosely and pertend to argue among themselves to convince Magneto they are completely unprepared. 

While the mind-controlled X-Men attack the Avengers, Angel gets loose, sneaks onto the island and sabotages Magneto's machinery.

Magneto decides its time to retreat, but not before abusing Toad one more time. This FINALLY pushes Toad over the limit, causing him set the island to self-destruct and then getting away with Wanda and Pietro. Magneto tries to bum a ride with them, but Toad does some finger-stomping, causing the Master of Magnitism to fall to his presumed death when the island explodes.

The Avengers and X-Men get away as well and call it a day. The Wanda/Pietro story arc comes to an end, with the siblings disappearing from continuity for a couple of years before returning to the Avengers. 

This last issue is fun, with several very effective plot twists. The story arc as a whole is good as well. Roy Thomas was able to set up conditions that made it believable for Pietro to consider returning to Magneto and still leaving it believable that he would eventually return to being a hero. A story arc like this makes one regret how badly the characters of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were assassinated by modern writers. It's one of many reasons why, in my personal Head Canon, the Marvel Universe ended around 1986. 

Next week, let's visit with Superman.

What Tim Read This Month: November, Part 1

 

Cover Cavalcade

 NOVEMBER IS HUCKLEBERRY HOUND MONTH!

This uncredited cover is from 1963.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Suspense: "Love, Honor and Murder" 6/29/50

A passenger in a cab leaves behind a wallet with a lot of money in it. The cab driver wants to return it, but his wife has a plan for keeping it... a plan that involves committing just one murder. 

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Who's the Werewolf?

 

cover art by Stan Zagorski

I was watching a Booktube channel recently in which the host was listing his Top Ten Sword and Sorcery stories. It was a good list and most of them I'd read. But he included one of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories that I had not read. So, naturally, I read it.

"Reflections For the Winter of My Soul," was first published the 1973 anthology Death Angel's Shadow." The main character is Kane, who is cursed with immortality, has a degree of superstrength and is a cold-hearted killer. He's an interesting variation of the Sword and Sorcery hero, cursed with immortality by a mad god after he strangled his brother Abel to death. He's a sorcerer as well as a warrior and he's usually not that concerned with morality. He's devious and deadly. Wagner described him as a "gothic hero-villain from the tradition of the Gothic novels..."

This particular story is a "Who's the Werewolf" tale. Kane, fleeing some guys who want to kill him, takes refuge with a Baron in a manor in the frigid northlands. The Baron has a small retinue of soldiers, a son who is nuts, a daughter who is pretty, a minstrel who can sing songs in dead languages and a wizard who stinks at his job.

And one of them is a werewolf. And the werewolf isn't JUST the turn-into-a-monster variety. He or she can also control the wolves that hunt near the manor. In fact, a hunting party Kane takes part in is about to skin an elk they caught when---"At that moment, the wolves attack."

The important question is "Who is the werewolf?" The son who lives in Crazy Town is a prime suspect, but it really could be anyone. Whomever the werewolf may be, he or she manages to frame Kane for a killing at one point, getting the warrior tossed into the manor's dungeon. 

But then someone opens the manor to a pack of wolves. People and hunting dogs find themselves on the losing side of a battle. Kane is battering at the door to his cell, trying to get loose and join the fight. Eventually, he does end up in a brutal hand-to-hand fight with the werewolf. 

It's a violent and satisfying tale, combining the great action scenes with the nicely contructed mystery surrounding the werewolf's identity. I don't want to hint at that identity or the ending to the tale. If you are registered on the Internet Archive, you can read it for yourself HERE. 

Now I'm thinking of another "Who's the Werewolf" story--"There Shall Be No Darkness," by James Blish. I need to dig up a copy of that one somewhere.

Super Speed vs. Force Blast

 

cover art by John Buscema

X-Men #45 (June 1968) takes us back to Magneto's Island, where Cyclops gets worried that the Angel is taking too long and engineers his own escape.

Writer Gary Friedrich and artists Don Heck (layouts) and Werner Roth (finished pencils) give us a great scene here. A lead mask is blocking Scott's optic beams, but he decides to try concentrating those beams on one tiny part of that mask.

It really is a cool sequence, which will soon be followed by a cool fight scene.

It takes a few pages to get to those fight scenes, but it is time well spent. The story does switch back to Angel long enough for us to see he's reached New York and is only minutes away from Avengers Mansion. When Toad sees that Cyclops is free, he tells Magneto and a brief scene in which Magneto essentially tortures his annoying but loyal minion for allowing an escape reminds us that the man is simply evil. 

So when Pietro encounters Scott and tries to convince him that Magneto's plan for a mutant sanctuary is on the up-and-up, we know that Pietro is still fooled (or, by this time, simply fooling himself). Scott whill have none of it--he's been taught too well by Professor X to be fooled or to condemn all of humanity for the sins of a few.

So the two begin fighting. Magneto simply watches like a Darwinian judge, figuring if Quicksilver isn't skilled enough to win on his own, then he's no great loss if Scott beats him. (Yet another example of his ruthlessness.) Wanda watches as well, but is still confused by the effects of the bullet that grazed her head way back in Avengers #49. So she also just watches. 

It's a really neat fight scene, with both men using their powers in tactically intelligent ways. In the end, Quicksilver is taken down by a richocheting optic blast.

