Cover Cavalcade

Wonderful cover by Morris Gollub. Composition, figure work and lighting all mesh perfectly.

Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men

I made this video yesterday for the Ringling College of Art library's YouTube channel.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Quiet Please: "I Always Marry Juliet" 4/5/48

A pompous Shakespearean actor known for playing Romeo marries three different "Juliets," all of whom have a tendency to die when they become inconvenient.

Click HERE to listen or download.

"A vast cloud of utter darkness"

There's a huge dark cloud--billions of miles across--near the center of the galaxy. It is an area in which visible light literally does not exist. You can't even bring an artificial light source into it, because not even this will not work. A scientist flew into the cloud some years ago to investigate, but he never came back. So the cloud is an unsolvable mystery.

Its position puts it right along side the futuristic version of Route 66. When the galaxy is united under one Federation, a lot of interstellar traffic will pass right by the cloud. So when a magnetic force suddenly reaches out from within the cloud, literally thousands of space ships are sucked into it.

This is the situation we find in "The Cosmic Cloud," the last of Edmond Hamilton's wonderful Interstellar Patrol stories. This story appeared in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales. 

*Just as an aside, this was a pretty epic issue, including one of Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories (in which Bran teams up with a time-travelling King Kull), stories by Clark Ashton Smith and Seabury Quinn and a poem by H.P. Lovecraft. It also had a dinosaur on the cover.*

Hamilton's Captain Future was frequently saving the Solar System, but to the Interstellar Patrol, saving a mere solar system is what we would call "Tuesday." The Patrol stories dealt with threats that would annihilate the galaxy or perhaps the entire universe. At least one story involved the potential destruction of three universes.

So when Patrolmen Dur Nal and his crew are sent to investigate, it's no surprise that they do indeed find a galaxy-level threat. The Patrol ship is soon caught in the same magnetic beam that caught other ships and they are dragged onto a planet inside the cloud. The planet is just as pitch dark as the rest of the cloud.

This is where the story gets really cool. The Patrolmen are taken prisoner by aliens who apparently navigate purely by sound. Dur Nal manages to get away, but this leaves him wandering around a strange city in pitch darkness, not able to make the slightest sound without getting caught.

It is a unique and very creepy situation. And even when Dur Nal manages to hook up with the scientist who went missing in the cloud years ago and gets a pair of lenses that allows him to see, the overall situation is very grim. The blind aliens captured all those ships because they plan to launch an invasion that will bring utter darkness on the rest of the galaxy and allow them to take over.

Edmond Hamilton knew how to generate excitement and had a talent for making us believe in all the super-scientific stuff he throws at us. With around 10,000 words, he gives us the cosmic cloud that cancels visible light through some natural process, portable machines that can accomplish the same thing artificially, super-magnets that work by electrically charging the poles of the cloud planet, and ultra-violet googles that let you see in total darkness. Plus a race of aliens that use sound as effectively as we use sight.

And, by golly, I believe every word of it. I really do.

"The Cosmic Cloud" is available to read online HERE.

ROBOT DINOSAURS!

cover art by Herb Trimpe

As Transformers #27 (April 1987) opens, Optimus Prime is dead. Which is a sadly common experience. No matter what version of the Transformers universe we are talking about, Optimus gets killed with frightening frequency. He rarely stays dead permanently, though--it's a wonder the other Autobots even notice any more when he gets killed.

But, to be fair, his death a few issues earlier was the first time he died in the Marvel Universe continuity. So the other Autobots aren't expecting a resurrection any time soon and are debating who should take over as leader.

One Autobot who wants to toss his hat into the ring is Grimlock, the head of the Dinobots. Actually, he doesn't want to toss his hat into the ring. He wants to stomp the ring flat and then eat it. In other words, he just wants to declare himself leader of the Autobots and smash anyone who stands in his way.

So he and the Dinobots are on their way to the Ark (the crashed space ship the Autobots use as a base) so he can claim leadership. Along the way, he encounters a human girl; she's an assistant to a paleontologist who is trying to figure out why they are finding dinosaur footprints in Oregon. To Grimlock's surprise, the girl doesn't immediately scream and run away. Grimlock's opinion of us humans is that we're all weak and cowardly, so an act of bravery impresses him.

In the meantime, the Decepticons have decided to destroy the Autobots and loot the Ark of its fuel and resources. To carry out this plan, they teleport in their most dangerous and brutal member: A giant robot dinosaur called Tripticon.

The Dinobots are still outside the Ark when the giant robot attacks--at first happy to just watch while Tripticon takes out Grimlock's potential competitors for leadership.

 But two things change Grimlock's mind about the wisdom of sitting out the fight. First, it occurs to him that "I'll be ruling over piles of scrap metal soon." Also, the brave girl he met earlier gets caught up in the fight and is in danger.

In one of my favorite panels of all time, Grimlock single-handedly jumps Tripticon.  I mean, look at that. A T-Rex-sized robot T-Rex is jumping on the back of a Godzilla-sized robot T-Rex. That is literally the definition of fun.






The other Dinobots jump in to help their leader, allowing artist Don Perlin to give us several successive half-page panels of Robot Dinosaur action.

Tripticon is forced to retreat and the Autobots are impressed enough to make Grimlock their new leader, deciding he's "exhibited wisdom, compassion, courage, charisma [and] military skill."


