War Between Worlds, Part 2

 

cover art by Rich Buckler, with alterations by John Romita

Fantastic Four #161 (August 1975) is written by Roy Thomas, with art by Rich Buckler (layouts & breakdowns) and Joe Sinnott (finished art & inks). It's a difficult issue to summarize, because a lot of plot elements are introduced very quickly.

What impresses me is how effectively this is done. Roy's script tosses one thing after another at us every few pages as it continues to build its complex story about interdimensional war. But the tale is still told clearly--we have no trouble keeping track of everything that happens.

As I said, its summarizing the darn thing that's hard. So, as the action is set in three different dimensions, I'm just going to quickly and seperately describe what happens in each dimension. 

On our Earth, Reed is putting himself through some Danger Room-style tests, confirming that he is starting to lose his stretching ability. He's reluctant to tell Sue and the other FF members, though he realizes he must before long. But at the moment, he can't find either Ben or Johnny.

He then discovers that glaciers are rapidly moving down from the arctic, threatening civilization with a new Ice Age. This is apparently being caused by the residents of the Fifth Dimension.

No, not these guys: 

THIS Fifth Dimension is a world that Johnny had visited some years ago and helped out. But when Reed tunes in a viewer to see what's happening in that dimension, he sees Johnny at the head of an army, apparently getting ready to attack Earth.

How did Johnny end up in that situation? Well, after storming (or rather--flying) out of the Baxter Building in the last issue, he is still simmering from anger over Reed's decision to sell Fantastic Four, Inc. to a conglomerate. He also admits to himself that he's still hurting from his former girlfriend Crystal's recent marriage to Quicksilver.

So he finds an old portal to the 5th Dimension, remembering a girl--Valeria--showed an interest in him when he was last there. But the 5th Dimension is having troubles of their own. Androids built by Reed Richards--that's alternate Reed Richards from the alternate Earth where he became the Thing--are attacking the 5D. After Johnny tussles with one of them, he agrees to help the 5Ders strike back.

Meanwhile, on the alternate Earth, the two Ben Grimms (one is ours, the other is human and married to Sue) still need to find that world's Reed Richards. Leaving Lockjaw to munch on the robots our Ben destroyed in the last issue, Ben, Ben and Sue fly to New York City, where they discover time-displaced dinosaurs and Vikings rampaging about. Ben has an epic fight with a T-Rex. 

We soon learn that these time displacements have happened elsewhere. Their source? Well, apparently its being caused by someone on Marvel Earth. Alt. Ben then gasses our Ben unconscious because otherwise approaching army troops would have fired on him.

So Alternate Earth thinks Marvel Earth is attacking them. Marvel Earth thinks the Fifth Dimension is attacking them. The Fifth Dimension thinks Alternate Earth is attacking them. Johnny is with the Fifth Dimension army and our Ben is currently a prisoner on Alternate Earth. And Alternate Reed Richards is still missing after being captured by Akron last issue. (And remember that Akron comes from yet another dimension.)

Got all that? As I said, I'm really impressed with the way this information is fed too us over the course of the issue, allowing us to assimilate it and grasp the big picture, even if we don't yet know who is manipulating events or what their motivation is. The Buckler/Sinnott art is wonderful to look at, especially Ben's fight with the T-Rex.

This puts us halfway through the story arc. Next week, we'll pause from this to look at a Gold Key comic, but we'll get back to the FF two weeks from now.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #40: Tarzan the Terrible, Part 1

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #40: Tarzan the Terrible, Part 1:   Tim, Scott and Jess discuss the first ten chapters of Tarzan the Terrible (1921), a direct sequel to Tarzan the Untamed. Click HERE for t...

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. 

Valentine's Day Break

 

1953: Art by Pete Morisi

Sorry, no Wednesday or Thursday post this week. Tradition demands I pay attention to my wife.

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

A Joe Kubert cover from 1970. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Fort Laramie: "The Buffalo Hunters" 9/9/56

A pair of buffalo hunters are illegally hunting on reservation land. This is the sort of thing that can spark off a war.

Click HERE to listen or download.

What the heck does "THRUSH" stand for?

 

It's my understanding that The Dagger Affair, by David McDaniel (1965) is the first of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels written after the series began to air--the first three (all very good) had only the series bible to work off of.

So this is the first one that has a chance to catch the full flavor of the TV series. I think it largely succeeds. 

The agents of U.N.C.L.E. normally battle the evil organization THRUSH. But now a mad scientist has created a competing evil organization called DAGGER. He's invented an energy dampener--a devise that does exactly what it says. It cancels out all energy--electrical, chemical, nuclear, etc--in its range. It can also be set to cancel biological energy--killing any living thing within its range. The scientist really is mad and plans to build a device big enough to wipe out life on Earth.

The first part of the book has Napoloen and Illya investigating; getting captured by THRUSH; getting captured by DAGGER; capturing a small version of the energy dampener; having this stolen by THRUSH; then getting it back.

Eventually, U.N.C.L.E. and THRUSH realize they have to team-up to stop DAGGER. THRUSH, after all, can't rule the world if the world is dead.