Naturally, the Avengers show up at just the right moment to misunderstand the situation. The story continues in Avengers #53, which we'll look at next week. At which time, I will undoubtably whine over a crossover story that FORCES people to buy a second title to get the entire story, rather than just have one team guest-star in the other team's book.

Memories of Where Eagles Dare

 

Cover Cavalcade

 NOVEMBER IS HUCKLEBERRY HOUND MONTH!!

A Harvey Eisenberg cover from 1959.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Bold Venture: "An Invitation to Death" 1/14/52

A man wants to kill the four men he falsely believes killed his wife. One of those men is Slate Shannon.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Boris Karloff doesn't NEED to Speak to be Scary

 

In between directing Frankenstein in 1931 and The Invisible Man in 1933, James Whale's brought an adaptation of J.B. Priestley's novel Benighted to the screen. The movie version is titled The Old Dark House and, by golly, even though there's no monster, it fits atmospherically into the Universal Monsters cycle. Thought to be lost for years, it isn't as well remembered as the Monster films. But, by golly, it should be.

The novel has a theme of post-war disillusionment running through it. The movie has an element of this, but I think tones that theme down significantly in order to emphasis it's brilliant mix of horror and comedy.

A married couple and a friend are caught in a violent storm while driving and are forced to take refuge in a creepy mansion located in the middle of nowhere. Soon after, they are joined by another couple.

The regular inhabitants of the mansion--the Femms-- have all taken Masters Degrees in Being Creepy. An elderly brother and sister are the owners of the mansion. Their butler--Morgan--is a scary looking mute who--we are warned--becomes quite dangerous when he's drunk.

Gee whiz, Boris Karloff (who plays Morgan) is good at being scary. This is the second film in a row he terrifies you without being given a word of dialogue. 

The rest of the cast is wonderful, including Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughten, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart and Ernest Thesiger. The stranded motorists are tossed into a strange situation that's both frightening and absurd. We learn that the Femm siblings have a 102-year-old father who lives upstairs. We learn that there's a locked room upstairs with... well... someone else living inside. And we learn that Morgan is indeed dangerous when he's drunk.

As he does in movies like The Bride of Frankenstein, Whale seemlessly mixes horror and comedy. The result leads us to a fantastic conclusion, with Melvyn Douglas' terrified yet still determined character confronting yet another Femm sibling--an older brother who might possibly be visiting from Crazy Town. 

Here's two videos. The first is the movie, though I don't know the copyright status and can't promise it will be here if you are visiting this blog in the far future. 

And here's a video giving us a superb analysis of the film--much more detailed than what I've written here:

Narrow Escapes and a Random Lost Civilization

                                                          art by Don Heck and Marie Severin

X-Men #44 (May 1968) takes us back to the Pietro/Wanda situation that began back in Avengers #47 several months earlier. We are getting to the tail-end of the story arc--2 issues of X-Men (including this one) and then a final issue of The Avengers will wrap it up. 

The credits are complicated, so let's just get them out of the way. Roy Thomas plotted the book, then Gary Friedrich wrote the script. Don Heck did the layouts, then Werner Roth did the finished pencils. 

In the last issue, the X-Men has been captured by Magneto at the villain's island HQ. Toad, naturally, is sucking up to Magneto and insisting the X-Men simply be killed. Pietro, though, argues that they should be kept alive. Though the con Magneto ran on him and Wanda earlier in the story arc was a good one--convincing the siblings that he had set aside his murderous ways--it's starting to get to be a bit of a stretch to accept that Pietro still trusts him. 

But Magneto does agree to keep the heroes imprisoned, with each of them attached to a devise or cage that nullifies their powers. But someone has carelessly left a disintegrator ray near Angel's cage, allowing him to free himself. (This seems contrived, but it will eventually be explained.)

Cyclops, in fact, suspects its a trap and tells Angel to just run for it and get help from the Avengers. Quicksilver tries to follow (he claims to have "recently gained the power of flight, but it seems that he just uses his superspeed to jump really far), but Angel outflies him.

It's a long flight back to New York City. Angel is caught in a storm and lands on a rock to rest. But the rock then rises up and reveals an island. Inside is a super-civilization guarded by a guy in a winged suit called Red Raven.

After a brief (and pretty cool) fight, Raven explains the situation: The secret island city is the home of a race of Bird People. When he was a baby, Raven was the lone survivor of a plane crash and was raised by the Bird People. After Raven grew to adulthood, the winged guys unwisely decided to attack the rest of the world. Raven gassed them all unconscious and put them in suspended animation cylinders. The island has risen up out of the ocean because it's time for them to wake up. Raven, though, intends to put them asleep for another 20 years. (By the way, Raven is later retconned into being a construct based on the World War II-era character--but that's a story for another time.)

Angel objects to this plan, thinking that the Bird People technology might benefit mankind. Raven knocks him out, re-sinks the island, and uses an anti-gravity ray to keep Angel afloat until he wakes up again. When he does wake up, Angel resumes his flight to find the Avengers.

So the book advances the main story arc a little, but most of it is given over to a side story. But this is fine, since its a good story and adds another interesting element to the Marvel Universe that other writers can dip into if they ever want to do so. The Angel/Raven fight scene is fun as well. 

Next week, we'll move to the next issue of X-Men, in which the main story arc will begin to gain speed.