This leads to a very important moral to the tale that I hope all the younger readers of this book remembered: ALL AUTOBOTS ARE MORONS!


Because future issues show that his new power goes to Grimlock's head. Despite his one moment of concern for a human, he proves to be indifferent to protecting human lives, causing several Autobots to desert. He then becomes so obsessed with finding the deserters that the Decepticons are able to rampage around Earth unchecked.

But that doesn't effect the entertainment value of this story (or the entertainment value of the Grimlock-in-charge story arc as a whole). Writer Bob Budiansky did an excellent job of turning the Transformers toy line into a rich fictional universe (something Marvel was really good at with several toy lines during the 1980s). Budiansky obviously wrote with the expectation that younger readers were his primary audience, but he never wrote down to them. He gave the various characters individual personalities and dropped them into complex and coherent story arcs. Marvel's Transformers universe was a boisterous and lively place--always worth visiting.

And, heck, ROBOT DINOSAURS! I'm not sure its possible to have robot dinosaurs in a story without it being fun.


Next week, we'll jump back a few decades and join Buz Sawyer as he hunts for Japanese subs in the Pacific.

Cover Cavalcade

Nicely designed vehicle and city, giving an effective futuristic atmosphere to the illustration.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Philip Marlowe: "Grim Echo" 2/14/50

Marlowe is trapped in a remote lodge during a snow storm. This by itself wouldn't be so bad--if it wasn't for the fact that pretty much everyone else in the lodge wants to kill him.

Click HERE to listen or download.

A Little More Grizzled, But Still the Good Guy

In the 1930s, Buster Crabbe made a name for himself playing heroes such as Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. And he was good in these roles--combining his athelticism with a likable personality to bring us a hero we enjoyed rooting for.

Crabbe made his share of Westerns during this time, starring in a series of B-movies in which he played a heroic version of Billy the Kid.

What's interesting about his career, though, was that has he grew older, he was able to put on a tougher and more grizzled persona--a character type he handled quite well. In fact, in 1965's The Bounty Killer, he is legitimately scary as a brutal outlaw.

A few years before this, in Gunfighters of Abilene (1960), he's still a good guy, but at age 52, definitely tougher-looking and more grizzled than Flash Gordon ever was. In this film, he's is estranged from his brother because of his reputation as a professional gunfighter.

His character's name is Kip Tanner, who gets a letter from the brother he hasn't seen in years asking for help. The brother (named Gene) is a small rancher who is butting heads with the local large land-owner, so now needs Kip's guns. But when Kip arrives, Gene is missing and has been accused of stealing $68,000 from other small ranchers.

So Kip has enemies on both sides. The small ranchers think his brother stole their money, ruining them. They also figure Kip is probably in on the theft. The large landowner--effectively played by Barton MacLane--wants Kip dead before Kip can find out what really happened to Gene.

To uncover the truth, Kip has to play detective. Along the way, he also has to deal with an attempt to frame him for murder.

The movie is a little too slowly paced and the final shoot-out has some awkward choreography. But to steal a phrase from a comment on IMDB, it's "unfussy and authentic," telling its story in an interesting and straightforward manner. And there are several plot twists I enjoy--the most notable one being what happens when an apparent lynch mob snatches Kip out of jail. I like Russell Thorson's portrayal of the town's strict but honest marshal and Rachel Ames is good as the love interest. Though, frankly, I think Kip should have been more interested in the Mexican hotel clerk who risks her life to tell the truth about Kip's brother. Played by Eugenia Paul, she is so pretty that it is literally painful to look at her.

This one is available on Amazon Prime if you're a subscriber.

How to Make Golf Interesting.

Golf is boring. It is seriously boring. Just thinking about golf makes me hyperventilate. It's even more boring than watching paint dry, because at least there's a chance that a mysterious cosmic ray from space will hit the paint and mutate it into a sentient being that will then become my invisible magic-powered sidekick. But there's no chance at all of golf being even remotely interesting.

But in the future--ah, the future, when we'll have flying cars, jet packs and hoverboards. When our greatest achievement will be to make golf an interesting and fun game!

We learn about this in "Danger on the Martian Links," (Brave and the Bold #46--Feb/March 1964), written by John Broome and illustrated by Carmine Infantino. In the future, golf courses are laid out over dangerous areas of various planets. Golfers are required to play through no matter where the ball lies--no matter what the ball lies. If you have to fight a monster, don scuba gear or outwit aliens before you can take your next shot, then that's just the way it is.

Earth's champion golfer, Wale Marner, certainly knows this, having quite literally fought his way across golf courses on many planets.

Gee whiz, this is the way to make golf interesting! Toss in a few death traps and alien monsters and I'll watch a tournament from start to finish!



Heck, the skills Wale has to hone to be a good golfer even help save the Solar System! It's while he's playing in the big Nine Planets tournament on Mars that alien invaders land. Fortunately, a good swing with a 9-iron is just what's needed to send those pesky aliens packing.

"Danger on the Martian Links" is a fun story, with Infantino's art bringing life to a silly but entertaining concept.

Comic book stories have always had enormous value in building our sense of wonder, touching our imagination, taking us to other worlds and simply entertaining us. But this story also shows that comic books can even save the world's most uninteresting game from collapsing under the weight of its own dullness.

Next week--ROBOT DINOSAURS!

Cover Cavalcade

The guy about to slug the Phantom with his pistol butt is George Wilson, the artist who painted this cover.