It's a fun premise and its very well-executed. The THRUSH agents with whom our heroes must work are great characters. There are several truly exciting action scenes. The plot unfolds in a logical manner. And the climatic battle against DAGGER (in which Napoleon's boss Mr. Waverly joins in) is excellent.

We also learn about the history of THRUSH--information that was never used in the series, but that I think is so cool that it should be considered canon (an opinion which I understand many fans of the show agree with). THRUSH stands for  "The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity".  And the organization was formed in the late 19th Century from the remnants of Professor Moriarty's criminal organization after the Professor's death.

That's just cool.

You can read the Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels as ebooks HERE. McDaniel, by the way, wrote six of the 23 published U.N.C.L.E. novels and another unpublished one that is also available through this link. I am informed by fans of the novels that his novels are among the best of the series. Author John Peel wrote that McDaniel "was a fan of the show, and he knew exactly what made it work. Plus, he had a shameless sense of humor."

The Four Horsemen

 

cover art by Rich Buckler

Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 (1974) is far from the best FF story of that era, but I like it anyways. The story (co-plotted by Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman, with script by Wolfman) has a few problems, but Rich Buckler's art is imaginative and fun, making this a worthwhile read. (The Grand Comics Database states that Buckler got an uncredited assist from George Perez.)

The Four Horseman, riding their horses through space, are returning to Earth after being kicked off millennia ago by a more powerful race. (That other race is never identified--the Eternals, perhaps?) They need Earth because our "pointless planet" is a nexus from which they can then conquer other worlds. We get no further details on how this works exactly, but we don't really need one. It's a sound example of Comic Book Science.

The Horsemen have the traditional names: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. Pestilence lands in New York and is soon spreading disease, rats and mutant humanoid minions around the city. The FF confront him, which leads to an epic Ben Grimm scene. It's Ben who finishes off Pestilence, refusing to give up even as he is quite literally disintegrating. 

By the way, there was a tendency in Marvel Comics at the time to reference current TV shows, movies and other bits of current pop culture. In the bottom left corner above, Ben makes one of the more obscure references I've ever run across. He mentions Ozzie's Girls, a revival of the old Ozzie and Harriet sitcom (1952-1966) in which the titular couple's sons had grown up and moved out, so they take in a couple of college girls as borders. It ran for one season in 1973/74.

Since it was still on the air when this issue was released in August 1974, perhaps its only obscure in retrospect. But I doubt many people would get the reference today. Anyway, if you are curious, you can watch the pilot episode HERE.

{One notable part is when the black girl calls about the room being rented, then the white girl shows up at the home first and Ozzie thinks she's the one who called and rents the room to her. When the black girl shows up (right after the 10 minute mark), her "I see" when told the room is rented is clearly because she assumes they don't want to rent to a black person. The confusion is soon worked out and the two girls become roommates, but for a relatively light-weight, escapist entertainment show, it's interesting to run across a subtle acknowledgement of real-world wrongs.}

But we haven't time for that now, since the FF is still working to save the world. The team splits up. Johnny and Medusa go after War, who has started an actual war between two nations in Africa.

There's a cool fight scene and some annoyingly heavy-handed narration about the evils of war (which is kind of hypocritical while the heroes are using violence as the only method available to save innocent lives) before War is taken out.

Reed and Ben go after Famine, who is causing a famine in Cambodia by preventing people from seeing the food all around them. This time, the cool fight scene doesn't have to work around awkward moralizing in the narrative and Famine is defeated.

The four rejoin to battle Death atop Mount Everest. The heroes have to fight death images of themselves, but win handily by switching opponents so no one has to face his or her own death.

This leads to an anti-climactic ending as Death vanishes. Apparently, the powerful aliens that originally chased the Horseman off Earth has set up protection devices to zap them away again if they returned.

So the story has a problem with its awkward moralizing and its ending, but I still like it. (Please note that I don't object to moral lessons in a story--its just that the section on War handles this badly.) The Horsemen are visually striking villains and Buckler's strong, imaginative art makes everything look cool. And Ben's scene in which he fights on even while disintegrating is both epic in of itself and a perfect representation of Ben's innate heroism. I know there are some fans of classic Marvel who consider this one of their favorite issues. Though I have some criticisms of it, I completely get that. The cool parts are definitely way cool.

Next week--well, I don't think we've visited Turok in awhile, so let's do that.

Cover Cavalcade

 FEBRUARY IS THE ORIGINAL HAUNTED TANK MONTH!

This 1967 cover is by Russ Heath.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Challenge of the Yukon: "Underground Ambush" 10/18/48

Sgt. Preston goes undercover in a gold rush boom town to weed out counterfeiters. The climactic fight in a pitch dark cave is awesome.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Spanish Tornado

 

cover art by A.L.Ripley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #176

Today, we begin a story-by-story look at a randomly chosen issue of Adventure, a pulp known for publishing high quality tales of... well... adventure. We'll be looking at the January 10, 1926 issue. I've had a PDF copy of this one on my tablet for a few months and now don't remember why I chose it particularly. But any issue of Adventure is worth visiting.

The first story is "The Spanish Tornado," by Norman Springer. Springer was a fairly regular contributor to Adventure in the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s. He was also a novelist and screenwriter.

"The Spanush Tornado" is set in 1877 and introduces us to a young merchant service officer named Charles Peace. Peace doesn't have much experience yet and has trouble getting a berth. That changes when he meets Captain Lamont of the ship Oloron. Peace gets the berth because of this name--the superstitious Lamont hopes Peace will bring peace aboard his ship.

Why is Lamont worried that his ship won't be peaceful. It's because his steward--a black man named Jude--is really, really creepy. Jude is said to wield strange powers and seems to have a hold on Lamont.

There's also a woman on board. Lamont's new wife is a the titular Spanish Tornado--a dancer he only recently married.

Peace poo-poos the idea of a magic-wielding steward. But nonetheless, the ship is hit with bad weather, the crew is unhappy and Jude keeps creeping everyone out. Peace gets on Jude's bad side and the steward is soon vowing vengeance from "Ol' Debbil." When we learn Jude's backstory, we get a surprising revelation as to who exactly "Ol' Debbil" is. 

Springer's prose is excellent--he keeps the tension high throughout the story and his descriptive passages are vivid. There's a high-stakes climax and we're kept guessing right up until the end whether something supernatural is going on. 

The drawback in the story is the constant barrage of racial slurs when characters refer to Jude. Of course, this is the way white sailors in 1877 would have referred to him, so its historically accurate. Also, racial stereotypes are not uncommon in older fiction. Usually, I recognize them as a product of the time and enjoy the story I'm reading anyways.  As C.S. Lewis once wrote when talking about reading old books "...their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us." 

This time, the slurs come frequently enough to be a little bothersome. To be fair, the story doesn't suggest that all black men are scary and evil. Jude is scary and evil, but that's just him. His race is used as one way to mark him as an outsider to the rest of the crew, but that once again is an historically accurate aspect of the story. In the end, it's up to each individual reader to decide if the racism presented here is enough to spoil enjoyment of a well-written tale of sailors and (maybe) magic. 

You can decide for yourself about the story by reading it HERE. 

The Red Comet

 

cover art tentatively credited to Nick Cardy

Planet Comics (published by Fiction House) began life with an issue cover-dated January 1940 (so probably came out in late 1939). It had a nice run of 73 issues before ending in 1953.

The first 20 issues (and occasional issues after that) featured a superhero called the Red Comet, who had the ability to change his size. He apparently also has the ability to survive unprotected in space or in oxygen-less atmospheres, though that might be more a result of carefree scripts rather than a power deliberately given to him.

It's not until Planet Comics #9 (September 1940) that we learn of Red Comet's origins. (The writer of the story is Thomas Marlin; the imaginative art is by Alex Blum.) 

While in space, he flew through "some outer space force" that gave him his powers. He was outside his ship when this happened and NOT wearing a spacesuit, so let's assume his costume generates a life support field. (To be fair, I haven't read all the Red Comet stories and his ability to survive in space might be explained at some point. I kinda doubt it, but it's possible.) 

I sound like I'm making fun of the story, don't I? And I am a little. But I'm not really bothered by this. The Red Comet exists in Space Opera Universe that plays fast and loose with real science. And, by golly, it's more interesting than real science. I want my own private spaceship and the ability to breath in space. Who doesn't?

Anyway, trouble is afoot. The planet Uranus is dying and the inhabitants plan to move to Earth, wiping out humanity to make room for themselves. They build a miniature planet, shrink themselves down to fit inside it, then launch the mini-planet towards Earth.

Earth scientists have detected the Uranians and somehow figured out their purpose. They dispatch Red Comet to the planet, who lands on it, shrinks himself down, enters the planet, and immediately gets hit by a "negative-growth ray"--which keeps him from changing size again.

 

The Uranians offer Red a chance to join them and he pretends to consider it, but then eventually makes his way to the gravity generators. There's a fight in which a number of Uranians meet a gruesome end, then Red breaks the gravity machines. 

This causes the Uranians to fall "up" to the rim of the mini-planet. Red, in the meantime, has found out that oxygen is deadly to the aliens. After more fights and after the planet has landed in the ocean on Earth, Red manages to crack it open. The Uranians all die. Earth is saved.

So did Red Comet commit genocide? We don't see any women or children Uranians. So... well, lets say that are a race of clones that are produced as grown men, with full moral responsibilities for their actions. So the heck with 'em all. Yeah, that's it.

The art is indeed imaginative and is fun enough to carry the story along. The story itself has unclear plot points and wonky science. I wouldn't be surprised if the script was written in almost stream-of-consciousness without thought about internal logic. Perhaps this was to meet a tight deadline. Perhaps the writer didn't care. Perhaps he realized he didn't have to care. There are times when story logic should simply step aside and let illogic have fun. This is one of those times. 

You can revel in the illogic HERE.

Next week, the Fantastic Four battles the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.